WFMU's Beware of the Blog

Stanford's Spring Sing '68: "The Rights of Spring" (MP3's)

First, I wanted to point out to anyone who read my previous post, about the mysterious rock and roll songs, thall ALL of them have been identified. The updated post can be found here. And now, on with the countdown: 

I was lucky enough to come across this album last year, the locally produced soundtrack to a show held at Stanford in 1968, and titled "Spring Sing: 'The Rights of Spring'". In different ways, this album is entertaining, eye-opening and not much short of astonishing. 

I was only seven in the spring of 1968, but with the history I'm aware of, it seems likely to me that, aside from perhaps the first three weeks of that season, it was not a very happy, lighthearted spring season. No doubt the murder of Dr. King on April 4 of that year more than took the wind out of the country's sails. 

And yet here we have the recorded evidence of a celebratory college show, held at Stanford that Spring. My strong guess is that it took place after Dr. King's death and most likely after the most extreme of the reactions and fallout from that event (given that most schools hold an even of this type close to the end of the semester), and if that's the case, I find the lighthearted nature of much of this material more than a little surprising. The bottom line is that I found myself listening to this album just short of shocked at how little it seems to reflect the issues of the day. 

Well, now, not all issues. The first track, "We've Got Trouble" contains some biting words about the privilege of being White, and makes several jabs at this and related issues, so clearly the problems of the day were not unknown to these young people. 

The other issue touched on, though, in several tracks, is the relationship between the sexes on campus. While the soon-to-be coming of co-ed dorms is excitedly mentioned multiple times, I was more taken with the tracks which casually, with attempted good humor and complete acceptance, make light of the possibility of co-eds getting drunk and being taken advantage of, or just in general the question of when and how will the lovely young lady get home. And this occurs without critical comment in songs by both men and women's groups on the album. Looked at through today's lens, I can't imagine that these songs would have made it into the show in these forms, or that if they somehow did, heads wouldn't have rolled the next day. 

That's not to say that this album is a horror of unabashed sexism and cluelessness, just that nearly half the time, there seems to be only one thought on the performers' minds, and it is expressed in a way that I don't think would fly today. There are plenty of nice moments, funny moments and enjoyable musical moments here. On the other hand, there are a few straight numbers, uniformly dull and uninspired (one is labeled "Renditions of Simon and Garfunkel", but could have just as well be labeled "Sounds of Silence" as that's all it is). 

A few other notes: The track "My Lord and Master" is the second track on side two, as indicated on the label, and not the fourth track, as indicated on the cover. And there is no mention of the little speech the ends the album, on the cover or the label. What's odd here is that the person speaking seems to be introducing the next act as he finishes speaking, except that.... that's where the album ends! 

1.) Jordan/El Capitan – We've Got Trouble (MP3)

2.) Business School – Goodnight Little Girl/I Should Have Known Better/ Goin’ to Live with God (MP3)

3.) Lathrop - The Simple Joys (MP3)

4.) Delta Upsilon - Renditions of Simon & Garfunkel (MP3)

5.) Alpha Delta Phi – I've Been Waiting For Spring (MP3)

6.) Fremont - Getting the Cure (MP3)

7.) Soto - My Lord and Master (MP3)

8.) Kappa Sigma/Roth - The Wrongs of Spring (MP3)

9.) Roble - Death of the Roble Dollie (MP3)

10.) El Toro - Conception of Stanford (Blown By the Winds of Freedom (MP3)

11.) Unknown - Announcement at End of Album (MP3)

Here are the covers and the labels: 

Stanford Label A-Side (JPG)  |  Stanford Label B-Side (JPG)  

Stanford Front Cover (JPG)  |  Stanford Back Cover (JPG)  |  Stanford Back Cover Close Up (JPG)

Comments can be sent to [email protected]

Normalcy, As Viewed By Cretins (MP3's)

Here's a 45, complete with damaged picture sleeve, that I was surprised to find among a batch that I bought online a few years ago. From 1981, it's a group promoting themselves as "The Normal Majority" with two smug, idiotic songs promoting the elimination of feminism. The b-side of this record appeared on this side many years ago, as part of a compilation, but without any of the images, and without the a-side, which is at least as ridiculous as the b-side. 

