Lowbrow Vol.7: Devil Dance

Reposts! By request: Pierre Bastien's marvelous mechanical musics and Snoopy's Beatles Classics on Toys. I won't be re-upping any Twink The Toy Piano Band, as he has put all of his stuff on Bandcamp, so go there.

Due to a crashed hard drive, this volume was delayed and Vol. 8 was posted first, but now our series exploring mid-20th-century kool kulture is sequentially correct. In this volume, former nightclub accordionist-turned-killjoy preacher Jack van Impe warns us of the dangers of that devils' music, thusly illustrated by riotous, ridiculous, rhythm-and-blues, rock'n'roll rekkids (ever notice that Satan is often depicted as smiling and laughing? He's apparently having much more fun than The Other Guy). Lots of ludicrous novelties this time out, by artists gleefully unconcerned with making Profound Artistic Statements. You'll have fun fun fun even after - and I want to make this perfectly clear - even after Daddy takes the T-bird away. 

But this time, let's add "style" to our usual mix of "sin," "sex" and "sleaze". Publisher V. Vale of the legendary RE/Search books has been bemoaning the state of his home city lately, e.g: "We think it’s necessary to read as much humor as possible these days to keep our morale up, as San Francisco daily becomes more inundated with a tsunami of “techies” proud of their acultural normcore barbarism (trendy new martinis, trendy new restaurants—is that all there is?!) 

 I wasn't familiar with the term "normcore," but it's apparently a fashion statement popular among urban youth that attempts to create as bland and inconspicuous a look as possible (while still prominently wearing designer labels, of course). Baseball caps, pullovers, etc. Artist-types shunning original style to look like their dad. My God-zilla! and you thought modern culture couldn't get any more boring? Perhaps that's why in recent months I've been hittin' the thrift stores looking for real flash suits and bright-colored Hawaiian-style shirts, creating outfits like the one Don Draper is sporting here. (Shirt collars OVER the jacket, doncha know.) And paisley shirts! They might go well with my Peter Fonda "Easy Rider" sunglasses. Gotta buy a new pair of Beatle boots tho, as the ones I had when I was 20 are sadly long gone. And where can I get a medallion to adorn my chest as I wear my v-neck, wide-collar David Cassidy-type paisley shirt? It's kinda like this one, only blue. There must be someplace where one can get those loud shirts Nelson Mandela used to wear. If any shirts are worth $95, these may be them. Fashion tips in comments, please. And photo links, esp. from ladies sporting leopard skin prints.

Loud clothes - clothes that go up to 11 - need loud music. So once again, we're pouring in your earholes lots of stuff taken from my mostly 45 rpm vinyl discoveries that have not only not appeared on other like-minded compilations (so far as I know), but have never been digitally available...until now! Can find no info on some of these mysterious sides. 

Dig the AbnormCore sounds here:

Lowbrow Vol.7: Devil Dance - almost 69 minutes; (69: the dirtiest number in the world!)

