T.V.O.D.

I can think of no better way to spend seven-and-a-half minutes then with this stupendous stop-motion animation/sound & audio collage by Los Angeles' Janie Geiser. Like if one of Joseph Cornell's shadow boxes was animated by the Brothers Quay:



Halfcast Podcast, who made all those bee-YOO-tee-ful outsider-music videos for us last month, have returned with a hilarious Yuletide chestnut featuring the late, beloved Wesley Willis. Merry Christmas!



The use of the also late, great Del Rubio Triplets in the Wesley Willis video prompted me to revisit that magic moment from their appearance on the Pee Wee Herman Christmas special:



Ah, the Del Rubios. I miss 'em. Saw at the old Rhino Records store late '80s. They were well into their 60s at the time, in their trademark miniskirts and gogo boots, and were so chatty and friendly they spent half the time talking to the crowd. Actually, when I saw Wesley Willis in the late '90s he also spent half the time doing other things besides playing music. It was at the Luz de Jesus Gallery, to promote his show of identical-looking pictures of Chicago cityscapes, as obsessively repetitious as his music, and in lengthy stretches between songs, he'd grunt things like "kick a camel's ass," and have girls come up from the audience to head-butt him. Good night, sweet prince(esses).

"I HOPE YOUR BIRTHDAY IS AS SPECIAL AS YOU AAAARE!"

Gnarboots are a completely ridiculous band from Central California that play a variety of styles with a surprising amount of skill, considering the fact that they're a buncha immature smart-asses who take nothing, including themselves, seriously. A stance I support in theory - the problem is that sometimes amusing oneself doesn't always translate into amusing others. This album, however, is a loveable mutt that I liked even better on second spin. The Dead Milkmen of a new generation? Sayeth they:

"...it is a weird album and we are a weird band. We have a bunch of birthday songs on there (including a hardcore punk song) as well as a cover of the Kelly Family's "Aint gonna pee pee", a cover of the Christian band Lust Control's anti-masturbation song, "The Big M." There's a ska song about Joey Lawrence, punk songs, electronic songs, hip hop songs, and other weird things." I like the old chacha record samples. And it's all free!

Gnarboots Happy Birthday

1. Birthday 2
2. Doggy Door
3. The Big "M"
4. Interlude
5. Fantasy
6. WE.R.ALL.GNARBOOTS
7. Special Day I
8. Ain't Gonna Pee-Pee My Bed Tonight
9. Today Is My Birthday
10. Nerds
11. Interlude
12. I Want To Be Joey Lawrence
13. You're So Rude
14. Birthday 3
15. Monica Birth
16. Police of Fashion
17. Special Day II
18. Welcome to my Birthday Party

FUN WITH SUN BOXES

Fayetteville's Craig Colorusso doesn't "compose" music so much as build gizmos that allow Mother Nature to write her own jams: "Sun Boxes are...twenty speakers operating independently, each powered by the sun via solar panels. There is a different loop set to play a guitar note in each box continuously. These guitar notes collectively make a Bb chord. Because the loops are different in length, once the piece begins they continually overlap and the piece slowly evolves over time."

The loops-of-different-lengths approach reminds me of Eno's "Music For Airports," and there is a similar meditative effect with this music. The ambient sounds of nature (the beach, insects, etc.) are a crucial component - these are, quite literally, field
recordings. I first listened to this stuff Monday morning after a crazy Thanksgiving weekend (complete with a live "Yo Gabba Gabba" concert and thousands of screaming toddlers!) and it was as nice as dipping into a warm bath. Aaaah...

Listen or buy:

Sun Boxes Seven Inch

or listen to a continuous stream.

Benny Hill - The Ultimate Collection

Poor Benny Hill.

Britain's most popular comic and master of funny songs and witty wordplay gets about as little respect as the equally under-rated Three Stooges. Python's the "Beatles of comedy," the Bonzos get the cult cred, but mention Hill's name and watch people roll their eyes. Songs about wives, mothers-in-law, naughty double-entendres - it's all pretty unhip, music hall stuff. Hill was one of the last of the vaudevillians.

