Most familiarly, the coxswain is the member of a crew who sits in the stern (except in bowloaders) facing the bow, steers the boat, motivates the rowers, and coordinates the power and rhythm of the rowers.
During a competitive rowing/crew racing the coxswain is responsible not only for the steering, motivation, and coordination of the rowers, but for notifying the rowers about the position throughout the race.
They also are required to keep the straightest, most direct course to ensure fastest speed and accuracy is utilized.
1. Echo & The Bunnymen - The killing moon (1984) 2. The Devilrock Four - Murder City nights (1999) 3. Radiohead - Killer cars (1992) 4. The Cooper Temple Clause - Murder song (2002) 5. Stakka Bo - Killer (2001) 6. 999 - Homicide (live, 1984) 7. Eleven - Kill me no more (2003) 8. Queen - Killer queen (1974) 9. Camera Obscura - If looks could kill (2006) 10. Khonnor - Kill2 (2004) 11. David Gilmour - Murder (1984) 12. Peaches - Fuck or kill (2006) 13. Tom Waits - Murder in the red barn (1992) 14. Joy Division - The kill (1981) 15. Robert Plant & Alison Krauss - Killing the blues (2007)
We now reach the end of our joyful trek through Outsider Country. It's been a long and rough journey, but boy was it worth it.
Researching and pimping all these people I've been listening to for the last few years has easily been one of the most rewarding things I have done on any of my blogs.
I hope I enlightened at least a couple of you and introduced you to something new and interesting. The best thing I can imagine would be if I've managed to perhaps change your views on music and what "real" music is, the same way Jandek changed my views when I first heard his records almost ten years ago.
But remember my little odyssey was by no means exhaustive (it was merely the tip of the iceberg), so go ahead and do your own investigating. Start with Irwin Chusid's book Songs In The Key Of Z and take it from there. The internet has many dark little corners and there's countless songs out there waiting for someone to discover them, and that someone could be you.
Here's a fine interview with the outsider guru himself, Irwin Chusid (highly recommended viewing):
I might do another post or two regarding outsider music in the future but as a recurring theme on this blog, this is where I'm stepping off. In April there will be a completely different theme with daily updates. Perhaps not as enticing as this one, but it's something I'm looking forward to.
I'd like to finish this off with a bunch of leftover tracks that I either didn't have room for or just never got around to for whatever reason. Don't miss Edwards Is Simply Not The Man, George Harrison's passionate beyond the grave plea to not have John Edwards elected president of the U.S., brilliantly channeled by psychic Linda Polley.
And of course I'm giving the last word to the man who was the inspiration for this whole thing in the first place: The lovable representative of Corwood Industries. Thanks for everything, Jandy ol' boy. I owe you one.
Lawrence Wayne "Wild Man" Fischer was born in Los Angeles in 1944. Allegedly he was sent to a mental institution at age 16 for stabbing his mother with a knife.
There he was diagnosesd with bipolar disorder and severe paranoid schizophrenia. Once he was released he started busking on the streets of Los Angeles, playing his peculiar songs for whoever was fortunate enough to walk by.
Fischer became something of an underground icon after being discovered by Frank Zappa, who also helped him get his first album made.
During his career he's released a handful of albums, appeared on national television several times (including on Jimmy Kimmel Live, thrown a jar at Zappa's daughter's head and almost killing her, had a comic made about him, as well as the documentary film Derailroaded: Inside The Mind Of Wild Man Fischer.
So many outsider artists seem to have documentaries made about them... Jandek, Daniel Johnston, Gordon Thomas, Fischer, and there's even a Shaggs biopic in the works!
Someone needs to do a documentaty on the most deranged one of them all - Robert Alberg. That would be a treat for sure.
