This primetime edition of Ferrara’s Enchanted Jukebox was carefully programmed to get all our listeners charged up for Saturday night party action: Lots of old-school punk & glam classics from the 70s and 80s (and 90s, counting Lisa Germano and Faust), plus some high-energy post-bop and militant rap from Eric Dolphy and The Last Poets.

Some of these bands and songs go back to the time I was first exposed to punk rock. That happened one night when I tuned in to 12 O’Clock Rock, the long-running all-night program devoted to independent and underground rock, airing from midnight to six AM on Sunday mornings on KPFK (Los Angeles’ Pacifica Network public radio station). I discovered the show when I moved to San Diego the previous year and was a regular listener throughout the 1980s. The DJs changed over the years, but in 1977 Richard Meltzer, noted rock critic and lyricist for the Blue Oyster Cult, was the resident host. That night would have been sometime early in 1977 (I’m not sure of the month), and it was then that I first heard Television, Ultravox and The Stranglers. Meltzer played tracks from the debut albums by all three of those bands, and I instantly knew that something fresh and vital had emerged on the landscape. This was the most exciting music I’d heard since the early days of glam rock. It wasn’t till later that I read about the new scene and trend that was happening in rock & roll both in the UK and here in the States, but it wasn’t long till I had fully embraced Punk: the music and the whole scene and sensibility. Hearing “Satday Night In The City Of The Dead,” “Marquee Moon,” and “Peaches” for the first time that night was nothing short of revelatory. So tonight’s show is something of a tribute to Richard Meltzer, Andrea ‘Enthal and all the other DJs who stoked and sated my appetite for non-corporate rock & roll during the decade I spent in sleepy San Diego as a twenty-something college dropout.

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The playlist gives artist name, song title, and album title (in that order). A space between lines of text indicates the break between sets where track announcements were made.

Playlist for Ferrara’s Enchanted Jukebox 05 – 24 September 2011

• Ultravox! – Satday Night In The City Of The Dead – Ultravox!

• The Modern Lovers – Astral Plane – The Modern Lovers
• John Cale – Magazines – Caribbean Sunset
• Pere Ubu – Non-Alignment Pact – The Modern Dance
• Lizzy Mercier Descloux – Press Color
• The Stranglers – (Get A) Grip (On Yourself) – IV / Rattus Norvegicus
• Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel – Sweet Dreams / Psychomodo – Live At The BBC
• Roxy Music – Editions Of You – For Your Pleasure
• Wire – 1 2 X U – Pink Flag
• Metal Urbain – Cle De Contact – L’Age d’Or
• Joy Division – Transmission – Permanent
• Lisa Germano – Puppet – Happiness
• The Fall – How I Wrote “Elastic Man” – In: Palace Of Swords Reversed
• The Leather Nun – Fly Angels Fly – Force Of Habit
• Neu! – Super – Neu! 2

• The Last Poets – Wake Up, Niggers – Performance (Original Soundtrack)
• Eric Dolphy – Aggression – At The Five Spot, Volume 2
• Television – Marquee Moon – Marquee Moon
• The Stranglers – Just Like Nothing On Earth – (The Gospel According To) The Meninblack
• David Bowie – Queen Bitch – Hunky Dory
• Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel – Death Trip – Live At The BBC

• Faust – Fastened 60/60
• Lou Reed – Goodnight Ladies – Lou Reed

For this show I got to occupy the Thursday Night Wildcard slot (formerly held down by K-Rob with Stimulus Regression Programming, now given over to a different DJ each week – anyone on our staff who wants to come in to the studio and do an unscheduled show, basically). The late Ira Cohen, the globetrotting visionary poet who left this plane/planet earlier this year, opened the program with a solo spoken word track from The Majoon Traveler, a fantastic collaboration with local DJ Cheb I Sabbah released by Sub Rosa some years ago. Andy Pratt‘s “Avenging Annie” was a WBCN classic from my younger days spent listening to the radio growing up back in Boston. The rest of the show was comprised of old favorites like Big Star, Lisa Germano and Sparks, along with a few more recent discoveries (I can’t get enough of the deleriously imaginative recordings Andrew Liles has been putting out over the past year or two). I don’t think it will be long before I come back and do another Ferrara’s Enchanted Jukebox some Thursday night soon…

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The playlist gives artist name, song title, and album title (in that order). A space between lines of text indicates the break between sets where track announcements were made.

