A bunch of audio recordings by Gertrude Stein made during the years of 1934-1935. Selections include: "The Making of Americans: Parts 1 & 2", "Matisse", "A Valentine to Sherwood Anderson", "If I Told Him: A Completed Portrait of Picasso", "Portrait of Christian Bérard", "Madame Recamier: An Opera", "How She Bowed To Her Brother" and "Interview (1934)." via UbuWeb
Robert Ashley's Music With Roots in the Aether (1975)
14 hours of video (.avi & realvideo) and audio (MP3) of Robert Ashley interviewing composers David Behrman, Philip Glass, Alvin Lucier, Gordon Mumma, Pauline Oliveros and Terry Riley. The pieces are broken down into one-hour interviews and one-hour live performances, all from 1975. Check out the Robert Ashley files: they're chilling. Very rarely seen since its filming.
The Last Acts of St. Fuck You (MP3)
A 9-minute vitriolic spew of enormous demonic proportions by the outsider visionary Bern Porter. If ya love it that much, you can download the entire text here. And if yr still interested, here's a gang of his found poems.
UbuWeb is back. After a summer of rebuilding, the site is back with thousands of avant-garde MP3s and is chockfull of new content including:
Music With Roots in the Aether: A seminal series of interviews and performances concieved and realized by Robert Ashley in 1976, consisting of 14 hours worth of video and audio. Subjects and performers include: David Behrman, Philip Glass, Alvin Lucier, Gordon Mumma, Pauline Oliveros, Terry Riley, and Robert Ashley. Robert Ashley says: Music with Roots in the Aether is a series of interviews with seven composers who seemed to me when I conceived the piece-and who still seem to me twenty-five years later-to be among the most important, influential and active members of the so-called avant-garde movement in American music, a movement that had its origins in the work of and in the stories about composers who started hearing things in a new way at least fifty years ago."
The Charlotte Moorman Archive: UbuWeb is proud to host the audio archive of Charlotte Moorman (1933-1991), containing hours worth of unreleased works and collaborations by Nam June Paik, John, Cage, Earle Brown, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Terry Jennings, Toshi Ichiyanagi, Jackson Mac Low, David Behrman, La Monte Young, Sylvano Bussoti, George Brecht, Dick Higgins, Giuseppe Chiari and others. The selection is curated by Stephen Vitiello, with special thanks to Barbara Moore / Bound & Unbound.
People Like Us: The Complete Recordings 1992-2005 UbuWeb now hosts the complete works of the UK-based People Like Us. The brainchild of Vicki Bennett, these hundreds of MP3s feature solo works and collaborations with Matmos, Negativland, Wobbly, The Evolution Control Committee, Ergo Phizmiz, Irene Moon, The Jet Black Hair People, Xper. Xr., Messer Chups, Kenny G and Tipsy.
Christof Migone: Montréal-based Migone is a multidisciplinary artist and writer. His work and research delves into language, voice, bodies, psychopathology, performance, video, intimacy, complicity and endurance. UbuWeb is pleased to present an audio retrospective of Migone's work, both solo and with collaborators. Also featured here are numerous writings by Migone, including a book-length work, La première phrase et le dernier mot, which is comprised of the first sentence and the last word of every book in Migone's library.
At WFMU, we pride ourselves on our musical snobbery; the WFMU record library is one of the world's great repositories of obscure music. But with file-sharing and digital replication, that's all changing. Suddenly, we're (meaning all of us who once had great record collections) not alone -- lots of folks now possess MP3 collections that they don't deserve (or appreciate). This article in The New Republic delves into this new (and sorry) state of affairs.
An MP3 of the entire novely / sex 60s LP PIcking Up Girls Made Easy.
This guy swallowed a camera, and seven and half hours later, voila!
Nick Currie aka Momus will be performing live daily (for free) in Chelsea until July 15th. He'll be doing spontaneous live storytelling along with vocal treatements by Neen artist Mai Ueda in the gallery.
...and to think that I once played Cum Stains On My Pillow (Where Your Sweet Head Used To Be) on WFMU... Ah, the good old days...