Loved Searches Temporarily limited to 10 03.11.09 Our SXarty + Panel 03.Ways to View the Front Page 03.08.experimenting .09 Terry McBride on Music Blogs Blog » IMPORTANT Song listings that
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1. Fleet Foxes - Meadowlark (2008) 2. Norah Jones - Nightingale (2002) 3. Neil Young - Beautiful bluebird (2007) 4. Streaplers - Rockin' robin (1965) 5. Daniel Johnston & Jad Fair - Ostrich (1989) 6. Hasil Adkins - Chicken walk (1955) 7. Love - Hummingbirds (1967) 8. Townes Van Zandt - Black crow blues (live, 1974?) 9. Robin Trower - Day of the eagle (1974) 10. Badly Drawn Boy - Dead duck (2002) 11. David McWilliams - Three o'clock Flamingo Street (1970) 12. Stephanie Dosen - Owl in the dark (2007) 13. Thom Yorke - Black swan (2006) 14. Henry Mancini - Pigeon caged (1958) 15. The Tallest Man On Earth - The sparrow and the medicine (2008)
Norman "The Legendary Stardust Cowboy" Odam was born in Texas in 1947. He learned to playing guitar, apparently from listening to Chet Atkins records, and started doing impromptu gigs outside of his high school every morning before school started.
In an attempt to gain a bigger crowd he set off for The Big Apple in 1968 to try to get on the Johnny Carson show. On his way to New York he stopped in Fort Worth where he was spotted in a parking lot by two dudes who got intrigued by this peculiar person. They invited him to the local recording studio where he laid down Paralyzed (the closest thing he ever got to a hit song) and a few other demented, high-energy country/blues/rock songs with barks and unintelligible yelps instead of lyrics, with none other than T-Bone Burnett producing and playing drums.
On the floor above the studio was a radio station, T-Bone played the Stardust Cowboy songs for the DJ who loved it and started playing them on the air. The reception from the listeners were extatic, and 500 copies of the Paralyzed single were pressed.
Within a week he'd signed a record deal and appeared on the TV show Laugh In performing Paralyzed. The song would eventually crack the Billboard 200.
David Bowie is a big fan of The Legendary Stardust Cowboy and not only named his character Ziggy Stardust after him, but also covered him on his 2002 album Heathen.
Odam currently lives in California and still performs on a regular basis.
Adiam Dymott's self-titled debut album has gotten a lot of attention in the Swedish media. Some of it deserved, some not. It's a good album, a solid 3 out of 5, but far from the ass-kickery some expected after her completely-out-of-nowhere performance at the P3 Guld Awards earlier this year.
When it's bad it sounds like Pink trying to do a garage rock record and getting everything wrong, and Thomas Rusiak's production somehow manages to be too messy and too polished at the same time. Although Rusiak was clearly instrumental in getting this album made, both in terms of producing and co-writing, I can't help but feel that the album would have ultimately benefitted from someone else stepping in and cleaning things up before the album left the mixing board.
Too often does the album sound like a follow-up to Rusiak's own album In The Sun (2003), and Dymott herself gets a little lost in all the clutter. There's also a song called MP3, hopefully I won't have to point out that it's even more stupid than Pet Shop Boys' E-mail - the heart's in it, it's just ten years too late. Let's see who will make a completely sincere, un-ironic, un-nostalgic song called YouTube in 2016.
But when it's good, like on Mrs. Dymott, it's nothing but pure pleasure. Dymott goes on about how no one ever learns how to spell her name over a lazy beat so laid-back it could fall over at any moment.
Great potential, and a wholly listenable album, but next time I want more Dymott, less Rusiak.
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1. Eruption - I can't stand the rain (1977) 2. The Hellacopters - Rainy days revisited (2002) 3. The Beatles - Rain (1966) 4. Melanie - Lay down (candles in the rain) (1970) 5. The Beta Band - Dry the rain (1997) 6. Elvis Presley - Kentucky rain (1969) 7. Creedence Clearwater Revival - Have you ever seen the rain? (1970) 8. Dinah Washington - September in the rain (1961) 9. Soulsavers feat. Mark Lanegan - Kingdoms of rain (2007) 10. The Troggs - When will the rain come (1967) 11. Fireside - The sun and the rainfall (1998) 12. Garbage - Only happy when it rains (1995) 13. Eleven - Strands of rain (2000) 14. Spiritualized - Lord let it rain on me (2003) 15. Tom Waits - Rains on me (1999)
In my Eden Ahbez post I mentioned my big love for exotica. Almost as big is my love for what is most commonly known as space age pop.
The person responsible for the biggest and most important space age song (at least in my world) was an English songwriter and producer by the name of Joe Meek, the song was called Telstar, and was a #1 hit for The Tornados in both America and England in 1962.
