all out to fink, inc.

..."La Fleur De Barbe" is not among those eight recordings of Dubuffet's reissued by İlhan Mimaroğlu on "Musical Experiences" (Finnadar SR 9002). Certainly, it hails from those original pieces recorded by Dubuffet - in collaboration with Danish painter and ally, Asger Jorn - between December, 1960 and March, 1961; twenty issued on six 10" LPs, with perhaps eleven additional pieces on a farther four 10" vinyls, each in a limited pressing of 50 copies individually numbered and signed by the artist. 

"The first tape produced in these circumstances is rather unusual as it is a poem, La fleur de barbe, which is declaimed, chanted and vaguely sung by several voices mixed together (which are all in fact mine) with occasional instrumental accompaniment."

OUT OF PRINT SOURCE: THUNDERPERFECTMIND

▼ JEAN DUBUFFET: LA FLEUR DE BARBE from "Experiences Musicales" 6 x 10" LP (Unknown Label) 1961 (France / Italy)

arthur alexander & sex

john tobler's punk cash-in, phoebus publishing, 1977.

the sex clothes were shocking
but they were art.
i know 'cause i've got them on my wall.

- Marco Pirroni
"punk.", colegrave & sullivan.
This comes courtesy of Crispin over at Reel Cool.

Better known here in the UK as the lead track on The Rolling Stones January, 1964 EP, this Alexander composition was originally the a-side of a Dot Records 45 released in the US in 1961.

Born in Sheffield, Alabama in 1940, Arthur Alexander was critically acclaimed as a Country Soul pioneer and cited by some as a major influence on the Beatles' John Lennon. A R&B hit on Nashville's Dot Records, the recording was laid down in a rudimentary studio occupying an old Tobacco warehouse in Muscle Shoals on the Tennessee River. It made enough waves across the Atlantic that it found its way onto the in store jukebox in Malcolm McLaren's SEX on the Kings Road, eventually making it onto Marco Pirroni's retrospective compilation.

▼ ARTHUR ALEXANDER: YOU BETTER MOVE ON from "You Better Move On b/w A Shot Of Rhythm And Blues" 45 (Dot Records) 1961 (US)

PURCHASE SEX: TOO FAST TO LIVE TOO YOUNG TO DIE

hotter than july

"flag" by jasper johns, 1954-55.

Released in 1960, the soundtrack to Leonard Bernstein & Stephen Sondheim's smash "West Side Story" - originally launched on Broadway in 1957 - spent an unprecedented 54 weeks at #1 on Billboard's album charts, giving it the longest run on the top spot of
any album in recording history.

It was the only musical I could stand to watch as a pre-adolescent.

The newsagents at the top of the street where I sometimes spent weekends with my cousins and aunt and uncle was called "Broadway". Any hint of reflected glamour it may once have clung to had long since vacated. Even the boxes of continental chocolates on the long shelves were by then covered in a fine film of dust.

▼ RITA MORENO & GEORGE CHAKIRIS: AMERICA from "West Side Story" LP (columbia) 1961 (US)

WEST SIDE!