- LEGO celebrates 30 years by producing some really terrifying mini figures
- Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy ... sixth book
- World Beard and Moustache Championships.
- NASA commissions space rap and you can watch a video of the rap here.
- Classic video-game medals and here.
- Road that's been carved to play the Lone Ranger Theme as you drive along it
- Fusionman First person to fly solo across the English Channel using a single jet-propelled wing
- Giant Retro Space Hopper
- Electronic Drum Kit Shirt
- Sound/Chair
- The "cardboard" duvet
- Reversible Destiny Lofts
Sunday, 28 September 2008
Playlist, 28 September 2008
The Show
The "main feature" this evening was the first part of our recent interview with Jean-Jacques Perrey and his current musical partner Dana Countryman which we were very excited to have the privilege of doing. The interview was primarily about the release of their new album Destination Space but we covered lots of other topics too. We also took the opportunity to pay tribute to the great Paul Newman who sadly left us on Friday.
The Music
1. Lefties Soul Connection - Paul Newman (Skimming the Skum, 2007)
2. Berto Pisano - Little Snack Bar (Interrabang, 1962)
3. Iron Wood - African Voodoo (Pop Boutique Vol. 1, 1998)
4. Cal Tjader - Poinciana (Several Shades Of Jade/Breeze From The East, 1997)
Then it was time for the first part of our interview with Jean-Jacques and Dana which we set up by playing a track from the new album:
5. Jean-Jacques Perrey and Dana Countryman - The Mysterious Mr Him (Destination Space, 2008)
Followed by another great track from the album:
6. Jean-Jacques Perrey and Dana Countryman - The Spy From Outer Space (Destination Space, 2008)
That last track has some lovely theremin playing by Kevin Lee who happens to be half of the duo Seksu Roba so we played a track from their debut album:
7. Seksu Roba - Crystal Garden (Seksu Roba)
After a news bulletin we played an excerpt from the rap that NASA commissioned from a student at the University of Glamorgan (see link below):
8. Jonathan Chase - Astrobiology 2008 (excerpt)
Then we played the second section of our interview with Jean-Jacques and Dana followed by another track from the new album:
9. Jean-Jacques Perrey and Dana Countryman - Calypso Electronica (Destination Space, 2008)
During the interview, Dana mentioned that they were hoping the great Vinnie Bell would be at the show they're doing in New York on Wednesday so we took the opportunity to play Vinnie's great version of show favourite, Caravan:
10. Vinnie Bell - Caravan (16 Guitar Hits)
Next up we played another tribute to Paul Newman in the form of the main title from The Hustler:
11. Kenyon Hopkins - Main Title (The Hustler OST)
A new album from Brooklyn trio Medeski, Martin and Wood came out earlier this year and it has a great slice of contemporary exotica on it:
12. Medeski, Martin and Wood - Sefrial (Zaebos: the Book of Angels, Vol. 2, 2008)
After the last of the sections from our interview with Jean-Jacques and Dana this week we played a track by Jean-Jacques and the musician who'll be playing with him at his gig in Lausanne:
13. Jean-Jacques Perrey & David Chazam - What's Up Duck? (Eclektronics, 1998)
Keeping things in a quirky mood we felt it was time to play a track from another great French musician we haven't played in a while:
14. Pierre Henry & Michel Colombier - Too Fortiche (Messe pour le temps présent et musiques concrètes, 1997)
And we closed the show with another tribute to Paul Newman by playing a version of the most famous song written by Burt Bacharach for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid:
15. "Sir" Christopher Scott - Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head (More Switched-On Bacharach, 1970)
The News
Sunday, 21 September 2008
Playlist, 21 September 2008
The Show
On the show this week we got touched by the funk, came over all peaceful and also broadcast a sneak preview of an interview we carried out recently with Jean-Jacques Perrey and Dana Countryman.
