Kathleen Loves Music

Silly record but I love it anyway. A totally unpretentious privately pressed local record with 12 tunes about the joys of living in an RV and the benefits of owning a mobile home. Written by Sacramento area RV dealer Ron Schmeck who does a good job pointing out the drawbacks of maintaining a traditional home. Mowing the lawn always was a pain in the ass, and yeah, I DO hate dealing with annoying neighbors — and the co-op board now! I wonder sometimes if I’d be better off with a Good Sam Club membership and an Airstream.

Music is standard late ’70s c&w fare with fiddles and twangy guitar, and vocals that are fairly nondescript, but the lyrics and concept are free of irony and one of a kind. The highlight being the classic “outsider” anthem “I’m Proud to own a Mobile Home”.

–Matthew

I have to say that if come upon this album cover (or any of her others I’ve seen) that would have been it. No chance.

Luckily I’ve got Mike.

Michael’s been my friend since high school, and he’s always been my most reliable musical guide. Our core tastes aren’t really the same, but we overlap in a lot of different areas, including 70s pop/funk. And, unlike me, he’s a careful, thoughtful listener who gives everything a chance, no matter that a picture’s worth a thousand words. He puts together ruminative compilations for all his friends, finding just the right combinations where his taste and yours are in sync. It was on one of those CDs I found Nikka Costa.

Seems like she’s popular in South America (Jerry Lewis is popular is France; wait, that’s unfair), her husband/producer is an Australian rocker. At first I thought was a Sly Stone side from 1971, but [Read more…]

Click here to order this Aimee Mann track from Amazon.

Michael

Probably because of my organ playing white soul days in high school, I find that my post avant-garde jazz listening tends towards the funk. And for some reason “Brother” Jack McDuff is one of my funkiest. (Along with Reuben Wilson and Lonnie Smith.)

I reintroduced myself to McDuff through his latter day, past his prime, Concord recordings. A trifle for sure, but still rockin’.

[Read more…]

When I got into the cartoon business in 1992 one of my first areas of research was cartoon music. After I finished my analysis of why I thought that Hoyt Curtin was the most underestimated composer/arranger in the business I looked around and found that John Kricfalusi had started the re-discovery (probably the discovery actually) of one wacked out dude, Raymond Scott. (In his search for ‘real’ cartoon scoring for Ren & Stimpy, John licensed several original Scott recordings.)

Anyone who has spent anytime watching Looney Tunes has heard so I’ve put an alternative arrangement of that one from 1938.

I’ll let you do your own searching as to the breadth, quality, and craziness of Scott’s output, but from time to time I’ll put up some other tracks of his. Enjoy.

Fred