I met Groucho Marx in 1972 at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. He was doing a book promo and a friend of mine was able to get me into a small Q&A session. Unfortunately the ravages of old age were quite evident and he was having a bad day. Even then there were signs of his famous wit and charm. I remember asking him about my second favorite personage in the Marx Brothers films, the elegantly frumpy Margaret Dumont. He replied that the reason she was so good at being the straight person was because she never understood the jokes.

An Evening with Groucho is a performance at Carnegie Hall also from 1972. Fortunately for us he was in much better form. It is is basically a “Story of my life” show. Groucho entertains the audience by talking about his films, his famous friends, his equally famous brothers and , of course, himself. His voice is a bit faltering but he seems to be enjoying the time. There are a few musical numbers, noticeably “Hello I Must be Going” and “Lydia The Tattoo Lady” but the real delight is hearing the stories of this master comedian and film star. This is a very entertaining recording that is also a fascinating bit of oral history. If you are not familar with Groucho or his brothers, the very best thing to do is to go rent Duck Soup or Animal Crackers but this album would be a nice introduction.

The album is provided by The Old Time Radio Researcher’s Group and is available from the Internet Archive in both 64kbps and 128kbps MP3 format.

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When we join special agent Jack Bauer in 24: Episode 2, he is mourning the death of his wife, foiling another terrorist plot and whining about torturing people even though he manages to find a way to do it every half hour or so. Even those who enjoy the show, as I did, can’t help but wonder about his paranoid neo-conservative universe centering around a world in which no one ever has to go to the bathroom and you can get anywheres in Los Angeles within five minutes.

Jon and Al Kaplan have managed to create a very funny musical based on the second season of this popular American TV series. Whether you find songs like “I Will Torture You” humorous will probably depend on how well you know the source material but even then you will enjoy some nicely crafted songs with witty lyrics.

The Kaplans have previously composed Silence! an internet musical based on the film Silence of The Lambs. The well-known movie makes this a more accessible choice for a musical and certainly the terrifying themes makes for some delicious parody with or without fava beans. I do find it funny that the most poignant song in the play has a title that assures it will never get any radio play or be recorded by any self-respecting celebrity. The other tracks are all amusingly perverse. It is a bit of a compliment to say I can’t watch the movie without hearing “Put the F—ing Lotion in The Basket” go through my head.

Both internet musicals for better or worse are freely available in 192kbps MP3. If you like Silence! you can purchase the CD from the web site before or after you get psychiatric help.

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24: Season Two: The Musical
Silence! The Musical

Kenny G Meets John Zorn has to be the most mind-boggling album title of all time. No, this is not THE Kenny G or even THE John Zorn but poet Kenneth Goldsmith (who DJs at radio station WFMU under the moniker Kenny G) and electronic composer Jonathan Zorn. However the album does have something to do with the famous easy listening pop saxophonist.

Due to Mr. Goldsmith’s dubious choice of names, he tends to get a lot of e-mail meant for the other Kenny G. You can read a few of them here. Goldsmith and Zorn collaborated to create this piece of, for lack of a better term, performance art. Goldsmith’s dead pan recitation of these letters and Zorn’s odd and sometimes overbearing glitches and beeps cast a surreal shadow throughout. I’m not sure I like this album as much as just get a giggle out of it. The strange humor, the unique idea, and that great album title is enough to give it a thumbs up.

The album is available as separate tracks in 192kbps MP3.

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You want some Bach? Which one? Johann Sebastian or Offen?”

The Old Time Radio Researcher Group has done an admirable job archiving long lost radio programs from the first half of the 20th century. The Internet Archive hosts many of these collections. most being old mystery serials or comedy shows. They are usually in one track and comprises the most complete set of known recordings for the programs. One of the collections that is music related is The Victor Borge Collection, a collection of radio performances featuring the Danish comedian/pianist of whom I consider one of the funniest persons ever to grace the stage.

Essentially there are two collections: a complete collection of radio transcriptions that you can find here, and this collection of selected single episodes. Most of his more famous routines can be found here. The first track is a fine biographical sketch. The other tracks include Victor Borge’s humorous musical antics (”Words and Music”), stand up routines (”Phonetic Punctuation” and “Inflationary Language” being the most famous), and a few straight instrumentals (”Brahms Lullaby”). There are a number of live performances so there is a lot of redundancy in the routines but each one has subtle changes exhibiting the artful mastery of this brilliant comedian and musician. If you never heard Victor Borge before I would suggest “Comedy in Music part one and two” or the hilarious “Inflationary Language”.

The collection is available in either separate tracks or album zip. Most of the tracks are in 128kbps MP3 although a few of them are in lesser bit rates.

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Eddie Cantor was one of the most popular entertainers in the first half of 20th century. Cantor originally played in vaudeville and became one of the lead stars of The Ziegfield Follies from 1917 to 1927. His performances built a bridge between the vaudeville days and the growing development of radio and television variety shows. The Internet Archive’s 78rpm collection offers a entertaining group of single recordings and radio transcriptions by the irrepressible Cantor.

