266: How to Speak Hip, by Del Close & John Brent

Del Close & John Brent (USA)
How to Speak Hip (1959/1961??*)
13 tracks, 36 minutes
Spotify ∙ iTunes

Learning different languages is essentially essential in our globalised world; not only does it allow you to communicate with a wider number of people, but it also allows you to view life and the world from a different perspective – by expanding your vocabulary into different languages, it opens up entirely new emotional resonances.

To that end, today’s album is an instructional record. How to Speak Hip offers valuable guidance ‘for English-speaking people who want to talk to – and be understood by – jazz musicians, hipsters, beatniks, juvenile delinquents and the criminal fringe.’ It is filled with language instruction and vocabulary building, as well as deeper dives into the wider culture, and we’re helped down this path by esteemed linguist Del Close and ‘actual hipster’ Geets Romo. Along the way, we discover the key differences between ‘cool’ and ‘uncool,’ learn how to properly identify the differences between ‘put ons,’ ‘put downs,’ ‘come ons,’ ‘come downs,’ and ‘bring downs,’ and really get to the bottom of the nuances inherent in the concept of ‘dig.’ We also learn about the hipster lifestyle on a series of field trips and exclusive access to a real hipster gathering to observe the spinning of a live riff or three. At the end of the journey, you should have all the starting tools to ‘convince a real hipster that hip is your language.’

Yes, this is a comedy record. It is devilishly funny and that it still holds up so well 60 years* after its first release is an amazing feat. Where a lot of the contemporary lampoons of hip culture really do seem naff and dated today, I think the reason that How to Speak Hip still works is that it is a lampoon made with love. Both Close and Brent were members of that same bohemian fringe, meaning that this album is comedy about hipsters, by hipsters and for hipsters – the joke is as much on straight society as it is the hip. In that way, it does actually offer a window into the hip scene in a ‘satire is a mirror’/‘many a true word is spoken in jest’ sort of way.

I consider How to Speak Hip to be one of the coolest records I own. Not only is it hilarious and eminently quotable (samples from this album show up in many unexpected musical surroundings, and I’ve slipped in Geets Romo quotes in lots of my professional writings too), it also has the feeling of being a real cultural artefact direct from one of the coolest subcultures of them all, just as much as a Charlie Parker record or a Beat novel.

Del Close and John Brent are laying down these riffs, and if you’re into jazz, hipsters or anything cool, you better pick up on it – let these cats hang you up. And above all: dig it.


* Time for me to get a bit nerdy about dates. This is a mystery I have yet to solve and I wonder whether it ever could be, if it’s even possible. Almost all sources – even bona fide academic texts – list the album as being released in 1959. 1959 was so important for jazz and it would stamp this album as being one of the many scene-defining works of that year. However, near the end of the album is a really short clip – just four seconds – of the solo from ‘We Free Kings’ by Roland Kirk…which was recorded in 1961. Therefore, in this particular state, How to Speak Hip couldn’t have been released in 1959. A few places, such as discogs or the British Library list the record as being from ‘1961?’ but those revisions only happened after I sent emails/comments to the same effect. So who knows when this is from? Not I. It doesn’t really matter. But it’s definitely a puzzle!

261: Offal, by Jay Foreman

Jay Foreman (United Kingdom)
Offal (2012)
22 tracks, 46 minutes

Okay, bit of a strange entry today. There isn’t anywhere to stream this album or download the tracks online, and, although you can purchase real 3D copies of Jay Foreman’s other albums from his website, Offal ain’t on there. Sold out, I presume. That stumped me a bit.

So what I’m going to do instead is recommend you somehow try to find a copy of Offal to listen to in the standard linear fashion, but for now, we’ll have a round of Jim’s four favourite songs by Jay Foreman that all happen to be on YouTube, in no particular order. I guess a slight intro is needed though.

If you’ve delved into the crazy world of YouTube, you’ve probably come across Jay Foreman. As well as funny songs (yes, we’ll get there in a minute, chill yer beans) he also makes very silly and very informative videos about transport infrastructure, maps, UK politics and other potentially dry subjects made unboring by his brilliant presenting style.

But we’re supposedly here for the music, and that’s how Foreman started to get attention in the first place, through impressive musical feats such as his ‘Every Tube Station Song’ (self-explanatory) and his uncanny talent of being able to sing any Beatles song, one syllable out-of-sync. His songs are steeped with the same silliness as the rest of his work but are composed in a really intelligent way, with influences from vaudeville jazz and blues and folk from both sides of the Atlantic. I also personally hear a lot of Terry Scott Taylor in The Neverhood-mode in his work, and I don’t think that’s any coincidence – songs from that game’s soundtrack seem to crop up in his videos very often. So now that you know a little bit what you’re expecting and without further ado, here’s…

Jim’s Four Favourite Songs By Jay Foreman That All Happen To Be On YouTube, In No Particular Order

‘Skin Sofa’

First of all: comedy song in the second-best time signature (five-time!) = always going to be a winner. Second of all: this song is so mad and disturbing and horrible and absurd, I love it. It is so completely surreal in a way that feels unsettling and sickening, a real, visceral body-horror of a song, and Foreman manages to capture all that in a completely U- or possibly PG-rated way. All while using a really quite beautiful melody that I cannot help but sing any three syllable word or phrase to (‘marmalade, marmalade, mmm-mmm-mm-mm, mmm-mmm-mm-mm’), and grossing myself out in the process. Sterling work.

