Wake Up! It's The 'Nineties! Dept. - Idle Wilds, Semisonic, Umajets

You, probably. I still dress like the dweeb on the left.

 

Three überswell langspielersteschallplattenalbum from the last decade that matters! I bought all these on release, and such was my disassociation from contemporary culture I was astounded when none of them turned out to be hits. Semisonic would have their MTV moment with Closing Time from their second album, but there's beaucoup songs in this three disc box set its equal. The Great Divide is the most polished in terms of playing and production, and the most varied in style, but the quality of songwriting is uniformly high across the Umajets (ex-Jellyfish) and Idle Wilds (straight outta nowhere, and straight back in again) discs.

 

Sultry Susanna Hoffs [above - Ed.] sez: "You won't regret downloading today's powerpoptastic deliverables!

 

 

Paul McCartney: "Beatles To Reform" Shock!

Sir McCartney at his private Isle O' Foam© suite, yestiddy! Copyright FoG™ (Foam-O-Graph©)

 

Sir McCartney [above - Ed.] is no stranger to th' IoF©, granting regular interviews and sharing news n' views on today's exciting "pop scene" with your genial host, but our latest FoamExclusive© is sure to send "fans" reeling!

Sir McCartney relaxed poolside whilst [grammar - Ed.] Kreemé [below left, and 18 my ass - Ed.] served signature Elk Spleen and Hospital Tub Water Smoothies!

FT3 Heyyyy! Sir Macca! Lookin' good! Is that a toupé or a wig?

PMC Ha ha! Eh?

FT3 So, tell us more about your exciting plans for the future what will send the pop world reeling!

PMC Have I had me dinner yet?

FT3 You'll get your soup soon as you spill the beans.

Kreemé [18 my ass - Ed.]

PMC Where's me glasses ... oh! I'm wearing 'em! Silly old Macca! (peers at card) I am pleased to announce the reformation of iconic pop group The Beatles, with a tour and a new album in the New Year. The boys and me are very excited about this, and hope our many fans out there will be, too. We feel the time is right. Livin' in these times in which we're livin' in, the world needs the happy-go-lucky sounds of the Fab Fours more than ever. It's swingin'! (makes signature thumbs up gesture for non-existent camera).

FT3 Is Ringo on board with this?

PMC Ringo?

FT3 The drummer. In the Beatles.

PMC Oh, him. Yeah, I don't see a problem there. Last I heard, he was doing a kids' show on the telly about toy trains. Mind you, he must be getting on a bit.

FT3 What about John and George?

PMC They haven't done anything for yonks. They'll be grateful. It's not like they have to write any songs. I've got dozens ... there's Bippity-Flippity-Flop, My Little Squeezy Duckie, Mrs. Grandma O'Grady's Washtub, Let's All Go On A Caravan Holiday, (La La La) La La La La, Give Israel Back To The Hittites, (Do The) Hokey Croquet, Sing A Silly Song, It's An Xmas Easter, Legless (Song For Heather), Yokoyoko Smackey Monkey, Watercress Sandwiches And A Thermos Of Tea, Have I Had Me Dinner Yet?, I Came Into This Room For Something, Big Bag Of Werthers ...

FT3 Er ... 

PMC Linda will be part of the band, too, she's written a pop opera about vegetarians on the moon! So maybe it'll be a double album! Whoops ... oh dear ... sorry about that ...

FT3 Nurse? NURSE?

[tape runs out - Ed.]

[Ed.]'s Pick O' Th' Week Dept. - Donovan

[Ed.] MC'ing the Neverending Ending Of The World Luau™, yestiddy.

There's a rumor going round that [Ed.] ain't real. That he's some kind of AI bot or algorithmic data recombobulator or sock puppet or something. He's real enough, as this Foam-O-Graph© shews [above - Ed.]. [Ed.]'s been Junior Content Editor since th' IoF© opened for bizness. He's the world's oldest intern, paid in Cheez Whiz and, when we can get it, kibble!

Every week, going forward, we'll be giving him his own platform to showcase a rekkid what he's lissnin' to. There's no censorship, no guidelines, just his own oft controversial viewpoint delivered in his own signature style!

This is sure to be a popliar and long-running FoamFeature©, and we wish [Ed.] every success with his bold new initiative! Watch out for it when it starts next week!

In the meantime, here's the best album Donovan ever made, and the only one you need, in response to a request from Snorky.

Groovy cover by th' IoF© Art Department O' Art Dept.

