Despite being a huge Velvet Underground fan, I've never heard this recording before:

One of the secret weapons of the Velvet Underground was Lou Reed's Ostrich Guitar Tuning, where all the strings were tuned to D. It got its name from the 1964 novelty single "The Ostrich" by The Primitives, a pre-Velvet Underground band fronted by Lou Reed. Originally only a studio project, the song about a fake novelty dance generated enough interest to put together a band for a few live gigs. And amazingly enough, that touring version of The Primitives featured John Cale, Tony Conrad, and Walter DeMaria. While I am not aware of any surviving live recordings of these guys, here are both sides of the studio recording in MP3 format: The Ostrich | Sneaky Pete

Only one year later Lou Reed and John Cale would form the Velvet Underground and never record a novelty dance number again.

[link]

eta: I have a bootleg recording of The Falling Spikes called Screen Test: Falling in Love With the Falling Spikes. (The Falling Spikes were a precursor to the Velvet Underground, with all the original VU members except Mo Tucker.) Even though the sound is awful, I just love the version of "Oh Sweet Nuthin'" on that record.

Thanks, David! Mike Barthel is a great guy. His analysis of the Fiery Furnaces' Blueberry Boat led me to write my own for the Hat.

Tommy, I have an mp3 of the Primitives' "(Do The) Ostrich," but it's probably not worth your time. The guitarist in my old band American Cosmic (who's now the guitarist for the excellent Dexateens) had an old Danolectro that he kept in Ostrich tuning just for the hell of it.

This just in:

JOE PERNICE SIGNS DEAL WITH RIVERHEAD BOOKS, A DIVISION OF PENGUIN BOOKS USA, TO WRITE FICTION

Joe Pernice has signed a book deal with Megan Lynch of Riverhead Books, a division of Penguin Books USA, for world rights. Joe will write a novel for them, which is about one-third done, but if you ask him when he'll finish his face turns all red, and he yells, "When I finish!" If we were betting people though, we'd bet that that the next U.S. President will be celebrating his or her first 100 days in office around the time it "streets," as they say in the music business. If you ask Joe what the book is about, he sticks his fingers in his ears and sings "la la la la la, etc."

Primarily known as a recording artist, Joe wrote the novella Meat is Murder for Continuum Books' 33 1/3 series in 2003. That book remains one of the bestselling pieces in that series, and Joe is working with Neal Huff, an actor who appears regularly on HBO's The Wire, on the Meat is Murder screenplay. Again, he is not forthcoming on when that project might see the light of day. He also previously published a volume of poetry called Two Blind Pigeons, on his own Ashmont Books imprint. That remains the bestselling (only) piece on Ashmont Books.

Said Joe, "I am really excited to join the Penguin family, where I get to be label mates with writers like Homer."

Speaking of lost recordings, for those who didn't get their RDA of NPR over the weekend, it turns out that some Stephen Stills demo tapes that were lost to the ages have been found, and are being released:

[link]

With his days in the band Buffalo Springfield coming to an end, singer Stephen Stills found himself at a crossroads on April 26, 1968. Stills paid a recording engineer to "just roll tape" on a few new songs Stills had been working on. Many of those songs would go on to define his career — both with Crosby, Stills & Nash and in his solo work.

Those early recording sessions were lost until someone stumbled upon the poorly-marked tapes when the studio went out of business. Stills talks about those sessions, which were recently released for the first time, with Debbie Elliott.

They played some of the demos during the story, and the sound quality is pretty amazing for old demo tapes that were sitting in a box for thirty years or so.

Vinyl sales up fivefold in five years: [link]

The story doesn't make it clear, though if the trend is limited to the UK or not.

Cover that I LOVE of a song that I originally had no use for:

Sleater-Kinney: More Than A Feeling

"I started screaming..."

Krautrock for b-boys: [link]

Sleater-Kinney: More Than A Feeling

Yeah, that's a good 'un.

Did we know that Creed Bratton of The Office was the lead guitarist in the Grass Roots?!

This part of the We did not. But this part of the We knows that Rainn Wilson is Baha'i, and the son of SF author Robert Charles Wilson, so it balances out, in Our opinion.