The Myra Nussbaum Memorial Lectures Dept. - Why Jazz Music Is Shit

Mrs. Myra Nussbaum diggin' IoF© house band th' Foameteers™,  yestiddy!

Older readers - "older readers"! - excuse me while I get this wheezing under control - will remember the first of Mrs. Nussbaum's lectures, Why Classical Music Is Shit, which effectively killed off the genre. We've heard nothing from Mozart, Shakespeare, and Beethoven since, such was the critical impact and persuasive authority of her argument! Give it up one more time for Mrs. Myra at the podium!

In these troubled times, [Myra reads from notes - Ed.] it behooves th' Isle O' Foam© to provide a platform for the problematic issues what most concern thousands [Enis and Agina Thousands, Perineum, VA - Ed.] in these troubled times in which we're livin' in. With urgent topicality in mind, the second Myra Nussbaum Memorial Lecture© addresses the issue that's keeping everyone awake right now - why is Jazz Music so shit? Well, it isn't shit, of course, that's just clickbait. But if it quacks like a duck ... first slide, please, Farq?

Giants of Jazz! Miles Davis [right - Ed.] liked Kenny G. and invited the mullet-rocking musician to support him on tour!

Jazz, as we all know, came down the Mississippi to New Orleans, where, nurtured by the warm ocean breezes and plentiful Mangrove harvests, soon grew into a multi-billion dollar business, supporting the coke habits of generations of record company executives. So much for history - just what is it that makes this evergreen artform, steeped in tradition much as a dill pickle is steeped in brine, so shit? Second slide, please, Farq ...

"Mister" Acker Bilk, the Father Of British Jazz, who brought jazz down the Thames to Eel Pie Island in '51

The question of why jazz music is shit has exercised fine minds since Plato's time, when dinosaurs roamed the earth. Today, science tells us that they try to play it too darn fast, and change the beauty of the melody until it sounds just like a symphony. Pretty definitive, you ax me.

Questions? You, sir, at the back, waving a copy of Downbeat Magazine?

Course Notes

Guys what dig Jazz fall into one of three scientific types:

Jazzbeaux Hipster - humorless beret n' goatee enthusiast. Adjusts RIAA curve, compares and rates multiple takes of same performance. Calls songs "sides". Hasn't left bachelor apartment since Miles Davis died.

Middle Class Collegiate - places Kind Of Blue face out on shelf for dinner parties. Self-identifies as soul brother "I just get on with these guys! I don't know why!" Calls John Coltrane Trane, Miles Davis Miles, Charlie Parker Bird. Subtly grooms kids by playing Chet Baker in family RV.

Alcoholic Detective - has high-end HiFi in apartment that holds nothing but memories of his failure as a husband, father, and human being. Heals wounded soul with Hardboiled® Brand black coffee and Art Pepper vinyl.

The following is a definitive categorization of all jazz sub-genres, presented more or less chronologically.

Dixieland Street Funeral Jazz "It's Trad, Dad!"
Further Listening: Acker Bilk, Louis Armstrong, Woody Allen

Supperclub Standards Jazz "Waiter! Where'sh my fuggin' Martini!"
Further Listening: Bobby Short, Kenny G, Ella Fitzgerald

Big Band Jazz "Funny Valentine! With a drum solo!"
Further Listening: Billy Cotton, Duke Ellington, Spike Jones

Beatnik Art Skronk Jazz "What say we go back to my pad, baby?"
Further Listening: Ornette Coleman, Vuvuzela Soccer Crowd, That Homeless Guy On The Subway

Berklee School Of Music Jazz "Could we hear that arpeggio just a half step higher?"
Further Listening: Any Brecker Brother, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Keith Jarrett

Scandinavian Academic Jazz "Jazz er en fisk som tar vitenskap."
Further Listening: Some Bald Guys In Jazz Hats 

 

This post funded in part by  JIZZ! The Jazz Mag For Men!

Album O' Th' And Probably Next Year Dept.

Everything Must Go - Goose. Buy this album.

I'd never heard of these guys, which is fine, because I ain't heard of shit since I got old. But by happenstance I downloaded this yestiddy and I'm only three tracks in and I've got that buzz, that shiver up the back of the neck, as Dustin Hoffman is peaking and I love these guys unreservedly and would gladly buy their albums should they ever come to my hometown because they are so freaking wonderful it's like hearing something on the car radio and you pull over so you can concentrate on it because you want to know who the fuck this band is and why you've never heard of them and YES!