 

It Came From Outta Th' Crawlspace Dept. - The Fake Watch Band

 

From early 2022, when you were denying the onset of elderliness, comes this lovingly-wrought screed about some music you never bothered to pick up at the time. Or maybe you did but lost it down the back of the couch or just wandered off to find some paint or something in the garage. Well, grab hold of it now with all the strength you can muster in your arthritic old fingers, get Nurse Diesel to tweezer your ear hair, and plug in the buds for a sonic holiday! You certainly won't regret downloading today's re-featured deliverable!

Back when psychedelia was first being rediscovered - immediately post-Nuggets - the correct attitude was to sniff at Ed Cobb's studio additions to Chocolate Watch Band albums. Dey wus fake! The Chocolate Watch Band was a snarling, biting proto-punk combo, and Cobb's dreamy and sophisticated confections were not welcome. They weren't even played by the band! BOO!

Yes, the Choccies (as absolutely no-one was calling them) were one of the great garage punk combos, and it's impossible not to love their Sunset Strip spin on the Yardbirds and the Stones. But I always dug (man) Ed Cobb's Fake Watch Band cuts quite as much - more, if I'm honest. So here's Dark Side Of The Mushroom And Other Trips On Gossamer Wings, the first album ever by the Fake Watch Band.

The three gorgeous numbers that made up the first side of The Inner Mystique (if there's a lovelier album side I've yet to hear it) are here in their perfect sequence, as side two. The six cuts on the first side are the remaining recordings of the Fake Watch Band, and I've snuck in a couple of tracks with original band members that sound more Fake than Chocolate to make up the running time, anticipating the snooty dismissal of the purists who consider them not genuine Fakes at all.

It's a totally groovy 'sixties psych album, a soundtrack to blissing out in the park on a hot summer's day. And credit where long overdue; to Ed Cobb, Richard Podolor, Bill Cooper, Wayne Proctor, Don Bennet, Ethan McElroy, and the nameless session musicians whose contributions created such an evocative - and superbly recorded - piece of work. All thirty delicious minutes of it.

Ed Cobb [Ed left - Ed.] was in The Four Preps before moving to production in the late sixties. He produced Steely Dan, Pink Floyd, and Fleetwood Mac, among beaucoup others. He also wrote Tainted Love, a big hit for Soft Cell, Dirty Water for The Standells, and Every Little Bit Hurts, a hit for a busload of artistes. Major dude. Show him some respect by enjoying this album as the world goes to hell.

Delayed Gratification Dept. - The Churchill Downs

 

Artwork copyright FalseMemoryFoam© Art Department O' Art Dept.

This here album was recorded in '67/'68, shelved by the record company (I've said it before - record companies is a buncha schnooks) and eventually issued in 2011 [fercrissakes - Ed.] in a sleeve you'd scroll or flip right past, such was its undistinctiveness (I've said it before - record companies is a buncha schnooks) which is a damn shame, on account which it's swell. Great acid guitar, strong harmonies, all the perquisites of consolette time here on th' IoF. It's free, you'll dig it.

The Frantics tell the same sad story. Equally excellent, although leaning into hard rock. FoamFeatured™ antecedently, but duct-taped to the deliverable whether you want it or not!

Departmental Artwork © IoF© Department of Art Department Dept.

 

Return Of The Son Of StealthLink®! The access portal to the deliverable has been cunningly embedded in the post, using the latest in computer technology! Can YOU find it? Oboy! Some fun, huh?

 

 

 

Frog-Pop Dept. - Vanessa Paradis

Plus Frenchie que ça, on meurt ...

I've been a fan since her extraordinary second album Variations, made with Serge Gainsbourg, up with who's shit she would not put, inspiring his "Paradis, c'est l'enfer" quote. I was living in France at the time, and the eye-popping video for Tandem [below, you skeevy perves - Ed.] got me rushing out for the record.

Since then, every release has been a subtle grower of a blast. She has impeccable taste, she's whip-smart, and she knows what she wants, which has given her the reputation of being a bit of a brat.

 

 

Arriving a scant seven years after her last, her latest album Le Retour Des Beaux Jours [below, Ed.] comes as a hugely welcome surprise (at least to je), and it's another partnership with the truly gifted Etienne Daho. Of all her albums, it's perhaps the most diverse, leaping effortlessly across style barriers, and because of this will be a swell introduction should youse bums be unfamiliar with her œuvre [Fr. egg - Ed.]. It's a damn shame you're too dumb to speak French, because the lyrics are as thoughtful and clever as ever, but you'll appreciate the grooves and the vibes and the sumptuous sound. And that elusive quality of Frenchie sophistication, which she has out th' ass.

My birthday present! Thanks, Nessa! Album O' Th' Year, and by some way.

