V05-T04a "...It's smooth sailing..."

.....

.....Tito Larriva of the Plugz (see the previous post) played the character Ramon in David Byrne's movie "True Stories". Ramon claims to receive radio waves and refers to himself as Radiohead (and yes, that's where the band got their name). While the guitar-heavy "I'M A CADILLAC" naturally leads into "HOMBRE SECRETO", and that song's British mid-60's origins as a cover of "SECRET AGENT MAN" seem like the reasonable relations to this next track, I think that knowing about Larriva's contributions to both "Repo Man" and "True Stories" may have prompted my choice of this interstitial and the song that follows it.

Volume 5: DON'T TOUCH THAT DIAL (YOU DON'T KNOW WHERE IT'S BEEN), track 4a

• 00:18 [excerpt from "ODORONO"]
• performed (nominally) by The Wh♂
• original source: LP THE WHO SELL OUT Track Records 612 002[mono] or 613 002[stereo] (UK) 12/15/67
• and my source: CD THE WHO SELL OUT MCA MCAD-31332 (US) 10/88

.....The actual vocal used is obviously not one of the Who; it's a woman's voice over a string section singing, "It's smooth sailing with the highly successful sound of Wonderful Radio London", one of the more succinct and to the point Radio London jingles of the many on the album. Radio London had American financial backers who would supply them with custom jingles recorded by a professional service called Production Advertising Merchandising Service, better known by the acronym on its packaging, PAMS. The female vocalists on staff as of 1965 included Judy Parma, Camilla Duncan, Jean Oliver and Tinker Rautenberg, although I doubt that there are any surviving records specifying who was used on this particular recording. The station broadcast from a ship anchored off the coast of England to provide a commercial model to compete with the government owned BBC. It only existed from shortly before Christmas 1964 to mid August 1967, just two months before most of the recording was done for the Who's album. Actual Radio London jingles were edited onto the beginnings and endings of songs and faux ads recorded by the Who. Things like jingles, commercial sponsorship, programming to meet public demand and DJ's as well known as the records they played were all foreign concepts in UK radio prior to that. It was all as much an American import as Andy Warhol's ideas about pop art, something central to the Who's identity at the time.

.....From my notes in 1994:"The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper album is widely touted as rock's first concept album. The concept at work there is that the album is supposed to simulate, in your living room, the experience of attending a concert by Billy Shears and various other performers. You can see what they're getting at on the first two tracks, "FOR THE BENEFIT OF MR. KITE" and again on the title track's reprise, but most of that album doesn't give that impression at all. And what's with the barking dogs in the trail off groove? Is that a 'concert experience'?

....."Let's not kid ourselves. The first side of LP THE WHO SELL OUT leaves absolutely no question as to what you're listening to: a radio station that plays nothing but the Who, even in its advertisements for Odorono deodorant, Medac pimple cream and Heinz Baked Beans. Unfortunately for the band they hadn't accounted for the fact that in American slang to 'sell out' means betraying your ideals for commercial reasons, while they meant to say that they had greater popular support than the 'safer' performers. They lost sales due to negative criticism of the title, but worse, they lost the recognition they deserved as innovators of the format."

.....The American sales actually weren't that badly impacted. They were experiencing a meteoric rise in the U.S. following what was their only top ten hit at the time, "I CAN SEE FOR MILES" and a literally explosive appearance on the Smothers Brothers' television show. It could be that American audiences correctly read the title as self-deprecating humor. In England, however, it became the band's lowest charting studio album, not counting soundtracks. In the U.S. it charted higher (at 48) than their previous album (at 67). Their first album didn't chart in the U.S. at all. Their next album, a shabby compilation deceptively packaged as a live album without the band's knowledge or consent, made it to 39, lending credence to my suspicion that an original album riding a hit should have made a greater impact. By comparison, most of their albums, including many of their compilations, were in the top ten in England since the beginning as they would be in the U.S. starting with 2LP TOMMY in 1969. As for what was the earliest concept album, that depends on how strictly you define a concept album. Operas predate rock operas, of course, and themed albums predate even the LP format, since the word album refers to bound sets of 78's. In the rock idiom, the first might be the Beach Boys LP PET SOUNDS, followed closely by the Kinks' LP FACE TO FACE in 1966. After that it was kind of a free for all, with the first high concept rock album probably being the Moody Blues' LP DAYS OF FUTURE PASSED, released between Sgt. Pepper and Sell Out.

.....This interstitial introduces the next track, which was roughly contemporary to the Who album.

V04-T16b "...and I hope we passed the audition."

.....Finally, the end of cassette two.

