The following was written by Chris Campion and is taken from the liner notes of the CD release of Andy Warhol Presents Man on the Moon: The John Phillips Space Musical on Varese Sarabande Records.

The off-Broadway musical Man on the Moon was conceived by John Phillips and his third wife, the South African actress, Genevieve Waite, as a potential film or stage production originally entitled Space. John would spend more time trying to realize this project than anything else he worked on in his career; nearly five years all told, beginning in 1969 during the period he was recording his first solo album, John the Wolfking of L.A.

Space was born the day Neil Armstrong first set foot on the moon. Like millions of other people, John watched the 1969 moon landing on TV. He was living, at the time, on the Malibu property rented by British film director Michael Sarne, who was under contract at Fox to direct the adaptation of Gore Vidal’s novel, Myra Breckenridge, with Rex Harrison, Raquel Welch and Mae West. Sarne had commissioned John to write songs for the film.

The Apollo 11 moon landing became an obsession. John would watch a recording of the TV transmission made on an early video tape machine over and over. The idea of exploring this new frontier - and particularly Neil Armstrong’s scripted aside as he stepped onto the lunar surface that it was, “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” - fired John’s imagination, and he began to piece together ideas for a mythical space opera set to music. “He loved myths,” says Genevieve, who was first introduced to John by Sarne that summer. “He liked Homer - The Iliad and The Odyssey.”

John first began performing a small song cycle he had written about “space exploration” as early as the fall of 1970, as part of the short tour he undertook to promote Wolf King. Over the next two years, he and Genevieve formulated ideas for the story, and created a theatrical treatment (later adapted as a screenplay). Seeking a backer, they pitched it to Michael Butler, producer of the stage musical Hair. He provided seed money to realize a book and a score for Space, and brought a young director called Michael Bennett on board.

For several months, the Italianate mansion at 414 St. Pierre road in Bel Air that John and Genevieve were renting became a hive of Space-related activity. Among their collaborators was British costumier Marsia Trinder, who had designed clothes for Elvis Presley and Raquel Welch. “It was a very creative period for about two or three months,” says Trinder, who moved into another wing of the mansion with her then boyfriend to work on costumes for the production. “John was the key person organizing it all and coming up with ideas. But everybody was feeding into it. John felt that with all the secrets in the world, there wouldn’t be wars if people didn’t have secrets. And then they kind of figured out the plot.”

The initial story for Space gradually took shape: When a humanoid bomb left on the moon by the Apollo space mission threatens to blow itself up and destroy the universe, an astronaut on Earth is tasked with leading a delegation of interplanetary dignitaries to travel there and defuse it. Humanity is forced to curb its destructive impulses for the universal good.

The role of the astronaut was originally written for Elvis, whom John and Genevieve had befriended in 1971, while living in Palm Springs shortly after the birth of their son Tamerlane. “John was trying to sell him songs,” says Waite. “They would sit around and John would sing him different songs.”  At one point, Ricky Nelson was also approached for the part.

Read more about the ill-fated musical (with a second exclusive video clip) after the jump…

 
Helado Negro is the nom du song of versatile and uncompromising producer Roberto Lange. I’ve blogged previously about his ingenious collaborations with visual artist David Ellis. He’s also a frequent contributor to Guillermo Scott Herren’s brilliant Prefuse 73 and Savath and Savalas projects. This new LP is a solid pleasure; dubbed out, noisy and stream of consciousness following but timelessly tuneful and dare I say, rather pleasant indeed.
 
Have a listen to Regresa from Canta Lechuza out May 10 on Asthmatic Kitty

 
And here’s how it goes down live…

 
Stream the whole album at NPR

 
My post yesterday about the disposable inserts from blank cassette tapes got me thinking about this interesting album from 2000. It’s by the now defunct Argentine band Reynols and it’s called Blank Tapes. Starting with a solid three minutes of truly blank tape it then moves through a monochromatic rainbow of different processes with blank cassette ness as the root source. Hear it in its entirety right here:
 

 

 
The band Reynols itself is fascinating. Consisting of a few special education teachers and one of their star pupils, Miguel Tomasin, who happens to have Down’s Syndrome, Reynols released tons of records to much acclaim within the experimental music community and even did a few collaborative recordings with the great composer Pauline Oliveros. Legend has it the name Reynols was arrived at by allowing a pet Chihuahua to step on a TV remote which randomly brought up an image of Burt Reynolds. Can you make things like that up ? I suppose so, but I’m still buying it.
 
