HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY

Biggie With the Hype Shit

HERE


It occurred to me embarrassingly late in life that all of the rap stars I loved in the 90's must have lo-fi demotapes buried somewhere that would eventually rise to the surface. I posted the Snoop demotape a while back but you guys probably didn't download it (because you're racists). This blog has just as much Rap as it does Black Metal so I thought I'd give posting another incredible hype demo a try.





This is probably the best hype demo of all time. If you guys have any better ones, I challenge you to post them in the comments. Anyone have a Too Short demo? What about Richie Rich or Mac 10 or something like that. Teenage E40? Anyone?

NIDEN DIV. 187 - IMPERGIUM (1997)

First off, big ups to Illogical Bro Humboldt Pete for turning me on to Niden Div. 187. Pete has been supplying me with all manner of obscure metal in the last week or two, and you will be hearing much more from him in the near future. Nice work, dude.

Second, Niden Div. 187 was a side project of the core members of DAWN (whose beyond-excellent Nær Sólen Gar Niþer For Evogher you can find HERE), so if you're already familiar with that band you've pre-emptively abandoned this write-up altogether in a mad dash for the download link. I don't blame you.

Third: HOLY FUCK. Dawn is fucking great, but bloody Hell, Niden Div. 187 is some NEXT LEVEL BRUTALITY. The former had that whole Swedish black/death thing down to a science, but man, Niden just chucks the whole "death metal" thing out the window, puts the pedal to the fucking floor, and just keeps it there for the duration of Impergium's all-too-brief 26-and-a-half minute run, maintaining a constant onslaught of discordant, evil riffs, light-speed blastbeats, and war-and-death-related samples throughout. Fuck.

This is exactly how I like my black metal: raw as shit while still remaining supremely listenable, intense as a hurricane in a cutlery store, screechy, misanthropic, and fast--really, really FAST. To quote IC reader difference_engine from the comments section of yesterday's Tomita post:

IF YOU ARE A FALSE DON'T ENTRY

Download HERE

Purchase the re-issue, which includes their 1996 EP Towards Judgement, HERE

Metallum/Last.FM

The Legend of Purple Aki

Every place has urban myths and legendary beasts - Scotland has The Loch Ness Monster,

















Virginia has The Mothman














and rumours have abounded for years of the infamous Abominable Snowman, or Yeti of the Himalayas,
















but NONE of these creatures have terrified the local populace so much as the local mythical beast of where I grew up, the all-too-real man-beast known as...
...PURPLE AKI!




















Y'see, back in the days before the internet, it was a lot easier to be mysterious and for unsubstantiated gossip to spread and mutate like wildfire. So it was with the shadowy figure known to us kids as Purple Aki. He was used as a bogeyman figure (yes, BOGEYman, not BOOGIEman like you fucking septic tanks use...seriously, are you THAT ashamed about disco?) by unscrupulous parents in the eighties in order to bend children to their will..."If you don't get to bed/do your homework/eat your greens, Purple Aki will get you!"...and stories were often told about him and encounters other people had with him, mostly bullshit we figured, but scary nonetheless.

As a kid, I heard the name around and learned the following 'facts' about him - that he was a large black man who was from Toxteth in Liverpool (A predominantly poor, black area where I spent half of my life living. It's a ROUGH place and is mostly famous for rioting and heroin) but was often seen around the St Helens area (Near where I actually grew up. It's a pus-filled canker sore on the face of existence and should be bombed into oblivion. It's famous for....umm....glass). That he would follow and accost young boys, especially those who worked out or went to the gym a lot, ask if he could feel their muscles and then offer them the choice of either being raped by him OR to have his initials carved into their buttocks, leading to the alleged bone-chilling question he was said to have asked his victims..."POP OR SLASH?".

At no point did I find out ANYTHING else about him - what he looked like, aside from being huge and black, why he was called 'Purple' Aki, or if he was ACTUALLY real.
To me, he was a spook, an imaginary ghoul, who would appear to friends of friends of friends and ask his question, only for them to run away and escape his rapey clutches. A friend of mine who was a well known bullshit-artist swore blind that Purple Aki had accosted his brother, but, well, I didn't believe him.
To be honest, I was pretty damn sure he didn't exist.

