Bingo Show Instrumentals

The May 18th show was all instrumental. I had been wanting to do this show for awhile. I used some soundtrack stuff, jazz, some experimental rock and whatever I could find that was interesting and had no lyrics. I allowed some voice, as long as it was not in the form of traditional lyrics. So we had some la-la-las and humming and even some voice samples. The rule was the voice could be used solely as instrument.

A perfect starter was the wide screen technicolor sound of Elmer Bernstein's Magnificent Seven Theme, this easily bled into Dirty Three's western crazed violin and Calexico's Mexican border sound. The first set ended with Luz Mob, which has been described as "hip-hop for the ballroom dancing set", Luz Interpretaions is full of very cool instrumentals that cover a broad range of influences.

The next set started with Richard Buckner's brief guitar duet Pico, followed by a rare Dylan instrumental Wigwam. Another beauty was the Melissa Swingle (from Trailer Bride) track off Searching For The Wrong-eyed Jesus soundtrack. A haunting version of Amazing Grace done on the saw, in the woods of West Virginia. Another soundtrack piece with West Virginia roots was John Curtis doing a solo mandolin La Bella Noche for the Matewan soundtrack.

A couple of guitar geniuses in the next set-- Ry Cooder's work from the Paris Texas soundtrack and Bill Frisell's Nashville tribute, Gimme A Holler sandwich Palaxy Tracks' haunting Cedarland.

For the Cover-all - we start off with Cover-all fave, Friends of Dean Martinez doing their version of Wichita Lineman. Gary Burton takes a crack at Dylan's I Want You and we hear John Zorn's version of the James Bond Theme. Local jazz legends the Either/Orchestra do a nice medley of Monk's Nutty and Ode to Billie Joe and finally Devandra Bandhart does a John Fahey song Sligo River Blues off the tribute album I Am The Resurrection.

Carl Stalling is a unique voice in American music, he did most of the music for the Warner brothers cartoons. Instrumental insanity and maybe the first sampler. I wanted to follow Stalling with Birdsongs of the Mesozoic's version of the Theme to Rocky and Bullwinkle, but I couldn't find it at the station. So I did their song Transformation of Oz. Kid Koala's crazy Drunk Trumpet fit right into the cartoony mood of this set.

I bought the CD Cash Cow Best of Giorno Poetry Systems many years ago and I still love it. The short intense Secret Solo from Phillip Glass is on here and I led off the last set with it. Explosions In The Sky, an Austin, TX band,
took us through one of their rich evolving instrumentals Your Hand In Mine. And we ended the show with the post punk surf music of the Alabama band-- Man or Astroman? and their song Song Of The Two-mile Linear Particle Accelerator, Stanford University, Stanford Ca. Yeah it's a mouthful.

I would have liked to get in some bluegrass, more jazz and many others, but not enough time. I'd love to hear your comments on the show and any suggestions for a future instrumental show.