Thirty Minutes Dept.- "We're All Mad Here"

Note for our American friends - that's TV's Jeremy Clarkson in hat!

Th' IoF© postbag has been bulging with requests [you lying sumbitch - Ed.] to walk you, th' Four or Five Guy©, through the process of creating our famed Thirty Minutes audio initiatives! So let's start at the beginning, like those immediately post-titles Netflix movie flashbacks we're supposed to find fascinating. TWO MONTHS EARLIER. Oh, fuck right off. Anyway, once I have the title and the concept for a project (a Mystic Revelation that must perforce remain shrouded by the Curtain of Mystery) I reach out to my Focus Group O'Diversity® for their really interesting reactions! Here's an exclusive behind-the-scenes peek at the process!

1 Brainstorming The Concept

Note weird beardy guru type at right!

After they make their Reaction Reel presentation, I thank them for their valuable input and press a glowing red button on my desk that opens the floor under their feet and they all fall screaming into a writhing pit of venomous vipers. Then it's on to the Artwork phase! More about that tomorrow!

2 Creating The Artwork

It can now be revealed that every IoF© Art Department O' Art™ Dept. project, be it Foam-O-Graph©, award-winning album sleeve or provocative editorial content, begins life as an actual OIL PAINTING, painted in real time by myself using Secret Pigments! Here's me, in my studio, in the process of creating this very image of me in the studio creating this very image of me in the studio!

Note iconic Artist's Model and Artistic Muse Babs at right!

Tomorrow we'll see how these original Fine Art Oil Paint Masterpieces get delivered to th' IoF© as modern computer-style images! Oboy! Don't forget to check back often!

Saturday Morning TV Dept. - Top Cat

Grab that Saturday morning vibe right here on th' IoF©, with weekly re-runs of Top Cat©! Today, in the first-ever episode, TC and th' gang go to Hawaii - with hilarious consequences!

Everybody, now!

Top Cat [be-doodle-doodle-uh-dip - Ed.] the most effectual
Top Cat [be-doodle-doodle-uh-dip - Ed.] whose intellectual

Close friends get to call him T.C.
Providing it's with dignity

Top Cat
The indisputable leader of the gang
He's the boss, he's the pip
He's the championship
He's the most tip top
Top Cat

Yes he's the chief, he's the king
But above everything
He's the most tip top
Top Cat

This post funded in part by The Maurice Gosfield Appreciation Society, Pasadena, CA

"Getting Up To Speed" Dept. - TV's Jeremy Clarkson "Gets Up To Speed" With The Dream Syndicate

No Data Farming was used in the construction of this Foam-O-Graph©

You'll know TV's Sir Jeremy of Clarkson from the hit Netflix show Clarkson's Farm Gear, but did you know he's as expert on resurgent Paisley Underground bands as he is on where eggs come from?

Jezza waxed loquacious anent his secret passion, relaxing poolside whilst [grammar - Ed.] Kreemé [eighteen my ass - Ed.] served signature oyster hoof n' knob cheese smoothies!

FT3 Jezza baby! Th' Clarkster! Lookin' goood!

JC THE ARSE ON THAT! (turns to watch Kreemé, falls into pool) 

FT3 (laughs) Ha ha!

JC (spouts water) Firm enough to tent a manly trouser at fifty paces!

FT3 (laughs) Ha ha! So, Jezza, which you brung us some albums?

JC Absolutely. They're by The Blodwyn Pigs.

Jezza and th' Hamster, in happier times!

FT3 No they're not. It's The Dream Syndicate. Their frankly fantastic run of albums from 2017 to 2022, where we were rewarded with stylistic invention and creative evolution without compromising the core Syndicate values.

JC (blank look) I'll just get Kreemé to give my underparts a brisk rubdown with a rough towel ... (sprints away, leaving Hanna-Barbera whiz lines in air)

Today's deliverables are four bafflingly under-the-radar latter day classics from this superswell band: How Did I Find Myself Here, These Times, The Universe Inside, and Ultraviolet Battle Hymns & True Confessions. No serious collection of resurgent Paisley Underground music is complete without these swell albums, which will surprise and delight both casual listener and seasoned psychedelic enthusiast alike!

Great cover art, too!

This post funded by Wilf Brimley's World Famous Wax n' Lube Lounge, Mons Veneris, FL."If you don't leave walkin' funny, we ain't done our job!"

Obscure Delights Dept. - Boulevard Of Broken Dreams Parts 2 & 3

Four Or Five Guy© (art)Koen goes the extra metric yard and fetches this from his attic! We are not worthy!

Billionaire Philanthropist "Anonymous" claims this swell donation as a tax deductible! Let's hope the music is as cheerful as the throat-slashing cover design!

Possibly another IoF© Exclusive, probably!

Susanna Hoffs Dept. - Susanna Hoffs

Older readers - and that's you, as in elderly, pally - will be familiar with Ms. Hoff's all-too frequent visits to th' IoF©, to the point of irritation on my part. Yes, I understand how my buff, chiseled bod drives her feral with lust - she's flesh and blood - but a man needs occasional rest, consarn it. And a little respect? Am I merely a sexual chew toy, a mechanical device to release the pent-up ecstasy in womankind? Could we not just, I don't know, play Mousetrap© sometimes? Pickleball?

Oh, I'll admit that at first, when she vouchsafed that it was I of whom she fantasised as she writhed naked on the studio floor recording Eternal Flame, I was flattered. But her persistence - four, five times a night, readers! - quickly became irksome. And recently there's been something undignified about her increasingly desperate attempts to slake her womanly thirsts at the Fountain of my Manhood.

But when she offers me rare recordings - that I know will be enjoyed by th' Four Or Five Guys© - in return for another bout of my priapic prowess (much in demand to cure the Gentle Sex of the Curse of Sapphism) I find it hard to resist. I do it for you, dear readers.

Look, just LOOK at how she holds the neck of that guitar. Good lord.

Some of the completed but unreleased Garage Music eventually saw the light of day as The Lost Album, but this is the real deal, including a track for Mike Myers and other songs that didn't get included on the re-think. My cover shews Ms. Hoffs in the actual garage where the music was recorded, in the actual year, and this is the extra yard I go for you feckless ingrates.

Turning Over Susanna Hoffs (something that is, alas, all too familiar to me), is another completed but unissued album from a few years earlier, and again versions of some of the songs appeared later on official releases. My cover, because it never had one.

They're both grand albums from a swell tomato.

THIS JUST  IN

Swell download-only promo EP from 2012: diff versions, exclusive songs, live in the studio. Larvely!

This post made possible thru my selfless mastery of the Couch of Concupiscence, the Divan of Desire, the Chaise Longue of Shag, on your behalf. Don't thank me, it'll sound insincere. Just grab the consarned albums and amscray, ya bum.