Ink Mathematics

Hello again,

Holy, have I really not updated this Mother since December 22? What has happened to my internet work ethic? Forgive me, seriously, I won’t go that long again….Appy-polly-logies.

Well, when I haven’t been updating this blog I have been doing quite a number of other interesting projects. First off, my radio show, which is a weekly 2 hours of heavenly bliss on Missoula, Montana’s KBGA 89.9, has turned into a sort of 60’s Psychedelic, Garage, Freakbeat, and Sun-Soaked Psych-Folk specialty show that I have been putting some real hard country back-breaking work into and it seems to be shaping up nicely. So far, the critics,  are just lapping it up.  I have been enjoying focusing my show on a few genres and decades of music rather than your everyday radio Smörgåsbord chock full of lord-knows-what. So, since I’ve been spending a whole bunch of extra time compiling radio shows of the highest quality I am probably not going to take the extra time to edit those shows down in order to paste bite-size little tasty nuggets of mixes up here, but will rather post my radio shows  up here in their entirety, weekly,  with warts and all. And KBGA should be streaming relatively soon, so you can tune in live if you’d like.

Sister, let me tell you, I have had some horrible ear problems lately. A little over a month ago I was at work, getting a sup of water, when a slow ring began in my right ear. The ring increased in volume and spread slowly across my head until it filled my left ear as well. Then, without any forewarning whatsoever, a wall of ear wax came down within both of my ears and my hearing was cut in half, literally, I felt shut out. My head was buzzing with a high-pitched scream and I had to strain to hear anyone speaking, all within an hour. The next day I went to the doc and he washed my ears out and got rid of the wax, and my hearing got better, but the ringing stayed. Two weeks passed and I was still ringing, I’d fall asleep with a ringing and open my eyes to it as well. I went back to the doc and he said whoa, weird, and prescribed me anti-depressants…both to allow me to deal with the anxiety of a buzzing head, and to alleviate stress and depression which can oftentimes lead to people hearing ringing noises in their heads. I popped the pills each night and felt nothing positive come from them, I dropped them after a week. On my next visit  Doc threw up his hands and said I needed a specialist, I left defeated and with visions of a lifetime of ringing ears before me. It’d been a whole month, and I’d been living day to day with screams in my ears at all moments, Tinnitus is a real mother-f. Anyway, this story is a work in progress as the ringing is still in my ears and  I am now seeking treatment at an acupuncturist. Yesterday was my first acupuncture treatment and I’ve got an optimistic feeling about the future potential of these treatments. I had a bunch of needles stuck in and around my ears,  a few scattered around my body, especially my feet, and then the lights were dimmed and I laid there and listened to soothing oriental music for a half an hour before I was flipped over and had the same thing done to the backside of me. I’ve also been given some special tea and pills. We’ll see what happens, I’ll let you know.

I’ve been spending hours and hours dealing with thousands and thousands of classical LPs. Day, over at the vintage vinyl revival, came into possession of a ridiculously large and amazing classical LP collection some years ago and has kept the collection in storage, its’ own storage space, since acquiring it. The collection came from an older gentleman who passed away and left it in the care of his family. His family was clueless as to what to do with 3, 000 classical records and thus tried to give them to KBGA college radio, where Day was employed at the time. Our small radio station couldn’t handle that many records, and anyway, we don’t really play much classical, so Day, looking to save the collection from a less than noble fate, agreed to take the collection and deal with it personally. He started the daunting task of moving the collection and building shelving and eventually got every record settled and started putting out his feelers for a potential home for the collection. The years passed and the collection sat, no one wanted it or could handle it. The library couldn’t house or catalogue the collection and the radio stations didn’t want it. Now the collection has been passed down to me and is sitting in storage in specially built shelving beneath the bakery I work at. Apart from moving the whole collection, and building shelving for it, both of which were huge processes that Day kindly helped me with, I have also been slowly cataloging it and putting certain selections on ebay.  It’ll be a daunting process to get through the whole collection, and it is going to take a lot of time, but maybe I’ll find some gems in there that may make this vinyl adventure more than worth the time.  Here is my ebay page if you want to see what I’ve got for sale. I also take requests. Oh, and I have started listening to more classical music now….it’s amazing, you just have to wade through and find the right stuff.

and now for some bullets:

• If you ever need to take pictures of records for ebay build one of these
• I am reading a novel called “Car” by Harry Crews…It’s outrageous…watch this interview, he is amazing.
• Do you like pictures of ghosts?, I do.
• my favorite 60’s psyche blog
• Today’s top posts on DIGG
• Athletic Prowess, Let’s Begin. (is this funny?)
• I drive a miniature van.

