My Daddy Drives A UFO

I've always loved this video of The Cramps at Napa Valley Mental Hospital. Oddly endearing.



One of the organizers of the show wrote a recent article about the event.

It All Comes Out-- I Was In A Mental Institution... With The Cramps And The Mutants

Bananas, Cucumbers and Disco Biscuits

Alex talks about the two recent Disco Biscuits shows he went to in Chicago. We also discuss the other notable New Years runs by Phish and String Cheese.

In between all of that is plenty of trash talking and stories of our separate Phish Alpine Valley mishaps and absurd tangents of the emetic variety and beyond.

Alex did the kickass edits this week.






New Years Bootlegs just because.

 Umphrey's Mcgee

Moe

Zora Neale Hurston Responds to The Great Gatsby?

I always wonder about a theory that one of my professors at Oakland University had about the last sentence of The Great Gatsby being riffed on in the opening paragraph of Zora Neale Hurston’s novel Their Eyes Were Watching God.

It seems like a long shot. The Great Gatsby didn’t become popular until after F. Scott Fitzgerald’s death. During World War II the book was distributed to soldiers during the war effort and became very popular from that point on. It is possible that Hurston may have obtained a copy, but to my knowledge there is no proof of that. So we are left to speculate. Here are the two passages. I’ll even put in a little extra to give it more context.

The Great Gatsby (1925)

            And as I sat there, brooding on the old unknown world, I thought of Gatsby’s wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night.

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther….And one fine morning---

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937)

Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail on forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men.

            Now, women forget all those things they don’t want to remember, and remember everything they don’t want to forget. The dream is the truth. They act and do things accordingly.

Intentional or not these texts seem to be speaking to each other. The last sentence in Gatsby: “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past,” is immediately addressed in Hurston’s novel in italics: "Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board. For some they come in with the tide." It is incredible to me how Hurston’s novel immediately picks up where Gatsby left off. Or, maybe it was some kind of weird random great American novel synchronicity. Either way for educators the two books are great together in a classroom.

Nigerian Classic Rock

Many people probably don't realize that in the 1970s Nigeria had a classic rock scene with some really good bands. The most notable was BLO, a band that never really broke out of Nigeria but had some really memorable songs. The African rhythms interacting with the Jimi Hendrix and James Brown influences is really interesting and refreshing. Below is one of my favorite tunes accompanied by a spotify playlist of a few other bands from that scene.

Sun Ra Bootleg Feature 2

An Interview with with Sun Ra, John Gilmore and Marshall Allen from 4-1-85. There are also excerpts of a Halloween show from 1984 at Lush Life in NYC.
Paleolithic Hunting Club

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Reverse Engineered Pale Ales and Conspiracy

I was drinking this Michigan beer from Short's Brewery called Space Rock and noticed a quote on the bottle from a Clutch song: "tasty little nuggets of alien technology." What's cool about that is that the Clutch song Escape from the Prison Planet mentions Bob Lazar. One night when I was sick and couldn't sleep I checked out Bob Lazar. I found that he claimed to be scientist at area 51 working to back engineer UFOs. Now he has this weird store outside of Lansing, Michigan called United Nuclear Scientific Equipment and Supplies. It's a nice little puzzle and nod to Mr. Lazar. Also a tasty beer. But who knows maybe I'm just crazy.

Free Press article by John Carlisle from 2013 titled: This store is the Stuff of Nuclear Dreams

The Mothership Has Landed

A couple weeks ago Brandon who is a contributor to this show, got to jam out with George Clinton. He goes to the newly opened DIME Institute in Detroit and Clinton stopped by to give a master class. What follows is a really good interview with Clinton and a jam session that follows at the end. Clinton just released a memoir, Brothas Be, Yo Like George, Ain't That Funkin' Kinda Hard On You? Clinton talks about the importance of taking chances musically and keeping an open mind. 

Detroit Free Press article and video teaser.

Check out this episode!