Playlist for Ferrara’s Enchanted Jukebox 04 – 22 September 2011

• Ira Cohen – Imagine Jean Cocteau – The Majoon Traveler
• Andy Pratt – Avenging Annie – Andy Pratt

• Lisa Germano – Way Below The Radio – Slide
• Sparks – Fletcher Honorama – A Woofer In Tweeter’s Clothing
• Andrew Liles – Side A (45 RPM): 2662002 / 1931982 / 1921980 / 2591980 – Monster Munch
• Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger And The Trinity – In Search Of The Sun – Streetnoise
• Frank Zappa & The Mothers Of Invention – We Can Shoot You – Uncle Meat
• Johanna Went – Christopher Boyce – The Club Years
• The Virgin Prunes – Man On The Corner – Heresie
• Scott Walker – The Bridge – Scott 2
• Andrew Liles – Soiled Dreams And Disappointment – Muldjewangk, Morgawr & Other Monsters
• Lol Coxhill – I Am The Walrus – Ear Of The Beholder
• Big Star – The Ballad Of El Goodo – #1 Record

• Val Denham – How Can You Love Someone? – The Fabulous Sound Of Val Denham
• The Pale 3 & Beth Hirsch – The Tunnel – The Princess & The Warrior (Original Soundtrack)
• Andrew Liles – Side B: Suck It / Fuck You / You Suck / Fuck It – Monster Munch
• Stereolab & Nurse With Wound – Simple Headphone Mind – Simple Headphone Mind
• Edmund Welles – Passive Illumination – Tooth & Claw
• Big City Orchestra – Mental Hernia – Reach For The Moon
• Sparks – Moon Over Kentucky – A Woofer In Tweeter’s Clothing
• Tuxedomoon – No Tears – Solve Et Coagula: The Best Of Tuxedomoon
• Hugo Largo – Second Skin – Drum

• Big Star – September Gurls – Radio City

This week’s show opened with something of an endurance test for listeners: a twenty-minute piece of insistently repetitive minimalism from Anthony Moore, once-upon-a-time composer and founding member of the legendary avant-pop group Slapp Happy. Those who endured were treated to the usual eclectic smorgasbord of musical effluvia: Norwegian New Age and traditional British folk, ambient trance dirge and plunderphonic atmospherics, neo-classical industrial and neo-folk, classic progrock, dark wave and post-punk, etc.

I played a track from one of Andrew Liles‘ recent titles in his Monstrous series (a strange series it is, running the gamut from industrial porn and breakbeats to psychedelic folk), and I’ll be playing more from these recordings in the weeks to come. 400 Lonely Things is an underappreciated plunderphonic project with several fine albums to their credit, including the lushly ambient Barsoomian Lullaby volumes. Another set of music started out as an elegy for Olde England and proceeded through themes of declining empire and dystopia, featuring the music of Michael Cashmore, Phil Ochs, The Strawbs, and The Westbrook Blake Big Band‘s musical settings of the poetry of William Blake.

A featured artist was German industrial drone project Black To Comm (taking their name from a song by The MC5), and I played their 2009 CD Charlemagne & Pippin in its entirety: an astonishingly powerful work which sounds like being sucked into a glorious dark vortex of apocalyptic drone. Also included in the program were two long excerpts from the new two-disc soundtrack to The Great White Silence (a 1914 British silent film documenting a doomed voyage to the South Pole), newly restored by the British Film Institute and magnificently scored by Simon Fisher Turner. This entrancing example of long-form ambient music was bookended with some classic vintage 80s post-punk & synth-pop from Cindytalk and Pink Military (when was the last time you heard that band?)

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The playlist gives artist name, song title, and album title (in that order). A space between lines of text indicates the break between sets where track announcements were made.

Playlist for Mindtrain 08 – 20 September 2011

• Anthony Moore – Jam Jem Jim Jom Jum – Pieces From The Cloudland Ballroom

• Kirsten Braten Berg & Ale Moller – Heiemo Og Nykkjen – Nordisk Sang: Music Of Norway (Compilation)
• Miguel Frasconi – Dreams From The Body – Song + Distance
• Andrew Liles – Swamp Thing (Bloodbath For Bunyip) – Muldjewangk, Morgawr & Other Monsters
• A Bad Diana – Behind The Curtain Of The Sun – The Lights Are On But No-One’s Home
• 400 Lonely Things – Pimalia – A Barsoomian Lullaby, Volume One: A Snow White Egg

• Shirley Collins – Adieu To Old England – Fountain Of Snow
• Current 93 – Good Morning, Great Moloch – Sleep Has His House
• Michael Cashmore – Dream England – Sleep England
• Fire + Ice – The Werewolves Of London Town – Birdking
• Baby Dee – So Bad – Love’s Small Song
• Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger And The Trinity – Vauxhall To Lambeth Bridge – Streetnoise
• The Westbrook Blake – London Song – Bright As Fire
• Phil Ochs – The Crucifixion – Pleasures Of The Harbor
• Death In June – Jerusalem The Black – Rose Clouds Of Holocaust
• The Strawbs – New World – Grave New World