Apparently Goose are a "jam band" - ask a Young Person - but this album is chock full o' swell tuneage, kwalidee vox, and slinky playing that'll have you buying a newspaper just to check it ain't 1979. So I grabbed Ted Tapes 2024 [left - Ed.] which is them stretching out like Stretch Armstrong on a guitar with rubber strings. The deliverable includes this also too, but I suspect it's Everything Must Go [hmm - familiar-sounding title - Ed.] I'll return to because right now it's all I want to listen to! YES!

 

 

 

 

This post ethically sourced from sustainable, shade-grown by-products of the petro-chemical industry.

That's What Iconic Classics I Hundred Call Top Must Hear Before Of All Time You Die One Greatest Jazzrock You - Ranked! Dept.

Th' bum what chose dis pitcher orta got his ticket punched! Jus' sayin'.

Let's get this Scientology stuff out of the way first, because if there's one predictable reaction to Stanley Clarke's name it's a knowing look and "Scientologist" muttered out of the corner of the mouth. The really strange thing about it is that he's been actively involved with the swivel-eyed loon cult since at least the early seventies, and yet the connection doesn't even get mentioned on his encyclopedic wikipedia page, nor in the exceptionally long and detailed allmusic biography. Skip Press, an anti-Scientology journalist, claims that Clarke had left the cult prior to 2013, but as he's been recording for Scientology Network TV (it exists) this year, it looks very much like he's permanently plumbed in to the e-meter.

Does it matter? Not much. People believe in all sorts of weird and irrational stuff, like the calendar, and money. Believing we're infested by gazillions of invisible space immigrants called thetans doesn't seem much more ridiculous than believing the Virgin Mary was a virgin. So let's move on!

Elron Hubbard, a third-rate science fiction writer, wanted to fuck Anton LaVey's wife [left - Ed], so invented Scientology to impress her. Most religions start along similar lines. LaVey features [or not - Ed.] on the back cover of Hotel California, contiguity fans!

Stan's first album as leader was the unlistenable space-warbling of Children Of Forever. Go ahead, prove me wrong. This self-titled monster [above, finally - Ed.] took everyone by surprise in '74. It's fair to say the impact it made was equally attributable to Tony Williams' merciless brain-fuck drumming. My head was still ringing from Billy Cobham and Harvey Mason when the clerk at Virgin Records cued up Lopsy Lu with an evil look in his eye. Six seconds in and I was throwing my Government Issue Beer Tokens across the counter. Take my money!

Stan made more successful albums than this, but not one that quite delivers the shock of the new like this one. We'd heard Williams before, but not defining "in the pocket" funk drumming like he does here. Add Bill Connors' tough-tone guitar, Jan Hammer on Jan Hammer, a surprise contribution from the great Mike Gibbs, a dash of Airto, and impeccable production from Ken Scott, and you have a timeless iconic classic that sounds daisy-fresh every play. Take my money!

 

This post made possible by the Virgin Records clerk, back when Virgin Records was funky and fabulous and they employed music mavens. 

Top Ten Dept. - Top Ten Perfectly Valid Reasons To Be Hatin' On Th' Eagles

Foam-O-Graph© - piercing the veil between reality and you!

1 As people, they're just not very nice, man. Maybe Joe Walsh is an okay guy, but the rest?

2 That LA vibe they give out? So plastic.

3 Their hair, Jesus Fucking Christ, their hair, man ...

4 Fashion sense advisory!!! Sears poncho, anyone?

5 Mainstream success cancels artistic credibility.

6 Smug superiority. Never a good look.

7 Soulless technical proficiency. If they can play and sing live exactly like the records, man, you know they suck.

8 Their audience. Excuse me? Not judging, but Eagles fans are, like ... so not cool.

9 Country rock? Pardon my mirth ...

10 Boomers lol. End of.

Any or all of the above are valid reasons to dislike, hate, ignore or dismiss The Eagles. Won't disagree with any of them. In the Rock & Roll Hall Of Shame these guys will be the first inductees, right?

 

And yet ...

 

Percy Thrower's Potting Shed Of Post-Psych Dept. - Boffalongo

Artificially Ignorant™ Foam-O-Graph© "Your Guarantee Of Graphic Integrity™"

Older readers, at least those whose formative years were spent watching BBC TV in the hope of catching a bit of cleavage, will remember Percy Thrower as TV's Mr Horticulture, dispensing avuncular and earthy advice that added to the gaiety of the Garden Nation. But did you know he's something of an authority on obscure post-psych vinyl long-playing 33rpm 12" record LP album disc elpees? Turns out his "potting shed" has the accent on "pot"!

