Wooden waterwheel in front of Huanglong Cave (Yellow Dragon Cave) is a karst cave located near the Wulingyuan District of Zhangjiajie City, Hunan, China.
“Turns out the area that these wheels were traditionally in was flooded as part of the 3 gorges dam, so this is a reconstruction for people to see what they would have looked like.” -comment on Reddit
Everything ancient in China is almost always a reproduction, including this. It’s an elaborate kinetic sculpture – the water mill doesn’t appear to mill anything. China lets you look around the cave a bit on Google Maps street view: 29°22’1.62″N 110°36’47.79″E
[Video found here; a longer version without music here.]
Dance of the Rona, Shardcore (2020) from The Sounds of Covid-19“NIH released the DNA sequence of Covid-19, so I decided to convert it into musical notes and hear what it sounds like.”
The excerpt is from the .midi file download, speed x2, and chopped down to six minutes. I like the uncut electromix version better.
Nestlé Australia decided its “Red Skins” candy might offend some people so they renamed it “Red Ripper,” the nickname of serial killer Andrei Chikatilo.
“In a small town in the old west, a lone and weary gunfighter enters a saloon.”The Gunfighter is a classic short by Eric Kissack (narrated by Nick Offerman). NSFK content, language.
[h/t Andy D.]
The Bus Boys had a great retro sound and were featured on SNL and in the 1982 movie 48 Hours.
New Orleans’ famous Preservation Hall Jazz Band was founded by Pennsylvanian Allan Jaffe in the early 1960s as a dixieland revival group, and that song wasn’t at all what I expected.
Have a great weekend, folks. Be home by 9:59pm so the ‘rona don’t gitcha, or stay out to 10:01pm and you’ll earn some serious ‘vid-kickin’ braggin’ rights.
The Dillards, live at the Tonder Festival in Denmark in 1999. Entertaining intro to Ebo Walker, song starts about 03:45 in.
But there was also a real Ebo Walker, an upright bass player from Kentucky, and the song is not a tribute. From a Reddit discussion:
Harry Shelor
“Crazy story time. Ebo Walker’s real name is Harry Lee Shelor Jr, (there’s a song called Ebo Walker, which Harry took the name from). Harry cultivated and grew marijuana. He ended up shooting a Kentucky State Police Detective by the name of Darrell Vendl Phelps. He began serving a 50 year sentence in 1981.”
Shelor was released from prison in 2013, age 70.
Prior to his arrest in 1981, Harry Shelor/Ebo Walker was a founding member of The New Grass Revival.
Victor Wooten won the Bass Player of the Year award from Bass Player magazine three times and is the first person to win the award more than once. In 2011, he was ranked No. 10 in the Top 10 Bassists of All Time by Rolling Stone.
That set of connections happened somewhat by accident, just like a lot of things these days. Find something fun to do this weekend accidentally, and when you’re done c’mon back here. Got some cool stuff for you to click on.
“Au siècle de la révolution industrielle, la technologie des automates est maîtrisée principalement par les artisans français. Alexandre-Nicolas Théroude, le créateur de cette pièce pour laquelle il a déposé un brevet en 1866, est connu pour avoir le premier su enfermer le mécanisme dans le corps de l’automate.”
“Flautiste” – Life-size Flute Player Automaton by Alexandre Nicolas Theroude (1807-1883), Paris, France, c.1869-77.
“Ladies and Gentlemen:Please rise for our 2020 National Anthem.“
“If people could read my mind, this is what they’d see.”
“This is baby makin’ music for clowns.”
Mayer Hawthorne has the Motown sound down. I heard this and thought “Why don’t I remember that one?” He once stated that, when working as a hip hop DJ, he began recording his own Motown-style tracks to avoid paying fees for sampling other artists’ work. That video made me grin. An excerpt of “The Walk” was used in a Blue Moon beer TV commercial in 2017.
The Beat Farmers were a great band from So. California. I got to see them several times in the 80s, and Road of Ruin seems appropriate for our times. (Two of the original members are gone: Country Dick Montana and Buddy Blue.)
Yeah, we may be on the road of ruin depending on how you look at things, and I’m not talking about the current election fraud. It’s the bigger picture that concerns me. Not much I can do about it.
See you back here tomorrow, rain or shine, and we’ll do something stupid together.
First recorded in 1976, The Ramones‘ I Don’t Wanna Go Down To The Basement is sort of appropriate.
Sally Cruikshank‘s animations are Betty Boop on acid. Face like a Frog (1987) includes the Cab Calloway-esque song Don’t Go In The Basement (starts at 02:26 ). In 2017, Cruikshank herself added this to the YouTube comments:
“Danny Elfman composed the track for this film. Period. Copyright mine. Then a year or two later I gave his agents permission to include it on a compilation LP, I guess put out by [David] Geffen. Now they claim I got the music from the album or something. They’re wrong. My film came first. My husband’s going to get into it with Geffen.”
“I don’t always listen to Dead Man’s Party, but when I do so do the neighbors.” – YouTube comment
Oingo Boingo was a standout band of the 1980s, combining ska, punk, jazz & rock, and Dead Man’s Party became a Halloween party standard. According to Wikipedia:
The lyric, “I hear the chauffeur coming to my door / Says there’s room for maybe just one more,” is a reference to “The Bus-Conductor,” a short story by E. F. Benson about a hearse driver, first published in The Pall Mall Magazine in 1906.
Video is from the 1986 movie Back To School. Yeah, 34 years ago…
Happy Halloween, folks!
This year I’m gonna scare half the neighborhood by NOT wearing a mask. Hope you get all the tricks you deserve and all the treats that you don’t.
[Paranoia moons previously posted here. More Halloween-related posts in the archives.]
We started this recording on a back porch in East Los Angeles With members of Los Lobos, And Then returned to the roots of the song in Veracruz, Mexico. As we Traveled, musicians everywhere mixed the traditional and rock ‘n’ roll styles of “La Bamba” into a new Song Around The World. – Playing For Change
Guaranteed to be the best version of the traditional you’ve never heard. Have a great weekend, folks. We’re not going anywhere, so stop back here tomorrow for, you know, stuff.
Link Wray‘s recording career spanned decades, 1958 to 2000, and it’s hard to pinpoint when he was really at his prime. Wray was ranked No. 45 of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time bu Rolling Stone, and is considered the “Father of the Power Chord.” Other fun facts: his parents were Shawnee and Cherokee; he was a Korean War veteran; he lost a lung due to tuberculosis in 1956.
Carlos Santana‘s 1999 album Supernatural is one of my favorites. Can’t believe it came out over two decades ago.
That kinda wraps things up until tomorrow. See you then.
Bill Coleman (1904-1981) & Stephane Grappelli (1908-1997) ca. 1976. Great stuff for early morning forty miles to East Jesus road trips, or just sitting on the back porch watching the world go by.
Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks (with the Acoustic Warriors) 1989 reunion concert on Austin City Limits. Hicks had a solid fan base, but he got into alcohol and drugs, pissed off a lot of people. Years passed before he cleaned up his act and started over. DH&HHL came onto my radar in 1978 with (what my ears heard as) “Crazy Cuzzie Iz.” Thought he was singing about a family member.
My uncle used to love me but she died; A chicken ain’t chicken ’til it’s licken good and fried; Keep on the sunny side; My uncle used to love me but she died.
Jump to 0:50 to bypass the intro (or not). Elvin Bishop is one underrated master of swamp rock guitar, always looks like he’s having fun with it. He’s still performing (despite the lockdown).
Leave your masks at home, reduce your social distancing to the length of your forearm, and we’ll see you back here tomorrow.
Tacky Raccoons 