Brazilian Guitar Fuzz Bananas

As you may know ARC is building a Brasilian/Brazilian Collection.  Now if YOU are building a Brasilian/Brazilian Collection, I think the next record you should get is Brazilian Guitar Fuzz Bananas, Tropicalia Psychedelic Masterpieces 1967 – 1976. (Tropicalia In Furs, USA, WPFC TIF 102, 2010).  This was put together by Joel Stones, our pal over at Tropicallia In Furs, New York’s best (only) Brasilian/Brazilian record store.

Bananas is a deluxe two record set, with a 3-D cover, appropriate viewing glasses, and a 48 page booklet insert providing details on all the source material in English and Portuguese.  The discs sound wonderful and the illustrated booklet gives a bit of history and the inside scoop on the dogged tracking down of the sounds.  You may think you’ve heard it all before, the soft sambas of the past, or those now-sound tinkly elctrobeats.  Brace yourself.  This is psychedelic, fuzz guitar, acid 60’s rock-solid+sloppy, loud, proud, funky druggie music.  Like a good table set in Salvador, there’s plenty to eat, but you don’t know the names of any of the fruits.  And occasionally there’s a bit of sand in that last bite.

Cuts are taken exclusively from elusively available, mostly promotional Brazilian seven-inch singles. It was a time when Brasil was in dangerous flux, but a mere dictatorship couldn’t stop folks from creating great pop scrambles, like Celio Balona’s take on the Batman theme, “Tema de Batman”, or Mac Rybell glow in the dark version of the Stones’, “Lantern”.  Not that all of these songs are covers, but a visiting scholar, Tom Cvikota, noticed that “Som Imaginario De Jimmi Hendrix”, may begin with a Experience-like crescendo, but is an unaccredited cover of the James Gang’s, “Funk 49”.

ARC regularly trades with and shops at Tropicalia.  Sure it’s predictably colorful, and fun, and Joel is cute and lovable and knowledgeable – but go anyway.

Tropicalia In Furs, 304 E. 5th St., New York, NY 10003, near Second Ave in the East Village.  Open, more than likely, late afternoon into night.  Call to make sure: 212-982-3251  No webthing.  So just order it from Joel.  Say B. sent you.  $20 for the discs, and $6 for shipping and handling.  There’s also a documentary on the enhanced CD, What Are Fuzz Bananas, which highlights the hunt (hey Joel, where’s the ARC copy?)

Today I took two friends to buy copies.  Last night Fred, Beco + B (the Dino, Desi and Billy of crate digging) spent a few hours at the store and returned with these fine, finer, finest vinyl’s – first the Brazilian+ world, then other assorted:

• Joao Bosco.   Galos De Briga  (RCA Victor, Brasil, 103.0171, 12”, vinyl disc-Lp, 1976)

• Victor Assis Brasil.   Toca Antonio Carlos Jobim  (Continental, Brasil, LP 0-46 411 068, 12”, vinyl disc-Lp, 1981)

• O Pequeno Burgues.   Azes Do Samba  (Cartaz, Brasil, LPC 5062, 12″, vinyl disc-Lp, n.d.)

• Erasmo Carlos.   O Tremendao  (RGE, Brasil, XRLP-5.306, 12″, vinyl disc-Lp, n)

• Cartola.   Pranto De Poeta, Serie Documento  (RCA Victor, Brasil, 130 0058, 12”, vinyl disc-Lp, 1989)

• Manâ Do Cavaco.   Martinho Da Vila Apresenta  (RCA Victor, Brasil, 103 0068, 12”, vinyl disc-Lp, 1973)

• Dori Caymmi.   Dori Caymmi  (EMI-Odeon, 31C 064 422899, 12″, vinyl disc-Lp, 88)

• Nana Caymmi.   Renascer  (CID, Brasil, 8016, 12″, vinyl disc-Lp, Mid-70’s)

• Maria Creuza.   Pecado  (RCA Victor, RCA, 103.0306, 12”, vinyl disc-Lp, 1979)

• Carlos Dafâ.   Malandro Dengoso  (Warner Bros, Brasil, BR 26.036, 12”, vinyl disc-Lp, 1979)

• Djalma Dias.   Nno Faéa Drama,,, Caia No Samba  (Som Livre, 403 6050, 12”, vinyl disc-Lp, 1974)

• A.C.Jobim.   Matita PerÉ  (Philips, Brasil, 6349071, 12″, vinyl disc-Lp, 1973)

• Ed Lincoln.   A Volta  (Musidisc, Brasil, HI FI 2088, 12”, vinyl disc-Lp, –)

• Lord Kitchener.   Hot Pants  (Trinidad, Trinidad, TRCS 0002, 12”, vinyl disc-Lp, n.d.)

