"I WANT TO PLAY ON THAT GAYWAY..." - POSTCARD RECORDS FROM THE 1962 SEATTLE WORLD'S FAIR

"It's a postcard!"
"No, it's not. It's a record! Lemme play it"
"No, it's a postcard! I wanna mail it!"
(removing pipe:)
"Hold on kids, you're both right - these 6 postcards we bought at the World's Fair can also be enjoyed on any record-player."
"Gee, dad, that's swell!"
(Dad goes back to his pipe, nodding and smiling)

Despite the ridiculous amount of music I have, I'm not really a "collector." I'm more like a bottom-feeder, buying the stuff no-one else wants. But, while visiting Seattle some years back, I really did have to pry open my wallet and shell out $50 or so for these lovely postcard/records. It was so worth it - all six were in mint condition, never played, and they look and sound great. The artists were probably Seattle locals. I found some info on The Frantics and Frank Sugia, but as for the others, they apparently never made the national scene, or even other recordings.

This fascinating article describes some of the literally hundreds of songs written about the Space Age extravaganza known as the "Century 21" World's Fair of 1962, but I couldn't find many. Two, to be exact, included here as bonus tracks, courtesy of the "I'm Learning To Share" and "Beware of the Blog" blogs. I've also added a song from the soundtrack to an Elvis film shot on location at the fair. (Of course, strange music fans know and love Attilio Mineo's "Man In Space With Sounds" LP, but many other blogs have already posted it.) So this is all I got so far, but it is, to quote Joe Juma, "an acme of delight."

Seattle World's Fair 1962 (file includes picture/label scans)















01 "Invitation To The Fair" - Joe Juma (a country stomper)
02 "World's Fair Seattle" - Billy Earles (Man, dig this finger-snappin' lounge crooner)
03 "Summer of '62 - Ronnie Draper and the Fordomatics (frantic banjo-driven hoedown with those white-bread folk-revival vocal harmonies)
04 "Cafe in The Sky" - Kelly Gates (Space-Age organ sounds? Now we're talkin'!)
05 "Gayway Twist" - the Frantics (this rock'n'roller is an instrumental, which, considering the title, is perhaps just as well)
06 "Come and See Seattle" - Frank Sugia Trio & Naomi (an accordion waltz for the Lawrence Welk crowd - Sugia seems to have had a fairly successful musical career, releasing an album in 1967)

bonus tracks:
Elvis Presley - "Take Me To The Fair"
Joy and the Boys - "Meet Me In Seattle"
The Lancers - "See You In Seattle"

Manic Hispanic

I love Manic Hispanic, and their Chicano parodies of punk rock classics, a la El Vez and his Mexican-ized take on Elvis. But then again, I grew up in Los Angeles surrounded by Mexican American culture. And I grew up on punk rock (some of these guys played in crucial SoCal hardcore bands like Agent Orange and the Adolescents.) So I get the jokes. You may not. But, if nothing else, this rocks, and musical pleasures are good enough.



Manic Hispanic "The Recline of Mexican Civilization" (2001)



1. Alberto's [Descendents "Der Wienerschnitzel"]

2. Mexican Tar [Johnny Thunders/Ramones "Chinese Rock"]

3. Get Them Immigrated [The Offspring "Come Out and Play"] - nice mariachi horns!

4. Uncle Chato's Garden [Bad Religion "My Atomic Garden"]

5. Brown Man in O.C. Jail [The Clash "White man in Hammersmith Palais"]

6. If the Vatos Are United [Sham 69 "If The Kids Are United"]

7. Mommy's Little Cholo [Social Distortion "Mommy's Little Monster"]

8. Bored With You Esse [The Clash "I'm So Bored With The USA"]

9. Rudy Cholo [Rancid "Ruby Soho"]

10. Lynch the Landlord [Dead Kennedys "Let's Lynch the Landlord"]

11. Brown Girl [X "White Girl"]

12. Tijuana Must Fall [Catholic Discipline "Babylon Must Fall"]

Pop Music Icons

Pop music is usually comprised of happy, upbeat rhythms with simple melodies and lyrics that relate to love, relationships, sex and dancing. It is not a genre that is meant to bring deep and serious world issues to the fore, nor is it meant to invoke introspection and reflection. It's there simply to bop around to, and join in the rousing chorus at the top of your lungs. Its feel good music, designed for fun and lighthearted entertainment.