Volume 4: "THE LITTLE BROWN ONES ARE THORAZINE, GEORGE", track 16b

• 00:13 [excerpt from "GET BACK", ad lib by John Lennon]
• performed by The Beatles [nominally]
• original source: LP LET IT BE Apple PCS7096 (UK) May 8th, 1970
• and my source: CD LET IT BE Parlophone CDP7 46447 2 (US) 1987

.....The full text of the quote at the end of the song "GET BACK" is, "I'd like to say thank you on behalf of the group and ourselves and I hope we passed the audition". Actually, the working title of the album was also GET BACK, until the tapes were eventually selected and packaged as LET IT BE. Maybe a little timeline is in order.

1. In 1968 the Beatles take five months to record the double album nicknamed "The White Album" (THE BEATLES). Much of the time was spent writing and recording separately.
2. Jan. 1969 the YELLOW SUBMARINE album is released. One side contains songs used in the movie, some of them old outtakes, the other side has George Martin's soundtrack instrumentals from the movie.
3. Jan. to May 1969: In order to work more collaboratively as a band, the Beatles began recording jam sessions of oldies: rockers, R&B and blues like "BLUE SUEDE SHOES", "BYE BYE LOVE", "LAWDY MISS CLAWDY", etc. Eventually they were inspired to write original songs together again. Sessions were filmed for possible use in a documentary and the music was produced by George Martin and their engineer, Glyn Johns. The project was called GET BACK, as in "Get back to your roots".
4. The album version of "GET BACK" was recorded January 27th. The single version and its B-side were recorded on the 28th. Then, on the 30th, the famous rooftop concert was filmed. It would turn out to be their last public performance and ended with the song "GET BACK" followed by Maureen Starr (Ringo's wife) applauding, Paul McCartney thanking her ("Thanks, Mo!") and John Lennon goofing around with the theme of returning to their early days by giving the quote I repeated at the top of this list. That snippet was later grafted on to the end of the studio version for the album.
5. Apr. 1969 the 7" version of "GET BACK" b?w "DON'T LET ME DOWN" is released in UK. (May in US.)
6. May 1969 the GET BACK album is completed. For a cover photo, the band recreates their pose from the photo sessions that yielded the cover to LP PLEASE PLEASE ME in 1963. Unfortunately, returning to an earlier, simpler approach to playing and recording created an album that sounded much rougher and more raw than the band felt comfortable with and they cancelled its release.
7. Jun. 1969 the 7" version of "THE BALLAD OF JOHN AND YOKO" b/w "OLD BROWN SHOE" is released in UK and US.
8. Jul. to Aug. 1969 the LP ABBEY ROAD is recorded with George Martin "really producing" (his words). He apparently didn't care for the GET BACK experiment.
9. Sep. 1969 Lennon, Ono and Clapton go to Toronto for the live debut of Plastic Ono Band at the end of an otherwise 1950's nostalgia concert with Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry and many others. Two weeks later LP ABBEY ROAD is released.
10. Oct. 1969 the 7" version of "SOMETHING" b/w "COME TOGETHER" is released in UK and US.
11. Jan. 1970 the song "I ME MINE" is recorded and a second version of LP GET BACK is proposed and rejected.
12. Feb. 1970 the LP HEY JUDE, a collection of non-LP singles and two songs from A HARD DAY'S NIGHT is released in the US only.
13. Mar. 1970 the 7" version of "LET IT BE" b/w "YOU KNOW MY NAME" is released in UK and US.
14. Mar. to Apr. 1970 Phil Spector is hired to remix existing unreleased tapes to salvage the GET BACK project. He radically remixes a 1968 recording of "ACROSS THE UNIVERSE", leading many fans to believe the band had recorded a new version. He also uses the 1970 song "I ME MINE", but the majority of the material comes from the year-old GET BACK sessions.
15. May 1970 the film and album, both named LET IT BE, are released. There's also a derivative US-only 7" of album tracks "LONG AND WINDING ROAD" b/w "FOR YOU BLUE".

.....And that's the over-simplified account of the events. I left out the ugly legal tangles and television appearances. The excessive studio behavior (during the "White Album" sessions there were 70 takes of "HAPPINESS IS A WARM GUN") inevitably led to the band's desire to simplify. The problem was that they weren't the same persons, the same musicians or the same band they were in 1962. It was as though the accelerated lives their fame brought them provoked a mid-life crisis at age thirty. Having got that out of their systems they went back home to their wife (Martin) and created one of their best albums. McCartney cited the release of the LET IT BE album in court documents regarding the dissolution of the Beatles as evidence that the band's direction and business decisions were being harmful to his career. It's not that bad, even if Martin was a better judge of the band's strengths than Spector had been.