I'm sure this is meant as humor, and maybe you'll find some in it, but to me it falls completely flat. I'd love to think that this was meant as satire (although even then, I'd consider it a failed attempt), but at the same time, I'm fairly sure there's not a chance of that. The address on the back, where you can join their club, indicates that they meant every word. 

The one thing that does not surprise me about this record is that it came out of Techny, IL. I grew up two miles east of the tiny hamlet of Techny, which was founded by an extremely conservative religious order, and was still, in 1981, dominated by their facilities. While those facilities certainly contained gorgeous architecture, flora and grounds, they also housed men who, while not married themselves,  probably held  views about marriage which were quite similar to those on this record. (Techny is no longer a separate community, having been annexed by its neighbor, Northbrook, about a decade after this record was released.)

The Normal Majority - From Adam's Rib Came Woman's Lib (MP3)

The Normal Majority - In the Kitchen (MP3)

"From Adam's Rib" Label (JPG)  |  "In the Kitchen" Label (JPG)

Picture Sleeve Front (JPG)  |  Picture Sleeve Back (JPG)

Don't Free Pussy Riot

Last night I saw Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer, and now I’m convinced that Pussy Riot should be in jail, which I think was not the filmmakers’ intent.

The video shows three strong feminist women and their history of activism, culminating in their action in Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Savior. The three who were arrested—Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina, and Yekaterina Samutsevich— are not the only members of their political collective, although you wouldn’t know that from the film. They also are not “girls,” they are young women in their mid-20s and early 30s, they are wives and mothers, they are educated and intelligent enough to have devised an ideological basis for their political protest. Yet since their arrests, they’ve been portrayed as “girls” who “didn’t realize” that defiling a revered place of worship would offend anyone, which is complete bullshit: The whole point of the action was to offend as many people as possible. If people weren’t offended, they wouldn’t pay attention. Well, they’re paying attention now; they’re paying attention all over the world.

The women of Pussy Riot must have realized there were likely consequences for their actions. Just as Edward Snowden was prepared to accept the loss of his well-paid job, the end of his comfy life, and his possible extradition to the US to face treason charges, so Pussy Riot should have been prepared for arrest, trial, and conviction. They say they are feminists: Let them act like feminists. Their prison sentences are the proof of everything they’ve said about Russian repression. Let them take the consequence of their actions like strong feminist women, not disingenuous, apologetic little girls. In the words of Sammy Davis Jr. “Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.”

Be punk, Pussy Riot: Be strong.

UPDATE 6/18: So what I was trying to say was unclear, and that is the fault of my writing. Mostly I was objecting to the documentary's portrayal of "girls," but also there's the rather alarming footage of the three prisoners apologizing and saying they "didn't mean to offend anyone." This is contrary to their otherwise strong statements--contrary, in fact, to their actions. The obvious injustice of two years in prison for their protest is what has called international attention to the very repression they were protesting. I have friends who participated in ACT UP's protest inside St. Patrick's Cathedral in 1989; no one went to prison, but it brought international attention to the AIDS crisis and forced the government to begin dealing with it. I hope Pussy Riot's Punk Prayer will turn out to be as influential. Also, one week on, Edward Snowden looks less like a hero. -B.

