The Groupies

For those with an appetite for bizarre recordings, here’s mp3s of the entirety of “the astounding, disquieting” 60s record ‘The Groupies,’ a collection of actual interviews with Manhattan groupies discussing their depraved post-gig activities.

It’s not quite what you would expect — sometimes the girl’s experience slips into tragedy, as when one of them describes a beating at the hands of a lover. But for those looking for a peek into the wild nights of the Age of Aquarius, this is it, raw and uncensored.

Music Biz Lament

Rolling Stone reports on a very bad year for the music industry. Overall, consumers bought 48 million fewer albums than in 2004, marking a disastrous twenty-one percent slide from the industry’s peak in 2000, according to Nielsen SoundScan. “It was arguably the worst year in the music business’s history,” says Steve Bartels, Island Records president. (Gee, I wonder why…)

2 Out Of 5 Stars

Another review of Joe’s XMaSage:

Overall, while I enjoy the musical moments of this CD, there is simply too little music, and too much talk. In fact, there’s only about 20 mintues of music on this sucker. Come on ZFT, you can do better.

Yup, that pretty much seems to be the consensus. Meanwhile I’m reading the first reports here and there of people that have received Imaginary Diseases, although this release appears to be unavailable currrently.

Ponty Talks

Interview with Jean-Luc Ponty in which he talks, among other things, about Frank Zappa:

Some of his pieces were a total musical patchwork; a few measures of basic rock suddenly moving into jazz then into a Stravinsky like written section. He was a true pioneer of fusion but I preferred his pieces that were in one style from start to finish, some were very inventive, intricate yet melodic.

RIP Alex St Clair

Some rather sad news for Cpt. Beefheart fans: Alex St Clair passed away last January 5th. St Clair – real name Alex Snouffer – was one of the original guitarists with the group and helped shape their sound from their inception in 1964 via their deranged cover of Bo Diddley’s “Diddy Wah Diddy” single released in 1966 and on to the groundbreaking Safe As Milk.