Rodd Keith Song Poems on Happy Puppy Records

Song poems are songs created around submitted lyrics for a fee. Known as song sharking, the practice typically involves cranking out tunes for next to no cost and with little effort in order to make a fat profit off those who submit their poetry to be set to music.

The results are typically bizarre and are sought out by lovers of the obscure and unusual.

For more than a year, the Happy Puppy Records netlabel and Bob Purse of The Wonderful and the Obscure blog and the WFMU Beware of the Blog have been working together to organize a series of song poem compilations. Their first collection was released today, and they kicked off the series with none other than a king of song poems, Rodd Keith.

Get the album The Wonderful and the Obscure, Volume 1: Rodd Keith [hpr068] at Happy Puppy Records.

Hear your own crazy poetry set to music by making your own song poem at the Off the Charts: The Song-Poem Story film site (film trailer)!

Happy Puppy Records is also home to a related project, poems4songs.

Weird Al Tribute

Prosthetic Lips is a 23-track tribute album honoring Weird Al Yankovic. It was recorded in 1996 members of his newsgroup, and was initially released on cassette and later on CD.

The album sold out long ago. No more pressings will be released, but it is available for download at the Zelda and The Unibrows site.

Enjoy the weirdness!

UPDATE: Download archived copy here

Phonoanomalies

There is a well-known Keith Lo Bue compilation series out there that all true oddiophiles should hear. The series was called Phonoanomalies, a term coined by Lo Bue. It was shared within Exotica List and years later on WFMU.

" Most of these gems were gathered over two years living in Pittsburgh, PA. Without Jerry's Records, these comps would not have been possible, so thanks Jerry.... DO NOT SELL IN ANY FORM!!! Share freely please!!!"

	1. Phonoanomalies For Hi-Fi Bugs "... the first of three comps of completely uncatagorizeable vinyl weirdness, from Ferrante & Teicher's nutty piano antics to elk-calling records! Sure to scare those you love."
	2. More Phonoanomalies For Hi-Fi Bugs "... the second in a series of three comps of completely uncatagorizeable vinyl weirdness, from Dr. Adi Tamboli--Musician and Physician to Ella Fitzgerald freakin' it psychedelic-style and more! Sure to clear the room of the discerning."
	3. Phonoanomalies: A Totally New Recording for Hi-Fi Bugs "... the third in a series of three comps of completely uncatagorizeable vinyl weirdness, from wartime mangled-English Japanese pop to symphonies of bird-song and more! Oh, and be sure to spread the Word of Sam."

Years of Cool and Strange

Here's an oldie, but a (so bad it's) goodie. It's a compilation of unusual recordings compiled by two great guys, the founder of and a writer for Cool and Strange Music Magazine (1996-2003).

The magazine's founder, Dana Countryman, is an electronic composer and performer who made a recent splash with his collaboration with early electronica pioneer Jean-Jacques Perrey. Countryman shared an mp3 version of the Cool Cool and Strange Music Magazine CD on the WFMU blog back in 2007 where it still resides. He wrote,

"We concentrated on featuring oddball musicians, from over the past 6 decades. A record label approached me with the idea of compiling a CD compilation that would feature obscure artists, doing mostly original songs that (hopefully) would have never been copyrighted."

These tracks collected by Dana Countryman and Otis Fodder (The Bran Flakes) have since become classics in oddio circles. If this is your first listen, prepare yourself for a crazy ride!

Need more cool and strange? You are in luck! Fodder and more than 200 contributors (including Oddio Overplay!) continued by sharing cool and strange and often obscure audio selections every day the following year in the 365 Days Project, and then repeated the fun again years later with a new batch.

That's two whole years of cool and strange music! Are you up to a challenge like that?!

Quirky Genius of Logan Whitehurst

Logan Whitehurst began uploading his original songs to mp3.com back in 1997 and gained a strong online following for his music. His quirky songs were regularly played on Dr. Demento and often compared to the likes of They Might Be Giants. Whitehurst was a multi-instrumentalist and an accomplished graphic artist. Tragically, Logan passed away from a brain tumor at the age of 29.

Lee Rosevere of Happy Puppy Records worked with the Whitehurst family to provide the world a posthumous anthology of Logan's work. The 10 song collection, AN INTRODUCTION TO LOGAN WHITEHURST AND THE JR. SCIENCE CLUB, is now available on the Free Music Archive.

album license: Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Canada License
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Loved Like a Milkshake, Wesley Willis Tribute

Wesley Willis (1963-2003) was an artist and musician from Chicago who released hundreds of songs with his own unique sense of humor. His chronic schizophrenia was reflected in his work which leaned toward the bizarre and obscene. Willis gained a cult following and major label attention.

One of his labels, the prominent independent Alternative Tentacles described Wesley's work as "simultaneously disturbing, hilarious, blunt, and intoxicating. Wesley's sheer excitement and unaffected honesty about every cultural phenomenon, defined his music as truly individual, and truly punk rock."

Sadly, in 2002 Wesley was diagnosed with Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia (CML). He underwent emergency surgery in June 2003, and passed away in August of the same year.