.....My reasons for closing with this clip? Like most of these selections it was mostly instinct at the time. In retrospect, I knew that one mix tape is an impulse and two is a proposal. The second implies a series not implied by the first. Of course, when I made the first one I had no delusions that I could distill the character of my music collection to 90 minutes. By continuing the format I had insinuated that the was no time limit being imposed. Therefore, distilling the character of my collection becomes, theoretically anyway, a legitimate objective to pursue. And it would be an objective that would take more than four cassette sides to seriously address. This blog reaches its first anniversary this week and the past year, if you've been reading it, has been the audition. And if you come back, I guess that means "we passed".

V03-T12a (excerpt Dead London)

.....Spoken word interstitials can be like peanuts sometimes...

Volume 3: A KINDER, GENTLER ZERO TOLERANCE, track 12a

• 00:17 (excerpt DEAD LONDON) (H.G. Wells, adapted by Jeff Wayne)
• performed by Richard Burton
• original source: 2LP THE WAR OF THE WORLDS Columbia PC2 35290 (US) 6/78
• and my source: 2CD THE WAR OF THE WORLDS Columbia C2K 35290 (US?) 1986?

.....According to the novel, the line I wanted to use was, "...slain, after all man's devices had failed, by the humblest things that God, in his wisdom, has put upon this earth.", or the nearest equivalent from the George Pal movie adaption. At the time I was putting this compilation together I was using a versatile analog receiver that could juggle input from multiple sources in multiple formats and I wanted to take advantage of the fact that that included using the audio portion of VHS recordings (this was pre-DVR), especially as I was developing a thread of film-related music. I was nearing the end of that side of the cassette and wanted to switch gears slightly one more time and needed a bridge/interstitial. I had recently recorded the George Pal adaption of "War Of The Worlds"(1953) but couldn't find the VHS tape, but remembered having the Jeff Wayne project on CD. Better known as a producer, Wayne took three years to construct a musical adaption of the 1898 novel using artists he had worked with, including Justin Hayward (of the Moody Blues), Phil Lynott (of Thin Lizzy) and others. The full story came to light in 2005 with the release of the 6CD/1DVD collector's edition, Columbia/Legacy CECD96000 (aka C7H 94427 1 2 or UPC#8 27969 44276 0). Had it existed at the time, I could have used the expanded box as a source for the paraphrased recording of the above passage. The three discs of outtakes includes all of the spoken material without music. As it happened, I wasn't able to isolate the phrase I wanted from the musical bedding and other dialogue. Seconds later, at the very end of a track called "DEAD LONDON", I found the excerpt I eventually used bookended with the second's pause I needed to fade in and out without jarring the listener. The exact phrase I used was, "Directly the invaders arrived and drank and fed, our microscopic allies attacked them. From that moment, they were doomed." It actually seemed like a more fitting link from a "Rocky Horror" spin-off (since Frank and company were alien invaders) to our next track.

V03-T10a Belt You About The Mouth

.....Wow, is it Monday already?

.....When I left off in July I mentioned that the prevalent theme of rebellion so common in the first half of Volume 3 would be shifting to a theme of little things in the latter half. What better way to introduce little things than with an interstitial?

Volume 3: A KINDER, GENTLER ZERO TOLERANCE, track 10a

• 00:31 "CUT #4 BELT IN MOUTH" [no writer credited]
• performed by Richard O'Brien [as Riff-Raff]
• original source: promo-only one-sided 7" on 20th Century Fox Music #DS211(US) ?9/75
• and my source: CD SONGS FROM THE VAULTS Rhino R2 71011B(US)1990

.....The first time I heard this was when I found this rarities disc in the boxed set 4CD THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW 15TH ANNIVERSARY COLLECTION Rhino/ODE R2 71011(US) 1990. This, and a second compilation featuring foreign language and other performances from various international cast albums, were boxed with the previously available soundtrack and Roxy (L.A.) cast albums. The track above originally came from a promotional single sent to radio stations in advance of the September 24, 1975 theatrical release of the "Rocky Horror" film adaption, hence the approximate release date I estimated. A common enough format at the time, the single was a one-sided 7" vinyl record with eight cuts. On the boxed set it's given the self-explanatory title "ROCKY HORROR RADIO COMMERCIAL (BELT YOU ABOUT THE MOUTH)", but I went with the title as it appears on the record. Of the eight promotional clips only this and one other made it onto the CD. If you like, you can check out the details at the following link:

http://www.rockymusic.org/album/radio-spots.php

.....Tomorrow I'll detail the track into which this interstitial leads.

V03-T01a Sound effect of jail doors

.....Today begins the second cassette. As it happens, we open with a closing. Slam, slam, go the jail guitar doors, alright, but this isn't a Clash song.

