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.

Catching Up

I'm falling behind here a bit, so bear with me. Due to some scheduling conflicts there were two Bingo Shows in a row (April 27 and May 4)

The April 27th show was called "Songs I Bet You Never Heard" . I'm sure some have heard some of these songs, but what I was going after was songs and artists that are severely underplayed/underappreciated. I even wanted to do a few obscure songs from well known artists.

Now, some would say most of the stuff I play on any show is stuff no one's ever heard. True, to a point, but I was looking to go beyond even that.

I started off with the late 70's experimental San Francisco band Tuxedomoon and their song The Stranger. The Residents seem to get all th SF art band hype, but Tuxedomoon are interesting in their own right. They are a hard band to define - thier songs pick up influences from all over, they call themselves gothic post-punk experimentalism. But there are classical and jazz influences here and even some funk thrown in (they do a cover of I Heard It Through The Grapevine).

Henry Flynt is an interesting cat. He's played with the Velvet Underground and Yoko Ono; he's a philosopher and artist (below: Spirit World Painting #1); and for our purposes-- an excellent fiddle player. We did a cut off Backporch Hillbilly Blues Vol 1 called White Lightening that showcases his wild man avant garde fiddling.

I'm not going to describe every song and artist played, just try and touch on some of the more interesting ones.

I discovered the band Torrez doing one of my On The Town gigs. I loved their sound and the haunting vocals of Kim Torrez. The song Lush Twilight is a great example of this under-rated band. I always wondered what became of them- so I did some research and found that one of the main members- Sydney Alexis - is now Alexis Hotel-- and Tiger Saw covered one of their songs on my most recent OTT show. Boston can be a small world sometimes.

Speaking of Tiger Saw- Heather from Tiger Saw asked me to play the song Arizona by Rooftop Suicide Club. The New Bedford band's song has become one of my new favorites.

What's Bob Dylan doing here? Well, I bet you just don't hear much from Pat Garrett and Billy The Kid- a very cool, atmospheric album, that was kind of ahead of it's time. Also, Dylan instrumentals are rare too.

Humanwine is a band to watch out for. Another local Boston band, they revel in the same kind of Eastern European cabaret type atmosphere that the Dresden Dolls. A little more political, perhaps.

I had a request for Fink-- who I had never heard of, but knew the Canadian label Ninja Tune, from Kid Koala and Mr Scruff. I was expecting the DJ thing that Ninja is know for and was surprised to hear a bluesy, stripped down, acoustic sound, but with just a touch of the Ninja influence-- good stuff.

The last 2 bands I played were bands I found through Bazooka Joe's excellent Small World Podcasts, which I highly recommend ( An interview with Joe is coming soon). Pistolera and The Luz Mob. Pistolera is at the forefront of the NYC based Latin alternative movement and Luz Mob does some great instrumental stylings, that mix jazz, hip hop and a very urban Latin beat.

Check out all the artist on here-- I only had time to go over a few, but it would be nice to see all these artists get more recognition. And keep scouring those used record bins for more gems and let me know what you find.