Your Dead Pet Sings To You

Oh, so horrible, so hilarious...how can this be real?! I just discovered this on craigslist whilst looking for something else entirely. From reading the below description, you know this is all kinds of wrong, but the reality is even worse than you can imagine. 

A touching memory from your beloved little friend you miss can always be as close to you as your computer.
In our Pet Memorial Photovids,,,the pet photo that you send us will be animated to sing our original song,,,"When You Think Of Me,,,Smile !". Yes,,,your own pet will sing to you.

You may order a song-only version,,,or you can choose to order a Customized Memorial photovid for which I invite you to compose a brief script of dialogue that you want your beloved little friend to say in their video.
I will help you with the script as much as you want me to.

IN this example for you,,,,this video is a customized Memorial with added dialogue that I produced for a client. A customized version like this featuring your own script thast your pet would perform is $60.00. A song-only version with the pet just singing the song is $30.00.
This is the song your pet would sing,,,and your Memorial Photovid would be similar to this video: 



The song is acapella - let the mashups begin!

Barnyard Beat: Livestock Rock And Jungle Jams

Musique concrete for pre-schoolers: this 1995 release on the Kid Rhino label takes played-out wedding-dj oldies, and thru the Space-Age miracle of sampling, replaces the lead vocals with animal sounds. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is what is meant by "avant-'tard." Despite using the same techniques as the likes of Pierre Henry and John Cage, it will never be listed in the history books along with them, no matter how well it's done. File under "Childrens/novelty" and dump in the bargain bin (where I picked it up for a couple bucks). Ah, but we know the score, don't we, dear maniacs?

It's all more clever than it needs to be. Sonic puns abound, as when owls sing The Who's "We're Not Gonna Take It" - get it: The Whoooo?; and sheep "sing" the Beach Boy's "Barbara Ann" as "Baaahrbara Ann." The sampled birds (not lions) on the version of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" is a really impressive work of cut-n-paste. Great job, guys - both me and my 4-year-old appreciate it.

Barnyard Beat: Livestock Rock And Jungle Jams

1. Born To Be Wild - Chicken Wolf

2. Beat It - Mew Kids On The Block

3. Honky Tonk Women - The Old Geesers

4. The Lion Sleeps Tonight - Lion L. Richie

5. Barbara Ann - Ewe 2

6. I Got You (I Feel Good) - Sealy Dan

7. Conga - Simian Sound Machine

8. Wipe Out - Duck Dale And The Pig Tunes

9. Wild Thing - The Red Hot Chili Dogs

10. We're Not Gonna Take It - The Hoooes

11. The Lonely Bull - Cuds N Roses

12. Barnyard Medley - The Animals

"...the first hip-hop album of all time to be comprised of only animal noises"

"Hello, my name is TD Cruze and I am a 20 year old hip-hop producer from Valdosta, Georgia.

I thought you'd like to know that I just released the first ever instrumental hip-hop album that contains no instruments - just animal noises."

 

Now THAT'S the kind of email I like to get. Hot damn!  What a concept. And what an execution, too - only 6 songs, but a more utterly mental release you have not heard all year. You could even dance to it, although the idea of a club full of kids dancing to sampled animal sounds is too surreal to contemplate.

 

If you couldn't handle my last post of animals "singing" christmas songs, maybe these critters will float your boat (or ark, as the case may be). Listen/buy here:

 

TD Cruze: "The Savage Beast"

 

Hey, ya cheap bastards, you say you don't wanna pay to download the whole album? Mr. Cruze is allowing me to post one free song for y'alls, the hyena-voiced "Laughing Matter," available HERE.