For your pleasure, an album of "Country Porn" by Chinga Chavin (1975)
** NOT safe for work **
MP3s: 01 Talkin' Matamoros First Piece Of Ass Blues, 02 Asshole From El Paso, 03 Cum Stains On The Pillow, 04 Head Boogie, 05 Sit, Sit, Sit (Sit On My Face), 06 Dry Humping In The Back Of A '55 Ford, 07 Get It On The Run, 08 Tit Stop Rock, 09 4 a.m. Jump, 10 Cum Unto Jesus
LINK: Quicktime Movie, 9.7 MB
Every utterance of the word "Buffy" made during the first season of "Buffy The Vampire Slayer," totaling nearly one minute.
It's an artwork by the great Chuck Jones (the Chicago-based aritst, not the also-great animator). Be sure not to miss his Isolation Studies which include audio edits from the TV Show "Loveline" (MP3s) Names, Numbers, No and Yes, Alright, Okay, Goodtimes. There's tons more great stuff to explore including Jones' original MP3s of State Songs and the bizarre Penguin Rants. Finally, check his series of bizarre links pages starting here.
Ain't ya just been dying to get yer paws on these?
MP3s:
Science Fiction/Dobbeltforestilling, , Bryllupsangen, Alltid Lys Hos Frankenstein, En Hip Transvestitt, Tiden Blir Skrudd, Damoklessverdet, Muskelmann-Sangen, Eddies Sang, Muskelmann-Sangen (Reprise), Ta Meg, Ta Meg, Det Hender Iblant, Eddies Teddy, Planet-Manet, Fra Forst Av Kunne Alt Ga An, Jeg Vil Hjem, Super-Helter, Science Fiction (Reprise)
Francis E. Dec, Esq. MP3s:
Rant 1
Rant 2
Rant 3
Rant 4
Rant 5
Rant 6
Francis E. Dec, Esquire, of 29 Maple Ave, Hempstead, New York, is one of the most mysterious characters in all kookdom. He plastered cars with paranoid posters and mass-mailed thousands of his rants to unwitting victims, mostly in media outlets. One of these packets fell into the hands of L.A. newscaster/talk show host "Doc on the ROQ" of KROQ-FM. In 1985, when Doc was employed at WZUU in Milwaukee, the station received a bundle of Dec flyers, which had been mass mailed to the media. He sez: "One chilly Sunday in '86, at Y-108 in Denver, I recorded the 41-minute tape now in circulation, using odd music tracks (Goldfinger, 'Pieces of Ice' by Diana Ross, Tomita, Capitol Library Series) mixed in quite at random, though it turned out nicely. I also used echo-processing for the faint 'mental' effects on the longest track, which I call 'LONG Island Lunacy.'" These are those sessions. It's amazing stuff. You can read some of the transcripts of the pieces here.
WARNING: Not safe for work. Not safe for home. Not safe for your car. Not safe for anything.
MP3s:
Hippys Are Living Proof, 1971 (3:31)
Every Man, Woman, And Child, 1972 (7:53)
Fight It Out, 1972 (11:46)
Bubble Blower, 1972 (5:08)
Straight Razor, 1972 (9:14)
Mama Bear, 1972 (8:50)
Power Poles, 1973 (3:31)
Swoops Down Outta The Sky, 1975 (12:33)
Cadillac, 1973 (5:52)
Store Up Your Treasures in Heaven, 1974 (7:29)
Whatcha Doing Down There Boy, 1975 (7:32)
Whatsda Matter Wid Jew, 1977 (5:33)
Lucky T's Texaco, 1975 (6:17)
In the 1970s, Jim Roche, a performance artist from the deep South, made his way into the New York artworld and began doing pieces in galleries where he'd go into a trance-like state and channel redneck characters from his home turf. The result was this 2 LP set, "Learning to Count," released in 1982 by a museum in Kansas. These are the most intense audio works ever put to vinyl: insane rants, heavily racist, sexist. Many, many people will be offended by Jim Roche: the refrain of "Hippys Are Living Proof" is "Hippys are living proof that a nigger will fuck a dog." And it gets worse. Much worse. No one is spared: Jews, Asians, Hispanics, etc. are all targets of Roche's rage. Needless to say, we don't endorse Mr. Roche's fantasies, but for intensity's sake and for true horrifying outsider madness, nothing -- we repeat -- nothing outdoes this.