Volume 3: A KINDER, GENTLER ZERO TOLERANCE, track 1a

• 00:09 [excerpt from "WE LOVE YOU" (Mick Jagger, Keith Richards)]
• performed by The Rolling Stones
• original source: A-side, 7" Decca F12654 (UK) 08/18/67
• and my source: 3CD THE ROLLING STONES SINGLES COLLECTION* THE LONDON YEARS Abkco 1218-2 (US) 08/15/89

.....On February 12th, 1967, Chief Inspector Gordon Dinely led a raid on Keith Richards' country home while numerous guests were there. An American from the West Coast was allowed to leave carrying a suitcase filled to the gills with LSD and a bit of everything else. He was apparently a wannabe dealer planted there by a Murdoch-style scandal paper that was being sued by the Stones for libel and likely to lose the case. They alerted the police that there would be a drug fueled party at the address, and had a man on the inside to make sure that there was. Unfortunately for them he disappeared with most of it. All that was found was a small amount of heroin on an art gallery owner and a few amphetamine pills for which Jagger may or may not have had a prescription. When the Stones failed to drop the libel suit, another well-publicized raid occurred at Brian Jones' house (this time with no set up necessary) in May. (Jones readily admitted to having a small amount of hash, but not the panoply of addictive substances the police seemed to expect would be there.) In June, when Jagger and Richards were sentenced, Richards was given a year in prison simply for owning that house the police chose to target. The sentences were overturned after review (with the reasoning that, if you're going to put someone in jail for a crime, it would be nice to produce tangible evidence), but only after widespread public outcry, including an editorial from the staunchly conservative London Times. Editor William Rees-Mogg was appalled that police powers and resources were so blatantly abused and that Judge Block (who handed out the original sentences) would use his position to indulge his cultural bigotries.

.....In June the Stones recorded this single at Olympic Studios with Lennon and McCartney providing backing vocals for release in August. In the meantime, the Who rush released a cover single ("Under My Thumb" b/w "The Last Time") in July as a show of support. But it was the slamming of the doors that opens the song (excerpted here) more than the sarcastic chorus that set the tone for rebellion and outsider culture that permeates much of side three.

V02-T14a The audience participation portion of our program

.....Iggy Pop once said something to the effect that there are no bystanders or casual observers at his concerts. If you are there, you are engaged and participating, whether you want to be or not. He makes eye contact (as lighting allows), scans the room, sings directly to (or at) audience members, whatever it takes to make it beyond doubt that you are not going to experience the performance from an objective vacuum. We're all in this together, we all have a stake in each other's experience. And unlike many performers, Iggy always seems prepared to roll with it when the audience shows up with the prior intention of getting very much engaged.

Volume 2: "WE'RE ALL GOING TO JAIL FOR THIS, AREN'T WE?", track 14a

• 01:00 [dialogue in lieu of "I Wanna Be Your Dog"] (Iggy Pop)
• performed by Iggy And The Stooges (and the audience)
• original source: 2LP METALLIC 2XK.O. Skydog 62232-1 (France) 1988?
• and my source: CD METALLIC 2XK.O. Skydog 62232-2 (France) 1992?

.....I had already established a precedent of spoken word pieces on these tapes and knew that if I used more of them sparingly but consistently they'd have the desired effect of pacing the music as well as occasionally adding indirect commentary. Use them too frequently and it feels as though I'm trying to make a gimmick substitute for ideas; use them too little and it feels as though the few I did use were mistakes.

.....I also wanted to have balance in the sense of using both music from my collection that I loved and music from my collection that was just there and deserved a little validation. This track fits both bills, but posed a new problem. I had set a ground rule for myself that I would not repeat artists. With less than ten minutes to go on the tape I had already decided that there would be further volumes and I could not imagine a series like this with no actual Stooges songs. To compromise I decided to consider this dialogue to be an interstitial introducing a contemporary song of theirs and consider all interstitials generally to be exempted from the 'no-repeat' rule. Seeing as how some of them are five to ten seconds long, that seemed reasonable.

.....The history behind this recording is extremely convoluted and I'm not likely to do a decent job of disambiguation with less than 24 hours of preparation. What I can provide is a quick chronology:

