Perfect Tens Dept. - Pink Floyd

Outstanding in her field ...

Charter Four Or Five Guy© Sitarswami, a legend on th' IoF for his unique contributions, sent me a link to this frankly awesome remix of Atom Heart Mother. It's by a collective calling themselves MQR, and their website trumpets a metric shitload of remixes made without profit in mind, to be given away freely to fans because, hey man, the Man can't take our music, right? Except that there are - perhaps predictably - no links to download them. Gee whiz and uh-freakin'-huh, right?

Mr. Swami managed to source a handful, and among them is this stunning remix of one of my favourite albums, Atom Heart Mother, now given away freely to you, th' 4/5g©. It's that rare thing, a remix that improves on the original in every way, thus earning the prestigious IoF© Perfect Ten Award, the first for a remix. They got the cover right, too. THRILL to previously buried detail! WANDER thru widescreen stereo soundstage! SWOON to a transformed Summer Of '68! It's become my "go-to iteration", and it likely will be yours, too!

I've a feeling there'll be additions to this post, so check back every few seconds or so. It's not like you have anything better to do.

This post made inevitable thru th' astral chakra homologation of sitarswami™

Genius Celebrity Designer Joni Ives Interview!

Joni demonstrates his signature contribution to the vocabulary of design, yesterday! "It looks simple, but therein lies its subtle genius!"

You'll know Lord Joni Ives from his iconic designs for Apple Macintosh [home computer retailer - Ed.]. His signature form - a rectangle with rounded corners - was revolutionary in concept and sent shockwaves though industry and culture alike, profoundly influencing absolutely everything that was rectangular. Although best known for the iPhone - a glowing rectangle with rounded corners displaying a dizzying profusion of glowing rectangles with rounded corners - Joni hasn't been idle since those groundbreaking years! His post-Apple portfolio boasts such prestigious projects as an auctioneer's rostrum (non-glowing rectangle with rounded corners), an LED boat lantern (glowing rectangle with rounded corners) and a hi-fi turntable (rounding the corners to existing non-glowing rectangles). Given the depth and relevance of his experience, it's easy to see why Ferrari's youthful design chief Nepobambini Masturbani, 14, chose Joni to design their flagship battery-powered family runabout. 

OUT went the raw excitement, glamour, craftsmanship, character, prestige, and colour of the most recognised brand in the world! IN came soothing silence, glowing rectangles with rounded corners, and a pastel palette informed by starter home bathroom suites!

The new Ferrari Luce, yesterday!

We chatted poolside whilst [grammar - Ed.] Joni's youthful ward Nkudu stirred his Bailey's Créme de Menthe cocktail with a crystallized duck penis.

FT3 The reaction to your bold new design initiative is overwhelming!

JI (chuckling modestly) Well, influential YouTuber macasslicker958432 called it "genius", and who is one to disagree!

FT3 Talk us through the brief!

JI Nepobambini - dear boy! - said "I give you the free hand, Joni! Forget everything you know about world's most beloved car builder!" Which was news to me - I had no idea they made cars! (laughs)

FT3 (laughs) Well, you put a stop to that nonsense! Share prices fell off the roof! The first production model was ceremonially cremated by the Pope in the Vatican! And legacy Ferrari executives leapt through plate glass windows to their deaths! 

JI One is honoured by the commission to design their coffins. One envisages (gestures in air) rectangles with rounded corners ...  pastel colours ... no handles ...  

FT3 Joni, at no point did anybody say, excuse me, but what the actual screaming fuck are you doing here?

JI (laughs)

FT3 Literally nobody saw what happened to Jaguar and Porsche? And who the fuck is the Luce aimed at? People who want to spend Ferrari money but hate Ferraris and everything they stand for?

JI Hélas! Design genius is rarely recognised in the lifetime of the genius designer. It is one's cross to bear. Think of the Sinclair C5. The Cybertruck. The, er ... (snaps fingers) Nkudu! My glass needs stirring! Stir my glass ...

[Tape runs out here - Ed.]

Like A Yeti With A Medallion Dept. - Amory Kane

You had to be there ...