 

 

Putin Summer Retrospective

As befits the future Savior of Humanity (or at least the Savior of Blonde Russian Gymnasts in the Duma), Vladimir Putin has been extremely busy this past summer. One of his major tasks has involved recruiting new members of the Putin Pals, his protective managerie of super-powered animal agents. Thunk Tank Cohost Jay and I often wondered why it was that the Putin Pals did not have any bird members, when their primary mission will be to defeat the insect forces of MANTIS. How is it that Putin would recruit a Were-Whale before he’d got even one bird? (Anuka, the Flying Donkey, does not count as a bird, because: Legs. Hooves. Hair. Mammal.) Naturally, the Leader was just waiting until the time was ripe, and this summer he finally judged time to be squooshy and soft enough to unveil his Craneforce. Dressing in the uniform of a Crane Obergruppenfuhrer—sort of a white hazmat jumpsuit with weird black goggles—Putin jumped aboard Craneforce One and led the baby cranes on skywriting maneuvers high in the sky above Moscow, where they wrote “Surrender, Pussy Riot!” in smoke, and also in Russian, not English. And Cyrillic. Cyrillic letters are really hard to make in smoke, but of course Putin enjoys the challenge.

Sharon Needles Interviewed

photo by Natalia López de Quintana

Article by Marty McSorely

I can convince almost anyone to come see almost any shitty band, but in years of attending drag events I have only ever been able to convince one straight male to attend with me—and I think it was the free vodka that convinced him. I catch some flack for being a straight dude that is a fan of drag culture, reluctantly and loosely identifying as a post-hetero-retro-sexual (if you need a label).

But it’s easy to explain my enthusiasm for the performance stylings of men in dresses. These artists are not just manipulating paints and brushes. They are manipulating their bodies to create illusions and performances that will stay with their audiences long after they wash off their make-up and take off their heels. More than that, drag is one form of performance art that still has the ability to freak out the most conservative of squares, but also make many members of supposedly “progressive” art communities think twice before attending. And for those that question drag as an artform: they give Oscars for make-up and costume design, and as a whole these queens have a much quicker wit than any of the masses in improv classes. Plus, these gals put it all together and then dance in heels with their dicks tucked up between their legs. Now that shit, I’m guessing, takes some practice.

Taking it a step further is Sharon Needles of Pittsburgh’s Haus of Haunt, who lives by the mantra “when in doubt, freak ‘em out.” Sharon is challenging long-held standards of beauty not only in the drag community but in the world at large. I got to sit down with Ms. Needles at Barefoot’s Pride Week launch party last week, where she affirmed her role as America’s Next Drag Superstar. This night, while other queens imitated Aretha and Cher, Ms. Needles gave us a Peggy Bundy that channeled the Cramps’ Poison Ivy. This isn’t just a lip-sync or a dance performance; this is commentary.

We could talk at length about Needles choosing to impersonate the lazy, channel-surfing, bonbon-stuffing icon, but it’s the little things that make me love Sharon. Instead of flipping though a TV Guide on stage, she is flipping though the latest issue of Time Out New York as she clicks the remote at the audience. Sharon isn’t bored with what is on TV. She is bored with pop culture as a whole and is looking for something more. “There is no reason not to know what is going on in the underground. You don’t have to listen to fucking Madonna or Lady Gaga… I grew up in my record store. I grew up in my video store. Today, with the Internet, people have no excuse not to be informed of other options.”

A 1968 Civil Rights Discussion; An Off Color Fairy Tales; An Obnoxious Journalist: Some Reel to Reel Odds and Ends (Exploring My Reel-to-Reel Catacombs, Volume 30) (MP3's)

Today, three tapes which I've been saving for awhile, for just the right time. Now, instead of making each into a post of it's own, I've decided to bundle them together, into an "odds and ends" post.

First up, a very brief tape featuring someone named Oliver, a radio newsman who has been asked (in 1975) to provide a few seconds worth of introduction to a special program on Foreign Policy. He does so, giving seven nearly identical readings in about 90 seconds. What makes this tape memorable is the obnoxious version of the text he shares with his recipients after the seven intros, in giving an eighth intro, in an altered fashion. While I hope this sort of thing no longer goes on, I suspect it probably does. 

