Notes For Geough Wudreph Bio

          It's nearly an hour before midnight at R&R Grille in downtown Chapel Hill, NC., and Geough is looking nervous. It's the first real sultry night in May, and the air reeks with the shadow of the day's heat; but still, given this, Geough is sweating profusely. He keeps ordering these well drinks called "Leg Spreaders," and before each one he looks at me and raises it in a mock toast. "Leg Spreaders!" he says. The first time, I thought it was a joke, and I laughed politely, which only seemed to exacerbate his nervousness. It's starting to feel more and more like an unsettling ritual which I cannot understand. Geough keeps looking over his shoulder uncomfortably. He removes his wide-brim Atlanta Braves hat which he keeps insisting that he had signed by Tom Glavine. His hair is close-cropped, gelled, with peroxide tips. What I initially thought was a mild stutter is actually a persistent dry heave.

          The subject is clearly uncomfortable with the proposed interview, or perhaps with his surroundings, and we begin the interview on this note:

Us Weekly: You were arrested in August of 2013, is that correct?

Geough: Yes, I was one of the accused in Google Blogspot's highly public suit against the former Buncombe County commune, Fran Francisco.

U.W.: This was the commune which began as an internet community of sorts?

Geough: You could say that. A few friends and I kept a semi-regular blog. It was a great impetus for doing a little writing in our spare time, plus it kept a bunch of us in touch with each other. We had a few disagreements with our hosts at Google: in July of that year we received a cease and desist letter about potential copyright infringement, etc. A few tut-tuts about some doctored nudies of Chris Christie. But we resolved those issues, and it seemed like the blog was going to be sustained indefinitely through our persistent, unhurried attentions.

U.W.: This was a loose organization of bloggers as late as July of 2013? But how could...

Geough: Various catalysts brought certain situations to a head that month, I don't think any of us could have accounted for all the variables. (Pause) Leg spreaders! (Pause) I had been having several conversations with contributors about the purpose of the blog, about the persistent anxiety that what you're doing might digress into a narcissistic stunt. Or that you might end up with a narcissistic stunt no matter your intentions. This was right before we heard about the Teen Choice Award nominations, and I think that really went to our heads a bit.

U.W.: ....

Geough: Then Pat released his monograph on Freikoerperkultur. Eric bought a new dog.

U.W.: A new dog?

Geough: Yeah, it was a Boston Terrier.

U.W.: I'm sorry, can I read you just a sample of the charges brought against you by Google Blogspot and the State of North Carolina?

Geough: It's not gonna be news to me man, but, like, do you, you know?

U.W.: Fifty-seven charges of indecent exposure. Conspiracy to grow and distribute cannabis. Tax evasion. Wire and mail fraud. Fraud and misrepresentation. Human trafficking and forced labor.

Geough: Yeah. It was a crazy month.

U.W.: You violated just over a quarter of the N.C. General Police Regulations on the books.

Geough: There aren't that many.

U.W.: Including pine-straw theft and illegal gambling on games of beach-bingo.

Geough: That charge was spurious. Can I go to the bathroom?

U.W.: ...

          Geough left the premises without closing his tab, leaving me to pick up nearly $100 in Leg Spreaders. Two weeks later he sent me an incoherent apology letter on "recycled paper" (corrugated cardboard), and this mix.

Mix 4 (clicky):

- "The Moog and Me" - Dick Hyman, Moog: The Electric Eclectics of Dick Hyman, COMMAND, COMMAND (1969)

- "Lambaya Puf De" - Baris Manco, Ben Bilirim, YAVUS ASOCAL (1993)

- "Haircuts Now!" - Towne Dandies, My First Stampede, S/R (2013)

- "Freundschaft" - Plus Instruments, Februari - April '81, KREMLIN (1981)

- "A New Radiance Springing Forth From Inside the Light" - Haino/Ambarchi/O'Rourke, Now While It's Still Warm Let Us Pour In All The Mystery, BLACK TRUFFLE (2013)

- "End of Capstan Bars" - The Swifter, S/T, THE WORMHOLE (2012)

- "Little Molly's Dream" - Michael Chapman, Trainsong: Guitar Compositions 1967-2010, TOMPKINS SQUARE (2011)

      

Humbucking Harold 13

Back to Abagail!

Booooo FranFrancisco, Booooo Internet

I got everybody all hot n' bothered for a broken MediaFire link. As Pat said to me earlier today, Ms. Gore is still a national treasure, and well protected from internet pirates like me.

Dropbox. Boom. Get it. If this doesn't work, let me know and I'll post a video of myself crying and throwing up on my shoes.

Thanks folks.

I Know Why Lesley Gore Cries

"Hi - Thanks to you and my many wonderful friends for making my first record a hit!

Love, Lesley Gore"

- From the original "It's My Party" 7" sleeve, Mercury Records 72119

I've been thinking about Lesley Gore. I became accidentally high before a recent radio show and it was no fun at all. It was a Saturday night and our College U. basketball corps was playing its rival in a home game. What I thought would be a Zen three hours in the radio station turned out to be a horrible sea of minute responsibilities. Responsibilities which a sober person would, of course, handle and be able to somehow think through, and even enjoy fulfilling. It was overwhelming: the microphone; turntables (2); their needles and styli; the CD players (3!); the faders on the control board; their cue lights, the flowsheet; the public service announcements (too long); the VU meters (indecisive!); the hour breakpoints; the operator's log... I almost drowned. After a few hours I let the long tracks spin, and just kinda started at the back of "The Golden Hits of Lesley Gore" album sleeve.

At least three of Lesley's golden hits are about crying. At least. Asserting the right to cry in "It's My Party," demanding to be allowed to exercise the right to cry ("Just Let Me Cry"), universalizing the right to cry ("Judy's Turn To Cry"). The songs are atrocious:

"Judy and Johnny just walked through the door,

Like a queen with her king.

Oh what a birthday surprise,

Judy's wearin' his ring.

[Refrain]

You would cry too if it happened to you."

What offal. Top of the U.S. charts in 1963. Savored millions of times by millions of Teenage-Americans over root beer floats, in soda institutions across the nation, as they attempted to relativize their values to those of Ms. Gore's narrator. Yet the more I looked at the photographs on the back of the sleeve - Lesley looking apprehensively at a young Dick Clark on the set of American Bandstand, Lesley spoon-feeding a poodle - the less convinced I was that this music represented Lesley Gore. Who was this reluctant-looking starlet? Born to a Jewish family in Teaneck, NJ, the Lesley Gore of the "Golden Hits" album cover appeared positively Iowan in her cornflower blue-checkered shirt, hip-hugging blue jeans, and Stormtrooper perm. Who are the blonde celebrities at Lesley's side on the back cover? I do not recognize their names. Their smiling bodies tower over her.

I grew deeply unsettled. The more I listened to "It's My Party" (I played it five times on my show), the more the final line of the refrain began to sound like a candy-coated cry for help, like a prisoner of a certain war blinking the testimony of her torture across the airwaves in a macabre Morse code.

Why is Lesley Gore crying? We will find no definitive answer in the lyrics of her song. "It's My Party" was written in 1962 by three male employees of the Aaron Schroeder Music Firm. This is no ordinary teenage suffering. Gore's youth was little more than grist for the mill of an infernal entertainment industry. Was she crying because she was forced to watch her youth's attendant passions and sufferings be spun into an emotionally pornographic male fantasy, and be broadcast to the world in her own voice, all in the pursuit of a passively-received conception of success? We are drawing nearer to the mark, but still we miss it by miles.

I can only offer my best answer obliquely, by means of an anecdote. It so happened that while I was walking to campus from my apartment, maybe a week or so after my radio show, walking with the arboretum on my right, with the winter sunlight strobing through branches, I turned to my left, and my gaze landed upon the driver of a white Prius at the exact moment that her face scrunched up in a silent burst of tears. I had one thought, and it gamboled through my mind to the tune of a well known song: "you would cry too if it happened to you." Do you now know?

Enjoy!

Mix 4 (clicky)

- "It's My Party" - Lesley Gore, The Golden Hits of Lesley Gore, MERCURY RECORDS (1965)

- "Leslie" - Gross Ghost, Brer Rabbit, GRIP TAPES (2012)

- "The Minotaur's Song" - The Incredible String Band, The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter, ELEKTRA (1968)

- "Sheba's Return / Lion of Judah" - C.O.B., Moyshe McStiff and the Tartan Lancers of the Sacred Heart, POLYDOR (1972)

- "Thief" - Can, Delay 1968, SPOON RECORDS (1981)

- Sun Ra speaks, from the ESP Sun Ra Radio Tribute, compiled and presented by former Arkestra member and official Sun Ra archivist Michael D. Anderson, "The Good Doctor." Fourteen hours in six parts.

-  "Krausend" - Bitchin Bajas, Krausend 12", PERMANENT RECORDS (2013)

*Note: This mix would have been posted this past weekend, but I was trying to figure out a way to upload more hours of music to SoundCloud without having to pay 9 Pounds Sterling. And by "figure out," I mean I was sitting in my chair being angry. Also, I was doing some thinking.

** Post-Note: Grumpy @ SoundCloud, please enjoy the MediaFire link. All mixes up on MediaFire by this Friday, along with a new mix this weekend.

HumBucking Harold 12

Hi,  Im Eric Kerke. 

Im an artist, designer, and riff seeker. Here's a web comic I do called "HumBucking Harold". 

check out earlier episodes on my blog

Mr. Rubio goes full Beast Man

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The Emperor's New Reviews Volume 1 Part 2

Did a few more reviews to help you in the Easter shopping season.

FLAMINGO ~Novelty Sign~ parking lover animal pink gift by ZANYSIGNS

5 Stars - Keep Your Birds in Order, finally., March 21, 2013

"Being a birdsmen by trade I'm familiar with the limitations one faces looking for products capable of adequately sorting their birds. The current ban on bird boxes forces the modern birdsmen to get creative with his/her methods. I've personally solved this problem by organizing my birds in the local High School parking lot, keeping them in different spaces depending on whether or not they're handicapped. Signs like "Flamingo Parking Only" fit perfectly into this new strategy and the humorous warning "violators will turn pink" is just funny enough to consistently improve my mood in a way Zoloft never could. Thank you, I love this product and my thousands of birds."