• Cindytalk – Muster – Wappinschaw
• Hex – Diviner – Tarnation (Original Soundtrack)
• Scivias – The Peach Boy – And You Will Fear Death Not
• Cindytalk – Hush – Wappinschaw
• A Bad Diana – Chant d’Amour / Da Mort – The Lights Are On But No-One’s Home
• Simon Fisher Turner – The Great White Silence, Part Two (Excerpt) – The Great White Silence (Original Soundtrack)
• Pink Military – I Cry – Blood & Lipstick

• Black To Comm – Charlemagne & Pippin – Charlemagne & Pippin

• David Bowie – A Small Plot Of Land – Basquiat (Original Soundtrack)
• Simon Fisher Turner – The Great White Silence, Part Two (Excerpt) – The Great White Silence (Original Soundtrack)

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the founding of Fluxus in 1961, and San Francisco’s Other Minds has organized three evenings of Fluxus-related events here in the city. Something Else: A Fluxus Semicentenary takes place on September 15-17, with a program of films, a radio special (not this one), and a performance event. So this week’s Mindtrain brings you four hours of music and sound art by some of the artists and composers involved with Fluxus.

Surely the most famous Fluxus artist is Yoko Ono, and examples of her work from her first two solo records are included here. And then there’s La Monte Young, the godfather of minimalism and the most famous composer you’ve never heard (recordings of his music are notoriously few and scarce). The only recording of any of his Fluxus-era pieces I could find was a bootleg including Poem For Tables, Chairs, Benches, Etc, so that 15-minute excerpt is included here, along with several other relatively early works ranging from the late 1950s (pre-Fluxus) to 1969 – including a rare archival recording of the legendary Dream Syndicate from 1964 featuring La Monte Young on sopranino saxophone along with John Cale and Tony Conrad on amplified violin and viola, Marian Zazeela on vocals and the hand drumming of Angus MacLise.

The third hour of the program was devoted to one hour-long work by Yoshi Wada entitled The Appointed Cloud, recorded in 1987. It’s a monolithic work of great majesty, and my favorite among the several archival recordings that have been released of Yoshi Wada over the past several years. The rest of the program was rounded out with compositions by Nam June Paik performed by Charlotte Moorman and himself, and other pieces by Jackson Mac Low and others, including Alison Knowles (who performs along with Yoshi Wada and others at the Other Minds concert on Saturday, September 17).

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The playlist gives artist name, song title, and album title (in that order). A space between lines of text indicates the break between sets where track announcements were made.

Playlist for Mindtrain 07 – 13 September 2011

• La Monte Young / Peter Winkler – 42 For Henry Flynt – (Free download from Other Minds at http://www.archive.org/details/42forHenryFlynt)

• La Monte Young – Excerpt From Drift Study “31 I 69 c. 12:17:33-12:49:58 PM NYC” – Ohm: The Early Gurus of Electronic Music, 1948-1980 (Compilation)
• Yoko Ono – Telephone Piece – Fly
• Yoko Ono – Greenfield Morning I Pushed An Empty Baby Carriage All Over The City – Plastic Ono Band
• Yoko Ono – You – Fly
• Juan Hidalgo – Tamaran – Fluxus Anthology (Compilation)
• Philip Corner – Car Passing At Night, Country Road In Maine – Fluxus Anthology (Compilation)
• Alison Knowles – Natural Assemblage / Le Vrai Corbeau – Fluxus Anthology (Compilation)
• Wolf Vostell – Elektronischer De-Coll/age / Happening Raum – Fluxus Anthology (Compilation)
• Nam June Paik – Etude For Pianoforte / Simple – Works: 1958-1979
• Yoko Ono – Toilet Piece / Unknown – Fly
• Nam June Paik – My Jubilee Ist Unverhemmet – Fluxus Anthology (Compilation)

• Nam June Paik / Charlotte Moorman – Sonata No. 1 For Adults Only – Cello Anthology
• Jackson Mac Low / Charlotte Moorman – The Long Hot Summer – Cello Anthology
• Nam June Paik / Charlotte Moorman – Waiting For Commercials – Cello Anthology
• La Monte Young – Poem For Chairs, Tables, Benches, Etc. (Excerpt) – Der Zweck Dieser Serie Ist Nicht Unterhaltung (1957-1973), Vol. 1 (Bootleg)
• Yoko Ono – Mind Holes – Fly
• La Monte Young / John Schneider – Sarabande – Just West Coast: Microtonal Music For Guitar And Harp