Sir Thrower waxed loquacious anent his hobby, relaxing poolside whilst Kreemé [left, and eighteen my ass - Ed] offered signature skunk juice and bat guano smoothies!

PT Oh I say! Good gracious me, but the bottom on that filly is something to behold! Preferably by me ha ha ha! HA HA HA!

FT3 I really hadn't noticed. It's like most people born in Paris never go up the Eiffel Tower. But anyway, which you brung an album?

PT Beyond Your Head, the second album by internationally-celebrated beat combo The Boffalongos!

FT3 Produced by the same team at United Artists what brung us the antecedently FoamFeatured© The Music Asylum in the same year. 

PT Yes indeed, 1970, and there is a mysterious rubric on the back cover claiming this album to be a Music Asylum Concept, whatever that is. 

FT3 Dancing In The Moonlight was a hit, of sorts, reprised couple years later by King Harvest, which the band morphed into. Orleans was another offshoot. Still pops up occasionally on soundtracks and ads.

PT And there was a first album in '68 [left, Ed.] which I also brought with me, another Music Asylum Concept on UA, but the producers aren't credited, I think. This print is too small for these old eyes!

FT3 Why these albums in particular, TV's Mr. Horticulture?

PT Perennial favourites in the potting shed! Strong material, playing, singing, production. Thoughtful touches in the arrangements. Varied compositions, rhythm changes ... particularly good guitar by one Keith Ginsberg. Bit of a mystery why they weren't bigger. I wonder - would Kreemé be interested in bedding down a hardy perennial behind the potting shed?

 

 

This post made possible by frankly just being too darn hot to go outside.

K.O. Boomer Shoots The Shit Dept. - Déja Vu

Wilf Brimley in title role of Desilu's hit TV series "K.O. Boomer" Copyright Foam-O-Graph©

K.O. Boomer writes:

Seems just about everbody loves this goddamn hippie shit album. Lissen as they crawl over each other to suck ass:

"A rich musical banquet for the most serious and personal listeners ... the finest American rock music album, not only of its era but of all time ... not a single dud ... easily one of the best albums of all time ... a quintessential fusion of folk and rock and a masterclass in harmony ..."

Why, it's enough to make you blow your biscuits! I'm here to tell you what a heap o' horse puckey it is. When I first heerd it, I smelled me a dead rat an' a skunk in th' same bag. All my dumb hippie friends were goin' la-la-la singin' along to Our House an' Teach Your Children, two of th' yuckiest, sappiest tunes this side of John Denver at a pajama party. An' th' big hit, which they didn't even write, about a rock festival by some dame who weren't even there. That should tell ya something, fercrissakes. Neil Young bestows us his slash-yer-wrists Helpless and warms up a Springfield leftover like the whiny bitch he is. David Crosby chips in with the worst songs on the album, the unlistenable Almost Washed My Socks, and the title track, which nobody, including him, can remember the tune to. At least Triad didn't make the cut. Only Ol' Silvernose Stills comes out of this wretched mess not smelling like a prison blanket, and he did better just about anywhere else.

Nope, when folks start droning on about what a stone classic this is, instead of the ragbag of shitstain solo tracks from a bunch of coke-addled divas who couldn't bear to be in the same room together, I reach for Ol' Betsy, my trusty pump action, and show 'em where th' door is!

This post funded in part by Goosey Gander's Goosebump Garage, Gobbler's Gulch, GA.

From Outta Th' Crawlspace Dept. - The Music Asylum

From wayback in '21, when we were all young and full of hope, comes this Crawlspace Collectable. If you missed it last time, pick it up now, is my advice.

Italy! Home of the most beautiful cities, the most beautiful women, the best cars, art, food and wine this planet can offer! Also, some of the best music to ever come out of New Jersey! Thatt's where The Music Asylum come from: Louis Luzzi, a couple of Leonards (Conforti and Argese), and, confusingly, another Louis and another Argese (one guy, Louis Argese), who is credited with Straw, Whistles, Phaser Gun, Harpoleen, and backing vocals. We're liking these gentlemen already!

