The Barclay Stars - Guitars Unlimited

Outside Art - Nashboro Country - Live Music

KHJ Boss Goldens

In memory of the out of sight twin radio towers that came down in Los Angeles to make way for a less boss future.

LISTEN to the Ahmad Jamal Quintet

Urban Sprawl & All That Jazz

Jackie Wilson - Lonely Teardrops

The Soul of Ike & Tina Turner

Skull A Tone

Outside Art - Albert King & Carl Perkins

Outside Art - Muddy Waters

Attention Listeners!

Cool little image, isn't it? I got this off an old library LP, the likes of which are encased in heavy duty plastic with the album sleeve in one pocket and the actual record in another pocket. I don't have too many of these so it was probably from the soundtrack to The Party, or You Are What You Eat, or Andy Kirk and the Clouds of Joy. Who knows? Hard to believe you'd want to exercise caution when playing mono/stereo records. Granted, I will only play 78's on a particular turntable because I'm afraid of the vinyl blowing out my needle. Rough and tumble are those heavy discs. Delicate plates of musical morsels covered with grime. Snap, crackle, pop.

Halloween 2006: Volume Three and more!!!

Had a great time tonight at Doc Gangrene's birthday bash with good friends, food and undead music! The heated volleyball match was scary. Tried a pumpkin brew of John's which was yummy. Thank you again, sir.

So, this was round one of handing out the Halloween comps. If you didn't get one and would like one, we're going to be doing a round two so get your request in now.

Here's the cover and contents for Volume Three. Personally, this is probably my favorite with the range stretching from early Kate Bush (Anastasia's current passion) to the sad fate of poor Frederick in The Tiger Lillies cabaret song to the skeletal ska rhythms of The Specials. Again, enjoy!

PS: My dad wrote the last song on this CD back in the 1960's around the same time he had a top ten hit with "Day for Decision". I like this one better.



1. Kate Bush – Hammer Horror
2. Les Paul – Bewitched
3. Les Baxter – Terror
4. Combustible Edison – Carnival of Souls
5. Band of Bees – These Are the Ghosts
6. Swamp Zombies – Unemployed
7. Ike & Tina Turner – Mojo Queen
8. Roger & The Gypsies – Pass the Hatchet
9. Screamin’ Jay Hawkins – Little Demon
10. Gene Vincent – Race With the Devil
11. LaVern Baker – Voodoo Voodoo
12. Jackie Morningstar – Rockin’ In the Graveyard
13. Blind Lemon Jefferson – See That My Grave Is Kept Clean
14. The Tiger Lillies – The Story of Cruel Frederick
15. Hank Thompson – Drivin’ Nails In My Coffin
16. Half Japanese – Kiss Of the Vampire
17. Steady Earnest – Vampires
18. The Ventures – Fear
19. Talking Heads – Psycho Killer
20. The Clash – The City Of the Dead
21. The Specials – Ghost Town
22. The Residents – The Electrocutioner
23. Marc Ribot – Witches And Devils
24. Jimmy Rodgers – The Bell Witch

Avante Garde Mix Tape

Before the advent of CD-R mixes and Ipod, there was a great subculture known as the mix tape. I used to pride myself on the ones I would make, laboriously slaving till the wee hours of the morn. One of the earliest influences on me for the mix tape was this cool comic trade paperback called Mad Peck Studios: A Twenty Year Retrospective by the Mad Peck. A huge section of the book detailed the musical obsessions of two female superheroes, The Masked Marvel and I. C. Lotz. Basically The Mad Peck used his two heroines to write record reviews which were published in Fusion, Creem, The Village Voice, and later, Spin. What made the book really cool were all the detailed mix tapes that they had published along various themes, with song title, artist, label and running time so you could create a perfect mix tape as well. It was a mixtape manifesto. Recently one of the members of Sonic Youth published a book about mix tapes, but it was more from the perspective of designing their look.

So, with my CD player currently on the fritz in the car, I grabbed a few moldy tapes out of a box to listen to yesterday. Strangely, I can carbon date many of my tapes by what brand they are. Blue Kmart tapes are the earliest that I used to buy and were used to tape Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the Star Wars radio dramatization, and this cool Beatles radio documentary where they played every song off every album with some sort of commentary or associated audio clip. Denon tapes date back to when I worked at Cat’s Records and we had a promo on them. Black Maxell tapes date to the late 80’s and early 90’s when I worked at Tower Records and was getting mucho swag from the Maxell rep. And clear Maxell tapes date from the mid-late 90’s to the early 21st Century. The first tape I grabbed was an old Denon. Sadly, it’s life expectancy had come to an end. The wheels on the tape went round and round but the tape didn’t.

OK, tape number two (a black Maxell) was slammed in. Most of my tapes were pretty normal, a compilation of whatever I was into at the moment. A great example was when I had bought a bunch of really cheap 45’s at Phonolux, so I just comp’d them all together into one big scratchy collection. Generally there were musical smash-ups of two genres which wouldn’t normally go together but which always kept my ear interested. And there were the straight theme tapes like the Balvenie Surf Mix tape which I made one night while drinking single malts. But this tape was different. This one stands apart from everything else I ever did and I had completely forgotten about it.

The tape starts off with Screamin’ Jay Hawkins off the Feast of the Mau Mau album. But not a whole song. No, instead I took grunts, groans, and screams and the occasional verse from the whole album and edited it down to a 2 or 3 minute sound collage. I’m not sure why. It is kinda cool in Cliff Notes way or as a bizarre commercial for what to expect from the Wild Man of Rock and Roll.