I was WRONG.













The story that I had heard most often in connection to Purple Aki was that he had approached a boy at a train station and so terrified the boy that he ran onto the train tracks and was electrocuted in his mad scramble to escape. Again, it all sounded like some kind of scare story told by parents to stop their children from going out at night alone or something...but in 1995 I moved to a flat in Toxteth and met people who actually KNEW Purple Aki. Then, I read about him in the local newspaper.

The bogeyman was REAL.

His name was Akinwale Arobieke, and he was known as 'Purple' Aki due to the colouration of his skin giving him an almost purple hue. He was six foot five and weighed twenty stone. He'd been charged over the death of the boy who was electrocuted running away from him but had gotten off due to lack of evidence and possible racial discrimination in the trial. This was the only crime he had ever been charged with, as far as I knew.




















It turned out that the whole 'pop or slash' rape thing wasn't true, and his ACTUAL perversion was FAR stranger than that. He hung out around gyms and suchlike and would ask people about their muscles and general fitness in the guise of being a fellow enthusiast, offering advice and so on, until he would whip out a tape measure and ask if he could touch and measure the hapless victims muscles. If you were particularly unlucky he would either ask you to do push-ups whilst he lay atop you - in the guise of 'providing extra weight to make it harder' - or, his signature move, "inverted piggybacks" – where the victim would squat so he could lean over their backs with his face by their buttocks and his junk on their necks, while squeezing their quad muscles.

Yeah. Now, you're probably wondering exactly HOW he managed to get such rough 'n' tough big-ass guys to DO this kind of shit? Well, it was a combination of his own intimidating stature, knowing that men are way less likely to talk about this kind of thing to the police, and the personal information he had in his 'Stalkers book'.

His WHAT?!?

Well, when he was most recently arrested in 2008 - after already having gone to jail in 2001, then again, almost as soon as he got out, in 2003, until 2006, when he was released on licence and had the following piece of legislation levelled against him, he was "...banned from touching, feeling or measuring muscles, asking people to do squat exercises in public, entering the towns of St Helens, Warrington or Widnes without police permission and loitering near schools, gyms or sports clubs" - one piece of evidence brought up against him was a book containing "...details about victims' body measurements, contact numbers and families." It was alleged that Arobieke would "do research into his victim, confronting them with such details as their father's car registration number or sibling's place of education.".
Yep, he may be a sexually perverse weirdo, but he does his homework.

Now, these brushes with prison and the 'muscle-touching ban' only seemed to serve as encouragement to him as almost as soon as he was released from prison following his 2008 sentencing, he was jailed for another two and a half years for defying the 'muscle-touching ban' in North Wales. So, his notoriety had spread across the whole of the North-West of England and into Wales. He was now internationally infamous, in a small way.




















With him safely ensconced behind bars for a while, weightlifters and fitness enthusiasts need not fear dropping the soap in the showers, and entire rugby teams will go unmolested - yep, I shit you not, he actually stalked an entire rugby team. you may be unsurprised to know that while he ws inside, even the prison hardmen were terrified of Aki. Of course wild stories still circulated - such as the one about him being the inspiration for Clive Barker's 'Candyman' character, but mostly he has just faded into the local culture as a figure part bogeyman, part figure of fun...
















This banner was seen as the Glastonbury festival back in 2008 - it's phrased in the Liverpool, or 'scouse', vernacular, with 'Arrr mate!' meaning 'What-ho fellow', 'gripped' meaning 'accosted' and 'portaloo' meaning 'portable john' - and can even be found on MySpace, Twitter, and in multiple places on Facebook. There is a Purple Aki website, is STILL widely discussed on bodybuilding sites, sites about urbanlegends and local weirdoes, hell, he's even on wikipedia!!

There have been a few songs written about him by local bands, and he gave his name to this wonderfully twisted composition by my good friends, and fellow infamous local weirdoes, a.P.A.t.T....



...and there are a number of 'tributes' to him to be found on YouTube, of which these two are prime examples - not only of what a well-known twisted weirdo he is, but also of exactly how fucked-up the local humour is where I grew up...




...oh, by the way, the opening of those cartoons is a reference to classic british 1970's kids TV show 'Bod', for all you septic tanks scratching your heads in confusion...