I picked this up on vinyl way back when, because Louis Argese's Catskills cocktail lounge look rewired my brain. That, and song titles like Flite Of The Tick Bird, Tube Along With Me, and Garbage, and the hip sleeve notes "The Music Asylum is not just one but a combination of musically improved active ingredients in easy to take album form", all screamed BUY THIS ALBUM! It was not a regret purchase. There's a light-n'-crispy deep-pan rock base with a zesty jazz topping, and ... well, it's melodic, adventurous, fun, beautifully sung ... I give up. It's delicious. Put it this way, if you like Caravan's style of light jazz rock, you'll like this. Put another way, if you never heard of Caravan, or think it's a Santana album, you'll like this.

Here's Louis in later life [left - Ed.], still rocking the same acconciatura.

From the internet: "Born in Brooklyn ... playing music since age 11. By the age of 18 Louis was on the road playing with greats like Johnny Mathis, Connie Francis and Sammy Davis, Jr., and amongst the artists he has recorded and arranged for are Jay and the Americans, Tommy James and Frankie Valli. Louis has also played on theme music sessions for HBO."

From discogs: "Starts out with flower power breeziness on side 1, but gets increasingly influenced by rock and jazz influences that sometime border on avant-garde/experimental ... Strong musicianship and side 2 is especially interesting..."

Dr. Schluss (remember him?) [Yes - Mr. Grimsdale] sez: "What we have here is an album that nicely straddles the crossroads between psychedelic rock, jazz and prog rock ... lengthy, prog-influenced epics, some shorter single-ready tracks, and several oddball, brief instrumental throw-aways. "Star Dreams (Nebulous)" is a fine piece of sunshine pop, featuring harmony vocals along with some nice West Coast style guitar and bass parts that occasionally veer into Frank Zappa territory. "Million Dollar Bash", a touch of freakish garage, "In My World" the best of that bunch, a sunshine pop prog epic."

Rateyourmusic: "In the late '60's, United Artists was one of those labels that specialized in signing unknown, often brilliant psych bands, and subsequently letting them die a quick death in the marketplace through utter lack of promotion. Music Asylum was one such band. This album is in a psych - jazz vein, but is less commercial than other releases in that sub - genre. The album is divided between lengthy excursions, and titles that are more fragments than songs. Within these grooves, you'll find original adventurous explorations ("Garbage", "In My World", and the lumbering, hypnotic "Plastic People"), jaunty throwaways ("Louie's Tune"), and Godz -like avant strangeness ("Tube Along With Me"), along with a cover of Dylan's then - unreleased "Million Dollar Bash". Though un - noticed then and now, this album ranks with the A - side of Tim Buckley's _Lorca_ in its power to mesmerize the listener."

All you have to do is click the link I'll add to the comments when it amuses me to so do, and add your voice to the chorus of praise for this swell album!

That's What I Call Top One Hundred Greatest Jazzrock Iconic Classics You Must Hear Before You Die Of All Time - Ranked! Dept.

Elegant, sophisticated, beautiful - but enough about me!

 

In what is certain to become a much-loved regliar FoamFeature™, we ax celebrity FaceTik® influencers and TubeTweet™ unboxers to introduce wupes share their favorite jazzrock album! To get this series off to a "dope" start, here's P'Tui Klikbyte [below left - Ed.] with her wupes their very special choice of our-type musical innertainmink!

Enough shit on my head yet?

 

P'TK [nasal whine with vocal fry] Hi guys! Wassup! I'm, like, literally, stoked -

[transmission interference, signal lost - Ed.]

 

 

 

 

 

 

There seems to be a problem wupes issue with the video clip wupes footage content, so here's ihatemyselfandiwantodie666 [below left - Ed.] to keep it slay!

Enough shit on my head yet?

 

 

 

i [nasal whine with upspeaking] So I'm like in a bad place right now? Aaaannnd I just like wanted to share what it's like? To be a nonbinary ADHD trans kelp mentor into consensual self-harm and -

[DNS attack, signal lost - Ed.]

 

 

 

 

 

It's a damn shame that technical problems wupes issues prevented the Young Generation from adding their valuable insight to this forum! So here's my authoritative critical take on this unfeasibly swell long-playing LP album!

It's a jazzrock truism that - 

[ISP account expired, signal lost - Ed.]

 

 

 

Thirty Minutes Dept. - SMiLE - LINK!!

Cover art ©FalseMemoryFoam Art Department Of Art Dept. - spot the source clues?