The majority of the tape consists of Southern Rock guitar solos from all the greats: “Ramblin’ Man”, “If You Wanna Get to Heaven”, “Free Bird”, “Highway Song”, “Champagne Jam”, “Bell Bottom Blues”, and many others. But remember, these aren’t the songs, these are only the guitar SOLOS! They’re mashed together in a sometimes sloppy but sometimes brilliant editing scheme that eliminates all the pesky mushy love lyrics and jingoistic anthems. And it lasts almost 30 minutes! I have no idea why I did this. In a “Name That Tune” way, it works. In an extended guitar solo that never seems to end kind of way, it almost works. In fact, I would almost love to try recreate it now with digital technology. The rest of the tape is more traditional with three instrumental songs from Tom Waits.

So, what kind of story do you have about mix tapes?

Halloween 2006 - Garage Mix

Frankly I was inspired by John's enthusiasm for creating his mammoth collection of songs celebrating Halloween. So, I've spent the last two nights compiling a number of CDs and then burning the first of two discs which am I happy to share. Here's the contents of Disc Number One!


1. Blue Oyster Cult - (Don't Fear) The Reaper

2. Unnatural Axe - They Saved Hitler's Brain

3. The Germs - Lexicon Devil

4. Total Coelo - I Eat Cannibals (Part One)

5. October Country - My Girlfriend Is A Witch

6. Stone By Stone W/Chris D. - I Pass For Human

7. Slayer - Necrophiliac

8. Deuce Coupes - Satan's Chariot

9. Albert King - Born Under A Bad Sign

10. Eddie Kirk - Them Bones

11. Honeyboy - Bloodstains On The Wall

12. Johnny Fuller - Haunted House

13. The Nomads - Where The Wolf Bane Blooms

14. Quincy Jones - Superstition

15. The Cherry Valance - Two Headed Woman

16. Gas Huffer - Ghost In The Lighthouse

17. Man Or Astroman? - Electrostatic Brain Field

18. Dragula - The Maltese Martian

19. The Makers - Death Of Mr. Monster

20. Crystalites - Undertaker's Burial

21. Bob McFadden & Dor - The Mummy

22. Laika & The Cosmonauts - Psycko

23. The Sonics - Psycho

24. Famous Monsters - Blood Of Frankenstein

25. Sugar Shack - My Girl The Vampire

26. Tarantuala Ghoul & The Gravediggers - King Kong

27. Jan Davis - Watusi Zombie

28. Duplex Planet - Thats Halloween!

A great compiliation by my standards and done on a very impulsive whim. Volume Two is promising to lean a bit more towards Brit Goth, but we'll see (or hear) soon enough

Long Dark Teatime of the Soundtrack

Douglas Adams first entered my life on June 14, 1981 by way of WPLN and the radio version of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. For the next several weeks I began my first attempts at skipping church in order to record the newest installment. Soon thereafter I bought the first book in hardcover and not much later than that I began signing my English papers as Zaphod Beeblebrox (in response to my friend’s new appellation, Bungalow Bill). Over the next few years I would tape the TV series off WDCN and read the other fine books in the series. You could say I was a fan. Not obsessive, but interested. However, it wouldn’t be until last year that I would learn a deep dark secret of the Guide.

The Eagles recorded the theme song!

Pause with me for a moment. Perhaps you knew this. I didn’t. Those inglorious California milquetoast country rockers, The Eagles, recorded a piece of music which brought tears to my eyes when I saw the movie theatrically because I had so much emotional baggage tied up in it. The Eagles. Honestly, I don’t have anything against them. I’ve even owned both of their Greatest Hits collections a long time ago (but no more).

So, with scientific interest in mind, I have been searching for The Eagles album One of These Nights which contains the song “Journey of the Sorcerer”. My search finally ended yesterday at The Great Escape with a cheap $4 LP purchase. And yes, that’s the song alright. Not your typical Eagles number as there is no harmonious singing or squealing guitar solos, just a banjo and an orchestra. It’s a great number, written by Bernie Leadon, who is not generally regarded as a heavy hitter within the group (that would be Mssrs. Frey, Henley, Felder and later Walsh). “Sorcerer” has a vaguely spacey feeling to it, but only in that early 70’s jam band kind of way where the drugs are just kicking in and you feel like your flying man, just waving that freak flag like you don’t care and to hell with the man!!!

So why was this song chosen? Let us refer to Wikipedia:

The theme tune used for the radio, television, LP and film versions is "Journey of the Sorcerer," an instrumental piece composed by Bernie Leadon and recorded by The Eagles on their album One of These Nights. Only the transmitted radio series used the original recording; a soundalike cover by Tim Souster was used for the LP and TV series, another arrangement by Joby Talbot was used for the 2005 film, and still another arrangement, this time by Philip Pope, was recorded to be released with the CDs of the last three radio series. Apparently, Adams chose this song for its futuristic sounding nature, but also for the fact that it had a banjo in it, which, as Geoffrey Perkins recalls, Adams said would give it an "on the road, hitch-hiking feel.”

Well, there you have it. Douglas Adams used to listen to The Eagles. Next thing you know they’ll claim that Doctorin’ The Tardis by The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu a.k.a. The Timelords were inspired by Gary Glitter and Sweet.