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b/art's Playlist for Maandag, 10 April (17:30 - 19:22)
Trains in the Brain oooooooooooooo "RAILROAD, n. The chief of many mechanical devices enabling us to get away from where we are to where we are no better off. For this purpose the railroad is held in highest favor by the optimist, for it permits him to make the transit with great expedition. " -- Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914), "The Devil's Dictionary", 1911 ooooooooooo "They hand us now in Shrewsbury jail: The whistles blow forlorn, And trains all night groan on the rail To men that die at morn. o A. E. Housman ooooooooooo | |
| Cut | Artist |
|---|---|
| Beaten Up By Something Strange - WreckThis Mess Mix #.11.w.23t.97m-00 | |
| 3 Little Engines & 33 Cars, Version 1 [1] | |
| Rapido Noir | Irmin Schmidt [2] |
| Trans-Europe Express | Kraftwerk [3] |
| 2-8-2 No. 480, Denver Rio Grande Western [1] | |
| On Earth [Train Trax] | Woob [DUB] |
| 2-8-2 No. 495 with 2-8-2 No. 493 Denver Rio Grande [1] | |
| Nature of the Beast | DJ T-1000 vs Black Noise [4] |
| 2-10-2 No. 809, Colorado Southern 2-8-0 No. 648 "Switcher" [1] | |
| The Journey | Dubchek [DUB] |
| ooooooooooo | |
| "The human brain is like a railroad freight car -- guaranteed to have a certain capacity but often running empty." -- Unknown | |
| ooooooooooo | |
| 3 Little Engines & 33 Cars, Version 2 [1] | |
| Traum Vom Angenehmen Nehen | Stein |
| Railroad Gamelan | Ellen Band [5] |
| Narrow Train Tracks | Audio Outings [6] |
| Amber [Distant train crossings] | Zoviet France [7] |
| Saxophone & Chalk Piano | Pelican Daughters [8] |
| 4-8-4 No. 801, Union Pacific & 2-12-2 No. 9007, Union Pacific [1] | |
| Zob Sessions [Train / Champagne / Gunshots] | Un Drame Musical Instantan |
| Depart Vacance a la Gare [Train Station] >Jacques Tati | |
| 4-6-4 No. 4003, Burlington [1] | |
| Song of the Underground Railroad | John Coltrane Quartet [10] |
| Midnight Train to Georgia [exc.] | Gladys Knight & the Pips |
| Billy Holiday endorses WTM | |
| All Aboard / Crossroads | Little Axe [DUB] |
| 2-8-2 No. 2599, Chicago Northwestern [1] | |
| Manhattan-Bound A-Train recorded 1.6.99 . b/art [11] | |
| + Take the "A" Train | Shelly Manne [12] |
| Night Train Blues | Curd Duca [13] |
| Le Poinconneur des Lilas | Serge Gainsbourg [14] |
| Laurel & Hardy Train Loop | Black Sifichi [15] |
| Scenic Railway | Mick Harvey [16] |
| 4-6-6-4 No 3839, Union Pacific [1] | |
| Mit Dir in Der Gegend (Sehr) | To Rococo Rot [17] |
| 4-8-4 No. 5629, Burlington "0-5" [1] | |
| So Wonderfully Big Hot/Radio/Sex/Wreck Jingle | |
| ooooooooooo | |
| "They saw a dream of loveliness descending from the train." -- Charles G. Leland, Brand New Ballads, The Masher | |
| ooooooooooo | |
| Daddy What's A Train | Utah Phillips [18] |
| 4-8-8-4 No. 4018 "Big Boy" Union Pacific [1] | |
| If I Ride This Train | Joe Johnson [19] |
| 0-6-0 No. 4771, Union Pacific "Switcher" [1] | |
| Roots Train / Gotta Get Aboard | Junior Murvin [DUB] |
| When the Golden Train Comes Down | Sons of the Pioneers [18] |
| 4-6-6-4 No 3839, Union Pacific [1] | |
| Rasta Train | Lee "Scratch" Perry [DUB] [20] |
| 0-6-0 No. 4771, Union Pacific "Switcher" [1] | |
| Drunks & Trains | Henny Youngman |
| ooooooooooo | |
| tracks like the hooves of enormous steel horses bridled by tubing." -- Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Manifesto of Futurism | |
| ooooooooooo | |
| People Get Ready / There's a Train a Comin' | Curtis Mayfield & the Impressions [21] |
| Taboo Bass Dr. [Trainesque] | Curd Duca [22] |
| Freight Trax | Adam X [23] |
| Snow | Sounds from the Ground vs Zion Train [24] |
| Blue Train | John Coltrane |
| Jimmie the Kid | Jimmie Rodgers [18] |
| Freedom/Peace/Radio Patapoe WTM ID | |
| Going Off Duty Outro WTM | |
| oooooooo | |
| [1] "Sounds From the Steam Locomotive" SE-2-5513 on Spectacular Sound Effects. I imagine this was collected by a real rail aficionado, a train spotter by sound rather than sight. | |
