If you’ve never heard of this guy, run out and buy his music. This album came out in 1969 and I bought it around 1973. I won’t go into Moondog’s bizarre history (check Wikipedia for that). I’m much more interested in him as a composer and musician. The guy brought something intensely unique to the late 20th music scene.

You could characterize it as psychedelic orchestral folk. I prefer to think of it as Viking campfire music meets Charlie Parker meets Carl Orff. The overarching tone of every Moondog piece is a sense of whimsy. In particular, rhythmic whimsy. Quote, "I’m not gonna die in 4/4 time." He even had a name for it. He called it "snake time". It as the sound of the subway, of traffic, of erratic bird chirps. If he was a scientist he would have called it fractal time, and if he was Miles Davis, who knows what he would have called it.

Considering he was a blind street musician, I’ve always found his whimsy incredibly inspiring. I’ve always loved complex music. And fearless music, where the barriers between genres are ignored. Moondog epitomizes both for me. Unlike most artists who love a continuous, complex percussion beat, he knows how to rock an orchestra. At the same time, he is not afraid of simplicity – even to the point of naivete – which, I’m sure, hurt his credibility as a serious artist.

Personally, I couldn’t give a shit. I’ve had as much pleasure from listening to Moondog as from any half dozen Baroque pieces and certainly more than any David Munrow Gothic boxed set (which I’ve played to death).

The second album I bought by Moondog was his rounds, recorded with, I believe, his wife and daughters singing. There’s like, twenty-odd one and two minute tracks on this thing, and though it gets a bit much after number 15, there’s a lot to love there. Joyful? My god… it doesn’t get any more joyful than this.

Anyway, when I grow up, I want to be Moondog. White beard, Viking helmet, non-4/4 percussion and all.

Slideshow vid with music

Static vid with music

p.s. These two bits of music are barely indicative of Moondog’s range. Just go buy the music, you’ll thank me later.

Took me a while to compile this little list today. It’s the stuff I listened to between the ages of 14 and 18. Under the heading "Major" is listed albums I couldn’t have lived without and that today, for the most part, have stood the test of time. This is the soundtrack of my teen years.

Major

Peter Hammill – The Silent Corner and the Empty Stage
Aphrodite’s Child – 666
Genesis – Selling England by the Pound
King Crimson – Lizard
Vangelis – Earth
Syrinx – Long Lost Relatives
Perth County Conspiracy – Does Not Exist

Minor

Gentle Giant – Acquiring the Taste
Genesis – Foxtrot, Nursery Cryme
Audience – House on a Hill, Lunch
Roy Harper – Lifemask
Van Der Graaf Generator – H to He (Who Am the Only One), Pawn Hearts

What I thought of as great mainstream music

Led Zeppelin – I-IV
Pink Floyd – Atom Heart Mother, Meddle, More, Ummagumma
Jethro Tull – Thick as a Brick, Aqualung
Emerson, Lake & Palmer – self-titled, Tarkus

 

Ok, I’m on a retro kick today. So shoot me.

Around 1972, a friend came back from a holiday in Italy with tales of the popularity of this singer, Demis Roussos, who apparently had black hair down to his ass and performed in a floor length black cloak. Sounded cool, so next time I was at Opus 69 (the only record store in E-town that sold imports), I asked about it. The guy had a demo copy of a double album behind the counter with this singer on it. "Aphrodite’s Child – 666". I gave a few tracks a listen and couldn’t believe my ears. I pleaded and begged and though he wanted it for the store, he let me buy it. Holy shit… it changed my idea of what music could be. It was the Gothic Rock Art Holy Grail that Led Zeppelin, Genesis and Van Der Graaf Generator were trying to attain and all fell short of. I tell you, this thing rocked my world. Sad to say it’s a bit dated these days, but that isn’t to say someone couldn’t take the non-dated 90% and redo it with modern instrumentation.

Vangelis was the mastermind behind this masterpiece and he’s been hard pressed to write anything as good since. ("Earth" comes close, but nothing else is even in the ballpark. Trust me, I kept buying and hoping for two damn decades.)

