Tuesday, December 22, 2009

the Great Santa Convergence of '09

A Basement of Curiosities is switching on the Santa Moog.

Magic Carpet Burn brings us a spacefarin' Santa (as well as the Three Stooges).

And Cotton Candy Truant presents Our Santa of the Flying Cupcake Bakery.

Meanwhile, People of Walmart has sighted Biker Santa on his stylin' new ride. (Tho' those antler handlebars seem to tell a sad & gruesome tale . . .)

And whoa, wait, this just in from Chateau Thombeau: Santa's flying first class on the cover of Jet magazine. As none other than Esther Rolle. Rock on . . .

And and and: on Sexy People, the Red and the Black dovetail nicely in Santa and Goths.

And again: a Merry Christmas Santa from Pathways To Unknown Worlds.

And, oh, hey, Aloha, Santa from Hooked On Stereophonic.

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

insert clever robot related title here

My servos are majorly glitching so . . .

Robots! on North of Onhava offers up a fun and jargon-free look at our imminent enslavement by cybernetic beings.

Nerdbots, as seen soaking up the open bar at Chateau Thombeau, are the very best friends money can buy.

Lovingly fabricated by thrift store adventurers, they no doubt come with a boilerplate waiver for buyers to sign: "In the event of a silicon insurrection" etc. etc.

Speaking of electronic BFFs, Furbys evidently roam the earth amongst the People of Walmart.

And for those looking forward to spending the holidays with a robotic master race, Magic Carpet Burn's playlist, Magic Christmas Burn, has just the tune for you.

Sunday, November 29, 2009

lies I tell on Facebook #265

In regards to the Maginot Line:

Originally there were plans to make a line of defense out of papier mache penguins (ten meters high--so y'know, not life sized). The Surrealists had figured the penguins would frighten German soldiers (who were known to have recurring nightmares about all things Antarctic) and greatly confound the High Command (ditto). But, the French were like "hey, what do Surrealists know about fortifications" and the rest is history. Luckily, yes, definitely, guys: George C. Scott totally saved their bacon. And then refused the Best Acting Oscar presented to him by De Gaulle.


In my own words, tho' based entirely on the poorly photocopied liner notes of a Scott Walker album and a recipe found on the inside of a Campbell Soup label.

too true

"In today’s struggling economy you need to wear clothes, why don’t you wear these clothes?"

Kindertrauma is selling t-shirts.

Now I'm cheap & fully dressed. But maybe you need a t-shirt with a scary clown on it.

Or you need a laugh.

Either way, it's your move.

Friday, November 27, 2009

when it rains it sizzles

Traffic stopping Spanish bubblegum (!?!) cards of actresses at PCL LinkDump. Sure there's Loren and Bardot, but freakin' Ida Lupino . . .

And at pulpnivora, the steamy headwaters of all this, waits Loretta Young and Ava Gardner as well.

And Jennifer Jones looking like she's way past ready for a girls' night out with Deborah Harry and Lydia Lunch. And like able to set asbestos on fire at 400 paces with a passing glance.

like Easter on Thanksgiving

That greatly missed aggregation of all that's brain-breakingly cool and grandly ironical returns to Earth in its newest incarnation, Chateau Thombeau.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

auditioning for the role of Achilles

If, like me, you harbor the dream of an all-chimp Homeric revue, this fellow (with an appropriate costume change) could be the lynchpin of the cast.

Or if that lead-in confuses you, just let PCL LinkDump explain just how cool clothed chimps are.

Saturday, October 31, 2009

Halloween extravaganza

Magic Carpet Burn had made my damn(ed) Halloween several times over. But this old Brach's candy ad, so long ago & so familiar, takes the candy corn prize.

With a Whedonverse proviso, I'm also down with bruddah Nosferatu over at Paco Camino.

Happy Halloween, y'all.

pattern recognition

Slogan at The Boat Lullabies must be: party like it's 1945.

As one can [not-so] plainly hear, that earlier & greatest of Pepsi generations knew how to take a belt (or two or three) and in turn belt it on out, out, out, out, out . . .

All part of what looks to be a cool collection to come.

