Thursday, April 14, 2011

Voices of the Angels

I just got an MP3 player. This is my first “personal audio” player I've had in about twenty years, no joke. My last thing was a Walkman-type deal from some company other than whoever put out the original “Walkman”, but it still played cassette tapes. Can't recall if it had radio-function. No idea what happened to it. I probably threw it under a bus.
So I completely skipped past the portable-CD-'kman period, and, lamentably, the mini-CD-'kman phase.
The 'batteries dying out after three plays' with the cassette version killed any momentum for me. Nothing like a really long bus ride and halfway through it the song fades to nothing and you're stuck there, still nodding your head to the beat (Tiny Tim, I think it was) after the music died because you didn't want anyone else around you to know that your energy supply has deep-sixed. Who needs the humiliation? So you bang your skull to Burt Bacharach or whatever but in reality you're listening to the banal jaw-motoring of mall-sprites in the seats around you and it's just a chore, really.
So this MP3-thing is like really tiny, insanely hard to navigate even with these delicate, slender girl-fingers of mine, and after a week or so of ownership, I still instinctively pull it out of my pocket after six or so songs ready to flip the tape over. Very weird sensation. 
It can play movies, but I refuse that function out of pure spite.
People spend thousands for a five-foot LCD/LED/Plasma/3D TV flatscreen then rush out and spend hundreds on a 3” screen to watch the same movies. Right there, that makes me want to kill society as a whole, not just certain segments.
Three weeks I give myself til this thing squirts out of my fingers and under that damn bus.

What has any of this got to do with people talking words on vinyl? Let me stretch my segue-fingers and I'll tell you.

The main reason I got the personal player – do people still call these a “Walkman”? In a generic sense like Band-Aids or Popsicles or martinis? Because that's two syllables, and the other option is “MP3 player”, which is a lip-tiring five syllables – is to block out everybody else. I finally became exhausted with the general ineffervescence of my lovely fellow humans (not to mention the cell-talkers. Not sure what the psychology is on being aggravated by one-sided conversations, but it seems prevalent) on certain segments of mass transit. The suburban stretches only, though. The discordant ramblings you get on the inner-city buses is like having three William Burroughs' reciting different crime-scene reports while fresh off shotgunned Lysol hits with Nyquil chasers.

Why, something like listening to THIS!
Released in 1982 on the Freeway Records label by Harvey Kubernik, this two-disc set was produced in order to capture the spoken-word/poetry scene of L.A. during what was I suppose a second-wave underground beat recital movement. Featuring a hell of a lot of people as well-known as Charles Bukowski, Pleasant Gehman and Geza X amongst nearly 80 other performers, and liner notes by some guy named Ray Manzarek.
Quality? You want quality?! You find another blog, right now.
The rest of you, click something below. I'll be posting one side over the next four blogs, perhaps interspersed with some music so I don't alienate, uh, everyone.

 Download here:

13 comments:

allergyrelief said...

what a great record. please post the other side! i love kari krome's "love butchers"

KL from NYC said...

I've never come across this MegaUpload screen before:
Do the tracks have to be downloaded separately?

Darcy Jansen said...

Unfortunately, yes. Currently trying to find a free way to do it all up in one file.

KL from NYC said...

The free Windows download for 7-zip at Cnet.com is here:

http://download.cnet.com/1770-20_4-0.html?query=7-zip&platformSelect=Windows&tag=srch&searchtype=downloads&filterName=platform%3DWindows&filter=platform%3DWindows

Cnet is part of CBS Interactive, so all downloads are safe.

PS - Don't throw the mp3 player under a bus. As you'd pointed out, a personal audio player is very handy for blocking out the idiots -- just invest in better headphones (those earbuds are awful -- I have no idea why people prefer them).
I have an under-$20 non-iPod with decent headphones.

Darcy Jansen said...

Thanks for the tip!
All 4 sides of V.O.T.A. are now zipped, as well as the Vancouver Independence.
Going to go back and zip all the rest in a day or two.

And I got some SkullCandy 'phones on sale and the buds are in the trash...
Much better.

Mr Rar said...

hey these records are fantastic, really truly great and thanks for posting, but downloading the individual trucks in certainly a wrong in the confederacy of wrongness out there. Any chance of packaging them as an archive and reupping. As it stands now it takes nearly 2 hours of very careful monitoring of MU and while everyone I'm sure is just as appreciate of the hard work, it sure helps out the community when the package is nice and tidy as an archive with tracks and artwork which is kind of the standard in 2011. Not complaining, truly not, but future visitors, I promise you that you will earn good karma making these little changes. Thanks again!!!

Darcy Jansen said...

Yeah, I'm a little behind on zipping up the archives. The "Voices" & "Van. Independence" LPs are zipped so far, with the rest to follow hopefully tomorrow!

Larry Graykin said...

Thanks very much for posting this...and curses to the Powers That Be who have made Megaupload disappear it! It is my hope that you are able and willing to re-up this, for I only now (now that it is too late) found this post! It was a favorite LP of mine at the time it came out, and I miss hearing it.

Darcy Jansen said...

Just re-upped all four parts! Please let me know if the links fail!

bstefans said...

I'd really love to be able to download these. I've been doing a lot of research on both LA Post-punk as well as LA poetry and these would be perfect. Any chance of re-uploading them? Or could you email them to me? Thanks.

Pisŧöff said...

Fantastic share Lazlo- probably took a ton of time. Any chance of getting you to re-rip side 1? Please have a listen(sounds like your ground might have been loose). We tried to remove the 60hz hum but could only knok ~12db off it without completely wrecking it.
Lots more poetry here: http://pettyvendetta.blogspot.com/search/label/poetry

-Cheers,

_Petty_V

Darcy Jansen said...

Alright! Re-ripped it and it's now up! Sounded fine pre-zip, but let me know if it's all wonky again.

Pisŧöff said...

Outstanding Darcy. We shared a couple others on the Freeway label this month. Might like to share this as well.


Cheers,

-PettyV