It's funny how an infamous sexual predator can become a cultural icon isn't it? The only other one I can think of is Freddy Krueger, except the child molestation thing was conveniently swept under the carpet after the first film, wasn't it?

Mind you, we do have a history in the UK of embracing well-known criminals and lunatics to our cultural bosom - train robber Ronnie Biggs ended up making a record with The Sex Pistols, and a frankly FANSTASTIC movie was made about notorious prison-addict Charlie Bronson.

So there you have it, yet more evidence that us limeys are a bunch of fuckin' weirdoes.

Now, I couldn't think of anything decent that was appropriate to give you as a download, so here is 'Dropped', the second album by Mindfunk - a criminally underrated record made by a mostly reviled band who saddled themselves with a shitty name - for no other reason than that I like it.




















Bon appetit!

PSYCHEDELIC BRAIN-DROPPINGS FROM THE ELECTRIC SAMURAI

Shelby Cobras, photographed May 27, 2011

I'm not exactly sure why today's post reminded me of Brother Seanford's words during Guilty Pleasures Week, but it did, and in case you don't already have those words memorized (you really should), they were posted HERE and went something like this:

"...sometimes we as bloggers are compelled to post things based on a criteria that uses something other than quality as a measuring stick, a criteria which uses rarity and trueness to determine whether or not something is postable. Now im not accusing any particular blogger of posting records they’re not crazy about, I’m simply acknowledging an impulse which I believe exists amongst bloggers, perpetuated by a need for social dominance. Is it possible that posting obscure records has become too competitive? Is it possible that even the true catch themselves posing?"

Excellent observations on the part of our beloved second-in-command indeed, observations that do in fact make me question the motives of most music bloggers, observations that make me myself look inward at my own reasoning and internal impetus. Why do I do what I do? Am I looking for some sort of "social acceptance" by posting "obscure" music that may or may not be deemed "good" by my peers via the internet? Are my reasons for spending time almost every day sharing music with the public at large entirely altruistic, or are my attempts at connecting with people via shared opinions about music some sort of psychological compensation for other inadequacies?
I think the answers to these questions boil down to one common denominator, hinted at by Seanford in his earlier quote. The denominator is this: Do I (and other music bloggers) post stuff because it is GOOD or because it is COOL? Let's take a closer look...


- GOOD MUSIC: I guess saying that one posts only "good" music would imply that motivation for sharing comes from some sort of internal barometer of quality, that the blogger in question writes, listens, and works solely out of love for the art form, not from any sort of desire for acceptance or need to be considered "cool" or "fashionable". Sounds which are pleasing to the ear, no matter who makes them or how they are delivered, will be propagated and shared, not through any prism of social judgment or peer approval, but through a sense of benevolence and, to drop an old phrase, sincere BRONESS.


- COOL MUSIC: The idea of posting about "cool" music would seem to indicate that the blogger in question is writing and uploading more out of a sense of inner emptiness and desire for heightened social standing than any real need to share good art. The hipster plague is no stranger to this concept, and while I try not to throw too many stones here in my glass pyramid, I think that many online publications (Pitchfork or Vice perhaps, maybe even certain sites closer to home) tend to hype COOL music rather than GOOD. But I digress.

I think my point is already pretty clear. We here at IllCon love GOOD music, and to prove it, I'm going to post four albums today that absolutely nobody else will like. These are tunes that are indeed close to my heart, that I believe with every fiber of my being resound with talent, integrity, heart, and intelligence. But they are also tunes that will earn myself and Illogical Contraption ZERO fuckin' "cool points" with the In Crowd. YOU won't like this music either, but you know what? I don't care. To me, these four releases are the summation of GOOD MUSIC. That's right: SHELBY COBRAS IS THE ONLY PURE MAN IN THE INDUSTRY.



If you're looking for quality jams, you need look no further than the collected works of Japanese synthesizer maestro Isao Tomita. Sure, I've posted about him in the past (three times, actually), but I've been on a major Tomita bender in the last couple weeks, and felt that it was time to purge a large section of my library.
Some people might write Tomita off as some sort of second-tier Japanese Wendy/Walter Carlos clone, but in all honesty, I find Tomita's compositions to be far more creative and listenable than Carlos' (and I do consider myself a big Carlos fan). Dude shreds balls, and the intergalactic/transdimensional/alien aesthetic of his work vibrates in tune with my own inner Icke. He rules.