The Beach Boys were still cutting under thirty minute albums right up to '68, so a half-hour SMiLE isn't the absurdity it might seem.

One of the many reasons for SMiLE's non-appearance is not lack of content; it's the opposite. Brian was coming up with just too much material, finding it hard to stay focused. Every SMiLE reconstruction has had the same problem. Coming up with a CD length reconstruction, let alone a forty minute album, has meant shuffling innumerable snippets and unfinished fragments into a coherent whole.

So here's a slightly different approach. It didn't start out as a Thirty Minutes project - that was literally a last-minute change from a "Suite SMiLE" idea when I noticed the run time.

The ground rules were:

- No cartoon whimsy. Brian at various times mentioned it was going to be a comedy album, whatever that is, and this was one of the many distractions that became an unstoppable  avalanche of ideas. So no I'm In Great Shape and Vegetables or George Fell Into His French Horn skits. SMiLE is a serious work of art.

- No fragments of cover versions. No Gee, I Wanna Be Around, You Are My Sunshine, The Old Master Painter ...

- No "elements suite" Another unfinished concept he was trying to shoe-horn in. It's an unnecessary complication, and Fire never resolved itself into an actual piece of listenable music; it was always a big banging howling thrash that never fit anywhere without totally disrupting the flow.

So that's snipped a lot of tape, and we're still left with enough songs in a state of completion, or very nearly so, to constitute an album:

Good Vibrations
Wind Chimes
Cabinessence
Wonderful
Roll Plymouth Rock
Heroes And Villains
Cool Cool Water
Surf's Up
Child Is Father To The Man
Our Prayer

This is the order (and the titles) I smoothed into a suite, and it makes no claim to be definitive or preferable to other attempts at reconstruction or re-imagination.

Brian was so damn close to completing SMiLE. Much closer than he's generally given credit for. The biggest missing from the list was the verse to Roll Plymouth Rock, which Dae Lims brilliantly exhumed from a brief studio fragment (on YouTube, but I can't find it now). Why that didn't make the SMiLE box, or the Brian Wilson Presents "recreation" is baffling - the extraordinary melody of the song is right there. If Brian had spent another day on the song in the studio, and maybe a focused week in total, free of distractions, we'd have the album! But ... his life was complex. That he survived at all is something of a miracle.

I haven't been purist in my choice of sources. This isn't a historical document, and I've used whatever sounded good to me, which means the original recordings wherever possible, and the Surf's Up version of Surf's Up. Why not? It's The Beach Boys, fercrissakes, and the gap between SMiLE and the Surf's Up album dwindles to effectively nothing from the perspective of 2025.

My edits have been culled from the Beach Boys official catalog (any period), Dae Lims, and SonicLovesNoise. You don't need this - but it's nice.

LINK IN COMMENTS

 

The SMiLE you send out returns to you.

 

Perfect Tens Dept. - Bert Jansch's Rosemary Lane

Some albums just seem primal, somehow, like they're in a perfect space at a perfect time forever. Rosemary Lane is a New Forest root, a crow over a grey sea, a spark in the kindling. Hunker down ... this music will get you through.

 

 

 

John Zorn Dept. - Back Catalog "To Build Stairway To Pluto"

John Zorn cosplaying Kreemé in a Pluto mask, inspecting CD Space Ladder components, yesterday (and if you ever read a more stupider caption than that in your entire life, I want to hear about it).

You'll know genre-challenging avant-garde jazz fusion musician John Zorn [below left - Ed.] for his prodigiously incontinent flow of new albums (currently eighteen a day, rounded down), but did you know there's a bold science initiative inspiring it? Zorn waxed loquacious during a recent visit to th' IoF©! We relaxed poolside whilst [grammar - Ed.] Kreemé served her signature nose sebum and hot dog water smoothies.

John Zorn, yesterday

 

FT3 Heyyy! Th' Zornster! Lookin' good! 

JZ [checking levels on digital recorder] You have, like, three minutes? I have an album to record. 

FT3 Tell us anent your latest album!

JZ Huh? It's the same as all the others, I guess. I ain't listened to it yet.

FT3 You haven't heard it?

JZ Who has the time? I don't even listen while I'm recording, I'm thinking about the next one already. Just another shiny step to Pluto!

FT3 Tell us anent your bold planetary travel initiative!

