Local tidbits
A few things of note in the Washington City Paper this week. First, there's the Loose Lips column on Mayor Williams' bizarre recent blog entry, in which he proclaims his reliance on Christian faith to get him through the daily trials of being the city's #1 sellout corporate shaft-waxer. Andrew brought this to my attention initially in the hopes (I think) that I would put some amusing M.A. spin on it, but honestly... this shit parodies itself. And LL does a good job, particularly with the Williams/Job comparison chart.
Then there's this guy, who, when he's not running around the city obsessively removing Borf graffiti, almost certainly sits at home shooting genetic globs onto his bedroom wall Happiness-style.
And lastly, there's a great little article on Joe Bussard, who is one of the most amazing figures in the history of American music/archivism/record collecting (take your pick). I've read bits about him before, though this piece probably contains more details than I had picked up previously. In addition to running the Fonotone label (which, among things, was responsible for the first recordings of now-legendary local guitarist John Fahey), Bussard has amassed a collection of 25,000 78rpm records; he is the go-to guy on the early years of recorded American country, blues, gospel, etc., and displays a wonderful curmudgeonly contrarianism to boot. Thanks goodness for music fanatics. Excerpt:
Certainly the Fonotone set demonstrates something that doesn’t always shine through on the more scholarly releases drawn from his collection: that he has a hell of a sense of humor about his situation as a man who dwells in what’s essentially an alternate universe—a place where rock ’n’ roll never became the music of teenage rebellion, the Weems String Band was never forgotten, and a few fake hillbilly records can somehow be an expression of authenticity.
“It was nothing really put on—it was just the way we played,” Bussard insists, before launching into another rant about the debased state of contemporary culture. “There’s no comedy anymore. They took all the good comedy off the TV—Laurel and Hardy, W.C. Fields, those kind of guys, y’know. The Three Stooges are about the only thing left. And the only ones that are any good are the ones with Curly.”
Bussard stopped doing Fonotone in 1970, when 78 blanks got too expensive and “you couldn’t even buy a decent cutting stylus.” Though he still records cassettes for 50 cents a song and shares his collection on weekly radio shows for stations across the South and mid-Atlantic, he doesn’t go record-hunting as much as he used to, either. “I don’t go any long distances anymore, because if it says ‘old records,’ you get there and it’s LPs,” Bussard says, fairly spitting the last word. “Perry Como, Doris Day, that kind of crap.
Then there's this guy, who, when he's not running around the city obsessively removing Borf graffiti, almost certainly sits at home shooting genetic globs onto his bedroom wall Happiness-style.
And lastly, there's a great little article on Joe Bussard, who is one of the most amazing figures in the history of American music/archivism/record collecting (take your pick). I've read bits about him before, though this piece probably contains more details than I had picked up previously. In addition to running the Fonotone label (which, among things, was responsible for the first recordings of now-legendary local guitarist John Fahey), Bussard has amassed a collection of 25,000 78rpm records; he is the go-to guy on the early years of recorded American country, blues, gospel, etc., and displays a wonderful curmudgeonly contrarianism to boot. Thanks goodness for music fanatics. Excerpt:
Certainly the Fonotone set demonstrates something that doesn’t always shine through on the more scholarly releases drawn from his collection: that he has a hell of a sense of humor about his situation as a man who dwells in what’s essentially an alternate universe—a place where rock ’n’ roll never became the music of teenage rebellion, the Weems String Band was never forgotten, and a few fake hillbilly records can somehow be an expression of authenticity.
“It was nothing really put on—it was just the way we played,” Bussard insists, before launching into another rant about the debased state of contemporary culture. “There’s no comedy anymore. They took all the good comedy off the TV—Laurel and Hardy, W.C. Fields, those kind of guys, y’know. The Three Stooges are about the only thing left. And the only ones that are any good are the ones with Curly.”
Bussard stopped doing Fonotone in 1970, when 78 blanks got too expensive and “you couldn’t even buy a decent cutting stylus.” Though he still records cassettes for 50 cents a song and shares his collection on weekly radio shows for stations across the South and mid-Atlantic, he doesn’t go record-hunting as much as he used to, either. “I don’t go any long distances anymore, because if it says ‘old records,’ you get there and it’s LPs,” Bussard says, fairly spitting the last word. “Perry Como, Doris Day, that kind of crap.
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