• Yoshi Wada – The Appointed Cloud – The Appointed Cloud

• La Monte Young / Marian Zazeela – 31 VII 69 10:26-10:49 PM (From “Map Of 49’s Dream The Two Systems Of Eleven Sets Of Galactic Intervals Ornamental Lightyears Tracery”) – The Black Record
• La Monte Young / The Theatre Of Eternal Music – 2 IV 1964: Day Of The Holy Mountain (Alternate Take 1) – The Dream Syndicate (Bootleg)

• La Monte Young – Soundtone Installation 27/72 (Excerpt) – Der Zweck Dieser Serie Ist Nicht Unterhaltung (1957-1973), Vol. 2 (Bootleg)

Once again Ami LawLess sent out a call for a DJ sub for her regular show Cold Ones And Rolled Ones, and I’ve stepped up to the plate with another fine edition of Ferrara’s Enchanted Jukebox. My first intention was to make this show a spotlight on Iggy Pop in observance of the scheduled Stooges concerts at the Warfield next week, but Iggy broke his foot and the West Coast tour dates got postponed. Instead, this show turns out to be a celebration of misanthropy and mayhem, with particular attention to the words and music of Boyd ‘Mister Intolerance’ Rice – as well as fist fun with the Leather Nun, Madonna reading from the Book of Revelations, comic relief from Irr. App. (Ext.)… and Sparks!

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The playlist gives artist name, song title, and album title (in that order). A space between lines of text indicates the break between sets where track announcements were made.

Playlist for Ferrara’s Enchanted Jukebox 03 – 08 September 2011

• Von Sudenfed – Flooded – Tromatic Reflexxions

• Black Randy And The Metrosquad – Trouble At The Cup – Dangerhouse Volume One (Compilation)
• The Leather Nun – No Rule – Force Of Habit
• The Pop-O-Pies – Fascists Eat Donuts – The White EP
• Boyd Rice – The New Psychedelia – Standing In Two Circles (Bonus CD)
• The Leather Nun – Prime Mover – Force Of Habit
• Iggy And The Stooges – I Got A Right / I’m Sick Of You – A Million In Prizes
• The Boyd Rice Experience – Hatesville – Hatesville
• Sparks – (No More) Mr. Nice Guys – Sparks

• Boyd Rice And Friends – People – Music, Martinis And Misanthropy
• The Jeff Beck Group – Rice Pudding – Beck-Ola
• Irr. App. (Ext.) – The Emperor Of Disgust – Radiant Black Future: Step Forward And Address The Present Amidst The Wreckage Of The Past
• Arto/Neto – Pini Pini – N.Y. No Wave (Compilation)
• Throbbing Gristle – Adrenalin – Heathen Earth
• Madonna – Justify My Love (The Beast Within Mix) – Justify My Love
• Boyd Rice And Fiends – People Change – The Registered Three

• Steven Stapleton & Tony Wakeford – The Frightened City (Clubbed To Death Mix By Andrew Liles) – Revenge Of The Selfish Shellfish (Special Edition)
• Psychic TV – Ov Power – Force The Hand Of Chance
• The Leather Nun – F.F.A. – Force Of Habit
• Boyd Rice – I Have A Dream – Standing In Two Circles (Bonus CD)
• The Screamers – It’s A Violent World (Live At The Whisky, 1/7/78) – In A Better World
• Metal Urbain – Lady Coca Cola – L’Age d’Or

• The Stooges – L.A. Blues – Fun House

This week’s program began, as usual, with no particular agenda in mind… browsing through my music library and choosing tracks to play, then going over the sequencing in an iTunes playlist to see how to order them intuitively for thematic, conceptual or narrative flow with appropriate segues. I tend to focus on older recordings, while keeping an ear out for new releases that I can fit into the scheme of things. So you’ll find many of my old favorites here: Roxy Music, Faust, Michael Cashmore, Scivias and Pearls Before Swine, interspersed with sundry oddities and pop songs, such as that gorgeous rendition of “Black Hole Sun” by Steve Lawrence & Eydie Gorme.

The featured new release here is the debut recording by A Winged Victory For The Sullen, that being a duo comprised of Adam Wiltzie (from Stars Of The Lid) and composer Dustin O’Halloran (a name unfamiliar to me till now). It’s an exquisitely beautiful recording: seven tracks of wistful and austerely crafted ambient chamber music, scored for piano, strings and wind instruments. This is top-shelf material in a class with Arvo Part and Harold Budd.