Where do I start trying to talk about this thing? "The Wedding of the Lamb", "The Four Horsemen", "Altamont", the Infinity track… it just doesn’t stop. Iconic greatness in every note. And then… holy shit… he ends it up with the greatest rock art orchestral track of all time: "All the Seats Were Occupied". The thing was so much larger than my little 15 year old brain I think I grew an extra lobe just to take it all in.

The lead singer made this album for me. The guy’s name is Howard Werth, and he’s got one of those killer rock voices that’s like a hard edged melding of Robert Plant and the lead singer for Alabama 3 (the guys who did the theme song for The Sopranos). The title track is twice as good as anything else on the LP, blending Ian Anderson-type flute, David Jackson-like sax and a Southern blues edge that’s almost as dark as the first Black Sabbath. Well, maybe that’s overstating it a bit. But back when the hardest folk was Jethro Tull and Roy Harper, this was a great addition. Oh, yeah, and the album cover alone is worth the price of admission.

The hippie album to end all hippie albums. There are tracks on here that were burned into my brain with a cattle brand in 1970 and they’re still smoking. Cedric Smith has such a smooth, solid voice he could melt the gold fillings right out of your head. Anthemic folk tunes, Dylan Thomas, great guitar playing, sound effects and general goofiness. What would these guys have done if they weren’t stoned? Or did the whole thing come about because they were stoned? Don’t care. A Canadian classic that in one effortless track makes Leonard Cohen’s entire opera seem like too much work. "The goddess Fantasia / Bore a child of whimsy…"

Well, Pete Brown and Piblokto! turned out to be a near-total bust. What saved it is,

a) it’s title (Things May Come and Things May Go But the Art School Dance Goes On Forever)

b) the sentimental fact that it’s the first time I heard talking drums and

c) the vigorous reinforcement it gives to the idea that we have far better production values now, which makes excellent musicians try that much harder to sound excellent (because you can hear every little mistake).

On the third or fourth note of the first song on this album, you hear a rhythmic blunder. That told me everything I needed to know before going any further. Were they stoned when they wrote the songs? Likely. Were they stoned when they recorded the album? Had to be. I didn’t have very high expectations for this thing, but wow… it’s far worse than I remembered.

Was trying to remember an LP I owned when I was a teenager. Joe something-or-other and Pibloco or Pablico. I searched online umpteen times trying various spellings and finally posted a message in a ’70s music newsgroup the other day. Some guy responded within a couple of hours. It’s Pete Brown & Piblokto! as it turns out. I hopped right to Amazon and ordered it just out of sheer nostalgia. Compared to King Crimson and Genesis and Aphrodite’s Child, it’s poor man’s progressive rock. But I don’t care. I’m on a mission to recollect all my old music.

Yeah, yeah… it’s really friggin old. But I recently rediscovered it when I got my old turntable hooked up. Jesu Murphy, the guy’s a virtuoso on that old monophonic moog. What is this anyway? A porn soundtrack? I, for one, don’t care. Well done. Worth your twenty bucks just to see how they did it (well) back in the ’70s.

While I’m on the vintage kick, here’s another favorite LP. I bought this for myself for Christmas (along with Led Zeppelin IV) when I was (gulp) 14. Holy shit, does this thing ever age well. Get this: synth, sax, congas and fairly large chamber orchestra. And nary an art rock cliché in sight. The only glaring anomaly on the LP is Tillicum, the theme song for the TV show, Here Come the ’70s. The rest is a truly great 20th Century composition that would please any Moondog-/Orff- classical beat loving audiophile. Needless to say, every note is burned into my little brain – and I’m happy to give it the space.

The album still hasn’t been released on CD. (Is that criminal, or what?) If you’d like to lobby for it’s re-release please send a note off to general_inquiries@truenorthrecords.com . Give ‘em heck! Sob, slobber and beg! The crown jewels of 20th Century Canadian Electronica are lying in a vault, covered in dust. What the hell?