WOEBOT

They're records sir, but not as we know them.

It's becoming a bit cliched this casual spiel interjected with a few record covers which I do. Oh well! The Sun Ra thing was definitively the last one I was going to attempt, though I've said that before. I'd like to spend a bit more time with some records, really dig deep into them, relish their texture and explore their textuality. On the other hand listening to things too thoroughly always bores the shit out of me. I used to be able to listen to the same thing over and over again, my first experience of this was with The Police's "Zenyatta Mondatta" and a tape my stoned uncle made me with the Theme from Midnight Express and The Beatles "Flying" on it. Actually the uncle gave me The Police record too, he must have thought: "Hmm. This ten year old will want to get with the New Wave thing."

I'm the same in Art Galleries, in and out in 5 minutes. If it's going to hit you, and you're going to get anything out of it, I'm of the school of thought that believes you'll get hit in in the first couple of minutes, or not at all. A close friend plays the exploration game with musty Hip-Hop Long-players, waxes rhapsodic about the new Afu-Ra record, and in the process of repeated listening salvages pleasure from tracks with no pep. He's crazy. Having a baby daughter is a good antidote to this sort of pornographic aural habit, we'll listen to the Jungle Book and Mary Poppins Soundtrack again and again and again. I've told you this before right?

Some records in my collection I've NEVER listened to at all. Not thoroughly anyway.

Like this one I found in San Francisco's Amoeba Records. $2. Irresistable. David Toop did a great thing in The Wire ages ago about the kind of sonic detritus which for a long time washed up on vinyl. The classics of the genre are of course the Folkways Titles: Sounds of A Junkyard, Sounds of the Desert etc. Why here are two which are happen to be on sale on eBay right now!

Not from my collection I might add. I believe Folkways did a few Educational records for Doctors and Dentists too. "Sound of a Filling being Extracted." On my last trip to New York I came across a record of recordings of heartbeats. I was going to buy this (and should have bought it) for my father-in-law, who ran the heart unit in Glasgow for years. He's often held forth about how listening to the sounds a heart makes is the key to diagnosing various conditions. He's even tried to sing the sounds to me on a number of occasions.

Ha! This is just terrible, though there are some handy noises on here which I used to use on mixtapes. The music on this kind of Demonstration record is what you NEED to hear to to grasp how empty and lifeless music can be made to sound. I imagine this came with a record player originally, it's distributed by "Allied Radio Shack- Division of Tandy Corp". What is quite amazing, and which I've only this minute seen, is that the "A&R Direction, Script and Annotation" on this is by none other than Tom Wilson! Producer of Zappa's "Freak Out" and the Velvet Underground innit.

Quite novel, if desperately tedious. Now I'm indulging a little autobiographical bent (OK I'm always indulging it) I can tell you how, aged 17, for the school end-of-year amateur dramatics display, I recorded every sound of my day. On the last day of term I performed this for a throng of gathered parents, teachers and pupils. I played back the tape and acted out various highlights to accompany the crackling sonics: Getting out of bed (Prop: Duvet), Brushing Teeth (Prop: Brush and Paste), Going to class (Prop: Pen). From dawn to dusk in this manner. It took AGES. People shuffled in their seats evincing profound embarassment and boredom. I was so relieved when it was all over. What a cock eh!

Somewhere I've a recording of the Moon landing which is sponsored by a Soap company.

Posted by Woebot at February 3, 2004 10:16 PM