Anyway, this intro is way too long already. We've still got four albums to get through.
Let's do this.


ELECTRIC SAMURAI - SWITCHED-ON ROCK (1972)


Tomita released this collection of tripped-out pop music standards under the moniker "Electric Samurai" way back in '72, between his early years composing themes for film and television and his mid-seventies forays into Moog-ified classical music. The track list here is pretty cheezy (4 Beatles songs, "Jailhouse Rock", and a couple Simon & Garfunkel jams can all be found herein), but Tomita's psychedelic interpretations breathe spastic new life into these tired numbers, and although the album takes a song or two to really get moving, it's fucking unstoppable once it hits stride.
The fact that Switched-On Rock appeared a full four years after Walter Carlos' Switched-on Bach does little to further Tomita's case for artistic independence, but this album is nonetheless an excellent cocktail-party soundtrack and/or late-night hash-smoking companion, depending on your intoxicant of choice. Super mellow but pretty freaky too.

Download HERE




ISAO TOMITA - SNOWFLAKES ARE DANCING (1974)


Tomita's electronic interpretation of Claude Debussy's Children's Corner "tone paintings" earned him three Grammy nominations (including one for Best Classical Album) in 1975, and, if that weren't enough already, also contained the theme for the PBS series Jack Horkheimer: Star Gazer ("Arabesque No. 1").

From Wikipedia: "The use of the term tone paintings here describes the nature of a large portion of Debussy's work, which was concerned with mood and colour, eschewing traditional tonality in favour of constructions such as the full-tonal scale, parallel chords, bitonality, and to a certain extent atonality, in order to achieve a greater degree of musical expression not allowed by strict adherence to a single key. Thus, the term tone painting is quite appropriate, in that Debussy's compositions often experimented with a much broader palette of tones, allowing each to behave similar to a colour within an illustration."

Also endearing to me is Tomita's penchant for listing every single piece of equipment he used during recording in the liner notes of each album, a list that, for Snowflakes, read as such:

- Moog synthesizer

One 914 extended range fixed filter bank
Two 904-A voltage-controlled low-pass filters
One 904-B voltage-controlled high-pass filter
One 904-C filter coupler
One 901 Voltage-controlled oscillator
Three 901-A oscillator controllers
Nine 901-B oscillators
Four 911 envelope generators
One 911-A dual-trigger delay
Five 902 voltage-controlled amplifiers
One 912 envelope follower
One 984 four-channel mixer
One 960 sequential controller
Two 961 interfaces
One 962 sequential switch
Two 950 keyboard controllers
One 6401 Bode ring modulator

- Tape recorders

One Ampex MM-1100 16-track
One Ampex AG-440 4-track
One Sony TC-9040 4-track
One Teac A-3340S 4-track
One Teac 7030GSL 2-track

- Mixers

Two Sony MX-16 8-channel mixers
Two Sony MX-12 6-channel mixers

- Accessories

One AKG BX20E Echo unit
One Eventide Clockworks "Instant Phaser"
Two Binson Echorec "2" units
One Fender "Dimension IV"
One Mellotron

This is a relatively short list, compared to his later releases.

Download HERE
Purchase HERE




ISAO TOMITA - PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION (1975)


Another standout in a seemingly endless stream of classical-via-Moog releases in the mid-70's, Tomita's reworking of Mussorgsky's Pictures At An Exhibition (released the same year as his excellent Firebird Suite) finds him at the top of his game creatively, melting faces not only with his nimble fingers but also with a constant barrage of special effects, delay, oscillation, and all manner of other assorted electronic tomfoolery.
The original Pictures, written in 1874, was a tribute by Mussorgsky to his recently-deceased friend, painter Viktor Hartmann, and is meant as an aural analog to attenting one of Hartmann's art shows. It is by far Mussorgsky's best-known work, being interpreted by many a conductor over the years--none of whom could match Tomita's Technicolor treatment, of course.