MP3s: Give The Children a Chance, Little Children Pt. 1, Little Children Pt. 2, Lenox Ave., Rapping, m-l-k
Back in the early 80s, little Miss Angela Simpson -- then 6 years old -- made an LP on Spectrum Records simply entitled "Angela." According to the liner notes, she was some sort of a prodigy, even going so far as to appear at the Apollo Theater. But to our ears, she's just awful. I mean, wonderfully awful; WFMU-style awful. Out of tune warbling, saccharine rhymes, and a voice that grates on even the most open-minded of listeners puts this gem into the pantheon of the unlistenable. File this under Atrocious. Needless to say, we love it.
Otto Muehl Manopsychotisches Ballett (1970)
What could be more fun than Vienese Actionist films? You know the Vienese Actionists, don't you? They were a bunch of Austrian artists in the 60s who sliced open cows and rolled around naked fucking each other, soaked in animal blood. While most of this stuff has been relegated to the dustbin of art history (with the exception of Hermann Nitsch), we've uncovered a prime document of the period by gang leader Otto Muehl. It's a film in two parts and features all sorts of great stuff: nudity, fist fucking, animal sacrifice, dildos and group groping, all to the strains of Charlotte Moorman's cello. True art, in our humble opinion. via UbuWeb
I'm An Ass Man (MP3)
Let's face it: we're not big Karen Finley fans. She's the embodiment of artsy bullshit pretention. But once -- just this once -- back in the mid-80s she hit the nail on the head. Perhaps the raunchiest thing ever recorded. Just delightful.
Fred Frith MP3s Legendary experimental guitarist Fred Frith performs improvisations at the 11th Other Minds Music Festival at San Francisco's Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 2005. Frith performed at the festival both as a soloist and as a member of the due Normal, alongside Sudhu Tewari, a Bay Area resident of Indian descent whose remarkable music is performed on homemade acoustic instruments.
A trove of free historic artists films by Kenneth Anger, Luis Bunuel, John Cage, Guy Debord, Marcel Duchamp, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Robert Morris & Stan VanDerBeek, Isidore Isou, Man Ray, Robert Rauschenberg, 37 short Fluxus films, Hans Richter, Harry Smith and Jack Smith.
Here's MP3s of Abbie Hoffman's long out-of-print LP from 1969 Wake Up America!
The Sounds of Christmas an exquisite mix by People Like Us, performed live at the Tate Modern, December 18, 2004.
Two archival audio interviews with Marshall McLuhan (MP3): Marshall McLuhan on the Dick Cavett Show in December 1970 (30 minutes; along with Truman Capote and Chicago Bears running back, Gayle Sayers. Both Capote and Sayers participated in the discussion with McLuhan) and Speaking Freely hosted by Edwin Newman features Marshall McLuhan 4 Jan 1971 (one hour). Also, an MP3 copy of McLuhan's out-of-print Columbia LP, The Medium is the Massage (Side A, Side B).
37 Short Fluxus Films Dating from the sixties and compiled by George Maciunas (1931-1978, founder of Fluxus), 37 short films ranging from 10 seconds to 10 minutes in length. These films (some of which were meant to be screened as continuous loops) were shown as part of the events and happenings of the New York avant-garde. Films by Nam June Paik, Dick Higgins, George Maciunas, Chieko Shiomi, John Cavanaugh, James Riddle, Yoko Ono, George Brecht, Robert Watts, Pieter Vanderbiek, Joe Jones, Eric Anderson, Jeff Perkins, Wolf Vostell, Albert Fine, George Landow, Paul Sharits, John Cale, Peter Kennedy, Mike Parr, Ben Vautier.
Perhaps you've heard the pop-computer music of 386 DX on WFMU. The genius behind the curtain is Alexei Shulgin and he lives in Moscow. Now, there's nothing worse than the tired cliches of Macintosh voices trying to emulate pop vocals but somehow Shulgin's programming transcends the normative drones. Check out his site, loaded with MP3s of pop classics such as California Dreaming, Smells Like Teen Spirit, and Enter Sandman. But wait, it gets even better with his disc Legends of Russian Rock. The entire disc is online as MP3s. Who knows what it's all about, but Russian Rock sure sounds fascinating.
