In 1972 I was in the south of France. I had eaten some bad fish and was in consequence rather ill. As I lay in bed I had a strange recurring vision, there, before me, was a concrete building like a hotel or council block. I could see into the rooms, each of which was continually scanned by an electronic eye. In the rooms were people, everyone of them preoccupied. In one room a person was looking into a mirror and in another a couple were making love but lovelessly, in a third a composer was listening to music through earphones. Around him there were banks of electronic equipment. But all was silence. Like everyone in his place he had been neutralized, made grey and anonymous. The scene was for me one of ordered desolation. It was as if I were looking into a place which had no heart. Next day when I felt better, I was on the beach sunbathing and suddenly a poem popped into my head. It started out ‘I am the proprietor of the Penguin Cafe, I will tell you things at random’ and it went on about how the quality of randomness, spontaneity, surprise, unexpectedness and irrationality in our lives is a very precious thing. And if you suppress that to have a nice orderly life, you kill off what’s most important. Whereas in the Penguin Cafe your unconscious can just be. It’s acceptable there, and that’s how everybody is. There is an acceptance there that has to do with living the present with no fear in ourselves.

— Simon Jeffes
(on how the idea for the great Penguin Café Orchestra came to him)

Aaron Starkey kindly turned me onto this last week. Former Fleet Foxes drummer, J. Tillman, has been making his own music for years. Now he’s playing under the pseudonym Father John Misty. This is the standout track from his new album Fear Fun. If you want to get the hair on your neck to stand up straight, here’s the official vid for the song.

One of the sets that sounded great was by a young Detroit musician named, Kyle Hall. Clicking on the article link brought me to Hall’s website, Wild Kyle Oats on which I found this gem of a movie (short film – 19mins) about Detroit and it’s electronic music scene.

The highlight for me comes at roughly 5 minutes in, when “The New Dance Show” with host, R.J. Watkins, is being discussed. Mind-blowing moves. Totally rad. I mean my sister and I had “Soul Train” when we were growing up, but this show takes the cake and eat it!

Real Scenes: Detroit from Resident Advisor on Vimeo.

Lila explores uncharted territory on waves of music and rhythm in her own impossibly cute way. Of course, I am completely smitten, but she’s hard to resist, this one, and there’s something magical about children exploring music and the movement of their own bodies.

Camera: Jill

Rainbow Arabia from L.A. plays the music.

The uncut version is on Jill’s Dylan & Lila blog.

aurgasm.us

Got to this from an odd direction…from using Paul Irish’s wonderful HTML5 Boilerplate to build ZoltanFarkasConstruction.com

Planned Obsolescence

Can’t remember where I read about this, but did and checked it out. A bunch of Soundcloud mixes by Beck. Some great stuff!

Root Strata Blog & Mississippi Records Tape Series

I met a work colleague’s husband at a holiday cocktail party this winter and he was telling me about this wild mixtape series his daughter turned him onto. It was this, Mississippi Records Tape Series, which is indeed wild and wonderful. Some of the most eclectic, genre-spanning, wide ranging, time traveling mixes I’ve heard in a long long time. Thank you Taylors!

Last Night’s Mixtape

A Seattle-based music blog which gets new additions frequently (daily?). Pretty wide-ranging as far as genre is concerned, but I’d call it beat focused if that means anything. Quality can be expected.

Mixtape Riot

Last, but by no means least, Mixtape Riot. This is the home of the incredible Haysobay!, Blast Off, and From 9:00 Until. Check em out.

First vid: Stevie Wonder on Sesame Street circa 1972. Waaaayy ahead of his time here with the machine-voice thing…

Next one, an Irish duo displaying the best deadpan synchronicity I’ve ever seen. Like some sort of weird collage set to movement and music…

Some might say her voice is strange. And I would likely agree, although unusual puts it in kinder light, and compelling, intriguing, provocative puts it in the light in which I hear. If I had to compare, it’s something akin to Kate Bush, but I connect with this and the way it works with her lyrics and timing and the complex shifts of the song structure itself really make it beautiful and powerful.

I recommend seeing some vids of her playing the harp and singing too, because then you get a real sense of the breadth and depth of her virtuosity. Time to go get some of her work! Enjoy.

Hollywood or outer space? I’m not sure where, but this psychedelic video—after the initial floating dresses scene—carried me into a state of dream-like memories of Béatrice Dalle in “Betty Blue” or Isabella Rossellini in “Blue Velvet”.

The movie is accompanied by two really wonderful, lo-fi psychedelic folk rock songs too which I’ve never heard of before. According to the comments on YouTube:

@tailendcharlie
The music is by Jonathan Halper, who mysteriously appears to have done little else.

@withlotsabutta
Anger talks about him on the BFI blu-ray of the Magick Lantern Cycle, and he says that Jonathan Halper has lived in a monastery in Scotland since the 1960′s, and the ‘I am a hermit’ line is exactly what he did.

It’s a really cool disc, actually – Anger’s stories are wonderful.

A bit of further research revealed that the film was made in 1949. Initially, the score was by Verdi and was changed by Anger in 1966 to Jonathan Halper’s “Leaving My Old Life Behind” and “I’m a Hermit”.

I came across more wonderful commentary about Kenneth Anger’s “Puce Moment” and Jonathan Halper in what is my favorite blog title of the month, Biannual Haircut—the post actually quoting another blog called WFMU…more tracks to follow. Happily the library has “The films of Kenneth Anger. Vol. 1″, now reserved.

This is the outfit too! Dope as it gets. Check the boots and the 4-button cuffs. Hey Stickman, what do you say to this? Did he take a page from your book? Did you take a page from his? Or was it mutual compulsion to move???

I believe the song is called “The Super-Supper March” by John Hamblin, but this is unconfirmned.

Hungry, hungry I am hungry
Table, table here I come
I could eat a goose-moose burger
Fifteen pickles and a purple plum

I could eat three bowls of goulash
Half a pound of wuzzled wheat
I could eat a peck of poobers
Then I’d really get to work and eat

Oysters, noodles, strawberry stroodles
French fries, fish hash, one red beet
Lamb chops, wham chops
Huckleberry mish mash
Oh, the things that I could eat

Doughnuts, dump-a-lings
Blueberry bump-a-lings
Chocolate mush-mash, super sweet
Clam stew, ham stew,
Water melon wush wush
Oh, the stuff that I could eat

Deep dish rhubarb, upside-down cake
I could eat a frittered flum
Hungry, hungry, I am starving
Table, table, here I come

John Hamblin

According to Wikepedia, John Hamblin is an Australian children’s television presenter and actor, best known for his role as a presenter on Play School from 1970 to 1999. He’s co-authored a book within the last few years, and on the back cover, it reads: “Wherever he went, whatever he was doing… John had a talent for attracting quirky situations, questionable associates — and always beautiful women!”