• Machito.   Machito Goes Memphis  (RCA Victor, USA, LPM 3944, 12″, vinyl disc-Lp, n.d.)

• Ruy Maurity.   Ganga Brasil  (Som Livre, Brasil, 403.6127, 12”, vinyl disc-Lp, 1977)

• Marilia Medalha.   Caminhada  (RGE / Fermata, Brasil, 303.0017, 12”, vinyl disc-Lp, 1973)

• Sencion Minaya.   Y Los Quisqueyanos  (Madely, 116, 12″, vinyl disc-Lp, n.d.)

• Marilia Medalha / Vinicius De Moraes.   A Caneno E A Voz De Marilia Medalha Na Poesia De V  (RGE, Brasil, 303, 12”, vinyl disc-Lp, 1972)

• Paulinho Nogueira.   Moda De Graviola  (Continental, Brasil, 1-01-404-110, 12”, vinyl disc-Lp, 1975)

• Cir Pereira & Jaime Santos.   Avante Brasil  (ACS, Brasil, LP 002, 12″, vinyl disc-Lp, n.d)

• Jair Rodrigues.   Abra Um Sorriso Novamente  (Philips, Brasil, 6349 120, 12”, vinyl disc-Lp, 1974)

• Claudette Soares.   Gil, Chico E Veloso Por Claudette  (Philips, Brasil, R-765 021 L, 12”, vinyl disc-Lp, 1968)

• Elza Soares.   Elza Negra  (CBS, Brasil, 1 38184, 12”, vinyl disc-Lp, 1980)

• Raimundo Sodre.   Massa  (Polydor, Brasil, 2451 144, 12″, vinyl disc-Lp, 1980)

• Sparrow (Mighty).   Sparrow Come Back  (RCA Victor, Trinidad, LPB – 3006, 12”, vinyl disc-Lp, n.d. [1962])

• Zimbo Trio.   Zimbo Trio Vol, 2  (RGE, Brasil, XRLP-5 277, 12”, vinyl disc-Lp, –)

• Nana [Vaconcelos].   Amazonas  (Philips, Brasil, 6349 079, 12”, vinyl disc-Lp, 1973)

• Marcos Valle.   O Compositor E O Cantor  (Odeon Brasil, MOFB-3413, 12”, vinyl disc-Lp, 1965)

• Vanusa.   Vanusa  (Continental, Brasil, SLP-10 156, 12”, vinyl disc-Lp, 1974)

• Veloso, Caetano & Chico Buarque.   Caetano E Chico Juntos E Ao Vivo  (Philips, Brasil, 6349 059, 12″, vinyl disc-Lp, 1972)

• Caetano Veloso / Gilberto Gil.   Tropicçlia 2   (Philips, Brasil, 79339, 12″, vinyl disc-Lp, 1993)

…and here’s the other odds + ends we got…

• David Robert Jones  [ David Bowie ].   ChangesThree  (GRACE, AZL1-1984, 12″, vinyl disc-LP, n.d.)

• Arnett Cobb.   Sizzlin’  (Status / Prestige, ST 7227, 12″, vinyl disc-LP, 1961)

• Julian Dash.   A Portrait of Julian Dash  (Master Jazz Recordings, MJR 8106, 12″, vinyl disc-LP, n.d.)

• Davis, Eddie “Lockjaw”.   Cookbook Volume 1   (Prestige, 7141, 12″, vinyl disc-LP, n.d.)

• Davis, Eddie “Lockjaw”.   Trackin’  (Prestige, PR 7271, 12″, vinyl disc-LP, n.d.)

• Freddie and the Dreamers.   You Were Mad for Me  (Columbia, UK, 33SX 1663, 12″, vinyl disc-LP, 1964)

• Ron Goodwin.   Music in Orbit  (Captiol, T 10188, 12″, vinyl disc-LP, n.d.)

• The Harmonizing Four.   Tommie, Lonnie & Me  (Atlantic, SD R026, 12″, vinyl disc-LP, 1970)

• Hollywood Saxophone Quartet.   Jazz in Hollywood  (Liberty, LJH 6005, 12″, vinyl disc-LP, n.d.)