OK, here is a radio show from last week that seemed to be a good one. Tonight I am doing an all 45rpm show that should be a lot of fun and I hope to post that soon as well.

See You Later, Collin

MP3

A)

B)

Hello,

I have been getting into some seriously awesome shit lately, seriously. I started digging a little bit deeper into 60’s psychedelic and  garage music and  found some bands that have been blowing me away over the last month or so. These latest mixes, which are actually taken from my radioshow and include my sweet sultry DJ voice, feature a lot of the artists and albums I have recently been blasting on my boom-box while I freak out.

I have been especially impressed with The Outsiders (from The Netherlands, not the American version) and can’t seem to get enough of their 65-69 singles collection. Their songs have a punk quality to them but are softened with incredibly catchy melodies and a smooth vocal delivery….maybe a bit like The Buzzcocks I would say. Check out this video for the song “lying all the time”…Look at Wally Tax play that Tambourine…so life-like!

Nearly all of the selections chosen hover somewhere between those glorious years of 1965-1974. I left out so many great artists in these mixes and will hopefully have a pt. 2 post some time in the future.

Talk to you soon,

Collin

Full Radio Setlist

A)
The Tape-Beatles “The American Adventure” from The Grand Delusion SINGLE (1993)
Silver Apples “Lovefingers” from Silver Apples (MCA 1968)
Shocking Blue “Boll Weevil” from At Home (1969)
Tomorrow “My White Bicycle” from S/T (1st LP) (1967)
The Outsiders “Don’t You Worry About Me” from strange things are happening (RPM Records UK 2005)
Aphrodite’s Child “The Four Horsemen” from 666 (Universal Int’l 1971)
The Deviants “Bun” from Ptoof! (Alive Records 1967)
B)
Faust “Krautrock” from Faust IV (Caroline 1974)
White Noise “Firebird” from An Electric Storm (Universal 1969)
Skip Spence “Broken Heart” from Oar (Sundazed Music Inc. 1969)
Ithaca “Feelings (look around – I want to feel you)” from Game For All Who Know (1973)
Gong “Glad to Sad to Say” from Magick Brother (Snapper UK 1969)
Fifty Foot Hose “The Things That Concern You” from Cauldron (Radioactive 1969)
Aphrodite’s Child “Seven Trumpets” from 666 (Universal Int’l 1971) 
Aphrodite’s Child “Altamount” from 666 (Universal Int’l 1971)
The Fugs “Life Is Strange” from It Crawled into My Hand, Honestly (4 men with beards 1968)
The Tape-Beatles “Behold A Republic” from The Grand Delusion SINGLE (1993)
Silver Apples “Oscillations” from Silver Apples (MCA 1968)
Blossom Toes “Look at Me I’m you” from We Are Ever So Clean (Sunbeam Records 1967)

Odetta / Odetta Sings Dylan / Masters of War

Odetta / Odetta at Carnegie Hall / When I Was a Young Girl

Odetta / Sings Ballads and Blues / Spiritual Trilogy (Oh Freedom,Come And Go With Me,i’m On My Way)

My Father’s Darkroom Door

A)

B)