Oliver - Tease for Foreign Policy Special (8 Takes) (MP3)

Next up, an equally obnoxious tape. I knew I was in for an interesting listen when I opened this box and saw that the inside cover was labeled "Phallus in Wonderland". The resulting tape did not disappoint, although my enjoyment of it was mostly in the wonder of listening to two people who clearly thought they were being much funnier than was actually the case, rather than any humor or titillation I got out of it. For about 16 minutes, Jerry and an unnamed woman take a trip through a few different children's stories, replacing key words here and there or accenting certain syllables. If you're in the right mood, you may find it either fascinating or mind numbing, or maybe even both. 

Unknown Couple - Off Color Fairy Tales (MP3)

Finally, and on a truly different note, there is a recording of an amazing televised Civil Rights Discussion, probably from a public television station, from a some time in 1968. The last half hour of what was an hour long show is recorded here. 

I'm calling it a discussion, although for significant stretches of it, it's really more of a barely-under-control argument, to the point that at times, the microphones in one of the two studios being used are cut so that the other parties can respond without being interrupted (although you can still hear the "cut" participants continuing to talk). I think I've identified one participant as Maryland Representative Charles Mathias, and wonder if "Mr. Kilpatrick" is one-time segregationist James J. Kilpatrick. I also think one of the speakers may be Hosea Williams, who was part of Dr. King's inner circle. As to the others, I think there are mentions the names Mr. Field, Mr. Palmer and Mr. McKissick, but beyond hearing those names, I have been unable to identify these other speakers. 

At the end of the show there is over nearly 90 seconds of muffled conversation, followed by some ending voice-over comments, and I couldn't help but laugh at the song which started the commercial for an upcoming show, a song whose lyrics did not really fit with what had just gone down. I've left in a moment of that song for your enjoyment. 

Televised Civil Rights Discussion (MP3)

Jayne and Jackie!

I had the pleasure of speaking with Jayne County on my program on Thursday; she hit the stage at Bowery Electric on Thursday for the Max's Kansas City Alumni Reunion shows (which goes on through Sunday). Check the archive for the interview. I heard that Jayne might be at La Mama before her much anticipated Max's reunion performance, so it was off to the Ellen Stewart Theatre first! The La Mama show was- Jukebox Jackie: Snatches of Jackie Curtis -an exhilarating collage performance containing elements of the Warhol star's life; poetry, film snippets, songs and great vignettes. The final performance is on June 10th. With a killer cast: Justin Vivian Bond, Bridget Everett, Cole Escola and Steel Burkhardt, the production was a huge pleasure to take in. Jayne County did indeed grace the theatre-goers with her rendition of Max's Kansas City, as seen here as an encore to the show. She was gone in the blink of an eye (aye aye!) as soon as the show was done, and was soon to get onstage with her alma mater, so to speak, the Max's Kansas City Alumni Reunion show. The shows run all weekend at Bowery Electric, check their site for scheduled shows!

 

 

The Story of Lucille and Charlie (Exploring My Reel-to-Reel Catacombs, Volume 27) (MP3)

On today's tape (recorded sometime in the 1960's), a gathering of friends had been puttering along nicely, if somewhat boringly, being recorded for posterity. But at some point, one of the men present mentioned that he had a story he'd written about people he knew in childhood, which he intended to submit to Reader's Digest, and perhaps other magazines.

A bit later, he got around to reading his story to his friends. It turns out to be about life in 1926, at age 11, and specifically the two kids in his neighborhood, a boy and a girl, who were quite a bit more precocious than their peers, professing as they did to knowing about any and all things regarding sex. It's not a long or complicated story, but it is a little slice of life, and one from a very different time and place. Rather than summarize his story, I think I'll just let the listener experience it:

Unknown - The Story of Lucille and Charlie (MP3)

 

The Curse of Brando Island

The ghastly Spectres which were doomed at last
To tell as true a tale of dangers past, 
As ever the dark annals of the deep
Disclosed for man to dread or woman weep. 

