Yeppers! It's my birthday! To mark this auspicious occasion, th' House O' Foam© offers a couple of swell recordings you'll be proud to display in den or lobby!
We have to thank Fourth Or Fifth Guy Scott1669 for the heads-up to the Smithsonian Legacy Recording At The Waleback by Robbie "The Werewolf" Robison. Who he? Hoo hah? He was married to Barbara/Sandy/Sandi Robison [see Roses Gone - Ed.], and after honing his showbiz chops as the US's premier (and possibly only) beatnik monster comedy folksinger he joined the innerezdingk band The Brain Train, which morphed into the awesome Clear Light. But after he left. Hmm.
Completing today's exquisitely tasteful boners bouquet of song is Patrick Sky's immortal classic Songs That Made America Famous, and you really should audition this one alone, too. Which won't be a problem if you're in solitary, of course. I'm a-skeered to even type out some of the song titles from this biscuit, but if you want something to sweep away those Millennial Blues, this will work against the woke.
Happy Birthday to me!
Ignoring their mothers' advice, The Tokens ate a bunch of blotter after their It's A Happening World album (already FoamFeatured©) made them the psychedelic darlings of absolutely nobody, and delivered the riskily-titled Intercourse to their label, confident it would carry them to the top of the charts on a wave of lysergic bliss. They should have listened to their mothers. And their management. And their label, who, not knowing whether to laugh or cry, ushered them gently out into the street and changed the locks.
The album runs through seventeen song fragments in twenty-seven minutes, averaging 1.6 minutes per fragment. Sporadically issued and re-issued since, it's inevitably been hailed as a lost psychedelic classic. It ain't that. It's a pleasant curio you'll play a few times, enjoying the Smiley Smile vibe. Good enough.
Meanwhile, Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart saw The Monkees on their Head trip and decided to do their own, releasing It's All Happening On The Inside (man) to mild indifference from both their teenybopper fanbase (well-served by two superb previous albums) and the hippies. The same pleasing-no-one career move as The Monkees, and The Tokens. And The Happenings. And just about any other pop group struggling into a kaftan before it got out of style. As you'd expect from these guys, you get professional audio entertainment. Good enough, and sometimes good enough is just swell.
It is with a heavy heart that I announce the departure of Cody from th' House O' Foam©. Again. Her feckless and lackadaisical attitude to work, and her callous indifference to the needs of you, th' Four Or Five Guys©, resulted in an entire album being wrongly uploaded [Peggy Lipton - Ed.] causing Monahoohah much inconvenience, wasted time, and personal embarrassment down at Manny's Tire & Lube.
I generously gave Cody time to clear her desk (Happy Meal toys, mostly) and had security escort her off the premises.
Thank you for your understanding.
Thelonious Monk is frequently the rock fan's third gateway drug into jazz, after Miles and Coltrane (as noted before here, never refer to Miles as Davis, nor Coltrane as John, if you want your jazz cred to remain intact). By far the most interesting and sympathetic of the three in terms of attitude, technique and personality, his music has something maybe unique among his bop peers - a sense of humor. Not laugh-out-loud comedy - Monk (never Thelonious) never plays it for laughs, but wit is there in his idiosyncratic composition and playing. In spite of its "difficult" reputation, his music is fun, more likely to bring an attractively wry smile to your lips than a furrow to your brow.
Here's his earliest recording sessions from 1947, as "curated" [compiled - Ed.] for the 2001 Rudy Van Gelder reissue, and as a bonus, something I thought I was going to loathe but love to bits - last year's "re-imagining" [interpretation - Ed.] of his music by "Mast" [Tim Conley - Ed.], using contemporary recording techniques, beats, and feats. It's as fantastic as that exquisite cover art would lead you to hope, and shows, seventy-two freakin' years on, that Monk's music is truly timeless.
Swell jazztertainment for Sunday!
Boduf Songs (me neither) have a new album out! Oboy! It's called Abyss Versions, and here's some highlights culled from its accompanying text! Just in case you're wondering, this is not a parody.
... songs are stripped bare and
trembling ... whispery nakedness.
Existential angst binds the album together ... begins in a vortex and
ends in a void ... not just thematically but with a palpable shiver ... alienated, evocative, full of murmured violence ... a scream that is sighed ... disquieting ... extremes of horror, despair and dystopia ... one isolated lonely voice,
musing on how “fingers break, flowers fall.” Let the chill run down
your spine, let the melancholy linger, Abyss Versions speaks to your quietest, deepest doubts.
Some fun, huh? I wonder what they'll pull for the single? Call me old-fashioned, but I preferred it when album sleeves detailed what the group liked in the way of girls and food. Not for the first time, I have to ask myself what is wrong with these people? They seem to have entirely lost the idea of music as entertainment, and entertainment as a business like any other - best left to professionals.
Normal service resumed later in the day.