Reynols - 10,000 Chicken Symphony 7” also from 2000

 
What’s that, a new album? Guess I spoke too soon!

 
So the Beastie Boys are back, with their new album Hot Sauce Committee Part Two.

There’s an interesting/confusing story about this release - the first Hot Sauce Committee record was due to drop in 2009. At the same time as HSCPt1 was being recorded, the ever-prolific band recorded a bunch of extra material for NSCPt2, and scheduled the release of the sequel for early 2011. Unfortunately the release of HSCPt1 was delayed when MCA discovered he had cancer (which he thankfully pulled through), but HSCPt2 remained on track for a spring 2011 release. And so here it is - but now with the track list swapped for that of HSCPt1. The real HSCPt1 is scheduled for release later this year, presumably featuring the material that was recorded for HSCPt2. Those Beasties, they so crazy.

So what does it sound like? Well, listen for yourself:
 

Hot Sauce Committee Part Two by Beastie Boys
 
Hot Sauce Committee Part Two will not be available to buy until May 3rd, but you can order it in advance on Amazon.

 
Oops, I’ve lost control again.

Joy Division-inspired tee shirt from African Apparel (love the name).

It’s that time of the year again for inflatable water slides, foam kickboards, Super Soakers and Motörhead beach balls. Yes, Motörhead beach balls. They’re $9.99 a pop over at Motörhead’s webstore.

(via Cherrybombed)

Wolf Stephenson stands in what is left of the legendary Malaco Records.

Severe storms and a series of tornadoes has plagued the Midwest and Southern states throughout April. One of the casualties of the violent weather is the legendary blues and soul label Malaco Records in Jackson, Mississippi. It was crushed by a tornado on April 15.

You can read about Malaco Records, “The Last Soul Company,” and its formidable history at their website.

Malaco Records’ flamingo-pink main office was one of the few buildings in the area when it opened in 1967 on the west end of Jackson’s Northside Drive.

“We were practically out in the country,” said Wolf Stephenson, vice president and chief engineer. “I can remember all of us sitting out in the parking lot in the wee hours of the morning, eating watermelon and listening full blast to the song mixes we were working on at the time. We wanted to see how they sounded away from the speakers.”

Stephenson, 67, managed to chuckle at the memory Monday afternoon, a few seconds of escape from the grim reality brought on by Friday’s tornado that ravaged parts of Clinton and northwest Jackson, injuring seven and causing major damage to numerous homes and businesses.

The twister didn’t spare Malaco, which has produced its share of music history. It destroyed the accounting building and shipping warehouse. The main building, which housed executive offices and the legendary recording studio, was pummeled.

There were some bits of good news: Approximately 20 employees who were at work when the storm struck escaped injury. Couch and Stephenson said they plan to rebuild. And Malaco’s thousands of precious master tapes weathered the storm in a vault-type building made of concrete blocks and supported by reinforced steel.

The recording studio was dark and dank Monday. A grand piano and a Hammond B3 organ were barely visible, buried in debris. The sound of music was replaced by the flapping of a blue tarp, serving as a temporary roof. Pieces of the wood tile floor were scattered about. Amplifiers and microphones looked soulless and lonely.

Hits were born in this room. Among them: Jean Knight’s 1971 No. 1 single, Mr. Big Stuff; King Floyd’s Groove Me, which went to No. 1 on the R&B chart; and Dorothy Moore’s 1976 classic, Misty Blue. Paul Simon recorded Learn How to Fall here. It appeared on his 1973 album There Goes Rhymin’ Simon, which earned two Grammy nominations.”

Here’s a link to a Malaco Records video mix courtesy of The CW Austin. Click here and scroll down the page for the mix.

The Malaco Records story aired on WAPT in Jackson, Mississippi in 1999.
 