Roger George "Joe" Meek was born in London in 1927 and showed an interest in electronics from a very early age. In 1954 he took a job as a sound engineer and soon made a name for himself working with people like Humphrey Lyttelton and Ivy Benson, and impressed his peers with innovative recording techniques.
In 1959 he cut a solo album, I Hear A New World - An Outer Space Music Fantasy , a landmark in electronic music. Although parts of it was released in 1960 and The Outlaws used four tracks for their 1961 record Dream Of The West, Meek's album wouldn't be released fully until 1991.
Although Meek couldn't write musical notes (he would hum his songs tunelessly and have other people transcribe it) or even play an instrument, he managed to write and produce nearly 50 hit songs. He pioneered the use of studio multitracking, separating instruments instead of recording the band live (as was the practice in those days), the use of samples and reverb etc etc etc. In many ways Meek changed the idea of how to produce a record. For one he wouldn't work in a "proper" studio but rather in his own home, often using equipment he built himself.
He formed his own record company (Triumph Records) and a production company (RGM Sound Ltd) and wrote several hits, for among others The Honeycombs, John Leyton and the aforementioned Tornados. But all was not well in Camp Meek - he was a drug addict and suffered from depression and mood swing as well as having severe paranoia and was convinced someone had hidden microphones in his flat in order to steal his songs.
He also had a rather unhealthy obsession with everything from Buddy Holly (whom he claimed left messages for him in his dreams) and the after-life and various occult practices (he would record in graveyards in an attempt to capture sounds from beyond the grave).
In 1967 the dismembered body of a male prostitute associated with Meek was found stashed away in a suitcase. Convinced that the police would suspect him of the murder and come after him, his paranoia and depression took a big turn for the worst, probably exacerbated by the fear of his sexuality being "outed" if his link with the victim became known to the public. There was also the danger of being imprisoned simply for engaging in homosexual activities, which was illegal in Britain at the time.
On February the 3rd Meek took his shotgun and killed his landlady before turning the gun on himself. He was only 37 years old.
I would like to dedicate this the 10th volume in the monumental series of mixes entitled "Silver&Crimson" to my namesake David, aka Merz, over at Mars Needs Guitars.
When I first became of aware of the wonder that is mp3 blogs, there were four blogs I frequented virtually every day to explore new music. In no particular order, they were Built on a Weak Spot, Aversion, Funeral Pudding, and (you guessed it) Mars Needs Guitars.
The amount of great music and cool new (at least they were new to me) bands I discovered through these blogs is too big to comprehend. It's not an overstatement to claim that my life as a music nerd would have been drastically different without them.
The other day Merz made a triumphant return after nearly two years of silence. It's been a rough trip and we're all over the moon that he's back and on the mend.
Today the Outsider Odyssey gives one of my favorites - Susan Dietrich, aka The Space Lady:
Finding a dilapidated, old accordion in a junk store was the major cause in turning Susan Dietrich's life around.
Back in the early seventies when Richard Nixon was embroiled in the Watergate fiasco and the Vietnam war was still raging in Southeast Asia, she and her husband, Joel, and their tiny daughter were political exiles living like refugees in their own country, terrified that Joel would be imprisoned for having resisted the draft.
For nine years they had subsisted on spare change and meager sales of their artwork on the streets of Boston. The discovery and purchase of that little squeeze-box inspired Susan to take it into battle, the war on their own personal poverty.
Down into the dark, noisy subway stations of subterranean Boston she went, where she slowly learned to pick out simple, familiar tunes like 'Take Me Out to the Ballgame', and 'When Irish Eyes Are Shining'. There must have been something rather quaintly charming about this thin little street waif literally singing for her supper, for in the very first hour she made twenty dollars in change plus a twenty dollar bill from an elderly couple wishing her well.
She soon discovered that by playing from early morning rush hour through the entire day, she could pull in over eighty dollars, an impressive amount for the times and on the street, while Joel stayed home caring for the baby. The accordion was eventually retired in favor of the very first Casio keyboard released on the American market, a toy by today's standards.
But with Joel's previous experience playing in various 60s rock bands, they plugged the Casio into a phase-shifter, mic-ed Susan's voice through an echo unit, created a light show by wiring her tip box with twinkling lights, and crowned her with a winged helmet complete with a blinking red ball on top.