 

 

WE WISH YOU AN ANNOYING ANIMAL-SOUNDS NOVELTY MUSIC CHRISTMAS

My attempt to post an album a day has failed miserably after only 10 days. I blame society. No matter, for look at the goodies laid out under our tree by St Nick's filthy ne'er-do-well cousin, St. Dick. And according to St. Dick, nothing says holiday cheer better than the flatulent sounds of sampled pig snorts and grunts. One of my all-time xmas atrocities, re-upped just for you: 

The Jingle Bellies Christmas Album: POT-BELLIED PIGS SING HOLIDAY FAVORITES

We must have been awfully naughty this year, cuz Jolly Old St Dick just excreted this into our stocking:

Top Dog: Howliday Favorites In Dog (1994)

You remember Don Carlos' Singing Dogs, and their classic version of "Jingle Bells"?  Can you take a whole album of such schtick? Of course, I can - I live for this stuff, y'know.  And my daughter handed me this CD yesterday with the instruction: "I wanna doggie song." Didn't seem to bother her at all. There are some nice arrangements on here, like the swingin' jazz of the opener "Santa Claws."  The (non-christmas) gospel song "Oh Happy Day" gets new lyrics sung by a cute kid as "Oh Happy Dog." The standards are all here, from "Angels We Have Herd" right up thru "Old Fang's Whine." There's even the now-obligatory Hanukkah medley, featuring "Howlin' Nagila."

This album is the work of Craig Huxley, who started off in show-biz as a child actor, appearing in some original "Star Trek" episodes, and has been associated with "Trek" ever since, even - yes! - becoming 'the music director for William Shatner...helping to create arrangements of songs such as "Rocket Man", and "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", according to wiki.  I now worship this guy. It gets even better: "To date, he has recorded three albums, Howliday Favorites in Dog, Slam Dunk'n Hoes and Howlin' Classics - from Bark to Beethoven. As of 2012, he is working on his fourth album, Patriotic Pooches, to be released during the 2012 election." Good to know that there's more of this stuff out there. (Although I'm pretty sure it's a different Top Dog who made Slam Dunk'n Hoes.)

HAPPY NEW WEIRD

Oh, my overflowing in-box! Now that I'm back from vacation, I simply MUST tell you about:

- Yrs truly, Mr Fab, will once again be spinning all the platters that matter for that internet host with the most, Spacebrother Greg, on his Radio Misterioso program this Sun. Jan 8th, 8:00 PST on killradio.org: two solid hours of as many strange sounds as we can cram in, including lotsa stuff I haven't posted here.

- RIAA's last (?) ever album "The Wonderful World of Sound" is now available for free download. 21 big hunks of mashup/sound collage goodness.

- The Amazing Australian Sound-Effects Bird can do more then say "Polly Wanna Cracker" - he can imitate stuff like power tools, water dripping, and a truck backing up. Made me laff!

- Bastiaan Maris' Large Hot Pipe Organ plays music by shooting fire thru tubes of different lengths; a 2 track ep is available that I'll have to track down, but 'til then, here's the monster at work:



- "Sin-atra" is a heavy-metal tribute to Frank Sinatra. Uh-huh. And it works about as well as you would expect, with results ranging from "actually, this is kinda cool" (Dee Snider's "Kashmir"-inspired version of "It Was A Very Good Year") to "train-wreck" and/or "hilarious" (pretty much the rest of the album). Members of Anthrax and Cheap Trick, among other metal stars, appear. Listen HERE for, if no other reason, proof that the world may have lost it's collective mind.


Thanks to windy & Whizzdumb (sounds like some old show-biz team!) for the tips.

K9 FUSION

A few years ago, I was picking up one of our dogs from the groomers, and spied a display of CDs credited to K9 Fusion. The back cover said, "10 1/2 year old mixbreed, Sven the Love Dog, plays each and every instrument on his debut album. The only exception is the drums, which are played by Sven's owner Steve Brooks. Every intense vocalization is produced by Sven, or one of his canine friends...face it, this Dog's the SHIH TZU! Enhanced CD contains a video of the making of K9 Fusion. See for yourself as Sven pounds the piano, claw-picks his guitar, and gnashes his teeth on bass strings with the ferocity of Hendrix himself." Of COURSE I bought one.

The "album" is actually only 13 minutes. The drums basically hold it down, with random plunking, plucking, and growling on top, giving it a canine free-jazz feel. Some sounds have obviously been sampled and looped to make it more "musical." My fave track "Dirty Dog Love" sports a sweet funky bass groove. Obviously it's been looped, but I find it hard to believe that a dog could come up with something like this even once. Hmmm...

Song titles include: "Sing Along With Bitch," "Snot: An Interlude," and "Star Spaniel Banner." I don't think the track "Pants" has anything to do with trousers - it's 7 seconds of a dog panting.

