Happy Interplanetary New Year

1. Happy New Year to You!- Sun Ra
2. Auld Lang Syne- John Fahey

Forget Dickens, Here's A Christmas Tale by William S. Burroughs

Interplanetary Interlude #1: An Interplanetary Music Christmas Carol

Playlist

1. It's Christmas Time- Sun Ra
2. My Favorite Things- John Coltrane
3. Greensleeves- John Coltrane
4. Oh Holy Night- John Fahey
5. Carol of the Bells- John Fahey
6. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen Fantasy- John Fahey
7. The Skater's Waltz- John Fahey
8. Silent Night- John Fahey
9. Silent Night- Dies Irae
10. Silent Night- The Poetics

I Desperately Need to See This Movie. You Do Too. I'm a Monk, You're a Monk, We're All Monks.

It's beat time, it's hot time, it's Monk time.


 

It's telling to me that the American Jon Spencer identifies the Monks with primal Rock n' Roll, while the Germans tend to pick up on elements like the pulsating, mechanical rhythms of the Monks which link them to electronic and industrial music. This is why Julian Cope identifies the Monks as the "missing link" between American R&R and German experimental kosmiche musik in Krautrocksampler. I discovered the Monks through my interest in '60s garage-rock, but they've always sounded closer to The Velvet Underground than The Sonics or any of the Nuggets artists.

. . . NO-ONE ever came up with a whole album of such dementia. The Monks' Black Monk Time is a gem born of isolation and the horrible deep-down knowledge that no-one is really listening to what you're saying. And the Monks took full artistic advantage of their lucky/unlucky position as American rockers in a country that was desperate for the real thing. 
- Julian Cope, Krautrocksampler

Episode #11: Inner Space: Can Part 2

Playlist

1. Paperhouse
2. Mushroom
3. Oh Yeah
4. Halleluwah
5. Evening All Day
6. Pinch
7. Vitamin C
8. Tape Kebab
9. Bel Air
10. Spray
11. Chain Reaction
12. Quantum Physics



Download Episode 11!

Master of the Flying Guillotine

Somebody had the brilliant idea to score a late-seventies Chinese martial-arts film with early-seventies German experimental music. Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream are used to great effect, but the most striking is the use of Neu! "Super 16" becomes the motif for the titular assassin, like an insane version of the "Imperial March" from Star Wars, and "Super" (same song, different speed) is used to create the most thrilling opening credits ever.

Jazz on a Summer's Day, on a Winter's Day

This film is transcendentally beautiful, and the music sublime. You want to watch, yes?

Performers include Jimmy Giuffre (very underrated!), Sonny Stitt, Anita O'Day, George Shearing, Gerry Mulligan, and Louis Armstrong.


 

Love by Morgen

I know nothing about this band, having gleaned nothing from my 3.5 second goggle. Sounds like a West-coast psychedelic band, except tighter than the San Francisco style. Kind of like the Troggs at times, too. No, not at all like the Troggs. More like the Votive Figures, or the Skeegs. What, you've never heard of 'em? Poor bastards.

Just listen to it. It's good.

.

The Meek Shall Inhe(a)rit a New World

As a space-cadet/listener, you may have wondered at some point, "What is that crazy music he plays during the boring parts when he talks?" Well, it's by a band called the Tornados, the English instrumental band responsible for everybody's favorite retro-futurist pop hit "Telstar," (come on, it's been on Mad Men already, so it's now become canonical early 60's culture), not to be confused with the Californian surf band  the Tornadoes whose "Bustin' Surfboards," served as Jules and Vincent's exit music from that diner at the end of Pulp Fiction. The song is called "Jungle Fever," and it was produced by the infamous Joe Meek, who was a sort of British Phil Spector, except a paranoid gay occultist instead of a paranoid gun-toting psycho. There's been a documentary on Meek in the works for years now, and if you've got a few extra ducats lying around you can become a financier of this worthy project! To tide you over until then, I found this BBC doc. It's interesting, but doesn't delve much into the occult stuff, nor to my mind does it feature some of Meek's best music ("Jungle Fever," for instance.)