Unlike other music genres such as rock and hip hop, where the songs are often written by the artists themselves, pop songs are usually written by professional songwriters. In order to generate as much exposure as possible, artists create music videos and stage extravagant live performances to attract media interest. Music videos are particularly important as they can enjoy international commercial success and thus reach an extremely wide audience. This has made pop, arguably the world's biggest music genre.

"Popular music" has been around since the 50s, with people such as Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley falling into the category. Pop music, as most of us know it, really came into its own in the 80s with the rise of artists such as Michael Jackson and Madonna.

Famous Rock Music Artists and Their Histories

What few people realize is that most musical talents get their start in classical music and by working with traditional instruments. Some of these instruments include pianos, violas and other such instruments from the baroque era and other time periods. Many musical performers in the modern era transition from piano and classical music to more popular genres such as rock and classic rock. Many people learn to work on the piano initially, and they can use piano benches, a piano bench, or a sheet music cabinet to learn their trade and become better at their jobs. One of the more popular genres in modern music is rock, and amongst that subset there are tons of famous musicians and people who have made their mark on the world of modern music. In the upcoming paragraphs some of the more famous rock acts of the modern era will be discussed and some bands who have done an excellent job of becoming famous and making a name for themselves in modern rock.

One of the more famous rock bands of the modern era is Green Day. Green Day is from Oakland, California and has produced a lot of brilliant music that has reached a global audience. One of their more popular and famous albums is called American Idiot, which was also possibly their most famous album and produced numerous number one hits in the American pop charts. The album that really set the band apart from other groups was called Dookie, which was the group's debut album that really brought them to fame and made them stand out from all the other punk bands that are around in the modern music scene. The band's most recent album is called 21st Century Breakdown and is apparently themed around the pitfalls of modern American society and the problems that exist in the country.

The Invented Thing Quartet

"Invented Thing Quartet...play a variety of junk, cast off and hand-me-down derived , homely, home-made instruments, noise makers, toys, tools and appliances, (with an occasional standard instrument thrown in now and then)...The band explores, interprets and performs original and cover melodies, tunes, songs, poems, stories, course thesis's, drawings, compositions, recipes and summonses on instruments which include the Lid, Plexolyn, 40-Love, Cyclodrone, Merlenspiel, Harpbladder, Tabla, Rake, Adriolian, Blender, Bad Thing, Calimba, Alligator, Short Wave, The Hinge. Various forms of ITQ have appeared at clubs, colleges, institutions, parks, museums, town halls, homes and galleries, lawns and gardens." Tho I don't know if they play anywhere outside of their native Massachusetts - I would imagine that the visual aspect of their shows must be pretty impressive.



Highlights: a devolved version of "Louie Louie" not unlike "Third Reich 'n Roll"-era Residents, and a hillbilly hoedown version (with Space Age sounds effects) of Laurie Anderson's "O Superman."



Lowlights: lo-fi sound (it's recorded live), but don't let that deter you from listening to these imaginative loonies.



The Invented Thing Quartet - "10 Years"



More info on some of their home-made instruments HERE.

Best Guitar Scale For Rock Music

The best guitar scale to learn if you are into Rock music is the Pentatonic scale. The Pentatonic scale is also used in many other types of popular music, like Blues for example.

The Pentatonic scale has 5 notes that create 5 patterns that connect across the entire fretboard. These 5 patterns get their names from the notes that are in the scale... Root, 2nd, 3rd, 5th and 6th. Also, just by adding a few notes, you can create all of your other scales just by using this one pattern. You start off by using the Pentatonic to visualize your scales and then you add a note or two and you can play over top of any chords.

Here is the Pentatonic scale 6th shape that you will want to memorize first:

Before They Were Rap Stars

Here's a second volume of Before They Were Stars, this time putting the spotlight on the first-ever (and sometimes highly-unlikely) recordings from future hip-hop stars: A pre-annoying Black-Eyed Peas! A pre-rap Beastie Boys sounding like The Germs! Ice Cube sounding like The Beastie Boys! Chuck D sounding like Kurtis Blow! RZA and GZA from Wu Tang sounding like Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince!