The Music
We kicked the show off this week with some funky library music courtesy of one Eric Vannell:
1. Eric Vannell & His Orchestra - Whistler On The Rocks (v/a - Pop Boutique Vol. 1, 1998)
Then a truly bizarre slice of flute playing with intermittent shrieking courtesy of Harold Alexander:
2. Harold Alexander - Mama Soul - The Vibes (The Ultimate Rare Grooves Series, Vol. 2: Ghetto Funk, Sweet Soul & Classic Breaks, 2004)
Then we played another track from this great Henry Mancini album we recently discovered in a local charity shop:
3. Henry Mancini - Baretta's Theme (Cop Show Themes)
4. Alan Tew - Headlights (Dramatic Funk Themes Vol. 1, 1976)
Alan Tew's soundtrack to the TV series Bullet was reissued by our friends at DC Recordings and they were kind enough to send us a copy of a new remix album comprising remixes of various tracks from Kelpe's recent album:
5. Kelpe - Shipwreck Glue (Wes Coats Remix) (Extraquarium (Remixes), 2008)
And then two more brand new tracks, the first from a new album by the arch absurdist, Dada-ist, industrialist but also exotica-ist and lounge-ist Nurse With Wound:
6. Nurse With Wound - Ketamineaphonia (Huffin' Rag Blues, 2008)
And then a blistering version of show favourite Caravan by virtuosic Japanese pianist Hiromi Uehara featuring some mind-bending guitar work by David Fiuczynski:
7. Hiromi's Sonicbloom - Caravan (Beyond Standard, 2008)
Contining the Japanese theme, a track from a great compilation that came out a good few years ago by Cubismo Grafico:
8. Cubismo Grafico - Salon A Sunday (Escalator Records, Tokyo, 2000)
Today was the annual International Day of Peace and at the request of One Love for Music we played Bob Marley's One Love, though being Project Moonbase we found a suitably daft version:
9. The Grassmasters - One Love / People Get Ready (Marley Grass, 2006)
And we kept the theme of love, peace and daftness with a track brought to our attention by MC Zirconium - there's even a video for this track you can watch too:
10. Sonseed - Jesus Is A Friend Of Mine (First Fruit, 1983)
Now last night I had the pleasure of speaking to our hero Jean-Jacques Perrey and his current musical partner Dana Countryman on the subject of their new album, Destination Space. The full interview will go out on next week's show but tonight we played an excerpt in which Jean-Jacques talks about meeting Raymond Scott (the featured artist on last week's show) and one of his musical heroes, Les Paul. This prompted Dana to tell us about about an extremely rare recording that Jean-Jacques made in 1960 as a tribute to his hero - a recording of one of Les Paul's biggest hits, Lover. Dana was kind enough to send us a copy of the tune to play on the show:
11. Jean Jacques Perrey - Lover (Ondiolinorama, 1960)
We closed the show with three tracks by three contemporary artists, none of whom I believe we've played on the show before - which just goes to show how much great music there is out there to discover:
12. Nicola Conte - Missione a Bombay (Jet Sounds, 2000)
13. The Coctails - Alderaan (Popcorn Box, 2004)
14. Nice System - Dream Of Me On Tuesday (v/a - The Men From O.R.G.A.N. - Vol.2, 2002)
The News
- Hurricane forced NASA bedrest volunteers to stand up early.
- The Laser-Guided Pool Cue
- UPDATE: Seinfeld and Gates, "It's over"
- UPDATE: The Historic car reg "S1" went for nearly £400,000 at auction
- ORG 45M and PEN 15 for sale.
- UPDATE: LHC Stop! Hot/Cold magnets
- MIT developing autonomous voice controlled wheelchair
- New James Bond theme from Alicia Keys and ... Jack White?
- Swatch James Bond Villain watch collection and here.
- The Vertical Bed
Sunday, 14 September 2008
Playlist, 14 September 2008
The Show
On this week's show we took the opportunity to celebrate the recent centenary of that great musical pioneer Raymond Scott. As it happens today was also the centenary of another favourite of fans of space-age bachelor pad music, namely Bernie Green. So we played some of his music too...
