Lots of compilation tracks this week, starting off with Daniel Miller (he of Mute Records) and Boyd Rice (he of Sassy and SS uniforms) throwing down some samples and beats that genuinely chilled me when I was a child, and was among the first of many stupid things that probably gave me whatever psychoses I have today. Everyone knows Karp, and if you don't you should, about the only thing on K Records that was ever cool (outside of about half of Beck's One Foot in The Grave). Antonio Contador comes to us straight from Headphonica Records, a label that I keep feeling I should try to get to put out one of my albums, but I'm too self-conscious about that old stuff anyway. Snagga Puss is amazing, the backing track is Dancehall reggae like any other, but Snagga himself sounds approximately 387 years old, wheezing out his lines like he could drop dead at any second. It's a moment that everyone should listen to at least once. And 'He Needs Me', Shelley Duvall's lovely song from the Popeye soundtrack? Well, that's nearly perfection, right there.
1. Daniel Miller & Boyd Rice - Cleanliness and Order
2. Karp - Connect 5
3. Mitches Blue Standard - Stop Staring at Me
4. Antonio Contador - Crazy in Love
-Commercial: Palm Springs-
5. Matthew Friedberger - Greyhound
6. Snagga Puss - Defend It
7. Wicked Witch - X Rated
8. Shelley Duvall - He Needs Me
Download the show before Snagga Puss bites the dust! Headphonica puts out Antonio Contador, Ergo Phizmiz...me, someday? Thrill Jockey has been putting out Matt Friedberger's music for a while.
And here's a pretty awesome addendum... Matt Friedberger performing at the Luminary Center for the Arts in St. Louis. He still looks like a dweeb.
It's getting to the point, 23 episodes in, that I'm forgetting what song I've used previously, so hopefully I don't run into any repeats. Though of course since Rapidshare deletes my files so quickly it hardly matters...anyone know any good free filehosting sites out there?
1. Eagle Twin - Lorca (Adan)
2. The Beach Boys - He Gives Speeches
-Commercial: Loes Corduroy-
3. Bis - School Disco
4. BS2000 - Sick for a Reason
5. Cornelius - Magoo Opening
6. The Beta Band - Dog's Got a Bone
Beware of faulty meat, just enjoy Klen House here!
Bis is apparently still going strong, check them out in Glasgow!
I've also started a new blog, The Rest is Silence, discussing music, literature, all that jazz. Check it out! Current topic: comics?
An addendum for this week, my favorite song by The Beta Band. This one's for Scotland.
It's a quiet day, it's raining, and the pundits have finally stopped arguing; it's time for a glass of wine (or perhaps Miles Davis' Bitches Brew?) and these fine tunes playing on your hi-fi system. Celebrate the election (or the lack thereof, at least) with Jared Emerson-Johnson's Busby Berkeley-inspired meditation on war, as well as Ergo Phizmiz's love letter to David Cameron and Nick Clegg. J. J. Burnel took time out with The Stranglers to cut a rad solo album, extremely cold and European, and 'Freddie Laker' is by far the best cut of the lot. A couple soundtrack pieces here as well: Lydia's theme from Caligula is pure late 70s cheese, absolutely ludicrous and fantastic because of it. The Black Angels was an awful 1970 bikersploitation movie, and despite you thinking that could lead to some badass tunes, 'The Cigarettes Song' is among the wimpiest songs I've ever heard.
1. Savaging Spires - When The Devil Says You're Dead
2. J. J. Burnel - Freddy Laker (Concorde and Airbus)
3. Jared Emerson-Johnson - Good For You (Good For Me)
-Commercial: Maclean's
4. Lydia - We Are One (Dance Version)
5. Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet - Big Baby
6. Ergo Phizmiz - Dear Mr. Cameron, Dear Mrs. Clegg
7. The Black Angels - Cigarettes Song
Enjoy the cool sounds here.
Savaging Spires single is available for just a couple bucks here!
Shadowy Men's unofficial site is still being updated. Pick up the LP of Savvy Show Stoppers!
Don't forget Ergo Phizmiz!
And for our addendum, enjoy the sounds of Savaging Spires if you haven't already.
