Blog: Music For Maniacs

...but I can't help myself. A twisted Floridian named Cy gh (that's how he spells it) has taken two of today's greatest musical atrocities, David Hasselhoff (the new William Shatner) and rapper 50 Cent (who, let's face it, will never be confused with Chuck D), and created a fun, funny bit of phony Caribbean nonsense. Perfect for your next pool party, barbecue, or drive-by. David Hasselhoff "Do the Limbo Dance" + 50 Cent "Candy Shop " = " Do the Candy" [...]

"Formed in 1995 Sydney band Toydeath use children’s electronic toys to create music you have never heard before! That’s right we only use toys! We have collected an arsenal of toys to make any kindergarten green with envy. You will hear talking Barbie Dolls, Speak and Spells, Rock Guitars, Sax-a-booms, Toy Telephones and lots of other fantastic Toys! Toydeath have also collected toys from their international tours and use Chinese, Dutch, German and Japanese language toys in our set. Each toy has been “Circuit Bent� so it can be amplified and many of the toys have electronic additions [...]

I can see using some instrumental music from contemporary composer Philip Glass in one or two mash-ups with some rap vocals, but a whole album ? Leave it to Boston's mighty mighty DJBC, whose full-length collection of various rappers rhyming over Phil's tunes, " Glassbreaks ," debuts online today for your downloading pleasure. The Beastie Boys, Q-Tip, The Fugees, and Dizzee Rascal are among the MCs who might be shocked to hear themselves accompanied by dignified modern classical music from albums like "Glassworks" and the monumental opera "Einstein On The Beach." But Glass's chugging rhythms are a snug fit [...]

Hey! Are you an employee of IBM, making or selling computers and other business machines, in the 1950s? Well, then, straighten your tie, adjust your horn-rimmed glasses, and sing along: "Ever Onward" Here's the lyrics , to this, and many other fine IBM anthems, like this one, to the tune of "Jingle Bells": [...]

MC Potbelly is, in his words, "...a 42-year-old, white, male insurance agent from Marin County, California," an upper-middle to upper-class enclave about as far from "the 'hood" as you can get. His main influences? "The Sugar Hill Gang, Merle Haggard, and Bob Seger." His music production is as crude as his pimped-out lyrics, which he delivers in a thin, nasal, utterly-white sing-song, following no rhyme scheme known to man. Evidently, there was a full-length (well, 27 minutes) album released, but all that's available now are the two short songs on his Soundclick site : [...]

Music Video For Maniacs: one guy plays guitar/sings Bonnie Tyler's '80s shlock-rock hit "Total Eclipse Of The Heart" while two other people jump around like mental patients, percussively pounding on things like washing machines, for some good, noisy fun. Could be a whole new genre of music: Industrial MOR? EZ-Noise? Kind reader DDay tells us that they're a Norwegian band called Hurra Torpedo : "Total Eclipse Of The Heart" [...]

The most brutally raw music I've heard in ages is exploding from the ghettos of Rio De Janiero. Unlike most cities, where the rich are up in the hills, Rio's well-off are down on Ipanema and Copacabana Beaches, and the slum-dwellers have the great ocean views, and dance to a style so new, it doesn't have a definite name yet. Call it "baile funk," "funk do morro" ("of the hill,") or "carioca funk," it's all Miami-bass style hip-hop, hoarsley shouted (not really rapped) Portuguese, odd samples, and startlingly primitive production - this stuff isn't low-fi as an indie-rock pose, it [...]

To describe veteran street-performer Arthur Nakane simply as a one-man-band hardly does him justice. But it will have to do, until someone can a come up with a better name for a performer who sits behind a wagon constructed of PVC pipes holding keyboards, percussion, amplifier, foot-operated drum machine and bass pedals (also made of PVC pipes), while wearing a harmonica holder around his neck and playing a guitar with sticks bolted and clamped to the guitar's neck. While playing guitar in the conventional style, he jabs at the keyboard with these sticks, playing simple keyboard melodies, and [...]

The name The Nutley Brass conjures up images of a traditional British brass band, uniformed members trotting out all the old songs for the old folks at the park. But in fact, this "band" is the project of busy New York guitarist/soundtrack composer Sam Elwitt. He certainly does capture a '50s/'60s sound, though, even as he remakes decidedly non-old-fashioned punk favorites. "The Ramones Songbook As Played By Nutley Brass" was a brilliant update of the kinds of E-Z-cover albums so popular in days gone by, like "The Liverpool Strings Play Songs Made Popular By Herman's [...]