-- The Island, Lord Byron

In 1960, while on a scouting journey for locations for Mutiny On The Bounty, Marlon Brando visits the atoll Tetiaroa and falls in love with the former home of Tahitian royalty. Two years later, Brando marries his second Mutiny co-star, Tarita Teriipia, who played his Polynesian wife in the film and purchases Tetiaroa for $200,000 with the intention of making it his home. Little did Brando know what his island paradise would bring he and his visitors, for in acting, one not only brings himself to a role, but the role can transform the actor's real personality, permenantly -- a most dangerous game for friends and family of the 'Godfather' and 'Colonel Kurtz'.

A Germs Whisky Christmas: Cruising For Oki-Dogs

December 23, 1979, Germs play the Masque Christmas Ball at Whisky-Au-Go-Go, performing what would be dubbed on-stage "art" by singer Darby Crash, self-proclaimed "Manimal" and possessor of "television and supervision," who read "every Bible story," and was educated in mind-control by public school Scientologists, an A+ hustler whose world-famous catchphrase was "buy me a beer" and whose demands for "beer and damage" do not go unheeded this night. Watch as Darby, spolight directly in his eyes, eats a lit book of matches, transforms into a panther, demands each audience member "hit the person next to you," sets fire to his (A+) lyrics (balls-on-fire-great teenage Blake) all before guitarist Pat Smear kicks a bouncer in the head (several times+) for crossing number one invisible line in rock n roll: the artists own the stage.

The Ecstasy Of Break-Up Psychosis: Possession (1981)

We are all the same, but in different words,
In different bodies, and different versions.

These words above (especially the dub-science word, version and the ultimate word, words) called out to me from the media feed of fellow sub sub Jason D. Bigelow, subtitling what seemed to be a still from one of the only 70s/80s Occult Horror Films Starring Moon Eyed Brunette I hadn't seen yet. The web search for the phrase brought only one return, an ancient message board movie-quote stump game for which this phrase proved successful in obscuring its source, the Andrzej Zulawski film, Possession 1981.

Lady DJs Rocking Headphones

And now, some Friday cheesecake served up by one of WFMU's esteemed lady DJs, Monica, who rocks the headphones every Sunday evening 7-9pm. Monica says: Stock photos and publicity shots of Lady DJs rocking headphones and other gear while in various states of ecstasy and undress. Watermarks and all. (Some images NSFW).

These images are the result of a Google image search using "lady dj" and "female dj."

Heather Benjamin

Heather Benjamin's comic and ink work is a flurry of deeply hacked out lines of sexual frustration. Characters stab and fuck each other in fountains of blood and dirty underwear. Through all the angst, a sensual gentle hand is apparent as seen in the way Benjamin handles hair- it's lovingly rendered even when it theatens to envelope and strangle.

This is the only image that I could get away with putting on the blog. Go to her blog (nsfw) and make sure to check out her comic Sad People Sex. 

Helen Gurley Brown's Lessons in Love / side two

"...I had a lovely time doing it. I got to say hundreds of things I didn't get to say in the book...Some of them for men this time and some for wives.

  What makes me an expert in the affairs of men and women  and qualified to give advice on records or anywhere else? Nothing! Positively absolutely nothing in this world! I just happen to have a great many opinions...especially on what men like women to do...and almost unlimited nerve!"

From the back cover of Lessons in Love, the self-help oddity voiced and penned by best-selling author, businesswoman and publisher Helen Gurley Brown. This week we bring you side two (side one was featured on my September 3rd, 2011 post) : How to Love a Man, the side aimed at female listeners. At last we can learn, for instance, "How to Talk to a Man in Bed". Good to clear THAT up!    The full album covers are here. Oh, and despite the Adults Only label on the album cover, I'm afraid that this gem is totally safe for work.