‘Grandma’s Food’

Great bit of observational comedy. If even I – who’s never had any grandmas – can relate to it (for me, it was aunties who had the ever-so-slightly strange food), then I’m sure most people can. Again, a silly song with witty rhymes made all the more brilliant by its music, which has a lightly Latin tinge and more than a hint of Leon Redbone, including a very serviceable throat-tromnet solo.

‘The Sooty Show’

Sooty! A tragic and apparently true tale of a little kid meeting their favourite bear. It’s another child-friendly body horror song with a catchy and somehow oddly touching melody-and-guitarwork paring. Bonus points for the very awkward semi-circular standing audience in the back.

‘Make Sure He’s OK’

And all of a sudden BAM now you’re crying because this song is absolutely heartbreaking. This one isn’t funny, it just hurts. And it hurts in its realness, highlighting the cruelty of dementia in its mercilessness and inevitability. Approaching it as he does in first-person, looking on into the future where the friendly and familiar ‘me’ becomes the distant ‘someone,’ a stranger. It’s really upsetting, and doubly so when it comes at the end of an album of light-hearted silly songs. An incredible piece of music, songwriting and album sequencing.


…and that ends Jim’s Four Favourite Songs By Jay Foreman That All Happen To Be On YouTube, In No Particular Order for today. We’ve laughed, we’ve cried and, most importantly, we’ve learnt. Your takeaway should be: Jay Foreman is very good at many things, not least at music. Watch his YouTube videos and buy his albums. Maybe you can’t buy Offal, but that doesn’t stop it from being a Good Album. And haven’t you got enough to be going on with anyway?

253: Ouled Ghnou & Lâriche, by El Hanaouate

El Hanaouate (Morocco)
Ouled Ghnou & Lâriche
7 tracks, 44 minutes
Download from Awesome Tapes from Africa

It’s an album courtesy of that beautiful blog again, and this time it’s from the very north of the continent, from Morocco.

To be honest, I know incredibly little about this album or its artists, and the little bit that I do know comes from the comment section from when the tape was originally posted on AFTA. And even those comments are contradictory! The most accurate-seeming explanation comes from user K7al L3afta, who explains that the artists are a duo called El Hanaouate, who perform a style of halqa. Halqa – meaning ‘circle’ and named for the crowd of onlookers that inevitably form around a performance – is a type of improvised long-form storytelling based on the life of Sufi saints and marabouts; there are many styles of halqa and the stories can be told in many ways.

El Hanaouate are, for all intents and purposes, a comedy duo. Their performance of halqa is half-musical and half-spoken, setting the scene and the main plot points with song, and then getting to the finer points in dialogue. So this one is an interesting listen for someone like me, who can’t speak Arabic. I can (and very much do) enjoy the music – it’s a simple but effective pairing of the wtar lute, which sounds kinda like a half-and-half between an oud and a banjo, and the bendir, a frame drum with a gut snare that makes a gnarly, throaty rattle when struck, over which the duo sing bluesy, ornamented melodies – but then there are sometimes lengthy spoken sections that, of course, leave me very much out of the loop.

This is comedy! The words are all important and I’m understanding none of it. I reckon I’m only capable of appreciating about a third of the art this album has to offer…but that music third that I do get is really good, so imagine what the rest is like. If you know Arabic, I’d love to hear your thoughts on this album – who knows, maybe I’m best off not knowing what they’re saying! But for now, I’ll appreciate the Moroccan groove and revel in the mysteries of the storytelling of El Hanaouate.

222: Tim Key. With a String Quartet. On a Boat, by Tim Key

Tim Key (United Kingdom)
Tim Key. With a String Quartet. On a Boat (2010)
30 tracks, 54 minutes
Spotify ∙ iTunes

I honestly think Tim Key is one of the very funniest people around at the moment. I first encountered his work as part of the short-lived (three-episode) TV sketch show Cowards, and have been hooked on his work ever since. He seems to approach comedy from a different tack than everyone else. There’s not that many comedians that, for all their acting, writing and TV appearances would still have a legitimate claim for the primary title of poet. But Tim Key’s not exactly normal. So of course one of his most successful solo projects would be a comedy album in the old fashioned way, one made specifically for the listener rather than just a recording of a live show.

