“Quinn the Eskimo” (take 1) – Bob Dylan and the Band (download)
A few weekends back, at the WFMU Record Fair, I picked up a copy of Bob Dylan’s Great White Wonder. The first ever rock bootleg, it was originally released by the Trademark of Quality underground label in 1969. Famously, it came in almost totally blank packaging: white jacket, white labels, sometimes a rubber stamp with the title.
The copy I bought comes with a handwritten title on the front, obviously scrawled by a dealer at some point along the way. Likewise, the labels on the vinyl itself only contain simple simple black dots, indicating the A-side (I think) of each disc. Others, it looks like, had more formal packaging.
Surely, though, with a batch of brand new, unknown songs, many people must have annotated their copies, guessed at the titles, etc..
Got one? What does it say on it? Join the Great White Wonder Project pool or upload to flickr with the tags “bob dylan great white wonder” and I’ll deal with it.
(Thx, Andres!)
“Got To Be Some Changes Made” – The Staple Singers (download) (buy)
The Obamagasms continued today. For me, they came, quivering and screaming, through the new site, change.gov. While complete transparency and openness in government is impossible, and maybe not even desirable, this is a pleasant start. One can peruse the General Services Administration directory issued to all new White House personnel, apply for a job, or submit ideas. While WhiteHouse.gov is certainly chock full of information, change.gov is efficient and friendly. Perhaps it’ll all prove illusory, this change thing, but Obama’s clearly got better web designers. And that’s a goddamn good way to begin. I’d like to see what kind of mail comes in. Perhaps I’ll apply for that job.
There are some bits worth poking at. For example, the semi-self-serving-and-presumptuous-but-also-neat-and-2.0y American Moment feature. There are also forms at the top of the page for one to enter one’s email address and zip code, with no explanation of why they might be needed. Nonetheless, I entered them with only the briefest of second thoughts, willfully giving my contact info to a government-domained website. Apparently, I’ve just signed up to help remake Washington. Or something.
Change is “change” is “‘change,'” but it’s also a talking point, albeit the peaceful variety. It’ll certainly be fascinating to see how President Obama’s rhetoric continues to maintain or mutate the brand and how that relates reality. (Practically speaking, does he continue to use change.gov or take over WhiteHouse.gov?) Most telling, for the moment, is the blunt NEED CONTENT page behind the “Obama National Service Plan” link. Then, there’s a lot that’s empty on this site. Content will be coming soon, and probably quickly. Hope they’re ready, and–more–I hope they’re serious.
Listen here.
Detailed playlist.
Hour-plus sound collage set beginning here.
1. “The Things” – Skeletons (from Money)
2. “Frow Show Theme” – MVB
3. “What’cha Gonna Do About It?” – The Condo Fucks (from Fuckbook)
4. “Freckle Wars” – Ecstatic Sunshine (from Ecstatic Sunshine)
5. “In the Flowers (aka Dancer)” – Animal Collective (23 October 2007 Melkweg, Amsterdam, NL)
6. “La La Radio” – Shugo Tokumaru (from Exit)
7. “Ego Blossoms” – Samara Lubelski (from Living Bridge compilation)
8. “Alabama” – Mark DeGliAntoni (from Horse Tricks)
9. “Livin Was Easy” – The Glands (from The Glands)
10. “Lazy Susan” – Oakley Hall (from Gypsum Strings)
11. “Got To Be Some Changes Made” – Staple Singers (from Soul Folk in Action)
12. “Down By The Riverside” – Preservation Hall Jazz Band (from Best of the Early Years anthology)
13. “From the Tide or the Wind” – The Tape Beatles (from Music With Sound)
14. “Help” – Count Basie Orchestra (rom Basie’s Beatle Bag)
15. “The Corner” – Glenn Kotche (from Mixtape compilation)
16. “Nannou” – Aphex Twin (from Windowlicker EP)
17. “Panang” – Critters Buggin (from Stampede)
18. “Arcade Ambience ’83” – Andy Hofle (from Arcade Ambience ’83)
19. Frogs (5 April 1989 Merritt Island National Wildlife Preseve, FL)
20. “My Blue Sky (no. 1)” – Joji Yuasa (from Obscure Tape Music of Japan, v. 1: Aoi no Ue anthology)
21. “Golden Rain (Hudjan mas)” – Gamelan Gong Kebjar (from Golden Rain)
22. “Bucaneve” – Chris Watson (from Cima Verde)
23. “Rainwater Sea” – Robert Hunter (from Sentinel)