• In Oct. 1973, The Stooges play the Michigan Palace and this track is recorded by a friend of the band.
• In Feb. 1974, The Stooges return to the Michigan Palace and play what turns out to be their last show.
• Later in 1974, Ray Manzarek has dissolved the post-Morrison version of the Doors (they put out two albums that seem to have vanished from their label's memory) and begins recording with Iggy and guitarist James Williamson. Although Manzarek does release a solo album at this time, it doesn't include anything from these demos, which Manzarek has never released. Desperate for money, Pop and Williamson bring a boxed filled with random unmarked reels of Stooges outtakes to Greg Shaw of BOMP! Magazine.
• Iggy voluntarily entered a mental health facility to end, or severely curtail, his substance abuse problem. Long time fan David Bowie is reportedly his only visitor.
• In spring of 1976 the album METALLIC K.O. is released in France on the label Skydog (SGIS 008). It claims to contain the last Stooges show, but is actually one half of the Oct. 1973 show and one half of the Feb. 1974 show. Later, Pop and Williamson record the album KILL CITY for Shaw, who is still sifting through the reels of Stooges demos and opting to release them as singles. Bowie opts to escape the drugs, insanity and human parasites in Los Angeles by going to Berlin. He offers to take Iggy and they make a brief stop in France to record demos and begin recording Iggy's IDIOT album and Bowie's LOW album at Chateau d'Herouville. They finish both at Hansa Studios in Berlin.
• In 1977 there is a deluge of Stooges material, including the new KILL CITY and Stooges singles from BOMP!, two new albums each from both Pop and Bowie and METALLIC K.O. has sold so well in the US as an import that American pressings are made by a label called Import (IMP 1015). Bowie tours as Iggy's pianist and live selections are released the following year as T.V. EYE LIVE.
• In 1978, Skydog releases an EP with more of the Feb. 1974 show (SGIS 012).
• c.1988, the double album METALLIC 2XK.O. is released, including the 1976 LP, the 1978 EP and more of the Oct. 1973 show. This is where I came in.

.....Tomorrow, one of the tapes Grew Shaw found in that box.

V02-T07a "And where...is the Batman?"

.....This interstitial is well known as a sample.

Volume 2: "WE'RE ALL GOING TO JAIL FOR THIS, AREN'T WE?", track 7a

• 00:10 [excerpt from "BATDANCE" (Prince)]
• performed by Jack Nicholson (via Prince)
• original source: CD BATMAN Warner Bros. 9 25936-2 (US)
• and my source: the same

.....As a long time comics fan, I had serious misgivings about the casting in that first Tim Burton Batman movie. After seeing the movie I surprised myself by remarking that Michael Keaton was so promising as the lead that they should never have hamstrung him with that idiotic costume, a solid piece of vulcanized rubber with less flexibility than a truck tire. He couldn't even turn his head without turning his entire body, he couldn't raise his arms above his head without being switched into a different version of the costume. Keaton, whose earlier career was built on bottom of the barrel comedy film roles clearly written with Bill Murray in mind but which Murray wisely turned down, wasn't someone the casual filmgoer would chose first as Batman, certainly not over actors who simply look more the way Bruce Wayne is typically drawn. (Pierce Brosnan comes to mind.) But shortly before being cast Keaton was seen in a movie about a man struggling with alcoholism. Finding that movie on cable some time later made casting him seem more reasonable.

.....What I couldn't get past, not when it was announced, not while I sat in the theater watching the movie and not in the years since, was casting Jack Nicholson as the Joker. Somebody apparently couldn't absorb the fact that more than a decade had passed since "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest". I know that Nicholson is sort of a sacred cow in Hollywood, largely on the strength of superlative films like "Five Easy Pieces", which were already pretty dusty when Burton's "Batman" was being filmed. I know that he's a baby boomer, meaning that when he looks in a mirror, he still sees himself as he was at 23 years of age. And at 23, he would have been magnificent as the Joker. But in 1989 he was WAAAAY TOOOO FAAAAT. I was prepared for a live action movie to gloss over or ignore many elements that ask for a suspension of disbelief in a comic book. For instance, the cape could never actually move the way it is often drawn for dramatic effect. But it doesn't seem unreasonable to expect that a character who, at the time, had been skinny for half a century to be played by a skinny actor. The Joker had been skinny in the comics, in the newspaper strip, in cartoons, on television, in coloring books, board games, paperbacks, trading cards, posters, month after month, year after year since 1940. And after Jack Nicholson played him in the movie he continued to be skinny in every iteration and permutation conceivable. It may not be as bad as casting blond English characters with Tom Cruise ("Interview With A Vampire") and Keanu Reeves ("Constantine"), but it still bothers me twenty years later that almost everyone pretended to not notice.

.....I decided that Jack could make himself useful introducing the next track.

V02-T01 "Good evening, record lovers..."

.....When this first compilation tape was being planned I had no idea that it would be the first of a series. Although each side of the tape was conceived as its own volume, roughly the length of an LP, I wanted to remain conscious of how it would be experienced. It would have two beginnings and two ends, and I wanted those terminal points to be flagged appropriately with listeners welcomed in and ushered out. The intro to Volume 1 was one of the most famous introductions in the world, not only to the work from which it was taken, but for many children it was their introduction to 'grown-up' music. I was hoping to capture that feeling of discovery when everything is still new and more importantly when there was no need for everything to be immediately familiar. Too many adults find it threatening to their egos when they're forced to admit that they don't know something. Children spend most of their time being lectured, being expected to not know things. Finding something unfamiliar is just another part of their day. They don't get defensive about it the way adults do. I was hoping that the first intro would put people into a state of mind where the unfamiliar was a chance for personal expansion and not a threat of personal impugn. But that was the first side. The second side was time for something completely different...