And with the extended four-hour program length, I like to feature at least one long work of thirty minutes or more, so this week it’s The Death And Beauty Foundation, a project (belonging to British artist Val Denham) which was active in the 1980s, opening for bands like Psychic TV in the UK and issuing only one or two self-released cassette recordings. In 2008 Val passed this archival material into the competent hands of Andrew McKenzie (better known as The Hafler Trio), who mixed and produced a 53-minute CD composed of 21 short songs all sequenced into one mysterious, sprawling soundscape (indexed as a single track on the CD). Tonight we heard the entire album in the final hour of the program.

Next week, I’ll shine the spotlight on Iggy & The Stooges, in observance of their impending visit to the city for two concerts at the Warfield Theatre on September 12 & 13. And I’ll also be featuring material by various Fluxus artists (such as La Monte Young and Yoko Ono) on the occasion of the three-night Fluxus Semicentenary that Other Minds will present on September 15-17.

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The playlist gives artist name, song title, and album title (in that order). A space between lines of text indicates the break between sets where track announcements were made.

Playlist for Mindtrain 06 – 06 September 2011

• Faust – No Harm – So Far

• The Virgin Prunes – Sandpaper Lullabye – A New Form Of Beauty
• Roxy Music- The Bogus Man – For Your Pleasure
• David Tibet & Steven Stapleton – The Dead Side Of The Moon – Octopus
• Pearls Before Swine – Ring Thing – Balaklava
• Scivias – Et Nos Servasti Eternali Sanguine Fuso – Mysteria Mithrae (Compilation)
• Pierrot Lunaire – Mein Armer Italiener – Gudrun

• Steve Lawrence & Eydie Gorme – Black Hole Sun – Lounge-A-Palooza (Compilation)
• Steven Stapleton & Tony Wakeford – The Frightened City – Revenge Of The Selfish Shellfish
• Coil – I Don’t Get It – The Ape Of Naples
• Angelo Badalamenti – Theme From Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me – Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (Original Soundtrack)
• Coil – Copal – Moon’s Milk In Four Phases (Bonus Disc)
• Henry Mancini – Lujon – Mr. Lucky Goes Latin
• Julie London – Go Slow – Ultra Lounge, Vol. 6: Rhapsodesia (Compilation)
• Nurse With Wound – The Self Sufficient Sexual Shoe – Rock ‘N Roll Station

• Michael Cashmore – Track 5 (Untitled) – An Introduction To Suffering (Compilation)
• Jack Nitzsche – Rolls Royce And Acid – Performance (Original Soundtrack)
• Maja Elliott – Echo / Echo Craters / 1000 Water Craters On The Sea – 1000 Water Craters On The Sea
• Brian Eno – By This River – Before And After Science
• A Winged Victory For The Sullen – We Played Some Open Chords – A Winged Victory For The Sullen
• Hector Zazou – Ophelie – Sahara Blue
• Brian Eno – Everything Merges With The Night – Another Green World
• Michael Cashmore – A Silence Song, Silent – An Introduction To Suffering (Compilation)
• Scott Walker – Someone Who Cared – Stretch
• Beaver & Krause – All Good Men / Waltz Me Around Again Willie / Real Slow Drag – All Good Men

• The Death And Beauty Foundation – The Death And Beauty Foundation – The Death And Beauty Foundation

• A Winged Victory For The Sullen – Requiem For The Static King, Parts 1 & 2 – A Winged Victory For The Sullen

Since there is just so much great music in my library and I’m so eager to share it with listeners, I recently decided to expand the show to four hours, beginning with tonight’s edition. This means twice the music, along with the opportunity to stretch out and feature some longer works in their entirety. Die Kunst Der Orgel, a live recording by Henry Cow from a live radio performance in 1978, is an astounding piece, three parts improvisation and one part composition, featured on tonight’s program in one unbroken 48-minute set. It comes from the amazing 40th Anniversary Henry Cow Box Set which came out a couple years ago, available here. Tonight’s edition also featured a long piece by Frank Zappa, performed by The Mothers Of Invention in their greatest lineup as they appeared on Burnt Weeny Sandwich, one of the last albums they did together (released in 1969, after FZ had officially disbanded the group). And finally, I played a rare work by the contemporary 20th-Century classical composer Hans Werner Henze, entitled Essay On Pigs. This is one of Henze’s works that was released in the 1960s and 70s on the Deutsche Grammophon label, never reissued on CD. I originally heard this piece on a radio broadcast on WGBH-FM in Boston during the early 70s, and taped it off the air onto a cassette which I had for many years. Thanks to the amazing Avant Garde Project, this and other rare recordings of music by Henze and many other contemporary avant-garde composers of the late 20th-Century are once again available, digitized as uncompressed FLAC files transferred from the vinyl LPs with the utmost attention to audio fidelity, free to download along with extensive liner notes which have all been scanned and saved as PDF documents. This is a great resource for music of this ilk and era, and I can’t recommend it highly enough.