Before They Were Rap Stars



1 Beastie Boys - Beastie Boys [1982]

2 Ice-T - The Coldest Rap [1982]

3 Spectrum City [aka Public Enemy] - Check Out The Radio [1984]

4 World Class Wreckin' Crew [w/Dr Dre] - Surgery [1985]

5 The C.I.A. [w/Ice Cube] - My Posse [1987]

6 Onyx - Ah And We Do It Like This [1990]

7 Prince Rakeem [aka RZA] - Ooh We Love You Rakeem [1991]

8 The Genius [aka GZA] - Those Were the Days [1991]

9 A.T.B.A.N. Klann [aka BlackEyed Peas] - Puddles Of H2O [1992]

Kitschstortion

Didn't know what a Vocaloid was 'til I was sent this excellent album, but apparently it's music software that uses actual pre-recorded human voices to sing whatever you program it to sing. Which is, in this case, a festival of sentimental '50s/'60s easy-listening and soundtrack classics. It's all "sung" without instrumental accompaniment, but I wouldn't exactly call it acapella music - the voices get chopped and glitchy. The sweetness of these old songs, however, lends a real warmth that is sometimes lacking in experimental electronica. Really wonderful stuff that sounds like nothing I've heard before - Space Age pop for a happy family of robots.



It's by Kitschstortion, the chap who sent us those rare North Korean albums that we posted earlier this year. You can listen to it streaming or download it HERE. Or just grab it here:



Kitschstortion "Vague Serenade"



A. HAPPY ORGAN, B. PERRY MASON THEME, C. POPSICLES, ICICLES, D. DIAGNOSIS MURDER THEME, E. A TASTE OF HONEY, F. THEME FROM A SUMMER PLACE, G. TELSTAR, H. ZING WENT THE STRINGS OF MY HEART, I. CLASSICAL GAS, J. POIROT THEME, K. TWILIGHT ZONE THEME, L. SPANISH FLEA

Before They Were Stars!!

A 14-year-old Björk! Billy Joel goes heavy metal ! Tori Amos goes big hair '80s! Debbie Harry of Blondie in a '60s hippie band that should have been called "Bland-ie"! Nick Lowe rips off The Who! Neil Young and that superfreak Rick James in the same band!



It's all strange-but-true, some of it awful, some surprisingly great. Hey, you gotta start somewhere...



Before They Were Stars (A MusicForManiacs Collection)



01 Tony Sheridan [w/"The Beat Brothers": John Lennon, George Harrison, Paul McCartney] - Sweet Georgia Brown [1961]

02 Rory Storm & The Hurricanes [w/Ringo Starr] - America [1963]

03 Arthur Lee and the LAGs [pre-Love] - The Ninth Wave [1963]

04 The Primitives [Lou Reed] - The Ostrich [1964]

05 The Wailers [w/Bob Marley, Peter Tosh] - simmer down [1965]

06 Bluesology [w/Elton John] - Come Back Baby [1965]

07 Shotgun Express [w/Rod Stewart-Mick Fleetwood] - I could feel the whole world turn round [1966]

08 The Mynah Byrds [w/Neil Young, Rick James] - Go On And Cry [1966]

09 The Spiders [Alice Cooper] - Don't Blow Your Mind [1966]

10 John's Children [w/Marc Bolan] - Desdemona [1967]

11 Wind In The Willows [w/Debbie Harry] - Djini Judy [1968]

12 Flaming Youth [w/Phil Collins] - Changes [1969]

13 Attila [w/Billy Joel] - Rollin' Home [1970]

14 Fraternity [w/Bon Scott] - Jupiter's Landscape [1971]

15 Brinsley Schwarz [w/Nick Lowe] - (What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace Love & Understanding [1974]

16 Kilburn & the High Roads [w/Ian Dury & some Blockheads] - Rough Kids [1974]

17 Hawkwind [w/Lemmy Kilmester] - Motorhead [1975]

18 The 101ers [w/Joe Strummer] - Letsagetabitarockin' [1975]

19 Björk - Alta Mira [1977]

20 The Nipple Erectors [w/Shane MacGowan] - So Pissed Off [1978]

21 The Coachmen [w/Thurston Moore] - Thurston's Song [1979]

22 Boys Next Door [Nick Cave & the Birthday Party] - Dive Position [1979]

23 Bruce Woolley And The Camera Club [w/Thomas Dolby, The Buggles] - Video Killed The Radio Star [1979]

24 Material [w/Whitney Houston] - Memories [1982]

25 Y Kant Tori Read [w/Tori Amos] - The Big Picture [1988]

IDIOTS

*sigh*



Got this email this morning, re: CCC's "Cracked Pepper" mashup album that I posted last week:

Blogger has been notified, according to the terms of the Digital Millennium Copyright

Act (DMCA), that certain content in your blog is alleged to infringe upon the

copyrights of others. As a result, we have reset the post(s) to "draft" status.

