Roy 'Chicky' Arad

Roy "Chicky" Arad fans are doubly blessed today. His Sputnik in Love album is released on WM Recordings. Meanwhile, halfway around the world, his Monster album with Chenard Walcker is released on Comfort Stand Records. For more of his music, check out Chicky's website.

Site Update

Happy New Year! There is a new selection of cool sites up at Oddio Overplay. Also newly posted is a Tribute Gallery for Mark Harp. Are you keeping up with all the folks sharing old vinyl? You will probably want to bookmark Living Rooms and check back regularly.

Here's hoping 2005 is treating you well so far. Got a new Tunes in Overplay playlist for January coming together for you. Best of luck in keeping your resolutions!

Yours, Katya

A Message from Shirley and Spinoza

We Interrupt This Broadcast...
In reverence for the devastation caused by the tsunami on the 26th of December, we'll be suspending the usual nonsense you usually hear on Shirley & Spinoza radio this week. Instead, tune in to a concentrated playlist of traditional music and field recordings from the affected regions. Let's honor the incredible musical traditions of these areas, yes... but most importantly, we want to urge you to donate what you can to one or more of the following aid organizations to help with this massive relief effort.

thanks.

s&S

AmeriCares
Action Against Hunger
ADRA International
American Red Cross
Association For India's Development
Direct Relief International
Doctors Without Borders
International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
International Medical Corps
UNICEF
U.N. World Food Programme

Mark Harp [1957-2004]

With profound sadness for the sudden loss of Mark Harp, the following entry from the archives is presented once more. Please enjoy Mark's musical legacy.

On page one of his site, you learn that Mark Harp is "a Baltimore, Maryland, USA, Earth based musician, guitarist, web geek, theater sound designer, sampler musician, songwriter and composer, nutbar, website and graphic designer, bass guitarist, producer, director, arranger, bon vivant, unemployable dirt eater, Clark Bar enthusiast, ex-IMAX projectionist, actor, retired paperboy, SubGenius Pope, AND The King Of Peru."

Know what? It is all true! Well, the King of Peru bit is sketchy, but he certainly is one super duper cool musician. Mark is so cool, in fact, that he is currently offering you, yes you, 24 hours of his music for free. Goodness gracious! No fooling!

In addition, Mark has work available online with his current bands. Those include the Motor Morons, a long-time Baltimore standard you have to see to believe, the experimental band Kunigunda, and ....

WCVT was once my lifeline, so 6PM is one of my favorite hours of recordings, so is 12AM, the Cabal EP. Sinking teeth into all his more experimental material these days.

Oddiophiles will love love love this man. Thank you and hats off to Mark Harp. Baltimore sure is lucky to have him and so are we!

Mark Harp created two pieces for the Oddio Overplay site - John Leslie and Oddio Overplay Theme. Enjoy 24 hours of his music through his site, plus other offerings on his bands' sites. Mark leaves the world music.

From bandmate Dave Z:

We are musicians. We have lost one of our own. The pain of that loss will never leave us. We play music because we love to play. If Mark could have jumped out of that hospital bed to do a guitar solo he would have done it. Well we are playing Tuesday night 12/28 with some great bands. The Fishnet Stalkers and The Static and possibly others. Come pay your respects and have a beer or two. Celebrate life. Show starts between 9 and 10 pm so come early and stay late!

THE BAND PLAYS ON. Come out and prove there is life after death. See Chelsea Graveyard perform at The Talking Head [Baltimore, Maryland, USA] Tuesday Night 12/28. All proceeds will go to Mark's funeral expenses so please stop by.

From Patricia Mitchell, organizer of the Mark Harp Memorial Fund:

The Mark Harp Memorial Fund is now ready to accept donations. In lieu of flowers, please encourage folks to make a donation as follows:

(1) People may mail checks made payable to Mark Harp Memorial Fund to: Mark Harp Memorial Fund, c/o Patricia Mitchell, PO Box 50206, Baltimore, MD 21211;

(2) People may mail checks made payable to Mark Harp Memorial Fund to: Mark Harp Memorial Fund, c/o Provident Bank, 4806 Roland Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21210. **If donations are sent this way, they MUST be accompanied by a note that references account # 5830249**; or

(3) People may make a donation in person at any Provident Bank by making a deposit to account # 5830249.