His reputation is largely based on his popular, long-running tv show, but he wasn't all about leering at and chasing after the scantily-clad ladies featured on the show, and this album's the proof - clever rhymes (hey, Snoop Dogg and Biz Markie are fans) and surprisingly strong singing serve a variety of song styles popular from the late '50s to the '70s: doo-wop, country-western, go-go beat, various pseudo-ethnicities, folk rock, and on the genuinely rockin' "Rose," garage-rock. Dylan (on several occasions), The Platters, and Sonny & Cher are winningly parodied. The latin/calypso "Bamba 3688" totally rules, funny or no. But most of these songs are funny, and some are really funny. I actually did LOL whilst listening to this. And does "Transistor Radio" from 1961 feature the world's first Elvis impersonation?

Benny Hill - The Ultimate Collection

1. Gather in the Mushrooms
2. Transistor Radio
3. Harvest of Love
4. Pepy's Diary
5. Gypsy Rock
6. The Piccolo Song
7. Lonely Boy
8. Moving on Again
9. The Andalucian Gypsies
10. The Egg Marketing Board Tango
11. Bamba 3688
12. What a World
13. I'll Never Know
14. My Garden of Love
15. In the Papers
16. Golden Days
17. Flying South
18. Wild Women
19. Jose's Cantina
20. Rose
21. Those Days [Duet with Maggie Stredder]
22. The Old Fiddler
23. Ernie (The Fastest Milkman in the West)

Your Holiday Gift-Giving Problems SORTED

On this most joyous of holiday seasons, give the gift that keeps on giving - the gift of music! Especially weird music that no-one else in your family will like and will disrupt your turkey dinner! Almost everything in this collection was released this year and is available for purchase usually from the artists themselves. Hmmm... we need a word to describe artists not playing "indie rock" or who are on those indie labels that are just farm leagues for the majors, but really are putting out their own CDs/cassettes/vinyls entirely on their own...a word somewhere in between "indie" and outsider"..."in-sider"? Whatever, these are some talented freaks well deserving of your support. Some of the best new music of the year:

M4M Idol 2 Buy (22 Big Songs! Original Hits From The Original Artists!)

This collection is sorta the sequel to the M4M Idol contest from earlier this year, but I'm not gonna hector you into voting for your fave this time (tho you certainly can if you want to.) Artist include:

Bruce Haack/Sound Capsule: What, hasn't Bruce Haack been dead for years? Yes, like Gen. Francisco Franco, electronic music pioneer/oddball Bruce Haack is still dead, but his unfinished album "Electric Lucifer Book III" has sorta been finished by someone I hadn't heard of. I was dubious, but the results speak for themselves.

Twink The Toy Piano Band: Yay, a new Twink album! "Itsy Bits and Bubbles" won't be released til Dec. 1, and the usual whimsical instrumental approach now includes circuit-bent electronic toys, 8-bit video game bloopity-blips, "kitchen drawer percussion," and numerous toys including (natch) pianos. What could have been a long-exhausted one-joke idea continues to thrive thanks to strong songwriting, a widening sonic pallette, and a refusal to play cheerful, innocent music with an arched eyebrow. Excellent artwork, too.

Drexel, Gamma Like Very Ultra, and The Mind of God are a buncha no-good, smart-ass avant-'tard bands playing spazzy songs with titles like "Poop Stains" and "Let's Kick Toby Keith in the Balls," and I love 'em. All 'net-releases cuz no self-respecting professional label would release this nonsense. But, actually, really well-played, not just screwing around. More, please.

Johnny Aloha has never been seen in the same room as ace lounge parodist Richard Cheese; his "Lavapalooza" album remakes songs like "Paradise City," "Gangsta's Paradise," and "California Gurls" in a way that is not only hilarious, but, recorded as it is with top-notch Hawaiian music pros, perfect tiki tuneage as well. If you were ever wondering, "What if Don Ho was a loc-ed out gangsta?" your feverish desires have been granted.

