WFMU's Beware of the Blog

Six Killer Dancehall Vids from the Early '90s

Lately for my radio show I've just been picking through FMU's massive LP collection for hours and hours.  Very labor intensive, but I've found a lot of amazing stuff, and a surprising amount of dancehall from the late '80s onward.  Snagga is this fella I found who does a mean Snagglepuss impression with some killer keyboard presets and drum sounds.  And there began my youtube K-hole...But let me start with my favorite - I've watched Natty Dread (on the top right) at least 25 times this past week.

More videos below...

Download Tommy Wright III's Amazing Memphis Bump Tape

When crunk hit big a few years back, Atlanta was the central city representing all of the dirty south.  But a lot of what Atlanta took to the mainstream had already been simmering throughout the south in the underground for years.  Houston's DJ Screw and SUC have gotten a lot of well deserved credit lately.  Not as much attention has been paid to Memphis bump, likely because it was so hard and violent.  I won't claim to be an expert on this shit, but I have been listening pretty obsessively to everything I can get my hands on in the past month or two.  Funny enough, the internet's best primer on Memphis bump comes from some weirdo on a pot-centric message board.  But hands down, my favorite rapper representing Memphis bump is Tommy Wright III, who released a ton of tapes back in the day but never got picked up nationally when Three 6 Mafia blew up.  Below is 1994's AMAZING AMAZING tape Runnin and Gunnin.  Enjoy this one, because I definitely am, again and again.

Newsflash | On Da Creep | Still Pimpin | Share Dat Shit | 4 Corners pt. 2 | 10 Wanted Men | Runnin -N- Gunnin | Killa By Nature | Homicidal Ride | One Man Gang | Catch Up With Yo Kind | Me Aganst Da World | Shouts | Life In FCP | 187 In Progress | Going Undercover | If I Die

I'm also pretty blown away by this video too - Tommy leads a Cribs style tour of his house that is super surreal because he doesn't seem to own any furnishings at all.  Also highly recommended is this "interview", where Tommy and his crew The Manson Family are pretty much just acting wasted.

 

Your Primer on the Supercut

One of my favorite things about the internet is that it encourages serious academic discussions about cats playing pianos.  ROFLcon III happened in early May and I just got around to watching a good panel discussion on the Supercut - which is, put shortly, a comprehensive and thematic video montage.  The coiner of the term, Andy Baio, and three notable supercutters go over their own work, themes of the supercut and the future of the supercut.  Very nice!  The video is in four parts, with examples taking up the first half-ish of things.

One point of contention from this supercut obsessed blogger - in part IV, the panel seems to agree that the supercut has run its course as an expressive medium.  Disagree!  Andy Baio's own Supersupercut is a fantastic example of the use of automation in supercuts.  My Supercut-O-Matic software is another example of the power of automation to create thematic montages.  Google is now able to crawl through videos and pick out clips of cats.  Open source Music Information Retrieval frameworks like MARSYAS can automatically identify specific facets of songs.  In the near future, computers will automatically find LOLLY content for us and compile it, putting even the aggregation website editors out of work.  I do also think that interactivity will be introduced into supercuts, so that users can move freely through categorized media rather than watching a linear video clip.  But hey, maybe I'm crazy.

Certainly the panel doesn't give a very good history of the supercut.  The earliest historical example they give is Christian Marclay's "The Clock".  If the panel weren't all male, perhaps they would've mentioned Dara Birnbaum's 1978 cut-up of Wonder Woman transforming.  To venture a challenge to the internet, here's what I'm calling the earliest supercut - the amazing, brilliant 1965 collage "Argh!" by Folke Rabe and Jan Bark.  Listen here and do tell me if you know an earlier example of this concept.  I only recently found ARGH! and I'm completely transfixed by its prophetic beauty.