Meanwhile, if you're planning to dress as Sherlock or Watson, may want to check out this bit of arcana at PCL LinkDump.

Monday, October 26, 2009

Saturday, October 24, 2009

in with The In Crowd

No need to be blue.

Not when you're reading one of the world's most awesomest blogs, I'm Learning To Share!

This time 'round, ev'rything from non-peeps to woolies to WalMart to Loudon Wainwright III to Soupy Sales to unsung lyrics of TV theme songs and more.

Those who doubt it need only click.

Honi soit qui mal y pense.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Vic Mizzy, musical mastermind

What do you say about a composer who wrote the theme to Green Acres *and* the music for The Ghost and Mr. Chicken?

Frankly, I dunno. The dude rocked our worlds with bass harmonicas and fuzztone guitar motifs and now he's gone.

But Magic Carpet Burn takes a step in the right direction with the aforementioned primo Don Knotts comedy.

Around 8:38, dig the creepiest organ music ever . . . (thanks, Vic)


courtesy DonKnottsFan

Thursday, October 15, 2009

hearing in pictures

This ad posted at Paco Camino is the sole basis for the new movie, The Audiophile Andy Warhol.

Starring Miley Cyrus as an ohmmeter-wielding Edie Sedgwick and a very bleached Zac Efron as A.W. (Who plays Candy Darling et al. I'll leave to you, the fans . . .)

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

if I ever join Facebook

Y'know, it was weird.

Kevin McCarthy had just jumped off this produce truck screaming at anyone who could listen about big pod plants and aliens and such. I was unnerved.

But I woke up this morning feeling fresh and alive, and yet very calm (like after a long drifting deep space voyage).

And feeling so thoroughly renewed, I popped out of bed and signed up on Facebook.


Or, for those more familiar with the remake:


Brooke Adams, y'know, points at me and goes, I dunno, "Ahhhhhhhhg!"

So then I point at Brooke and I go "Ahhhhhhhhhg!"

We both go "Ahhhhhhhhg!" a couple more times before we fall to the ground laughing and saying "Dude, we soooo totally rule this planet--yeah!"


(Hope my wife will post this on Facebook . . .)

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

the silicon musk of Bigfoot justice

A visually inclined friend sent along proof that Bigfoot exists. A cool, if suspiciously closely-cropped, pic of Lindsay Wagner, the Bigster and Lee Majors from the 1970s.

Tho' I do happen to live in a cave and hadn't seen this picture before (not even in old issues of Better Caves and Meadows), I knew the bittersweet truth behind this picture and chose to share it with him (and now the world) though the email quoted below.

To those who cannot bear the weight of truth, I say look away now. No one will think any less of you:

"We can rebuild Bigfoot--we have the technology . . ."

Bionic Bigfoot, the spinoff that never was. Indeed, as a cover, he'd be traveling the country hauling freight in a Peterbilt. He'd be hiding in plain sight, with only children, kindly old folks and the pure at heart recognizing that "Bionic Bigfoot" was more than just a clever CB handle for an "ex-sideshow performer". It was a stamp of justice and abiding love across the land. And in the hearts of those who'd call him friend.

Inspite of a huge advance printing of 10,000 t-shirts bearing a likeness of the truck driving Sasquatch on his CB (and the words, "This is Bionic Bigfoot, c'mon!"), the studio heads did not prove to be such good buddies to the project and ashcanned the whole thing.

Word is that somewhere in some warehouse in LA there are boxes and boxes of those t-shirts and other long-suppressed-then-forgotten merch related to the silicon Sasquatch. Which is a cool legend and all, but I don't think I buy it. I'm going to have to see a picture . . .

(There are also many conspiracy theories associated with this stillborn TV show, one tying into the death--some say assassination--of Dale E[a]rnhardt. But such things are mostly whispered in darkened hallways and go well beyond my personal knowledge or that of my email spellchecker.)

The Yeti sends best regards,
K.

Friday, September 25, 2009

and now the laughter starts

Yet another cool blog populating my imploding Google Reader is And Now The Screaming Starts. Riffing on Poe and invoking Jung is only the start of the fun in the latest entry.

FABULON is taking a hiatus, but there's always plenty to catch up on there for the ironically minded.