| [2] IS studied under Stockhausen and was one of the founding members of Can in 1968. He played organ and synthesizer for the 8 years they wer together. He went solo and began doing music for TV & film. "Film Music 3/4 [1983], Toy Planet [1990]. This is the piece that originally gave me the idea for this theme show. | |
| [3] "Trans-Europe Express" by Kraftwerk on Capitol, 1977. The crux of where trains, highways, alienation, hiphop, trance, electronica, and robotic kitsch meet. | |
| [4] "Live Sabotage: Live in Belgium" Excellent lean trance techno. Perfect for train beats on BML www.bmlentertainment.com altho they may be out of business. I used to hear from them regularly but now -- downsizing? | |
| [5] I have this on an old WFMU show tape, so no info but an incredible piece which conflates the dingdingding of a busy railroad crossing warning signal with the emrging [and almost logical seeming/sounding] sound of Gamelan. | |
| [6] "Imagine Yourself to Sleep" A Self-hypnosis tape for kids to overcome insomnia. Produced by Audio Outings by Dr. Bett Sanders & Dr. C Cummings. "Next to the road is a long skinny railroad track. And there's a train moving along the track. You might want to fly closer to a nearby tree and watch the train as it passes at the railroad crossing--" ZZZzzzzZZZZzzz | |
| [7] "Digilogue" on Soleilmoon info@soleilmoon.com . Digilogue (1996) is a tense blend of seemingly disparate sound materials, with electronically fedback distortion to minimalistic tracks consisting of repetitive, droning hums, clicks and long open notes that continue to paint a very non-industrial mindscape which is much more in tuned with the great lonely outdoor. Was a limited-edition LP, later reissued on CD with 3 extra tracks. This track captures the chirning motion of a train as it passes a railroad crossing. | |
| [8] "Bliss" Pelican Daughters is a great conglomerate who masterfully cobble together styles and sounds. They were responsible for "Bicycle Trip" on the compilation "50 Years of Sunshine" celebrating 50 years of acid. This is a great evocation of what it might have been like to have been Albert Hoffman on acid as he rode his bike. I remember someone stole this cd from the record library of WFMU. Like so many ambient/sound- oriented bands the evocation of atmospheres replaces lyrics that might describe certain situations and feelings. Thus here we hear the distant train whistles from across a flat plain and they sound as plaintive and forelorn as Jimmy Rodgers or Hank Williams describes them to be. "Hear that lonesome whippoorwill?/ He sounds too blue to fly./ The midnight train is whining low,/ I'm so lonesome I could cry." o Hank Williams, "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry," 1942. Name: King Lear, Act III: "This flesh begot those Pelican Daughters." | |
| [9] "20,000 Lieves Sous Les Mers" by Un Drame Musical InstantanE9e. This piece by the great conceptual band which combines, noise, poetry, and the havoc of Spike Jones here sound-wise narrate a train trip seduction of champagne, train sounds, sexual sighs and gunshots. | |
| [10] "Africa Brass Volumes 1 & 2" on Impulse / GRP, the John Coltrane Quartet with among others: Freddie Hubbard, Eric Dolphy, McCoy Tyner, Elvin Jones: "The Underground Railroad in the United States, a system existing in the Northern states before the Civil War by Harriet which escaped slaves from the South were Tubman secretly helped by sympathetic Northerners, (far in defiance of the Fugitive Slave Acts, to left) reach places of safety in the North or in standing Canada. Though neither underground nor a with a railroad, it was thus named because its group of activities had to be carried out in secret, slaves using darkness or disguise, and because whose railway terms were used in reference to the escape conduct of the system. Various routes were she ... lines, stopping places were called stations, those who aided along the way were conductors, and their charges were known as