Racing Towards Zero – Day 12: Tino Rossi – Mia Piccolina

How is it that artists aren’t as “epic” as they once were? Is it that there’s just too many voices on the field for any one to stick around for a while? Did the internet break stardom? Have we gone from the era of massive super stars to an armada of 15-minute-ers? And with recording technology as wide-spread as it is, shouldn’t people be producing even more music than before? Shouldn’t that make musicians even more epic?

These are the questions that come to mind when I find someone like Tino Rossi. This French crooner recorded over a hundred records and popped up in more than 25 movies during his career. According to Wikipedia, he is the second most popular person to come from Corsica, second only to Napoleon Boneparte. Bruce Springsteen is up to about 25 albums over 37 years. Elvis had the best chance, with 52 albums in 17 years, but we rarely see the sheer volume of work we see from past artists, and that fascinates me.

Sociological rant aside, enjoy this chanson from the past, “Mia Piccolina” from Tino Rossi.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Racing Towards Zero – Day 11: Grizzly Bear & Feist – Service Bell

I don’t really have too many nice things to say about either of these artists, but what’s way more interesting is the album this is off of. Dark Was The Night is a compilation released to benefit the Red Hot Organization, “dedicated to fighting AIDS through pop culture”, and the album has a very impressive line up. It features tracks from The Decemberists, Sufjan Stevens, Andrew Bird, My Morning Jacket, Yo La Tengo, Arcade Fire, and others, but equally as seductive are the collaborative tracks. Dirty Projectors with David Byrne? Cat Power & Dirty Delta Blues? Conor Oberst (of Bright Eyes) and Gillian Welch?!!? An impressive compilation album in my book.

USA and Canada shake hands in this track from Brooklyn-based Grizzly Bear and Alberta, Canada’s waif popstress Feist, “Service Bell”, but really, you’ll want to check out the full 2-disc set though, if you get the chance.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Racing Towards Zero – Day 10: Tom Glazer & Dottie Evans – Thumbnail Sketch of Atomic Energy

Last night I saw a fascinating documentary on The Manhattan Project—the real Manhattan Project. “The Moment In Time: The Manhattan Project”, created for the Local Legacies Project of the US Library of Congress, took a stroll down atomic memory lane, from the fear and uncertainty in the beginning of WWII to the first tests in New Mexico, and on to the opinions of the scientists involved after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Though it wasn’t a big budget documentary, it was absolutely fascinating, and can be seen in it’s entirety online at UCTV from the University of California here.

However with this song, serendipity strikes twice! Tom Glazer & Dottie Evans recorded three albums in a six-album series called Singing Science Records, perhaps most famous for “Why Does The Sun Shine?”, later covered by They Might Be Giants (who, incidentally, were no doubt inspired by this set to create their own educational discs such as Here Come the A-B-C’s and Here Comes Science). This particular track, off of Energy Songs, highlights key moments in atomic energy history, almost a musical accompaniment to the Manhattan Project documentary. The song itself seems eerily upbeat though, in wake of having seen the film, but it includes a redeeming ominous message at the end, having been recorded about 15 years after the bombings in Japan.

The second odd case of serendipity here is that in my research I discovered that Tom Glazer moved to Washington DC early on, began working at the Library of Congress, and actually worked with none other than Alan Lomax! His work with American folk music was a great influence on him, and ultimately jump-started his musical career.

Anyhow, if you’re not up to speed on your history of atomic energy, feel free to play this one over and over until it all sinks in. When I first found these, a Google search for “Singing Science Records” pulled up only one page, but it seems that in the last few years, these out-of-print gems have been “discovered”. The original page is no longer around, and the resourceful can find more tracks from the series online, but for now, here, enjoy “Thumbnail Sketch of Atomic Energy”:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Racing Towards Zero – Day 9:
Bright Light Quartet – Sweet Roseanne

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it before, but I count myself extremely fortunate to have gone to a school that had a fantastic sound & image library, full of vinyls spanning the 20th century. I grew up listening to “oldies”, hip hop, pop and alternative, but I had absolutely no idea what lay out there in the unheard musical genres of the world.