• Carl Holmes & the Commanders.   Twist Party at the Roundtable  (Atlantic, 8060, 12″, vinyl disc-LP, 1962)

• Harlan Howard.   To the Silent Majority, With Love  (Nugget, NRLP-105, 12″, vinyl disc-LP, n.d.)

• Richard Hayman.   The Era of Cleopatra  (Time, USA, S 2080, 12″, vinyl disc-Lp, n.d.)

• The Jet Black’s.   Twist  (Chantecler, Brazil, CMG-2.184, 12″, vinyl disc-LP, n.d.)

• King Curtis.   Azure  (Everest, LPBR 5121, 12″, vinyl disc-LP, 1960)

• B. B. King.   Blues, The  (Crown, CLP 5063, 12″, vinyl disc-LP, n.d.)

• Brownie McGhee & Sonny Terry.   Guitar Highwway  (Verve Folkways, FV-90919, 12″, vinyl disc-Lp     , n.d.)

• Houston Person.   The Big Horn  (Muse, MR 5136, 12″, vinyl disc-LP, 1979)

• James & Bobby Purify.   James & Bobby Purify  (Bell, BELL 6003, 12″, vinyl disc-LP, n.d.)

• Reno & Smiley.   On the Road with Reno & Smiley: Songs Truck Drivers Love  (King, 911, 12″, vinyl disc-LP, n.d.)

• Reparata and the Delrons.   1970 Rock & Roll Revolution  (AVCO Embassy, AVE 33008, 12″, vinyl disc-LP, n.d.)

• Shorty Rogers and His Giants.   Shorty in Stereo  (Atlantic, SD 1232, 12″, vinyl disc-LP, n.d.)

• Sonny Stitt.   All God’s Children Got Rhythm  (Prestige, 7248, 12″, vinyl disc-LP, n.d.)

• Sonny Stitt.   Come Hither  (Solid State, SS 18057, 12″, vinyl disc-LP, n.d.)

• Al Wagner and his Philharmonic Strings.   £12 English Sterling – The Music of Randolph Adcock  (Soundscape, , SRC 33700 P, 12″, vinyl disc-LP, n.d.)

• The Who.   Pop History Vol. 3  (Polydor, France, 2673 007, 12″, vinyl disc-2Lp, n.d.)

• Sondra Williams.   Hark the Voice  (Atlantic, SD R003, 12″, vinyl disc-LP, 1967)

The Irish Session of the Future!

We have lots of Irish music here at the ARChive (the entire Green Linnet catalog, for example), but I don’t think we’ve got anything like this. Here is a video of someone playing a very convincing set of jigs on a game for the Nintendo DS called “Daigasso! Band Brothers.”

I’m not sure how well it would go over so well at a session (especially the ones I like), but played that well I imagine it’d fare no worse than a poorly-played bohdrán.

There’s lots of music out there on youtube that’s made strange/beautiful because it’s played on an anachronous instrument.  I love this one of someone playing Britney Spears’s “Toxic” on the ukulele. What else in the strange/beautiful category is out there that you like? Report your findings in the comments, please!

Dr.D.

Beat & the Unbeat

Never one to miss an opportunity to hear some Spontaneous Beat Prosody, while grazing at a local purveyor of vinyl slabs I recently laid a paper George Washington head on the checked-out counter and strolled away with this item.

Click here to take a tour of Greenwich Village in the early 1960s. Jean Shepherd does the narrating.

Beat & the Unbeat items at the ARChive of Contemporary Music:
Kenneth Patchen With the Chamber Jazz Sextet Kenneth Patchen Reads His Poetry
Jack Kerouac With Steve Allen Poetry for the Beat Generation
Allen Ginsberg Howl & Other Poems
Irving Fields Trio Pizza and Bongos
and more . . .

Bryan

Never Talking, Just Keeps Walking

Spreading his magic…

What with the imminent release of the newest and last Harry Potter book, this morning’s Marketplace ran a little feature on Wizard Rock. Well, this piqued our interest here at the ARChive because we maintain a database of genres, and Wizard Rock wasn’t in it.

Until today.

So what is it, you ask? Well, according to Wizardrock.org, the self-described “premier” wizard rock site (eat it, Real Wizard Rock!), it is:

…a genre of music inspired by the works of J.K. Rowling, author of the popular Harry Potter book series. […] Many, like Harry and the Potters, are named for a specific character and sing songs from their point of view. Many also dress up like the character for performances.

If you think that just about covers it, you’re sorely mistaken. By the way, don’t mistake Wizard Rock for filk (science fiction or fantasy based folk music) or for the kind of D&D/LotR thing that Led Zeppelin did, or emo, for God’s sake. Wizard Rock is its its own damn thing. MTV even said so.