Wiki again: "Mussorgsky links the suite's movements in a way that depicts the viewer's own progress through the exhibition. Two "Promenade" movements stand as portals to the suite's main sections. Their regular pace and irregular meter depicts the act of walking. Three untitled interludes present shorter statements of this theme, varying the mood, colour and key in each to suggest reflection on a work just seen or anticipation of a new work glimpsed. Mussorgsky, not generally known for cutting a svelte figure, wrote to Stasov: "My physiognomy can be seen in the interludes." A turn is taken in the work at the "Catacombae" when the "Promenade" theme stops functioning as merely a linking device and becomes, in "Cum mortuis", an integral element of the movement itself. The theme reaches its apotheosis in the suite's finale, The Bogatyr Gates."

Download HERE
Purchase HERE




ISAO TOMITA - THE BERMUDA TRIANGLE (1978)


Our final Tomita effort today is The Bermuda Triangle, which, unlike the other albums posted here, contains quite a bit of Tomita's own composition.
Other sections by Prokofiev and John Williams (you'll know it when you hear it) round this one out, with the whole package being a diverse and wholly sci-fi excursion into creepy, spacey realms of pure fantasy and high weirdness. Bermuda is probably my favorite of the four records presented in this post, not only for the completely top-notch music, but for the track listing as well. Check it out:

1. The Round Space Ship Landing on the Earth While Emitting Silvery Lights (The Arrival of UFO and the Mysterious Electric Waves)
2. Look Out the Bermuda Triangle, Look Out the Bermuda Triangle, Look Out
3. Strong Electromagnetic Waves
4. The World of the Different Dimensions
5. The Giant Pyramid Sitting at the Bottom of the Sea of Bermuda and the Ancient People
6. The Venus Wearing the Space Uniform Shining in Florescent Light Color (The Return of UFO)
7. The Children Playing in Agharta, the Deep Underground Kingdom
8. The Hollow Vessel Called the Earth
9. The Song of Venus
10. The Dawn at Bermuda
11. The Mysterious Electric Waves (Computer Data Signals)
12. The Dazzling Bright Cylindrical Object Which Had Crashed Into Tunguska, Siberia
13. The Harp Being Played by the Ancient People and the Venus and Her Space Children Singing the Song of the Future
14. The Visionary Flight to the 1448 Nebular Group of the Bootes (The Departure of UFO)
15. Now, You Have Been Carried Away from the Earth

That's right, my friends: Hollow Earth Theory, UFO's, the Bermuda Triangle, and an insurmountable wall of swirling Moogs all in one place. Please try to contain your excitement.

Download HERE
Purchase HERE



PS: If anyone has a link for Tomita's soundtrack to Catastrophe 1999: The Prophecies of Nostradomus, please send it my way. I have, as of yet, been unable to locate it through conventional means....

Tomita Last.FM
Website

Past Tomita offerings on IC:
Firebird Suite (1975)
The Planets (1976)
Kosmos (1978)

TOMITA JUDGES YOU

VARIOUS ARTISTS - PROJECTIONS OF A STAINED MIND Compilation (1991)

Holy fuck, I haven't posted any generic Swedish death metal in almost 2 weeks! Unforgivable trangression! Apologies!

Let me make it up to you by jamming this steaming chunk of putrid evil right into your damp little hear-holes. Let's fuckin' party like it's 1991.


track list of death:

1. Entombed - Forsaken
2. Mayhem - Carnage
3. Grotesque - Spawn Of Azathoth
4. Therion - Future Conscience
5. House Of Usher - Battle Of Spectrum
6. Merciless - Nuclear Attack
7. Unleashed - The Dark One
8. Nirvana 2002 - Mourning
9. Chronic Decay - 1st Of September
10. Dismember - Sickening Art
11. Mayhem - The Freezing Moon
12. Merciless - The Book Of Lies
13. Macrodex - Cremation
14. Traumatic - A Putrid Reek Of Mangled Remains
15. Tiamat - Ancient Anciety
16. Skull - On A Mission In Blood

Download HERE

That's Odd.

Google search: "illogical contraption", Friday, August 27, 2010

Google search: "illogical contraption", May 24, 2011

I like to think that IllCon has slightly wider appeal than little startups like "Google News" or "YouTube", but hey, whatever, right?