1 Jack van Impe - rock music is more dangerous ("From Night Clubs to Christ") 
2 Mad Man Taylor - Rumble Tumble
 3 Bruce Johnston - Soupy Shuffle Stomp [future "replacement" for Brian Wilson with a 
retarded tribute to TV funnyman Soupy Sales]
4 Bobby Peterson Quintet - Mama Get Your Hammer [sick humor + screamin' r'n'b = what all
 music should be like]
5 Jack van Impe - rock and roll music
6 Thee Midnighters - Everybody Needs Somebody To Love
7 Spike Jones - Pimples And Braces [yes, The Master novelty bandleader did live long 
enough to parody teenagers and rock'n'roll]
8 Grace Chang - I Want You To Be My Baby [famous singing actress of Chinese cinema 
swings bilingual]
9 Jack van Impe - commie plans
10 The Lancasters - Satan's Holiday
11 Georgia Gibbs - Kiss of Fire (rock version) [this was originally an early '50s tango-type
 hit for Gibbs, but this 45 is apparently a '60s remake, judging by the swiping of Roy Orbison's
"Oh Pretty Woman" riff]
12 Jack van Impe - commie rock beat
13 Morty Jay and the Coney Island Brass - Beef-Eater [one of my absolute fave (fairly) recent instro 45 rpm discoveries]
14 Vince Edwards - Squealin Parrot (Twist) [was very surprised to come across a 45 with such a 
wacky title by teen dream actor Edwards, as most of his records are mushy ballads; was even 
more surprised to find how wacked-out hilarious it was]
15 ''Handsome'' Jim Balcom - Corrido Rock (Part 1)
16 Jack van Impe - vile filthy dirty
17 Mike Minor - Satan's Waiting [from an alternate universe where Satanists favor 
finger-snappin' lounge over heavy metal]
18 Scott Engel - Devil Surfer [future avant-crooner Scott Walker once recorded a satanic 
surf instro, under his original name?!]
19 Jack van Impe - gogo pogo
20 The Allisons - Ling Ting Tong [black girl group singing Asian stereotypes, and a way-out (slide?) guitar solo]
21 Bill Lewis - Swim Beat
22 Jack van Impe - naked!
23 The Motions - Long-Hair
24 Rod McKuen - I Dig Her Wig [one would never guess that the man behind this kooky
 rocker would go on to become a hugely successful author of sappy poetry]
25 Bobby Gregg And His Friends - The Jam Part 1
26 Jack van Impe - 4 letter word
27 Lou Monte - Elvis Presley For President [Monte was the court jester of the Rat Pack
 /Italian-Amercan scene]
28 The Sparkletones - I Dig You,Baby [I'd rather not describe here what makes the 
end part of this song, and the entirety of the next song, so, er, 'unique'; you'll hear]
29 Gene Dozier & The Brotherhood - Mustang Sally
30 Bill Haley & His Comets - Straight Jacket (Live)
31 Jack van Impe - baser animal emotions
32 David Houston - One And Only [from the film 'Carnival Rock' (thanks Youtube!);
 featuring blistering guitar work by Elvis' string-slinger James Burton]
33 Steve Allen - Memphis [tv comic plays a straight-ahead ahead Chuck Berry
 instro...but I thought he hated rock n roll?]
34 Steven Garrick and his Party Twisters - Sister's a Twister 
35 The Applejacks - Rocka-Conga
36 Jack van Impe - twisted vile perverted
37 Royaltones - Wail
38 Jack Gale & The Medicine Men - The Sloppy Madison [radio dj's parody of  
incomprehensible dance instruction records]
39 Milt Rogers & His Orchestra - Lonely Road To Damascus

Album title and artwork courtesy of burlesque queen Gene Gemay. 

Evangelist Jimmy Swaggart "The Ring Of Fire: A Message To The Youth of America"

You boys and girls that have Beatle records at home...This is the most rotten, dirty, damnable, filthy, putrid FILTH that this nation of the world has ever known. And you parents that would allow this filth to be in your home, you ought to be taken out somewhere and horse-whipped, you hear me?
-- Jimmy Swaggart, "The Ring of Fire", 1968"

When reader Kenny left that comment, referring to the sin-tillating collection "The Big Rumble", I said: well sweet jumpin' Jeebus on a pogo-stick, I have got to have that album, pronto! And long-time M4M contributor Windbag came thru. But no-one's a bigger windbag then disgraced whorin' porn-addict Jimmy Swaggart, who somehow makes his cousin Jerry Lee Lewis look respectable, with his message to "the Youth of America." Presumably then, you European, Asian, African and Latin kids can have all the fun you want. Damn you!

In a most enjoyably hyperventilating manner, Swaggart huffs and puffs against the immoralities of our age. Not too surprising, given the above quote, but he even suggests that the appropriate response to children disobeying their parents is the death penalty. Hey, that's what the bible says! If you're thinking of sampling this album, Meat Beat Manifesto (meat)beat you to it 20 years ago, but don't let that stop you. There's still plenty of nuggets waiting to be mined by the right DJs/sound collagists. I really did LOL out loud when he went off on Mom putting on her miniskirt and going out to dance The Frug! The Monkey! The Watusi! Despite the title, he does not sing any Johnny Cash songs, however.

After 6 discs celebrating Sin City, I think we really need to attempt to cleanse our damned souls now:  
 
Jimmy Swaggart "The Ring Of Fire"

Bothers and sisters, let us give thanks and praise to the Most High Windy!

 

Calvin B. Rhone: "He Came On Me"

I'm just gonna stick with the facts on this one.  No comment necessary. Calvin B. Rhone is a still-active Los Angeles gospel singer who recorded this private-press sanctified soul album in 1983. Some tracks have a lot more to do with Earth Wind and Fire or Stevie Wonder than with robe-clad, hand-clapping choirs. Enjoy! 

 P.S.: One of the songs is called "He Came On Me." The title phrase is indeed sung by Rhone. Repeatedly.

Calvin B. Rhone has an "Intimate Friend"

A1 We've Come To Praise Him
A2 Intimate Friend
A3 Lord!
B1 Believe
B2 He Came On Me
B3 I LoveTheLord
B4Bless The Name Of Jesus

I just discovered this album last week and - Why look! Someone else posted a YouTube of said song just a month ago. Coincidence? Or perhaps the universe just wasn't ready for this record until now..?