Or these fine tunes:

Episode #10: Upstairs, Downstairs: Can Part 1

Playlist
1. Butterfly
2. Uphill
3. Oscura Primavera
4. Father Cannot Yell
5. Outside My Door
6. Yoo Doo Right
7. Millionenspiel
8. Grablau
9. Deadlock
10. Mother Sky
11. She Brings the Rain
12. Turtles Have Short Legs












Download Episode 10!

An Oral History of Heavyness: Such Hawks Such Hounds

 

Support your local psychedelic freak rock and roll band. Go to their shows and give them drugs.

This is what psychedelic rock should look and sound like.

An absolutely killer version of "Between the eyes," by Amon Duul II. This was on TV, apparently.


 

Episode #9: Interplanetary Music Gets Heavy

Playlist

1. Hung Bunny- The Melvins
2. Hung, Drawn, and Quartered- High On Fire
3. 50 Million Year Trip (Downside Up)- Kyuss
4. Dopesmoker [excerpt]- Sleep
5. Holy Mountain- Sleep
6. Mind Transferral- Electric Wizard
7. Burnout- Electric Wizard
8. Smoke- Ufomammut
9. Hozomeen- Ufomammut






Download Episode 9!

Episode #8: Flowers of Evil: An Interplanetary Music Halloween

Playlist

1. I'll Always Say Never to Always- The Manson Family Singers
2. The Black Rider- Tom Waits
3. The Bells- Lou Reed
4. Night of the Shape- Electric Wizard
5. Nosferatu Man- Slint
6. Burn the Flames- Roky Erickson
7. Janitor of Lunacy- Nico
8. At the Mountains of Madness- Blackfeather
9. I Hear Voices- Screamin' Jay Hawkins
10. The Spider and the Fly- The Monocles
11. I Need Your Head- Hasil Adkins
12. Frankie Teardrop- Suicide
13. Abschied- Nico
14. White Blur 1- Aphex Twin
15. Ave Satani- Jerry Goldsmith
16. Cannibal- Scratch Acid
17. Jordan, Minnesota- Big Black
18. I Put a Spell on You- Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds
19. Joan Dark- Bassholes
20. Jesse- Scott Walker
21. White Blur 2- Aphex Twin




Download Episode 8!

Episode #7: Hits of Sunshine

Playlist

1. Prelude/To Claudia On Thursday- The Millennium
2. Take a Giant Step- The Monkees
3. Come Down Softly to My Soul- Spacemen 3
4. Postures (Leave Your Body Behind)- The 13th Floor Elevators
5. Supermarket- Fapardokly
6. Paranormal Echoes- Olivia Tremor Control
7. Poor Moon- Canned Heat
8. Don't You Feel Me- Damon
9. Positive Vibrations- The Soft Boys
10. She Understands- The Travel Agency
11. Can I Join Your Band?- The Creation
12. It's You- The Millennium
13. Kensington High Street- Dead Sea Fruit
14. Marking Time- Olivia Tremor Control
15. Superman- Clique
16. The Zoo- Mickey Lee Lane
17. Workshop/Vega-tables- Brian Wilson
18. Kites Are Fun- The Free Design
19.  Museum- Donovan
20. The Princess Turns the Key to Cubist Castle (excerpt)- Olivia Tremor Control
21. Up On the Sun- The Meat Puppets
22. Glad Girls- Guided By Voices
23. Turncoat Indian- The Apples In Stereo
24. Cabin Essence- Brian Wilson
25. A New Day- Olivia Tremor Control
26. Strawberryfire- The Apples In Stereo
27. Just About the Same- The Millennium





Download Episode 7!

Experiment #4: Harp of a Million Strings

It's amazing what a little echo can do. A long delay  with a slow decay factor turned a beautiful "sacred harp" song ("The Last Words of Copernicus" from Southern Journey Vol. 9: Harp of 1000 Strings) into an ambient wave of sound that hardly sounds like human voices.