packages or freight. The network of routes extended in all directions throughout 14 Northern states and "the promised land" of Canada, which was beyond the reach of fugitive-slave hunters. Those who most actively assisted slaves to escape by way of the "railroad" were members of the free black community (including such former slaves as Harriet Tubman), Northern abolitionists, philanthropists, and such church leaders as Quaker Thomas Garrett. Harriet Beecher Stowe, famous for her novel Uncle Tom's Cabin, gained firsthand knowledge of fugitive slaves through her contact with the Underground Railroad in Cincinnati, Ohio. Estimates of the number of black people who reached freedom vary greatly, from 40,000 to 100,000. Although only a small minority of Northerners participated in the Underground Railroad, its existence did much to arouse Northern sympathy for the lot of the slave in the antebellum period, at the same time convincing many Southerners that the North as a whole would never peaceably allow the institution of slavery to remain unchallenged." [ENCYCLOPeDIA BRITANNICA] | |
| [11] "The A-Train, from Howard Beach to Midtown Manhattan, Jan. 6, 2000" Filed Recording by b/art. | |
| [12] "2-3-4" by Shelly Manne on Impulse / GRP with among others, Coleman Hawkins and Hank Jones. Great record. | |
| [13] "Elevator: Electronic Mood Music" on Mille Plateaux www.mille-plateaux.com Curd Duca cduca@t0.or.at has some great material on it. Combining in terse snippets the music of your parents you loved to hate when you were into metal and skinning cats - lounge and the latest dyspeptic bingsbongs and sccccrttts which is the jazz of the 21st century. | |
| [14] "De Gainsbourg A Gainsbarre" on Phonogram/Philips is a better than average 2-CD collection with a sensibly moving sequence to the songs. Greatintro to Serge with lyric sheets. This song is his first hit, made famous by others. Here he sings of a ticket taker, a hole puncher on a local train who because his job and life are so boring contemplates suicide. | |
| [15] "Marrer Noire: Mix with Oil & Water" by Black Sifichi. Special Limited Edition from BS blkdix@easynet.fr loops and other manipulations of reality, noise, and voice. Stay tuned for part 3 of the Black Sifichi profile. The poly-talent in Paris. Check out 10/10 and Sifichi's beautiful website: http://webperso.easynet.fr/blkdix/ | |
| [16] "Pink Elephants" is Mick Harvey's follow-up to "Intoxicated Man" and is just as good as an accurate yet soul driven attempt to render Gainsbourg's Songs in English. | |
| [17] "Velculo" but also on the compilation "Black Holes & Time Warps" on Wow & Flutter. | |
| [18] Steel Rails: Classic Railroad Songs #1" on Rounder with among others, Phillips, Rodgers, Alison Krauss, Doc Watson and others. They say Rodgers' yodel was an imitation of the train whistle. | |
| [19] "New Jazz Poets" Broadside Records | |
| [20] "Voodooism" on Pressure Sound 009. | |
| [21] The haunting and poetic "People Get Ready," supposedly was adopted as an anthem by the civil rights movement. "People get ready, there's a train a-comin'/ You don't need no ticket, just get on board" - sounds like its more than just about the civil rights movement. This is one of many songs which uses the train as a metaphor for how one gets to heaven. | |
| [22] "Easy Listening 5" on Normal Records 1997, which included some excellent uses of exotica and relaxed jazz samples predating - with his earlier recordings as well - the reappropriation / reappreciation of exotica/muzak/easy listening and lounge that came with Combustible Edison, Dmitri From Paris and Tipsy. Here forcibly yanked from its kind of imagistic plastic palm movie set surroundings and streamlined, shortened and recontextualized. | |
| [23] "Audiography" Techno on BML. Trains lend themselves well to the very feel of techno, techno being the greatgreat grandson of Futurism. | |
| [24]
"Dubbed on Planet Skunk" on Dubmission
dubmission@btinternet.com includes some great stuff including this.