Possibly most people who've heard of Amory Kane (a neat pun on American) heard him first on the life-changing double album sampler on CBS, Fill Your Head With Rocks, which featured the beguiling Inbetween Man. Those who got beyond the smirk-inducing cover of his album (I'm, like, seriously, bro?) discovered a bunch of fine singer-songwritery material lifted above the norm by a subtly psychedelic production from Tony Cox (Caravan, Trees, Family etc.), with nicely sinister sonics from Ron Geesin (Pink Floyd). Kane has a good voice, avoiding the Donovan vibrato, and the only mis-step is his over-wrought rendering of Get Together, a song already dated in 1970. The rest is as good as the introspective, quietly stoned genre gets.

His debut album from two years previous [left, Ed.] features a paid-at-scale Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones. Very much a product of its time, and Steve Rowland's production veers into commercial pop, which doesn't fit as well as Tony Cox's sensitive experimentation. Also - Protest Song Advisory.

Neither album exactly gave the charts a good kicking, and Kane (real name Jack) returned to the States and became a chef. Good for him. Thanks for the music, Jack. Times like these, it fits just right.

 

 

 

 

This post made possible by torrential tropical downour. Can't even see the river! Yikes! 

Morgan Freeman's Book Cart O'Books Dept.

"We got literature out the ass ..."

 

If you're the quiet, bookish type, never happier than when curled up by the fireside with a novel, curtains drawn against the night and a guttering candle at your elbow, then that's probably why you need glasses! Turn the furshluginner light on, ya doofus! Say ... who's that knocking at your door? Why, it's moviedom's Morgan Freeman, with this week's curated selection of reading material! Come on in, Mr. Freeman!

FX SQUEAKY CART WHEELS, WHISTLING 

MF Okay loser, I got a bunch of swell books to help you forget you're a lifer with zero chance of getting your ass paroled! I bet you still fantasizing about being curled up by the fireside, huh? Well, them days are gone like a train! (grins cheerily)

YOU (sobs) Society is to blame! And rock and roll music!

MF Yeah right. Listen, I got Agricultural And Land Drainage Reform In The Low Countries In The 17th And 18th Centuries, in fourteen volumes, or I got some shitty old science fiction paperbacks.

YOU Hmm, I dunno ... them drainage books ... they gots pitchers? 

MF Uhh ... nope.

YOU Got any old Oui magazines? [see below - Ed.]

Interview with Fidel Castro! Oboy!

MF (momentary dreamy expression) Ooh yeah ... Oui Magazine. Nope. Take the paperbacks.

YOU Gee whiz. I ain't into science.

MF How about fiction?

YOU (without enthusiasm) I guess.

Morgan Freeman tosses books onto your narrow cot and wheels book cart away, whistling Don't Worry, Be Happy. 

FX PRISON DOOR SLAMS 

 

 

 

 

Join in the lively discussion in the comments! 

Smart Dressed As Stupid Dept.

I was put off these guys for decades because of their dumb name and stupid cover, figuring the music to be just mullet-shaking Clod Rock with maybe some futuristic synth farts. Turns out it's worryingly clever, which makes you wonder why they chose to present themselves as the musical equivalent of Truck Nutz™.

Ewww ... big hands!

Like, check out these track titles, bro: Dancing Madly Backwards (On A Sea Of Air), Myopic Void, and I Can't Feel Nothin' (Parts One and Two). Someone who knows something about words came up with that good stuff. And the tracks, thirteen of them in thirty-six Earth minutes. Not your standard sludge-athon flex.

Turns out that yes, it's hard rock, but with NEW added smarts! It was something of a Supergroup at the time, with musicians from RSRCH PSE ED WIKI OR DISCOGS [and that's a big Fuck You from me - Ed.] but stiffed in the racks in spite of a lavish 3D cover specifically designed to appeal to absolutely nobody.

Anyway, they were picked up by Phil Walden at Capricorn - Duane Allman was a fan - for a second album called Sufficiently Breathless, which is one of the greatest album titles of all time, in a sleeve even worse than the debut [below - Ed.]. It's more mainstream, with a little Santana influence (okay, and why, exactly?) on a couple of tracks. The quality is there but the elusive youth market got even more elusive and decided to spend its walking-about money on a bag of reds and a corn dog instead.