Non-Bio, William Bowers and Peopling all make dark, abstract/ambient/noise soundscapes. Fascinating. Non-bio's "Microsleep" sounds like it samples a scratchy old 78 rpm to chillingly occult effect

Party Killer dares to improvise; This big Portland band even sound like Black Sabbath on one song...if Sabbath used cheap electronics. Mind-melting craziness.

Orchestra Superstring: featuring DJ Bonebrake from X (hell, yeah!) on vibes, this exotica-ish instrumental combo's latest album "Easy" features the bizarre, wonderful sound of the "guitorgan" - not the usual cocktail-hour jazz.

Midnight Habit: speaking of bizarre instruments, an electric kazoo (!) is featured on this chilled bit of electro. Its nasal roar sounds pretty great, so who needs guitars anymore?

Stealing Orchestra: These Portuguese master of mirth and mayehm get serious on their first release that isn't a free download. Still wildly eclectic and eccentric, they just no longer sound like a cartoon soundtrack.

Last AND least...

Trudy Andes: this cringe-worth 9/11 tribute was sent to me by one of you who asks not to be named; well, I'M not gonna take the blame for it! Haven't we all suffered enough after 9/11?! Maybe some Twink videos will make you feel better:

Paul Rubenstein: Microtonal Music on Homemade Instruments

We first wrote about Paul "Ubertar" Rubenstein in 2009 when he was leading microtonal guitar-building workshops for New York children. They would then jam on these groovy home-made instruments, writing original songs to most charming effect.

His new album is solo - no kids - but it serves to demonstrate the man's compositional originality. Microtonal doesn't mean "out of tune," not if it's done right. In this instance, as with the Kraig Grady records we featured earlier, avoiding the usual Western do-re-mi scale doesn't mean ear-wrenching atonality, but a gentle Zen-like Asian feel. Percussives plink and plonk, chime-like keyboards tinkle, and sometimes an electric guitar-like object (perhaps the "alumitar," pictured right) shreds over it all. Track 5 has some fantastic harmonic interplay, and Track 6 should be a hit, sporting the most irresistible melody in 5/4 time since the heyday of Dave Brubeck. Tasty, tasteful, and tuneful.

The new album "Solo Trios" is now available from Spectropol Records (or listen/buy from the Bandcamp page), but His Ubertarness has given us permission to post the entire album... at 128 kbps. That's right: if you want it in hi-fi, you gotta buy it. As well you should - the NY school system has made the questionable decision to cut his music classes. So the man is available to do scores, soundtracks, whatever you need. Maybe even parties, weddings and bar mitzvahs, tho those would be some pretty weird bar mitzvahs. What would Aunt Myrna think?! Anyway. Thanks muchly to Mr. Rubenstein.

Paul Rubenstein "Solo Trios"

MUSIC THAT LOOKS AS GOOD AS IT SOUNDS

"The cristal baschet is one of the most beautiful musical instruments you will ever see, made of vibrating, tuned steel, fiberglass amplification cones and wire "whiskers" that shimmy when fingers rub the glass-rod keyboard. Film composer Cliff Martinez's version, which resides in the living room of his Topanga Canyon home, is about the size of an upright piano and is as much sculpture as instrument." So says this L.A. Times article about the soundtrack to the recent neo-noir film "Drive" by former Captain Beefheart (and Red Hot Chili Peppers) drummer Martinez.

The cristal baschet, created in 1952 as a sound sculpture by Bernard and Francois Baschet, is a cousin of the glass harmonica and glass instruments we've featured here, in which the moistened fingers of the player rub the instrument, like running your fingers around the rim of a wine glass, creating a melodic humming drone. The soundtrack album is a surprise hit, bringing this odd, obscure object to mainstream ears. It's dark, moody, eerie & lovely stuff, and you can listen to it here (jump down to track 6):

Drive (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)