Volume 2: "WE'RE ALL GOING TO JAIL FOR THIS, AREN'T WE?" track 1

• 00:50 [excerpt from "MORE TELEVISION INTERVIEWS"]
• performed by Monty Python's Flying Circus [Graham Chapman]
• original source: LP MONTY PYTHON'S FLYING CIRCUS BBC Records REB 73M (UK) 1970
• and my source: LP THE WORST OF [~] BBC Records BBC-22073 (UK) [reissue of above, prob. c.1980]

.....This was the first album from Monty Python. It was also the only one owned by the BBC and therefore left out of subsequent campaigns of catalogue reissues. At the time I put the tape together there had only been one CD pressing, one extremely rare one in the very early days of the technology and while I've never heard it, it reportedly sounds pretty poor. Entirely in character for the BBC, they were tone deaf to the very considerable demand for this material. It remained out of print on CD until the late 1990's. (For those unfamiliar with the history of the comedy group, the only reason anyone is able to see the show today is because someone working inside the BBC warned Terry Gilliam in advance while he worked on the second season that episodes from the first season would be recorded over later that day. The reason was that the BBC wanted to save money on film/tape. Gilliam bought blank film with money out of his own pocket and switched it for the Python masters and did the same for the rest of the series. Most shows were not so lucky.)

.....Because the rest of this album contains the dialogue of sketches used on the first season of the show, many people erroneously believe that it was made by lifting the soundtrack right off those episodes. It was actually recorded separately but under similar circumstances. The first season of the show was shot with a small studio audience and so was the record (hence the audience laughter you can hear on this track-- it's not canned). As the show got more ambitious and was written more as a stream of consciousness than a loose collection of collegiate-type sketches, that approach was no longer practical. But it made selecting material to rerecord for an album a relatively simple procedure. Even so, the cluelessness of the BBC prevails as ever. The famous Parrot Sketch is listed as the track "Pet Shop" and the Crunchy Frog Chocolate routine is listed as "Trade Description Act". People who would have bought the album on the strength of those bits might have passed on it not realizing that it contained them. In fact the track used here is the first minute of the second side of the album, leading into a routine better known as "It's The Arts" or "Arthur 'Two-Sheds' Jackson", but labeled simply "More Television Interviews". The final straw for the Pythons might very well have been this simple piece performed solo by Chapman with the audience. They always submitted material in advance for the BBC when doing the show; Chapman's military officer conducting a stereo test was the only truly new material for the album. That script, plus minor rewrites to the sketches to compensate for the lack of visuals, were already in the network's hands when Pythons, producer and audience entered the studio. Only during the recording process did they discover that it was being recorded in monaural. The script, as originally conceived, got its humor from the self-important officer being ultimately superfluous. As it turned out, he exposes the defective bureaucracy at the BBC. Subsequent albums were produced by the group with engineers and released by Charisma in the UK and by Buddah (and later Arista) in the US.

.....The obvious reason for wanting to use this excerpt is that it explicitly refers to the start of side two (of the record). The other less obvious reason is that it is the contrast to the opening of the first side, which sat you down and set you at ease before introducing you to the program. Having made it through that side, if the audience is still listening, if they took the initiative however minor to flip the cassette and set aside the next forty-five minutes, then they must be aware of the sentiments, the humor, the sense behind the flow or progress of the track selection. They are 'in on the joke' in a way; they know that the 'stereo' isn't working and that the powers that be don't seem to be aware of it. Now when something flies at them out of left field that surprise is something they can welcome, not something to be managed or endured.

.....Coming up, I've got a few more choice covers to get out of my system, we'll push the range back to the 1960's (my collection includes CD's with material recorded c.1900 but is mostly from the last fifty years), a few more punk singles and even some things that should be easy to recognize.

V01-T16 First National Rag

.....The last track of volume 1 is a free-standing piece but has all the characteristics I look for in a good interstitial. It's short, it speaks directly to the listener and is self-referential in the sense that it acknowledges its format. It could only be used as the end of a two sided format however, and wouldn't translate very well to one-sided digital discs, which is a shame.

Volume 1: THE PITCHFORK APPROACH, track 16

• 00:21 "FIRST NATIONAL RAG" (music by Orville Rhodes)
• performed by Mike Nesmith
• original source: LP MAGNETIC SOUTH RCA Victor LSP 4371 (US) 1970
• and my source: CD MAGNETIC SOUTH Awareness AWCD 1023 (UK) 1991

.....Michael Nesmith produced a lavishly orchestrated album of songs he had written for the Monkees (some of which they hadn't recorded or released) while he was still with the group in 1968. Depending on who you listen to it was an in-joke or a vanity project or a tax write-off or serious resume building. When the group gradually fell apart over the following two years he rebounded most easily. He spent the first half of the 70's recording six underappreciated albums for RCA, the first of which was MAGNETIC SOUTH. He then formed the Pacific Arts label to release his new albums, reissue the RCA ones and eventually pioneer music video formats.