Hello,

Awhile back I received a voice message that was not meant for me. The message was from an older woman, maybe 75 years old or so, it began, “Hi Bobby, this is Gene and I wanted to let you know that I fell down yesterday and  I’d really like to talk to you or see you, please call me”. It was a downright sad message, her voice sounded frail and I couldn’t stand the thought of this woman never reaching Bobby, waiting for Bobby to call, and all due to her dialing the wrong number. I decided to call her back and let her know she had dialed the wrong number and that bobby never received her message.  The phone rang and she picked up and I began to explain the mix-up but she interrupted me “it’s so nice of you to call me back, bobby, I have had hard times these last two days”. She went on to tell me how she fell down while in the kitchen and had broken her collar bone and crawled to the phone in order to get some help. Now there was help at the house and they had her taking all sorts of pain medications. I empathized with her for a moment and then began to reiterate that I was not Bobby and that she still needed to call him. She listened for a second and responded, “thank you so much for calling me Bobby and I hope you can come out and visit with your father one day soon, I had better go, the nurse is here”. I thought about telling her I wasn’t Bobby one more time, but instead I let her know that maybe we could visit one day soon and that I hoped her pain was tolerable and that she could call me anytime.

I haven’t been in a movie watching mood for quite awhile now, I’m not sure why. These days I watch The Office once a week, a Chaplin film here and there,  and maybe a documentary every now and again. A couple of weeks back I started watching The Planet Earth nature documentaries and I have been totally in awe of what I have seen. I’m totally enthralled with them and I plan on making my way through all 4 discs (are there more?). Here is a clip from the Snow Leopard section of the series.

Here are a couple short stories that I read recently and liked:

“Days of Heaven” by Rick Bass (Montana author with a story about a man house sitting a mansion in MT)

“Night They Missed the Horror Show” by Joe Lansdale (this is disturbing, shocking, and offensive…A real horror story, I genuinely warn you)

Lately I’ve been losing interest in the internet and I’ve let mix after mix fall through the cracks never to be posted on this site, but I have a renewed will at the moment and I promise not to let ink math go stale and dead like so many other blogs out there. And it’s hard to update the blog when the sun is shining outdoors.  I suspect this winter will turn me into a shut-in and I will do nothing except drink coffee and concoct hot fresh mixes for you. Oh, and on top of all the new mixes you’ll be getting here,  KBGA will begin streaming over the internet soon and you can listen to all your favorite KBGA programs from any computer station in the world.

Well, this Joe Meek mix is something special if you ask me…I think it might be one of my favorites ink math mixes so far. I offer it up to you as a sacrifice for my lack of new content over the last few months. The binding theme of this mix is that each of these songs was produced by the amazing English producer Joe Meek. Joe did the production on about 245 songs from 1959-1967 and I have about 130 of those songs and I went through and picked out some of my favorites for this mix. I came across Joe Meek while I was deep within my Buddy Holly obsession last year this time. I was reading an article about Buddy and it mentioned english producer Joe Meek as someone who was not only influenced heavily by Buddy and produced many holly-esque tunes, but also idolized him and was convinced that Buddy communicated to him through dreams. Aside from liking Buddy, Joe was also an incredibly creative and imaginative producer who invented groundbreaking recording techniques that made his particular production style standout as one far ahead of its time. If you’re interested in Joe there is a great book out there that will really give you the juice on the man. Unfortunately the hits started drying up for Joe, and he was already a tortured soul, so on the 8th anniversary of Buddy Holly’s death in 1967 Joe took a shotgun and killed his landlady before turning it on himself.  Long story short.

Oh, and the link section has been updated…know of anything that is missing in there? bye, Collin

Artist / Song

Side A

Emile Ford & The Checkmates / What Do You Want to Make Those Eyes at Me For?
Heinz / Questions I Can’t Answer
Shade Joey and The Night Owls / Bluebirds Over The Mountain
The Impac / Too Far Out
Jason Eddie and The Centremen / Come On Baby
Heinz / Just Like Eddie
Mike Berry and The Outlaws / My Baby Doll
The Honeycombs / Have I the Right? / Video
The Blue Rondos / Little Baby
Ray Dexter / Just Like You
The Buzz / I Gotta Buzz
The Birds of Prey / Love Gone Again
Jason Eddie and The Centremen / Singing the Blues

Side B

Glenda Collins / Something I’ve got to Tell you
Michael Cox / Angela Jones
Mike Berry and The Outlaws / Just A Matter of Time
Michael Cox / I Can’t Make up my Mind
Heinz / I’m not a Bad Guy
Alexander Combo / Can’t you Hear my Heart?
Mike Berry and The Outlaws / Tribute to Buddy Holly
The Cryin’ Shames / Please Stay / Video
Joe Meek / I Hear a New World
Glenda Collins / It’s Hard to Believe It

Deer, Fifty Mountain Campsite, Glacier NP

Howdy,

Above we see a picture of a deer sneaking near my campsite in order to A) steal a piece of clothing with my sweat soaked into it, or gnaw on it, B) find a puddle of salty urine from which to lap, or C) give me the heebie-jeebies as I lay in my tent wondering what that sound might be. The correct answer is all of the above.