Apparently they never quite delivered live (I've only heard a bootleg, which sounds like a bootleg, and I hate that sound), and this may be a reason for their "untimely demise". The records are basically pretty terrific, and it's hard to find a bad word about them. If you haven't heard them, they're likely to surprise you, in a good way.

I think they made a third album, which was a mistake.

Yeucchh, right?

This post has a Tog Rating of 3.5

Randy Randomguy's Rubber Room O' Randomness Dept.

 

You know the rules by now: set your mp3 player to shuffle, list first ten that come up! If you don't like music, list the first ten things that come into your head! If you can't count, tell us your favourite colour! 

Art Gallery O' Art. Dept.

 

Jari Anttonen

Wm. Blake

Jari Anttonen

Ivan Albright

Austin Osman Spare

Sidney Sime

Burt Shonberg

Max Ernst

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!

3 Digitalisation Process

Merry orphans, yestiddy

Here [above - Ed.] we see motivated IoF© interns at th' Pixelator®, turning the raw data from the original oil painting into glowing, gem-like pixels! Note pixel collection baskets.

Pixels are combined into digital image using ultra-modern computerised machinery! "Which it's a demanding yet satisfying job," sez Veldene Szymczyk [left - Ed.]. "I gots to, like, press this button on this doohickey? Why, Mr Throckmorton is the bestest boss what a girl like I could have! Plus, he's hung like a ham!"

4 Locating Source Material

Diversity, Body Positivism, and a Master's Degree in Marine Biology

Working from my extensive "shopping list" of musical songs which embody the chosen theme, each of which may be used in part or whole, my team of highly qualified, merit-hired researchers [above - Ed.] ventures into the vast IoF© Warehouse O' Tunes™ [below - Ed.] to locate the source material which constitutes the source material.

Tomorrow we'll delve into how the actual Audio Initiative - that's the "sounds" that get into your "ears" - is curated! See you then!

Sat'dy Morning TV Dept.

Grab that Saturday morning vibe right here on th' IoF©, with 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.

Dreams of Syndication Dept. - Part Uno

Toothsome Kendra Smith on electric microphone, hunky Steve Wynn on electric guitar, moody Steve Suchilon on electric bass, flamboyant Russ Tolman on electric guitar, and pusillanimous Gavin Blair on electrically amplified drums. Together they are The Suspects, and this is what they sounded like in 1979, probably. You should know who these dudes are, but here's some screed what I stole from discogs® to clue in the clueless:

"Even before the Los Angeles-based Paisley Underground took shape, the Sacramento/Davis area of Northern California was an early focus of Paisley Underground bands and musicians, some of whom later moved to Los Angeles. The Suspects were a Davis-based predecessor to Dream Syndicate, formed in 1979 by guitarist Steve Wynn and bassist Kendra Smith (who were both disc jockeys at college radio station KDVS at the time), with Russ Tolman on rhythm guitar and Gavin Blair on drums. They released one single in 1979, and performed in the Davis area through 1981. When Wynn and Smith left for Los Angeles in 1981 and formed Dream Syndicate, Tolman and Blair remained in Davis and started up True West."

There's, like, a total of like, literally, like, literally thirteen minutes of music here. It's fun and it's bowel-crimpingly rare and I'm betting you don't gots!

This post funded in part by Dave's Famous Old Guy Underpants© out of Pismo Beach, CA. "Cut slack and high waisted, the way you like 'em! Now available in these five popular colorways - Off-Off-White, Damp Sack, Marine Mold, Yellowish, and classic Nose Paste. Ask to see our Pre-Stain™ range for the doubly incontinent!"

Obscure Delights Dept. - Boulevard Of Broken Dreams Part 1

And yes, this is the vinyl cover. You can be too obscure! 

"I had this on vinyl, back in the day" and have searched for it fruitlessly, and vegetablelessly, ever since. It's hard to even search for on line, unless you love Green Day.

So this is my request to you - if you have it, or know somebody who does, please do me - and just about everybody else - a big favour and upload it!

discogs

Pmac's link in comments!