Here come the final six tracks:      07  How to Love a Man if You Aren't Pretty      08  How to Say No to a Man Who      09  Unfaithful Wives' Tales      10  How to Love a Boss      11  How to Talk to a Man in Bed      12  How to Love Your Husband and Nobody Else

 

Helen Gurley Brown and Lessons in Love

  Flush with the success of her best-selling book Sex and the Single Girl, in 1963, Helen Gurley Brown sought new avenues of media in order to keep her face and name in the public's eye. Contacted by Gene Norman, owner of the Crescendo Night Club in Hollywood and founder of Crescendo Records about reading her book in the studio (for "people who don't like to read"), but finding that Warner Bothers owned not only the film but also the audio rights to the material, Brown wrote an all-new script for the lp that came to be titled Lessons in Love. Unlike the book and subsequent movie, the record sales never really took off, and she only moved around 10,000 copies of the album that year. A follow-up recording was planned: Helen Gurley Brown's Vacation Kit for Lovers, but was never completed. She did go on to release a second offering showcasing her live lecture tour material: Helen Gurley Brown at Town Hall. 

  As appalling as some of the dialogue may be to modern ears, Brown is charming and glib enough to put it over, and I for one get a kick out of her delivery and wording. Today we'll hear side one: How to Love a Girl, and in two weeks I'll be back with side two: How to Love a Man. It's amusing, too, that in a period where most music lps were barely over 30 minutes, if that, this spoken word project, since the grooves could be cut closer together, runs well over 40 minutes, so the consumers of this oddity got their money's worth, as far as quantity. Here, then, are the first six cuts of 12 total, with the remaining six cuts coming up on this saturday the 17th, at six pm EST right here at the superduperstation. And the full album artwork and liner notes by Helen can be found here.

  01  How to Have an Affair - and Live Happily Ever After      02  How to Behave at Home - If You're Misbehaving Away from Home     03  Getting the Most from Your Secretary      04  Little Man You'll Have a Busy Day      05  How to Say No to a Girl      06  How to Love Your Wife and Nobody Else

The Wondrous World of Bosch or Welcome to Hell!

Recently I went to The Netherlands for the Roadburn Festival. Thanks to Duane Harriot for running the Fun Machine for a week and not wrecking the gears! Last weeks episode was a full three hours of music and photos from the most enjoyable fest I have ever been to, and if you haven't checked it out, I highly recommend it (not because it's my program, mind you - it is my taste, but it was really programmed by those who put Roadburn together- thank them, not me)!

Since last year's festival was disrupted by a pesky volcanic eruption, I thought it would be wise to take an extra day ahead of the festival and eliminate the stress factor. I made my ever important sleeping bag connection ahead of time, and decided to head over to the town of 's-Hertogenbosch to check out the Jheronimus Bosch Art Center.

All of Bosch's works are in name museums, so I was not sure what to expect. This town probably would have no one paying attention to it except for their famous, intensely talented son. I'm not going to even go into describing his artwork here; if you are unfamiliar, go check out a link or two and get the scoop on this man.

The Art Center is housed in what had once been a church. It looks like a church, but when you step inside, all your senses tell you nearly right away (there's a large red curtain that separates the entrance from a lot of the exhibit area) that you may have actually stepped into a delightfully quirky version of hell. There is a telltale sculpture outside as well to tip you off, that in most ways, this was not going to be a religious experience, at least of a churchgoing nature.

The helpful women at the desk were concerned with the size of my backpack and could see I was being taxed by it's weight. They took it off my hands immediately although there was no coat room. The entrance fee was laughably cheap and I was given an audio guide to boot.  It was when I got to the other side of the curtain that I thought to myself "I'm going to be here for hours and hours"...

 

 

Sex Explained for Children / on Event/Carapan Records

Perhaps some of you may fondly recall at times a favorite venue for magically finding unusual old vinyl on a regular basis. A treasure trove/mother lode of incredibly cheap wonders to delight the ear and eye. For me, still in my earlier collecting days,  aside from salivating over big trunks of old, unbagged comic books at the Skyview Flea Market, one of my most magical places for vinyl excavation during my early 1980's days in Santa Cruz was going to the Goodwill Bargain Barn, where my girlfriend would peruse the clothing by the pound, under the watchful eye of the unforgettable 'Ray' the proprietor (for which priviledge people lined up way before they opened the doors), while I would troll the newest cardboard barrels of records that had come in that week, often digging crazily through a whole barrel full of lps, before they even made it out onto the rough table that they would be 'displayed' on.