Today’s pick comes from the Alan Lomax collection. Alan Lomax was an ethnomusicologist and field recorder who travelled the globe, recording thousands of songs covering an incredible array of styles, sounds, and nationalities. This particular song was recorded some time in the 1960′s near Virginia’s eastern shore, but I’m not sure exactly what album it’s from, as his work has been re-issued a few different ways over the years. Maybe “Voices from the American South” off Rounder Records.

There’s something simple and pure about this song, and it’s rich harmonies are like a relaxing massage on my ears, the ginger to cleanse my ear-palette before sampling another bite of delicious music. Give a listen and see if it does the same for you!

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Racing Towards Zero – Day 8: Bole Chudiyan from Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham

Todays cream of the crop was by far this Bollywood number from K3G (or Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham for the uninitiated), and I figured why simply stream the audio when instead I can take this opportunity to infuse a little bit of Bollywood sensibility into your day?

K3G is one of the modern classics of Bollywood, and the cast is pretty much like the Indian version of that “WTF??” action movie that’s coming out this summer, starring pretty much everyone who’s ever blown anything up before. Except with more music, and dancing, and is, I’m guessing, a whole lot more interesting. The stars include Shahrukh Khan, Amitabh Bachchan, and Kajol, who are kind of like the Bollywood equivalents of Brad Pitt, Sean Connery, and… Kajol. I could go on about this one, but I’ll let you jump on over to Wikipedia to read more about it. If you haven’t seen it, you should probably clear off a good couple of hours one day soon and check it out.

No audio today, just the Youtube video above for you to sit back and enjoy Bole Chudiyan from Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham!

Racing Towards Zero – Day 6:
Thanksgiving – We Can Be Bad

One fine Spring day up in Olympia, my housemate and I found a flier for one of the many shows that went on seemingly every day in town. It said something to the effect of “Come to this address and bring cookies” and listed off some bands. We had cookies, and we wanted to enjoy some of Olympia’s finest music, so we headed to the address on the flier, ears at the ready.

We were a little surprised when we ended up smack dab in the middle of a residential neighborhood. It was quiet, and there weren’t any signs, and we wondered if the flier we had was old or something… but like a beacon of light, we saw a group of hipsters walking in the same direction, and decided to follow. (A note about hipsters in the Pacific Northwest: They’re not nearly as annoying as the ones you might find anywhere else in the US. They have a purity to them.)

Long story short, and cookies traded for admittance, we ended up in the backyard of Olympia-based artist Nikki McClure, who was hosting a mid-day show for everyone to enjoy. I forget who all was playing… I think it was The Microphones, someone else, and today’s featured artist, Thanksgiving, from Portland. He was excellently low-fi, and his performance had heart, and charm that wooed us all.

It was an incredibly surreal experience, being in the backyard of one of the papercut goddesses of our modern time, lounging in the grass next to Olympia icon Calvin Johnson, everyone laying down enjoying live music. I don’t know if the spirit of the moment is conveyed through this recorded version of We Can Be Bad, but it was above all today’s top Unheard Song.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Racing Towards Zero – Day 5:
eden ahbez – Eden’s Island

Oh wow. Ok so today was easy. I’m sorry to have done two thrift store finds in a row, but the fact that a single track of the this album had gone unheard baffles me.

For a while I was in to what is commonly known as “exotica“. You know, Martin Denny, Les Baxter, Esquivel… like the music at the beginning of Pee Wee’s Playhouse. The soundtrack to the The Enchanted Tiki Room at Disneyland. Things like that. In my travels, I came across this gem, and what’s even better than the sultry, South Pacific, tropical majesty of it all is the story behind the man himself.