This is material which hybridizes anything that comes in its path -
water, ether, electronix, beats, message, roots so that it all gets
liquified into some bio-electrical amniotic inflammable material.
Includes Doof, Zion Train vs Sounds from the Ground, Dubolition,
Lithium6 and Alpha & Omega -- ooooo | |
| [24]
appendix
My Perceptions of Trains by Laura S. Moncur, LinkExchange : Salt Lake City, like many of her counterparts in the United States, is divided by railroad tracks. They are quite active and the trains that rush past the busy city streets are very audible, no matter how far away you live from them. The whistles from these trains are so noisy during the wee hours of the night that I have trouble sleeping at times (even though we live at least 15 miles from the tracks). I hated trains. During a particularly sleepless night, I tried a relaxation technique. I imagined that the trains were boats. When my husband and I visited San Francisco -- we could hear the horn blasts from the boats all night, but it was relaxing to us. The image of the huge ships gracefully sailing past us, announcing their presence was romantic. That sleepless night in Salt Lake, I pretended that the whistles I heard were from the gently floating ships on the San Francisco Bay. I fell asleep quickly that evening. It didn't take me long to realize how silly this was. Only a couple evenings of thinking led me to the conclusion that there might be residents of Oakland and San Francisco that abhor the sounds of the bulky and overloaded ships. Boats aren't romantic if you see them every day. Then I remembered the romance of trains. People all across the nation build model trains, elaborate tracks, and beautiful minature houses and buildings, all to be serviced by the epitome of transportation in the nineteenth century. Trains are romantic. Now, as I lie awake at night, listening to the resounding whistle blasts, I hear trains, clanking and blustering along the rails. I imagine them bringing supplies to my favorite stores and transporting people from there to here and back. Unfortunately, none of this has really helped me to sleep any better or more than I did before. The Wreck of the Penn Central Joseph R. Daughen Peter Binzen ISBN: 1893122085 Beard Books The Penn Central RR Set New Records. It took 10 years of laborious planning and exhaustive negotiations to create the mammoth Penn Central Railroad, the largest railroad in U.S. history to that time. When the leviathan was finally born of a merger between the Pennsylvania and New York Central Railroads on February 1, 1968, the event was hailed as a great day for railroading. But the baby giant survived only 867 days. The crash of the Penn Central set a new record, this time for the biggest bankruptcy the United States had yet seen.
This book, which The New York Times called 'a great book,' offers the
reader a 'ringside seat' to the economic debacle, provides a close-up
view of the events that brought the Big Train to bankruptcy court --
over-regulation, subsidized competition, big labor featherbedding,
greed, corporate back-stabbing, stunning incompetence, and, yes, even
a little sex. The story is every bit as enthralling in this 1999
illustrated reprint edition as it was in the original edition
published in 1971. not to forget all the other singers and musicians who deal with trains: Johnny Cash, Hank Williams, Woody Guthrie, Girls at Our Best, Burt Bacharach and many many many more... ooooo
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