.....The instrumental portion of this track was written by band member Red Rhodes and named for the First National Band, Nesmith's group for the first three albums. (Yes, he also formed a Second National Band.) Rhodes was a talented and much in demand session man on the west coast, possibly the second go-to guy for pedal steel guitar after Sneaky Pete. There was something in there that appealed to me, that sound that reminded me of a vinyl record that isn't warped but sounds like it's being played on a record player that isn't maintaining a consistent speed. There's an irony to consciously choosing an experience unique to playing vinyl records to replicate on a cassette and there's a parallel in the choice for the final track on Volume 2.

.....Speaking of Volume 2, I'm going to be taking a two day break to gather my notes from 1993 and do some appropriate updating and maybe a few 'where-are-they-now's. On my 'off-days' I'll recommend things that I've noticed among current releases.

V01-T04a "..and we're back..."

.....The next track was introduced with an interstitial that was one of the few in this collection that was created as an interstitial:

Volume 1: THE PITCHFORK APPROACH, track 4

• 00:27 [DJ's on WBAI-FM 99.5, NYC]
• aka an excerpt from "LIGHTNING STRIKES (NOT ONCE BUT TWICE)"
• performed by ? (nominally The Clash, but the identities of the disc jockeys speaking in this excerpt are likely among the 23 credited "guest musicians"-- see below)
• original source: 3LP "Sandinista!" Epic E3X 37037 (US) 12/12/80
• and my source: 2CD "Sandinista!" Epic E2K 37037 (US?) n.d. (1989?)

.....After 2LP "London Calling" was released at the end of 1979 The Clash had a tour that ended in Detroit. One of their long-time roadies went to work for Joe Ely, Paul Simonon started working on a movie and Joe Strummer began producing a lesser known band and grumbling about possibly quitting. Meanwhile, Mick Jones and Topper Headon stayed in New York to make demos and drum tracks. ((Technical note: Most pop music recording is made in layers, usually with rhythm recorded first and vocals last. Topper was the Clash's drummer. Despite their punk credentials, after four years The Clash was writing things that were more complex and had also learned that this layered track approach saves time in the studio since 'live-in-studio' recording requires all performers being perfect simultaneously-- not likely with self-taught musicians. Also, with layered production each musician can play along to whatever parts had been recorded up to that point, ensuring coordination. Any songs tested out on the road could be recorded live-in-studio, anything new would be demo'd in layers.))

.....Of course, Paul and Joe eventually returned, the album was finished and the rest was history, etc. The hand-lettered lyrics and credits were kind of haphazard. Robert Ellen's "Junco Partner" was credited as "Author Unknown", for instance. There were 23 guest musicians listed without any specific attributions. That doesn't even include a few that slipped through, such as Tim Curry's cameo as a priest on "The Sound Of Sinners". Theoretically, anyone on the list could be acting as the DJ's in this excerpt. Realistically, many of the names could be eliminated due to their known participation elsewhere on the album or in different capacities:

• Mickey Gallagher was the pianist with the Blockheads
• Timon Dogg was a violinist who wrote and sang "Lose This Skin"
• Norman Watt-Roy was the bassist with the Blockheads, brought in by Gallagher early in the sessions while Simonon was still working on his film
• J.P. Nicholson was the bassist on "Washington Bullets"
• Ellen Foley shared the vocals on "Hitsville U.K."
• David Payne was a saxophonist
• Den Hegarty was a backing vocalist
• Luke Gallagher (Mickey's son) sang on "Career Opportunities"
• Ben Gallagher (Mickey's son ) sang on "Career Opportunities"
• Maria Gallagher (Mickey's daughter) sang bits of "Guns Of Brixton" at the end of "Broadway"
• Gary Barnacle was a saxophonist
• Bill Barnacle was a trumpeter
• 'Jody Winscott' may have been a misspelling of Jody Linscott, a percussionist signed to Epic at the time
• Ivan Julien was a guitarist with the Voidoids
• Noel Tempo Bailey was a reggae artist who also goes by the name 'Sowell Radics'
• Anthony Nelson Steelie was a reggae artist whose real name is Wycliffe Johnson
• Lew Lewis played harmonica with Eddie and the Hot Rods
• Terry McQuade appeared in the film "Rude Boy"

.....Other unlikely candidates are Band Sgt Dave Yates, who was probably leading a military or Salvation Army band for background atmosphere on songs like "Something About England", and a credit that simply says "Battersea", without indicating if that's a person, a band, the neighborhood or the power station. That leaves three that I can't account for: Ray Gasconne, Gerald Baxter-Warman and Rudolph Adolphus Jordan. Since the actor McQuade is listed between Gerald and Rudolph, and all three are listed last (except for Battersea), it's possible that McQuade was the voice you hear asking for more music, coerced by the band members into crank calling a genuine radio station near the studio or hotel room while they recorded the exchange for the album or for their own amusement.