Meanwhile, Magic Carpet Burn presents all sorts of fun greasy kid stuff like old how-to articles on making oneself up as a ghoul or a Martian. Halloween is just around the corner.

Thursday, September 17, 2009

the age of flight

Luckily, obscure childhood memories can be cool.

Like faint recollections (circa age 5) of the Johnny Astro. Mostly just the Mars 2 and Luna 3 balloons with the USAF logos.

And the Mattel Vertibird toy helicopter, another pleasant recollection from long ago.

Monday, August 24, 2009

so I shoved it into Race

Much as people shamelessly quote The Simpsons and Monty Python, folks back in my long ago youth and far off corner of the sticks were still quoting lines from early 60s comedy records by Brother Dave Gardner.

Now you can be funny that way too (tragically passé and marginalized), thanks to Schadenfreudian Therapy.

Lapsing now into lazy/lame comparisonspeak: Imagine if Jonathan Winters, Lord Buckley and the wraith of Walt Whitman met in a smoke-filled green room thereby creating a wormhole from which a strange otherworldly dude came through to skat, and otherwise sing & speak in numerous over-the-top voices.

This dude would be Brother Dave.

But I'm overselling it. Go on, kick thy own self . . .

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

in a full bird Trans Am to Valhalla, Mississippi

An old friend just sent me this obit for Memphis music maker/record producer Jim Dickinson.

If in no mood for the greatest craziest damn music cranking from the Jensen coaxials of post-life, one might rejoin the living in the least likely of ways: via cell.

Mobile soundscapes, that is, presented by the good folks at Disquiet.

Sunday, August 16, 2009

mother of Freud


courtesy Prionyx

Another long lost, tho' somewhat more fractured, bit of my cathode youth . . .

Maybe seen as the late late late show in early school (or pre-school) days, Freud: The Secret Passion stars the likes of Montgomery Clift, Susan Kohner, Susannah York and David McCallum.

Complete with Portuguese subtitles. Dig it.

Friday, August 7, 2009

Just In Time--Rebby Sharp



The embed of this lovely, long ago song comes courtesy La Folie Du Jour, where there's showcased a whole mess of Rebby Sharp, solo and with the Orthotonics.

Indeed, it seems the Orthotonics are having a reunion show on 12 September 2009 . . .


courtesy globalmojo

Were I in Richmond VA mid-September, well . . .

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

film shot from Apollo 11


courtesy NASA Images

Lots of cool images shot from different mission POVs--the lunar module docking, landing on the moon, moonwalks and so on.

Since the film's a hour and a half long, the thumbnails page gives an good overview and quicker access to sections of interest.

Monday, August 3, 2009

Thursday, July 30, 2009

the ballad of 3-fingered Joe


courtesy Prelinger Archives

The excellent 1970s safety film Shake Hands With Danger is also at the Internet Archive.

Just the country theme music alone is worth checking out.

But careful, folks: even tho' the loss of life and limb is largely implied, this is not for the squeamish or impressionable.

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

emulation mode

Efforts to the contrary aside, Anita Ward has nothing to fear.

Nor does Britney. Nor the heavily quanticized Cher of "Believe". Nor any of their young aspirants.

Synthtopia explains and provides the synthetically sung version of "Ring My Bell" to demonstrate.

Perhaps, if given the example of this starlet/singer or some time spent here in the company of these gentleman, Vocaloid SONIKA would gain just enough life experience (and use of consonants) to pass the Turing test.

Or at least go platinum . . .

Till that day, a chorus of sweetly singing school kids will do just fine [in addition to, not in lieu of Nico's dark foghorn call]. As posted on Pathway to Unknown Worlds:


courtesy ps22chorus

Saturday, July 18, 2009

sweet thunder of a moon out of tune

Sweet Thunder's Tape Findings has too much groovin' goin' on with all its found cassettes and other audio.

Most recent is week 119's collection of very detuned calliope music. Ol' favorites like Moon River, The Candyman and It's Not Unusual sound a bit as if The Shaggs and some avant jazzers met up with a drunk highland piper.

Which is to say, check it out already.

