100 Copies of The Beatles' White Album Playing At The Same Time

Artist Rutherford Chang says: "I collect first-pressings of The White Album and currently own 1,034 copies." As part of his 'White Album' project (which also includes a record store only stocked with copies of you-know-what arranged according to serial number) he somehow got 100 of them to play at once. I wonder how? Sounds quite good tho, like 100 needles were dropped onto 100 turntables at pretty much the same time. Then they slowly go out of phase, like an old Steve Reich tape-loop piece. Surprisingly wonderful, e.g.: "Julia" (end of side 2) whips up a really nice drone. And I hadn't actually sat down to listen to the White Album since I was a kid, so it's also an interesting way to revisit the album.

Four 20+ minute tracks, one for each side of the White Album, plus lots of pics of White Albums in various states of decay:

Rutherford Chang - We Buy White Albums (file removed by corporate Blue Meanies)

Reminds me of another Beatles-related oddity, a very skillfully executed mashup album based on the absurd (or is it?!) premise that someone visiting another dimension where the Beatles never broke up brought back a cassette of one of their later albums. It's actually made up of tracks from various Beatles solo releases. The whole crazy story, and the album download, is available here:

The Beatles Never Broke Up

Thanks to Amadeus, And Count Otto!

Ultimate Ultimate Xanadu

Not just the ultimate Xanadu collection. No way, we leave that to other, poorer blogs. We've got the Ultimate Ultimate Xanadu collection. Two disks worth of covers of songs and documentary snippets relating to a film I've never seen. But since the wiki entry on it says that it was the inspiration for "the Golden Raspberry Awards to memorialize the worst films of the year", then maybe I should see it. Apparently there's a sizeable cult for this 1980 "romantic musical fantasy film" - these 2 disks are boiled down from a 20-disk fan collection.
 
Tho it's heavy on the electro-disco and ELO outtakes/rarities, there is still a variety of sounds here. Particular faves: Klaus Wunderlich's disco organ instrumental (in my world, '70s discos don't have DJs spinning the BeeGees, they have old guys playing the organ); what sounds like an inept school or amateur theater cast (disk 2, track 4); a Japanese pop-punk girl band called Tiger Shovel Nose; Hemes House Band (and I usually hate house music); and a "bossa-nova toy pop" version of the title song. Tho I suspect I'd like a bossa-nova toy pop version of anything. Brazilian band La Sound even covered the entire soundtrack (?!), tho we get just one song from it here (disk 1 track 16), a nifty lounge finger-snapper. 

This plethora of Xanadu-nocity comes to us courtesy of Don-O, the man behind the Hour of Crap podcast, the Twilight World 'zine, and many other useful pursuits. This was originally a project of his Xanadu fan site, in which he whittled down the collection of Robert Porter, who ran a Jeff Lynne fan site. Lynn is of course the man behind the Electric Light Orchestra, who provided much of the music for "Xanadu."

Didn't think I would like this much, but the unrelenting, irresistible perkiness of the damn thing wore down my resistance, and I was happily bopping around to all this nonsense. Drive yourself and everyone around you crazy with lots and lots of versions of an Olivia Newton-John disco showtune! "A place where nobody dared to go":

Ultimate Ultimate Xanadu disk 1

Ultimate Ultimate Xanadu disk 2

Thanks to Don and the Xanadu Preservation Society.

FILTHY FRIDAYS: Buddy Lucas "Shake Rock Rattle And Roll"

Judging by this incredible album, punk rock was invented in New York 20 years before the Ramones debut, by a black saxophonist playing instrumentals. You doubt me? Ladies and gentlemen, behold! the one album I've been dying to post here on our series of wild, post-war weekend-starters.

Buddy Lucas "Shake Rock Rattle And Roll" (18 songs)

If "lowbrow" music of the pre-rock crit era ever gets the respect it deserves, this album would be a Holy Grail collectible. I mean, just look at that artwork! 

Your momma was wrong: sometimes you can judge a book by it's cover, and the pulp-paperback, late-night, lurid cover of this 195? album perfectly suits the music, which ranges from mid-tempo striptease grind, to all-out proto-hardcore rockers like "Stand Up" and especially "Stampede" that must have seemed fairly incomprehensible to a Fifties audience. Perhaps that's why Buddy "Big Luke" Lucas had to pay the bills with session work.  That's him blowin' on Dion's "The Wanderer" and Frankie Lymons' "Why Do Fools Fall In Love," amongst many others. 

Oh, and how do you know that a '50s recording artist is black? They're not pictured on the album cover! The pic of Mr. Lukas below was collected elsewhere off the inter-webs. The actual back cover of this album contains no info, just a black-and-white rendering of that Bukowski-drumming-with-Jayne Mansfield front cover drawing.

Sounds Of The San Francisco Adult Bookstores

Thirteen minutes of supreme silliness apparently recorded on location by Gregg Turkington, the nut behind the hilarious anti-comic Neil Hamburger, and the fiendishly clever Warm Voices Rearranged anagram record reviews site. The narrator, presumably Turkington, speaks in a mock David Attenborough voice. Copies of this record came with a free tissue. 

Clicking on the title will wisk you off to DivShare-land, where a wondrous world awaits!

The Golding Institute "Sounds Of The San Francisco Adult Bookstores" (1997)

COVER THE EARTH Vol. 5

When will it end?!  Still more bizarre international ethnic versions of Western pop hits. And by 'ethnic' I also mean American and European styles like bluegrass (# 6) and polka. Also: several Trinidad steel drum tracks (# 1, 9, and 18); the Moog hit "Popcorn" played as a South American chicha; Guns'n'Roses go cumbia; The Buggles go Bollywood; a jazz classic performed on sitars and tablas. And wasn't Bob Marley a lot more fun in the '60s, when he was covering the Archies?