The account at Provident charges no fees, so 100% of the donations will go to defray the costs of the cremation and the wake and to help Kim and Mark's family through this time.

Best,
Patricia

News 12.29.04:

Baltimore Sun Obituary and Guestbook

New Recordings

New Recordings are posted at Oddio Overplay just in time to ring in the new year!

Treasures from the Record Box. A random collection of unusual recordings from predominantly flexi, 7" and 10" records

Band Concert - April 22, 1961. Recording of performance by two New York state public school bands, The Chatham Central School Band and The Middletown High School Band

PLUS!! An audio holiday card to all friends of the Oddio Overplay site

December Brings Winter Music v3

continuing from earlier posts - first post, second post

:: annual holiday recordings by the Beatles for their fan club 1963-1969
brought to you by Sci-Fi Hi-Fi who state, "They’re utterly irreverent and absolutely hilarious - a perfect antidote to Christmas music burnout."

:: Señor Tonto's "Hooray For Santy Claus!"

:: Woos Christmas
selection of xmas songs including White Christmas live by Charlie Parker

:: Tidings of Comfort
song from staff at Comfort Stand Recordings, your favorite free netlabel

:: The MadSpaniard presents Spanish Xmas Carols

:: Bow High School Winter Holiday Concert

:: Chief Maquinna Elementary School, Vancouver BC Canada
awesome, awesome, awesome Christmas Concerts

:: Children's Psychiatric Hospital Christmas Concert at Vinyl Orphanage

:: the playlist of winter songs still grows

:: Remember to check these sites for rotating treasures

:: Almost Forgot! V/Vm Christmas classics from De Strangers, Arthur Daley / Terry McCann and Rocco Granata

52 Weeks Epilogue

52 Weeks is coming to an end. What a magical part of 2004 this project was. Many thanks to Jan and the curators.

Be sure to get on over there, and be a part of the wrap up celebration! Your host Jan invites you to be part of the epilogue party.

from 52 Weeks:

Surprise surprise! This extra episode of 52 weeks will be full of surprises. Even I don't know how it's going to end up. You see, that depends on several things.

First of all, I hereby offer an opportunity to all guest curators who collapsed under time-pressure lately: send in your mp3s anyway and I'll post them on this page. I'll update each day for seven days. Also additional tracks from the other curators are welcome. Please submit your updates, next week on Christmas-eve it will be too late.

Secondly: I want to know what your favourite 52 weeks track is! Let me know and I'll post the file anew here.

Thirdly: We'll start this last page with a tremendous album by Chenard Walcker who used samples from all 52 weeks and from other strictly Dutch music. Anyone who wants to add there own remix or 52 weeks related work to this page: you've got only one week left!

Fourthly: splogman's surprise

Eddiemuerte

Eddiemuerte now has an entire CD of his material available for your listening glee! You probably know Eddie from his animation work with pertner Lili. Together they are FWAK! Animation. Perhaps you have seen their Mucha Lucha cartoon on Saturday mornings?

Also, new content at Oddio Overplay!

Spoken Word

Spoken Word CDs are a nice break on long road trips. It gives folks something to think about and discuss as those miles roll past. If you are heading out for the holidays, you might enjoy stories from these archives.



:: Radio Diaries
mission: to find extraordinary stories in ordinary places, plus a how-to manual to make your own; recommend: Audio Portraits of a Vanishing City, The WASPs: Women Pilots of WWII, The Last Place: Diary of a Retirement Home, Gibtown, and the fabulous Conrad's Garage

:: Old Time Radio
large collection of classic American radio shows

:: Democracy Now
daily American radio show of independent and unembedded news reporting with many special reports, check their Archive.org collection

:: Archive.org
numerous spoken archives, including Presidential Recordings, Other Minds Archive, Conference Proceedings, Naropa Audio Archives, GenderTalk, and Berkeley Groks Science Radio

:: Talking History
30-minute weekly radio program produced by the Org of Amer Historians [lower bitrate], recommend: Lenny Bruce

:: Jean Shepherd
legendary beatnik poet and satirist, only new site requires registration

:: Gerry Mulligan
hear the oral autobiography of this brilliant jazz mastermind at the American Library of Congress

:: James Patrick Kelly
fiction writer reads his works

:: Robert Munsch
famous, prolific author of children's books reads his books for kids of all ages [thanks to Zero Transmission for this link!]