K9 Fusion - "Who Really Loves You"

MusicForManiacs Guest DJs On "Stray Pop"

Stella has been hosting the show "Stray Pop" on Los Angeles' KXLU for over 30 years, and has interviewed a who's-who of punk/alt rock royalty. So for my appearance last year, I brought up a passel of punk-related weirdness, e.g. lounge-y, and foreign/ethnic covers of punk classics, punk songs performed by children, animals "singing" death metal, and, yes, a song from "Pink Panther Punk" (an album I got from Way Out Junk). 75 minutes of such nonsense!

I had written out the whole playlist, with links, but Blogger "experienced technical difficulties" and I lost the whole damn post. I just can't write it all over again, I really can't. *sob* If, whilst listening, you don't quite catch my back-announcing and want more info on something I played, feel free to leave a comment (*shakes fist at sky*)

Mr Fab on Stray Pop

This happened back in August of last year, but took so long for me to post here cuz I had to wait to get a tape of the show from Stella and edit it 'n' stuff. Yes, a tape. Expect hiss and all that good stuff.

VINYL-PALOOZA #3: The Complete Cockatiel Training Album

As we continue our all-month thrift-store record binge......Today's album was supposed to be played for your pet bird. It would listen to the repetitious tracks and start to imitate them, whistling and talking just like the record. Side one is nothing but unaccompanied whistling of short song fragments, repeated for three minutes apiece. Side two is great if you want your bird to talk like a bored, unimaginative phone-sex operator. The most annoying album ever made??!?!?!?

Actually, the whistling is well done - it is, after all, by Muzzy Marcellino, one of the biggest whistling stars of his day, back when there was such a thing as a "whistling star." The guy even did the bird calls at Disneyland's "Enchanted Tiki Room."

Did anyone ever buy one of these records for the purpose for which it was created, and not just as a source of goofy samples? Do they actually work?

The Complete Cockatiel Training Album

Whistled Tunes
• Pop Goes the Weasel
  
• Charge - Wolf Whistle
• Dixie
• Star Spangled Banner
• Oh Susanna
• Race Track Call
• Beautiful Dreamer

Spoken Word
• Hello Baby
• I Love You
• Hello Baby, I Love You
• Hey, Good Lookin’
• Want to Play With Me?
  
• Hey, Good Lookin’, Want to Play With Me?
• Hey, Good Lookin’, I Love You, Want to Play With Me?

Thanks to windbag!

FORBIDDEN 45s!! (windbag edition)

Last year, Otis Fodder asked me to put together a guest-dj mix for his late, lamented radio show Friendly Persuasion. I decided to go thru my boxes of (mostly) old 7 inch records and put together a thing called FORBIDDEN 45s!! And since Our Man in Salt Lake City, windbag (who has shared so much awesomeness with us before) sent us a mind-boggling assortment of 7" platters, I'm calling this:

FORBIDDEN 45s!! (windbag edition)