She worked out arrangements for songs with other-worldly themes, such as 'Fly Me To The Moon', 'Over The Rainbow', 'Ghost Riders In The Sky' and 'Major Tom'. The response from the public was overwhelming. Suddenly she was being referred to as The Space Lady, and pictures of her began appearing in the papers and on TV.
The cash flow became phenomenal; a cassette of space music soon followed (as did another baby), and the small family was finally able to return to San Francisco where Joel and Susan had met back in the glory days of Haight/Ashbury. Her music was received even more enthusiastically there, and she was flocked by people asking for interviews or requesting to make videos.
To this day, 20-some years later, she still receives letters and emails from her fans from coast to coast and around the world. And she owes it all to that little Stomach Steinway found in a junk store back in Beantown, Massachusetts.
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1. Björk - Venus as a boy (1993) 2. Radiohead - Faithless the wonder boy (1993) 3. Primus - Nature boy (1993) 4. Jandek - Poor boy (1982) 5. Queen - Good old fashioned lover boy (1976) 6. Baltimora - Tarzan boy (1985) 7. Alison Krauss & Union Station - The boy who wouldn't hoe corn (2001) 8. Tenacious D - Wonderboy (2001) 9. Broken Social Scene - Fire eye'd boy (2005) 10. Johnny Cash - Country boy (1996) 11. Green Jellÿ - Slave boy (1994) 12. Regina Spektor - Poor litte rich boy (2004) 13. M.I.A. - Boyz (2007) 14. Tom Waits - Little boy blue (1982) 15. R.E.M. - The boy in the well (live, 2004)
There's many things I could say about autistic singer/songwriter Robert Alberg, a man who bought uranium online to make bio-chemical weapons, but I'm gonna let Maureen O'Hagan of the Seattle Times sum it up:
Robert Alberg wanted just one thing in life: a girlfriend. Shy, slight and forever single, the 37-year-old son of a local multi-millionaire dreamed of love, of being noticed, of sharing walks on sandy beaches.
When the love of his life failed to materialize, Alberg came up with another obsession: making deadly ricin. He was much more successful at that. Arrested last April with jars of home-brewed poison in his Kirkland apartment, he seemed destined not for warm sandy beaches but for cold cell blocks.
Yet today, when Alberg is sentenced, he will face a U.S. District Court judge less as a would-be killer than as a man with a serious mental illness.
"This case arose as a desperate cry for help from a profoundly depressed man who, through no fault of his own and as a result of mental illness overlaid with autism, had alienated himself from society," his lawyer, David B. Bukey, wrote in court papers describing Alberg's descent.
Records show Assistant U.S. Attorney Carl Blackstone agrees with Bukey. Both attorneys declined comment.
Alberg was born with substantial advantages. His father, Tom Alberg, is managing director of Madrona Venture Group, and was an early investor in Amazon.com and executive vice president of McCaw Cellular. His mother, Mary, is a university professor.
Robert Alberg was eventually diagnosed with autism, major depression, Pervasive Development Disorder and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. His disabilities made him awkward and distant, and unable to easily deal with the ups and downs of life, court records show.
However, he clung to a fairly ordinary life. He held a stockroom-type job for three years, attended community college, and spent his spare time writing music. Fashioning himself as a singer-songwriter, he even produced his own CD. Finally, about two years ago, all traces of normal began disappearing from his life.
"Robert began a descent into an abyss of loneliness and depression, which left him completely isolated by April of this year," his attorney wrote. "The driving force was his inability to form any kind of attachment with a woman."
"I been single all my life," he wrote in song. "I been single every day and I been single every night..."
The loneliness fed on itself. He refused to attend family holiday celebrations because married people would be there. He bought his groceries in the dark of night. He duct-taped his windows.
Alberg, however, maintained one portal to the outside world: the Internet. With information he picked up there, he began a series of increasingly dangerous science experiments. He ordered mercury online — and rubbed the toxin all over his body in what appeared to be a slow, bizarre, suicide attempt, according to court records.
Finally, he did something sure to draw attention: he learned how to make ricin, a deadly poison, using instructions from the Internet. In e-mails to family and friends, he flatly explained his experiments.