A1 We've Come To Praise Him A2 Intimate Friend A3 Lord! B1 I Believe B2 He Came On Me B3 I Love The Lord B4 Bless The Name Of Jesus Copy the BEST Traders and Make Money : http://bit.ly/fxzulu

Copy the BEST Traders and Make Money : http://bit.ly/fxzulu

A1 We've Come To Praise Him A2 Intimate Friend A3 Lord! B1 I Believe B2 He Came On Me B3 I Love The Lord B4 Bless The Name Of Jesus Copy the BEST Traders and Make Money : http://bit.ly/fxzulu

Copy the BEST Traders and Make Money : http://bit.ly/fxzulu

A1 We've Come To Praise Him A2 Intimate Friend A3 Lord! B1 I Believe B2 He Came On Me B3 I Love The Lord B4 Bless The Name Of Jesus Copy the BEST Traders and Make Money : http://bit.ly/fxzulu

Copy the BEST Traders and Make Money : http://bit.ly/fxzulu

We'll Be Right Back After These Brief Messages...

Let's get commercial...

Back in 2008 we posted a hilarious radio spot from the conservative religious group Focus on the Family responding to a law passed in Colorado that allowed trans-gendered people to use public bathrooms. Recently we received this fairly genius bit of animation that illustrates the ad, making it even funnier. It comes to us courtesy of Mutant Lab, who are clearly doing the Lord's work. Work it, girl!

A clever, amusing new music video by Los Angeles rocker Taylor Locke finds the artist tooling around town in a motorized easy chair, the comfy kind one might find in a living room. The video makes it look like a cheesy tv commercial for what I thought couldn't possibly be a real product, but upon further investigation, the website appears to be real. Ok...What could one possible do with one of these things? I doubt that they're street-legal. It certainly does make music videos more interesting (along with the nekkid lady!) The catchy power-pop music is quite good, too.

Sound collagist I Cut People have a mordantly funny new on-line album that slices and dices innumerable American media sound bites, revealing the existential angst, neuroses, and anxieties contained in bland public service announcements, cheerful commercials for medications, news broadcasts, and chat shows. The tracks are brief and the whole thing flies by fairly quickly, but it's not background music. Attention must be paid to catch the rapid-fire edits in such wickedly surreal cut-ups as "Ebola Vacation" and the lewd, rude "Watch Me, Innocence." Listen for free, buy for cheap:

I Cut People: "Miserable Day"
Bandcamp page

We now return you to our usual programming...

THE COMMIES ARE COMING! THE COMMIES ARE COMING!

The Berlin Wall may have fallen 20 years ago, and you can buy McDonald's in Red Square, but the United Nations, that festering hot bed of godless Communism, is still around. Side 1 of this ludicrous fear-mongering document from 1962 pounds home the notion that anti-Americanism is built into the UN. Side 2 repeats the malarkey that is still heard today about America being 'founded on Christian values,' citing The Mayflower Compact, and something Woodrow Wilson said. For more shoddy research, unconvincing arguments and implausible conspiracies, dig this spoken-word, very sample-able LP:

Billy James Hargis - The UN Hoax (1962) 

You will be shocked - shocked! - to know that Hargis' career was knocked askew by a sex scandal. Wiki sez: "In 1974, when Hargis was nearly 50, he was forced to resign as president of American Christian College due to allegations that he had seduced college members. Two of his students claimed that they had had sex with Hargis—one was female, one was male. Other students corroborated the story. The account was reported by Time magazine in 1976, along with other alleged incidents at Hargis' farm in the Ozarks, and while on tour with his All American Kids musical group."  The UN, laughing diabolically, had their revenge!

(Thanks once again to windy)

MORE STRANGE INSTRUMENTS FOR JESUS

If the GlassDuo album I posted last week had you hungering for more musical wine glasses...

My review of the first Musical Betts album posted here three years ago also applies to this one: "The Musical Betts were a husband-and-wife duo who played (mostly) instrumental versions of gospel songs on such instruments as cowbells, marimba, musical saw, slide guitar, and sleigh bells. And vibraharp, which I think is like a vibraphone. Really cool stuff, but alas I know nuthin' about 'em...It's a bit odd hearing melodies played on instruments like cowbells performed not as Spike Jones-like comedic music, but in a stately, emotional manner."

Well, that was easy. I have nothing further to add except that we know a little (very little) bit more about these two, thanks to this album's liner notes: Mrs. Betts was a "college teacher" in Michigan before she met Rev. Clarence, but we don't even learn her first name! Also, this album's volume level has to be one of the lowest ever. Nice relaxing music for when that tryptophan kicks in.