I've made if safe to sunny L.A., so now's the time to celebrate. Porno Porkchop is a perverse, semi-guilty pleasure, a drums/acoustic guitar/acoustic bass setup that reminds me of a much more profane, filthy Violent Femmes (and I mean that in the best way possible, of course). Praxis was, at this recording, a supergroup consisting of Bill Laswell, Buckethead, John Zorn, Bootsy Collins, Yamatsuka Eye, and god knows who else, making hellacious clatter before settling into the creepy dub that Laswell and Zorn would master with Mick Harris in Pain Killer. Splodgenessabounds was a bizarre hanger-on in the London oi punk scene, but to my ears they have a kind of goofy vaudeville revue sound that seems totally out of place among the too-serious oi kids.
1. Porno Porkchop - Sgt. Squishy
2. Praxis - Cold Rolled/Iron Dub
3. Splodgenessabounds - I've Got Lots of Famous People Living Under the Floorboards of
My Humble Abode
4. Voltaire - Cannibal Buffet
-Commercial: Rockefeller for governor-
5. Disque 9 - The Vision The Gift & The Question
6. 23 Skidoo - Quiet Pillage
7. Gary Higgins - Cuckoo
8. Riyou Kinugasa - Life is Beautiful
Life is beautiful when you listen to Klen House right here.
The guy from Porno Porkchop has, you guessed it, a bandcamp.
Not much info on Disque 9's creepy collage, but you can find their album on Amazon, surprisingly.
And for the addendum this week, let's all clap hands and sing along to Metro City Ransom:
At the risk of sounding repetitive, Spookey Ruben is another unheard pop maverick, and you should all drop whatever it is you're doing right now, because Spookey's music is guaranteed to be better and I can pretty much say without worry of being proven wrong that none of you have ever heard of him until now. Canadian tunesmith Spookey put out one album on TVT, the very, very good Modes of Transportation, Vol. 1 before giving up on major labels forever. He's put out 3 albums and a handful of EPs since, and each and every one of them is wonderful, combining the best of Grand Royal Records with XTC, a dollop of prog and a very bizarre sense of humor. The prog in this set comes from the title track to his most recent album, Mechanical Royalty, a 15-minute behemoth that would make Robert Fripp grimace with jealousy, whereas we kick off with 'My Female Friends', up there with the previously-mentioned 'Food & War' by Ergo Phizmiz as one of my favorite songs ever.
1. My Female Friends
2. Don't Take Your Dog to the Park
3. Growing Up is Over?
4. Kubla Khan
-Commercial: Ultrabright Toothpaste-
5. Mechanical Royalty
I wish I had more female friends. If you do too, click here and enjoy!
Spookey's got a tumblr where he posits philosophical musings. Fun!
He puts out his stuff through Hi-Hat Recordings these days.
And you can get all his albums off of his bandcamp as well!
Our addendum today is Spookey's video for his first single, 'These Days are Old'. It's a great song, and if you go far enough back on the comments you can see a comment I made like a year ago making fun of his totally 90s braids!
This week I bring you a mix for the whole family, starting with (who else but) The Young Fresh Fellows, a band that inhabits that same sphere of snotty rock and roll that Billy Childish and The Soft Boys do; while it's no longer cool to wander around Seattle with Nirvana blasting in your ears, if you got the Fellows in there you'll be just fine. Von LMO, like the earlier-played Boris Police Band, was another one of those fixtures of the New York No Wave scene that everyone forgets about, stylistically similar to The Contortions, and everyone loves them, right? And finally let's not forget the Rick Potts Band, from the other end of the country at the same time The Contortions and 8-Eyed Spy and all them were terrorizing NYC. If I ever get a 'real' radio show, I'll put this song at the end of every episode, like Rodney did with The Porpoise Song (another great track there, by the way).
1. The Young Fresh Fellows - Rock'n'Roll Pest Control
2. Schmuel! - Ebony Concerto
3. The Rick Potts Band - Platform Swimfins
4. The Real Pros - Teenage Queen
-Commercial: Fairy Liquid-
5. Von LMO - Crash Landing '88
6. Æther Technicians - One of These
7. Scumtron - Locomotive 3D
8. What Capitalism Was - A Windy Sea
Enjoy my junk, here!
Schmuel, along with many others, can be found for free at Headphonica!
The voice of 'Keven' in Locomotive 3D now makes video games here!
And new for the show, introducing The Klen House Addendum...too busy for the whole show? Check out a choice cut from your friend and mine, YouTube. Sometimes it'll be a different mix (like this time), sometimes it'll be something totally different...