The Music
We kicked off with some ping-pong percussion courtesy of local lad Johnny Keating:
1. Johnny Keating - Mountain Greenery (Temptation/Percussive Moods, 1962)
Then continuing the latin theme we had something I picked up in a local charity shop recently:
2. Victor Buchino - Mama Ines (Festival of International Hits)
And another one:
3. Johnny and Charley - Yenka Riketik (La Yenka! 7")
Then it was time to start the Raymond Scott celebrations:
4. The Raymond Scott Quintette - The Toy Trumpet (Microphone Music, 1939)
Followed by another trumpet-themed miniature:
5. Bunny J. Browne And His New Group (aka Alan Parker) - The Little Trumpeter (Watch With Teacher, 2008)
Our London correspondent Jeff tells me that a new 4-disc compilation of tunes by the great Ananda Shankar recently came out (from here or here and no doubt other places too), and this one has been sanctioned by the Ananda Shankar estate so we urge you to get hold of a copy. We took the opportunity to play one of the tracks included in the set and we dedicated it to Mr Planet Earth Rock and Roll himself, Jake, his wife and their new baby who arrived on Wednesday:
6. Ananda Shankar - Kaziranga Beat (Melodies From India)
Following news that The Fly is being made into an opera (see below) we thought it appropriate to play the only song in our archives that features a fly throughout:
7. Martin Denny - Tsetse Fly (Exotica! The Best Of Martin Denny, 1959)
And next up, an exclusive - almost certainly the first airing on a UK radio station of a track from the new Jean-Jacques Perrey and Dana Countryman album, Destination Space, which is coming out at the end of the month:
8. Jean-Jacques Perrey and Dana Countryman - Funky Little Spacegirl (Destination Space, 2008)
I will be speaking to these great fellows next Saturday night. If you would like me to pose a question to them, do please get in touch!
You can also hear more tracks from the album on their MySpace page.
Next it was time to get back to today's featured artist and we played a version of probably his biggest hit, as played by a band put together by Scott evangelist Mr Irwin Chusid (who wrote this great piece for Boing Boing this week):
9. The Raymond Scott Orchestrette - Mountain High, Valley Low (Pushbutton Parfait, 2002)
And then something from the man himself. This time from his vast output of electronic pieces, taken from an amazing 2 CD set on the Basta label which includes a 140-page booklet with some jaw-dropping photos of Scott at work in his studio:
10. Raymond Scott - Portofino (Manhattan Research, Inc. [Disc 1] - 1962/2000)
As mentioned earlier, today was the centenary of another of our favourites, Mr Bernie Green, and so we played this brilliant piece involving one Julian Joseph on the hands:
11. Bernie Green & Julian Joseph - Concerto For Two Hands (Musically Mad, 1958)
That medley of classical favourites includes a burst of In The Hall of the Mountain King and as it happens, our featured artist today, Raymond Scott, wrote a piece with a very similar title:
12. Raymond Scott - In The Hall Of The Mountain Queen (Manhattan Research, Inc. [Disc 2], 1969/2000)
Then it was time to hear our last piece today performed by Scott which was the result of him returning to some of his compositions from the 30s together with some standards and some new compositions:
13. Raymond Scott - Temptation (The Secret 7: The Unexpected, 1960)
MC Zirconium told us of the imminent release of a special Scalextric set of three minis in the style of the star cars of The Italian Job, so what better reason did we need to play a bit of Quincy:
14. Quincy Jones - It's Caper Time (The Italian Job Original Soundtrack, 1969)
Followed by another of my recent finds from charity shops:
15. Bert Weedon - Big Beat Boogie (7")
We closed the show with a track from each of this week's centenarians, firstly an arrangement of Raymond Scott's most well-known composition:
16. The Bobby Hammack Combo - Power House (Ultra-Lounge, Vol. 3: Space Capades, 1956)
And then a piece from Bernie Green showcasing his pioneering use of tape loops from way back in 1961:
17. Bernie Green & His Orchestra - Kiss Of Fire (Futura, 1961)
The News
- Scientists have hailed LHC switch-on a success.
