People are Funny

This is a clip from the old Candid Camera show. It's funny while illustrating a powerful principle of human nature.

More Firesign Theatre

"Waiting for the Electrician or Someone Like Him" was Firesign's first release and probably the most traditional. This is a look at the past, present and future, starting with the exploitation of American Indians by the Spaniards and Europeans. The present is in 1968 when the album was produced. And the future is if the hippies had taken over the world and become mainstream. It's full of one liners like all their albums. 

Firesign Theatre: Waiting for the Electrician Or Someone Like Him (68)

Temporarily Humboldt County

W.C. Fields Forever

Le Trente-Hult Cunegonde

Waiting for the Electrician or Someone Like Him

"How can You be in Two Places at Once When You're Not Anywhere at All" starts off with new car dealer, Ralph Spoilsport's commercials. In walks Babe who wants to buy a new car ... and off they go, eventually poking fun at everything starting with consumerism, slavery, guns and presidential elections. Side 2 is a spoof on old radio programs.

Firesign Theatre: How Can You Be In Two Places At Once When You're Not Anywhere At All (69)

part 1

part 2

How Can You Be In Two Places At Once When You're Not Anywhere At All

Drink to Me Only With Thine Fox

The Policeman's Brawl

Yankee Doodle Came to Terms

Uber Dubbing Over Alice

You Ain't Got No Friends On The Left

American Ch00-Ch00 Don' Wan' Stop Here Any Mo

We're Bringing the War Back Home!

Babes in Khaki

Tv or not Tv

The Further Adventures of Nick Danger

"Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me The Pliers" is more complex and I've seen several different story lines. It centers around Porgie Tirebiter and his sidekick, Mudhead. I think the story follows Tirebiter through his life as a youth, soldier, middle-aged bachelor and old age. But out of sequence, except at the end. 

Firesign Theatre: Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me The Pliers (70)

This Side

The Other Side

The Residents: Ralph Records 10th Anniversary Radio Special 82

For Ralph Records 10th anniversary, Penn Jillette was hired to spend six days in a motel room listening to Ralph records that were delivered to him daily. It's funny. He's never heard of The Residents, Snakefinger, Tuxedomoon and he really struggles with what to say. You can tell he's watching the clock. Then he says he'd rather play solitaire, refuses to listen to more, talks about colors on the album covers instead. But by the last 2 days, he likes the music ... and he's gone on to tour with them (maybe even wearing an eyeball?). I thought it was fun to hear his transition.  This was available on Penn's website too. 

Penn Jillette: Ralph Records 10th Anniversary Radio Special '82

Berlin

One thing I appreciate from music blogs has been the context they offer, especially with so much music available that it's impossible to hear it all. I want to know why the poster bothered to upload it because just blindly posting and downloading the familiar is boring. 

Once in awhile, a blog will stand out with an amazing post that's a labor of love worthy of admiration, in addition to the band. This week, the Music Blog of Saltyka and His Friends have done that with their retrospective of the band Berlin. It's a must see.

The Diablo Swing Orchestra

My mood today has been The Diablo Swing Orchestra's "Butcher's Ballroom" and I thought I'd add since I haven't posted any operatic-metal avant-garde rock band yet. Oh, and add a little retro swing, jazz, and classical thrown in once in awhile too. Basically every track on the album is a surprise. The song, 'Rag Doll Physics' has moments that might have been lifted from the 70's classic, 'Beautiful Day' and another like the Star War's band playing in the bar (I can't remember which movie, just the scene because of the band). But I'm not alone. The Diablo Swing Orchestra has been posted to a lot of blogs lately. So I'll  direct you to the links instead. 

If you haven't heard of Diablo Swing Orchestra before, trust me, they are good. They are a Swedish band that formed in 2003 and "Butcher's Ballroom" was their debut in 2006. Now when I say 'operatic', I don't mean just by training. They aren't another Epica or Within Temptation. She really does sing opera to metal rock. It's a sound I never would have imagined -and that I'd like it as much as I do. You'll just have to listen for yourself (My Space). I think they'll have a new release out soon. 

You'll find posts are at Articland (rs), RockStar (depositfiles), We March in Line (mediafire). I only checked to make sure the files were still there. 