(If we did not do so, we would be subject to a claim of copyright infringement,

regardless of its merits...You may edit the post to remove the offending content

and republish, at which point the post in question will be visible to your readers

again.  



Blah blah blah, etc. etc.  As I wrote in my original post: You're not gonna find too many mashup albums better than

this 2007 release by the UK's CCC (aka   Chris Shaw) and his helper-pal Ill Chemist.  Don't know Mr. Chemist,   but

CCC is a true mash-master.  This release is a follow-up to his   tackling the entire "Revolver" album, and is worth a

listen even for   those (like me) who are long tired of hearing any more from those   mop-tops from Liverpool.

On a technical level, it's well produced,   on-time and in-key even as some tracks juggle as many as 10 songs in

one   track.  More importantly, imaginative touches abound: how did I never   notice that Lennon swiped the

melody of "For The Benefit For Mr. Kite"   from his earlier "It's Only Love"?  Well spotted, sirs.



Weirdly enough, before his mashup career, CCC started the Monkeyman superhero hoax. 



And if you want the album (I'M NOT HOSTING IT, NEVER DID) it's easy enough to just search for "mediafire" + "ccc

ill chemist cracked pepper," so I don't know what all this nonsense accomplishes.  Sorry, all of your original

comments are gone. 

Rock Music Festivals - 5 Getting Ready Tips

So, you've decided on a rock music festival that you'd like to attend? How do you know if you're fully prepared to make the most of it? Here's the inside scoop on what you need to know to be prepared and have an awesome time:

1. Get directions. Make sure you know where is the festival grounds are located. Plan your route and determine how long it's going to take you to get there. Learn when the gates open, so you can time your arrival for ease of parking and grabbing your favorite band viewing location.

2. Accommodations. Where are you going to stay? Many rock music festivals provide convenient camp ground facilities, but you shouldn't just expect to show up and get a site. If you want to camp, verify that they have tent camping and/or if your size of camper will fit in the sites they have available. Whether you're planning on camping or staying at an area hotel, make sure to get your reservation made well in advance, or you may be out of luck!

Rock Music Fiction

Looking for something different to read? Tired of the same old chick-lit, thrillers, romances, and teen vampire books? If you're like most people you listen to rock music-on the radio, on CDs, and at concerts. Believe it or not, there is a growing genre of fiction devoted to rock music and rock musicians.

They aren't all just about sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll (although a generous sprinkling of these ingredients doesn't hurt!). Many rock music novels strive to capture something about the creative process, the everyday life of a musician, or the impact that rock music has on listeners. Here are a few choice examples of works of fiction that are based in the punk, pop, heavy metal, or rock genre.

The Best in Rock Fiction (June Sawyers and Anthony DeCurtis, editors. Hal Leonard, 2004). This engrossing collection features short stories including T. C. Boyle's "All Shook Up" and Tom Piazza's "Burn Me Up," plus more than a dozen excerpts from published novels. Authors include Nick Hornby, William Gibson, Sherman Alexie (with an excerpt from Reservation Blues), Don DeLillo, Madison Smartt Bell, Jeffrey Eugenides, Rick Moody, and Scott Spencer. In "Ground Beneath Her Feet," Salman Rushdie explores the Orpheus and Eurydice myth in a rock 'n roll context.

THE VILLAGE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES

Sometimes even I wonder why I so obsessively write this blog, week in and week out, year in and year out. I'll tell ya why: it's because of albums like this. The universe (or at least the recorded music of planet Earth section of it) continues to astound and delight me, and I just have to spread the word.

Yes Virginia, there really was a 1979 album by a group of Philippino men singing and acting like the Village People. Sung mostly in Tagalog, it features sumptuous full-on orchestrated disco music, a buncha guys in various uniforms singing in unison, campy humor, and non-stop party-time energy. The first song at six minutes long had me a bit fatigued and I was wondering if I should bother with the rest of it, but I did and I'm glad. The fact that a record this ridiculous even exists makes the world a happier place.

Hagibis "Katawan"

The song "Legs" seems to feature vocals from Donald Duck. And dig that poppin' bass on "Nanggigigil."