A Record a Day.

[Horned Gramma]

Hi kids.

I'm not a blogger, but I do like to put words together. It is relaxing and reassuring to me to see my thoughts on the page or on the screen in carefully assembled sentences which, at least as they back through my eyes and into my brain, externalize more or less exactly what is a very internal process: listening and responding to music.

Basically what I'm saying is that this is more for my benefit than it is for yours, but since we're here talking about music and impatiently tapping our feet to the dreadfully sluggish beat of the Winter months that lead up to the Sasquatch! lineup announcement, this seems like as good a venue as any for this project: the succinctly titled Record a Day, courtesy of your very own Horned Gramma.

It'll be what it sounds like it'll be: each day(with some missed days, I'm sure), I'll spend an hour or so with one of the discs in my vast collection of marginalia and weirdo music and try to encapsulate an emotional response. I'll try to include links when I can to samples of some of the music.

Maybe you'll get turned on to some cool new stuff. Maybe I'll just sound like a bastard. It doesn't matter, like I said, this is for me.

Stay tuned or don't!

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***UPDATE***

This thread has become kind of massive, branching off several times into pages of tangential discussion. This is a message board, so of course that's great, that's what we do here. However, for the casual reader, you will find listed below a table of contents. If anyone ever has any questions about availability or where to find these records, please don't hesitate to send me a message. Enjoy!

A Record a Day - Table of Contents

PAGE ONE
Steve Burns - Songs for Dustmites

PAGE TWO
Optiganally Yours - Presents Exclusively Talentmaker!

Nanobot Auxiliary Ballet - The Nanobot Auxiliary Ballet and the Museum of Modern Insect Art With the Office of Woodland Security Present: TylenolandAdida the Deadly Ballerina, Featuring the Chillbot Slider, the Pushbuttonmaster, the WhiteHotFunkBot, and Maybe Dr. Idiotbot -- If It Can Make It

Alexis Gideon - Video Musics

The Residents - Duck Stab

PAGE THREE

The Philistines Jr. - If a Band Plays in the Woods...?

The Gerbils - The Battle of Electricity

Various Artists - Powerpuff Girls: Heroes and Villains

Self - Gizmodgery

Future Bible Heroes - Eternal Youth

Jonathan Coulton - Best. Concert. Ever.

PAGE FOUR

A Journey to Happiness Island

MC Honkey - I Am the Messiah

Dan Bern - Dan Bern

Snowglobe - Our Land Brains

The Residents - Cube E: The History of American Music in 3 E-Z Pieces

Gabby La La - Be Careful What You Wish For...

Clem Snide - End of Love

The Universe - The Outer Void Intrepid Sailor

PAGE FIVE

Chumbawamba - Un

The Residents - The Bunny Boy

PAGE SIX

The Books - Lost and Safe

PAGE SEVEN

Duplex - Ablum!

Crash Test Dummies - A Worm's Life

PAGE EIGHT

Elvis Perkins - Ash Wednesday

PAGE NINE

Harry Nilsson - The Point!

PAGE TEN

Brian Eno - Another Green World

PAGE ELEVEN

Brian Dewan - The Operating Theater

PAGE TWELVE

They Might Be Giants - Apollo 18

Human Highway - Moody Motorcycle

PAGE THIRTEEN

Golden Shoulders - Friendship is Deep

PAGE FOURTEEN

Ween - Pure Guava

Nice - Nice

Moxy Fruvous - Bargainville

PAGE FIFTEEN

Del Shannon - Runaway

PAGE NINETEEN

Komeda - What Makes It Go?

PAGE TWENTY

Crispin Hellion Glover - The Big Problem =/= The Solution. The Solution = Let It Be.

PAGE TWENTY-ONE

Various Artists - Dimension Mix: The Music of Bruce Haack & Esther Nelson

The Sugarplastic - Bang, The Earth is Round

eels - Electro-Shock Blues

PAGE TWENTY-TWO[/i]

The Residents - Demons Dance Alone

Various - The Late Great Daniel Johnston: Discovered Covered

[Horned Gramma]

10/29/10

Steve Burns - Songs for Dustmites



That this record exists at all is kind of funny. Explaining its pedigree to a person usually elicits the response you might get if you were to start a joke with 'A priest, a rabbi and a monk walked into a bar...'.

So Steve Burns, the original host of Blue's Clues on Nick Jr., decides to abandon a well-loved and high-profile gig on cable television in favor of recording a song cycle about a reluctant Superman with the help of one Steven Drozd - who we all know as the drummer for the Flaming Lips. Drozd convinces the Lips' producer - God of Clusterfuck Thunder Dave Fridmann - to produce the album, and then Steve stole the Big Comfy Chair from the set over at Nickelodeon, and the rest is history.

I bought this record from the sorely missed Music Millennium in Northwest Portland on the day it was released - which also happened to be the very first day I ever spent in Portland. I have a soft spot for novelty music that strives to be something bigger than itself, but I was particularly excited about this one: I'd been reading about it for more than a year, and I already regarded Steve as the most earnest and engaging children's show host since Fred Rogers. Also, at the time I was so apeshit in love with the Flaming Lips that the chocolate-and-peanut butter nature of 'Songs for Dustmites' was sure to appeal to me.

