I’ve been on a bit of a Marc Almond kick today and wanted to share this groovy lil’ number, called Sleaze. If I am not mistaken, this was originally a 1982 fan club only 12” (I have one, it looks like a bootleg) but that’s odd as it has a music video. Why would they have gone to the expense? It didn’t even get a proper release until 1997.
Nevertheless, here they are, Marc and the Mambas, in all of their druggyy sleazy, Warholian glory. Is he really singing what I think he’s singing? (“Someone blew a pony, someone threw a fit. Baby let me mambo with you a little bit”). Isn’t this a riff just begging to be sampled? Turn it up. You won’t get this song out of your head for a week.
Before finding fame as Clark Griswald, a 24 year-old Chevy Chase was living his rock n’ roll dream as the keyboardist/drummer for Boston psychedelic band Chamaeleon Church. Their sole album appeared on the MGM label in 1968 and was marketed as part of the Bosstown Sound that included other lysergic warriors from the area Ultimate Spinach, Orpheus, Beacon Street Union, Phulph, Eden’s Children, and Puff.
Although the marketing plan back-fired, as the press deemed the whole scene as nothing more than record label hype, the albums made by the Bosstown groups contain many gems including this harmony-laden winner Camillia is Changing. Produced by the ultra-prolific Alan Lorber, who also master-minded the whole Bosstown gimmick, the song has the usual 1968 flourishes and some killer harmonies, which I am sure Chase’s perfect pitch lent to extensively.
Before playing with the Church, Chase jammed with school friends Walter Becker and Donald Fagan in The Leather Canaries, who of course would find fame sans Chevy as Steely Dan. Although his music career didn’t quite pan out, Chase simultaneously worked with an underground comedian gang called Channel One that would lead to his eventual TV and comedy career.
James “Bucks” Burnett is a “collector.” He used to write the Mr. Ed Fan Club newsletter and he managed the one and only Tiny Tim. Now he wants to open an eight-track museum.
“There are only two choices. A world with an eight-track museum and a world without an eight-track museum,” he says. “I choose with.”
Shortly after the show, the planners of a music conference in Denton, a music-loving college town about 40 miles north of Dallas, made Mr. Burnett an offer. They would find him a vacant space and pay $4,000 to build a temporary museum for a one-month run beginning Friday.
Mr. Burnett accepted and is readying his collection for another display, this time in a former lingerie factory in Denton. He plans to showcase and play a few hundred tapes, including a baby-blue copy of The Who’s “Tommy,” a copy of the “Easy Rider” soundtrack with sun-bleached cover art signed by Peter Fonda and a rare copy of Lou Reed’s 1975 avant-garde homage to noise called “Metal Machine Music.”
Play It Again: Promoter Has One-Track Mind About Eight Tracks (WSJ)
[Pleased to say I own a copy of Metal Machine Music on 8-track. Displayed proudly on my book shelf. I think it might be the first or second oldest possession I have, dating to when I was probably ten years old. I think it cost a dollar, still sealed, at a white trash department store my mother shopped at in Wheeling, WV.]
I adore Meredith Monk. She has a voice like no one else. I finally got to see her live in a small recital hall in the Los Angeles Public Library six years ago. It was one of the strongest performances that I’d ever seen a single person give. She sang accompanying herself on piano or acapella. The highlight was when she did the magical Gotham Lullaby, which is probably her best known piece of music. (Bjork often performs it live; here at the Coachella Music Festival in 2002)
She also happens to stunningly beautiful, looking WAY younger than her 67 years.
Controversial director Peter Greenaway’s fantastic Meredith Monk documentary from his Four American Composers series, which also included Philip Glass, John Cage and Robert Ashley can be viewed on UbuWeb. It’s excellent. I most highly recommend it.
Below a clip from Monk’s 1988 film Book of Days. You can get a DVD at her website. There is also a new CD of her early work, including a phenomenal piece called Candy Bullets And Moon performed with Don Preston of the original Mothers of Invention out now called Meredith Monk: Beginnings
It’s Her Party: Four Decades of Meredith Monk: Underground music’s matriarch throws herself a live retrospective at the Whitney (Encore)
Yesterday when I was posting the Pulsallama video, not surprisingly, YouTube displayed several videos featuring Dangerous Minds pal, actress/singer Ann Magnuson and I played one of them (see below) and now I can’t get this song out of my head. Taken from the third studio album by Tindersticks, Curtains, this track Buried Bones is a duet between Ann and Tindersticks leader Stuart Staples. I think you’ll agree that it’s a memorable, moving, absolutely gorgeous piece of music. The lyrics remind me of just about every woman I’ve ever fallen for (but not all, thankfully). The fan made video, below, cut with scenes from Amelie works pretty well, I think.
I was lucky enough to be in the audience for the sole one of probably only two live performance of the duet, at the Mercury Lounge in New York City. Sublime! Afterwards, Ann and I went to a Moroccan-themed restaurant on 2nd Street with the entire band and the owner—someone Ann knew—insisted we try the house drink, which was delicious, but the insane hangover that resulted—there was tons of sugar in it—put both of us off alcohol, literally, for years.
Peter Christopherson is releasing the entirety of Coil’s studio and live output in a massive honking box set full of schwag, remix and karaoke versions, and fuzzy shit. (Sorry, that’s “fuzzy items.” I should be careful to be specific with language in this case.) The box contains:
1. an individually numbered disc (similar to those worn by dancers in go-go bars). Numbers in the Patron’s Edition (ie from #1 - 200) are in RED (as shown), numbers in the Official Pre-Order Edition are in BLUE (#201 - #however many are ordered in the next four weeks)...
2. Four hand-made cloth bags in the same (or similar) fabric Coil’s costumes were made from, each containing the dvds of concerts where those costumes were worn… FLUFFY, GLOWING, REFLECTIVE (mirrored) and SHROUDED…
3. The dvd collection itself, features 14 show dvds (of which the first two, being shorter and without extras, are very rare half-silvered dvds) plus a two dvd “COIL RECONSTRUCTION KIT” containing more than 4 hours of projection animations and processed footage PLUS the accompanying backing-tracks to all the songs in question, Karaoke-style (though without super-imposed lyrics). These are here released under a Creative Commons License, by which you are free to sample, re-loop and otherwise, “molest” or “interfere” with Coil’s music and animations to your hearts content (as long as its not for commercial gain)...
4. In addition the box contains a Collection of more than 100 postcards, 6” × 4” to fit the Patron’s Edition frame, in a velour bag. These pictures (almost all unseen till now) taken by Coil or our friends, are a very personal record of life on the road with Coil… Fortunately there is not a guitar to be seen, though there may be one picture of a a tour bus!
If there are any pictures of groupies, they may well be in uniform, carrying Kalashnikovs…
5. Lastly Colour Sound Oblivion also contains a couple of small printed pamphlets or booklets - One containing Sleazy’s thoughts, anecdotes, reflections on the being part of Coil Live, and thanks to everyone he can remember - The other a facsimile of the Order of Service of Geff’s (Jhonn Balance’s) Funeral, which took place a month pretty much to the day, after the last show in this Collection… This latter will only be included in the Patron’s and Pre-Order Editions.
This looks to be the definitive record of the band, similar to the “TG24” box set for Throbbing Gristle. Some of the most beautiful and damaged music ever recorded, enough to fuck your mind for good.
. Their sole album appeared on the MGM label in 1968 and was marketed as part of the Bosstown Sound that included other lysergic warriors from the area Ultimate Spinach, Orpheus, Beacon Street Union, Phulph, Eden’s Children, and Puff. 