Opera IX's Fronds of the Ancient Walnut

For all the reasons to love Opera IX, it's really the keyboard sounds that pushes Fronds of the Ancient Walnut into !!!!! territory for me.  I love how progressively Opera IX moves from blast beats and shrieks to operatic moaning over midtempo beatdowns.  Certainly there's a lot of gothic posturing, pagan imagery and classical influx at play.  But it's those fuckin keyboard sounds that sound like the "boss theme" from some RPG, mixed with the guitarist shredding in a completely different key...can't beat it.  Makes me want to listen to some Enslaved By Owls, who more than anybody else know how to use ominous, outsider keyboards to make heavy and evil music without even needing a distortion pedal.

As a bonus, I've also got a free download of Opera IX's first official release, 1993's 7" consisting of Born In The Grave / The Red Death.  No keyboards on this one, but hey, still some great, strange blackened sounds for ya. 

Super Raw Basement Freestyle from the Screwed Up Click (mp3)

Mixtape by mixtape, I've been working my way through DJ Screw's insanely huge discography, which is up in its entirety on Pirate Bay.  Pretty much every track is gold, Screw's taste is impeccable.  For the last few weeks, I've also been digging into other members of the Screwed Up Click - these were all just friends from Houston who made a ton of albums together.  It would be pretty inspirational actually the way they all stuck together, if they didn't all die in their 30s from codeine overdoses.  At any rate, the track that made me curious about S.U.C. was this super raw, super insane 18 minute freestyle.  Big Moe, who refers to himself as Mo-Yo on this track, really shines.  I've listened dozens of times and every time I catch more and more gold.  I love it because they're all clearly pretty messed up and sometimes fuck up and don't make sense.  Gotta love the default line "Break these boys off" that's like a knee jerk reaction when anybody can't think of something else to say.  If you're into this, also check out the much more notorious June 27 freestyle.

Screwed Up Click - Freestyle

As a sidenote, I'm also totally obsessed with this verse from H.A.W.K.  Too hilarious.

Newly Uploaded Bouton Rouge TV Footage of Classic Psych Bands

Mike Sin pointed this one out to WFMU staffers a few days ago to much excitement.  This Youtube Channel posted a ton of complete live sessions on France's TV show Bouton Rouge.  15 Minute sets from the likes of Fairport Convention, Grapefruit, Procul Harem, Small Faces, etc etc etc.  God bless the internet.

What it sounds like to skim FMU every 15 minutes and promptly turn it off

A really nice listener hipped me to this programming object called wget (what...I think programming objects are hip).  It simply lets you download files from the internet and do cool stuff to em.  So I taught my computer using wget and cron to record a minute of FMU's live stream every 15 minutes.  It's still running and I'll air the full thing on my radio show tonight, but here's a little sample of what you might've missed earlier today on the radio.

Not surprisingly, it starts off with Joe Belock congratulating all our amazing listeners for putting us PAST our goal for the first time in years!  Amazing!  It does restore my faith in humanity...kinda...

A minute from wfmu's live stream, recorded every 15 minutes on a Tuesday afternoon

Son of Supercut-O-Matic: Slice and Dice your Mp3 Collection!

Hey folks!  It's last call to send in your submissions to be a part of the marathon premium for my radio show, "Supercuts Supercut".  Here's what you do - download this new and improved software, the "Supercut-O-Matic Plus" and let it automatically cut a music playlist of your choice into Gysin-sized amounts.  Send me the results (contact info's in the software) and my favorite submissions will be published and distributed to FMU's generous donors.  For a sample of what you can make with this software, check out 10 seconds from every top 100 hit ever.

The first release of Supercut-O-Matic limited users to 10 second clips, but this version has many more options for customizing your cut-up - you can control how long each clip is, the crossfade length, and control several features of the song analysis mechanism.  It's really easy to use and works its magic in a few minutes.

Supercut-O-Matic Plus for Mac

Supercut-O-Matic Plus for Windows (note: This only works if your file path has no spaces in it - ie, "c:\myfolder\myfile.mp3" rather than "c:\my folder\my file.mp3".  I'll fix that bug asap...)