Diablo Swing Orchestra's "Balrog Boogie"

The Residents: Our Finest Flowers '92

"This album is a rethought excursion into the twisted and depraved minds that spent twenty years creating a bunch of music -and then, for some reason, decided to spend another few months dissecting that very same music and gluing it together in strange new ways" -- from The Residents blog

"The Residents shunned the typical idea of a 20 year retrospective of greatest hits in favor of remixing their own material. This is cut and paste revisionism, with a melody line from one song, bass parts from another and lyrics from yet another. "Jungle Bunny", for example, meshes together the Snakefinger song, "Picnic in the Jungle" with "Monkey and Bunny" written by Renaldo & The Loaf, which brings out more humor. The song "Ship of Fools" takes apart "Ship's a Goin' Down" and places it underneath Mark of the Mole's "Worker's Hymn", switching over to  God in Three Persons for the chorus." -- from AMG

The Residents: Our Finest Flowers '92

part 1

part 2

Gone Again

The Sour Song

Six Amber Things

Mr. Lonely

Perfect Goat

Blue Tongues

Jungle Bunny

I'm Dreaming of a White Sailor

Or Maybe a Marine

Kick a Picnic

Dead Wood

Baby Sister

Forty-Four No More

He Also Serves

Ship of Fools

Be Kind to U-Web Footed Friends

The Residents: Freak Show Special Edition

Update: The Resident's announced they will be removing the Timmy series from UTube soon to make way for the Bunny series (more live dates have been added as well). For mac users, I've had good results with TubeTV.

The Residents enter another phase and this time it's using the cd format for multi-media. Both Freak Show and Bad Day on the Midway (which I don't have) contained interactive content, like a game, allowing those that bought the physical cd to interact with the characters. So just downloading the mp3's is missing half the content. I don't know if the cd's will still work with vista, but I've heard the mac version is still operational. 

This version is the special edition released to mark The Resident's 30th anniversary which included tracks from the live show. The animation was done by the late Jim Ludtke, creating another reason for owning the cd. 

"The Residents returned from the tour of Cube E feeling confused. Their self-exhibition as a dark and strange deformity of American culture had cast a shadow over their identity. They were a freak show. -- from The Resident's blog

The Residents: Freak Show Special Edition

part 1

part 2

Everyone Comes to the Freak Show

Harry's Introduction

Harry the Head

Herman Watches Tv (Mexican Porn)

Herman, the Human Mole

Wanda Does Her Act

Wanda, The Worm Woman

Jack Amuses the Crowd

Jack, The Boneless Boy

Benny Bounces

Benny, The Bouncing Bump

Micky, The Mumbling Midget

Lillie

Nobody Laughs When They Leave

(Live Show)

Everyone Comes to the Freak Show

Wanda

Mickey

Bridge

Herman

Harry

Jack

Benny

Wanda's Letter

Nobody Laughs When They Leave

Freak Show Remix (2001)

Benny Live - Icky Flix Tour (2001)

Harry the Head

Synergy

"Remember, at this time (1974-75) there were no personal computers as we know them. Apple Computer didn't exist yet; Microsoft was two hackers selling tiny BASIC code for other experimenters. Synthesizers were mostly analog and usually restricted to playing one note at a time (no chords). MIDI was years away. And digital recording was still pretty much a development lab project, though a few early classical recordings were being made on specialized equipment." -- Larry Fast

Synergy is Larry Fast and was my first exposure to electronic music. I'd compare Synergy with early Tangerine Dream, but I liked Synergy better. It's the type of music that makes great laser light shows. I used to play Synergy on long drives, everything would fall into synch and seemed surreal (naturally). Fast has been involved most of the electronic developments at some point. He's best known for his work with Peter Gabriel and Nektar. Synergy is a personal project, much like the way Steve Wilson uses his projects outside of Porcupine Tree. 

Fast has a good website with more information about equipment and links to interviews. www.eclipse.net/~synergy/introfaqs.html. There's also a page explaining why his earlier albums were out of print for so long. 

UPDATE: Computer Experiments Vol. 1 can be found here.