Re-Post Dept. - In The Garden Of Scented Sitars

SITARSWAMI WRITES: A late-night Google search of my memory banks reveals that the sitar first entered public consciousness in early 1966, centered around a fifth-grade group art project. There were four of us huddled close to the school’s portable record player auditioning Rubber Soul. The three of us content to do the least amount of work acceptable had agreed with an idea put forth by our class’s sole long-haired boy: we make hand puppets of, and pretend to be, The Beatles performing a song off their latest record. Hazy recollection suggests we chose “Run For Your Life” for our quickly forgotten pantomime (was I Ringo or George?). I wasn’t a Beatles fan, due to my older sister’s short-term obsession, but “Norwegian Wood” tickled the tinder in my ten- year-old brain. Later that year, stoked by the release of “Paint It Black” and “Turn-Down Day,” the smoldering embers sparked into a slow, burning, infatuation.

If incense was the olfactory signpost of late-60’s flower power, then a sitar was the aural manifestation. On the strength of its 18, 19, 20, or 21 strings the sitar provided world music with its first inroad into western pop. Soon, the scent of sitars permeated society heralding a golden age. Its aromatic, yet sublime, spice spread into the far reaches of the entertainment industry -- from film soundtracks to comedy routines. Teen music magazines tried to follow the beat widening their reportage and fanciful profiles. In Hit Parader and Tiger Beat you could now devour articles on Ravi Shankar (“Ravi & Raga at Monterey Pop” or “It’s A Happening, A Sitar Sensation”) along with the Brian Goes Back To The Beach exposés and Zappa’s “Folk Rock is a Drag” Hagstrom guitar ads.

When some listeners proved allergic, science responded. Genetic experiments conducted by Dr. V. Bell at Danelectro laboratories successfully bred a sitar with an electric guitar. Creating, in retrospect, a questionable, if not-illegitimate, offspring and one who will not be heard in this article.

Smelling profit, record label executives used the whiff of a sitar to entice novice buyers. With fifty years hindsight, these cash-in attempts seem harmless, charmingly naive. Some, like Emil Richards’ Journey to Bliss, should be heard. Others (e.g., Flower Power Sitar by Rajput & the Sepoy Mutiny or Kali Bahlu’s Cosmic Remembrance on the glorious World Pacific label) aren’t listenable for more than a few minutes but manage to evoke a timeless “What were they thinking?” excitement. Proof that the western-pop-sitar craze had blanketed the globe was the album release, in India, of Balsara & His Singing Sitars’ Great International Hits, featuring “the exciting new sounds of sitars” playing classics like “Tequila,” “Edelweiss” and “These Boots Are Made For Walking.”

But it’s those few plucked or strummed moments of eternal bliss that we live for. When I hear sitar in any recording the endorphins flow and my mood elevates suddenly. Who can ask more of any instrument?

The bulk of songs found In the Garden of Scented Sitars were recorded in the 1960s. By the early 70’s the sitar had fallen increasingly out of fashion, but the seeds planted grew. Throughout the decades devoted musicians have tended to the garden and its admirers continue to record.

I’ve sprinkled a few familiar tracks along the garden path and rather than presenting the Four Or Five Guys© with well-considered and researched insight into each of the sixty-nine bouquets displayed, below you’ll find only random commentary and indiscriminate petals of thought. Let’s digress:

The Flower Power Atomizer

Brewer & Shipley wrote Noel Harrison’s (the UK’s answer to Nancy Sinatra) one toke beyond ode to her eyes and to her mind.

The ID Company lp features Inga Rumpf on one side and Dagmar Krause on the other. I&D had previously recorded together in the German folk-blues unit, the City Preachers, and it’s a bit unnerving to hear Dagmar sing a rollicking version of “An Old Shanty Town.” Inga went on to front Frumpy before going solo, while Dagmar joined Slapp Happy and Art Bears.

One side of (Farq favorite) Shawn Phillips’ non-lp single soars into Tim Buckley territory. You’ll find the flipside further along the path.

Sheb Wooley, the “Purple People Eater” perpetrator, lays waste to the counterculture.

Sopwith Camel delivers one of my sitar favorites. Who could have guessed that harmonica & sitar would blend so magically?

Ravi’s student, Warren Klein, ex-Factory and Fraternity of Man, adds age-appropriate sitar to Beck’s latter-day downer.

Ron Nasty, not Elvis Costello or Jeff Lynne, would have been the perfect replacement for John Lennon in the reformed church of The Beatles.