Supecut-O-Matic source for Linux

But wait!  There's more!  I've already received a bunch of amazing submissions.  This is a great CD and it's getting better every day.  But for you to hear 'em, you have to pledge to my show.  Help me reach my goal before the marathon ends Sunday!  Hit pledge below.  Hit it!

10 Seconds from Every Top-100 Song Ever + A Free Cut-up Software!

1959 | 1960 | 1961 | 1962 | 1963 | 1964 | 1965 | 1966 | 1967 | 1968 | 1969 | 1970 | 1971 | 1972 | 1973 | 1974 | 1975 | 1976 | 1977 | 1978 | 1979 | 1980 | 1981 | 1982 | 1983 | 1984 | 1985 | 1986 | 1987 | 1988 | 1989 | 1990 | 1991 | 1992 | 1993 | 1994 | 1995 | 1996 | 1997 | 1998 | 1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011

In 1959, Billboard began releasing their annual charts of the top 100 songs of each year.  Here are mp3s with 10 seconds of every single top 100 song ever.  Follow the lists along with the music on this site.  There are some errors here, so bear with me and do point out major imperfections in the comments.  If you've been following my column in the past, all of these mp3s are improved versions, with crossfades in between tracks and smarter choices of clips.

I produced these supercuts with a software that Frederic Cornu and I developed together.  Fred is a genius and I'm eternally grateful to him.  This software is VERY SIMPLE to use and 100% FREE.  It simply takes a music playlist of your choice (from iTunes or a similar program), finds the loudest point of each song and stitches all the songs together.  These supercuts are useful to condense information and I think they're totally beautiful too.

In a few minutes, you can easily make supercuts of your music collection, even if you are a luddite.  Download the file below, unzip the folder and click "Run Supercut-O-Matic"...there'll be a button to press in the program to give you further instructions.

UPDATE!  You can get improved versions of the Supercut-O-Matic at this link.  The new version gives you more options, such as changing the size of each clip, the crossfade, and more!

Download Supercut-O-Matic for Mac (2mb zip file)

Download Supercut-O-Matic for Windows (3mb zip file)

Source code for Linux

Once you've made your files, send them to me (contact info is provided in the program's helpme file) and I will release YOUR MUSIC on a CD!  Do you have a completist collection of yodeling music, blues singers, minimal-synth, presidential speeches or tuba solos?  Use Supercut-O-Matic and SEND ME THE RESULTS!  Please do contact me with any feedback.

"Supercuts Supercut", a CD with the best submissions I get, is available to anybody who pledges $75 or more to my radio show in the current WFMU fundraising marathon!  Use the widget below to pledge to the greatest radio station on the planet and help us broadcast for another year.  Also, if you pledge $30 or more to my show, I will remix a top 100 song of your choice LIVE on the air.

Hear 10 Secs from Every Hit Song of the '90s

1990 | 1991 | 1992 | 1993 | 1994 | 1995 | 1996 | 1997 | 1998 | 1999

I watched part of The Crow last night (yeah, just part...we had to turn it off it was so bad) and was struck by how much of a solidified, historical aesthetic the '90s already has, just as much as the '80s or the '70s are a static time capsule of cultural silliness.  Yes, it was when I saw the faux-wet goth haircut of that "Craven" guy (real subtle name there, excellent foreshadowing) that I experienced the Proustian recollection and realized that I'm no longer "becoming a man", I'm just "a man".  The time of Jnco jeans and Darias is over.  And it was a simpler time, was it not?  No 9/11, no three simultaneous wars, no economic disaster and no Snooki.  Listen to these mp3s and pine for these more pastoral days of yore.  Read along with the clips here.

Find the rest of my "Ten Secs of _0s" column here, and listen to my radio show here.  Next up is the exciting conclusion...Every Top 100 song ever!  Plus I'll release the software I used to produce these chartsweeps along with a contest to showcase your supercut on my upcoming FMU marathon premium!