Synergy 75

Legacy

Slaughter on Tenth Avenue

Relay Breakdown

Warriors
Cords 78 (rematered 03)

On Presuming to be Modern

Phobos

Deimos

Sketches of Mythical Beast

Disruption in World Communications

On Presuming to be Modern II

Small Collection of Chords

Full Moon Flier

Terra Incognita

Trellis

Audion 81

Orbit Five

Revolt at L-5

Terminal Hotel

Electric Blue

Ancestors

After the Earthquake

Falcons and Eagles

Fight of the Looking Glass

Shibolet

An End to History

Q: "Do you see a corrosive effect on the arts at the waning of the patronage systems resulting in a forced resort to independentism, with the market deciding that Art exists only if its sales statistics say it does?

FAST: "Actually, I see the opposite. The internet has democratized music creation and distribution. The major labels and, for that matter, the corporate entertainment megastructure have seen sales steadily slide. Big albums and movies don't have the sales they once did, yet independent releases seem to be spreading the same aggregate sales totals across a much greater number of artists. That's very healthy."

A short film,"Ride" using the song Disruption in World Communication, from the Chords album.

A Brilliant Scam

I got scammed. There's a shopping cart application that looks like a rebate but clicking on it signs up for a $10 monthly membership. They get financial information from the retailer. If you ignore or send their confirming email to a junk filter, your in. You have to opt out. 

If you already have an account, like Amazon, Ebay, PayPal, U.S. Air, Expedia, FTD, JoAnne, TigerDirect, InPhonic, WalMart, Target, and other "trusted" safe sites, all you needed to do was click the ad "for more details" and you're signed up. No purchase was necessary. They design the ads to look like the original website. If you did realize it was a third party ad and quickly closed the page without checking the "no" box located somewhere, your in again. That's what got me. They are smooth. If I had to fall for something eventually, at least this wasn't too embarrassing. 

The company is Shopper's Discounts or Web Loyalty and has no legitimate business other than operating a call center for taking complaints that wouldn't exist if they weren't in business. Nice job. Their money is made entirely from people not checking their accounts monthly or being unsure of charges listed and doing nothing. Know of anyone like that? The good news is they will do refunds. You can read more here. 

There are millions of customer complaints everywhere, yet their "business" seems to growing, adding more and bigger retailers. Customer power just isn't what it used to.

Passport and Klaus Doldinger

Wikipedia just mentions Klaus Doldinger as a German saxophonist and composer, who had a successful band called Passport. There is no separate entry for Passport. That's such an understatement, it's comical or criminal. 

I thought of Passport while wondering whether music that's heard earlier in life affects musical taste later on. I don't know about that, but I do know when I first heard Passport, what I wanted to listen to after that dramatically changed. I still like their earlier work best and I think it's because they were oriented towards a rock influenced fusion jazz (think ELP and Wakeman). Passport tends to get progressively softer in the 80's (think Camel, Tom Scott), and then mellows out completely in the 90's (think Safeway).  Just the Hipnogsis covers made their albums worth owning. Some people might be more familiar with Doldinger's movie soundtracks for Das Boot and Neverending Story. 

I've replaced both Looking Thru and Cross-Collateral several times because I either wore them out or lost them in divorce. Wearing out an album is always a high honor, but loosing them in divorce was probably even more amazing since he was a die-hard Beatles fan. Only Harry Chapin had cracked into his sheltered musical world before. Who knew it was possible to not hear the word "ugh" right after the word "jazz" (think miracle). 

Anyway, Passport remains very underrated and overlooked. Everyone deserves to hear them, like shelter, food, medical care, and Passport. 

Second Passport 1972

Mandragora

Nexus

Fairy Tale

Get Yourself a Second Passport

Registration

Horizon Beyond

The Cat from Katmandu
Looking Thru 1973

Eternal Spiral

Looking Thru

Zwischenspiel

Rockport

Tarantula

Ready for Take Off

Eloquence

Things to Come
Cross-Collateral 1975

Jado

Albatros Song

Cross-Collateral

Homunculus 

Will-O'the-Wisp
Infinity Machine 1976

Ju-Ju Man

Morning Sun

Blue Aura

Infinity Machine

Ostinata

Contemplation

You can also find the soundtrack for Das Boot posted here and two versions of the soundtrack for Neverending Story here and here (I didn't test the files posted).

A very young Klaus Doldinger and Passport in '71, "Uranus"