Experiment #3: Can It Be?

Now here's an easy and fun little trick: take any 60's garage rock song, speed it up, and enjoy some kick-ass garage punk. This particular number, "Can It Be" by the Savoys (from Back From the Grave Vol. 3) also sounded great with some echo as well. First you'll hear the original, then the sped up punk version, then a more extreme version with an almost industrial sound. The tempo is about the same as the second version, but I increased the speed as well, which raised the pitch, and used more echo.

Experiment #2: Splint

I sped up Slint's (hence "splint") "Nosferatu Man" (listen to the original here) about 15% and added more bass. Not a radical change by any means, but now it's totally metal! Enjoy.

Experiment #1: Wallace Stevens + Can

In the mood for a highbrow mashup? Well, I've been fooling around with editing music lately, and I thought I'd share some of the more interesting results.  Here's a Wallace Stevens poem, "Tattoo," with an excerpt from Can's "Dead Pigeon Suite" (variation on "Vitamin C," from Ege Bamyasi). Interestingly, there's a song from Can's The Lost Tapes called "Evening All Day." Is this a reference to the line "It was evening all afternoon," from Stevens' great poem "13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird?" Perhaps not, but I'm pleased by the coincidence.

Episode #6: Shake Eternity and Lick Creation

Playlist

1. Flight from Ashiya- Kaleidoscope
2. Helicopter- Sand
3. Introitus- Dom
4. Osamu's Birthday- The United States of America
5. Wellen- Stolle & Member
6. Vom Himmel Hoch- Kraftwerk
7. Galactic Joke (a)- The Cosmic Jokers
8. The Flower- Sun City Girls
9. Aumgn- Can

Download Episode 8!

The Halcyon Days of Symmetry

Ineffably self-explanatory, it's the Sun City Girls.


 

Molten Swedish Proto-Metal

I discovered Kebnekajse through the awesome The Day After the Sabbath blog. This was a project of Kenny Hakansson, formerly of Baby Grandmothers, who I have been planning on including on an Interplanetary Music episode for a long time now. Until then, enjoy this delightful bit of hard-driving Swedish chipmunk-rock.

Episode #5: Avant Garage: The Pere Ubu Story, 1974-1982

Playlist

1. Sonic Reducer- Rocket from the Tombs
2. 30 Seconds Over Tokyo/Satisfaction- Rocket from the Tombs
3. What Love Is- Rocket from the Tombs
4. Heart of Darkness (Demo)- Pere Ubu
5. Heart of Darkness- Pere Ubu
6. Final Solution- Pere Ubu
7. Cloud 149- Pere Ubu
8. Heaven- Pere Ubu
9. Humor Me- Pere Ubu
10. Street Waves- Pere Ubu
11. Modern Dance- Pere Ubu
12. Over My Head- Pere Ubu
13. Chinese Radiation- Pere Ubu
14. On the Surface- Pere Ubu
15. Dub Housing- Pere Ubu
16. Navvy- Pere Ubu
17. Caligari's Mirror- Pere Ubu
18. Small Was Fast- Pere Ubu
19. Jehovah's Kingdom Come- Pere Ubu
20. The Voice of the Sand- Pere Ubu
21. Misery Goats- Pere Ubu
22. Horses- Pere Ubu
23. The Vulgar Boatman Bird- Pere Ubu
24. Big Ed's Used Farms- Pere Ubu
25. Thoughts That Go by Steam- Pere Ubu




Download Episode 5!

Krautrock-Doc

This is a really wonderful documentary, not only because it is a tribute to music that I love (however dubious it is as a "genre"), but because it shows how important music can be in healing a culture.

C'mon dude, give him the King Crimson

This is Bach's "Crab Canon," basically a musical palindrome. Sometimes I hear people call music from the 1950's and earlier "old." My response (in my head, mostly) is always, "You're kidding, right?" I did a brief series on modern versions of Bach  on my old blog.

Sun Ra, Brother from Another Planet

Like so many music documentaries, there's too many talking heads here. Still, it's cool to have a Ra doc out there, and there's a lot of clips of Ra being freaky & awesome.