I finally got my big summer backpacking trip in a few weeks ago. Some friends and I did six nights in Glacier National Park on a route known as “The North Circle”. The route  was incredibly scenic throughout, almost more so than any other I’ve done, the skies were perfectly crisp and blue and fall colors had just begun to appear. We saw an amazing number of mountain goats, a black bear momma with her cub (she stood on her hind legs and checked us out, we stood poised for action), a wolf, a ram, crazy deer, a fat ass marmot that looked too big to be a marmot, some birds of prey, possibly an eagle, and maybe some others, sorry if I forgot you. Anyway, it was a near flawless trip with the only downside (possibly up for my hiking partners) being that my thermamest emptied itself out about every two hours throughout the night which makes for some troubling sleep.  Here are a few various photos from various days during the trip.

This last weekend was the KBGA Birthday Bash, our twelfth birthday. The night was ’50s themed so I did my best to look like a kid from the 1950s who was up to no good, but I ended up with more of a late ’60s man-child look.  I did two live DJ sets of late ’50s / early ’60s rock and roll and the crowd even danced for a while, which had never really happened to me before while DJing, usually everyone is slightly reserved and I stand there stroking my chin in between songs. I’m thinking about trying to do those sets live on KBGA this coming week since I didn’t even really touch most of the material I had selected for the night, so if that happens I’ll post a link for you. The whole Birthday Bash was rad and I feel so lucky to be able to be part of a radio station like KBGA. The last band at the birthday bash, Monotonix, was one of the most insane and unique shows to ever come through Missoula and Day over at Vintage Vinyl Revival wrote up a great review with pictures and video that you should definitely check out…Missoula is not likely to see a show like this again anytime soon.

In a few weeks time I am heading to Seattle for a few days in order to see The Fleet Foxes and do some old fashioned record shopping. I’ve heard so many people give rave reviews on The Fleet Foxes live show and I have listened to their self-titled album quite a bit, so I am definitely looking forward to seeing them. The last time I was in Seattle must have been when I was ten years old or so. I remember seeing a picture of myself from this trip where I was wearing a fluorescent green wind jacket and little flip down john lennon-esque sunglasses standing on a pier somewhere…aside from that picture, and men throwing fish, I remember nothing about Seattle…it should be good to be there, it’ll be like the first time.

Well, here is an edited version of my radio show from last week. I think you’ll like this mix…It’s pretty rocking and bad ass, but also has some tender moments hidden within.  Also, there are a few tracks from The Conet Project in this mix and I highly suggest tracking that down for yourself on the web because it is cool and weird.

Bye, Collin

Artist / Album / Song

Faust / Faust / It’s a Rainy Day, Sunshine Girl

The Conet Project / The Conet Project / German Lady

Glenn Branca / Lesson Number One / Lesson #1 For Electric Guitar

Neu! / Neu! ‘75 / Isi

The Books / Music for a French Elevator / Millions of Millions

Tom Verlaine / Dreamtime / Deep Penetration

The Association / Insight Out / Never My Love

The Beau Brummels / Bradley’s Barn / Turn Around

The Conet Project / The Conet Project /

Akron/Family / Eskimo / There You Are

The 13th Floor Elevators / The Psychedelic Sounds of The 13th Floor Elevators / Splash 1 (alternate)

Wilderness Sculpture, www.joshshaffner.com

howdy,

This summer here in Montana has been spectacular and I have been unable to drive myself indoors to compute up some new ink math mixes for you, but luckily the last 2 days have been nothing but rain and gray so I’ve finally planted myself down to work it on out. Over the last few weeks I have been living in an album from 1976 called, “Have Moicy!’”… I’ve either been listening to it, singing the songs in my head, or making up my own lyrics to match the harmonies from the record and singing them aloud when I am doing whatever. Have Moicy! was created by a supergroup of sorts, that being Michael Hurley, Members of The Holy Modal Rounders, and Jeffrey Frederick and The Clamtones, all real tight buds.  It’s folk but not, it’s country but not quite, and the lyrics are outrageously silly, genius, and unforgettable:, “I was cleaning my jackknife when you did appear, had to fight with you I cut off your ear.” How could a person not like a song with lyrics like, ” I was cleaning my jackknife”? I slid a few tracks from Have Moicy! into this mix (you deserve to hear the whole album, so hard to choose two songs), hoping to convince you that it is an album you need, along with some original early Holy Modal Rounders and some solo Michael Hurley. Oh, and aside from all that goodness I also put in some Incredible String Band, which never bores, and some solo work from ISB member Clive Palmer….and to put a cherry on top, a nice little hawaiian two-step from my boy, John Fahey.  Anyway, hope you like it…lemme know.

In other news I am so goddamn sick of politics and can’t bear to turn on the tv or log on to cnn or nothing. I have gorged myself on that gruel for far too long..Will it ever end? Maybe the torture never stops.

Couple weeks back I was forced to sleep in my parents’ basement. I had a week where I had to sleep at my folks’ house and on top of that my Aunt was visiting, so I was booted out of my childhood bedroom and given a mattress on the floor in the basement. I actually don’t mind sleeping in the basement…it’s cool, silent, and dark as can be, but it is also piled up with all sorts of accumulated what-have-you and I had to eeke out a little corner for my pad. I’d turn off the light and run to my pad, strap on my headlight, and read while boxes of junk towered around me (mostly my old junk, to be fair).  I was somewhat suspicious of spiders in this room, what with all the crevices, hiding spots, and the like, so when I awoke very late at night to a spider’s legs scuttling across the middle of my back I casually, but quickly, swatted the fat little sucker off and went back to dreaming. After this incident my dreams were anxiety ridden and I kept awakening and running my hands across my bed and entire body in search of more spiders. I didn’t think there were too many spiders hanging around, I hadn’t seen many, but for some reason my subconscious wouldn’t allow me the deep peaceful sleep a growing boy like myself requires. Two nights it went on like this, hour after hour awakening with thoughts of spiders crawling all about my person, so I went out and bought myself five little pieces of mind called, “catchmasters”. I laid them all around my bed and in the corners and deep in the crevices,  sticky pads, with an aroma that attracts fuzzy little ones. It was piece of mind alright, I had protectors out there guarding my bed and I was able to sleep like a lamb.  I awoke in the morning refreshed, stumbled up, did my scratching and then looked down in horror.

Oh, and at the end of September myself, and a few other dudes will be DJing a portion of the KBGA birthday  bash (which will undoubtedly rule). It’s a ’50/’60’s sock-hop theme this year, so I am going to whip together some sort of rad late ’50’s, early ’60’s rock n’ roll set that’ll get the kids bopping. Everyone is supposed to get all dressed up, so I need to dig up either a preppie sweater-wearing captain of the football team outfit, or some bad-ass, hair greased right on back, switchblade in the pocket, package of cigarettes in the sleeve, big black boots ready to rumble garb. And, I’ll post that mix up here for you in case you can’t make it.

Gone to Chattanooga to see my ponies run,

Collin

Artist / Album / Song

Michael Hurley, Unholy Modal Rounders, Jeffrey Frederick & The Clamtones / Have Moicy! / Jackknife/Red Newt

The Holy Modal Rounders / I & 2 / Blues in The Bottle

John Fahey and His Orchestra/ After the Ball / Hawaiian Two-Step

Michael Hurley / Long Journey / Polynesia

The Incredible String Band / The Big Huge / Cousin Caterpillar

The Holy Modal Rounders / The Moray Eels Eat the Holy Modal Rounders / Bird Song

Clive Palmer / Spirit of Love / Spirit of Love

Michael Hurley, Unholy Modal Rounders, Jeffrey Frederick & The Clamtones / Have Moicy! / The Slurf song

Michael Hurley / Armchair Boogie / Sweedeedee