And I rounded out the show with the usual diversity of contemporary sounds ranging from goth & post-punk to jazz dirge & fusion to orchestral soundtracks – including an exceedingly rare track by my favorite, Nature And Organisation (who I played on last week’s program).

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The playlist gives artist name, song title, and album title (in that order). A space between lines of text indicates the break between sets where track announcements were made.

Playlist for Mindtrain 05 – 30 August 2011

• Wim Mertens – Maximizing The Audience – Maximizing The Audience

• Frank Zappa & The Mothers Of Invention – The Little House I Used To Live In – Burnt Weenie Sandwich
• Spirit – Fresh Garbage – Spirit
• Pierre Henry – Souffle 2 – Le Voyage
• Eric Dolphy – Eclipse – Out There
• Bohren & Der Club Of Gore – Midnight Black Earth – Black Earth
• Eddie Henderson – Moussaka – Inside Out

• Henry Cow – Die Kunst Der Orgel: Bremen 1-5 / Erk Gah (Instrumental Extract), Parts 1 & 2 – 40th Anniversary Box: The Road, Vol. 8 (Bremen)

• James Ray And The Performance – Edie Sedgwick – Best Of James Ray’s Performance & Gangwar
• Nature And Organisation – A Dozen Winters Of Loneliness – A Dozen Summers Against The World
• Fovea Hex – Carol XXI:XII:X – Hail Hope!
• Tones On Tail – Lions – Pop
• Yo La Tengo – Demons – I Shot Andy Warhol (Original Soundtrack)
• Mazzy Star – Into Dust – So Tonight That I Might See
• Nurse With Wound – Bearded Lady – Large Ladies With Cake In The Oven
• Hans Werner Henze / Roy Hart, Philip Jones Brass Ensemble & The English Chamber Orchestra – Versuch Uber Schweine (Essay On Pigs), Parts I-V – The Henze Collection (Avant-Garde Project AGP64)
• Savage Republic – Film Noir – Tragic Figures

• Glenn Branca / Paul Daniel & The London Sinfonietta – Hadrian – The Belly Of An Architect (Original Soundtrack)
• Jonathan Bepler – Interlude Saline (Parts One & Two) – Cremaster 2 (Original Soundtrack)
• Pierrot Lunaire – Gudrun – Gudrun
• Little Annie – Diamonds Made Of Glass (Christoph Heemann Remix) – Diamonds Made Of Glass
• Steven Stapleton & Tony Wakeford – Walk The White Ghost / Lucifer Before Sunrise – Revenge Of The Selfish Shellfish
• Christoph Heemann – Track 2 (Untitled) – The Rings Of Saturn
• The Pop Group – We Are Time – Y

• Fovea Hex – Lullaby XXI:XII:X – Hail Hope!

This week’s edition of Ferrara’s Enchanted Jukebox took the place of Cold Ones And Rolled Ones, as I subbed for that show’s regular host Ami LawLess (and will do it again for her in two weeks, while she’s out on some sort of sea cruise). Since Ami’s program is all about punk, hardcore and metal, I tried to focus on that kind of stuff, insofar as I have examples of those genres in my music library (not so much metal or hardcore, but a fair amount of old-school punk). And since variety is the spice of like, I added generous helpings of easy listening treasures as the surprise ingredient. It was fun pulling all of these disparate threads together, and I look forward to doing it again two Thursdays from tonight, when I’ll shine a spotlight on Iggy and the Stooges in observance of their two shows at the Warfield next month.

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The playlist gives artist name, song title, and album title (in that order). A space between lines of text indicates the break between sets where track announcements were made.

Playlist for Ferrara’s Enchanted Jukebox 02 – 25 August 2011

• Petula Clark – The Little Shoemaker – Her Greatest Hits
• Chaotic Dischord – Fuck Off And Die – Their Greatest Fuckin’ Hits

• Metal Urbain – Panik – L’Age d’Or
• The Vibrators – Petrol – Pure Mania
• Chaotic Dischord – I Am The Sturgeon – Now! That’s What I Call A Fuckin’ Racket (Vol. 1)
• Ultravox! – Fear In The Western World – Ha!-Ha!-Ha!
• Richard Hell & The Voidoids – New Pleasure – Blank Generation
• The Stranglers – I Feel Like A Wog – No More Heroes
• Oxbow – Burn – King Of The Jews
• Diamanda Galas – Double-Barrel Prayer – You Must Be Certain Of The Devil
• Coil – The Spoiler – Scatology
• Metal Urbain – Hysterie Connective – L’Age d’Or
• Les Baxter – Pantan – The Exotic Moods Of Les Baxter