Friday, July 17, 2009

don't worry--we'll set you straight

Noise Is Information very thoughtfully posts a video about clean cut young fellows who bike around preaching the good word. Y'know . . . atheists.

While having a restful Saturday morning, perhaps you'll dream of Mexican film & music in Tito-era Yugoslavia. Or just click on over to Pathway to Unknown Worlds and read about Yu-Mex.

Thursday, July 16, 2009

I am Blaine--hear me roar

Or yell . . .

What I know of beauty and cosmetology curricula couldn't drown a gnat. Or keep it from dying of thirst.

But logos, those distinctive blends of word and image that can get and keep your attention . . . well, don't know much about them either.

But I know: Blaine! the logo.

Recently, it had lost its (exclamation) point and become quiet & demure. And now that Blaine Beauty School's been absorbed by some other school, that whole upward cursive swoop is on its way out.

But thanks to the Wayback Machine, one can still bask in the declarative exuberance and Blaine! like it's 1999.

Indeed, the damn thing's drawn by no less than a animated tube of lipstick.

So Blaine! the logo roars on in the face of snooty upscale understatement.

You go, girl . . .

Saturday, July 11, 2009

beloved

PCL LinkDump doubles up on The Loved One appreciation with the Mrs. Joyboy dining experience and a groovin' pressbook.

Speaking of the dearly departed, let's reup a link to this parlor rock trio who paid homage to the LV with their name. And this bit of sound collage.

Friday, July 10, 2009

8-track orchard

What no less than Jimmy Walker says . . .


courtesy gggone1



courtesy skulhed



courtesy smileypussonebay



courtesy wyojunk



courtesy superpro2000


And now, ladies & gentlemen, Mr. Jim Nabors. Available on 8-track tape:


courtesy eyeh8cbs

just as Criswell predicted


courtesy dutylux

A friend and others beside have sent links & other premonitions of a new Cheap Trick release on that venerable format, the 8-track tape cartridge.

No word yet from Radio Shack when they're gonna bring back those portable 8-track players that look like detonator plungers.

Rumor has it that they will synergize with Apple on this and call it the "iPlunge".

Suggested retail will be $299.98. Then substantially less, to piss off the early (or not-quite-so extremely late) adopters.

With that in place, I'm not sure how the Johnny Winter or Uriah Heep or any other fine re-releases will find proper distribution. Maybe through the forthcoming iTunes/Columbia House 8-Track Tape Club.

Time now to go listen to "Frankenstein" while awaiting the "iStrobe", the iBirotron and scads of newly unraveled tapes strewn along the highways . . .


courtesy oscartripe

Thursday, July 9, 2009

make it roll


courtesy zombielegtattoo

Well before the age of The Red Green and Git-R-Done, there were the gurus Redfish--father (Art Carney rigged out to the max) and son (none other than Meat Loaf).

I only caught about half of this craziness on the nuevo UHF, but folks, Roadie is out there, waiting.

There's Alice Cooper.

Plus Debbie Harry, Don Cornelius and maybe some other luminaries lacking proper last names . . .

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

sonic bits


courtesy porrr1

Here's some video of the live performance Juan Matos Capote did last Friday on Radio Contrabanda.

Other sundry sonic goodness, the music of sound posts about radiOM, which has archived some interesting interviews with the likes of Fred Frith and Conlon Nancarrow. Indeed, the music of sound has chosen some more worldly & interesting items there.

Saturday, June 13, 2009

road to Barcelona

Here's a recording of painter/sound artist Juan Matos Capote performing on Radio Contrabanda in Barcelona yesterday.

Along similar sonic lines, a recording by Melanie Velarde as posted on Disquiet.

Also a host of cool pics on Flickr of Velarde at work/play like this one. Or this one.

Thursday, June 11, 2009

the road to Quebec

agilitynut is blogging and clicking her way up NY State to Quebec and back.

Nipper hears his master's voice.

An owl gets wise.

In the land of the Francophone Dairy Queen and the big metal crow, a whale of a time is had by all.

Sunday, June 7, 2009

bubbles


courtesy bphstanley

Thanks be to the missus for digging up this endorphin raiser (in lieu of ageless gran'mas and 2nd comings) featuring The Free Design.

And now a monochrome feature of the song named after the band:


courtesy stardappledgreen

Saturday, May 30, 2009

tick tock

Again with the UBUWEB.

This time, a Ligeti piece done with 100 metronomes:

And if you want 200 metronomes, better get clicking:

courtesy emicad

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

the disappearing hubcap cross



This movie, Junkopia, brought to mind one Easter morning many years ago when a hubcap crucifix was fashioned onto a metal signpost along Comm. Ave. in Allston/Brighton.

It was very cool looking but no picture was taken. It was a unseasonably warm day, too nice to stick around in the city. And later when the day trip was over, the hubcap cross was gone.

Too bad there aren't more impromptu sculptures, but at least this hubcap crucifix was photographed.

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

they all look like Fess Parker to me


courtesy papadydy

Even if Daniel Boone was a man, it seems that Davy Crockett was a dog.

If Sexy People is to be believed, this lil' fella "kilt him a [stuffed] b'ar when he was only three" in dog years.

Meanwhile, FABULON has sighted a wondrous vacationland where A-frames and tentacled trees and (seemingly) placid deer abide.

In sledgehammer'd submission to the rule of three, let's quote a web page of quotations quoting Groucho Marx:

"Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others."

Saturday, May 9, 2009

blind soul

Pathway to Unknown Worlds posted a great vid of Robert Wyatt being interviewed in 2007.

One bit of dawn breaking on Marblehead was finding out that Wyatt's recording, "At Last I Am Free", is a cover of a Chic ballad.

Wyatt's recording had haunted me since hearing it eons ago on the Rough Trade Records compilation LP, Wanna Buy A Bridge?, but I had no clue . . .

Now, one Google search later, I find this page that brings together not two, but three versions of the song: Chic's, Wyatt's and Elizabeth Fraser's.

Damn. An embarrassment of riches.

Monday, May 4, 2009

everyone's gone to the movies



I've caught this in bits and pieces on the nuevo UHF subchannels like THIS TV and RTN's Off Beat Cinema.

But here it is for one and all courtesy Google Video and publicdomaintorrents.com, A Bucket of Blood.

Sponsored by FABULON and Ms. Blythe Danner.

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

solitude & the inverted fedora

I'm Learning To Share speaks volumes on Jughead's hat.

Yes, Jughead of Archie comics fame. It's like a doctoral thesis on American Studies in a tasty Flintstones chewable.

the music of sound posts the coolest article ever on The End of Solitude. Recommended, as in very.

If that sounds like no fun, FABULON will show what your friends really think of you no matter how much you text them.

In any case, whatever your state of popularity, please consider doing this:

Stand up and walk away from your computer and go outside somewhere where the birds vastly outnumber the people. Phones and iPods off, just you alone with whatever's happening.

Sunday, April 26, 2009

black and white and read all over

I've pestered the heck out of friends with one emailed URL after another from VietNamNet. (Who knows why, as I'm the same provincial East Coast American who digs Kung Pao FM.)

Here's a story about Vietnam's National Poetry Day festival held this past February.

And another quite fascinating human interest story/fable/poem of sorts about a farmer, his wife and the field they've given over to 10,000 storks. An eco-tourist spot has come of their work.

As one visitor observes: "It’s nice to relax in a hammock in the garden and feel the wind from the river. At sunset the land turns white with all the returning storks."

Meanwhile, one reads in AOL of Ruppy the red fluorescent puppy.

Saturday, April 25, 2009

Bea, we hardly knew ye

But we'll miss her all the same.

As evidenced at Kindertrauma.

On FABULON, she's addressed as Dame Beatrice.

On And Now the Screaming Starts, said form of address should most certainly be used by a pack of raptors.

Or else . . .


profit to the people

Maybe I watched way too many episodes of Kung Fu.

Or I just love heavy-handed irony and Chinese classical music way too much to worry about the trade & diplomatic repercussions of a FM radio station riffing on the Cultural Revolution.

But here it is: Kung Pao 100.5 FM ditching the previous rock format for Chinese classical music.

Give it a listen and you'll find it replete with goofy gong-bashing segues and giveaways like the Kung Pao Cash Cow.