Weird.

MONDAY MORNING SCIENCE CORNER: God Plays Dice

So I'm a couple hours late with this week's half-assed Monday "Morning" Science Corner, but I figure I have a good excuse, as today's post incorporates a subject considered to be "breaking news" on the frontier of science--confirmation of the much-hypothesized existence of so-called DARK ENERGY.
What is "dark energy"? Good question, and one that NASA.gov answers as such: "More is unknown than is known. We know how much dark energy there is because we know how it affects the Universe's expansion. Other than that, it is a complete mystery. But it is an important mystery. It turns out that roughly 70% of the Universe is dark energy. Dark matter makes up about 25%. The rest - everything on Earth, everything ever observed with all of our instruments, all normal matter - adds up to less than 5% of the Universe. Come to think of it, maybe it shouldn't be called "normal" matter at all, since it is such a small fraction of the Universe.

One explanation for dark energy is that it is a property of space. Albert Einstein was the first person to realize that empty space is not nothing. Space has amazing properties, many of which are just beginning to be understood. The first property that Einstein discovered is that it is possible for more space to come into existence. Then one version of Einstein's gravity theory, the version that contains a cosmological constant, makes a second prediction: "empty space" can possess its own energy. Because this energy is a property of space itself, it would not be diluted as space expands. As more space comes into existence, more of this energy-of-space would appear. As a result, this form of energy would cause the Universe to expand faster and faster. Unfortunately, no one understands why the cosmological constant should even be there, much less why it would have exactly the right value to cause the observed acceleration of the Universe.

Another explanation for how space acquires energy comes from the quantum theory of matter. In this theory, "empty space" is actually full of temporary ("virtual") particles that continually form and then disappear. But when physicists tried to calculate how much energy this would give empty space, the answer came out wrong - wrong by a lot. The number came out 10x120 times too big. That's a 1 with 120 zeros after it. It's hard to get an answer that bad. So the mystery continues."

Great, NASA. Thanks for answering that so clearly and succinctly.

Bottom line, no one knows what "dark energy" is. But it most likely makes up about 70% of the known Universe and, as of today, it has been confirmed as (relatively) REAL. Hm.

From MSN Space:

A census of 200,000 galaxies may confirm that the mysterious force of dark energy is what is pulling the universe apart at ever-increasing speeds, a new study finds.
The results of the five-year galactic survey offer new support for the favored theory of how elusive dark energy works — as a constant force, uniformly affecting the universe and driving its runaway expansion.
The new findings contradict an alternate theory that gravity, and not dark energy, is the force pushing space apart and causing it to expand. That alternate theory challenges Albert Einstein's concept of gravity, because it has gravity acting at great distances as a repulsive force rather than an attractive one.

An unsolved mystery

Dark energy has long been an unexplainable force, and the theory of its existence remains unproven, but the results of this new study could provide independent confirmation that it is behind the strange way that galaxies are being pulled from one another, against the tug of gravity.
"The action of dark energy is as if you threw a ball up in the air, and it kept speeding upward into the sky faster and faster," said Chris Blake of the Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia. Blake is lead author of two papers on the study appearing in an upcoming issue of the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
"The results tell us that dark energy is a cosmological constant, as Einstein proposed," Blake said in a statement. "If gravity were the culprit, then we wouldn't be seeing these constant effects of dark energy throughout time."

So is it a vindication for Einstein or a negation of his theories? Tough call, but I prefer the latter interpretation. I think it's pretty safe in this day and age to call out Einstein as the hack that he truly was, and maybe call bullshit on that punk-ass Stephen Hawking while we're here, too.

EINSTEIN: "God does not play dice."

GOD:

"I PLAY HELLA DICE, SON. NOW BACK UP AND LEMME ROLL THESE HERE BONES.

PEACE OUT KID. WORD TO HAROLD CAMPING, I'LL CATCH ALL Y'ALL NINJAS BACK HERE ON OCTOBER 21st, AIGHT?"

