(Music) Los Saicos!

Los Saicos formed in Peru in 1964 and lasted for a little less than two years. Having no real musical training, they played a pure garage sound that borrowed heavily from surf rock. Some claim the band originated punk, especially with their song "Demolición," a decade before The Sex Pistols. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJjfGWrTSU8 Initially the name of …

(Art) The Color of Music

Until the age of 15, Missouri artist Melissa McCracken thought that everyone lived in the same hue-rich, dynamic realm of color that she had known since birth. “Basically, my brain is cross-wired,” she explains regarding her synesthesia. “I experience the ‘wrong’ sensation to certain stimuli. Each letter and number is colored and the days of …

(Music) The Inarticulable Majesty of Being

I find it difficult to answer the question "What is your favorite movie?" but not because I don't have one. I don't have a favorite color, or even one favorite food, but I do have a favorite movie -- except it's not really a movie. Sort of. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEb1iZ2JYHI The reason it's a tricky question to …

(Music) Cratediggers: Rare Pop Nihon

Kyu Sakamoto stands over popular music in Japan the way Frank Sinatra stands over popular music in the U.S. This song actually made it to the Western charts with the title "Sukiyaki," which is a kind of food and has nothing to do with the song. The Japanese title, "Ue o Muite Arukō," means something …

(Music) The 35-Year-Long Explosion

I joined Google+ in late 2012, something of an internet virgin. Prior to that, I hadn't been active on social media to any significant degree. I immediately began sharing music, because it's important to me, as it is for many people. After maybe a year or so, I got frustrated at the near-total lack of …

(Music) Mah-Na Mah-Na?

"Mah Nà Mah Nà" is a popular song by Italian composer Piero Umiliani. It originally appeared in the Italian film Sweden: Heaven and Hell (Svezia, inferno e paradiso, 1968), an exploitation documentary film about wild sexual activity and other behaviour in Sweden. It was a minor radio hit in the U.S. and in Britain, but …

(Music) The Jimi Entley Sound

After Portishead but before he became a big name film score composer, Geoff Barrow -- not to be confused with comic artist Geoff Darrow -- released samples, covers, and remixes of old songs under the name The Jimi Entley Sound. Here is your ultra-groovy soundtrack to tonight. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvV9GTgHwes And here is the full ongoing playlist …

(Music) Ain’t No Karate Monkey

After reaching meteoric fame with his 1960 hit "The Twist," which pretty much everybody knows, Ernest Evans, AKA Chubby Checker, spent the rest of the decade trying to reproduce his success. He released a folk album in 1964 which was little more than a mediocre collection of banjo-infused Americana standards. A few years later, he …

(Music) Fire in the Hole!

Macfarlane Gregory Anthony Mackey, who recorded as Exuma (1942 –1997), was a Bahamian musician, known for his almost unclassifiable music: a strong mixture of carnival, junkanoo, calypso and ballad. In his early days in New York's Greenwich Village, Tony McKay (his self-given name) performed in small clubs and bars. Later, along with his then-partner and …

(Music) Pavane for a Dead Princess

A pavane is a slow, stately dance, two beats to the measure, popular in the 16th and 17th centuries and performed in elaborate clothing, or a piece of music written for the same. "The original piano version of the Pavane pour une infante défunte was composed in 1899 and dedicated to the Princesse Edmond de …