And DJs intoning nonsense like "Kung Pao 100.5 FM--Listen every now and Zen."

Or "Made in China--exclusively for Hampton Roads."

The station website likewise pours it on with hooks like the People's Party and the Insurgent Club.

Not to mention the soon-to-be-popular Take Your Bills And Divide Them Among The Community contest: "Send us your paycheck and listen for your name to get some of it back."

Things gets a bit broad now & then, like when the Station Manager alludes to drinking sake. (Eh, um, dude, sake's a Japanese beverage, do your market research.) And sometimes we're hanging with Cuban DJ 'Che or Suon Pheakdei, the Cambodian Ryan Seacrest.

But it's all for laughs (& well, for me, the music).

And no Mickey Rooney in Breakfast At Tiffany's moments quite yet.

The station's slogan is: You Will Listen. And indeed you may.

Expect to see many drive-time listeners down in the Old Dominion clutching their Little Red Books.

Many thanks to the Daily Press article for the heads up.

all reverbs great and small

The music of sound brings Mohammed, or rather Alvin Lucier & iterations thereof, to the giant dual reverb tanks. Concrete water tanks 33 feet (11 m) high and 21 feet (7 m) in diameter.

Bigger still is the Silophone in Montreal.

I haven't the math or the will to figure the dimensions of that half-million gallon tank.

It all sounds pretty big.

Synthtopia is getting small with Circuit Girl's hacked floppy disk reverb. Which is glitchy & neat & super resourceful, but this old-schooler would like to see someone get all analog & Echorec with those floppies and hard drives.

In any case, good to see yet more fresh meaning given to renew, reuse, recycle.

Synthtopia also posts about Lou Reed's live performance of his paean to feedback, Metal Machine Music.

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Billy Squire video digest

Johnnyuma of PCL LinkDump does such a good job of describing the video/enumerating its many sins that I saved myself the time and just read his commentary.

Taking Trilling for Austen (see Whit Stillman's film, Metropolitan)?

I think not.

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Poes over bros

And Now the Screaming Starts posts about The New Yorker's recent ruminations regarding one Edgar Allan Poe. And various fictional ones spawned thereafter.

Meanwhile, downstream from Richmond, there's skulduggery on the James.

Kinda an ub' thing again, but it seems not once but twice that one mandated Jamestown Ferry security dude or another (perhaps lacking the masonry skills to wall folks up in wine cellars) tried to poison a coworker.

Not cool . . .

In case it all reads like something penned by a lesser Poe, here's the text from the Smithfield Times:

Instead it’s been the security guards themselves that have committed the most serious offenses.
In 2004, a security guard put cleaning solution in a co-workers drink in an attempt at poisoning, according to media reports.
A second case occurred in 2006, when another security guard put hand sanitizer in a co-workers drink.
Both guards were arrested and charged with attempting to poison, a felony.

Evidently, when offered the milk of human kindness, one should run a tox screen.

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Hell, yeah

There's a great Roz Chast comic where she's a worried mom imagining all the crazy crap that could happen at some birthday party her kids are attending.

One of the best bits therein is an exchange between two boys:

"Matches are cool."

"Hell, yeah . . ."


So is this long ago posting and comments enumerating the youthful hijinks of yore.

(Okay, kids of today--put down the Wrist Rocket . . .)

Friday, April 17, 2009

The Rock and Roll Public Library

Thanks to a post on ephemera, googled the CHELSEA space site where there's been an exhibit of Mick Jones' Clash memorabilia & whatnot, The Rock and Roll Public Library.

CHELSEA space has tons of images of the show * plus the opening. Also links and such including one to a Flickr set of photos.

Hope the Ramones or somebody also has/had a storage space out there that's about to enter the public view.

[*Personal goofy musictronic fave is pic of a WEM Copicat tape
delay.]

Thursday, April 16, 2009

where the grazing is good

Tho' the whole cows and country deal is more of an uberkayness thing, ub' is wearing a bit of a black armband these days.

So here's some bucolic decay. The architecture's cool (and should be preserved, ideally), but I'm here to see & hear the cows convene.


(courtesy undweller)

Feel free to stay a spell for whatever reason.