Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Lloyd Shakespeare's New Piccadilly Band - Roll Away Clouds


According to breda.uk.com:

Lloyd Shakespeare, a trumpet virtuoso, was born on 6 June 1895 in Leytonstone, London. He led his own bands during the twenties, recording for the Edison Bell Winner, Parlophone and Piccadilly labels and became a top session and side man with many of the great bands of the 30's, under amongst others, Lew Stone, Arthur Lally, Jack Harris, Sydney Lipton, Ronnie Munro, and Cecil Norman. He died in 1963.


Lloyd Shakespeare's New Piccadilly Band - Roll Away Clouds

Saturday, December 26, 2009

El Trio Cubano - La Bella Cubano


A fine example of Cuban Habanera music, recorded September 18, 1924 by El Trio Cubano for Edison Records.

El Trio Cubano - La Bella Cubano

Friday, December 25, 2009

The Westbrook Conservatory Entertainers - Silent Night


Paramount 3197, recorded in October 1929. A mostly instrumental (with some humming) version of the Christmas carol, featuring steel guitar. John James Westbrook, Jr. on vocals/steel guitar, his wife Blanche Westbrook on vocals/guitar, and an unidentified male vocalist joining on the humming.

Lots more info about Westbrook here and here.

The Westbrook Conservatory Entertainers - Silent Night

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Monday, November 30, 2009

Jazz-O-Harmonists - I Ain't Never Had Nobody Crazy Over Me


Gotta love anything that has a hyphenated O in the middle of it. Like Bit-O-Honey. And Malt-O-Meal. And the Jazz-O-Harmonists.

This is actually one of many recordings done under pseudonyms by the secretly prolific Louis Katzman Orchestra. Not sure why, but Louis and his band performed and recorded under many other monickers. Perhaps they were on the run from bill collectors.

Other names for the band include: Whittall's Anglo-Persians, The Castillians, Louis Katzman's Colonial Orchestra, the Atlantic Dance Orchestra, and the Brunswick Salon Orchestra.

Jazz-O-Harmonists - I Ain't Never Had Nobody Crazy Over Me

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

The Badgers - Wedding of the Painted Doll


From the 1929 film The Broadway Melody, the first sound film to win an Academy Award for Best Picture, and one of the first musicals to feature a Technicolor sequence. Unfortunately, the Technicolor sequence is presumed lost nowadays and only a black and white copy survives of the complete film.

The film spawned several sequels: Broadway Melody of 1936, Broadway Melody of 1938, Broadway Melody of 1940, and Broadway Melody of 1944 which was retitled to Broadway Rhythm.

The Badgers - Wedding of the Painted Doll

Friday, November 6, 2009

Ace Brigode and his Fourteen Virginians - Oklahoma Indian


I have a penchant for "Indian"-themed songs. Here's a goodie from 1923. I'm not sure I hear fourteen musicians in this band though. Maybe some of the Virginians went out for a smoke break.

Ace Brigode and his Fourteen Virginians - Oklahoma Indian

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Salt And Pepper - Crazy Blues



Not to be confused with Salt n' Pepa, this is an old-timey ukelele combo who recorded this 78 on July 14, 1924.

Salt And Pepper - Crazy Blues

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Pope Leo XIII - Ave Maria



Recorded not long before his death in 1903, this is a snippet of Pope Leo XIII performing the Ave Maria.

Pope Leo XIII - Ave Maria

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Snip and Snap - M`n Weekend Huisje


Snip and Snap (aka Willy Walden and Piet Muyselaar) were a Dutch crossdressing comedy act popular in the Netherlands between 1937 and 1977. Read more about them here.

Snip and Snap - M`n Weekend Huisje

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Indestructible Military Band - The Liberty Bell March


I got all excited about the name of this band until I realized it referred to their record label, Indestructible Records. I had previously been imagining a group of metallic bulletproof robotic automatons dressed in marching-band gear. Dash it all.

Fans of a certain British comedy troupe may recognize this melody.