24. “Gamelan” – Tom Disselvelt (from Anthology of Dutch Electronic Tape Music, v. 1 (1955-1966) anthology)
25. “Love at the Swimming Hole” – Louis and Bebe Barron (from Forbidden Planet OST)
26. “Georgian Instrumental” – (Organ) (from Sprigs of Time: 78s from the EMI Archive anthology)
27. selections from the Zelinsky Collection (from Musee Mehanique presents the Zelinsky Collection, v. 3 anthology)
28. “Oysters and Wine at 2 a.m.” – Polk Miller’s Old South Quartette (from Polk Miller and His Old South Quartette)
29. selections from Tron OST – Wendy Carlos (from Tron OST)
30. “Weird Dream” – Harmonia ’76 (from Tracks and Traces)
31. “Brokedown Palace” – Bonnie Prince Billy (from Pebbles and Ripples)
32. “Havana Moon” – Chuck Berry (from The Great Twenty-Eight anthology)
33. “I Get A Little Taste of You” – Z-Rock Hawaii (from Z-Rock Hawaii)
34. “Only Heaven Knows” – Kevin Ayers (from The Unfairground)
35. “I Can’t Stop Loving You” – Ray Charles (from Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music)
36. “#1” – Scientist (from Scientist Wins the World Cup)
37. “Blue Nile” – Alice Coltrane (from Ptah the El Daoud)
38. “Wayward Hum” – Vashti Bunyan (from Lookaftering)
39. “I Love How You Love Me” – The Paris Sisters (from Back to Mono anthology)
40. “Phonoballoon Song” – Takako Minekawa (from Cloudy Cloud Calculator)
41. “Here Comes My Ship” – Wreckless Eric and Amy Rigby (from Wreckless Eric and Amy Rigby)
42. “Tell Me Why” – Neil Young (from After the Goldrush)
43. “Roll With the Flow” – Mike Nesmith (from And the Hits Just Keep on Coming)
44. “The Revolution” – David Byrne (from Look Into the Eyeball)
o The links I post in this category are generally hacks, and free ones at that, but this $1600 Optimus Maximus keyboard where each button is a custom screen is just too cool.
o YouConvertIt goes from format-to-format for you. Awesome and amazingly handy in theory, but it sometimes has been wicked slow when I’ve tried to use it. It did do what I wanted it to do–rip a YouTube video into an mp3–though it only did so at 64 kbps and didn’t tag it all. Drag.
o SoundSnap has free loops and sound effects. (Thx, Michael.) (I think/suspect.)
o TabMixPlus is a plug-in browser-tab management system for FireFox. Allegedly, heads have been using it to set TicketMaster pages to reload automatically when shows go on sale. Haven’t tried it personally, but it seems like it’d work. (And couldn’t be worse than the Dylan on-sale last week when one had to stop loading the TM page with split-second precision in order to buy the tickets.)
o GoogleEarth-based atlas of album cover art. Perhaps not useful, but a solid database and a functional time waster.
o The Forvo database pronounces words in their original language. Wowzers. Maybe now I can learn how to say those Brazilian/Portuguese song titles properly.
Baseball, more than other sports, is a game of statistics. There are batting titles, earned run averages, and Bill James freak-outs. It is a game of distances covered simultaneously by whipped balls of cork and running feet, coming down to inches, and the strategy that pits them against one another. There are lefty/righty match-ups, pinch-hitters, and careers made or broken by the chance encounters of a baseball after it connects with a bat. Numbers are the game’s blood.
Despite this, like the point where human consciousness emerges from a collection of cells and organized tissue, stats only go so far. Ultimately, baseball requires a leap of faith — or, at least, a willful defiance of the numbers. Your favorite team might collapse down the stretch, but they’re still your favorite team. It is not rational. It is the opposite. The Phillies may have won the World Series, but I say fuck ’em, the Mets are still better with exactly the same passion as I did in the middle of the summer, and the same as I will when spring training starts. Fuck ’em. See you in three-and-a-half months.
o Google and the Authors’ Guild settle their lawsuit.
o Uncut presents a massive series of interviews with the session players who worked with Dylan throughout the ’80s and ’90s. A huge new body of Bob-lore for the Neverending era. Have only read David Kemper so far, but am absurdly psyched for the rest.
o Big Wired piece on open source hardware.
o Christoph Neimann’s elegant cheat sheets for Manhattan.
o Some of Robert Wyatt’s favorite things.