 

Autumn Thunder!

In honor of the return of football, here's a golden oldie.

Episode #4: Interplanetary Music Digs Its Own Groove

Playlist

1. House of Mirrors- David McCallum
2. Black Sand- Brainticket
3. He's Gonna Step On You Again- John Kongos
4. Instant Whip- Tremeloes
5. Vagando En Las Tinieblas- El Fin
6. Bad Tune- Earth, Wind and Fire
7. Ruckzuck- Kraftwerk
8. Stepping Stones- Johnny Harris
9. The Beat Goes On- Gabor Szabo
10. Funkier Than a Mosquito's Tweeter- Nina Simone
11. The Taking of Pelham 123- David Shire
12. Cosmic Sea- Mystic Moods
13. Andy Nogger- Kraan
14. Goin' to See My Baby- The Fatback Band
15. Cavern- Liquid Liquid
16. Din Daa Daa- George Kranz
17. Fire- Flames
18. The Number Song- DJ Shadow
19. Say Leroy (The Creature from the Black Lagoon is Your Father)- Jimmy Castor Bunch
20. The Gumbo Variations- Frank Zappa


 

Download Episode 4!

Episode #3: A Reasonable Guide to Horrible Noise

Warning: Please do not listen to this episode if you have an aversion to dissonance and atonality. If you do choose to listen to this episode, please play it fucking loud.

Playlist

1. Portrait of Linda in Three Colors, All Black- Sonny and Linda Sharrock
2. Spirits Rejoice- Albert Ayler
3. I Heard Her Call My Name- The Velvet Underground
4. Metal Machine Music excerpt #1- Lou Reed
5. Moonlight on Vermont- Captain Beefheart
6. Lore- Tom Verlaine
7. L.A. Blues- The Stooges
8. Metaphors in a Mixmaster- Sun City Girls
9. Neon Meat Dream of a Octafish- Captain Beefheart
10. Metal Machine Music excerpt #2- Lou Reed
11. Soup- Can
12. Mars- Nels Cline/Gregg Bendian
13. First Take- Ornette Coleman
14. Metal Machine Music excerpt #3- Lou Reed
15. Bassomat- Spacebox



Download Episode 3!

Episode #2: Offerings for Wicked King Wicker

Playlist

1. Opening Music (from The Wicker Man)- Magnet
2. Dancing Gods- The Silver Apples
3. Procession- Magnet
4. Augurs of Spring: Dances of the Young Girls/Ritual of Abduciton (from Rite of Spring)- Igor Stravisnky
5. Searching for Rowan- Magnet
6. Song of Wandering Aengus- Ceoltoiri
7. Suspiria- Goblin
8. Chop Chop- Magnet
9. I Have Always Been Here Before- Roky Erickson
10. Lullaby- Magnet
11. Song for Adonis- Savage Republic
12. O Adonis- Savage Republic
13. Masks/Hobby Horse- Magnet
14. Vikings- The Black Angels
15. Nibelungen- Nico
16. The Wizard Blew His Horn- Hawkwind
17. Eye-Shaking King- Amon Duul II
18.The Return of Rubezahl- Amon Duul II
19. Supercoven- Electric Wizard
20. Sumer is a Cumen In- Magnet




Download Episode 2!

Episode #1: Interplanetary Music Blasts Off!

Download Episode 1!

Playlist

1. Blast Off!- The Monks
2. Rocket USA- Suicide
3. Rocket #9 Takes Off for the Planet Venus- Sun Ra
4. Starship- MC5
5. Astronomy Domine- The Pink Floyd
6. Interstellar Overdrive- The Pink Floyd
7. Kometenmelodie 1- Kraftwerk
8. Yes! I am a Long Way from Home- Mogwai
9. We Travel the Spaceways- Sun Ra
10. Nepture, the Mystic- Gustav Holst
11. Requiem for Soprano, Mezzo Soprano, Two Mixed Choirs, & Orchestra- Gyorgy Ligeti