Indestructible Military Band - The Liberty Bell March

Sunday, October 11, 2009

Bob Skyles and his Skyrockets - Ghost Of The St. Louis Blues


This obscure Western Swing band from Texas lays down a really primitive and ill-rehearsed version of the perenially spooky Emmett Miller classic. Love it.

Bob Skyles and his Skyrockets - Ghost Of The St. Louis Blues

Sunday, October 4, 2009

The Grinnel Giggers - Duck Shoes Rag


The Grinnel Giggers were a rural band from the Missouri-Arkansas border, near an inlet from the Mississippi River named Big Lake. The band took its name from a type of fishing done in the Big Lake area. Locals would find in these pools a "trash fish" known as Grinnel (also known as Bowfin), and they would "gig" them in the same way that one would go frog-gigging.

The Grinnel Giggers made only eight recordings, all done in one session in Memphis, May 1930.

The Grinnel Giggers - Duck Shoes Rag

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Old Ireland Quartette - The Star of Munster


A Google search for these guys only brought up the Internet Archive entry from which this file is sourced. The text there says:

Irish bagpipes, fiddle, flute, and cello. Beltona label. The lineup here is William Andrews, pipes, James Cawley, flute, and Frank O'Higgins, fiddle, backed by the cello (name unknown), which along with Andrews's chugging on his regulators gives a quite unique sound. Cawley and O'Higgins also recorded with piper James Ennis in the Fingal Trio, one recording of which is on this site. A 78 of Andrews is featured here as well. Andrews and Ennis both learned from the same old piper, Nicholas Markey, but developed somewhat different styles.

Old Ireland Quartette - The Star of Munster

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Henny Hendrickson's Louisville Serenaders - My Future Just Passed


Like Johnny Hamp's Kentucky Serenaders, this is apparently a Pennsylvania band that for unknown reasons chose to bill themselves as Kentuckians.

Henny Hendrickson's Louisville Serenaders were reportedly a territory band, one of the several combos that Hendrickson led in the general vicinity of the crux of the Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware borders. Although totally forgotten today, they obviously were a well-trained orchestra.

Most personnel is unknown. According to sketchy online info, purportedly part of the lineup is: Henny Hendrickson (leader, clarinet, soprano and alto saxophone); Eddie Friebel (tenor saxophone); Lew Quadling (piano and arranger) and Ditter Haynes (banjo and guitar).

Can't find any images of Henny, so here's a photo of a 1927 Buick Model 28 Standard.

Henny Hendrickson's Louisville Serenaders - My Future Just Passed

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Alfred Cortot - Ravel's Piano Concerto for Left Hand


Alfred Cortot, born September 26, 1877, was a Franco-Swiss pianist and conductor. So saith Wikipedia:

Controversially, he supported the German occupation in France during the Second World War (he played in Nazi-sponsored concerts, for example), serving as High Commissioner of the Fine Arts for the Vichy regime[1], and befriending Hitler's friend, architect, and (after 1942) Minister of Armaments and War Production Albert Speer[citation needed]. His Vichy connections, in particular, led to him being declared persona non grata after the Liberation. The motives for his wartime activities have been disputed; they may have arisen from nothing more than his lifelong championship of Teutonic musical culture. Moreover his wife, Clothilde Breal, daughter of the linguist, Michel Breal, was of Jewish origin and Clothilde Breal's cousin, Lise Bloch, was married to Léon Blum, the first Jew to become President du Conseil or Prime Minister in France. Cortot and the Blums maintained a close friendship. At any rate, he was banned from performing publicly for a year and his public image in France suffered greatly (though he continued to be well received as a recitalist in other countries, notably Italy and England).


Wikipedia also goes on to say: "In his early years (approx. 1920–1930) Cortot recorded a number of piano rolls for the Aeolian/ Duo-Art company, since 78rpm discs were not always satisfactory in quality or maximum duration of the recording. Once he performed a Liszt Rhapsody weaving his own playing live at the piano with its mechanical reproduction. With eyes closed some critics could not distinguish between the two." I find this idea fascinating.