Compliments of my sister-in-law Eileen, we have a set of Wizard Rock lyrics she made up:

Oh Dumbledore, oh Dumbledore / Now its time to settle the score / Perry, Ron and Hermione too / Will vanquish the evil, you know who.

Oh Dumbledore, oh Dumbledore / Now its time to settle the score / Perry of the fame / Will vanquish he who must not be named.

Pretty sweet, right? So when all the wizard rockers are dead, where will we bury them, in Harry Potter’s Field?

Ugh, no! In the Deathly Hollows, next to the Shreiking Shack, obviously!

Spoiler alert! In the new book Harry undergoes a sex change operation, and we managed to find this as yet unreleased image of her new look. All hail Henrietta!

UPDATE!

My wife (who reads the Harry Potter books) had a set of lyrics on Friday, but we were out of computer contact through this morning, so it’s taken me until today (Sunday the 22nd) to post them. Here they are:

Keep your eye on the snitch and one hand on the broom.
But keep your head on straight ’cause the bludgers will always loom
Let ’em fly baby fly
Let ’em fly baby fly let ’em fly
To win the cup.

Now that Malfoy’s rich and his daddy buys him every toy
But in the end he’ll always be nuthin’ but a momma’s boy
Let ’em fly baby fly
Let ’em fly baby fly
Let ’em fly
To win the cup
Now the pitch was green and the sky was almost clear
But be if it starts to get cold you’ll know a dementor’s near

I have no idea what they mean, but they sure do sound convincing!

Wanted!

“There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know we don’t know.” Sure, anyone can quote a clown. But for your consideration, “Notes” the Clown. Musical, whimsical, his life scattered across a flea market table in Connecticut, rumored to be retired somewhere in FLA. Notes, give us a call. Fill us in. We need to know.

b.ARC

The bar has been raised.

Today, Gizmodo blogged a YouTube video of a woman playing Ode to Joy on a panpipe made from tampon applicators.  It’s an amazing idea whose time I am surprised hasn’t yet come (apologies if it has; I am as of yet totally ignorant of it).  As good as the video they posted was, the better one I think is the version of “Twinkle, Twinkle,” which I provide here for your edification:

 

 

I don’t know…I think it’s got a bit more flair, but you be the judge. Anyway, maybe it not an ethnomusicological “best case scenario,” but definitely a diversionary project for the “creative organology” buffs out there.  (Get it!  “Creative orga”…because of where…musical instrument…nothing?  Nothing at all?  Yikes!)

 

In theory, Tamponcrafts’s videos make me think this is something Tan Dun might have come up with at one point, but what it really makes me think of are my days as an undergrad when I spent all my time hanging around with my future wife and her friends in Plimpton Hall at Barnard. I basically lived in that dorm for two years – it was a great place.  Anyway, there was this friend of our who who lived there too – her initials are “EB” – who I think would dig this video.  Not only that, but I think that were she were more musically inclined she would have made sets of pipes for all her friends and posted videos of them playing lite chamber pieces arranged for tampon pipes on the steps of Low Library on YouTube.  It would have been the best.  Hey “E,” welcome back to the City!

 

(By the way, if you liked the panpies, don’t miss the “blow gun” – not to be missed, people!)

 

dtn

An Exotic Sheet Music Cover Collection Online!

While cataloging New York based organizations for the New York Musicians Index and Archive (or the NYMIA, a forthcoming resource for musicians in New York State), I found a really cool link on the New York Sheet Music Society’s web site to the “Hula Pages,” a website whose purpose (according to it’s “introduction” page) “is to document the cover art from vintage Hawaiian, tropical and exotic-themed sheet music.” We likey!

Lots and lots of great stuff over there. We have this one from 1915, which I sort of think is visually suggestive.

Isn’t there an old saying that goes, “exotica is just erotica with an x instead of an r?” If there isn’t, well, then there should be. Check out some of the other great covers:

 

There are literally hundreds of covers over there, so if you’re into old sheet music and exotica, you really, really can’t go wrong. Why, some of these titles there were even recorded on cylinder back in the day! Go have a listen!

AND SPEAKING OF CYLINDERS, be sure to check out the ARChive’s anti-iPhone contest, which I’m now calling the Plastic Cup Challenge! My cup-cutter should arrive this week (I’ve got confirmation that it’s shipped) and you can bet I’ll be blogging about it, so stay tuned!

dtn