What are some others you can recommend for the next road trip?

WFMU's On The Download

WFMU's On The Download collects MP3s from the fringes once a month: new sounds, obscure audio, found sound, and other sonic stimulants unique to WFMU.
- from perhaps the best station ever ever ever

Tape Findings

Sweet Thunder brings you a collective of artists, musicians, filmmakers, and crafty folks from Chicago. You oddio nuts will want to check out the Tape Findings section operated by RJ. He wrote, "I live across the street from a thrift store and have been discovering tons of amazing tapes there. I hope to keep updating [Tape Findings] until I run out of stuff."

Also, Weirdomusic tells of Melofanas an Italian music site with an image gallery of all those tapes from your youth. Oh the memories of your mixtape days!

Stealing Orchestra

Stealing Orchestra has released a new EP on their free You Are Not Stealing Records netlabel. The first two were so much fun! EP number 3 is titled The Haunted and Almost Lost Songs 97-98. All are housed at Archive.org.

December Brings Winter Music v2

This list continues from first post on December 1st about winter music online.

:: Sin City Sounds still shares the Musical Advent Calendar 2002

:: Land of 999 Dances shares rare Special Features

:: Basic Hip Digital Oddio has releases in rapid succession. Here is the schedule.

:: Pastor McPurvis of the Vinyl Orphanage gathers round the decorated tree with these orphans [repaired link!]

:: Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol from Your Pal Doug

:: Border Brass - Tijuana Christmas from Mr. Morris, who was also a very cool kid

:: Free and Legal Winter Selections

:: April Winchell's Seasonal Favorites [located mid-page]
"Enjoy them now, because they're going to get real old, real fast."

:: xmas mixes from b00mb0x [check comments for playlists], including one of DJ Riko's Merry Mixmas mixes. His are available on his own site, too.

:: Sound Opinions used to host Andy Cirzan's amazing xmas CDs. Not sure if they are archived there anymore, but they do have his Christmas Spectacular. Dec. 21 - The weirdest Christmas songs ever made, Sound Opinion's very own Kris Kringle, returns to Sound Opinions radio to play his latest discoveries

:: 'Tis the Season record gallery with sound snippets at Raymondo's Dance-O-Rama

:: Just for fun:
- Making Fiends, the Christmas Bonus is back
- The 30-Second Bunnies Theatre Troupe, It's a Wonderful Life
- Christmas Trunk from Flip Flop Flyin
- Elf Bowling - Bocce Style, the latest in NStorm's Elf Bowling series.

It's Fan-Dabi-Dozi!

It took one year to compile and features 46 tracks spread over two CDs and is fronted by The Krankies. It's Fan-dabi-dozi! is the definitive V/Vm Test collection and a snapshot of time and music gone badly wrong.

Splogman's Sixth Sense EP

New release available now from WM Recordings:

Splogman's Sixth Sense, an EP by Jan "Splogman" Turkenburg who brought you 52 Weeks all year. The pieces on 'Splogman's Sixth Sense' are a combination of cut and pasted samples and live instruments, just like on its predecessor 'A Fifth of Splogman' which was released on ComfortStand.com.

Bhadrakali Recordings

Bhadrakali Recordings is an "mp3 label of music and sounds dedicated to the Goddess Kali. Now a subdivision of DFP." Enjoy a catalog of recordings including releases from host EC Brown, visual artist, musician and creator of the EC Brown MP3 Links Archive, as well as from Chenard Walcker.

Classic Kiddie Records!

