EPisodes 61 - 70

EPISODE 70: Ready for the House

Desert Island Recordings III

Jandek’s first album, like most of his career, was made with aggressive alienation. Heralded as a master of American DIY, at no point during the first 25 years of his career did he seek attention, press, or notoriety outside his homemade music. No press kits. No live performances. No ambition or self-awareness. All interviews are summarily denied. Prolific in both his obscurity and output, Jandek would release 45 records (always 12’ full albums until CDs were available) between 1978 and 2006 under the Corwood Industries label. These would all be sold only via mail order from a Houston PO box. In that quarter century, there are only a handful of supposed interviews, which might be a misnomer because interview implies some transmission of pertinent information. He may have worked as a machinist? He may have had formal musical training? The unidentified man, who was Jandek, but only identified himself as representative of Corwood Industries.

If Tom Waits’ song “What’s He Building in There” was non-fiction, it would’ve been about Jandek.

Listen Here:

The two records featured on this episode:

Scrawl - Your Mother Wants to Know

The Barbarians - Moulty

Show Links:

Corwood Industries
Chusid Article about Jandek from WFMU
John Trubee Interview
Jandek's First Show Video

EPISODE 69: Nebraska

Desert Island Recordings II

The second in a series of episodes about albums conceived, written, and/or recorded while in isolation.

Bruce Springsteen was totally spent after finishing a grueling year long 140 date tour for his massively successful double record The River. Needing a rest, he rented a house by a reservoir in Colt’s Neck, New Jersey. His time spent there allowed him a little bit of respite from life on the road and time apart from the fans. He was able to fully take in and embrace his musical and literary influences, past and present. And while the quiet allowed him to take some time to reflect, he was dealing with insecurity, depression, and the immense pressure that he felt from all sides. And in the silence, he fell prey to a subconscious nagging about the unconnected dots from his youth. Like so many other times in his career, he turned to work and music to escape. However, in a rented room with nothing but his demons, the sound that sprang forth from the man was very different.

Listen Here:

The records featured on this episode:

Suicide - Dream Baby Dream

Jody Reynolds - Endless Sleep

EPISODE 68: Tusk

DESERT ISLAND RECORDINGS I

The first in a series of episodes about albums conceived, written, and/or recorded while in isolation.

Isolation causes people to do funny things. Sometimes brilliant, sometimes mad, often both. We're both under the recommended self-quarantine and as we're waiting for this pandemic to hopefully quickly subside. We started thinking about albums that were made while in confinement. Many came to mind quickly. The Rolling Stones recorded Exile on Main Street while holed in France avoiding tax penalties. Of course, that is less like quarantine and more like a weekend at Caligula’s. Bon Iver’s post-break-up self induced retreat in a hunting cabin turned into For Emma, Forever Ago. Songs of Pain by Daniel Johnston was recorded in his parents basement as his bipolar swings made social engagements tremendously difficult. The majority of Cat Power’s Moon Pix was written during a terrifying hallucinatory nightmare while left alone in a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. And of course, David Allen Coe, Charles Manson, that psycho guy from Burzum, and countless hip hop artists made records while incarcerated.

That's when we remembered Camper Van Beethoven’s Tusk. As we recalled, the band got snowed in at a cabin somewhere in the depths of the California mountains in the late 80s. To stave off boredom, the band did a track by track remake of the Fleetwood Mac maligned bizarro AOR classic, Tusk. CVB got through most of the tracks before the thaw, stashed the tapes, and went about their merry way. Many years later, about to embark on a reunion tour, the band found the tapes, cleaned them up, added and rerecorded bits, and released the record. We both love Camper Van Beethoven and Tusk, so we decided it would be a good exercise in exploring what happens to bands when cabin fever sets in. So, today, break into your emergency vodka, settle into your confinement, and check your supply of toilet paper as we cover the bizarre tale of Camper Van Beethoven’s Tusk.

Listen Here:

The Two Records Featured on this Episode:

Johnny Collier - Nobody Touches Me

The Animals - Inside Looking Out

EPISODE 67: SINGLE SONG ALBUMS

Today, we examine the messages that were delivered by seven of the most famous, and some equally infamous, single track records. The emotional tension that went into making them. The strife that went into releasing them. And the waves that were made by listening to them.