This selection, Maurice Ravel's "Piano Concerto for Left Hand", was recorded May 12, 1939. Victor 78rpm Album M-629 (15749-15750). Paris Conservatory Orchestra. Charles Munch, conductor. It was expertly digitally remastered for the Internet Archive by F. Reeder.

According to a comment posted on archive-org's entry for it: "I'm interested in Cortot's playing, which sounds at once rich and rough to point of carlessness. I knew someone who met him after a concert. My acquaintance thought it was great, but Cortot was actually weeping, he was so conscious of his short-comings. I guess he blew it politically, too."

Ravel's Piano Concerto for Left Hand came about when specially commissioned by Austrian pianist Paul Wittgenstein, who had lost his right arm during World War I. He nevertheless continued a stellar musical career, and devised many novel techniques, such as pedal and hand-movement combinations, that allowed him to play music that had been previously thought impossible for a one-armed pianist. Ravel, inspired by the technical challenges of the idea, said "In a work of this kind, it is essential to give the impression of a texture no thinner than that of a part written for both hands." Wittgenstein was originally not thrilled by it upon first listen, but after studying it and playing it himself, came to be obsessed by the piece.

Alfred Cortot - Ravel's Piano Concerto for Left Hand

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

The Farber Sisters - How'd You Like to be my Daddy?


I know absolutely nothing about the Farber Sisters and have only circumstantial evidence that they even existed. This recording, purportedly from 1918, causes me severe cellular disruption. I dig it.

The Farber Sisters - How'd You Like to be my Daddy?

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Shortwave Spy Transmissions


Heard these before? No? Then you should definitely invest in one of these. Meanwhile, you can check out these mp3 files of classic intelligence-spook secret code shortwave broadcasts.

From The Conet Project's Internet Archive text:

For more than 30 years the Shortwave radio spectrum has been used by the worlds intelligence agencies to transmit secret messages. These messages are transmitted by hundreds of Numbers Stations.

Shortwave Numbers Stations are a perfect method of anonymous, one way communication. Spies located anywhere in the world can be communicated to by their masters via small, locally available, and unmodified Shortwave receivers. The encryption system used by Numbers Stations, known as a one time pad is unbreakable. Combine this with the fact that it is almost impossible to track down the message recipients once they are inserted into the enemy country, it becomes clear just how powerful the Numbers Station system is.

These stations use very rigid schedules, and transmit in many different languages, employing male and female voices repeating strings of numbers or phonetic letters day and night, all year round.

The voices are of varying pitches and intonation; there is even a German station (The Swedish Rhapsody) that transmits a female child's voice!

One might think that these espionage activities should have wound down considerably since the official end of the cold war, but nothing could be further from the truth. Numbers Stations (and by inference, spies) are as busy as ever, with many new and bizarre stations appearing since the fall of the Berlin wall.

Why is it that in over 30 years, the phenomenon of Numbers Stations has gone almost totally unreported? What are the agencies behind the Numbers Stations, and why are the eastern European stations still on the air? Why does the Czech republic operate a Numbers Station 24 hours a day? How is it that Numbers Stations are allowed to interfere with essential radio services like air traffic control and shipping without having to answer to anybody? Why does the Swedish Rhapsody Numbers Station use a small girls voice?

These are just some of the questions that remain unanswered.

150 Recordings of Shortwave Numbers Transmissions

Friday, September 11, 2009

Ludwig Van Beethoven - Marcia Funebre (Symphony No.3)


Marcia Funebre, the second movement from Beethoven's Symphony No.3 ("Eroica").

From Brunswick 78rpm discs, recorded in 1929. Performed by the Berlin Philharmonic, Hans Pfitzner, conductor. According to whoever posted it to the Internet Archive: "A truly 19th century interpretation - this is probably very much the way it sounded when Wagner or Mahler conducted".

Beethoven - Marcia Funebre (Symphony No.3), Hans Pfitzner, conductor

Monday, September 7, 2009

Paul Specht Orchestra - Chant of the Jungle


Photo above from Library of Congress archives: Paul Specht (1895-1954) and his Orchestra in a recording studio.