Eden Ahbez was a hippie. I know, you’re looking at the picture like “Uh, thanks for the update, Captain Obvious”, but no, I mean he was the prototypical hippie. We’re talking 1941 here (though hippie roots go back even further). Actually, I should call him eden ahbez—lowercase—because he felt that “only God was worthy of capitalization”. He ran with “The Nature Boys” who lived in the canyons of Los Angeles, who were raw foodists. Take that, Height/Ashbury!

Though he only put out one full album (a second was released posthumously), his life and work were extremely influential, so without further ado, I give you the title track from Eden’s Island:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Racing Towards Zero – Day 4:
Sergio Mendes & Brasil ’66 – Cinnamon & Clove

Oh, college, how I thank you for your formative years. As part of my education in the field of “Starving Student”, I learned of the many splendors thrift stores had to offer. Furniture, clothing, artwork, dinnerware… you could find almost anything you needed, and for affordable starving student prices, to boot. On top of all that, walking through a good thrift store is like walking through a museum of design through the ages… if you’re ever in the Pacific Northwest, do yourself a favor and stop into a Value Village. There are few thrift stores like it in this great land of ours.

And what else do you find in thrift stores? Music, my friends. Sweet, sweet music, music the likes you would normally never come across. I was introduced to fantastic things, like holiday albums put out by tire companies, the amazing canonical work of Burt Bacharach, and, as with this, Sergio Mendes & Brasil ’66.

To tell you the truth, what really drew me in were the album covers. The photography, and typography, and composition! I hadn’t seen anything like it before. They were pieces from a time before “computer graphics” and “desktop publishing”, and they were fascinating.

This track, which I’m surprised I hadn’t listened to yet, is off of Sergio Mendes & Brasil ’66′s second album, Equinox. I believe I recorded this off of the original vinyl, using a turntable I bought at a Goodwill in Portland, for about $5.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Racing Towards Zero – Day 3:
The Jungle Band (aka The Duke Ellington Orchestra) – Maori (A Samoan Dance)

Hah. I see that the beast that is my iTunes Library isn’t going to make this easy on me. After days of listening to nothing much, today it decided to play all sorts of fantastic things, as if mocking me, saying “As if you could pick a favorite!”. But did it not see the picture of Gandalf with his ‘Staff of Smart Playlisting (+5 Dexterity)’?!!

You know, these days it’s hard to remember a time when music was… well, music. It didn’t have anyone hitting anyone, baby, one more time, or going on about places where streets had not yet been named. And this music without words, it wasn’t like it is today – all sultry saxophones, and John Tesh. No no, it was the fun, get-up-and-shake-your-tailfeather music of yesteryear, and Duke Ellington was one of the masters. He was also, as the kids say today, “epic”, having released just about 80 albums in his lifetime. Eight. Zero. And that’s only under his own name. Today’s track was originally released under “The Jungle Band“, a pseudonym for the Duke Ellington Orchestra, which released over 25 albums itself. (For the record, Coldplay is up to 5)

Blended in with Beck & The Flaming Lips live on KCRW, Deltron 3030, Nick Cave and 2Pac was this toe tappin’ number from 1930, “Maori (A Samoan Dance)”:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Racing Towards Zero – Day 2:
Sandy Beach Surf Coaster – PIANO MAN

Hey wow! Remember Sandy Beach Surf Coaster? What? Oh you know, the Japanese ska-punk group from Aichi, Japan, home EXPO 2005? No?

Well there I was, sitting, wondering when today’s pick would pop up, and as soon as I heard their heavily-accented English, fuzzy guitars and skapunk beats, I knew this was it. Plus I’m a sucker for covers. I remember getting a hold of this album, when I went on a grand quest to discover where ska, while laying dormant here in the US awaiting it’s triumphant revival, was alive and well in other parts of the world, and in Japan it’s still going strong.

So, I present to you, PIANO MAN by Japan’s own Sandy Beach Surf Coaster:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.