JZ Gazillions of John Zorn CDs will be fused together using nano technology to construct a Space Ladder™ between my lovely home in Leafhaven Falls, VT, to the mysterious Ninth Planet! Where I hope to record an album with its alien lifeform, the talking dog after which the planet is named!

FT3 Uh ... that's Goofy? Goofy is the talking dog.

JZ [silence]

FT3 Pluto was like, Goofy's pet or something. 

JZ Fuck you and your negativity, man. If Columbus had listened to you mankind would never have discovered the Loch Ness Monster. Now, if you'll excuse me? Testing, testing ...

 

This post funded in part by your health insurance premiums - joke's on you, suckers!

Return Of Randy Randomguy's Restroom O' Randomness! Dept.

Those with a tendency to suffer epileptic fits may want avoid looking at the above Foam-O-Graph© [above - Ed.]

Older readers may remember Randy Randomguy™, th' IoF© Randomness Representative. Then again, older readers may not have clue one what I'm talking about. Back in the days when th' IoF© was funny, Randy would show up randomly to ask you to list the first five, or ten, or seven and a half, tunes to appear on your device in shuffle mode. It was a rousing success, encouraging engagement and proving harmless amusement for maybe like oh I don't know, not very many, who's counting?

So I thought we'd see if there are enough of youse bums left to make this a worthwhile initiative. Oboy! Some fun, huh, gang?!

 

This post made possible thru basically not having much else to do now I fed the dogs.

Personal Hygiene Dept. - Hey! America! You Got A Dirty Stinkin' Ass!

Try this simple test at home! Not in public!

- Insert finger between ass cheeks, rub tip against sphincter. Withdraw. (If you find the idea repellent, ask someone to do it for you).

- Raise finger to nose, inhale.

- Hmm. How much do you spend on toilet paper? For this?

You, right now. Yeesh.

I haven't used toilet paper for years, because I live in a civilised country where body odor of any kind is rightly considered worse than bad manners - it's an affront. Like most Thais, I clean my ass with water, using a bum gun. But before we get into that, consider this:

You traipse dog shit into the house, right into the carpet. Uh oh! What do you do? Give it a rub with a Kleenex and walk away, job done? I should hope not, goddammit. No, you get a cleaning product and some water and a brush and you scrub until the stain (and the stink) is gone. Tsk. Be more careful next time, and leave your shitty shoes outside (that's something else - we don't wear shoes in our homes here, because they're dirty from the street, duh).

So why do you think that rubbing a wad of paper into your butt cleft is going to clean it? Because you don't look down there, and don't care that much, because you're a disgusting slob. The paper looks clean after a couple of yards (and you do look at that, I guess - yeeuch!), but you still have shit clinging up there, and the hairier your ass the shittier it is. You may think it's natural and earthy, but it's just repulsive. Also, dry-rubbing your ass is cruel and unusual treatment leading to anal fissures and general soreness.

Sniff my butt. You know you want to.

The middle-class æsthete [left - Ed.] installs a bidet, because it's French and sophisticated, but this only solves the problem within the scented bower of their converted loft space, and it's plumbing overkill. Also, you have to waddle over there with your pants round your ankles and adjust the taps and I'm guessing US bidet users also wipe their asses with toilet paper anyway (*eyeroll emoji*).

Fooey on this disgusting, uncivilised behavior! Toilet paper manufacture and distribution and disposal is a huuuuuge ecological problem in itself, not the answer to any problem. And you don't need it, and it doesn't even work.

What to do? Install a bum gun. You'll need to plumb in an extra faucet (tap, spigot) where the water comes through the wall into the toilet tank. You attach the bum gun hose to this tap (faucet, spigot), hang the bum pistol on the hook supplied (which you'll need to attach to the wall), close at hand.

Bum guns are cheap out here (nearly everything is) and available from any supermarket or hardware store. You'll have to order online, because USA (*shudder*).

How to use? After voiding your bowels, reach back for your trusty bum gun. Leaning forward, aim it right up at your hairy old sphincter and pull the trigger. Feel the cool, cleansing effect of the water! It's such a pleasant experience, you might want to prolong it, but a few seconds is enough. How to dry? Use a hand towel you keep for the purpose. You don't have to scrub it right up there, just pat your flabby old cheeks dry while you're standing. And that's it. Used regularly as part of your bathroom regime, your ass will be as clean as a Swiss franc in a snowdrift. Test it, using the method detailed at the beginning of this piece! It will smell of nothing. Your ass will be grateful you stopped scrubbing it with low-grade pulp and synthetic product. It will not itch. And - no special chemical sprays or gels required.

America, you need to clean house. Start with your own ass.

Further reading: https://environmentamerica.org/washington/center/articles/the-real-problem-with-toilet-paper-where-it-comes-from/

"Americans are the world’s leader in toilet paper consumption. The average American uses over 140 rolls – that’s 28 pounds. Americans, just 4 percent of the world’s population, are responsible for 20 percent of global toilet paper consumption. And most of our toilet paper is made from virgin softwood pulp, with zero recycled paper content. In the $9.4 billion U.S. toilet paper market,  recycled products make up a paltry $161 million, or less than 2 percent."

Paper may cost around a buck per roll, so that's 140 bucks down the toilet every year, per random average American. Buying and installing a bum gun will cost about twenty bucks, add another couple for the faucet fixture. It's not rocket science plumbing one in. There's no reason for Mr. and Mrs. America not to have one. No reason at all for them to put up with all this shit.

Singular Pleasures Dept. - Captain Groovy's Bubblegum Army Und Sein Hit Captain Groovy And His Bubblegum Army

 

Eat Flowers And Kiss Babies Dept. - Country Joe And His Fishes

From left: Rholonne Déodoranté, Mrs. Myra Nussbaum, Kreemé, Chyron D'Uhme-Schrölle (intern, wardrobe dept.) Foam-O-Graph© selfie taken by Alfred E. Neuman, th' IoF©'s clueless homunculus

Geriatrix's vote for Electric Sounds For The Mind And Body sent me on a frustrating search of th' IoF© for this eggceptional combo's albumens. To rectify this baffling lacuna [Peruvian miniature camel - Ed.] I have pleasure in making available, for the first time ever again, everything they ever recorded (if you know better, wave your copy of Watchtower). In the absinthe of his Holiness The Pope Of Rome, who better to host this legacy FoamFeature® than a chorus line of IoF© equal opportunity diversity hires?

One at a time, then:

 ABOVE: Iconic first album, presented here in head-narrowing mono and with the original (unused) cover.

 ABOVE: Iconic first album, presented here in head-widening stereo, with the groovy original cover as issued. There is no better album. A few as great, but none greater. Fight me.

ABOVE: Nearly-as-great iconic second album, with their breakout Woodstock hit, the Fish Cheer. Original copies came with free Fish Game! [below - Ed.]

ABOVE: Not-quite-as-good-as-the-second-album third album, but still reasonably iconic. Original cover makes me blow bitter chunks, so I crayoned up a replacement. You're welcome. Press ad for this album [below - Ed.] uses illustration by someone who can't even trace a photograph, leave alone actually draw. Note groovy corporate copywriting:

 ABOVE: Hope you like our new direction! The band had officially broken up by this point, with only McDonald and Melton ("The Fish") as core members, although Hirsh and Cohen are sitting in. Jack Casady plays bass on half of the album, so yay for that. Ambitious string arrangements and a horn section make for a more polished sound. I seem to remember reading that some of the Basie band play on it, but can't now find anything to confirm.

ABOVE: Not-quite-as-good-as-the-fourth-album fifth album. Weirdly non-titled ("CJ Fish"?), with McDonald & Melton supported by Greg Dewey (drums, ex-Mad River) and a couple of guys who were delivering pizza. It's okay, not a disgrace, but not iconic, either. Sorta kinda country rock, because '71. The confused and foreboding cover art reflects the lack of focus.

ABOVE: In '77, with nothing better to do and alimony to pay, the original band got back together (there's a hint in the album title - can you spot it, readers?) to record the surprisingly slightly better-than-the-fifth-album but still doggedly un-iconic sixth album. Nobody cared about anything much in '77, and this album got lost in the tsunami of cultural disinterest.

ABOVE: One of the finest 'sixties West Coast live albums limped out in Europe in 1994. The rat's ass cover [not above - Ed.] gave zero hints as to the quality of the performance and recording, so I got my crayons out again. This is the '69 band, with Casady on bass, and the "friends" include Jerry Garcia, Steve Miller, Jorma Kaukonen and Mickey Hart. How many psychedelic celebs can you spot in the cover? (Hint: rotate 90º)

ABOVE: This swell curatorial initiative ties up the loose ends, with the Rag Baby recordings, some rare stuff, some live stuff. Forty tracks, so I doubt anyone will listen to it straight through, but it's good to know it's there.