.....On the other hand, owing to the DJ's island accents, it's possible that it was staged using Sowell Radics and Steelie playing DJ's in a studio. That just seems less likely to me. Considering the immense volume of Clash-related chattering that transpires online, you would think a trivia nugget like the identities of these people would have surfaced. It could very well be out there, but I can't find it. Anyone with an inside scoop can feel free to chime in on the comments area. It would be much appreciated.

V01-T01a "Are you sitting comfortably?..."

.....Many years ago I made audio cassette tape compilations, mostly for long commutes and jobs where I could program the music for my work environment. Occasionally they would be topical, with some unifying theme. Mostly, though, they would be chronological overviews of a single artist or act. I would try to include A-sides, B-sides, key album tracks and rare items that often didn't appear on commercially released compilations due to licensing conflicts. Since I never sold my tapes, this wasn't an issue for me.

.....One day a regular customer entered where I worked, heard whatever tape I was playing, and smiled. He said, out of the blue, "Every time I come in here, there's interesting music playing." "Thanks," I replied, taking it as a compliment on my tastes. "Except," he continued, "it's always something I've never heard before and I never hear the same thing twice.... How much music do you own?" That led to conversations about tastes and variety in listening and ultimately I had to admit to myself that there was an increasing body within my collection of recordings that were unlikely to ever be included on the compilations that I made. Either they were the works of artists who recorded little (or little that was of interest to me) or they were by artists I enjoyed but were not characteristic of them and would be left off compilation tapes for being unrepresentative. Yet, I had to admit that there was some reason, at some time,for me to add them to the pile. What I needed was a more accurate cross-section of the kudzu that was my collection of recordings. Not a 'best-of' but an 'all-of'.

.....I created shortly thereafter the first in a series of cassettes I called "So, What Kind Of Music Do You Listen To?". Each was a 90-minute tape containing two album-length programs (one on each side) with its own title. And unlike the detailed handwritten liner notes I provided on my other compilation tapes, these were blank (except for the titles and series name). No song names, no artists, no playing times, nothing. No preconceptions, either. One would be forced to listen, without prejudice or not at all. I ran off a copy for that customer, who told me he loved it. I've circulated copies to a few others since and some have confirmed to me that they have as well. I honestly don't know how many people have heard them. For most I'm sure that half the fun has been guessing the sources or at least the artists. And I've shown the liner notes to a few people, but not many. Until now. It's been at least fifteen years, so I guess the joke is over. Here now, in daily installments, in proper running order so that you can (good luck) reconstitute the mixes yourselves, are the true contents of the tapes.

Volume 1: THE PITCHFORK APPROACH, track 1a

• 00:05 [introduction, "Are you sitting comfortably? Then I shall begin."]
• (aka excerpt from "Peter And The Wolf" by Sergei Prokofiev)
• performed by David Bowie (with Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra)
• original source: LP "Peter And The Wolf" RCA Red Seal ARL1-2743(US) 05/12/78
• and my source: CD "Peter And The Wolf" RCA Victor 09026-60878-2(US) 1992

.....The full recording was reportedly done by Bowie as a birthday present for his son (then Zowie, now Joe) who would have turned seven when it was released. At one point, when I noticed how many celebrity recordings of "Peter And The Wolf" there were, it occurred to me to collect them as a sideline hobby. Fortunately I was experiencing a rare moment of lucidity that day and decided against it. (How many times would I listen to the Phyllis Diller version, honestly?) There were at least two others I wound up with: The Wendy (formerly Walter) Carlos and Weird Al Yankovic version and the 1970's British art-rock version with members of Roxy Music, King Crimson and Genesis. I think Brian Eno plays the duck on that one. I mean he represents the duck, he's not actually playing one as a musical instrument ( although I wouldn't put it past him to try...).

.....The CD I used is not the only version on disc. There's an earlier version that reproduces the art used on the original vinyl release. The one I used was manufactured a few years later, after BMG acquired RCA. Both include the non-Bowie flipside, the reliable standby Britten's "Young Person's Guide To The Orchestra". The 1992 version was part of a "60+" imprint, however, whose selling point was that CD's could contain more material than vinyl (more than 60 minutes anyway). To this end they added a 1972 recording of Ormandy conducting "The Nutcracker Suite", technically creating a new catalog title.