Musicians in the image include Chauncey Morehouse (drummer; holding cymbal), Frank Guarente (trumpeter; next to Morehouse) and Arthur "The Baron" Schutt (pianist; holding a saxophone for some reason, in the middle of the back row). Specht himself is to the far right.

Paul Specht Orchestra - Chant of the Jungle

Sunday, September 6, 2009

Melle Boyer de Lafory - Le Prophète


Who is Melle Boyer de Lafory? I don't know, but this 1910 cylinder recording of her performing a portion of the Giacomo Meyerbeer opera Le Prophète has that certain indefinable something that makes me want to eat Bovril from the jar with a spoon.

Melle Boyer de Lafory - Le Prophète

Saturday, August 22, 2009

Aeolian Piano Roll - My Little Maid of Oz



It's "My Little Maid of Oz", from the bizarre 1902 stage musical production of The Wizard of Oz, played by that magical steampunk-robotic device known as a player piano, from a paper roll dated 1905.

The earliest player piano - that is, an automated piano-playing device that is programmed by interchangeable rolls of perforated paper - was invented by Claude Seytre, who patented one in France in 1842. Evidently the French patent office didn't require a functioning prototype, because although Seytre had the right idea, his machine didn't actually work. It wasn't until 1876 that John McTammany exhibited a working version of the device in Philadelphia.

Aeolian Piano Roll - My Little Maid of Oz (1905)

Saturday, August 15, 2009

Maria Von Schmedes - Unter Einem Regenschirm Am Abend


The obscure Austrian cabaret-schlager singer Maria Von Schmedes singing "Unter Einem Regenschirm Am Abend" (Under an Umbrella in the Evening), a popular German tune that was also performed by Lale Andersen. Maria was born in 1914 in Vienna. Had musical and theatrical training, and performed at the Berlin Philharmonic Concert Hall in 1939. Her biggest hit was "Mein Sonntagsvergnügen" (My Sunday's Pleasure) in 1942.

Maria Von Schmedes - Unter Einem Regenschirm Am Abend

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Paul Whiteman & Johnny Hauser - Gloomy Sunday


In 1933, Rezső Seress composed the song "Szomorú Vasárnap", basing it on a poem written by his friend László Jávor. Javor was depressed because of a breakup with a woman, and it was he who suggested Seress set it to music.

That song was translated into English in 1935 as "Gloomy Sunday", and quickly became a phenomenon as the song was implicated in many subsequent suicides. From the Syracuse Herald, February 2, 1936:

Budapest police have branded the song "Gloomy Sunday" public menace No. 1 and have asked all musicians and orchestras to cooperate in supressing it, dispatches said today.

To its gloomy strains, the police attribute 18 suicides. It was the 18th suicide -- which moved police to action -- when Joseph Keller, a shoemaker, killed himself and in a note to police asked them to put on his grave 100 of the roses mentioned in the song.

Men, women and children are among the victims. Two people shot themselves while gypsies played the melancholy notes on violins. Some killed themselves while listeninig to it on gramophone records in their homes. Two housemaids cut their employers' linens and paintings and then killed themselves after hearing the song drifting up into the servant's hall from dinner parties.

The controversial "Gloomy Sunday" only grew in popularity as it became known as "the Hungarian Suicide Song", and then Billie Holiday rocketed the song to even greater heights of fame when she recorded it in 1941. A list of other important early versions would have to include ones by Pal Kalmar, Josh White, Hal Kemp, Paul Robeson, Artie Shaw and the French chanteuse Damia.

But this version, by Paul Whiteman and his Orchestra with Johnny Hauser on vocals, is one of the better and creepier versions to these ears. Take a listen... but hide the razor blades and sleeping pills.


Paul Whiteman & Johnny Hauser - Gloomy Sunday

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Larry Vincent - The Freckle Song


Born in California, Larry Vincent (no relation to the horror host) moved around the country plying his musicianly trade for many years in many places, including Chicago's Alamo Cafe in 1926 before settling down in Covington, KY in the late 30s, early 40s.