- from "The Bible"

It's true, man. Einstein was a fucking windbag. Anyone claiming to know quote unquote GOD's proclivities--whether in regard to the nature of gravity and the Universe or "His" grand Doomsday Scheme--can suck one. "God" is a crutch and Albert Einstein is Harold Camping. This much I'm sure we can all agree on.
Sorry to get all REAL on you guys, but it's been a long week filled with a bit too much Christian dogma and not enough sleep. I'm fucking calling EVERYONE OUT, not just dead guys and dudes in wheelchairs.

- CRUD WIZARD: You're a punk-ass ho, and next time I see you away from your bodyguard/"dad", it's ON.
- JAIME FROM THE LIVING DOORWAY: You're a ho-ass punk, don't think I don't notice you biting Ira Glass' style. You fake, homie. I'm taking you DOWN.
- WRESTLEMANIA 7: 25% of participants dead? Something shady is going on, and I intend to get to the bottom of it. Watch your back, Wrestlemania 7.
- THOR the movie: Obvious reasons.

Illogical Contraption: slightly more accurate than Wikipedia in regards to science and quantum phenomena.

So DARK ENERGY is a reality. And probably the new name for about a dozen new Italian power metal bands. Fair enough. But how much of the Universe is actually made up of Weird Dude Energy?

Answer me THAT, Science.

SCREAMIN' JAY HAWKINS - AT HOME WITH... (1958)

"Screamin' Jay Hawkins was the most outrageous performer extant during rock's dawn. Prone to emerging out of coffins onstage, a flaming skull named Henry his constant companion, Screamin' Jay was an insanely theatrical figure long before it was even remotely acceptable. Hawkins' life story is almost as bizarre as his onstage shtick. Originally inspired by the booming baritone of Paul Robeson, Hawkins was unable to break through as an opera singer. His boxing prowess was every bit as lethal as his vocal cords; many of his most hilarious tales revolve around Jay beating the hell out of a musical rival! Hawkins caught his first musical break in 1951 as pianist/valet to veteran jazz guitarist Tiny Grimes. He debuted on wax for Gotham the following year with "Why Did You Waste My Time," backed by Grimes and his Rockin' Highlanders (they donned kilts and tam o' shanters on stage).

Singles for Timely ("Baptize Me in Wine") and Mercury's Wing subsidiary (1955's otherworldly "[She Put the] Wamee [On Me]," a harbinger of things to come) preceded Hawkins' immortal 1956 rendering of "I Put a Spell on You" for Columbia's Okeh imprint. Hawkins originally envisioned the tune as a refined ballad. After he and his New York session aces (notably guitarist Mickey Baker and saxist Sam "The Man" Taylor) had imbibed to the point of no return, Hawkins screamed, grunted, and gurgled his way through the tune with utter drunken abandon. A resultant success despite the protests of uptight suits-in-power, "I Put a Spell on You" became Screamin' Jay's biggest seller ("Little Demon," its rocking flip, is a minor classic itself). Hawkins cut several amazing 1957-58 follow-ups in the same crazed vein -- "Hong Kong," a surreal "Yellow Coat," the Jerry Leiber/Mike Stoller-penned "Alligator Wine" -- but none of them clicked the way "Spell" had. Deejay Alan Freed convinced Screamin' Jay that popping out of a coffin might be a show-stopping gimmick by handing him a $300 bonus (long after Freed's demise, Screamin' Jay Hawkins was still benefiting from his crass brainstorm). Hawkins' next truly inspired waxing came in 1969 when he was contracted to Philips Records (where he made two albums). His gross "Constipation Blues" wouldn't garner much airplay, but remained an integral part of his legacy for quite awhile. The cinema was a beneficiary of Screamin' Jay's larger-than-life persona in later years. His featured roles in Mystery Train and A Rage in Harlem made Hawkins a familiar visage to youngsters who never even heard "I Put a Spell on You." He died February 12, 2000 following surgery to treat an aneurysm; Hawkins was 70."

- Bill Dahl, All Music Guide

I posted at length about Mr. Hawkins just over two years ago, right back here. Despite the run of wacky singles from '55-'57, At Home With Screamin' Jay Hawkins was his first full-length release, and it deserves nothing less than your immediate and undivided attention.

PS: Is it just me, or is that album cover projecting a pretty major Kool Keith vibe?

Download HERE
Purchase HERE

SJH Last.FM

SUCKERS