This new site is rife with odd things: stuffed chipmunks square dancing, robot jellyfish, alligator decanters, porcelain Gang of Four statues, and so on. The site is just starting out and hasn't yet officially launched, but the cool thing is you can contribute photos and descriptions of your oddball crap to their collection.
Fresh from my favorite file-sharing gang, I've posted an interview with Brian Eno recorded about a week ago on BBC Radio 4 (2005.02.03). In it, Eno chats with Comic book writer Alan Moore. For those of you looking for that fantastic 1980 Eno interview that I aired a few months back, it's here.
I love this 3-hour conversation between Morton Feldman and John Cage recorded in 1967. An excerpt:
Morton Feldman: Well, this weekend I was on the beach.
John Cage: Yes.
MF: ... And on the beach these days are transistor radios.
JC: Yes.
MF: ... blaring out rock 'n' roll.
JC: Yes.
MF: All over.
JC: Yes. And you didn't enjoy it?
MF: Not particularly. I adjusted to it.
JC: How?
MF: By saying that... Well, I thought of the sun and the sea as a lesser evil.
JC: You know how I adjusted to that problem of the radio in the environment? Very much as the primitive people adjusted to the animals which frightened them, and which, probably as you say, were intrusions. They drew pictures of them on their caves. And so I simply made a piece using radios. Now, whenever I hear radios - even a single one, not just twelve at a time, as you must have heard on the beach, at least - I think, "Well, they're just playing my piece."
Forty-Two for Henry Flynt by La Monte Young performed by Peter Winkler (gong) at the Third Annual Festival of the Avant Garde in San Francisco, 1965: A very rare MP3 of Young's from the incredible trove of avant-garde archived KPFA radio shows (many dating back to the 60s and 70s) and MP3s at the Other Minds Archive. "42 for Henry Flynt" probably has not been written out as a composition. The number in the title changes from performance to performance, depending on the number of repetitions of the sounds. The orchestration is flexible as well. This realization was performed by Peter Winkler on gong and was recorded at the Third Annual Festival of the Avant Garde in San Francisco, 1965. Its hypnotic character made it a favorite of KPFA Radio listeners for several generations.
Kiddie Records For the entire 2005 year, Basic Hip Digital Oddio will be featuring weekly stories and songs from the golden age of children's records, a period which ran from the mid 1940s into the early 1950s. This era produced a wealth of classics, headed by Capitol's Record-Readers and the RCA Victor Little Nipper series. Each one of these recordings has been carefully transferred from the original 78s (plus a few 45s) and encoded to MP3 format for you to download and enjoy.
... all MP3s. Doesn't this make you happy?
6799 [PDF, 400k] : A document of my entire record collection, collected between 1967 and 1999.
For 50 weeks of 2005, osymyso -- one of WFMU's favorite bootleggers -- is going to put a track from his new album on his website, ultimately forming the basis for a proper release. he's making it as he goes along - a public work-in-progress of sorts. the first 3 fragments are up, check this weekly.
Gregory Whitehead "Selected works, 1984-2004": A comprehensive twenty-year survey of MP3s, comprised of 52 tracks, varying in length from a few minutes to over an hour. Several of the pieces are heard here for the first time; others were commissioned by the BBC and New American Radio; many are live air-checks and full-length radio-plays. Also included in this survey are several pieces of writing by Whitehad on the subject radio, ranging from interviews to manifestoes.
The Tape-beatles, Public Works, PhonoStatic Cassettes: UbuWeb is pleased to announce the launch of the Public Works archive, consisting of digitial transfers of dozens of cassettes, LPs, and CDs into MP3s. The Tape-beatles are a collaboration of varying membership that make music and audio art recordings,"expanded cinema" performances, videos, printed publications, and works in other media. They work under the aegis of Public Works Productions. PhotoStatic was a magazine, a periodical series of printed works, that focused on xerography (photocopy) as a creative medium. Founded in 1983, the title continued in some form until as late as 1998. A companion publication on audio cassette was dubbed PhonoStatic, with the inaugural issue appearing in 1984. In all, ten cassette issues were released at roughly six-month intervals, culminating with the "Audio Collage" cassette in 1989. The complete PhonoStatic cassette archive is available on UbuWeb.
