Artificial Radio Hour with Rev. Dr. Dr. Phill: September 2017

Saturday, September 23, 2017

Artificial Radio Hour with Rev. Dr. Dr. Phill Part 39

Hey folks!

Here are some (mostly) Carribean tunes for you, primarily from Cuba and Puerto Rico.

Machito is the artist credited (above) with introducing the mambo in the late 40s/early 50s. He's a pretty relaxed guy.

Willie Rosario also sounds pretty relaxed. My Spanish isn't very good though, so I'm not sure exactly what he's singing about besides dancing. I might put together a whole Boogaloo show one of these days, that would be fun.

Illustration by Mike Henderson (Art from Nailbiter #7)

Word Balloon is a "comics & conversation podcast" that has been going for more than ten years. John Siuntres, the host, has in-depth talks with creators of comics, tv, and other pop culture, on the geeky side. In this clip from last year, he once again has as his guest writer Brian Michael Bendis, the creator of, among other things, Powers, Jessica Jones, and the Miles Morales Spider-Man, and writer of almost every Marvel Comics character at one time or another. Here, he's relating his trip to the Central Intelligence Agency.

Under the Word Balloon clip, I put a track that is kind of intended to be background music. KPM was a library music label which employed composers to write music to be used in movies and tv. Because the publishing rights were owned by the label, royalties were not paid to the artists or composers. It was cheaper than commissioning new music or licensing existing tracks. "Black Light" is from a 1973 album called Afro Rock, which has become much sought after by the DJ community.

Watermelon Man wasn't a huge hit when Herbie Hancock wrote it in 1962, but Mongo Santamaria's cover the next year became a top ten hit.

Ran Kan Kan was a hit for Tito Puente in the early 60s, but I'm pretty sure this version is from 1984, based on the length. (The older versions mostly clocked in at around three minutes.)

"El Pito" means "the whistle", but the word is also slang for penis. That sheds a different light on the scene in the Spike Lee movie Crooklyn where the song is featured...

The ad is not a real ad. I mean, it is a real ad, but I am not sponsored by anyone, definitely not by a pre-poop spray. It was just so funny hearing this ad on The Allusionist, which is a show about words. Not that it's a serious show, but it was quite unexpected.

"Amor Verdadero" is from the Afro-Cuban All-Stars' 1997 album A Toda Cuba le Gusta, but it's an old song performed in an old style by old guys. It's pretty much a pre-Castro 1950s kind of tune. Manuel "Puntillita" Licea is the main singer.

"El Cacahuatero" is not performed by an Afro-Cuban artist. Toña la Negra was an Afro-Mexican singer who was very popular in the 30s and 40s. A "cacahuatero" is someone who sells cacahuates, or peanuts. Cacahuate is a Mexican Spanish word that comes from a Nahuatl word for cocoa bean.

In Cuba, peanuts are sold in "cucuruchas", little paper cones.

"El Manisero" also means "the peanut vendor", because mani is the word for peanuts in Cuba. This song (although not this recording), which is a genre called "son-pregón", was mislabeled "rhumba-foxtrot" and kicked off the "Rhumba Mania" dance craze, one of three Latin dance crazes in the first half of the twentieth century. (The others were the Mambo & the Cha Cha Cha.)

Adjudicated Guess is a podcast where people who think they're smart try to answer questions about subjects they don't know. It makes sense if you listen to it. The music underneath is a library track by Richard Farnon (pictured).

Buena Vista Social Club was an album and documentary about a group of (mostly old) Cuban musicians. The membership overlapped considerably with the Afro-Cuban All-Stars. This lead vocal was by Ibrahim Ferrer.

That's all for this week. Leave a comment or reply wherever you read this, let me know what you think of the show!

Enjoy!

-Rev. Dr. Dr. Phill

Relax And Mambo - Machito and His Afro Cubans (1956)

Watusi Boogaloo - Willie Rosario & His Orchestra (1967)

Word Balloon Comic Books Podcast - The Bendis Tapes 9/21/2016 - Brian Michael Bendis's CIA visit

Black Light - Alan Parker (1973)

Watermelon Man - Mongo Santamaria (1963)

Ran Kan Kan - Tito Puente (1984)

El Pito - Joe Cuba Sextet (1966)

The Allusionist 43. The Key part II: Vestiges 9/20/2016 - PooPourri ad

Amor Verdadero - Afro-Cuban All Stars (1997)

El Cacahuatero (Mexican, Early 1930s) - Toña la Negra (1933)

El Manisero - Trio Matamoros (1929)

Adjudicated Guess 4: What Was In The First Vending Machine? 9/24/2016 4:14

Moon Over Rio - Robert Farnon (1998)

Dos Gardenias - Ibrahim Ferrer (Buena Vista Social Club) (1997)

Friday, September 15, 2017

Artificial Radio Hour with Rev. Dr. Dr. Phill Part 38

Hey folks!

Some mid-seventies glam-type stuff this week.

"New York Groove" was covered by KISS's Ace Frehley, but the version by the UK's Hello is the original. It's thumpy and pretty dumb, but fun, which describes most of these tracks.