• Beaver & Krause – A Real Slow Drag – All Good Men
• The Johnny Mann Singers – Heart Full Of Soul – Ultra-Lounge: On The Rocks, Part Two (Compilation)
• The Munich Philharmonic Orchestra – Dance (While The Music Still Goes On) – The Munich Philharmonic Orchestra Plays ABBA Classic
• Johnny Mathis – Small World – Chances Are: 20 Original Hits (1957-60)
• Scott Walker – Where Does Brown Begin – Stretch
• Coil – The Sewage Worker’s Birthday Party – Scatology
• Mary And The Boy – Bobby Peru – Untitled (Demo)
• Oxbow – Bull’s Eye – Fuckfest
• Stu Phillips – Tired Of Waiting For You – Ultra-Lounge: On The Rocks, Part One (Compilation)
• Francis Lai – Vivre Pour Vivre (Instrumental) – Vivre Pour Vivre / Un Homme Et Une Femme (Original Soundtrack)

• Chaotic Dischord – Fuck Religion, Fuck Politics, Fuck The Lot Of You – Their Greatest Fuckin’ Hits
• The Pop Group – Thief Of Fire – Y
• The Screamers – Punish Or Be Damned (Live At Mabuhay Gardens, 9/2/78) – In A Better World
• The Screamers – If I Can’t Have What I Want (I Don’t Want Anything) – Demos 1977-78
• Lizzy Mercier Descloux / Rosa Yemen – Rosa Vertov – Press Color
• The Stranglers – Goodbye Toulouse – IV / Rattus Norvegicus
• Mary And The Boy – Milkshake – Untitled (Demo)
• Chaotic Dischord – Chainsaw Disasters (A Poem) – Goat Fuckin Virgin Killerz From Hell!
• Buzzcocks – I Love You, You Big Dummy – Time’s Up
• Chaotic Dischord – Anarchy In Woolworth’s – Now! That’s What I Call A Fuckin’ Racket (Vol. 1)
• The Fall – Cruisers Creek – This Nation’s Saving Grace

• The Fall – An Older Lover, Etc – Slates

This week’s show featured some longtime favorites (as usual) along with a couple recent releases. Principal Edwards Magic Theatre was a British prog/folk/rock troupe who released their first album on John Peel’s Dandelion label in 1969, entitled Soundtrack. It wasn’t a soundtrack to a film or stage production per se, but it could have been considered as such, given their theatrically ambitious concerts (the band consisted of over twelve members, including dancers and lighting technicians). I originally picked up this debut release as a 49-cent cutout from the K-Mart bargain bins, intrigued by the colorful sleeve design and song titles. I think it’s their best recording and the one that is most acoustically folk-oriented (they did two followup releases that sounded more typically conceptual prog-rock in style). It’s been reissued a couple times on CD and is an understated psychedelic gem, at times pretentious but quite tastefully executed. The other album I featured as the centerpiece of the program is another chamber/goth/folk classic from a couple decades later, the gorgeous debut from Nature And Organisation, Beauty Reaps The Blood Of Solitude. This was the side project of guitarist/composer Michael Cashmore of Current 93, and it fits in well with Current 93’s discography, capturing the spirit of that band at their peak during the early 1990s. N.A.O. didn’t last very long, unfortunately, releasing only two albums, the latter of which was an unfinished instrumental recording for piano and string quartet – both of which are long out of print and long overdue for reissue, though Cashmore has shown no interest in rereleasing these early works, sadly. I also played a couple tracks from the brilliant double-CD Headless by 6 Comm, long-running solo project of Patrick Leagas, founding member of Death In June. This recording was somewhat of a comeback for 6 Comm in 2006, and compared to the 80s darkwave synth-pop sound of their early stuff, was a major leap forward, drawing in a diversity of influences from Scott Walker to Dead Can Dance, along with a deepened and matured lyrical thrust imbued with a wealth of esoteric occult ideas.

A fine new release on the Sub Rosa label is The Heavenly Ladder, that being the first scholarly interpretation of the music of Adolf Wolfli to be recorded (earlier recordings such as the one by Graeme Revell were more or less surrealistic reimaginings of what the music was supposed to sound like). The CD comes with a full-color book with many reproductions of the original score/paintings and detailed notes on the deciphering of the scores by the performer Baudouin de Jaer. I’ll have to feature some more from this release on a future program. And a recently unearthed collaboration between Irr. App. (Ext.) & Nurse With Wound entitled 4 Orphans has some choice systematic musical derangements, of which I featured just one on this week’s show.

