DIG THIS WITH BILL MESNIK AND RICH BUCKLAND- THE SPLENDID BOHEMIANS

Our artists today represent a very specific category within the folk music genre, which lately has come to be known as “Freak Folk”: one is a contemporary singer-songwriter, and the other is an “ancestral” group (when you consider they derived from the early 1970s, before there was even a category for it); one hails from the U.K., the other from California. However, both The Incredible String Band...

THE KEROUAC PROJECT: https://www.kerouacproject.org/ JACK KEROUAC SCHOOL OF DISEMBODIED POETICS: https://www.naropa.edu/academics/schools-centers/jack-kerouac-school-of-disembodied-poetics/ The thread of Jack Kerouac’s literary and personal life in the American imagination might be unwound succinctly in the following terms: ambitious and fun-loving young man leaves behind his small-town upbringing...

To spur my songwriting juices, I got this deck of "Oblique Strategies" cards, created by Brian Eno, designed to prompt creativity. Here are a few examples.  INSIDE / OUTSIDE  (Oblique Strategy: “THINK - Inside the work, outside the work”) Inside - outside: it’s hard to reconcile Inside is terrified, though outside may beguile If I stay inside I just might hide from tribulations and the t...

There is something that happens when two particular voices blend together that transcends all understanding or logic. And, when those voices share the same DNA, the magnetic pull is such that they become one voice. We’ve heard that family blend many times: The Everlys, The Wilsons, The Gibbs, The Andrew Sisters, etc. The list goes on. One of the most uncanny examples of this phenomenon belongs to...

2021 was a hell of a year:  My wife, Chemayne, passes in December of 2020, during the height of the pandemic;  The following year is spent stumbling in a maze of confusion - (to be honest, the smoke is just starting to clear);  Some solace is found online with a slavic angel of mercy; Chemayne's cat, Boo, and I (the remaining survivors) learn to tolerate, and even find comfort, in each other;...

    THE QUEER AWAKENINGS OF A WILD BOY PURSUING THE NOVA EXPRESS On September 6, 1951, William Burroughs killed his wife, Beat legend Joan Vollmer. At a friend’s apartment, she balanced a glass on her head, at Burroughs’s behest. He had contracted a lifelong mania for guns from duck-hunting excursions with his father, and was never unarmed if he could help it. He fired a pistol from about nine fee...

Dead or alive? Today, we feature one of each: two exquisite female singer-songwriters from the 70’s - one a heroin casualty, and the other a remarkable example of patience rewarded. Judee Sill could have been a Laurel Canyon diva on the order of a Joni Mitchell, but, an unquenchable, self-destructive thirst put a stop to her success; and, Linda Perhacs, a name lost in the archives of time, until a...

What a year 2014 was!  That's what motivated me to start this diary, which is now going on year 10.  It was such a hairy time, in fact, that as a way to process it all,  I hit upon the idea of creating a musical diary, using the I Ching - (something I'd been obsessing about) - as my guiding structure.  My sister-in-law, Lea died suddenly, but before that Chemayne and I were mandated cust...

What we’re offering today is something completely different: two outlier artists (although one is a French icon) who created off-kilter, out of the box, almost unintelligible nuggets of artistic brilliance. These cuts are linked, not only by the fact that they both feature sinuous bass lines and orchestral flourishes, but that they are produced by artists whose stances were  uncompromising, prickl...

Welcome to our new series, “The Beat Goes On,” where we will celebrate the work and enduring influence of Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, and the other writers whom we identify as “The Beats.” - that crop of artists who worked to expand our consciousness, exploring the hidden possibilities of post WW2 America in the 1950s - Other significant names to be explored: Diane Di Prima, T...

Today we live in a cynical world. It’s pervasive, this debilitating disbelief in our institutions, our once assured tenets of groundedness. Now we doubt, not only what we see, but what we hear, and even our own thoughts. Are they indeed our own? Or, have they been shaped by the unrelenting marketers and influencers? Back in the 80’s - even earlier back in the 60’s the attitudes of boredom and mist...

BUKOWSKI SPEAKS!!!!! Cause and Effect -For Kurt Cobain "the best often die by their own hand just to get away, and those left behind can never quite understand why anybody would ever want to get away from them" Bukowski writes with no apologies from the frayed edge of society. “Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead.” “For those who believe in God, most of t...

THERE'S NO BUSINESS LIKE SHOW BUSINESS I've been keeping a diary and dream journal for ten years.  Recently, I hit upon the idea of revisiting and recording passages of the diary in a quest to understand myself better by connecting the dots between dream life and the time awake. The first episode explored 2024; this second entry revisits a passage from 5 years earlier. It was the summer...