"It's fascinating to watch colonies of bacteria to grow and multiply," he wrote to one of his father's employees. "I now work on making bio-weapons since I am still single."
He was charged with possession of a biological toxin, which carries a sentence of up to 10 years in prison. Blackstone, the head of the violent crime and terrorism unit at the U.S. Attorney's Office, soon realized, however, that Alberg was not a terrorist, and was convinced that he "had no intention of using the crudely manufactured ricin to harm anyone else," he wrote in court documents.
People with mental illness who fail to receive proper treatment regularly find themselves facing criminal charges, according to Peter Lukevich, a former judge who is now executive director of Washington State Partners in Crisis, a group advocating for better services for mental illness.
Most of them do not have the resources available to Alberg, whose family enlisted two top defense lawyers and a public relations firm to handle the crisis.
When Alberg appears in court today, he will have the benefit of a plea agreement that departs substantially from rigid federal-sentencing guidelines, which call for four to five years behind bars. Prosecutors instead will recommend five years' probation, along with treatment and restitution.
"This is an opportunity to deal with the root cause rather than put him in jail," Lukevich said.
Alberg was sentenced to five years probation and as far as I know he's still under observation in a psych ward.
The CD mentioned in this article was released in 2001, and we can only hope he's working on a follow-up. His selftitled debut contains some of the loneliest and most desperate, deranged and paranoid music I've ever heard. Deeply unnerving stuff.
With his single-note plucking and freeform ramblings he makes Jandek sound like Hannah Montana.
An Eels promo disc that was given away for free with the short-lived Swedish music magazine Stereo, and features the band doing corny jingles as well as four songs from their 1996 album Beautiful Freak.
1. Novocain for the soul 2. Susan's house 3. Fucker 4. Guest list
Today the Outsider Odyssey gives you a peculiar bird indeed. A tiny man with barely any talent for singing and writing music, recording himself for decades (often backed up by very competent jazz/swing musicians) and giving away the records for free in hope of becoming a star.
The man's name? Gordon fucking Thomas.
He was born in Bermuda in 1916, but moved to New York city at a young age. In his late 20s he played in Dizzy Gillespie's orchestra, but as legend tells only because all good musician were off overseas fighting in World War II. When they came back, he was out of the band.
After a break he started record himself in the 60s with the help of his friend saxophonist George Kelly who got some musicians together for a session. During this time Thomas was working as a nightwatchman for a developer and used to sleep in the apartments that were being renovated. Therefor he had no rent to pay and no other expenses either for that matter, so whatever money he made would go into cutting another record. He also worked as a bartender, a janitor, and countless other low wage jobs to scrape together money for more studio sessions.
The records never sold well, because he never tried very hard to sell them. Instead he would give them away to anyone who'd take them. “I gave away thousands. I would hand them out as Christmas presents — any holiday, really. Sometimes I would just stand on the street and give them away”, he said in a recent interview with New York Entertainment.
If there's one thing we've learned during this journey into the world of outsider music, it's that people will take notice if you just keep at it long enough. Over time Thomas' naive, almost childlike, recordings gained more and more fans, and in 2000 Irwin Chusid mentioned him in his acclaimed book Songs In The Key of Z: The Curious Universe Of Outsider Music (essential reading, by the way).
In 2003 he performed his first ever gig, and ss if that wasn't enough he even had a film made about him - the 2005 documentary Everything's Coming My Way: The Life And Music Of Gordon Thomas by Stacey DeWolfe and Malcolm Fraser.
Gordon Thomas now lives in a retirement home in the Bronx, but is still recording and last year, at the impressive age of 92, he released his latest album, Everything's Coming My Way. Something tells me it won't be his last.
Peter Grudzien is a singer songwriter musician known for his explicitly homosexual lyrics. He fought for gay rights and participated in the Stonewall riots in New York City in 1969.
Inspired by people like Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan he recorded his first album The Unicorn in 1974, an album that soon gained cult status and was almost impossible to find until it was re-released on CD in the mid 90s.
Peter Grudzien is rapportedly of the reclusive sort and stays out of the limelight these days, although he occasionally perfoms in New York and still records music which he releases himself.