Listen To The Podcast

The playlist gives artist name, song title, and album title (in that order). A space between lines of text indicates the break between sets where track announcements were made.

Playlist for Mindtrain 04 – 23 August 2011

• Cyclobe – Sleeper – Wounded Galaxies Tap At The Window

• Principal Edwards Magic Theatre – Enigmatic Insomniac Machine – Soundtrack
• Ginger Baker’s Air Force – We Free Kings – Air Force 2
• Little Annie – Viet Not Mine, El Salvador Yours – Soul Possession
• Herbie Hancock – Water Torture – Crossings
• The Jefferson Airplane – Chushingura – Crown Of Creation
• Baudouin de Jaer / Adolf Wolfli – The Heavenly Ladder, Part 1: Assiisen=des=Mittel=Landes – The Heavenly Ladder
• Irr. App. (Ext.) / Nurse With Wound – Rat-Size With Conical Headdress – 4 Orphans
• Irr. App. (Ext.) – Ausloschen Der Unnotigen Lichter – Radiant Black Future: Step Forward And Address The Present Amidst The Wreckage Of The Past

• 6 Comm – Again To Sleep… Awake! – Headless
• Graeme Revell / Adolf Wolfli – Ebony Tower In The Orient / Water Fanfaare No. 1 – Musique Brut Collection: The Insect Musicians / Necropolis, Amphibians & Reptiles
• Nature And Organisation – Introduction / Wicker Man Song / Blood Of Solitude I / Bloodstreamruns / My Black Diary – Beauty Reaps The Blood Of Solitude
• Graeme Revell / Adolf Wolfli – Chimpnags-Apes Of The Union Canada: America – Musique Brut Collection: The Insect Musicians / Necropolis, Amphibians & Reptiles
• 6 Comm – Let The Moon Speak – Headless

• Principal Edwards Magic Theatre – The Death Of Don Quixote – Soundtrack

With Mindtrain on Monday nights, the music I choose to play leans toward stuff that is dark, strange and mysterious. For tonight’s unscheduled broadcast, subtitled From Skeeter Davis to Zola Jesus, I wanted to feature some of the more mainstream songs in my music library. There may be one or two ‘guilty pleasures’ among this playlist, but these are records I love and cherish without shame or irony. And aside from the Zola Jesus and Marc Almond tracks, these songs are all oldies but goodies, ranging from Top 40 hits of the 60s & 70s through New Wave and Indie treasures from the 80s & 90s (I regret now that I failed to include anything by Propaganda… maybe next time).

Listen To The Podcast

The playlist gives artist name, song title, and album title (in that order). A space between lines of text indicates the break between sets where track announcements were made.

Playlist for Ferrara’s Enchanted Jukebox 01 – 19 August 2011

• Zola Jesus – Night – Stridulum

• Tiny Tim – Welcome To My Dream – God Bless Tiny Tim
• Marc Almond & Michael Cashmore – Boy Caesar – Feasting With Panthers
• Linda Ronstadt – Long Long Time – Silk Purse
• King Crimson – In The Wake Of Poseidon (Including “Libra’s Theme”) – In The Wake Of Poseidon
• Procol Harum – A Salty Dog – A Salty Dog
• Elton John – Come Down In Time – Tumbleweed Connection
• Siouxsie And The Banshees – Dazzle – Hyaena
• Buffalo Springfield – Expecting To Fly – Buffalo Springfield Again
• Dune & The London Session Orchestra – Sea Song – Forever
• Nancy Sinatra & Lee Hazlewood – Some Velvet Morning – Greatest Hits
• k.d. lang – Constant Craving – Ingenue
• Michael Gira – Blind – Drainland

• Charlie Feathers – Johnny Come Listen (Version 1) – Get With It: Essential Recordings (1954-69)
• Timi Yuro – Make The World Go Away – The Best Of Timi Yuro
• Skeeter Davis – The End Of The World – The Essential Skeeter Davis
• The Rose Of Avalanche – L.A. Rain – First Avalanche
• Opal – Soul Giver – Happy Nightmare Baby
• Luna – Bonnie And Clyde (The Clyde Barrow Version) – Penthouse
• The Reivers – Translate Slowly – Translate Slowly
• The Psychedelic Furs – Sister Europe – The Psychedelic Furs
• 10cc – I’m Not In Love – The Original Soundtrack
• Glen Campbell – Wichita Lineman – Tarnation (Original Soundtrack)
• The Edge & Sinead O’Connor – Heroine – Captive (Original Soundtrack)

• William S. Burroughs – Ich Bin Von Kopf Bis Fuss Auf Liebe Eingestellt (Falling In Love Again) – Dead City Radio