   Many a wonder flowed into that big old barnlike building, and for a mere twenty-five cents each, the records were often in remarkably good condition after their journey through the barrel and worse. Today's goodie is one of the more powerful DJ tools in my kit back in those protean radio DJing days, and must have messed with many episodes and sets over the years, later to be sampled and cut up even more. It struck me the other day while transferring it that the lead male child actor's voice reminded me of TV's Charlie Brown, who was actually voiced by several boys over the years, it turned out I was wrong, but it made for a fun search speculation. The kids are obviously pros (it was made in LA, where there's plenty of voice talent), as the dialogue is not the easiest to comfortably act by kids.  Many of us collectors over the years have sought the elusive third volume of this set of sex-ed records: Sex for Adults. I've never seen it. Who has it? Did it ever even come out, I wonder? Many times lps are announced on the back covers of small label records that don't necessarily get released in the form in which they're shown. The second volume, Sex for Teens, I did get, I believe also from the Bargain Barn, and it has appeared here on WFMU already here, courtesy of Otis Fodder. Since there was a good response to that post I've meant for a long time to transfer this baby in it's entirety so that the two known volumes can hang together here in a nice warm place. But it's not a record that one plays a whole lot, and I've certainly slowed down on using it as a DJ anymore. So it took a while to finally play through the whole sexy thing. Tangentally, I like how the authors (Nathan Leichman, PhD, and Stanley Z. Daniels, MD) created a publishing entity (Magic Medicine) for the A.S.C.A.P. rights to the dialogue on the record, so if you wanna do a cover of it, be sure and asign the rights properly! Fun how even a spoken word educational project can be buried deep in the A.S.C.A.P. files.

  Sex Explained for Children is a very well produced product, however, and deserves some better modern exposure (why? I dunno, I guess...because I'm a nut for albums, mainly). The first side is a bit dry, going over the basic mechanics of reproduction, but on side two things get fun, as the little boy and the two little girls get down to the making sweet love aspect of it all.

As a side note, some wag who owned the disc previously had added a very clever piece of dialogue to the mouth of the little boy on the cover, written in pencil, which I later inked in for more clarity, as it fits the expression of the boy in the picture SO well.  So buckle up your training pants, pour a libation, set up the romantic mood lighting and enjoy some fine sex ed smoothness.

SIDE ONE        SIDE TWO

OO-EE-OO, or My Chat with Timothy Wyllie About Angels, Cults, the Multiverse, & the Entheogenic Impulse

Check it, my Q & A with Timothy Wyllie, ex Process Church art director, general cosmic fellow, writer of new age books about communicating with dolphins and angels. I was going to run this interview on my Temple of Pei blog but thought better of it: WFMU's Beware the Blog gets around 5000 times the traffic, and this is a voice which much be heard. This is a guy that really lives to the beat of his own drummer. Hope you dig, and remember: As it is, so be it.

During the Process salon at the Anthology Film Archives right around when Love Sex Fear Death came out you mentioned that cults could be a good thing, that there were many benefits to you spending time in one. Could you describe examples of what a good cult experience would be?

The biggest benefit is that one gets to experience a kind of life that isn't available under normal circumstances. This especially applies to reincarnates, who require an accelerated learning curve. Most western societies these days are both risk and pain averse. Cults allow those who need to go through their own pain and anger to do it in a safe situation. Cults can become a microcosm of society, so people in cults can experience a far wider array of possibilities like service, obedience, leadership, as well as what it's like to live without personal possessions, money, and personal freedom. Celibacy for a period is also a necessary psychic/emotional antidote in an over-sexed society. Possibly the greatest gift a cult bestows is when one leaves it. One emerges back into life with the opportunity to follow one's own drummer--free of parental etc influences, and understanding the dire consequences of ever giving away one's power again.