 
Thanks, Mike Webber

Here’s the first of a series of pieces I’ll be doing on one-hit wonders. While my intent is to be as informative as possible, I’m starting off with an artist that I can find very little information on, the mysterious J. Bastos.

“Loop di Love” was recorded in 1969 by J. Bastos (Juan Bastos) and became a big hit in Holland and Germany in 1971. It kicks off with one of the more bizarre and memorable verses in pop history and goes on to tell the story of a young man’s chance encounter with a prostitute.

I saw you walking down the street
Love di loop di love
Your hair was hanging down to knees
Love di loop di love
Your waist was waving like a ship
Love di loop di love
The way you look made me sick
Love di loop di love

The only biographical information I can find on J. Bastos is that he lived somewhere in northern Germany and the song was recorded as a joke among drunken friends and became a fluke hit. And that info is from an alleged disgruntled former employee of Bastos who claims he was hellish to work for and fell into being a popstar totally by accident. It’s odd, considering the notoriety and popularity of “Loop di Love,” that so little is known of its creator. Anyone got any info on J. Bastos?

The tune is based on a Greek fishermen’s song “Darla Dirlada.”

A double dose of J. Bastos - a promo video shot in Amsterdam and a performance on German TV.

Cock-hopping at 1:27.
 

 
Special for Easter, here’s a rarely seen document from the bowels of the New York No Wave scene: Ecstatic Stigmatic directed by Teenage Jesus and the Jerks member Gordon Stevenson and starring his wife Mirielle Cervenka (older sister of Exene). Both of whom would be dead within 2 years of the film’s completion, he of AIDS and she of a hit and run driver in Los Angeles. Also appearing is DNA’s Arto Lindsay. Despite the home made proto-goth silliness this is actually pretty relentlessly creepy and the music is fantastic. Definitely worth at least one viewing and/or skimming. Extra huge thanks to our own Marc Campbell for hunting down the best possible version, cleaning it up and uploading for your viewing displeasure. Probably NSFW.
 


 
Max Matthews was a visionary genius who helped pioneer the use of computers as musical instruments. Mathews died on 21 April 2011 in San Francisco, California of complications from pneumonia. He was 84.

In the late 1950s Max Mathews created MUSIC, the first widely used music synthesis program while working in the Acoustic Research Group at Bell Telephone Laboratories. Over the next forty years at Bell Labs and then at the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics at Stanford University, Mathews advanced and refined digital computer music synthesis.”

Matthews created the Radio Baton which is featured in the video below. His enthusiasm for his invention and love for the music he creates with it is inspiring. The video was shot in 2010 when Matthews was 83 years old. A marvelous human being.

A Radio Baton is an electronic instrument with two baton controllers and a receiving base called the antenna. In the end of each baton is a small radio transmitter. As the batons are moved over the receiving base, four antennas in the base are able to determine the batons’ location in three-dimensional space. The movement of the batons through space are converted into instructions determining how the music is to be synthesized.
The Radio Baton Conductor Model uses the model of an orchestra conductor controlling the musical tempo, dynamics and expression of the piece. The Conductor program puts the pitches and the durations of the notes in a score that the computer reads as a sequence of beats in the computer memory. The conductor can move the batons around with his two hands, controlling six variables, and assign these variables to whatever functions in the music are important at any instant of the music.
When asked if the radio baton was a successful instrument, Mathews answered, “I suspect actually it was too successful. It may have made music too easy to play. But my vision there, and the vision I think I got from John Chowning was that everyone could have his own orchestra and could interpret music according to his particular feelings about it. And that this might be a much more satisfying way than simply sitting and listening to a recording or simply listening to a concert in a concert hall.”

In the video, Matthews performs pieces by by Bach, Chopin, Beethoven and Appleton, demonstrating the artfulness of electronics.

Matthews once said that “a violin always sounds like a violin, but a computer is unlimited in terms of timbre it can make, so it can enrich music.” His mission was to learn, as he put it, “what the human brain and ear thinks is beautiful. What do we love about music? What about the acoustic sounds, rhythms and harmony do we love? When we find that out it will be easy to make music with a computer.” Enjoy Max Matthews making some music with a computer: