Bostworld

I haven’t been to Chicago in over a dozen years, but I still have my memories. Unfortunately, most of them involve trying driving around the club trying to find safe legal parking for two vans and a trailer. So the next best thing for me are these postcards from my grandfather’s collection, some of which date back a hundred years, to the 1893 World’s Exposition.

Aside from the postcards, the closest I’ve been to Chicago recently has been through a book and DVD by “This American Life” host Ira Glass and illustrator Chris Ware, “Lost Buildings.” The DVD tells the story of a kid who’s love for the work of architect Louis Sullivan led him into the orbit of photographer Richard Nickel. Forty years ago, Nickel traced an ever-shrinking circuit, documenting the progress of urban renew as it consigned more and more of Sullivan’s buildings to the wrecking ball. Increasingly frustrated by the loss of these historic monuments, Nickel finally met his end inside the old Chicago Stock Exchange building. Seems he’d been trying to rescue an ornate specimen of staircase railing from demolition when the floor above him collapsed.

No doubt, many of the older subjects of these postcards are long gone as well, and the ones remaining are not long for this world. Who knows? One day, I might actually get back to Chicago, create a circuit of my own, and find out.

In the early fall of 1996, my friend Bruce Sandig and I travelled down to Tucson to appear in a video for my brother’s cable television show. I guess Damon must have been desperate to fill time on his November episode. Why else would he invite Today’s Sounds on his show?

Any doubt I might have had that Bruce would balk at having to perform “Let’s Turkey Trot” dressed up like a pilgrim was quickly laid to rest. He jumped at the opportunity to appear on television. So, we visited the local party store for some paper hats and scored some shirts and vests from Goodwill. We completed the ridiculous ensemble with some black biker shorts from Wall Mart. Then we drove down to Tucson to meet up with my brother. I tortured Bruce during the drive with my off-key demos of songs that didn’t make it on the record.

As the video clearly shows, our holiday garb was an actual cut above our regular street clothes. For our pantomime studio performance, we both wore hideous shorts and polo shirts. Then we donned our costumes and hit the park, where we danced and chased the birds. We were supposed to be duck hunting (shade of Elmer Fudd), but I’m not sure our exaggerated expressions denote hunger so much as a kind of pained longing (for what, I’m not sure).

Your Truly is featured in the second clip as well, an unintentionally hilarious version of “MacArthur Park” by David Martin and “The Bostrom Arts Ensemble.” This is a live performance, of sorts, with Damon and I (on piano and drums respectively) backing up Martin, who sings and plays trombone. It’s an eccentric rendition to say the least. Martin’s howling performance is made all the more eerie by his striking “hippie” garb. Adding to the instability of the preceding, Damon insisted that he and I play along to a pre-recorded computerized track. There weren’t enough channels for a click track, apparently, so I was forced to comp along to the barely audible bass part in my headphones. Damon and I don’t so much “play” the song as hunt desperately for our places in the arrangement. If anything, Martin saves the mess with his oddball intensity and frankly misguided commitment to the material.



Here’s one I should seriously throw out. This coverless 1947 edition of “True Romance” was already in tatters when I found it in the back of a dusty gift shop in Oatman. But I fell in love with the magazine’s beautiful postwar art direction, as well as its haplessly out-of-date take on feminine empowerment — that is to say, landing a man. The advertisements were especially poignant, offering guidance on how to manage such typically tragic social disasters as halitosis, menstruation and “borderline anemia.” And the advice doesn’t stop at the altar. The helpful hints for homemakers are equally plentiful. No doubt, many of our own grandmothers used Drano to combat humiliating “sewer germs,” treated “childhood constipation” with Fletcher’s Castoria and curbed “spousal indifference” by douching regularly with Lysol brand disinfectant.

These ads are unrecognizably archaic. As one insists, “before your daughter marries, it’s your solemn duty to instruct her on how important douching is to marriage happiness. But first, make sure your own knowledge is as up-to-date and scientific as it can be!” In another, “color authority Carol Neuschaefer” touts the latest “miracle ingredient” in this season’s line of beauty products. Another one shouts, “She’s Engaged! She’s Lovely! She uses PONDS!” Next to a photo of the product surrounded by engagement rings (”diamonds for some of America’s loveliest girls!”), reads a list of “beautiful women of Society who use Ponds”: Mrs. Henry L. Roosevelt, Jr, Mrs. Richard C. Du Pont, Mrs. Anthony J. Drexell III, The Lady Victoria Montagu-Douglas-Scott and Mrs. Francis Grover Cleveland.

I’m ashamed to confess how much I paid for this museum piece. I was badly gouged. But I dutifully paid up and brought it home, tore it apart and scanned the highlights. I now present the best parts to you, not just for entertainment, but for your education as well. You never know when certain peripheral factions in our society might take the main stage and try to turn America’s past into its future.



I found this album as I did most of my records — for a buck at a thrift store down in Phoenix somewhere. But I had not idea how dear it was until recently when one of my fellow deejays at LuxuriaMusic told me he’d give his life for it. Seems its lead off track, “Swinging London,” was included on the second volume of “The In-Kraut,” a popular series of groovy German pop obscurities from the sixties and seventies. Oddly enough, this album doesn’t appear to have found its way onto any of the share sites on my short list. Either nobody else has it, or the blogosphere has issued a collective thumbs down on this album. Either way, I quickly passed it along to my friend — and his life was spared. And since the links are still good, I figured I pass them along to everyone here.

This is a terrific two record set. I’ve played several tracks on my own LuxuriaMusic show. Hopefully, listeners will find it enjoyable enough to overlook the fact that the first track from side four is screwed up. Perhaps someone else will crawl out of the woodwork and present me with a better copy. I’d be much obliged.

Marina Records, the label that released the “In-Kraut” series has a perfectly concise back story for Hazy Osterwald. And since the last couple of weeks have been kind of hectic (not one but two air conditioner breakdowns, two vehicles in the shop, and a storm that blew 85-miles-per-hour winds through town, causing millions of dollars in damage and demolishing thousands of trees — including one of mine), you’ll have to forgive me if I lift a paragraph directly from the Marina site:

“…one of Switzerland’s most successful music exports, and surely one of Europe’s hardest working men in showbiz. Starting out with the Hazy Osterwald Sextet way back in 1949, he constantly toured the globe - often playing up to 300 dates a year. He appeared in movies, scored huge hits (“Kriminaltango”, 1959), ran his own record label (Mabel) and even owned a string of nightclubs (Hazyland). Though his first love was swing (writing arrangements for Teddy Stauffer as a teenager!), he always kept in with The In-Kraut. After a couple of line-up changes he even renamed his sextet to the more “now”-sounding Hazy Osterwald Jet Set - and cut such cool tunes as “Swinging London.” Osterwald’s fantastic band - honed to perfection by constant live engagements - delivers a true knock-out performance. The Jet Set included John Ward (drums), Curt Prina (organ), Bob Glower (saxophone), Peter Meller (guitar), Franco Bussmann (bass) and Hazy himself on trumpet.”



DOWNLOAD SIDES ONE AND TWO

DOWNLOAD SIDES THREE AND FOUR

I know a lot of readers out there, especially those of you starting a new school year, have already said your farewells to Summer 2008. But here in the desert, folks are just getting started. Alas, it won’t truly be safe to turn off the air conditioner until around the time we start to make the stuffing and put the Tofurky in the oven.

I’ve been shut indoors now for over a month, venturing outside only to forage for food and to keep my plants alive. But my wife and I did manage to get in a couple quick walks earlier this season. As you can see from the photo documentation I brought back, even the sky itself seems to be ablaze. As far north as Meteor Crater, about an hour east of Flagstaff, where we took refuge one weekend, the terrain is achingly bright. (By the way, this is not desert, it’s forest country denuded of trees by the force of meteor impact.)

Continue reading ‘Summer Walks In The Desert’

Why do I continue to drag myself out in the open like this, week after week? For one thing, it helps to counter the toxic effects of a 40-hour week in the name of another man’s dime. It’s also a great way to add extra enjoyment to my collection. In addition to the thrill of the hunt, the capture and the inevitable cataloging (always with the cataloging), I can also revel in the pleasure of sharing all this ephemeral crap with my visitors.

I also love it when the wrong people visit this site by mistake, venting their disorientation and discomfort in the comments. I especially love it when they use terms like “elevator music” as if this was incisive criticism. After all, some folks still obsess over “authenticity,” preferring “immediacy” and “spontaneity” above all other concerns. Somehow, the soundtrack to a long-defunct Saturday morning kids show or a 30-year-old vanity pressing from an unknown lounge singer just doesn’t work for them

Continue reading ‘Your Favorite Little Podcast: Episode Thirteen’

Nowadays, there’s a thriving industry devoted to archiving the best of twentieth century periodicals. If it’s not being sold on DVD, it’s been issued hardbound on acid-free paper. If nothing else, there’s always the share bloggers. But when I was a kid, you could only read ABOUT the great comics. You might be able to piece together Harvey Kurtzman’s non-MAD/Little Annie Fannie career from third-party sources, but you’d never actually get to see of it without doling out some seriously hefty coin.

Sure, Peanuts never went out of print, and back then Pogo trade paperbacks weren’t yet impossible to find. And the occasional fan publisher would bring out the odd EC reprint or coffee table book devoted to classic newspaper strips. But for me, the real gold came from second hand book stores (remember those?) or rummage sales. I remember when I was twelve years old, finding a coverless copy of Kurtzman’s “Trump” Number 2 from 1957, for probably no more than a dime (ten comics for a dollar, no doubt). The following year, when I became a Kurtzman fanatic, I was astounded to realize what I had. The same goes for the odd paperbacks I’d pick up during a dull summer vacation day, or inherit from older friends and family. Years later, I’d realize that the poorly printed black and white paperback of sci-fi comic stories was actually reprints from EC’s “Weird Science!”

Continue reading ‘Things I Can’t Throw Out: Mass Market Paperpack Reprints Of Classic Comics And Humor Magazines’