Here we go again with another copy & paste session... Goddamn you, Wikipedia. You whore.
The Kids of Widney High is a music group composed of mentally disabled students from the special education J. P. Widney High School in Los Angeles, California. The band consists of several (typically mentally) disabled students on vocals, with the instruments usually being played by non-handicapped teachers and session musicians.
The group originally began as a song-writing class in 1988 taught by Michael Monagan, and has evolved since into two groups, one made up of graduates that performs in local clubs and the other a group of current Widney students in the songwriting class.
The group has also opened for The Melvins and Mr. Bungle, and have been included on several editions of the Kevin and Bean's KROQ Christmas Albums. Such notable musicians as Smokey Robinson, Jackson Browne, Marilyn Manson and Adam Horovitz have all cited themselves as fans of the band.
In 2005, The Kids of Widney High were featured in the The Ringer, a comedy wherein Johnny Knoxville's character pretends to be mentally disabled in order to fix the Special Olympics and gain financially through betting on it. The group is seen performing "Pretty Girls" (which was also written by several members of the group) at a dance, and again towards the end of the film singing a version of the popular 1960s song, "Respect" in which the lyrics have been rewritten so that it becomes an anthem for those with disabilities.
Daniel Johnston is perhaps the most famous person that will show up during this Outsider journey. Here follows his lifestory with all the non-crazy parts taken out. That might not make for an entirely accurate story, but perpetrating myths and legends is infinitely more effective than telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
The downside of the internet is that nothing is mysterious, exotic or obscure anymore, your mind is never allowed to wander anymore. You're never given the chance to fill in the blanks. Well fuck that, I thrive on blanks.
He was born in Sacramento in 1961 and he and his brothers and sisters were raised by their deeply religious parents in West Virginia. An eccentric from birth, Daniel began acting stranger the older he grew. He would later be diagnosed as manic depressive.
Having always been interesting in music and The Beatles in particular he started recording his own song in his late teens, his preferred instruments being piano and organ. The songs usually centered around movies, comic books, superheroes etc. He also drew a lot and made movies starring himself and his family.
After graduation from high school he went to an art college where he spent more time falling head over heels in love with a girl named Laurie than attending classes. This crush was not mutual as Laurie already had a boyfriend, one who worked in a funeral home. Laurie would more or less haunt Daniel's music and his requited love for her still works as a fuel in his songwriting to this day. That and fighting Satan.
He kept recording tapes and often included snippets of his class mates' converstation in his songs. In 1983, after his stint in college was over, he moved in with his brother in Houston and worked at Astro World. It was during this time he recorded some of his most acclaim albums, such as Hi, How Are You?. And by "albums" I mean cassettes recorded on a boombox with handdrawn covers.
He then joined a travelling carnival were he sold corndogs for five months before ending up in Austin, Texas. Rumor quickly grew of this weird kid who worked at McDonald's making weird tapes full of weird music. When MTV rolled into town in 1985 to tape a show about the local musicians in the area, Johnston became the obvious focal point. His appearance made him a bit of a celebrity and many acclaimed musicians began covering his material.
By the late 80s and early 90s his mental problems kept getting worse, no doubt exacerbated by his use of hallucinogenics. He became increasingly obsessed with the devil and drew Jesus fishes on any surface wherever he got the chance. He went in and out of mental hospitals, tried every type medication in the book, and reportedly spent a whole year in bed, knocked out by the prescription drugs. When he started feeling a bit better he was invited to New York to hang out some musician friends and perhaps record something of his own.
This of course went pear-shaped pretty soon. After a string of bizarre in-store performances, during which he would just as likely preach and/or break down crying as sing his songs, he was put on a bus home to Texas. After a day or two he had return to New York as he felt he had a divine mission to execute in the city. Did I mention he drew Jesus fishes all over the Statue Of Liberty?
He was eventually put back in the mental hospital where he sent petitions out the manufacturers of Mountain Dew, his favorite beverage, urging them to make him a spokesperson for their product.
While he was in there a bidding war was taking place and he finally made his major label debut in 1992 with the album Fun on Atlantic Records. The album didn't sell and he was dropped from the label a few years later and didn't make another album until 1999.