Larry arrived in Northern Kentucky at the peak of its decadent period, when the area was ruled by mobsters, strippers, prostitutes, card sharks, burlesque halls, and other such glorious sleaze. He took up a residency performing at Jimmy Brink's Lookout House, a supper club that was actually a front for an illegal casino. This became Larry's second home for years to come.


He formed Pearl Records, an odd label whose artist roster consisted almost entirely of Larry himself performing under many pseudonyms. This particular recording, "The Freckle Song", is one of his tamer outings, an almost Benny Bell-like novelty song based around rhymes that you think you will go one way but then go another, and the fact that its chorus "She's got freckles on her, but she's nice" sounds rather uncannily like "She's got freckles on her butt, she's nice."

People were easily amused in those days. Other puerile Larry Vincent gems include "I Took My Organ To The Party", "Sarah Sittin' In A Shoe Shine Shop", and "I Grow Gooey over Chop Suey".

Near the end of his life, Larry told radio host Dr. Demento:

At a time when sale or possession of records with the f-word and other indiscretions could get you arrested, I made records that were just risque enough to be slightly scandalous to Middle Americans, yet discreet enough to be acceptable to at least some mainstream record stores.

I did have some regional success as a pop crooner in the 1920s. In the late 1930s I collaborated with several established Tin Pan Alley songwriters. With Henry Tobias and Moe Jaffe I turned out one song that eventually became a semi-standard, "If I Had My Life To Live Over."

Larry Vincent - The Freckle Song

Monday, August 3, 2009

Teddy Brown & His Orchestra - Fairy on the Clock


The amazing Mr. Creosote lookalike Teddy Brown, displaying his admirable xylophone prowess. This was taken from the soundtrack of the 1930 British film Elstree Calling, co-directed by Alfred Hitchcock. (which makes me wonder about his naming of Gavin Elster in Vertigo...)

Teddy Brown & His Orchestra - Fairy on the Clock

Want even more Fairyclockmania? Check out the Voraxical Theatre blog.

Friday, July 31, 2009

John Lacalle's Band - A Signal from Mars


A happy little marching tune from a 1901 cylinder. Listening to it, this isn't exactly how I would've imagined this song to sound - especially judging from the wonderful sheet music cover. Perhaps we're meant to imagine the marching bands in the street parades that would be celebrating and commemorating Earth's contact with alien life... just before we get fried and go up in a big fiery puff of klaatu-barada-nikto. We're no baloney Homosapiens, take it back with ya.

John Lacalle's Band - A Signal from Mars

Thursday, July 30, 2009

Mira Music Box - Must You?


So, in 9th century Iraq, the Banū Mūsā brothers invented an automatic musical device which played interchangeable cylinders with raised pins on the surface.

Centuries later, the Swiss popularized the ancient Iraqi invention with their own musical snuff boxes that made sounds when you opened them. The sound was produced by a mechanism plucking tiny metal nibs that made different tones depending on their size and shape. By the 19th century, music boxes had come into their own as a means of song propagation before the advent of phonograph records.

It was through this amazing technology that someone committed this song ("Must You?") to immortality by crystallizing it into tiny metal nibs on a small rotating drum or disc in the 19th century. By 1903, even more amazing technology had come about - the phonograph cylinder. Someone had the bright idea of holding this Mira music box up to the recording horn of an Edison machine, thus making a copy to be preserved and distributed.

But then, much later in the century, someone recorded that cylinder on an amazing technology called magnetic tape, thus making a third-generation copy to be preserved and distributed. A few years later it was probably then transferred to a fourth-generation copy on the next amazing technology called the digital compact disc.

So here's the fifth generation copy, wherein someone used the very latest amazing technology and did away with the need for a physical disc, instead converting it to pure digital binary microscopic quantum beep-bop-blips to be decoded by microchips.

Stay tuned: in a few years, we'll be converting all these old recordings into hyper-dimensional meta-holographic constructs that can be gleaned psychically by anyone in the known universe by uploading them to an interstellar web of microtubular connection via nanodust. Bet me.


The song "Must You?" was written for L. Frank Baum's bizarre 1902 Stage Version of The Wizard of Oz.