Amazing Video Compilations of Swing Dancing

This fifth installation of the video compilation, Swing City, comes from WFMU's own Mike "The Good Doctor" Anderson. Fast forward to 2:40 to see some of the most insane girl-tossing swing dancing you've ever seen. Kudos to Irwin for pointing this one out.

Hear 10 Seconds from Every Hit Song of the '80s

1980 | 1981 | 1982 | 1983 | 1984 | 1985 | 1986 | 1987 | 1988 | 1989

I love the '80s because pop music culture was uniformly co-opted by capitalism throughout this decade.  In the '70s, you may have ended with wonderfully vapid concepts like disco, but you started with those pesky hippies trying to "change the world" with their "ideals".  In the 80s, we start with disco and end with dance music that has a slightly different groove, slightly different synth presets and slightly different haircuts.  The '80s is the decade that really proved American culture has nothing new to offer after the tremendous cultural explosions of the mid-century.  Now we're ready for our utopian future where music and culture need not change outside of acceptable parameters.  Enjoy the slow transition of dance music into grooves accentuating 16th notes and hairstyles accentuating a culture which had fully become out-of-touch with political realities.

Follow a song list along with the clips here.

Download Goodiepal's Message To The International Hacker Community

My favorite mad scientist and theoretician of electronic music, Goodiepal, has a new rant up for download.  I'd also recommend checking out this BOTB post from several years ago with an amazing video lecture - this was actually what initially hipped yours truly to that which is the Gaeoudjiparl.  It can take a while to digest his sometimes absurd theories, but I really do believe there's a lot of substantial and helpful thoughts on artmaking contained within that nutty brain.

Hear here: Message To The International Hacker Community.  You will also need this accompanying image file to help decipher the sacred code contained therein, since the message is both in Danish and English.

Or if you don't feel like going through this comparatively dry work, enjoy this ADD-centric music video.

Video of Laurie Spiegel Playing the "Concerto Generator" in '77

If that ain't 'nuff said, then I'll just briefly state that this Bell Labs synth was cutting edge at this time and that Laurie Spiegel has innovated electronic techniques throughout her career. Thanks to Peter Edwards for the tip off.  If you follow the link to the actual youtube page, there's some helpful info too.

 

Hear 10 Seconds from Every Hit Song of the '70s

1970 | 1971 | 1972 | 1973 | 1974 | 1975 | 1976 | 1977 | 1978 | 1979

Mp3s are just a list of times and volumes - if you convert an mp3 into a text file, you can read music that way.  I do think that when you lay out time in this manner, as a static list of numerical values, that you can easily see how time travel is possible.  If you rearrange these times, for instance, in order of volumes rather than times, you are shifting the order of time itself.  It's true!  Yes. When you hear these songs of the '70s and re-experience old memories, you are actually in the past.  Do not lie to yourself and dishonor the realities in your mind - you are constantly reentering the past and also you travel into the future constantly.

Consider this: if cause and effect is behind all activity in the physical world, then you can simply make a list of times, position and velocity of every particle - and that's actually an accurate description of the physical world.  You can store all of history in a digital file, a table of values.  Then you could also rearrange those time values in any order, since that list has no particular order it must be read in.  The appearance of time is an illusion of perception.  Lift the veil, my friends.  All songs are being played in all orders forever in all directions.  Furthermore, they are being remixed in all conceivable ways all at once.  Listening to chartsweeps and cut-ups in general is moral because it is closer to the truth about the unreality of "time" than any other kind of music.

To hear all the hits of the 60s, click here.  To hear 1956-1959, click here.  I'll tackle the '80s in a few weeks!

Steeleye Span and Fairport Convention Live in '71 on a Beach

Really ace footage of these two bands playing on Ainsdale beach in 1971 near Southport, England.  More at this youtube channel, but I chose this particular clip for the jaunty lil jig Maddy Prior does toward the end.