In 2004 a tribute album featuring the likes of Beck, Tom Waits and Eels was released to great acclaim and Johnston continues to play gigs all over the world.
You could argue that Daniel Johnston's music wouldn't have half the appeal if he was mentally healthy, but I find all it does it give his music a degree of authenticity. When he sings about losing his mind (his brain literally falling out of his head) he does so in an effort to cope with his illness. So would I like his music if he was perfectly sane? Probably not, because then it would just be an act. It's the honesty that does it.
I suppose he could come across as some sort of novelty artist, it's fun to see a strange guy playing songs in his own strange way, but I can't remember one instance were I was laughing at Daniel Johnston or even with him. I don't think there's anything funny here, he doesn't in any way fall into the "it's so bad it's good category" as someone like Wesley Willis or Eilert Pilarm definitely do. Sure, it sounds a little off most of the time, but it's genuinely fine music. Simple as that.
Much can be said about Johnston's ability as a musician (fully adequate as a pianist, less so as a guitarist) but his skills as a songwriting cannot be questioned, nearly every song is a pop masterpiece. Some find his music too naive and simple, childlike even, to be taken seriously but you could make the same case about Brian Wilson or Syd Barrett, two in my opinion quite overrated songwriters who will probably never stop being praised.
His voice is one of the most heartwrenching I have ever heard, and when he wails "Please hear my cry for help and save me from myself" in Peek A Boo, which might sound like a trivial line, it comes straight from his soul and shows that even as early as 1981-82, before his mental problems became a big issue, he was able to express his feelings on the matter. When he later concludes "You can listen to these songs, have a good time and walk away, but for me it's not that easy, I have to live these songs forever" it's gets so honest it's almost unbearable to listen to. No doubt the most vivid expression of mental illness in musical form since Syd Barrett's Vegetable Man in 1968.
And just listen to Some Things Last A Long Time from the album 1990 - it's a fully executed wonder of a song. It's the Neil Young song that Neil Young has never had the raw honesty to write himself.
Listen to these three songs and drop to your knees at the altar of Daniel Johnston.
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1. The Eighteenth Day Of May - Monday morning's no good coming down (2005) 2. The Mamas & The Papas - Monday, Monday (1966) 3. Metallica & Guests - Tuesday's gone (1997) 4. J.J. Light - It's Wednesday (1969) 5. Simon & Garfunkel - Wednesday morning, 3 A.M. (1964) 6. Donovan - Jersey Thursday (1965) 7. Morphine - Thursday (1993) 8. Genesis - Get 'em out by Friday (1972) 9. Elton John - Saturday night's alright for fighting (1973) 10. Tom Waits - (Looking for) the heart of Saturday night (1974) 11. Logh - Saturday nightmares (2007) 12. Nick Drake - Saturday sun (1969) 13. To My Surprise - Sunday (2003) 14. Jim Ford - Go through Sunday 15. Oasis - Sunday morning call (2000)
Lucia Pamela was a true eccentric. And a little creepy.
She was born in Missouri in 1904, studied classical music in Germany as a youngster and was apparently Miss St. Louis in 1926. She hosted several radio shows and led what is supposedly the world's first all-female orchestra, The Musical Pirates.
Her only album Into Outer Space With Lucia Pamela was released in the late 60s and is mindboggling in its weirdness. I suppose it's meant to be a children's record, but I can't be sure. It's sometimes absolutely terrifying and letting your kids listen to this would be the equivalent of letting them watch Hostel.
It's not meant to be scary and strange sounding, it just came out that way. There's just something about Pamela's commandeering voice and out of this world (literally) concept of the record that makes it unnerving in a way that's hard to explain. Like a tactless kindergarden teacher. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't go anywhere with Lucia Pamela. Not even outer space.
"COME HERE, CHILDREN! LET'S PLAY AND HAVE FUN! I SAID LET'S PLAY AND HAVE FUN, GODDAMMIT! LAUGH YOU FUCKERS, THIS IS FUN!!! STOP CRYING OR I'LL PUNCH YOU IN THE STOMACH!!! THIS GAME IS OUR SECRET! TELL YOUR PARENTS ABOUT THIS AND I'LL KILL YOU!!! FEH! WEAK HUMANS!!"
There was later a coloring book based around the same theme entitled Into Outer Space With Lucia Pamela In The Year 2000, for which she is most known.