Yesterday's "Defenders of Marriage" tune reminded me of comedian Eugene Mirman's reverse-prank calls - instead of calling his victims, they call him: "Starting in late December I began to get phone calls from what I thought was a phone company (United American Technologies) trying to get me to switch from my phone company to a Christian one that didn¹t support gay marriage and pornography...It turns out that they are from a non-profit that works with United American Technologies and calls people on their behalf. [...]

Desperate times call for desperate satire. Today's events in London are further proof that the monsters might be winning. But the good guys won't go down without a fight, and singer/songwriters like Roy Zimmerman (not to be confused with that other folk-singing Zimmerman) skewers man's evils with a wit not seen since the heyday of Tom Lehrer. Armed with a guitar, a bag of catchy tunes, and lyrics that are, to quote one of his songs titles, "Pumping Irony," Zimmerman hilariously pledges to [...]

"Wayne Butane is a crazy old bastard who lives in the middle of the desert with Mrs. Butane and five cats" quoth the liner notes to Wayne's new CD-R "Imbalanced," but more importantly (for our purposes), he also lives with the thousands of hours of audio recordings that must have gone into the making of this album. From campy old B-movie trailers, newscasts, and commercials from throughout the decades, to pop songs and TV-show/movie sound bytes, all manner of sounds are assembled into a vast sonic tapestry of surreal juxtapositions and irreverent, often R-rated jokes. [...]

It's cowboy actor/super-patriot John Wayne, here speaking to a stunned crowd of Jay-Cees (Junior Chamber of Commerce) kids during the Vietnam War, completely drunk off his ass. God Bless America! John Wayne drunk. As "The Duke" himself would say, it's re-goddam-diculous.

Ho ho ho! It's that time of year again - time to start listening to...Christmas music! Yes, Santa is bringing you a downloadable out-of-print album of holiday music, courtesy of the good elves at falalalala.com. They've been up at the North Pole for the past six months gathering rare Christmas records that will now be offered on a rotating basis. falalalala.com Hey , I can [...]

Cassetteboy are, in fact, two boys - a couple of sonic hooligans from Brighton, UK who take political speeches, advertisements, and any other sonic detritus they can get their grubby paws on, chop 'em up and rearrange them to profane, hilarious, and subversive effect. Not for the easily offended, and certainly not for the humorless. Their new release is "Mick's Tape ." "This Woman Stinks!" - an introduction to the Boys "A Good Walk [...]

Stephanie Miller featured this Michael Jackson speech cut-up on her syndicated radio show. It's recorded off the radio, so you can hear the hosts of the show snickering in the background, but it's still an amusing last-word on the whole MJ business that is hopefully now behind us. (So to speak). "Michael Jackson cut-up"

" EYEBALL SKELETON is the name of our band. It started when I was in Kindergarten and Charlie was in the 1st grade. We thought of the name cause Charlie thought of the name eyeball & I thought of skeleton." As regular WFMU listeners know, Eyeball Skeleton, the world's greatest pre-teen punk band, recently released their debut album, #1 . Consisting of a seven-year-old boy on guitar, his nine-year-old brother on bass, and their father on drums, these pint-sized Cramps mostly write songs about monsters [...]

Combining two recent trends here at "m4m" - country/hip-hop fusion, and weird covers, may I now present Boss Hoss , a German (!) country band that covers rap & pop hits. Their album "Internashville Urban Hymns," debuted at No. 11 on the German charts, so it's not all Hasselhoff over there. It's not such a stretch when they render The White Stripes, Hendrix, or Elvis hits into country corn, but, improbably, Outkast's "Hey Ya," eminem's "Without Me,' The Beasties Boys' "Sabatoge," even Beck's "Loser" get the twangy gee-tars/foot-tappin' treatment. Now here's where it gets scary: [...]

First day of summer! Mashup/remixers RIAA (Really Interesting Audio Adventures) got some surf/drag, reggae, and exotica mixed with everything from Guns'n'Roses to tv kid's show themes: "Sounds For The Sun-Set (2005 Edition)"

You've seen harmonica players. You've seen hip-hop human-beatbox guys. This unidentified fellow, however, blows a mean blues harp while simultaneously huffin 'n' puffin some ill beatz. He should collaborate with Cowboy Troy, the black country-western rapper we covered here recently. Watch the video: Unknown Hip-Harmonica Guy