Mac Gayden

 

Mac Gayden died last year. There was always something otherworldly about him, and now he's gone there ahead of us. He could bring out the exotic, the otherness, in a banjo. Listen to the opening instrumental, Queen Anne's Lace. In his hands it was the primeval instrument, as natural as birdsong, a long way from the hootenanny. Then it's Rising Sun, haunted by his slide playing, his voice straight from the heart, and the wordless ooohs that shiver your nerve endings. There's textures in Mac's music you don't hear anywhere else, that impossibly yearning guitar, and his distinctive voice, the leap into falsetto that carries you with it.

McGavock Gayden is an insanely rare album. Recorded in Nashville, only released in the UK. They did it proud with a nice and suitably enigmatic gatefold, but it barely made the shelves before being forgotten. I think Mac made it briefly available as a CDROM, but it never got a re-release, somebody lost the tapes. Brilliantly produced - layer upon layer - by Bob Johnston, it sounds like a heavenly host, but it's mostly just him, some help with backing vox, and Kenny Buttrey on drums. Look it up on Allmusic if you want to see the impact it made.

It's been on th' IoF© before, but only in a crackly vinyl rip, the best anybody could find at that point. So when my pal Andy sent me this pristine rip, it was like hearing the album for the first time. It's not lots of things; not Americana, not folk, not country and/or western, not rock or folk-rock, not prog, nor any other file-under. Songs stretch out and wander where they will, regardless of market potential. It's a very long album, fifty minutes, with no hint of a hit single, and not a note wasted.

He'd make two other superb albums in the seventies, before ducking out of whatever spotlight managed to find him, a respected session guitarist and performer. But it's those three albums, McGavock Gayden, Skyboat, and Hymn To The Seeker, that'll find new fans as long as there's music in the air and hearts to hear it.

Pass it around.

Thanks to Andy!

Susanna Hoffs Gets "Girl Boner" Boosting Low-Performing Zombies Post!

"I'm, like, the Zombies biggest fan!" Gushed pert n' pouting Susanna Hoffs, yesterday! "Just thinking of Colin Blunstone's oh-so-husky voice causes my lady garden to moisten!"

She was delighted to act as clickbait for an underperforming post featuring a significant upgrade to what the cognoscenti are already calling yet another fucking fan playlist. "I think what you've done is simply magnificent, Farq! It must come as a crushing disappointment that nobody gives a bag of possum farts! Why - you're crying! Let Susikins comfort her big boy!" [tape runs out - Ed.]

This [left - Ed] is a rethink of an album featured here a couple of times. A reshuffle, cuts, and surgical razorblade edits. Voilà. This is as sweet as I can make it. If the mood or the production didn't quite fit, it didn't make the cut. The album runs a little short, eleven songs, but better that than too long, a common failing of this type of exercise. This is consistent quality all the way through, with no compromises in the name of completeness or "authenticity". You, apparently, don't give a bag of possum farts.

You can play this right after Odessey & Oracle and you will not be disappointed! [Ri-i-ght, like that's gonna happen - Ed.]

A note about the title: I mis-spelled Iliad to mirror the mis-spelling of Odyssey. That's the kind of granular detail I put into these exclusive audio initiatives. Pearls before swine!

Perfect Pop Now! Dept. - The Lemon Twigs

Cleveland Jeff has a nice write-up of the new Lemon Twigs album, which had mysteriously passed me by. However, after spending a frustrating week-end going blind trying to find a StealthLink© over at Like Dancing About Architecture, I decided to make the album available to th' Four Or Five Guys© in a special edition. Why is it special? Because, like last time, I've gone the extra yard for them and replaced their dull, stoopid cover with something that doesn't look like an Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark album. I like to think the new design [above - Ed.] taps into that whole Saturday Morning TV vibe.

Their previous album [left, whoopsie, I mean, like, above - Ed.] got a drooling review here, which I can't now find. Perhaps I dreamed it? So here it is again, for possibly the first time! They're both absolutely primo First Tier harmony pop albums, with incredibly hooky songs, sparkling production, and I can't recommend them too highly, and now they have great covers, they get the coveted Perfect Ten award!

You certainly won't regret downloading today's Deliverables O' Excellence™!

THIS JUST IN!

From 2020, and surprisingly fun.

And here they are, four guys who aren't the Beach Boys, live, no overdubs, doing the impossible, and doing it well:

This post fluffed and folded by Lucy Lastic's Laundromax de Luxe©, LA