Hiji, a.k.a. M-Halo, soon thereafter organized a tribute album to honor Wesley Willis. Work for LOVED LIKE A MILKSHAKE: A WESLEY WILLIS TRIBUTE ALBUM began when Hiji posted a Craigslist listing suggesting a tribute of cover songs. The response was positive and the following 18 songs were selected. The final product was released for free online in November 2003 and produced by M-Halo with mastering and additional production by Tom Gordon.

Enjoy the entire album LOVED LIKE A MILKSHAKE: A WESLEY WILLIS TRIBUTE ALBUM on FMA!

Tuesday Means Another Dozen

Tuesday is a real good news day. Here you have a new set of 12 free and legal collections and CDs! Eat up and be sure to spread the love by supporting these artists!

Axial Brazil artists who blend soft vocals, organic sounds, synth beds and electro glitches generating a gorgeous result [Brazil, folk, electro]	Pueblo Nuevo inspiring netlabel in Santiago, Chile, founded by Mika Martini and djef featuring Chilean electronic artists [electro]	VA - Tribute to a Love Singer reinterpretations that only share the lyrics the original love songs by the masters [varied]
NullRepublik Records Argentinian netlabel and Synthfonik Fest organizers with focus on artists from Argentina [electro, synth]	Schilli-San - Smooth Situations two years after its release, this 7-song CD still pops up in regular play at the Oddio House [downtempo, urban]	John Frusciante singer songwriter guitarist best known for his work with the Red Hot Chili Peppers, shares his demos [rock]
Luv sound growing, thoughtful netlabel offering electroacoustic, drone, microchip and other styles [varied]	Error! Lo-FI Spanish netlabel is the lo-fi folk pop subdivision of Error! Records [lo-fi, folk, pop]	Brunk from Belgium comes this fine, "DIY lowbudget homerecording, w/o any musical restrictions or stylistic premises" [guitar, lo-fi, pop]
D-Trash Canadian label shares its netlabel of more than 100 free breakcore, industrial and digital punk full-length releases	Morning Zephyr three piece playing violin, piano, double bass and drums offers three releases of subtle pieces [folk, jazz, experi]	Kip Jones the violinist and pianist of Morning Zephyr shares works from his other bands and field recordings [folk, jazz, field]

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Strike's Holiday Lunacy!

Tonight Monday 10 December 7-10 pm PST on LuxuriaMusic.com

Come celebrate Hanukkah at the Kitsch Nosh! Strike will be spinning some hot Hanukkah latkes for your listening pleasure during the first hour of his show. Eight crazy nights and 60 crazy minutes. Mustached kisses await you! And be sure to tune in right at 7:00 for a crazy Strike original Hanukkah song. Sure to become a holiday classic!

Also, mark your calendars...Monday, Dec.17th - It's the Kitsch Niche Holiday Spectacular - 3 hours of the grinchiest, flakiest, holidayiest music you'll ever hear! Just the right tunes to get you in a wrapping mood!

But that's not all! Christmas Eve, Dec. 24th, starting at 7:00 pm PST...It's the battle to end all battles! Strike vs. Duke in the first annual Christmas Battle Royale! Tune in to see who is crowned Master of the Christmas Cheese! Two men enter...two men leave. The perfect background to your family dysfunction!

Don't miss all of these crazy holiday specials, only on the Kitsch Niche at LuxuriaMusic.com!


photo: Bryanna's Vegan Feast

Les Inécoutables!

This morning was spent with old friends we met in 2002, Bide et Musique. "Bidet" is an Internet radio station featuring the worst of European novelty music 24/7. Ballads by children, love songs out of key, cartoony bubblegum, pop drivel, the unlistenable (les inécoutables) - they have it all. Tongue in cheek, Bidet knows there is some humor to be found in this oddio. Their radio window notes how many listeners are tuned in by stating the count of "sickos listening at this moment."

The Bide et Musique website is one of the best station sites around. The playlists all have scans of the recording artwork (usually 7" records) and info about each song. French speakers, you will enjoy their forums, association info, quizzes and encyclopedic database. The user comments about the dreck are hiliarious! If you are in France, you will enjoy their periodic parties!

from the site:

Bide&Musique, the cream of the cream of the webradios!

Bide&Musique, radio of the improbable gives you:

» priceless, forgotten or new bides*

» musical programming almost entirely containing discs vinyls, centered on the forgotten French variety tunes and French-speaking person of the Seventies and Eighties;

» themed programming (generic TV, eighties, italo-dance, pop, etc);

» programs devoted to the new productions of the artists of the database of B&M

» interactive communities, request shows with listener favorites, requests;

» regular evening events;

Bide&Musique, the living encyclopaedia

» An incomparable discography database, true gold mine of the French-speaking variety tune;

» interactive resources on the artists and the titles of the base;

» forums to divide, question, answer and discuss;

» many functions for fishing out info on the artists and songs, the subjects tackled in forums or the users and DJs;

» "Pochettoscope" to view images of the discs which we share;

» Quizzes to perfect bidesque culture and to have fun while learning;

» A diary to keep up to date with upcoming interesting events and shows.


*What is a bide?
Bide is piece of variety music (often sung, sometimes instrumental, sometimes one wonders) for which one has tenderness particular, to which one wishes to give an importance that it necessarily did not have in the history of the music and, of course, that one have pleasure to hear... and hear again... and...


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