Each with a message beyond their declaration of musical independence. A jazz composer completely undoing the constraining rules of his genre. An Afrobeat icon illuminating the political and social unrest around him. A New York legend aggressively rewriting the boundaries of popular music. A Krautrocker’s exercise in boredom relief. A metal band proving monotony and momentum are as critical to sound as dynamics. An artist’s reflecting on decay, death, and the world burning all around him. An eclectic soundscapist’s unraveling the seeming destruction of the medium of music.

The collective sound of these records are full undefinable parallels...challenging and inviting. Simple and complex. From furious to melancholic. Anxious to gleeful. Structured loops and fractured chaos. The only common bond was a total disregard for what had been done before. Today, the single song albums that changed the landscape of music.

We're fortunate enough to be added to FeedSpot's list of "Top 20 Music Podcasts You Must Follow in 2020"

Listen Here:

The Four Record Featured on This Episode:

AC Ducey - Beer Bottla Beer

Rain Parade - One Hour 1/2 Ago

Kubie and the Rats - Turtle Dove

Psychic Ills - I Don't Mind

EPISODE 66: Who is Kevin Coyne?

Kevin Coyne released over 40 albums in the course of his 35-year career. He would be hailed and championed by the likes of John Peel, Richard Branson, Johnny Rotten, the Mekons, Sting, and Will Oldham. He unceremoniously rejected an offer from Elektra Records to be the dead Jim Morrison’s replacement in the Doors, quipping that he didn’t like leather pants. He wrote scores of songs about the fringes of humanity dealing with mental illness and addiction with empathy and poise that few could match in even a single song. He penned bizarre operas and theme albums about nefarious characters including the notorious mobsters, the Kray Brothers, subversive comedian Frank Randle, the evil-incarnate Moor Murderers, and the acid-damaged Syd Barrett.

And he would remain known as someone who is famously unknown.

Listen Here:

The Four Records Featured on this Episode:

Spacemen 3 - Losing Touch with My Mind

James Carr - You've Got My Mind Messed Up

Terry Allen - Dogwood

Lisa Germano - A Beautiful Schizophrenic

EPISODE 65: Tolk Rock - Music's Obsession with Middle Earth

On today’s episode, we are going to seek to understand the bands who spent hours stenciling runes on their guitars and drum heads, writing lyrics in the Black Tongue of Mordor, and filling their pipes with Longbottom Leaf. The bands that wandered into fame beyond belief and those who were lost to the darkest depths of Khazad Dum. Today’s episode: Tolk-Rock: the musical obsession with Middle Earth.

Listen Here:

The Four Records Featured on this Episode:

Stonehedge - King of the Golden Hall

Simon Joyner - Flannery O'Connor

Joachim Witt - Goldener Reiter

The Nazgul - Tower of Barad-Dur (clip)

Sources:

Tolkien Music List
Essay posted on We Are The Mutants by K.E. Roberts, titled “And in the Darkness Bind Them”: The First ‘Lord of the Rings’ Paperbacks and the Making of Fantasy"

"Why the emus?" - John Ronald Reuel Tolkien

EPISODE 64: Conspira-Season's Greetings!

The holidays are a time of peace, joy, and love. They are also the best time to look around, take a breath, and stop a minute to enjoy all the madness that constantly swirls amongst us. Here at Highway Hi-Fi, our Christmas episode is the show we allow ourselves to talk about some of our favorite stories that are too small for a Turntable Talk, but too good to not share. All of which have nothing to do with Yuletide Festivities. And the theme this year is our favorite music conspiracies and myths.

Sure, there are your garden variety conspiracies, like “Paul is Dead”, “Elvis is Alive”, “Kris Kristofferson is a Lizard Person" , and "Jay-Z is an Illuminati Time-Traveling Vampire”. Or we could even go into the typical sort of master of puppet situations like “The Laurel Canyon hippy movement was a government-sponsored action to make war protesters seem like druggy ding dongs” or that “Private prison profiteers conspired with Record Execs to make Gangsta Rap the Nation’s most popular genre”. Heck, we could even bore you with mash-ups like “Darkside of the Rainbow” or that “ABBA became the Residents” or “Stephen King killed Lennon”.

