'Out Of Gas'
There's a lady plays her fav'rite records/On the jukebox ev'ry day/All day long she plays the same old songs/And she believes the things that they say/She sings along with all the saddest songs/And she believes the stories are real/She lets the music dictate the way that she feels.
Our first endorsement is a good one. Back cover blurb #1:
"Scram's Capricious Guide is a genre-surfing Smithsonian of overlooked musical marvels. Without fetishizing obscurity for its own sake, the Guide sidesteps cynical cool vs. uncool upsmanship and celebrates castoffs -- by both the forgotten and the famous -- which exude trend-transcending merit. Each entry compels you to seek out the music."
Irwin Chusid
Ooooo - Irwin liked it!
I'm playing the new Mission Of Burma album RIGHT NOW!! (aifg)
Drats. Both the high-bandwidth servers are full, and our firewall seems to be blocking both the low-bandwidth servers. Oh well.
Irwin Chusid
Who 'dat?
He's a really cool D.J. at WFMU. He also wrote this great book on "outsider music."
WFMU.org is my favorite internet radio station.
He's a really cool D.J. at WFMU.
He's also the founder of the Raymond Scott Orchestrette, whose cover of "Powerhouse," featuring Brian Dewan's rippin' electric zither solo ("The last word in rock: zither!"), is on my Buffista mix. My buddy George, who's the reason Hec has a David Johansen-signed copy Bubblegum Music, and a photo of DJ holding the book that I'll send one of these days -- I really mean it this time... -- is the bassist. My fellow Bloomfield Central grad, from deep in the heart of the Finger Lakes, that beautiful region of upstate New York profiled by the lovely and talented Karen Tyler (when did Diana Scarwid get so good looking?), and musical director for Dame Edna Everage, Wayne Barker, plays piano and writes many of the arrangements. ("His composition, 'A Kiss Without Touching,' for theremin, piano, and toy piano, was premiered in Moscow by world-renowned thereminist Lydia Kavina in 1999...") And speaking of the Finger Lakes, Wonderfalls and Raymond Scott, Andy Partridge is on the advisory board of the Raymond Scott archives.
dizzy.
In short, Irwin's a very well known and well respected writer, DJ and tastemaker among the music collectors of the world. He was also instrumental (so to speak) in bringing Esquivel to the world.
He read the manuscript thoroughly, and (I'm shamed to admit) sent us a list of corrections too (things like song titles being slightly off. Hey! We couldn't fact check all our writers. I was mostly concerned that we got the label and year of release right.).
Kim took me (and JZ) to dinner the other night and we talked about the fact that roughly 70% of the book was stuff we hadn't ever heard. I'd say we knew of maybe 80% of the bands and musicians, but I certainly wasn't so expert on The Miracle Legion to appreciate a side project by some of their members.
Which is all a way to say that even the hardcore music fiends (like Irwin) will get a charge and go running off the used bins after they read this book.
This was definitely the instinctive drive behind the book - just that the number of available recordings since the LP era through to today had gotten so vast that nobody could really grasp the whole. You needed passionate and expert collectors who could shine a light on overlooked gems.
dizzy.
NANCY: The whole world is spinning!
NICK DANGER: That's lucky for us! If it were flat, all the Chinese would
fall off.