COVER THE EARTH Vol. 5

1. Amral's Trinidad Cavaliers - The World is A Ghetto
2. Arsenio Rodriguez & the Afro Cuban Sound - Hang on Sloopy
3. Bappi Lahiri - Auva Auva ("Video Killed The Radio Star"/India)
4. Bob Marley - Sugar Sugar
5. Brave Combo - Double Vision cha cha
6. Bruce Hornsby-Ricky Skaggs - Superfreak
7. Cachicamo con Caspa y Leiko el perro de la IIIII dimension -Sweet Child o' Mine (Venezuela)
8. Chang Loo - Jambalaya (Hank Williams/China)
9. Esso Steelband - I Want You Back 
10. Jimmy Sturr - Splish Splash polka
11. Kiyohiko Senba and his Haniwa All Stars - Kono Mune no Tokimeki o  ("You Don't Have To Say You Love Me")
12. Lelu Thaert - Dance Soul (Booker T & The MGs "Hip Hug Her"/Cambodia)
13. Lennie Hibbert - Nature Boy ("It Was A Very Good Year"/Jamaica)
14. Los Tropicanos - My Sweet Lord (Brasil)
15. Petty Booka - Girls Just Want to Have Fun (Japan/Ja-waiin)
16. Chicha Libre - Popcorn Andino (Gershon Kingsley's "Popcorn"/Peru-USA)
17. Sachal Studios Orchestra - Take Five (Dave Brubeck/Pakistan)
18. Sapodilla Punch - Hold on I'm Coming
19. The Polka Floyd Show - Another Brick in the Wall

In case you missed 'em:
Vol. 1
Vol. 2
Vol. 3
Vol. 4

FILTHY FRIDAY: An Album By The Munsters That Isn't By The Munsters, But By The Go-Gos, But Not Those Go-Gos

Someone on the internet sez:

"THE MUNSTERS-  "The Munsters" TV show characters are only pictured on the cover, along with their cool George Barris designed 'Munster Koach' custom car, but do not appear on this scarce novelty cash-in, performed uncredited mostly by RCA records surf trio, The Go-Go's: Jim Infield; Roger Yorke, and Bill Wild, pre-Ruben and The Jets. Produced by Joe Hooven & Hal Winn, the guys behind Johnny Crawford's hits, & who later founded the Double-Shot label. Decca Mono."

Much of this week's assortment of mid-century lowbrow entertainment isn't sleazy at all. Actually this monster- themed amalgamation of surf, hot rod, novelty, bubblegum, and garage rock is pretty kiddie-friendly and wholesome. The utterly ridiculous "Frankenstein Had A Hot Rod Car" lives up to that boss song title, with lyrics that mention Beatle wigs, and surfing (Frankie "hangs 12"), all set to the tune of "Ol' McDonald had A Farm." 

But then we have the burlesque bump-n-grind of "Vampire Vamp," which doesn't seem appropriate for children, even with goofy Chipmunks voices added. "Eerie Beach" is an exotica instrumental, complete with birds calls, that isn't eerie or horrific at all. Both were probably leftover tracks the producers had lying around and threw in for filler. Hooray for filler! Theremin-ish electronics and sound effects pop up from time to time. And the last three tracks get down to raunchy garage rockin' (with xylophone) business. Hey, turns out this Friday might be a bit filthy after all.

"The Munsters - The Munsters"

A1	Munster Creep	2:35
A2	Frankenstein Had A Hot-Rod Car	2:26
A3	$1.98 King Size Voodoo Kit	2:03
A4	Vampire Vamp	1:50
A5	Herman's Place	2:15
A6	(Here Comes The) Munster Coach	1:55
B1	T.V. Monster Show	2:07
B2	Eerie Beach	2:13
B3	Make It Go Away	2:10
B4	You Created A Monster	2:07
B5	Ride The Midnight Special	1:46
B6	Down In The Basement

JANE BIRKIN "Lolita Go Home"

Filthy Mondays? If last week's Kay Martin album whet your appetite for songstresses known more for sex appeal than singing abilities, check this 1975 product of the post-birth control pill, pre-AIDS "Sexual Revolution." Music for water beds, wife-swapping parties, and singles bars where people may have actually said things like "Your place or mine?" 

This album was released six years after France's greatest musical export Serge Gainsbourg recorded the all-time heavy-breathing classic duet "Je t'aime... moi non plus" with non-singer English actress Jane Birkin. This time out, Serge contributed original songs like the lovely disco-lite title track, and "Bebe Song," one of his catchier creations, all sung by Jane in her best French-as-a-second language come-hither voice. These are mixed with unlikely porno-funk versions of English language standards that are usually sung with a swingin' beat. Dig the fantastic take on Cole Porter's "Love For Sale" that's pure shag-carpet '70s polyester electric-piano sleaze. It's the kind of thing that shouldn't exist, but fortunately it does. 

"Lolita Go Home" 

Music by Serge Gainsbourg, words by Philippe Labro; except where indicated

1. Lolita go home 
2. What Is This Thing Called Love? (Cole Porter)
3. Bebe song 
4. Where or When (Rodgers, Hart)
5. Si ça peut te consoler
6. Love for Sale (Cole Porter)
7. Just Me and You
8. La fille aux claquettes  (Words and music by Serge Gainsbourg)
9. Rien pour rien 
10. French graffiti 
11. There's a Small Hotel (3:05) (Rodgers, Hart)

Arranged and conducted by Jean-Pierre Sabar

Thanks again to Count Otto Black!