Listen here.
Detailed playlist.
Going Steady Singles Week! All songs A-sides unless otherwise noted.)
1. “Season of the Witch” – Donovan (from Sunshine Superman)
2. “Frow Show Theme” – MVB
3. “Halloween” – Mudhoney (from Touch Me I’m Sick/Halloween 7-inch)
4. “Search and Destroy” (mono) – Iggy and the Stooges (from Search and Destroy white label 7-inch)
5. “U Stink But I Love U” – Billy and the Boingers (from Billy and the Boingers Bootleg flexidisc)
6. “Love-> Building On Fire” – Talking Heads
7. “Tropical Ice-Land” – The Fiery Furnaces
8. “(For God’s Sake) Give More Power to the People” – The Chi-Lites
9. “Make the Road By Walking” – Menahan Street Band
10. “Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)” – Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings
11. “Soul Master” – Edwin Starr
12. “Everybody Suffering” – Laurel Aitken
13. “My Boy Lollipop” – Millie
14. “Dark Star” – The Grateful Dead
15. “Disco 3000” – Sun Ra
16. “Despite the Water Supply” (Side A) – Jim O’Rourke (from Touch Series, v. 7 7-inch)
17. “Despite the Water Supply” (Side B) – Jim O’Rourke (from Touch Series, v. 7 7-inch)
18. “Blue Bayou” – Roy Orbison
19. “Kites Are Fun” – The Free Design
20. “Cycles” – Frank Sinatra
21. “As I Went Out One Morning” – Why? (from Unusual Animals, v. 4 7-inch)
22. “Yo Yo Bye Bye” – Dump (from The Hollows 7-inch) (UK)
23. “Aquarius” – Boards of Canada
24. “Six Stories” – Jeffrey Lewis (from Seasons 7-inch box set)
25. “Gojam Province 1968” – The Mountain Goats (from Satanic Messiah EP)
26. “George Jackson” (acoustic version) – Bob Dylan
27. “Cold Rain and Snow” – Oneida (from Heads Ain’t Ready 7-inch)
28. “He Don’t Love You (and He’ll Break Your Heart)” – Levon and the Hawks (from The Stones I Throw 7-inch)
29. “Sour Milk Sea” – Jackie Lomax
30. “Boy Wonder, I Love You” – Burt Ward feat. Frank Zappa
31. “Baby” – Caetano Veloso with Os Mutantes (from Ao Vivo EP)
32. “A Certain Guy” – Mary Weiss (from Don’t Come Back 7-inch)
33. “Yellow Brick Road” – Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band
34. “Success” (Diplo’s Unsuccessful Space Dub) – Dark Meat
35. “Launderette” – Vivien Goldman
36. “Grains and Sauces/Ice and Rings/Aqua Waters” – Black Swan Network (from HHBTM singles club 7-inch)
37. “Two” (Side B) – Yoshimi
38. “The Present Time/Seven Thousand Luminous Aches and Pains/The Dinner Plate” – Black Swan Network (from HHBTM singles club 7-inch)
39. “Marigold” – Nirvana (from Heart-Shaped Box 7-inch)
40. “Nature Trail to Hell (In 3-D)” – Weird Al Yankovic (from King of Suede 7-inch)
41. “Early 1970” – Ringo Starr (from It Don’t Come Easy 7-inch)
42. “Memories” – Robert Wyatt (from I’m A Believer 7-inch)
43. “The Lion Sleeps Tonight (Wimoweh)” – Brian Eno
44. “Sol ’07” (Side A/B) – Wooden Shjips
45. “Now 2000” (Side A) – Yo La Tengo (from Some Other Dimensions In Yo La Tengo EP)
46. “Now 2000” (Side B) – Yo La Tengo (from Some Other Dimensions In Yo La Tengo EP)
47. “Piggy In The Middle” – The Rutles (from Let’s Be Natural 7-inch)
48. “Porpoise Song” – The Monkees
49. “Goodnight Irene” – Little Richard
from Haruki Murakami’s first novel, Hear the Wind Sing (1979):
A newspaper reporter once asked Heartfield, “Your protagonist dies twice on Mars and once on Venus. Isn’t there a contradiction here?”