And those are well and good. But here, we like to go a little deeper. A little wackier for our highly discerning audience. So, we rolled up our sleeves and hit the dark webs and sub-sub-sub-Reddits to bring you some juicy bonkers-ness. Websites where every picture is grainy and plastered with Microsoft paint embellishments. Websites where no obsolete detail is too minute. Websites where research is a dirty word and where no news is fake.

Settle in. Take off your Santa Cap, and put on your tinfoil cap. Dump out the eggnog, and start drinking the Koolaid. And quit gazing at the twinkling tree lights, in favor of those unexplained glowing orbs circling the room. Bookmark all 23 of your copies of Catcher in the Rye. Crank up the podcast, you sheeple. Today, we present our Conspiracy Christmas spectacular.

Listen Here:

The Four Records Featured on This Episode:

Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings - 8 Days of Hannukah

Lil McClintock - Don't Think I'm Santa Claus

Gavin Bryars & Tom Waits - Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet

Hiss Golden Messenger & Lucinda Williams - Christmas In Prison

Andrew WK and Steev Mike Article

BeatlesDontExist Photo Evidence:

Mangumgate Evidence:

EPISODE 63: Turntable Tutelage - How-To Records

In the middle of last century, a collective thirst for knowledge grew around the world. In these new space age times, people had neither the time nor patience for books, tutors, or apprenticeships. Instead they turned to the newest form of mass media for their learning needs...the vinyl record. The turntable allowed unlimited listens in the private and cozy confines of home making it the ideal vehicle for audio instruction.

As a result, there was a gigantic wave of how-to records, or educational records, produced. These discs were designed to help people learn how to become better. Better ventriloquists, better dancers, better pick-up artists, better mathematicians, and better duck callers. An age of self improvements, decades before YouTube. It gave people a sense of control and purpose in a world where so much was changing over which they had no influence, no power, and often no understanding. This combined with a wave of mass capitalist consumption made for the fertile conditions for the explosion of instructional discs.

Today, we discuss the wacky world of tutelage that are How-To Records.

Listen:

The Four Records Featured on this Episode:

Lee Robinson Machine - Summer Love

Aztec Camera - Jump

Tim Dawe - Little Boy Blue

Art Lown - Deep Blue Sea

Other Information:

BBC Article about Instructional Records
Thanks to Michael Dixon
Other Great Album Covers:

EPISODE 62: The Doomed History of Disaster Songs

While music is often dominated by songs of love...romantic love, fleeting love, spiritual love, love of place, love of country, love of Waffle House delicacies, there is a dark side to that jukebox coin. An obsession we all have with the darkness. A bleak reality that is as unknown as it is universal. It is riveting, enthralling, and oddly comforting to delve into other people’s tragedies. And honestly, we can’t get enough of it. Everyone loves a train wreck. Quite literally and especially if it’s being sung about by the likes of Johnny Cash.

Today, we are examining an old tradition that keeps being reborn in tragedy, public and private, national and local. Songs that are constant reminders that our hubris has blinders, our safety merely an illusion, and our demise inevitable. Often acting as moral reminders of what happens when we flaunt our disregard for our environment, become too enmeshed with technology, or forget the true nature of mankind. Songs that ensured that the victims, and sometimes the perpetrators, would never be forgotten and the tales would be sung for generations. Music of the calamities that are part of national consciousness and of the grim cataclysms that we collectively yearn to forget. Equal parts eulogy, sermon, and tabloid. Today, we bring you the history of disaster songs. Ode, what a feeling.

Listen Here:

The Four Songs Featured on this Episode:

Freakwater - Great Titanic

Autry Inman - Ballad of John F Kennedy

Red River Dave - California Hippy Murders

Bee Gees - New York Mining Disaster 1941

Research from this Episode from People Take Warning by Tompkin Square Records

And for further reading: Pittsburgh Banana Company Explosion

EPISODE 61: Constructing Terror: John Carpenter and the History of Horror Soundtracks

Today, we are exploring the depths of a genre that can be both ghoulishly fun, menacing, and shocking all within the same side of a record. The twists and turns that composers use to enthrall the audience and make their collective flesh crawl. The orchestral equivalents of Vincent Price whispering sweet nothings into your ear. A left out style of music that has made itself into a viable and influential genre despite being secondary to its own medium. Today, we examine the history of the horror movie soundtrack and its recent unholy alliance with the vinyl record.

Listen Here: