BAYMI Dept.

 

Thirty Minutes Dept. - Sounds From Uranus!

This is what Uranus looks like! Actual photograph! Of Uranus!

 

This is yer actual gas music from Uranus! Captured by the zircon-encrusted antenna of NASA's deep space probe Voyager! It's what Lou Reed was trying for with Metal Machine Music, but much more interesting, varied, complex, listenable, and human - Now That's What I Call Minimalist Drone! You'll dig it to fall asleep to, or have blasting from the holodeck when unexpected guests drop by! Play it in the car on long road trips, and see where you wake up! Slowly pump it up as background noise at work while you deal with that irate customer! Trip out to it at the Waffle House™! It's the soundtrack to the far side of tomorrow, today!

 

This post made possible thru th' cooperation of the wacky geeks at NASA!

It's Da Boids! Dept.

"Complete" version of Ballad Of Easy Rider, under its original title. Thirty tracks. From 1969, with Peter Fonda as Jim-Roger McGuinn, and Dennis Hopper as David Crosby. I was so dumb/stoned when I saw this I thought it was really real, but the realest thing about it was Jack Nicholson's performance. There's acting, there's movie acting, and there's Jack.

Original screed here.

And here's what Sony Japan did:

  ... and ze Frrrrainch version (e-hon e-hon e-hon):

 

 

AOC On Th' IoF! Dept. - Forager

My closest bestie Alex with her own vinyl Foragers album, yestiddy

The greatest prexy the USA will never have, on account which youse bums just ain't civilised enough, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is also one heck of a dame. Babelicious, even. And, it turns out, a frequent passing visitor to th' Isle O' Foam©. "I'm always grabbing the second-tier psych,'" she laughs, "but I'm too busy fighting the apocalyptic shitstorm of ignorance and evil in my shithole country to leave a comment!"

Ms. Ocasio-Cortez [left - Ed.] slurped one of Kreemé's signature Mountain Oyster n' Buffalo Knuckle smoothies as we relaxed poolside to the soothing melodies of her latest discovery, Foragers' debut album Even A Child Can Cover The Sun With A Finger.

FT3 Gee whiz, AOC-

AOC Please! Call me Alex, Farq? All my most intimate friends call me Alex. And I feel we've bonded somehow ...

FT3 (running finger around collar) Woooof! Well *cough* Alex, gee whiz ... this group is so new to me I ain't even a'heered of 'em, so new which they is ...

AOC Come sit next to me, Big Guy!

FT3 *kaffkaffkaff* Well, okay then. Ha ha! Just let me .... roll up my Yo-Yo string here ...

AOC I'm lovin' me a man who can handle a Yo-Yo! You're so masterful ...

FT3 Ha ha! Sure sounds like a swell album! Yessiree Bob! Or would do if I could stop this rush of blood in my ears ...

AOC (breathing in FT3's ear) Is that the only rush you're feeling? Let's take a look ...

FT3 (unnaturally high voice) YIKES!

AOC Why, Mister Throckmorton! You're ... mmm ... !!!

 

[Tape runs out at this point, as does all self restraint - Ed.]

This here album is the best debut I ever heard, or might as well be. These guys are going to be (excuse my French) énorme!

 

Gahd, I love this woman ...

 

Once Again I Am Asking You To Freak Out! Dept. Now With Added Sensible Screed!

You'll know Bernie Sanders for his role as "Gwampa Wobbly" in NBC sitcom Those Commie Motherfuckers! but did you know he's possibly the greatest living authority on Frank Zappa's The Mothers Of Invention [popular beat combo - Ed.]?

Bernie "sits in" with Turtles of Invention!

 

Here's th' Bern waxing loquacious anent The MoFo's seminal first long-playing elpee album:

"Hi, pop teens! Not many folks know that Freak Out! was actually the second iteration of the famed album! The original mix became available a while ago, rather misleadingly entitled  The Alternate Freak Out! - if anything, the album as issued is the alternate version. And even worse, it had a cover that made you throw hot chunks! So my good friend Farq has crafted an Art Design that fits the music like a pair of hand-knitted mittens! The deliverable is my own rip @320. Remember to register to vote!"

Thanks, Bern! And if you see AOC, could you ax her to swing by th' IoF© for an intryview? And, uh, a neck rub? Big fan!

In the interests of transparency, I should point out that there seems to be an agreement that this is essentially the same mix as the first album, with a couple, maybe three, snippets that got snipped out for the official release, and the tracks in a different order - but (and it's a big one) this simply sounds better. Clearer. It really is like hearing it for the first time. So how this can be accomplished without it being a different mix is a mystery to me. I got it from thepoodlebites @upvhq blog, where you can grab it at flac quality, if that butters your parsnip, with the original crap bootleg sleeve.

The Biggest WTF? Album Of All Time

Freak Out! was recorded in April, 1966, at exactly the same time as Revolver, and a few weeks after Blonde On Blonde and Pet Sounds. Let that sink in. What was in the actual air back then? Each of these albums, in its own characteristic way, represents some kind of pinnacle of zeitgeist art. Yet Freak Out! is rarely grouped with its peers because ... well ...

Jeannie Vassoir, the Voice of Cheese

  

Pet Sounds, Revolver, Blonde On Blonde have consistency and a readily-understood integrity. Nobody scratches their heads when listening to them, each has a recognisably distinct character. Freak Out! is all over the place, like a coked-up squirrel with ADD in Nutz-'R-Us© on Black Friday. Zappa thought of it as a satirical concept album, which it may be, but even those pop fans who knew what satire was (there must have been a couple) didn't give much of a fuck about it. Satire in any form is not that potent a weapon, or that big a laugh, and when it's unfocussed ("everybody sucks, including you") it's reduced almost to meaninglessness. And if the satirical edge is blunted by an affection for its target (as doo-wop is here), everybody gets confused.

Zappa thought it was going to be a big hit, and so did Verve, encouraged by the swivel-eyed enthusiasm of producer Tom Wilson, who was on acid in the studio. They were strange times. That Zappa got to make another album is a miracle, after the big-budget Freak Out! crawled briefly to the coveted 130 spot on the Billboard chart, and was one of the first albums to be thrown in the dumpster when Verve hit the skids.

Like most Zappa albums, Freak Out! is just as relevant, enjoyable, and confusing as it was back then. Nothing was changed by his satire, but then that's satire's failing, or yours, not his. Seen in a certain light, it becomes a perfect condensation, synthesis, and palimpsest (if you will) of his life in music. Everything he did later is here in embryonic form, a tiny zircon-encrusted Fabergè chocolate egg, perfect in every sticky protruberance, a Sistine Chapel ceiling on velvet, a 3D Mona Lisa with her tits out. File under: geniusness.

This post funded by Larry's Used Lube™ - "The lube Larry used!"