It seems as though the 12 bar blues structure is an immovable object, an obelisk of sacred, ritualistic, totemic authority. But the form contains multitudes of variety. Here are two examples of the plasticity of that container, which holds the magic blues elixir and can pour it smoothly, or have it gush out, uncontrollably, like a tidal wave. So, be careful when you put your lips to the chalice …...

In 2005, while visiting the gift shop at the downtown Los Angeles MOCA museum, I came upon a blank journal with a cover fashioned from a salvaged vinyl album by The Allman Brothers. It had the pink Capricorn label. As a lover of vinyl I grabbed it, and decided to begin a journal.  It’s been ten years, and I’ve been keeping this diary and transcribing my dreams  ever since. Dreams, ideas for songs,...

DANNY KAYE: THE BENEFITS OF VERSATILITY David Daniel Kaminsky (1911-1987), known to the world as Danny Kaye, was an entertainer that could do it all. He was as adept at pathos as he was at antic comedy, and he captivated audiences throughout the 1950s with his magic.  His signature patter songs, represented by our first number: Anatole of Paris, were crafted for him by his business partner and wif...

The “Novelty” song has deep roots in popular culture. Masters of the form, like Weird Al Yankovic, Warren Zevon, Tom Lehrer, Spike Jones, and Allen Sherman have illuminated our consciousness and tickled our sense of the absurd. How much WAS that doggie in the window?…., WTF is Marzy dotes and dozy dotes about?…,  They’re coming to take me away, Haha…(that one actually scared me). Probably each of...

What is it about a swing rhythm that sets hearts a flutter? It’s a universal truth. It may have started as an African secret formula, but it was co-opted and catapulted into white western culture by some hip caucasian standard bearers. Here we’ll examine the psycho-physical connection through two seemingly unrelated musical delicacies: one by the undisputed titan of respectable jazz, and the other...

THE REVEREND OF KARMIC YOUTH- 1The Interpreter 2Starry Eyes 3For You 4Bloody Hammer 5The Wind And More 6Night Of The Vampire 7You're Gonna Miss Me 8I Walked With A Zombie 9Stand For The Fire Demon 10 When You Get Delighted 11 To Think 12 Warning 13 True Love Cast Out All Evil 14 Loving Isn't A Part Time Thing 15 The Looking Glass Song As lead singer of Texas’ infamous 13th Floor Elevator...

SPLENDOR OF BOHEMIA PRESENTS- "IN THE BEGINNING"-  RICH BUCKLAND'S 2009 TEST EPISODE FOR WHAT WOULD LATER BECOME THE PODCAST SERIES THE WORLD COULD EASILY LIVE WITHOUT- OR CAN IT?  WITH WILLY DEVILLE, LENNY BRUCE AND OUR SPECIAL GUEST CHARLES MANSON-DIG THIS!

'69 AND THE CRIME ETCHED IN TIME - "When I Was 17, It was not a very good year" Rich Buckland Well. Here is something I've yet to get over in all the years since I first read the grisly details of Sharon Tate’s murder in the Sunday newspaper’s Parade magazine when I was just a wacky hippie teen and beach Boys fanatic. Cult-leader and killer Charles Manson and Beach Boy drummer...

Ok, folks, we’ve got an unlikely pairing of unrequited torch anthems with an almost 40 year time span between them, featuring points of view which diverge 180 degrees. The first, from Cock Robin, showcases synthesized sounds which seem like they were caught in amber in 1985, and the second, an astounding display of songwriting and vocal pyrotechnics from prodigy of the moment, Olivia Rodrigo.  COC...

Here is a “Sunny Song”, wherein the fleeting sunlight is a dappled reminder of the evanescence of existence. They’re all gone now: Bill Evans (piano), Tony Bennett (vocals), Henry Mancini (Composer), and Johnny Mercer (Lyricist), but their beautiful creation lives on to remind us to gather our rosebuds while we may. Sadness, and gratitude run in equal measure throughout all of the song’s manifesta...

When it comes to infidelity: can we have our cake and eat it too?  In the following two songs, written by the incomparable Don Covay, this theme is explored. The two men narrating these tales of inconstancy are in turmoil - one cheater feels guilty, while the other betrayer is suffering from hurt pride - because his woman is playing the same game. The soulful bard who created these parables of mar...

Right here, squaring off, from opposite sides of the Atlantic, we present: Dueling tag-teams of zaniness — wearing fanciful disguises, winking at traditional forms, and tweeting in a birdlike falsetto… Good stuff! BEDAZZLED The Faustian satire Bedazzled, created by genius comedian Peter Cook (who plays the Devil trying to bargain for souls), makes good use of the talents of his Chaplin-esque comed...