The 78rpm recordings varies from very scratchy (1923’s “He Loves It”) to amazingly good (”Ain’t She Sweet”). There’s a lot of old standards of which Cantor gives his unique renditions. The classic tracks include “If You Knew Susie”, “Yes Sir, That’s My Baby” and Cantor’s trademark “Ma, He’s Making Eyes At Me”.

But the real treats are two half hour transcriptions of Cantor’s radio show called “It’s Time To Smile”. One features Jack Benny and it is a riot. Benny, in my humble opinion, was the greatest comedian of radio’s golden era. He is often called the father of modern stand-up comedy. He was a master in getting maximum laughs out of the minimum of words and only Benny could get a big laugh out of a moment of silence. Cantor manages to keep up with the comedian’s perfect timing. The show also features a very young Dinah Shore. The other radio session has Al Jolson as a special guest. Also included is a very funny public service announcement with Cantor, Benny, Shore, and Burns & Allen extolling the virtues of gas rationing during World War II.

You can download these tracks separately or in a full album zip. The format is MP3 but the bitrates varies per track from 32kbps to 160kbps. These are delightful glimpses of entertainment from the golden age of radio.

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Benny Bell was a Jewish singer / comedian who recorded in the 1940s . He performed humorous songs filled with mild double-entendres. His recordings didn’t do all that well and he would have disappeared into obscurity if it wasn’t for a radio personality named Dr. Demento who would play Benny Bell’s “Shaving Cream” on his show. In 1975 “Shaving Cream” managed to break through to the Billboard top 30, giving him one last moment in the sun. He died in 1999 at the age of 93.

The Internet Archive has put together 30 of his singles in the 78 RPM collection. Benny Bell’s music is a step back to a more innocent era when risque lyrics were limited to witty implications in songs like “A Goose For My Girl”and “Everybody Wants My Fanny”. Many of his songs like “Dopey John” and “I’ll Never Get Drunk Again” were probably rescued orphans from the vaudeville days. Of course, “Shaving Cream’ is here. These are all fun novelty songs but it should be noted that on “Down by the Old Mill Stream” Benny Bell actually showed some ability to get down and swing a little!

The track are MP3 s ranging from 80kbps to 128kbps but remember these recordings are from old 78rpm acetate disks and sounds like it.

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God in his wisdom
Made the fly
Then forgot to tell us why
-Ogden Nash

On this April Fool’s Day I present for your enjoyment something a little different for Free Albums Galore. A spoken word album from America’s foremost poet of the absurd.

Ogden Nash exceled in the light verse. His poetry is full of puns and light-hearted wit to the point that you may not realize he is also blightly satiring and questioning 20th century culture and norms. On The Fanciful World of Ogden Nash, he reads 26 of his poems observing everything from flies to insomnia to the difficulty of getting coffee with a meal. His readings are charmingly accompanied by a woodwind and harp score by composer Glenn Osser.

The album is available in 192kbps MP3.

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In 1997 I was a 12-year-old preacher’s kid brought up on the safe, derivative, contemporary Christian music of Carman, DC Talk, Audio Adrenaline, The Newsboys and their ilk. Then a friend played Metallica’s Ride the Lightning and Master of Puppets for me at his house. I was instantly taken by the crushing riffs, aggressive vocals, blistering solos, and creative structures. Good grief, I thought, what have I been missing? I quickly expanded my musical horizons in search of more “secular” music as exciting and passionate as Metallica and found Dream Theater, Queen, Pink Floyd, Radiohead and others.

Eventually I discovered that there was more to The Beatles than their charming pop hits featured on so many soundtracks. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and Abbey Road gave me an entirely different perception of the band as rock’s most important innovators (an opinion since reversed by Piero Scaruffi’s persuasive arguments). Metallica and The Beatles remain two of my all-time favorite bands, and Master of Puppets my all-time favorite album. So what could be better than The Beatles done Metallica-style? Besides Michael Gordon done Radiohead-style, I mean.

Beatallica mash up Beatles songs and Metallica riffage with a convincing James Hetfield impression by the lead vocalist. The result is… well, buckets of fun. The lyrics and even the track titles (”Leper Madonna”, etc.) spoof the original material. A Garage Dayz Nite and Beatallica (or “The Grey Album”, a mix of Metallica’s “Black Album” and The Beatles’ “White Album”) elicited a strong response from fans and, unfortunately, Sony Records. Sony tried to sue Beatallica out of existence, but with the help of fans and Metallica’s Lars Ulrich, the parody band survived and is once again playing shows and working on new material.

Both albums are available for download in 192kbps MP3, including “radio edit” versions of the second album’s tracks. There is also a torrent available for each album in lossless FLAC format.

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