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Incredibly Strange CDs

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Table of Contents

From Incredibly Strange Music Vol. II

Interviews:

  • Jello Biafra is a self-described "cultural terrorist" who debuted as singer for the punk band Dead Kennedys in 1978. He is also a songwriter, spoken word activist and collage artist. See also: Search & Destroy and Pranks!
  • In the late '50s, comedienne Rusty Warren began a lifelong career of challenging repressive American attitudes toward sex and women.
  • Chris Long is a British painter and illustrator.
  • In 1957 Ken Nordine recorded the first of four pioneering Word Jazz albums. In his rich, soothing baritone voice he recited "insane stories". Additionally, for the past 50 years Ken Nordine has had a successful career in commercial radio and television, having done advertisements, radio shows, plus television appearances and public performances.
  • Candi Strecker is the publisher of Sidney Suppey's Quarterly and Confused Pet Monthly, an eclectic zine about her personal obsessions.
  • Ken Sitz is a San Francisco artist working with "language, diagrammatical texts and extramusical sound."
  • In 1949 the first all-music TV program featured Korla Pandit playing the Hammond organ, wearing a bejeweled white turban. Besides pioneering percussion effects and technical innovations in the organ itself, he produced "exotic and mystic, moody, hypnotic music as gentle as drifting lotus blossoms, as savage as jungle drums."
  • Dean Santomieri is a musician, filmmaker and electronic music composer currently associated with the California College of Arts and Crafts.
  • Robert A. Moog, PhD is an early synthesizer pioneer; the legendary analog Minimoog synthesizer, which in 1971 changed the face of rock music, bears his name.
  • One of the foremost collectors of comedy records in the U.S. is Reverend Warren Debenham, a Bay Area minister with more than 10,000 comedy LPs, 45s, 78s and CDs.
  • Juan Garcia Esquivel produced some of the most innovative stereo recordings of the '50s and '60s. Throughout a 50 year career, Esquivel also produced music for numerous radio and TV shows, live shows, and films, both in North and Central America.
  • The legendary five-octave vocalist Yma Sumac has been named as an influence by Diamanda Galas, Nina Hagen, Kate Pierson and many others. Promoted in the '50s as an Inca princess directly descended from Atahualpa, the last emperor of the Incan empire, Yma Sumac enjoyed international fame from the '50s through the '60s. Retiring in the '70s, an appreciation for her music has encouraged Ms. Sumac to once again take up performing for audiences.
  • O. Rodger Harris has been collecting and selling records for the past two decades. In the late '50s, musical archaeologist Elisabeth Waldo and her orchestra produced their first LP, Rites of the Pagan. She also created several TV documentary scores and is now producing a series of four videos.
  • Video artist, musician, and interior designer Ian Hartley was a prime mover in the original '70s Australian punk rock scene.
  • Al Ennis has been collecting records for the past 25 years. Co-author of The Roots & Rhythm Guide to Rock, Al is currently writing a history of rockabilly.
  • In 1955-6 Bebe and Louis Barron collaborated to create the ground breaking Forbidden Planet soundtrack--the first to use electronic sounds created by self-destructing circuits, rather than conventional orchestration.

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