If you were involved in the start of a new cult now in 2011 what would change compared to the Process? What would you focus on?

I wouldn't. I feel cults have had their day. At this point in time and in a spiritual sense, it's every person for themselves. Cults in the sixties and seventies were a kind of clean-up contingency. The were so many reincarnates who needed to work on themselves (and be worked on). The kids these days are different--they don't really need cults the way we did.

Over the years you probably have met hundreds of people influenced by The Process. Any surprises there, was there any indication that you were part of something so huge at the time?

At the beginning, for at least the first five years, we all felt we were onto something big and important. I doubt if any of us could have anticipated its importance as it has been emerging recently.

What teachings of The Process have you retained?

Although TP probably took the concept of personal responsibility too far--it's your responsibility if you are under the wheel of an airplane if it falls off; everything you do, or is done to you is your responsibility--I find it's a very useful POV since it returns the power to you. Blaming an outside force essentially renders one powerless to change it. One can of course always change one's response to it and in that way one regains one's personal power.

The concept that the Universe is responsive to individuals. And that reality is mutable in ways yet to be understood. And that the intuition is a far more trustworthy way of approaching the ineffable, than that of seeking hard evidence.

A line that George Clinton picked up from us: "If you don't like the effect, then don't produce the cause."

Dark and Salacious Visions; Lussuria LIVE on My Castle of Quiet

Standing in the rain, hands deep in raincoat pockets. This ruin of crumbled stone and ivy was once a bath, the public kind, so rarely seen now in our age of modesty. We're in provincial Europe somewhere. The ghosts, of beautiful, naked women, still frolic amongst the apparent decrepitude. A sense of loss, unbearable loss, and almost inevitable melancholy, accompany the rumblings of lust in one's blood, conjured up by mind's-eye pictures of what once happened here. When the wind blows a certain way, you can even smell the soft essence of virgin skin, and other subtle perfumes, almost detected. Such is the salacious, heady ambience, the visions conjured by the music of Lussuria.

Perhaps it's Jim Mroz' dual experience as a black metal musician that enables him to bring the heaviness in such an unexpected way, where what might strike the inattentive listener as stasis comes across ultimately as some very visceral sonic statements, both on his tapes, and unquestionably in this live session, aired on WFMU January 7, the first My Castle of Quiet live guest of our new year 2011.

I first heard Lussuria on a split cassette with Obscure, released by amourtout productions in France (the label run by Shantidas, of Aluk Todolo and Diamatregon.) It was my more-favored side of the tape—a patient, rumbling soundtrack to a nightmare, with an immersed narrative...something about angels. Having named his project after an ultra-obscure Joe D'Amato sexploitation film, Lussuria's Jim Mroz shares this writer's passion for the unusual, much-maligned and misunderstood subset of haunted, twisted, visually stunning cinema of the 1970s and 80s of which D'Amato was a major player. Even were this not the case, I would still have been taken in immediately by Lussuria's resonant, opaque sonic creations, coming out of Jim's mixer like coded maps of the subconscious.

The Lussuria releases (cassettes by Hospital Productions, amourtout, Destructive Industries, and Razors and Medicine) are chilling stuff, even troubling—like listening to a feeling always just out of reach. These sets, rendered live and expertly engineered by Bob Bellerue, certainly align with that description. Thanks also to Tracy Widdess, for rendering my photo of Jim (see above), appropriate to the translucent and mournful qualities of the music. This was a bit of a coup for me personally, as I've been an admirer of Lussuria's recordings since first hearing. I hope you enjoy these pieces, and receive them in the spirit in which they were rendered.

Please Stand By

Art: Jeffrey Schrier [detail]

Tony Coulter here, with a modest collection of oddballness for your eyeballs and earballs. 

And now: tee up!