Mira Music Box, circa 1903

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Seven Foot Dilly - Streak Of Lean, Streak Of Fat


Ladies and Gentlemen, your friend - and his - the one, the only, the unfathomable recording sensation Seven Foot Dilly on guitar, accompanied by his rotgut-drinkin' buddy A.A. Gray on the fiddle. Recorded March 20, 1930.

Quotations from Chairman Dilly: "I hear music." "Watch him, he taps both feet at the same time." "Boy, he likes his Cincinnati Chicken." "Go Crazy. Ain't gonna live long now."

Seven Foot Dilly - Streak Of Lean, Streak Of Fat

Saturday, July 25, 2009

Johnny Hamp's Kentucky Serenaders - Black Bottom


Johnny Hamp's Kentucky Serenaders cut a lot of great early Jazz records in the 1920s, and constantly toured the USA and England with their Kentucky-themed band. A jazzed-up cover of Stephen Foster's "My Old Kentucky Home" was their signature tune.

Thing is, though, the band weren't Kentuckians, as least as far as we know. There's no evidence that they even played here. Hamp himself was from Lancaster, PA.

The band predated Hamp as The Serenaders, but at some point in the late 1910s he filled in for the band's regular leader (was he from Kentucky, mayhaps?) and ended up staying on permanently. By 1919 they were touring regularly and had renamed themselves Johnny Hamp's Kentucky Serenaders, for reasons that still defy logical explanation - not that any is really needed for the nomenclature of fly-by-night dixieland orchestras.

Their biggest hit was 1926's Black Bottom" (Victor 20101-B) which started a nationwide dance craze that become associated with Kentucky to some extent, despite the apparent lack of actual connection.

From 1931 on they dropped the Kentucky Serenaders name and simply became The Johnny Hamp Orchestra, lasting a few more years before hanging it up for good as World War II loomed on the horizon.

Johnny Hamp's Kentucky Serenaders - Black Bottom

Friday, July 24, 2009

Madame Rombro - Po Oolitza


Here's a real mystery record. Po Oolitza, by one Madame Rombro, released in 1899 on Edison brown wax cylinder 7179.

A Google search brings up only the Internet Archive entry where I found the mp3, and a reference to the cylinder having been played before on WFMU. And that's it.

As for the song itself, a book called Travels to the seat of war in the East, through Russia and the Crimea in 1829 by Sir James Edward Alexander mentions "the favorite national air of Russia" as being a song that starts with those words (see image above).

Madame Rombro - Po Oolitza

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Erhard Bauschke - Blindekuh


Erhard Bauschke was one of pioneers of German swing music, playing clarinet in the James Kok Tanz-Orchestra, a Berlin band popular for its jazzy interpretations of international hits. The Kok orchestra was dissolved when Kok, along with most of the band's Jewish musicians, were forced to flee to Romania in order to avoid Nazi persecution. Bauschke, together with whatever former members were left, formed his own band. He died in 1945, struck by a speeding motorist in Berlin.

"Blindekuh" is a German children's game in which people are blindfolded and led around.

Erhard Bauschke - Blindekuh

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka - Kamarinskaya


Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka (seen above in a painting by Ilya Repin) was a key member of "The Five", a cadre of Russian composers who sought to create a new and specifically Russian kind of art music, rather than one that imitated older European tradition.

This is a 1904 recording of "Kamarinskaya" by Glinka, complete with weird bird noises.

Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka - Kamarinskaya

Saturday, March 21, 2009

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Cheeseburger & Fries - Creeps Is In My Head


In celebration of the announcement of Jeffrey Scott Holland's upcoming theatrical tour de force Cheeseburger & Fries: The Musical, we bring you a happy tune you'll love to croon.

From the sacred shoebox of Cheeseburger & Fries cassettes comes this nummy nugget, circa 1996, recorded live on "The Pete Hrabak Show", radio station WRFL, Lexington, KY. A little pinch of Son House, a dash of Billy Childish, and a whole lotta Rockcastle County... the breeze in the trees. Singing weird melodies. They nursed it and never rehearsed it. And they made that the start of the Creeps.