To which Heartfield responded, “Do you know how time passes in outer space?”
“No,” replied the reporter, “but that’s something nobody knows.”
“Then tell me, what’s the point of writing a novel about something everyone knows?”
“Money” – Apollo Sunshine (download) (buy)
(file expires October 31st)
The Apollo Sunshine’s “Money” sounds like Simon and Garfunkel, but I think it’s really “Imagine” for 2008 — an idyllic take on the world’s corruption du jour. “War is over! If you want it,” John and Yoko proclaimed, shorthanding the 1971 single. Apollo Sunshine’s take on impending global economic meltdown is the same, existentially: fahgetaboutit. “I wonder what I’d do, if everybody forgot what money was,” they harmonize, a slightly more complex task than disregarding religion. In Lennon’s world, peace comes immediately. For the Sunshine, it’s a little more personal. “With all that’s happened, would we still play guitars?” they ask. “Yeah, we’d play guitar!” they reaffirm, voices rising into subdued falsetto glee. It’s easier to imagine such things when you can hum along so easily.
Listen here
Detailed playlist
1. “Some Misunderstanding” – Gene Clark (form No Other)
2. “Obama Is Beautiful World!” – Anyone Brothers Band (via YouTube)
3. “Lonely Little Girl > Take Your Clothes Off When You Dance > What’s the Ugliest Part of Your Body?” – Frank Zappa (from Joe’s Menage)
4. “Music (Japanese version)” – Petra Haden (from Gum EP)
5. “We’ve Got To Get Ourselves Together” – The Staple Singers (from Soul Folk In Action)
6. “Sarah Through the Wall” – Brad Barr (from The Fall Apartment)
7. “Caminho Do Mar” – Quarteto Em Cy (from Quarteto Em Cy (1966))
8. “Departure” – Kieran Hebden and Steve Reid (from NYC)
9. “People Watch Change” – Capleton feat. Barack Obama
10. “This Summer Night” – Bertrand Burgalat feat. Robert Wyatt (from Cheri B.B.)
11. “Autoscope” – Benard Estardy (from La Formule Du Baron)
12. “Dinner and a Movie” – Phish (from Junta)
13. “Where Do You Run To?” – Vivian Girls (from Vivian Girls)
14. “The Horrors of Isolation: The Celestial Dissolve, Triumphant Hallucination, Light Being Absorbed” – The Flaming Lips (from Christmas On Mars OST)
15. unknown – unknown (from Yeti #5 compilation)
16. “Bye Bye Butterfly” – Pauline Oliveros (from Electronic Works)
17. “Aimless Breeze” – George Parsons (from Down In A Mirror: A Second Tribute to Jandek compilation)
18. “Jupiter Variation” – John Coltrane (from Interstellar Space)
19. “Four Freshman Locked Out as the Sun Goes Down” – No Kids (from Come Into My House)
20. “Arms, Legs, and Moonlight” – Eric Chenaux (from Sloppy Ground)
21. “Women’s Hour (Reading Your Letters)” – John Baker (from John Baker Tapes, v. 1)
22. “Music To Watch Girls By” – unknown (from Indonesian Cassette Mix compilation)
23. “Obama Is Here (Luda Politics)” – Ludacris (from The Preview mixtape)
24. “Obama Obama” – APT (from A Milli Beat)
25. “No Space in This Realm” – Akron/Family (from Meek Warrior)
26. “The Light That Fills This World” – John Luther Adams (from The Light That Fills This World)
27. “He Shoots the Sun” – Kahmi Karie (from Nunki)
28. “Albert Camus” – Titus Andronicus (from The Airing of Grievances)
29. “Pinecone Accumulation” – Greg Davis (from Vestibule and Separate: Cottage Industries 3)
30. “Fog and Shadow” – Apollo Sunshine (from Shall Noise Upon)
31. “Stella Blue” – Willie Nelson (from Songbird)
32. “Looney Tunes” – Yo La Tengo (from Sugarcube EP)
33. “Tumbling Tumbleweeds” – John Bix (from tXXXs demos)
34. “Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea” – George Harrison (from Brainwashed)
35. “Windfall” – Son Volt (from Trace)
36. “I’ll Keep It With Mine” – Nico (from Chelsea Girl)