Every garden contains a poison bloom: Here, the A-side of The Meditations’ juicy, unbelievably bad, 45 frees the inner man with an overripe Elvis Presley-styled recitation b/w a b-side (appearing later) so creepy it reminds me of an incident related by a friend’s wife. She worked the front desk of a chain hotel in a small college town where the Beach Boys stopped for a one night stand. When Mike Love registered, he invited her up to his room after the show “to practice Transcendental Meditation.” Inspirational TM lyric: “Follow sense into infinity/When our day-to-day life flowers and blooms /and I touch reality.”

At the Shrine of the Paper Sun

Meghana Bhat introduces sitar jangle pop.
Now playing: the finest sitar pop instrumental ever waxed courtesy of Ravi’s nephew, Ananda .

Pastor John Rydgren issues a stern warning of the dangers to be found in the garden, simultaneously creating new dimensions in the middle of reality.

The Trees’ original version of Jane Delawney was ranked #1 in an informal poll taken by fellow sitar-heads of “songs that should have included sitar.” #2) “Summer Breeze” by Seals & Crofts, #3) the Bonzo’s “Kama Sutra,” followed by, at #4) either (pick one) “Iron Man” or “Planet Caravan,” with The Kinks “Fancy” rounding out the top five.

Erstwhile Bruce Brown surf instrumentalists The Sandals combine sitars & monster mash.

It’s not The Kinks, but the Smell of Incense is nothing to sniff at and will give you some idea re: #5 above.

One reviewed opined “(Hiromasa Suzuki’s) backward journey along the lights and shadows in search of the musical and cultural sources of mainland Asia, from the gates of India to the roots of China...” To me, it’s an alluring mix of electric piano & sitar, thoroughly intoxicating despite the worst abrupt fade-out encountered in years.

Clark & Marilyn Burroughs were The Joyride. Clark sang tenor with the Hi-Lo’s, a late 50’s- early 60’s vocal group and replaced Curt Boettcher as The Association’s arranger at their insistence. His work for the group commenced with “Windy.”

A Hidden Path Discovered

ILYABT, a collage of snippets from the best sitar film soundtrack. Resistance is useless in the face of Brute Force.

Presenting The Petals and the high-flying mushroom infused folk-rock that made Milwaukee famous.

I’ve not heard sitar-flavored bluegrass but Fit & Limo’s take on The Dead leads me to suspect it might play well.

A longtime Beatle impersonator and Ravi’s lesser-known daughter cover a George b-side.

Brothers released the only non-Mountain/Leslie West album on Windfall records. The album’s cover art would provide a great alternative to Farq’s superb work found on this set.

I’ve excluded a conspicuous number of rare and precious, or popular, sitar gems from this post – no Traffic, no Rolling Stones, Chocolate Watch Band, Vince Donofrio, Alison Gros, John Renbourn, Pentangle, Elmer Gantry, ISB, Donovan, Pretty Things. Boeing Duveen, not even Joe Harriott or the Zodiac Cosmic Sounds. Sorry, maybe next time!

 

REPOSTED IN ITS ENTIRETY FROM 11/9/22 - THANKS TO SITARSWAMI FOR THE RE-UP!

Kudos to Sitarswami for the swell sounds 'n screed!

Albums That Shouldn't Exist But Probably Will Dept. - Rural Free Delivery

Homesteadin' is the long-awaited first album from Rural Free Delivery, the side project of Jesse Wayne Cord (Ethyl Dream, Grits For Breakfast, Cord-Clark). Cut on a vintage TEAC cassette recorder at his Porch Records home studio in Dead Mule Flats, OR., Homesteadin' is a major-label release from the supergroup on Piehole Records.

Jesse Wayne Cord, yesterday

"It's a reaction to the times in which we're livin' in," Cord says. "I was kind of isolated from that whole pandemic thing, battling my own demons, and RFD is a way of processing the changes I was going through." How was the supergroup assembled? "I made a few calls to a bunch of friends and they were, like, when do we start?" (laughs). "Katy and Betty-Lou McAlister were on board from day one, they bring that Appalachian vibe to the table. Brett Sweeney (Fuelie Bros, Broken Plates) hung his hat on the door and set right in. And Shep Clark (Cord-Clark, Wineblossoms) laid down his signature beat. We did everything in one take. You can hear the coyotes!" (laughs). "The songs were just everyone sittin' and pickin' on the porch, and everything, like, flowed. You can't plan for that, it just happens. It's the best thing I ever done."

Tracks: Double Time Still Single/Homesteadin'/ Back On Track/Our Broken Hearts Will Heal/Oregon And Back/Winchester Carbine/Coyote Moon/Dogs, Horses, And Grits For Breakfast/O Montana/Lord You Were On My Mind

Homesteadin' is set for release as a double vinyl 10" Record Store Day Special, followed by a TinyDesk concert. "We're really hyped," says Jesse. 