Suzi Quatro played Leather Tuscadero on Happy Days. She is American, but she had more musical success in the UK. Can The Can reached number one on the UK charts, but was a much smaller hit in the US.

I ended up doing more manipulation of the podcast clips in this episode than I usually do. I sped some parts up to cut down on the length of the show, but then changed my mind & slowed some parts down. Echo here, reverb there, some excerpts from a Sunn O))) track (Bassaliens), and after a while they come out nearly unintelligible. Try listening with headphones!

They really glammed it up.

Chicory Tip didn't start out looking particularly glam, but they changed their look with later releases. "Son Of My Father" was written by Giorgio Moroder. Chicory Tip's cover became the first UK number one single to prominently feature a synthesizer, in this case, a Moog.

It wasn't my plan to include two tracks from Guardians Of The Galaxy soundtracks, but it happened. Fox On The Run wasn't in Vol. 2 but it is in the trailer and the soundtrack album. There was also a version released on the Sweet's 1974 album Desolation Boulevard but the 7" version has the cool synth part.

Albert Hammond, in addition to being a prolific songwriter, is also, apparently, a train. He crossed paths with some of these glam guys, but he was more of a soft rock guy. His kid is in The Strokes.

"He's Gonna Step On You Again" by John Kongos is pretty odd for 1971. The Guinness Book says it's the first song to use a sample, but it's actually a tape loop (of African drumming) which wasn't really a new thing at the time. It is one of the first tracks to use a tape loop as the rhythmic base of the track, so there's that I guess.

Pictured: bozos.

"The Flying Saucer Song" is an outtake from the 1974 Harry Nilsson album Pussy Cats. The album is kinda what it sounds like when a bunch of drunk bozos messes around in a recording studio. The main bozos were Nilsson and John Lennon, with other bozos making an appearance including Beatle Ringo Starr and Beatle pal Klaus Voorman. It's a bit of a mess. This track was included on the CD reissue in 1999.

I'm Not In Love by 10cc was in the first Guardians movie. 10cc weren't a glam band, they were more of a cerebral pop group. I love this song, and I love the weird recording techniques that were used to create it:

"Eric Stewart spent three weeks recording Graham Gouldman, Kevin Godley and Lol Creme singing "ahhh" 16 times for each note of the chromatic scale, building up a "choir" of 48 voices for each note of the scale. He created tape loops of about 12 feet in length by feeding the loop at one end through the tape heads of the stereo recorder in the studio, and at the other end through a capstan roller fixed to the top of a microphone stand, and tensioned the tape. By creating long loops the 'blip' caused by the splice in each tape loop could be drowned out by the rest of the backing track, providing that the blips in each loop did not coincide with each other. Having created twelve tape loops for each of the 12 notes of the chromatic scale, Stewart played each loop through a separate channel of the mixing desk. This effectively turned the mixing desk into a musical instrument complete with all the notes of the chromatic scale, which the four members together then "played", fading up three or four channels at a time to create "chords" for the song's melody. Stewart had put gaffer's tape across the bottom of each channel, which meant it was impossible to completely fade down the tracks for each note; this resulted in the constant background hiss of vocals heard throughout the song."

- wikipedia.org/I'm_Not_In_Love

One more dumb glam track to close out, this time from Slade. You can practically hear Noddy Holder's plaid outfit as he sings.

That's it for this week, as always please leave a comment wherever you're reading this, or reply to the email. Let me know how I'm doing!

Enjoy!

- Rev. Dr. Dr. Phill

New York Groove - Hello (1975)

I think this was the back cover of the Japanese single.

Can the Can - Suzi Quatro (1973)

Adam Ruins Everything Ep 9: Matrimony Myths with Stephanie Coontz 9/14/2016

Bassaliens (excerpt) - Sunn O))) (2004)

Not very glam.

Son of My Father - Chicory Tip (1972)

Fox on the Run (7" version) - The Sweet (1974)

Jordan, Jesse GO! Ep. 450: Autumnal Nip with Kyle Kinane 10/17/2016

Bassaliens (excerpt) - Sunn O))) (2004)

I'm a Train - Albert Hammond (1974)

He's Gonna Step On You Again - John Kongos (1971)

Jordan, Jesse GO! Ep. 450: Autumnal Nip with Kyle Kinane 10/17/2016

Bassaliens (excerpt) - Sunn O))) (2004)

The Flying Saucer Song - Harry Nilsson (1974)

The SubGenius Hour of Slack Podcast #1588 - "It's Gonna Be a Bummer, Man" 9/19/2016

I'm Not In Love - 10cc (1975)

Cum On Feel The Noize - Slade (1973)

Sunday, September 3, 2017

Artificial Radio Hour with Rev. Dr. Dr. Phill Part 37

Hey there folks!

I'm out of town, so no big email this week. Just a real big playlist of some exotic classics, plus some cocktail recipes from Kevin Upthegrove from the 5 Minutes Of Rum podcast. Good stuff!

Talk to you guys next week. Enjoy!

- Rev. Dr. Dr. Phill