Roger Corman's GAS-S-S-S got the band their big H'wood break in '70. Unfortunately nobody saw it except projectionists. Four Or Five Guy© Richard provides exclusive links to both movie and soundtrack in comments! Oboy!

ABOVE: The band continued their tent-pole domination of Tinseltown as 'The Crackers' in Zacharia (1971), written by Philip Austin, Peter Bergman, and (it says here) Herman Hesse. Great date movie, if your date was a dude.

 

 

 

This legacy FoamFeature© funded in part by Patsy and Polly's Opossum Planet©, Poughkeepsie NY.

The Best Killer Tyre Movie You'll Ever See! Dept. - Rubber

 

I was going to post this as an April Fool's gag, but didn't think of it until just now. It's showing at th' Foamerama®, and all youse bums gots to do is feel around for the link with your crabby old fingers!

 

If you think you've seen this, you probably haven't. 

 

 

 

Pink Floyd Dept. - Special 18th Anniversary Deluxe Edition Of 40th Anniversary Deluxe Edition!

Yes, pop music enthusiasts, it was eighteen years ago today [literally not - Ed.] that Pink Floyd released their Fortieth Anniversary Deluxe Edition of their iconic first album The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn! To celebrate a momentous marketing opportunity the band is re-releasing this iconic box set of just about everything you already have, remastered exactly as it was last time, housed in a sumptuous cardboard display container that will give you deep consumer satisfaction to file on your special limited edition Pink Floyd Collectors' Shelf™ (available separately)!

To save you the irksome nuisance of remembering what you're looking for while you're searching for it, here's a word-for-word replay of the hi-toned screed what I already wrote about this fine, fine album:

Hard now to appreciate just how wildly experimental and startling that first Pink Floyd album was. It's either patronised as charming but hopelessly dated, or revered as the kaleidoscopic flowering of a madcap minstrel's cracked genius (an aSyd album). That's two blind grabs at the elephant in a dark room.

Pan, yesterday

Start with the title: it's not on the front cover, it's not the name of a song, nor is it referenced in a lyric. It's a quote from The Wind In The Willows by Kenneth Grahame, one of the handful of children's classics adopted by the hippies as holy texts. The Piper is Pan, the horned goat-god, bestial, wildly sexual. Pagan. We're not talking Disney here, kiddies.

"This is the place of my song-dream, the place the music played to me,' whispered the Rat, as if in a trance. 'Here, in this holy place, here if anywhere, surely we shall find Him!"

Meeting Pan is the culmination of the trip back to nature, to the source of magic, to the gates of dawn, or the Doors Of Perception - Heaven And Hell, the Magic Theatre. All this buried in the title to a pop album? Not for everybody - if you knew, you knew. Certainly it was deemed too arcane for the American market - Tower just stripped it right out.

In a radical break from EMI art department policy, the cover shot was lensed [oh very good - Ed.] by fashion photographer Vic Singh, using a prism given to him by George Harrison. No stylists, no special effects other than the lens, and the band in their work clothes - a kaleidoscopic moment captured forever. Today, it seems like just another generic psychedelic cover, but back then it was saturated with aSyd intensity.

The music, for a start, owes nothing to The Beatles, who are widely credited with the invention of the 'sixties. Mostly composed by Barrett, it was a revolutionary clash of fairytale whimsy and cosmic soundscapes, much of it instrumental. Not instrumental as in surf music or The Shadows or Rn'B or jazz or anything else current at the time. Indescribably far out and mind-blowing, it was music of the spheres teetering on the brink of collapse but always underpinned by structure and order, prefiguring Kraut Rock. It's what you might expect when three formalist architectural students get inspired by a whirling dervish shaman. Nick Mason's drumming is supernaturally right, at once powerful and retrained, a tribal metronomic. Roger Waters' bass has that freakbeat power and pulse. Rick Wright is feeling his way, but never hits a wrong note, adding color and depth. Barrett's guitar is a psychedelic pscythe, a slashing blade. And his lyrics are frequently sublime:

Lime and limpid green, a second scene
A fight between the blue you once knew.
Floating down, the sound resounds
Around the icy waters underground.
Jupiter and Saturn, Oberon, Miranda and Titania.
Neptune, Titan, stars can frighten ...

 

 

The freeload, @ an entirely unnecessary 320, includes all the art, with a reproduction of Syd's weird little book [cover at the top of this piece, sample spread below - Ed.] which is really worth having.