Amoeblog

Bungle Fever: Mr. Bungle's California Available on Vinyl...Finally!

Posted by Kelly S. Osato, October 4, 2010 09:43pm | Post a Comment
Mr. Bungle album vinyl issue california 1999 last record reissue 180 gram plain recordings
California dreamin'? Heck yes I am now that I got my paws on Mr. Bungle's newly issued third (and possibly final) LP, California, at long last! Originally released in 1999, Plain Recordings has done Mike Patton & company's stunning, genre-grinding "pop oriented" album nothin' but justice by offering this overflowing kitchen sink of experimental-rock on heavy wax for those of us who simply cannot get enough of the maelstrom of diverse influences --- ranging from swing, rockabilly, country & western, bossa nova, Hawaiian and Middle Eastern music, jazz, Zappa-esque doo wop, arty-funk, post-rock, space-age pop, spaghetti-Western music, warped circus melodies, new age, heavy metal and exotica --- that somehow manage to sound cohesive and linear against savage spates of juxtaposed music-making wizardry. Among many brilliant moments stitched into the body of this masterwork is the inclusion of stylistically head-banging kecak vocals (Indonesian "monkey chanting") on the album's final track, "Goodbye Sober Day." In this respect I reckon that Mr. Bungle's California could be reviewed as just another ripple in the weird "world beat" well, but I believe this record serves as proof that pre-Y2K global fusion, musically speaking, needn't entirely be remembered as naive Cirque du Soleil-caliber dregs of whimsical frivolity to be trampled by the likes of Michael Flatley. No, this album plays like rose-tinted muse blender on puree, partying with the lifetime achievements of Brian Wilson and Burt Bacharach like it's 1999!

Love Story - The Band Love and Arthur Lee's Skewed Genius

Posted by Miss Ess, February 17, 2009 10:45am | Post a Comment
love with arthur lee

One of my favorite bands from the 60s has to be Love. Their music is so unexpected and so unconventional, both lyrically and sonically. I give Arthur Lee the lion's share of credit for this (slove storyorry Bryan MacLean). Lee was truly one of a kind.

I've just watched the recent documentary about Love, Love Story.

Lee formed the band under various names in Los Angeles in the early 60s. It was one of the very first integrated rock bands to hit the scene and gain popularity -- something that is discussed in the film quite a bit, as band members feel they were arthur lee of loverepresented to the press/public early on by colorful psychedelic drawings as a way for the record company to avoid presenting the potentially "risky" fact that the band was made up of both black and white musicians. 

Love was one of the first rock bands to sign to Jac Holzman's Elektra Records and it was not to be a simple relationship between the band and their label. The band members spend a great deal of time in Love Story accusing Holzman of not promoting their work enough. Holzman counters this by pointing out Lee's aversion to touring outside of California. Regardless, the band made three brilliant albums within a span of a year and a half (!) -- Love, Da Capo and Forever Changes -- and increasingly, Lee's moments of brilliance were aggravated by longer and longer durations of virtual insanity because of his drug use.

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(Wherein winter records receive writings.)

Posted by Job O Brother, December 16, 2008 11:32am | Post a Comment
postcard

It’s finally chilly in Hollywood. I mean, I still have my French windows open wide, but it’s about as cold as it ever gets, with breezes blowing from my hometown in the north, Nevada City, where loved ones are covered in white blankets of snow. (That’s a metaphor – probably very few of them have bed-sheets constructed of crystalline water ice.)

My friends in Nevada City, Jaime, Alison and Dan made a snowman. I don’t get that pleasure here. I suppose I could make a clumps-of-dying-grass-cigarette-butts-and-dog-feces man, but who has that kind of time? I have a blog to write!

sexy
Here's a picture of the snowman my friends made.
The best part will be watching him slowly melt over the next couple weeks.

My choices in music are always influenced by weather. When it’s hot city in the summertime, I’ll gravitate towards artists such as Stephen Malkmus, Thin Lizzy, or Sly & The Family Stone. If it’s a rainy day, you can bet some Siouxsie & The Banshees will be trilling from my stereo. I look out the window and see the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse trampling the Hills with all the fury of Heaven and Hell as they take the stage for a final battle in which every human soul will come to greet its eternal home in either the awesome glory of the Almighty God or the foul depths of Hell as lorded over by the king of wickedness, Satan, and more often than not I’ll play a little Burt Bacharach. Because it’s always a good time for a little Burt.

(In which pop eats itself.)

Posted by Job O Brother, February 20, 2008 09:11pm | Post a Comment


This is a video to a single from an album by Rough Trade called “For Those Who Think Young.” I’m pretty keen on the lead singer, Carole Pope; I dig her husky vocals and her facial expression when she sings. Her face often twists, ugly, and looks close to screaming in horror, then suddenly breaks into a plaintive sadness – a combination which reminds me of Joan Crawford before she was doped out on [insert any liquor here].

Interesting to note is that Carole Pope was lovers with another singer, Dusty Springfield.


That’s Dusty Springfield singing. I hope you already knew that, because it would mean you’re acquainted with her. If not, my sympathy lasts only long enough for you to rush out to the nearest Amoeba Music and find her out. Accompanying her on piano is Burt Bacharach. He’s the dude who wrote the music for the song.

Burt Bacharach, along with lyricist Hal David, also wrote “Walk On By” for Dionne Warwick. It was one of many collaborations between the songwriters and singer. She was their muse. Between them they released a dizzying amount of Billboard Hot 100 hits.

A lot of people from my generation (unfortunately) associate Warwick with two moments in her career: the schmaltzy #1 hit “That’s What Friends Are For” (which – laugh at it though you may – did raise a few million dollars for AmFAR) and her stint as co-host of infomercials for the Psychic Friends Network, along with celebrity psychic, Linda Georgian.

In the mid-1980’s, my sister Jacquie was Linda Georgian’s personal assistant and housemate. My Mom and I visited her at Linda’s house in Fort Lauderdale. When Linda wasn’t reading tarot cards for Liza Minnelli or casting out evil spirits from the summer home of David Hasselhoff, she liked to make her own jewelry, and she taught me how to string necklaces. She also read my aura and saw a lot of “lavender.”