{"id":13259,"date":"2012-04-28T18:00:17","date_gmt":"2012-04-28T22:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/?p=13259"},"modified":"2012-04-28T12:16:18","modified_gmt":"2012-04-28T16:16:18","slug":"rock-town-halls-saturday-night-shut-in-geniuses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/rock-town-halls-saturday-night-shut-in-geniuses\/","title":{"rendered":"Rock Town Hall\u2019s Saturday Night Shut-In<\/em>: Geniuses, Crackpots & Visionaries"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Sounds of the Hall in roughly 33 1\/3 minutes!<\/p><\/div>\n

This week’s special guest edition of Saturday Night Shut-In<\/em> comes to you from Chez Royale<\/strong>! That’s right, ladymisskirroyale<\/strong> and Mr. Royale<\/strong> share with you a mix entitled Geniuses, Crackpots & Visionaries<\/em>. A note from Mr. Royale, including the tracklist and notes on this evening’s selections, follows.<\/p>\n[audio:http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/Geniuses-Crackpots-Visionaries.mp3|titles=RTH Saturday Night Shut-In, episode 77: Geniuses, Crackpots & Visionaries]\n

Mr. Royale sez…<\/em><\/p>\n

Let’s see, this mix is actually part of a larger compilation I’ve put together,\u00a0which includes the likes of Harry Partch, Brian Wilson, John Cage, Stockhausen,\u00a0Glenn Branca, Morton Subotnick, John Zorn, Captain Beefheart, Steve Reich, Iannis\u00a0Xenakis\u2026.etc. In other words, musicians who have stood on the outside and came up\u00a0with something unheard before, some kind of personal, uncompromising artistic\u00a0vision. Perhaps these artists have been obscure or widely followed, but there’s\u00a0something of an independent spirit in each. The title of the collection is, of\u00a0course, tounge in cheek. Hey, maybe Lucia Pamela really did go to the moon<\/p>\n

With the post on Wildman Fischer, Erika and I hit on the idea of a G,C & V\u00a0shortlist, this time highlighting the “crackpots” section. Certain names came up\u00a0that were too obvious. People with mental health issues (Syd Barrett, Roky Erickson,\u00a0Mary Margaret O’Hara, Kristin Hersh), but who make very “acceptable” music. I was\u00a0adamant that this list be a WTF kind of a thing. We refined it to a criteria of\u00a0“unhinged” recordings, ones that make you say “how in hell did this EVER get\u00a0recorded? Somebody thought this was a good idea? Did somebody lose a bet?” And yet,\u00a0in their own way, each of these is delightful!<\/p>\n

Okay, we begin with:<\/p>\n

The Portsmouth Sinfonia<\/strong>, “Also Sprach Zarathustra”:\u00a0An orchestra in the ’70s with the entrance requirement of non-musicians, or play an\u00a0instrument that is new to you. Contemporary composer Gavin Bryars was a member.<\/p>\n

Lucia Pamela<\/strong>, “Walking On The Moon”:\u00a0Championed by Stereolab, she claimed to have loaded up her pink Cadillac with some\u00a0musician friends and recorded on the moon.<\/p>\n

Luie Luie<\/strong>, “El Touchy”:\u00a0Luis Johnston (is it something with that last name?) was disgusted with modes of\u00a0dance in the ’60s and ’70s, and so he spearheaded a one man dance craze, bent on\u00a0bringing intimacy back to dancing couples. He even had buttons with his picture on\u00a0them, that you would place at strategic points on your body, and your partner would\u00a0contact these as you danced.<\/p>\n

The Chips<\/strong>, “Rubber Biscuit”:\u00a0Immortalized by Dan Ackroyd. This is just silly.<\/p>\n

Crispin Glover<\/strong>, “These Boots Are Made For Walking:\u00a0Yes, as in: McFly.<\/p>\n

Daniel Johnston<\/strong>, “Jelly Beans”:\u00a0What collection of this sort would be without him?<\/p>\n

Joe Meek<\/strong>, “Telstar” (rough demo):\u00a0A familiar name to anyone interested in ’60s music production. Unable to play or\u00a0write notation, this is one of many vocal demos he made in order to get musicians to\u00a0play what he was hearing in his head.<\/p>\n

Napoleon XIV<\/strong>, “They\u2019re Coming To Take Me Away”:\u00a0A novelty hit from a one-hit wonder who specialized in mental illness themes.<\/p>\n

R.Stevie Moore<\/strong>, “Goodbye Piano”:\u00a0An eclectic and prolific home-recording legend. A big influence on a lot of lo-fi\u00a0indie types.<\/p>\n

Rodd Keith<\/strong>, “Beat of the Traps”:\u00a0A religious, LSD consuming creator of what he called \u201csong-poems.\u201d He spelled his\u00a0name with two \u201cd\u201d\u2019s, because \u201cGod only used one\u201d. He died trying to fly off an\u00a0overpass on the Hollywood freeway.<\/p>\n

George Morgan<\/strong>, “Behind The Wheel”:\u00a0A member of both the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Grand Ole Opry. I just love\u00a0the lunacy of this recording.<\/p>\n

Charles Manson<\/strong>, “Cease To Exist”:\u00a0That Charles Manson. This was re-cast as \u201cNever Learn Not To Love\u201d by the Beach Boys.<\/p>\n

Jandek<\/strong>, “They Told Me I Was a Fool”:\u00a0Maybe the most quintessential anonymous outsider musician.<\/p>\n

Tiny Tim<\/strong>, “Tip-toe Thru the Tulips”:\u00a0This collection would be incomplete without such things as this.<\/p>\n

The Shaggs<\/strong>, “Philosophy of the World”:\u00a0Another famously inept band, described by Rolling Stone<\/em> as \u201c\u2026sounding like\u00a0lobotomized Trapp Family Singers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Barnes & Barnes<\/strong>, “Fish Heads”\u00a0Aka Robert Haimer and Lost in Space<\/em>\u2019s Billy Mumy.<\/p>\n

The Monks<\/strong>, “Monk Time”:\u00a0Formed in 1964 by five American GIs stationed in Germany. Listening to this today,\u00a0I hear their Krautrock-like influence on Portishead\u2019s Third<\/em> album.<\/p>\n

Moondog<\/strong>, “I\u2019m Just a Hop Head”:\u00a0The blind, dressed-as-a-Viking street musician who was something of a celebrity in\u00a0the ’60s.<\/p>\n

Hasil Adkins<\/strong>, “Peanut Butter Rock and Roll”:\u00a0Ah, one of the best for last. Hasil was a backwoods Appalachian psychobilly Wildman\u00a0one-man band. Listen to his sheer Woo Hoo joy in this!<\/p>\n

[Note: You can add Saturday Night Shut-In<\/em> episodes to your iTunes by clicking here<\/a>. The Rock Town Hall feed<\/a> will enable you to easily download Saturday Night Shut-In<\/em> episodes to your digital music player.]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week’s special guest edition of Saturday Night Shut-In comes to you from Chez Royale! That’s right, ladymisskirroyale and Mr. Royale share with you a mix entitled Geniuses, Crackpots & Visionaries. A note from Mr. Royale, including the tracklist and notes on this evening’s selections, follows. [audio:http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/Geniuses-Crackpots-Visionaries.mp3|titles=RTH Saturday Night Shut-In, episode 77: Geniuses, Crackpots & […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342,364],"tags":[56,622,365,99],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13259"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13259\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}