OK, ok.... so it's the curse of being too busy.... which is a good thing right? Instead of visiting us here, please come and friend us on FACEBOOK where we post news about current work, show finished spots we've scored, and perhaps post a link or two to a cuddly kitty video. See you there!
Nothing like a musical instrument than can scald you if played incorrectly! Just came across this video (I believe shot by the multi-talented Michael Galinsky) of a steam powered organ. The caption says, "Every year on New Year's Eve Pratt breaks out the steam organ and creates a cacophony for the community. This year on Dec 11th they broke it out of storage to work out the kinks. Kids were just getting out of Saturday Art classes and went nuts in the steam". Hot (pun fully intended)!
Sheb Wooley has found his way into your head many many ways over the period of his life and beyond it.
Wooley appeared in dozens of western films and in western TV shows in the 1950s through the 1970s, most notably High Noon, The Adventures of Kit Carson, The Cisco Kid, and Rawhide.
He taught his 2nd cousin Roger Miller to play guitar chords, and purchasing him a fiddle.
He wrote the theme song for the long-running television show Hee Haw.
He was a regular on Hee Haw and The Muppet Show as the drunken country songwriter Ben Colder. He released music and performed as Ben Colder as well as under his own name.
His most famous act was his penning and recording of the novelty sound "Purple People Eater".
And perhaps even more burned into our pop culture is Wooley's scream. He was used as a voice actor for the Wilhelm Scream, a scream that ended up in the popular Warner Brothers stock sound library for TV and film and has been used by sound effects teams in countless TV and video games as well as over 149 films including Star Wars and all of the Indiana Jones films. Over the years it has gained a cult following among movie and horror fans.
We salute you Sheb on what would have been your 90th birthday this week!
Ah, the Germans and their love of fine food, fine music, and precision mechanics. I don't know the story behind this video put it seems it was produced by an antisocial composer with a William Sonoma charge card who decided to build their own mechanical orchestra. Sure, it costs more up front but think of all the drink tickets and hotel rooms that person won't have to share.
I do wish the music was a bit more captivating. It would be great if the maker lends it out to different composers that would take the idea and the capabilities a bit further and to more interesting places like those amazing LEMUR folks in NYC.. Until then, here it is.
Don Kirshner, the veteran music mogul who shepherded songs from a monstrously talented stable of young writers to the top of the pop charts in the 1960s, launched the career of the Monkees and then became a familiar face to millions of rock fans as impresario of his late-night music TV series in the 1970s, died Monday of heart failure in Boca Raton, Fla., where he had lived for the last decade, a family spokeswoman said Tuesday. He was 76.
In the early days of our families betamax lifestyle, my brother would record lots of late night TV for he and I to watch. As a little kid in elementary school, I got to see SNL, Second City TV, the Kenny Everett Video Show, and Don Kirshner's Rock Concert. These were my first exposure to tons of great music and bands I otherwise would not have known about like T Rex, the Clash, Devo, and of course the list goes on and on. I know I still have that old betamax here somewhere... and probably all those old tapes too.
Today we celebrate Pattie Santos' (of the great San Francisco band It's A Beautiful Day) birthday. Today would have been her 61st birthday if she had not been killed in a car accident in 1989. Though It's a Beautiful Day is commonly grouped with such bands as the Grateful Dead and the Jefferson Airplane due to their time and location and management, their best work (their catalog can be spotty) feels more akin to the likes of Scott Walker and Roxy Music and were perhaps even an inspiration to such bands as later fellow Californian's X.
Thor Harris is not forgettable. His trademark long blonde mane and solid drumming are the first things you notice. He is also a very smart, funny, and straight shooting guy. There was a time where the Lounge Ax rock club in Chicago was booking about 12 bands a week with more than half being bands from Austin Texas.... and it seemed of those, half had Thor as a drummer. He has played drums with the Swans, Smog (Bill Callahan), Devendra Banhart, Gretchen Phillips (of Two Nice Girls fame), Lisa Germano, and the list goes on. Recently Thor sat down and shared some of his wisdom that he has gained from the road... wisdom that yes, is touring band specific but really, isn't touring just a microcosm of life?
Jack "White Jack" Brokensha, vibraphonist and member of the Funk Brothers who played on many seminal Motown records like those by the Temptations, Marvin Gaye, Diana Ross, Smokey Robinson, and the Four Tops (and the list goes on and on) died yesterday at the age of 84. More info HERE.
Introducing the 3rd figure from the 'Great People' Series by Archer Prewitt (The Sea & Cake, the Coctails, Sof'Boy) and the great folks at Presspop, Japan! (The first two in the series were Robert Moog and Raymond Scott)The Allen Ginsberg Doll, officially approved by the Allen Ginsberg Estate, comes with fabric cloth jacket, glasses, book, Uncle Sam hat, beaded necklace, and CD with 5 poetry readings and 1 song (all of the recordings are previously unreleased material). Limited to 1000 pieces. More info HERE and HERE.
Happy birthday to RAYMOND SCOTT, the composer, band leader, electronics pioneer, hero, and all around great inspiration!
Composer, bandleader and inventor Raymond Scott was among the unheralded pioneers of contemporary experimental music.