So much here to warm the heart of any Maniac: song-poems, disco atrocities, singing children, singing animals, exercise records, rap novelties, hillbillies, more song poems, angry Chipmunks, Jane Fonda talking dirty, and an enchanted one-man polka puppet-show orchestra.
1. Bobbi Blake - Rock Rock Beat (Ms. Blake was one of the most-recorded singers of the MSR song-poem factory; this "rocker" boasts such money-well-spent lines as "you're nobody's patsy/so hop in a taxi")
2. Luigi's World's Largest One Man Band - Anaconda Polka (major, major discovery here, folks - the only thing I can find about this guy is from this book about the bars of Montana; read that link and be amazed; anyone else got anything on this guy?)
3. Susan Carroll Presents - Waistline and Tummy Exercises (from an ep called "Milady, Your Figure!")
4. Dick Kent - Smiling Farmer-The President (this bewildering ode to Jimmy Carter is one of the best song-poems EVER; to quote Rudy Ray Moore, "I ain't lyin'!")
5. The Hartz Mountain Master Radio Canaries - Pizzicato Polka (real live birdies tweating along with peppy organ and xylophone)
6. Major Bill Smith with Zane and Hogan - Freddy The Disco Frog (minimal-synth disco novelty: Suicide meets Rick Dees?! Oh, and Major Bill Smith was a successful record producer in the early '60s who later claimed that Elvis was alive and he had a recent taped conversation to prove it)
7. Ira Cook - What Is A Girl? (this 1958 side spends more time complaining about little girls than speaking their praises)
8. Klute - Special Exploitation Lobby Record featuring Jane Fonda Dialogue
9. The Hartz Mountain Master Radio Canaries - Humoresque
10. Bill Nettles and His Dixie Blue Boys - God Bless My Darling He's Somewhere (In Viet Nam) (I'm assuming that this craggy-voiced country singer is calling his SON "darling"...uh, right?)
11. Susan Carroll Presents - Thigh and Can-Can Exercise
12. Dick Kent - Cozy Doe (another most-unrockin' rock-n-roll song-poem: "Come on jive, get alive/'cause the clock is at five")
13. Luigi's World's Largest One Man Band - Billings Polka
14. Fred Carson - This Is Not The Time To Cry (This song-poem's author worries about crime, and wants guys to act like real men. Or something like that.)
15. The Hartz Mountain Master Radio Canaries - Mexican Dance
16. The Curbstones - Scrumpdillyishus Land
17. Dick Kent - She Thumbed A Ride
18. The Chipmunks - I Ain't No Dang Cartoon (the b-side to their version of "Achy-Breaky Heart" that was the hidden "bonus" track on a previous windbag comp "Songs of the Sewer;" Alvin sounds rather cranky and defensive here)
19. Ira Cook - What Is A Boy
20. The Hartz Mountain Master Radio Canaries - Beautiful Blue Danube
21. Gene Marshall - Not Owned (Hey, it's Gene Marshall! The guys who sang all those Richard Nixon song-poems! This isn't one of 'em.)
22. Susan Carroll Presents - Duck Walk and Leg Exercise
23. Fat Boys w/Chubby Checker - The Twist (Yo Twist) (This hip-hop novelty actually made it to #16 on the US charts)
24. Zane and Hogan - Studio 54 (This disco instrumental, the b-side to "Freddy The Disco Frog," is a complete spazz-attack.)
25. Bobbi Blake - Who Played House With You? (weird sci-fi keyboard sounds on this song-poem)
26. Bill Nettles and His Dixie Blue Boys - Got A Lot Of Lovin' To Do (this almost-rockbilly toe-tappin' flip of "God Bless My Darling" is impressively energetic considering that he died shortly after recording it.)
27. The Hartz Mountain Master Radio Canaries - An Artists Life
28. Harry Brooks - False Words and False Kisses (another song-poem)

Needless to say, another great big thankyoooo to windy.

WOLF VS. WHALE! SPOCK VS. THE SUNDANCE KID!

Yes, it's a steel- cage death match between two celebrity-narrated "singing" animal eco-kitsch albums. In this corner:

From 1984, inspired by a "Star Trek" film, Leonard Nimoy on ponderous narration, humpback whales on vocals, Paul Winter and Roger Payne on jazz/orchestral music:

"Whales Alive" - rather nice and soothing undersea sounds for these dog days of summer

And in this corner...

From 1971, Robert Redford on indifferent, occasionally incorrect narration (wolves have never killed man?), wolves on vocals. Halloween spooky.

The Language and Music of the Wolves

Who will win? Why, you the listener, of course!

Both of these fine selections are courtesy of one of this blogs best-est pals, windbag. Thanks, dood, live long & prosper and whatnot.

THROW YOUR PAWS UP

Bucktown Tiger is a seemingly average guy who, for unfathomable psychological reasons, likes to dress up as a tiger, and then perform rap songs about dressing in animal costumes at "furry" conventions for other people who like to pretend to be animals. He has several albums available of hip-hop tunes detailing furry life, with song titles like "Get Fursuited Up," and "Get Your Yiff On," "yiff" meaning furry sex. Two people who resemble, say, a Disneyland employee dressed like Mickey Mouse and the San Diego Chicken having sex is, to me, fairly incomprehensible. But, apparently, it happens. The varieties of human experiences!

Tiger plays keyboards and raps simultaneously when performing live. This song is taken from "Orange + Black: The Furst Album."

Bucktown Tiger: "Throw Your Paws Up"

Hey, I'm not here to judge. They're not hurting anyone, right? Go get 'em, Tiger.