Cheeseburger & Fries - Creeps Is In My Head

Friday, March 6, 2009

Vessella's Italian Band - Beethoven's Funeral March


How long have I been on?

Now here's that swell tune "Vessella's Funeral March" by Beethoven's Italian Band. I think I'll pour me another salad, pally.

How did all you people get in my room?

Vessella's Italian Band - Beethoven's Funeral March

Friday, February 13, 2009

Wendy Williams and the Peter Pan Orchestra - Squee Gee


From Dave the Spazz on the WFMU blog:

"It wasn't long before Squee Gee and his idiotic theme song solidly possessed all the chambers of my fragile, unblemished coconut. Allegedly flitting about like a careless ne'er do-well, the enigmatic Squee Gee was ascribed the ability to make each day a holiday and I wasn't the doubting type. Squee Gee had his line of jive down tight and who was I to question his upside-down pinwheeled logic? They were starting early--these messianic Manson wannabes in their clown whites and ice cream cone hats. I inspected the grooves of the record and spun it incessantly. That's when I knew that I would either have to kill Squee Gee or be Squee Gee."

Wendy Williams and the Peter Pan Orchestra - Squee Gee

Sunday, February 8, 2009

Clifford Hayes' Louisville Stompers - Frog Hop



A great side by Louisville's own Clifford Hayes, who organized multiple jug bands and jazz bands in the 1920s and 1930a.

Clifford Hayes' Louisville Stompers - Frog Hop

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Albert Benzler - Sweet Little Daisies


Recorded 1905 on an Edison gold moulded cylinder.

Push the little daisies and make them come up.


Albert Benzler - Sweet Little Daisies

Saturday, January 31, 2009

Hasil Adkins - KFC


From the Creeps Records release Night Life comes this classic final entry in Hasil's lifelong tradition of "chicken songs".

Hasil Adkins - KFC

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Harry A. Yerkes Dance Orchestra - Mystery


The Harry A. Yerkes Dance Orchestra is just one of the many ensembles run by Mr. Yerkes, including The Yerkes Marimbaphone Band, Yerkes Jazarimba Orchestra, Yerkes S.S. Flotilla Orchestra, Yerkes Bellhops, The Novelty Five, The Happy Six, etc. This tune, "Mystery, is one of our all-time favorites.

Harry A. Yerkes Dance Orchestra - Mystery

Saturday, January 24, 2009

The Original Memphis Five - Snake Hips


The Original Memphis Five was a New Orleans jazz quintet founded in 1917 by trumpeter Phil Napoleon and pianist Frank Signorelli. The group made many recordings between 1921 and 1931, sometimes under different names, including Ladd's Black Aces and Carolina Cotton Pickers. In 1959 Phil moved to Miami, where he ran a club called "Napoleon's Retreat" where he played for many years.

The Original Memphis Five - Snake Hips

Friday, January 23, 2009

Colonel Sanders - Spanish Flea


This highly obscure album is ostensibly credited to Colonel Sanders, but I'm not sure just how involved he was with the concept.

Then again, I hear a prominent mandolin, an instrument the Colonel was proficient at (he also released an album with his all-mandolin band), so maybe it really is him and not just a band of studio session hacks earning some quick wine money till their next Herb Alpert gig. I dunno.

This record was originally given away at Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants in the 1960s.

Colonel Sanders - Spanish Flea

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Benny Bell - Shaving Cream


In the late 1970s I heard this old Benny Bell song on the Dr. Demento show, which used to be syndicated to WKQQ-FM at 1am. Even after decades, I could still remember the verses and the dopey tard-waltz sound. I just stumbled upon it on the glorious repository of human knowledge that is archive.org and immediately went into reverie.

There's many other selections from Mr. Bell's recorded oeuvre on there, such as "Noses Run In My Family", "Go Take a Ship for Yourself", "Everybody Wants My Fanny", and "Pink Pills for Pale People"... but I've been too afraid to listen to them.

Benny Bell - Shaving Cream