Of all of Scott's accomplishments of 1949, however, none was more important than the Electronium, one of the first synthesizers ever created. An "instantaneous composing machine," the Electronium generated original music via random sequences of tones, rhythms, and timbres; Scott himself denied it was a prototype synthesizer — it had no keyboard — but as one of the first machines to create music by means of artificial intelligence, its importance in pointing the way towards the electonic compositions of the future is undeniable. His other inventions included the "Karloff," an early sampler capable of recreating sounds ranging from sizzling steaks to jungle drums; the Clavinox, a keyboard Theremin complete with an electronic sub-assembly designed by a then 23-year-old Robert Moog; and the Videola, which fused together a keyboard and a TV screen to aid in composing music for films and other moving images.
By the middle of the 1960s, Scott began turning increasingly away from recording and performing to focus on writing and inventing; a 1969 musical celebrating the centennial of Kentucky Bourbon was his last orchestral work, with his remaining years spent solely on electronic composition. Among his latter-day innovations was an early programmable polyphonic sequencer, which along with the Electronium later caught the attention of Motown chief Berry Gordy Jr., who in 1971 tapped Scott to head the label's electronic music research and development team. After retiring six years later, he continued writing — his last known piece, 1986's "Beautiful Little Butterfly," was created on MIDI technology.
I've been a fan of Sam Prekop for over two decades now.... His band Shrimp Boat put out the the most fun and shambly tapes in the late 80's... one of the reasons my friends and I moved to Chicago. We couldn't get enough of Shrimp Boat... then they borrowed Archer Prewitt from our band to make the Sea And Cake... Sam has released two full length records under his own name, both with great bands helping him out and both sounding somewhat like a down tempo and jazzier versions of TSAC. This new record entitled "Old Punch Card" (Thrill Jockey) will be his third and takes a big left turn into dusty and foggy modular synth bleeps and bloops. He sites Raymond Scott's electronic work which is a good reference as would be the Ursula Bogner CD that came out a few years ago as well as early electronic pioneers like BBC Radiophonic Workshop and Oskar Sala.
On the Jimmy Kimball show last night on ABC, Joanna Newsom performs "You & Me Bess" from her amazing "Have One On me" (Drag City) three record set. She is simple amazing and gets better with each record. In a word, wow.
Mavis Staples stands behind NPR's Tiny Desk (with help from her burning guitarist Rick Holmstrom) and lays it down! Her record "You're Not Alone" 'drops' Sept 14th.
Beck does these things were he invites different bands and artists to come in to his studio and he collaborates with them to recreate or de-create some 'seminal' record for his free downloadable record club. I will state for the record I am not a Beck fan. My dislike for him has been tested many times over the years but dislike, as cement and arteries do, has set and strengthened with time. That said, he has had some pretty interesting ideas and collaborations for his record club. Not all but some. Well, this month he has Tortoise and they are riffing on some Yanni record. Now I'll let you guess which part about this equation I like the least... go ahead. I'll give you three guesses..... You won't guess it. Ok, ok... I'll tell you. ALL OF IT. The Yanni thing... come on. Beck and his sidemen scratching and rustling things into microphones... poop. Just let Tortoise be Tortoise! They are so freaking good at it! In my opinion, they get better at it and better at it. Yes, good for them for stepping out of their comfort zone and trying something like this... but a lot of the time, stepping out of their comfort zone IS their thing. I would just rather have watched Tortoise do their thing without Beck and his merry jokesters forcing them into some ill-fitting square hole. My two cents.
For those of you who lived in Chicago in the 70's and 80's, this needs no explanation. For the rest of you, this is one of the huge Magikist signs from the Chicago company that were seen on their building on south Cicero but more visible was the one overlooking the 90/94 highway. It was your "welcome to Chicago from the northern suburbs" sign. It's how you knew it wasn't too far now to go to be downtown. This was as familiar to Chicagoans as the Sears Tower and Wrigley Field... and was DECADES before we even knew what a 'cloudgate' was. I would love to buy this baby, reinstall the neon, and return it to it's perch up above the highway.
It is on eBay RIGHT NOW (or at least when I wrote this post). BUY IT NOW!!!
Oh, Fred Schneider... what an enigma you are. I hope you have a very happy birthday... your 59th I believe.
After years of hits and misses with his B-52's (Rock Lobster, Planet Claire, Love Shack), Fred stepped out on his own with his first solo record in 1984. In 1996, he entered the studio with Steve Albini (Big Black, Rapeman, Shellac) to record his second solo record. Albini pulled together different folks from his punk rock circle to make up backing bands for this new Fred record including members of Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet, Tar, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Didjits, and Six Finger Satellite. Could this have been a disaster? Well, it should have been, right?! Somehow it turned out great! I don't know how and I don't want to look at it too closely for fear it will collapse like a house of cards...
Mayfair composer Chris Fuller toured with Fred for that record. Ask him about it. I'm sure he has a boatload of stories as big as a whale!
Oh, how Neko Case sure can belt it out! I've loved her since she was just a Cub. And wow, so much good stuff from her over the years on her solo records, her work with the New Pornographers, and her recent backup vocal gig with Jakob Dylan. She is very funny and has a sharp wit..... But DON'T CROSS HER! She'll pummel your ass!
THE MAYFAIR WORKSHOP is a music house located in Chicago, IL. SHOP TALK is a place where we can share inspiration when we find some.
THE MAYFAIR COMPOSERS:
Mark Greenberg Ethan Stoller Clarence Fraher Paul Mertens Steve Versaw Tamar Berk Charles Kim Jeremy Jacobsen Matt Walker Chris Fuller Josh Chicoine Jim Cooper