I think what we need in times like these is another smash hit ditty by the Polleys.
This song was also written by Kurt Cobain in heaven (as you do). This time he teamed up with Johnny Cash and John Lennon, and sent the song through the astral realms of the eternal afterlife to Linda and Gerald Polley in North Dakota.
What could be better than to be cheered up with some excellent xmas joy in March? Thank you, Kurt. Thank you, John and Johnny. Thank you for letting the Polleys channel your music.
I can't seem to resist squeezing Tom Waits into these flawless Theme Mixes, it appears I cannot escape that man.
He is my ghost, my shadow, my dobbelganger, my curse and my fuck buddy.
1. Flower Travellin' Band - Shadows of lost days (1973) 2. The Magic Numbers - Forever lost (2004) 3. The Clash - Lost in the supermarket (1979) 4. David Sandström Overdrive - Thouh shalt get lost (2008) 5. Comus - In the lost queen's eyes (1971) 6. The Thrown Ups - You lost it (1988) 7. Jandek - Lost cause (1992) 8. The Soundtrack Of Our Lives - Lost prophets in vain (2008) 9. The Hives - Lost and found (2001) 10. The Nomads - Just lost (1994) 11. The Mary Onettes - Lost (2007) 12. Taken By Trees - Lost and found (2007) 13. Southern Isolation - I got lost in my myself again (2001) 14. Tom Waits - Lost in the harbour (2002) 15. Queens Of The Stone Age - I think I lost my headache (2000)
Wikipedia, you strumpet! You wretched harlot of Beelzebub!
I loathe myself every time I turn to you for a bit of research and inspiration for a post and all you do is give me a piece of text so fitting that all I am left to do is copy and paste the whole thing.
I hate you.
And one day I will annihilate you.
Maher Shalal Hash Baz is the artistic alter ego of Tori Kudo, a Japanese naivist composer and musician. The name is taken from Maher-shalal-hash-baz in the Book of Isaiah verses 8:1 and 8:3, and translates roughly as "Hurrying to the spoil, he has made haste to the plunder." Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz is also mentioned in the Book of Mormon in verses 2 Ne 18:1 and 18:3.
Tori Kudo has been cagey about details of his life before MSHB. He was once a member of a shadowy, revolutionary political party in Japan, although he has dissociated himself from politics since becoming one of Jehovah's Witnesses. He also works as a ceramicist.
He claims to have played classical and jazz piano, as well as playing organ in a Protestant church. His other musical influences included T. Rex and saxophonist Steve Lacy. He and his wife Reiko Kudo joined a band called Worst Noise when they moved to Tokyo; other members dropped out, leaving Tori and Reiko as a duo, known simply as Noise. Under this name they released an album called Emperor.
The impetus for Maher Shalal Hash Baz came when Tori met euphonium player Hiroo Nakazaki on a building site, and found that they shared an interest in the music of Mayo Thompson and Syd Barrett. Apart from the core trio (Tori on guitar and vocals, Reiko as vocalist, Hiroo with his euphonium), the lineup has always been fluid.
After a couple of self-released cassette albums, the Japanese Org label released Maher Goes To Gothic Country (1991) and the 83-track box set Return Visit To Rock Mass (1996).
The group's profile outside Japan became much higher when Stephen McRobbie of The Pastels signed them to his Geographic label. They have released two albums on Geographic: the compilation From A Summer To Another Summer (An Egypt To Another Egypt) (2000) and the 41-track Blues Du Jour (2003); plus a number of EPs on various labels, including 'Souvenir De Mauve' (Majikick, 1999), 'Maher On Water' (Geographic, 2002), 'Faux Depart' (Yik Yak, 2003) and Live Aoiheya January 2003 (Chapter Music, 2005).
Tori Kudo has resisted defining the sound of his band, although in an interview with Tim Footman in Careless Talk Costs Lives magazine (August 2002) he declared "I am punk." There are also elements of folk, psychedelia and free jazz; the band's tendency to ask members of the audience to join in adds a sense of danger in live performance.
Perhaps the best description comes from his own sleevenotes to From A Summer To Another Summer: "Error in performance dominates MSHB cassette which is like our imperfect life."
