R. Stevie Moore – There is no God in America (1983)

Nice Theme

I can think of no other piece of music that shambles away so aggressively and is yet so masculinely optimistic all at once.  This is the kind of number that gives a man enough courage to harass a waitress who works at a pancake house with a molded resin Blues Brothers statue out front and also concoct endearing  yet somewhat dangerous pranks to play on his rural golfing buddies.  This could also be the running soundtrack of a guy that doesn’t do much swimming anymore but if he did, his confidence would never recoil in the cold before drying off.  Even if I have yet to see his show I strongly believe that he is the kind of man that can seize the overlooked evidence as well as the napkin digits in equal measure and is well respected and openly acknowledged for this talent throughout town – and all just because of this real nice theme here.  It was composed by Pete Carpenter and Mike Post and won a Grammy for Best Instrumental Arrangement.  It was also released as a single that stayed on The Billboard Hot 100 for 16 weeks, peaking at the the #10 spot.  This seems like it must be a record for a TV show theme, but it probably isn’t.  It deserves all of this high praise and then some.

Norman Rockwell Calender in a Bug Nest

Last night I was invited to play some music on my friend Josh’s Melted Radio show on KXRY FM.  If you like, you can listen to the full show here…

Norman Rockwell Calender in a Bug Nest on MELTED RADIO

Thanks and enjoy!

Goodbye 9711886

I would like to take a moment to eulogize a YouTube channel that has meant a lot to me over the past couple of years.  The mysteriously titled, Channel 9711886 was taken down a couple of weeks ago due to, “multiple third party notifications of copyright infringement from claimants including: Mick Lail.”  Thanks for a big void of nothing Mick, and your apparently multiple killjoy cousins too.  If you ever have a legit copyright concern, you can contact the video publisher directly and they will almost always take down the offending items immediately.  There is seldom any need to go crying to the cops and have thousands of babes in the wash basin tossed into oblivion with your own exclusive claim of the bath water.

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I stumbled on this channel while searching for videos of a private press psych-pop artist by the name of Eddie Callahan.  After watching/listening to a few of his songs, I thought I’d click the channel name to see what else this video poster was up to.  I was completely floored when I found over five thousand individually uploaded songs, painstakingly ripped from the original records.  Given that the music of this YouTube archivist’s obsession is private press psych and oddball folk music, this undertaking is all the more remarkable.  Many, if not close to all of theses records were originally pressed in batches of around a few hundred or less.  This makes them highly collectible, and hence highly expensive on the open market.  There is no way that I would ever be able to find, or much less afford the vast majority of these strange and beautiful recordings in any other media format.  Though this collector likely had very deep pockets to focus on his interests, he didn’t only squirrel away his stash in a cellophane sealed vault somewhere like many collectors often do.  He sat down, and rerecorded these tracks one by one, (at least one new album a week) and shared them with whomever cared to search for them.  By the time of the channel’s banishment, 9711886’s track count had climbed to almost ten thousand songs.  For this generous devotion, I am immensely grateful.  Thanks 9711886 wherever you are.  Hopefully you are not gone for too long.

Drawing School II

Another Uncanny Likeness

Tower Blue Prints

Lee Greenwood’s Aversion to Worms and Such

Who’s yer genes votin for, bub?