Femminielli's Very Italo New Music Video

Femminielli's new video for Atlantida is spot on throwback to the golden age of Italo disco - or at least as far back as the internet K-holes I get into starting with folks like Scotch or Raf.  But no! This video was just released a couple days ago to promote his new tape on Robert & Leopold.

Hello From The Gutter...Tottenville (Video)

From the desk of C Lavender, this amazing bit of found home video.  Love how compressed the audio is!  This guy's channel also has hilarious videos of a guy doing stunts with a speed boat and some guy jumping a ramp with a Chevy Nova.

Blown Out Easy Listening Mp3s From Jessica Rylan's Can't

Marty McSorley showed me this CD a few weeks back, and I was completely blown away - as powerful as this simple concept is, there are precious few examples of appropriation music that simply take a crappy song and blow it out.  To me, there's no better possible music than this!  Can't Vs. The World, posted in its entirety here, was an early project of Jessica Rylan, who's gone on to collaborate with tons of top-notch improvisers, participate in the bent festival, learn to build synths as an electronic music MFA, and release a ton of...well, releases.

Can't - Ride Like The Wind | Can't - Songbird | Can't - We Long | Can't - Tonight | Can't - True | Can't - Too Shy

Rather than describe Can't any further, here's Jessica's own thoughts on the project...

Honestly, that cd is my favorite thing I ever did. Which is kind of weird I guess, it's so simple-minded. But it really described 100% how I felt at that time in my life, and it was immediately understandable by pretty much everyone. As opposed to a lot of my other music, which seems to confuse people.

The original idea came to me in 1998 when I used to work at a free health clinic giving AIDS tests. I also had a night job djing and sometimes booking shows at a prostitute bar. There was a little mall behind the clinic and I would go in there most days to get lunch from a burrito cart. One day I was standing in line, super hung over, and totally depressed about my awful job and the omnipresent misery in my life. They started playing "You're the inspiration" by Chicago over the p.a. - not loud at all, but from tinny speakers way up on the high ceiling. And I just had this wave of horror come over me - I hate that song so much, the lyrics are cloying and the guy's voice is so grating - hearing this song was physically painful in a totally different but much more upsetting way than the Merzbow show that was still on my mind from 1996. And then the music just blew out in my mind.

Download Ten Secs of Every Hit Song of the '60s

Here we are, reading the first sentence of the second installment of a column where I'll give you a chartsweep of every hit song from 1956 to 1997.  If you're wondering where this all comes from, I applied a shell script I wrote (that finds the maximum amplitude of an mp3 and cuts 10 seconds from that point) to one of the great treasures of WFMU's music library - that magical folder of mp3s called "Top 100 By Year".  For this week, I will not wax philosophical on why I find these cutups so beautiful...they speak for themselves!

Also, check out these related bits of compilation/traversal art!  Listener Fred sent me a video of Noe Soulier perform several dance pieces - among them are every ballet step in alphabetical order and (!!!) an exerpt from every 19th century ballet taken in chronological order.  Fred also sent me a link to a Max/MSP patch called CataRT, which cuts up sound into tiny "grains", graphs them, and allows you to reconfigure those "grains" creatively.  In the comments to my last post, listener Robert showed me his awesome blog that makes a statistical analysis of the most popular keys of pop songs throughout the decades.  One major work that I should also mention is R Luke Dubois' piece Billboard, which finds the spectral "average" of every #1 billboard song and then plays each distilled hit in chronological order.

1960 | 1961 | 1962 | 1963 | 1964 | 1965 | 1966 | 1967 | 1968 | 1969

If you like all this nonsense, please support my radio show.  Follow this link to my playlist where you can make a pledge to WFMU, which misguidedly allows me to cutup and reconfigure pop shlock for the entertainment of nincompoops such as yourself!

Find the complete tracklist of these songs below the fold!