Of course, with Dave Fridmann at the boards, the album kicks into overdrive almost immediately with 'Mighty Little Man'. Steve Burns assumes the role of a man who accidentally imbues himself with superpowers in a laboratory accident. The song is big and loud, and with lines like "Nobody else is stronger than I am/Yesterday I moved a mountain/I bet I could be your hero/I am a mighty little man', it could almost sound like some Creed bullshit if you didn't get the feeling that the singer is being entirely literal.

What follows, surprisingly, isn't 40 minutes of amateur songwriting buried under the electronic patchouli that smothered every Lips album from 'The Soft Bulletin' until 'At War With the Mystics'. In fact, the quieter moments are the best: '>1' finds our Mighty Little Man wishing for simpler times, remembering building forts, playing with G.I. Joes and anticipating a future in which we'll live on the moon; for the percussion on this track, Steve mic'd the armrests of the big red patent leather chair from the Blue's Clues set and played them like a bongo. 'A Reason' sounds like a plea for sex with the ex, 'Stick Around' expands to include a surprisingly subtle, intricate string arrangement. The centerpiece of the record is 'A Song for Dustmites', a simple piano ballad about love on a microcosmic scale, which launches into the troposphere at the final chorus with a spine-shaking drum solo from Drozd. And just to make sure everyone who ever hears it has a chance to scratch their head and say What the Fuck, there's also a song about string theory.

Seven years ago, I spent six nights in the hostel in NW Portland, eating ecstasy and hardwiring this record to my brain. To me it's a record about smashing through the walls and entering a major new phase, and then realizing how incapable and scared you really are. The Mighty Little Man has his heart mishandled and decides that although he has the ability to save the world, the world doesn't deserve it. The stupid bitch.

[Pea]

i give it a week

[Horned Gramma]

You underestimate how much time I have on my hands.

[Pea]

haha maybe so!

[Friendly Destroyer]

This rules.

[topspin]

I like it but i would be more interested in your reviews of music we pick. let the suggestions roll.

[Snorlax]

Hahaha Hornedgramma didn't do a very good job at keeping this up..

[Pea]

no shit, i can't believe i even gave him a week

[know ID yuh]

I think it's great. Stick around, you'll learn a lot.

[Horned Gramma]

Hey gang.

My cat spilled Jubelale on my Macbook. I wont be around fer a couple weeks. I'll pick this up again as soon as I figure out what the fuck I'm gonna do about that.

Miss me!

[topspin]

KnowIdYuh , you should delete the last two words of this threads title.

[interstateeight]

Nov 1, 2010 19:19:03 GMT -8 Horned Gramma said:

Hey gang.

My cat spilled Jubelale on my Macbook. I wont be around fer a couple weeks. I'll pick this up again as soon as I figure out what the fuck I'm gonna do about that.

Miss me!

I spilled coffee on my Macbook a few weeks ago. One of the worst experiences of my life.

[know ID yuh]

Nov 5, 2010 19:24:28 GMT -8 topspin said:

KnowIdYuh , you should delete the last two words of this threads title.

Nice. I laughed out loud a couple times reading that post. Good work topspin.

I will defend gramma though. He is somewhat entertaining. When he gets his computer situation situated, this will still be one of the more interesting and educational threads on any board. I imagine typing through a PS3 is much like texting, so don't expect anything more than one line responses from him anytime soon.

[Horned Gramma]

So, I8... Did your Macbook come back to life or did it cost you a thousand bucks?

[Horned Gramma]

11/9/10

Optiganally Yours - Presents Exclusively Talentmaker!



The discography of the ubiquitous Mr. Rob Crow is overwhelming to say the least. I'm sure you've all got at least one Pinback record in your collection, and if that appealed to you it is possible that you sought out a Heavy Vegetable or Thingy record. Dig any deeper than that, and you find yourself needing an unreasonable amount of disposable income to keep up with the guy. With albums from The Ladies, Goblin Cock, Aspects of Physics, as well as a handful of solo records, you REALLY need to dig Rob Crow to have dug deep enough to have found one of my all-time favorite records: Exclusively Talentmaker!

Optiganally Yours is the project of Rob Crow and one Mr. Pea Hix, initially formed as strictly a cover band, performing old standards and pop tunes on the Optigan. The Optigan - or 'optical organ' - was produced in the late 60's and early 70's by Mattel, and was a keyboard-based instrument that reproduced pre-recorded sounds using an optical disc. It was kind of like an early contemporary of your standard synthesizer.

'Exclusively Talentmaker' is OY's second album, and it takes its name from the fact that it was recorded using - you guessed it - a Talentmaker (an off-brand cousin of the Optigan). Exclusively. If it sounds particularly lo-fi, it's because aside from the acoustic guitar that was super-glued to Rob's chest when he was fourteen, the only other instrument is built around outdated technology that disappeared thirty years ago.