Exciting news! In 2005, Basic Hip Digital Oddio will feature an entire year of albums from the golden age of kiddie records, transferred from the original 78s and encoded to 192kbps MP3 format. One a week for 52 weeks!

We believe people from around the world and of all ages would be interested in hearing these records. Not many folks these days play 78s or share this type of recording online. Chances are you've never heard them and if you have, it's been a long, long time. They are nostalgic, entertaining and just plain fun. The colorful covers are beautiful works of art.

Someday soon these records will be altogether forgotten and we think that's a shame. Our mission is to give these wonderful old recordings a new lease on life.

The fun begins January 3, 2005!

December Brings Winter Music

Enjoy the season, whether you celebrate holidays or not! Nearly all of the seasonal traditions for this time of year are based on earlier cultures, such as Roman [Saturnalia] and Pagan [Yule Tide]. No kidding - decorated trees, wreaths, mulled wine, the works. So, everybody have fun and celebrate your season your way! [You lucky friends in the Southern Hemisphere, enjoy that summer, too!]

This month, the Oddio Overplay site features seasonal releases that are available for your review online. Additionally, more are slated to be posted here.

Let's get that ball rolling. Shall we?

ONLINE SOUNDS

:: Snaildartha - Jerry the Christmas Snail
a beatnik soul-jazz extravaganza

:: DJ Riko - my favorite mixes
Merry Mixmas 2003 + Merry Mixmas 2002

:: Bell Sisters with Spike Jones
the sisters perform "Socko The Smallest Snowball" and "Barnyard Christmas" in 1952

:: Bacanal Intruder - Shake the Christmas Tree EP
excellent EP of electronica

:: Charity EP from Park Studios
a winter holiday and friendship project

:: Randy's Rodeo
xmas treats galore

:: Christmas at Disneyland
sounds from the park

:: Christmas Folks Songs
Christmas music sung in a variety of languages. Search on Christmas in California Gold: Folk Music from the Thirties, 1938-1940.

:: Georgia & August Greenberg - Sing Songs for You and Me!
has Georgia singing "Snow Is Falling" and August singing "Jingle Bells"


SNOWFLAKES

:: ** ZEFRANK's kaleidoscopes 2D and 3D snowflake generator

:: Raman Pfaff's original snowflake designer

:: Pointers for paper snowflakes

:: Pointers for paper stars

:: Make-a-Flake
[mine is 5119719 in the gallery]

:: Free Snowflake Fonts
from Chank - Spunkflakes
from P22 - P22 Snowflakes

New release on WM Recordings

WM004: Various Artists - Extremely mild and pleasant tasting
The best of Bob Chaos Recordings 1984-1986

news from Weirdomusic:

Bob Chaos was a noisy/what-was-called-industrial-at-the-time label out of Muncie, Indiana, USA that existed from 1984 to 1988. It was cassette only and its releases are WAY out of print.

This comp brings you a tiny piece of obscure American music history. Enjoy!

More info and releases at www.bobchaos.com

Wakka Chikka

Various Artists - Wakka Chikka Wakka Chikka
Porn Music For The Masses Volume 1
Comfort Stand Recordings, csr049

Long anticipated, released today:

"Even if you have never seen a porn movie in your lifetime, almost everyone in the world knows what the 'Wakka Chikka Wakka Chikka' represents... Each person, upon hearing it, mentally interprets the 'Wakka Chikka Wakka Chikka' in their own way, fueling a range of emotions from lust to disgust. This CD represents 17 individual artists' interpretations of the 'Wakka Chikka Wakka Chikka'; each providing their own unique cultural and geographic spin on the vibe that is 'Wakka Chikka Wakka Chikka'. From celebrations of the beauty of intimacy to a cautionary tale of excess, this collection of sound sculptures of the 'Wakka Chikka Wakka Chikka' mystique from around the world will guide you into the heart of all that is 'Wakka Chikka Wakka Chikka'.

"So turn the lights down low, light a few candles, put this CD on the stereo and let the magic of the 'Wakka Chikka Wakka Chikka' take you wherever you want to go."

Loving it, loving it, loving this little darling....