The Musical Betts "The Golden Bells"

UPDATE: reader Richard L. writes "The low level may be result of a very astute engineer.  The bells have an incredible amount of very high frequency (even ultrasonic) sound levels.  Early analog audio equipment could not handle this at normal levels resulting in a lot of audible artifacts (partial erasure of the tape, thumps, and distortion).  Also, the VU meters would not respond to the quick attack of the bell clapper hits.  This is the sad voice of experience speaking.  One solution was to run everything at -10 dB to get more transient headroom."

Christmas 2001: A Space-Age Adventure

The "Space-Age Santa" collection from a couple Christmases ago featured a track "from a kiddie xian xmas album that I found in a thrift-shop called "Christmas 2001: A Space-Age Adventure"; I actually digitized the whole thing, but, believe me, you don't need to hear it." Well,apparently someone DID need to hear it cuz yesterday I got this comment: "I would do anything to hear "Christmas 2001: A Space-Age Adventure" again. My children's choir at church performed this in December of '79. You said you digitized it... Is it something I could hear?" 

You'd do ANYTHING, eh..?  *Makes diabolical face, rubs hands together* Mwa-ha-ha-haaa! Oh, all right, here it is:

Flo Price - Christmas 2001 A Space-Age Adventure

Bandcamp Is The New Cassette Culture pt.3

More indie album wonderfulness courtesy of sites like Bandcamp (and remember, you can always listen for free) from geniuses that would otherwise go unheard because no label in their right mind would ever give 'em a record deal. This time we're spotlighting colorful cartoonish craziness - after all, "novelty music" is not a bad word 'round these parts. To quote one of the album titles featured here, let's have fun:

Twink the Toy Piano Band "Miniatures Vol. 2": I can unhesitatingly recommend this brief, kooky album, performed on toy piano and other whimsical sound-making thingies. I actually think this is one of Twink's finest efforts of toy-tronic pop instrumentals. Price: FREE

1000 Needles: "Osiris": More toy tunes, this time from a band using modified Nintendo and Gameboys playing 8-bit melodies while guitars and drums rock along. Some great songs in this 7-track set that, as on the stand out tracks "Error 537" and "Monument 101," skillfully mix rinky-dink electronics with rawk power. Price: $4

The Invertebrates "Let's Have Fun": Not a new release this time, but a re-issue of some classic New Wave post-punk weirdness from a criminally underrated San Fran combo who we first featured here a few years back when we posted a vinyl rip of their "Eat 'Em While They're Young" EP. That one's long gone off-line, but maybe it will get the re-issue treatment like this gem, which sports concrète and backwards tape effects, dada lyrics that sometimes sound like they're being sung verbatim from magazine articles, B52s-ish femme vox and electric organ, and on one of the album's catchiest songs "Atilla The Hun," Jews harp, and a crazed percussion break. Price: $7

The Kominas "Wild Nights in Guantanamo Bay": I guarantee you've never heard any punk rock like this before: a Muslim American band hitting us with stuff like the Sex Pistols-quoting 'Sharia Law in the U.S.A,'  campy sound bites, a great surf-punk song ('Ayesha') that ends with a Muslim chant sound-collage, and a catchy funky rap song called (heh heh) 'Suicide Bomb the Gap.'  Apart from courting controversy (and they did indeed get media coverage that scarcely described their music), there's actual good sounds here that break out of the punk mold, e.g.: the unique, rhythmically complex, kinda Caribbean-sounding 'Layla' (no, not that one). Price: FREE, but you'll probably end up on all kinds of watch lists for downloading it.  

Carton Sonore "Modarn": And now for something completely different - a collection of musical fragments only seconds long that are meant to played on shuffle play, effectively creating a new song every time. Like Eno's "generative" works, it's never the same twice. Price: 1€

Thiaz Itch "Frivolurium": Like Carton Sonore, another funny Frenchman. The description tags tell the story: "carnivale, circus, comedy, electro, space-age-pop." Utterly delightful modern vaudeville cut from the same zany cloth as Twink...not to mention Perrey and Kingsley, Spike Jones, and Monty Python, who's "Bright Side of Life" gets brilliantly covered here. But this album is no child's play - it gets almost proggy in it's experimentation: the polka-esque "Splooshy il Chiocciolo" features everything from Chipmunk vocals to heavy rock guitar to fruity horns. My current Favorite-ist Album In The Whole Wide World. And remember, "don't step on my foreskin!" Price: 5 €