At the age of 21, this record cast me into the life of a career stoner by introducing me to the immense power of stereo sound. Sitting in a Dodge Shadow behind the mall in Provo, Utah and smoking a joint while listening to the directional effects used in 'Figaro' honestly, literally changed the way I listen to music forever. The correct separation of sound sources suddenly became an obsession. Adequate sound-cancelling headphones became a permanent accessory.

'Figaro' is a subtle masterpiece of studio engineering, but the butt-shaking shuffle of 'Gepetto' is the real highlight (and before you ask, no, I don't understand why this album seems to be explicitly about the story of Pinocchio half the time). The wooden boy's heartbroken father follows his escaped creation to the ends of the earth only to be swallowed whole by a whale, about which the old guy couldn't be happier: "No one can find me in here/No one can follow me in here/No one even knows that I'm here/No one can shove me in here/And I can cha-cha all day..."

Let it be known that 'Gepetto' is the ONLY song in the world that forces me to dance every time it is played.

What I love about Exclusively Talentmaker, and what sets it apart, is the sound palate: at first it sounds so flat and antiquated, which creates interesting contrast to the stoner metal and bargain bin prog that runs through Rob Crow's veins. It's a combination of sounds and textures that is unlike any other record I know - not even the first Optiganally Yours record. Pea keeps the Talentmaker chugging along like a turn-of-the-century steam train while Rob sings - with an equally straight face - about hunting for spare change to buy stale doughnuts at 3:00am, or having his hair cut into a mullet in the middle of the night by the mysterious Poodleman, or drowning in the ocean...

These songs are like those mind-bending, thirty second Bill Plympton cartoons that would come on in the middle of the night on MTV. They are too strange to be silly, they are too perfectly crafted to be throwaways. And they are too great to have been lost in the miasma of college rock that came out before the internet was a thing that could give this record it's due.

[Pea]

Cool song, totally sounds like something off Tom Waits' "Bone Machine."

[Pea]

...sans the vocal style of course.

[Horned Gramma]

11/10/10

Nanobot Auxiliary Ballet - The Nanobot Auxiliary Ballet and the Museum of Modern Insect Art With the Office of Woodland Security Present: TylenolandAdida the Deadly Ballerina, Featuring the Chillbot Slider, the Pushbuttonmaster, the WhiteHotFunkBot, and Maybe Dr. Idiotbot -- If It Can Make It



Admit you're curious about this one. That's a title that you kind of have to live up to. Fortunately for the spazzes invovled with the Nanobot Auxiliary Ballet, delivering on the promise of something called 'The WhiteHotFunkBot' seems almost effortless.

I don't pretend to know much about the riot grrl sound that represents the bare bones of the songs on this record, but my wife is really big on yer Le Tigre and yer Bikini Kill so I know that with an 808 and a Moog, 'Feminist Sweepstakes' MIGHT have sounded something like this record. The two of us fell in love with it at the same time; one of the first records we jointly absorbed (no pun intended) as a new couple.

This shit is intensely over-caffeinated. It really does sound like the soundtrack to the weird dream of some machine, or network of machines, but the NAB promises that this is music 'played by hands' -- these are all analog synths and actual guitars. Knobs twiddled, frequencies modulated in realtime, melodies purposefully skullfucked by human beings.

I found this record on CD while working at the Borders bookstore in Beaverton, Oregon and I totally flipped for it. How could I not, with that COOL Etch-A-Sketch artwork and a paragraph-long title that doesn't hamstring the record before a single note is played (When the Pawn...). A couple months later, at the blowout sale that marked the demise of the fantastic Ozone Records on W. Burnside, I found a copy on vinyl: a picture disk, an image of which you can see above. It is kind of the ultimate argument for physical media, it's such a beautiful thing.

I'm spinning that thing as I sit writing this and honestly it is kind of hard to form coherent thoughts. For one thing, it's 9:30am and these are get-up-and-dance-NOW rhythms. For another, much like Wayne warns in the liner notes of 'Zaireeka', there are pitches in this music much higher and lower than you might be used to hearing in music and it jams my signals a little bit. Fortunately, neither this album nor 'Zaireeka' ever caused me to experience nausea or blackouts, but there's definitely something kind of thrilling about music that can affect you physiologically like that.

The individual tracks maintain a consistent tone, and the album itself isn't terribly long. Designating a highlight would be like trying to pick your favorite part of a waterslide, although the patient boogie of 'Stop Start' always makes me check to see if I'm able to turn the volume up any further. This is definitely music to blow your speakers to.

Who the hell knows what happened to these people. They're one of those little crews who put out a fantastic record and then disappeared, probably into a bank job or a car crash or a baby. However, if the one Nanobot Auxiliary Ballet record we DO have isn't a complete mission statement, then I really don't know what is.

www.ilike.com/artist/Nanobot+Auxiliary+Ballet

[Horned Gramma]

I know my wife is a lurker on this board, btw. Hi pand!