 

You want this? Go ahead and record it. Somebody will eventually.

The Myra Nussbaum Interviews: Sitarswami™

 

Sitarswami Zoomcalls Mrs. Myra Nussbaum! Actual Foam-O-Graph© derived from sustainable shade-grown technologies, going forward!

Older readers will remember with some fondness elderly Bikini Tester Mrs. Myra Nussbaum. Although no longer part of the core narrative here at th' IoF©, her occasional lectures have proved as entertaining as they are educational [i.e. neither - Ed.], and garnered the prestigious Pork Bend Golden Pigs Knuckle Award for Use Of Internet. Kudos, Mrs. Myra!

In the first of what is sure to become a popular regular FoamFeature®, our iconic geriatric is pleased to present her first The Mrs. Myra Nussbaum Interviews interview, with reclusive mystic and Charter Four Or Five Guy© Sitarswami!

Mr. Swami spoke via computer technology from his lamasery high atop snow-girt Smeltville Mound, ND.

MMN Hello?

SS Is this Mister Beans? Art Beans?

MMN Hello? Am I pressing the right button, thing?

SS Mr. Beans, I'm calling about your car's extended warranty, Mr. Beans.

MMN For heaven's sakes! Why is this writing so small?

SS Hello? Art? Art Beans of 232a Crimp Street, Mingewater?

MMN Will someone get me my reading glasses? What's that buzzing sound? Oh dear.

[ERROR 404 NOT FOUND- Ed.]

Well, there we have it! To celebrate this achievement. Mr. Swami has generously donated one (1) autygraphed box set of his None More Sixties curatorial initiatives! To qualify for this once-in-a-lifetime Dream Deliverable™, simply state in a comment your favorite thing, like, literally, ever! Mr. Swami will choose the lucky winner from the entries received! Oh boy!

These swell long-playing disc record albums contain up to literally, like, dozens of sure-fire party favorites! Who will be the lucky winner?? Not you, probably! LOOOOOOSER!!!!!

 

Art Dept.

 

Real painting by real painter William Rochfort

For Girls! Dept. - Thirty Minutes Of Soft Machine For Girls! Now With Upgraded Artwork!

Inclusivity is a long and revered tradition here at th' IoF©! Our trail-blazing recognition of basic human rights for Bikini Testers has garnered plaudits worldwide, and our award-winning For Girls! series has adapted the most off-puttingly "difficult" bands to the blander tastes of the "weaker sex" (bless 'em!). Think of the series as the musical equivalent of Classics Illustrated comics [below left - Ed.] ! Those popular abridgements of otherwise unreadable literary masterpieces such as Moby Quixote and Don Dick instilled a love of Fine Literature in a whole generation!

Yes, we like to think that the For Girls! series is of equal importance! No longer shall the "little lasses" feel excluded from the fun of listening to "boys only" bands such as The Captain Beefheart, The Velvet Undergrounds, the Lead Zeppelins, Pink And The Floyds, The King Crimsons, and now, The Soft Machines!

We've smoothed out those irksome jazz-rock "rough edges", concentrating on the more hummable qualities of this oft-challenging combo! And although the purist may carp that some of the selections - blended seamlessly into a Thirty-Minute Medley O' Melody™ - are solo performances, no "dolly-bird" is going to bother her pretty little head about that!

So, if you know any chicks [you're kidding, right? - Ed.], or maybe someone you know claims to, why not give them a copy of this swell long-playing album LP record? Its feminine allure is heightened by the oh-so-sensitive cover design,  making it a swell companion for her Dory Previn albums!

TAB HUNTER SEZ!

"Say, fellers! This sure is one neat recording! Using the latest hi-fi equipment, Farq has created a disc which is sure to hit that coveted Number One spot nationwide! And let's get one thing straight - this isn't just for the gals! Why, there's plenty for us guys to dig, too! I like to play it while I relax poolside with such husky H'wood hunks as Rock Hudson, Monty Clift, Cissy Romero, Cary Grant, Morrie Gosfield, Spence Tracy, Ty Power, Mary Brando, Vince Price, Ray Burr, Randy Scott, Sal Mineo, Tony Perkins, Jimmy Dean, and Tom Cruise! They all agree this is Manly Music for the guy of today, and you will too!

Your Pal, Tab!"

 

 

 

This piece created in a fit of cabin fever during the rainy season. Please address all complaints to Babs.

Re-Up Re-Kwest Dept. - Michael Chapman