- The Fly: The Opera
- BBC to track a shipping container around the world
- Particle Zoo sells this adorable cuddly Higgs Boson for your kid's cot or cage.
- Toaster prints on bread
- Sex Pistols' "God Save The Queen" sung by octagenerian Aussie ladies
- Buy one of those Monowheel bikes from the Olympics closing ceremony
- USB Thumb drive and bottle opener combined!
- Scalextric limited edition Italian Job set
- Terrorist Tea Pot
- Evidence of inbuilt "sat-nav" in the brains of London taxi drivers
- Japanese call on I.T deities and here.
- Modified Wool Resists attack by scientist
Sunday, 7 September 2008
Playlist, 7 September 2008
The Show
On the show this week we enjoyed a musical miscellany featuring several recent acquisitions found in local charity shops as well as some library music and a splash of Moog...
The Music
1. Keith Woodman's Piccadilly Brass - Mexican Flier (On The Brink Return Of The Instro-Hipsters, 2007)
2. Alan Tew - Brazil (Don't Cry For Me Argentina, 1977)
That last track was one of the tracks I picked up in a local charity shop recently and the album is worth getting just for the bizarre photo of Mr Tew on the back of the sleeve.
Next up, a brace of tuneless twanging, but great tuneless twanging it has to be said:
3. Puccio Roelens Orchestra - Detroit City (Ciao Musica, 2007)
4. Sukia - Vaseline & Sand (Contacto Espacial con el Tercer Sexo - 1997)
The Large Hadron Collider is due to be fired up this week (see news story below) so we thought we would mark the occasion:
5. The Moog Cookbook - Black Hole Sun (The Moog Cookbook, 1996)
Two slices of latin loveliness:
6. Bill McGuffie - Begin the Beguine (When Lights Are Low, 1973)
7. Cal Tjader - Sally's Tomato - Soña Libré
Thanks to Jeff for drawing my attention to this fabulous slice of space disco:
8. Alan Hawkshaw - The Speed Of Sound (Elaste Vol. 2, 2008)
9. Ten Plus (aka Alan Parker)- 9-10-Out (Watch With Teacher, 2008)
When Jeff was on the show the other week Jean-Claude Vannier was our featured artist and listeners may recall that M. Vannier worked with many great musicians including one Bernard Estardy:
10. Bernard Estardy - Cha Tatch Ka (Top Timing!)
11. Janko Nilovic - Hand In Hand (Last Impressions, 2007)
Wonderful news reaches us at Moonbase Towers of the imminent release of a new album by Jean-Jacques Perrey and Dana Countryman. To celebrate we played a track from the first album that they put out in 2006:
12. Jean Jacques Perrey with Dana Countryman - Atomic Twist (The Happy Electropop Music Machine, 2006)
Followed by some Moog-ska:
13. The Vulcans - Red Herring (Star Trek, 2005)
A recent trip to some local charity shops has thrown up some great tunes and here are a couple more:
14. Perry Botkin - Ode to Billy Joe (Folk Hits From Across the Sea, 1969)
15. Henry Mancini - Policewoman (The Cop Show Themes, 1976)
The long-awaited release of a DVD containing the amazing music videos by Cornelius is out so we played something by the great man:
16. Cornelius - The Microdisneycal World Tour (Sean O' Hagan Mix) (Sushi 4004, 1997)
And to close, another track from the 10th anniversary reissue of Air's Moon Safari which includes a whole load of remixes, rarities and radio sessions:
17. Air - Kelly Watch the Stars (Moog Cookbook Remix) (Moon Safari Remixes, Rarities and Radio Sessions, 2008)
The News
- British boffin working on robo-saucers
- Chemical coat to mean drier socks
- LHC due to be fired up on Wednesday
- And on a related topic: scientists get death threats over Large Hadron Collider
- Your taste in music says something about your personality.
- Edinburgh's first number plate, yours for a quarter of a million
- Microsoft's First Seinfeld Ad: Shoe Circus. My god it's peculiar.
- Biggest iPod accessory...ever?
- Peanut Butter Machine
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