The album is ostensibly one of Key performing a collection of his poems to the backing of a string quartet. And it very much is that – there are 29 poems here, all performed in his impeccable manner and of varying length (although most are only a few seconds long, showing a genius and depth of storytelling in their brevity). But it’s so much more than that – in fact, the majority of the album comes after each poem has finished. Key interacts with the listener, instructing them on the premise of the album and how to listen to it, chats with the string quartet and deals with the increasingly frustrated Tom Basden (a.k.a. Lord, and fellow Coward), his usual musical accompanist ousted for the album. Another stroke of genius means that the tracks as presented are not in the order that they ‘happened,’ meaning you can only piece together the drama of it all by listening to it from beginning to end and making a mental jigsaw. In the end, then, Tim Key. With a String Quartet. On a Boat is a deliciously meta sitcom: the situation being the making of the very album you’re listening to.

This album is a great showcase for Key and his double-act with Basden, as it neatly distils Key’s humour and the dynamics of the pair: somehow both dark and silly, light-hearted and ridiculous but occasionally cruel. Above all it’s all absurd, abstract, intelligent and completely deadpan. There’s even an unexpected moment from Basden right near the end of the album in the form of ‘Lord’s Moment’, an incredibly poignant song that comes out of nowhere, but is appreciated all the same.

When I first came to Tim Key’s solo material, I did spend a while pondering, was he was an actual poet, or just pretending to be a poet? Can his works be described as poems? But really, what’s the point in wondering about it? When the end result is that he writes, performs and publishes his takes on poetry professionally, there’s very little difference either way. And when he somehow manages to come out with a record that is at once a collection of performed poems and a spoof of someone performing a collection of poems, you know that that line is always going to be – very deliberately – blurred.

174: The Simpsons Sing the Blues, by The Simpsons

The Simpsons (USA)
The Simpsons Sing the Blues (1990)
10 tracks, 40 minutes
Spotify ∙ iTunes

By 1990, The Simpsons had only been around for one and a half seasons as a full, primetime TV show, but already the world was in the grip of Simpsons-mania. So what happens then? Merchandise and tie-ins, of course. As far as blatant money-making tie-ins go, The Simpsons Sing the Blues was certainly successful musically as well as commercially (and it was successful, becoming the fastest-selling album of the year).

With half covers and half originals, the album consists of The Simpsons family (and, on one track, Mr Burns and Smithers) taking lead vocal duties though a mix of pop-blues and pop-hip-hop. While it is far from perfect (especially in terms of some dodgy turn-of-the-decade production choices), there are some really fun tracks here. There is obviously lots of humour all over the album, the whole thing of the cartoon characters taking on the main vocal duties all the way through actually comes off well, and not at all as ridiculous as it could have done – the actors all sing well, even in-character, and the choice of songs really do suit the characters well.

The massive success of the show meant the makers were able to attract top-tier names to join them on this album. ‘Do the Bartman’ was produced by and features backing vocals from Michael Jackson, Homer Simpson’s version of ‘Born Under a Bad Sign’ is bolstered by the electric guitar of B.B. King, and the piano solo on Marge and Homer’s duet of Randy Newman’s ‘I Love To See You Smile’ is played by the recently departed Dr John, to name three. The legends aren’t even used as selling points either; you have to dive into the small print of the CD booklet to confirm B.B.’s and Dr John’s contributions, and Jackson isn’t credited at all.

Yes, a lot of The Simpsons Sing the Blues has aged badly from a musical point-of-view, but at least half of the tracks still have real repeat-playability. And regardless, it’s still fun and weird to hear cartoon characters singing along earnestly to legit blues stars, and a great reminder of the time a comedy cartoon took over the international pop culture consciousness for at least a decade to become one of the most influential cultural phenomena ever. Why shouldn’t that phenomenon include an album of blues music?

102: The Best of Lord Buckley, by Lord Buckley

Lord Buckley (USA)
The Best of Lord Buckley (1963)
8 tracks, 51 minutes
Spotify • iTunes (both of those links are actually for a super-compilation of two albums, The Best of Lord Buckley and The Most Immaculately Hip Aristocrat. Both are great, so dig in and dig it!

Lord Richard Myrle Buckley was a quintessential performer, an enduring hero of stand-up comedians and surely one of the coolest and maddest people ever to have hopped on this sweet swingin’ sphere. From working as an MC in the dance marathons and walkathons of the 1930s (a bizarre competitive spectacle that saw people dancing or just walking around a hall for sometimes days at a time), he honed all sorts of comedic talents that took him the length and breadth of the country, even owning one of the hottest clubs in Al Capone’s Chicago. One of his bits was to affect the manner of the English aristocracy – becoming Lord Buckley – and when he fell into the jazz crowd, he developed the language of the hipsters into his character and the persona was complete. He termed his unique turn-of-phrase the Hipsemantic.

It wasn’t just an act, he lived Lord Buckley. Not only did he always talk in Hipsemantic, but his home – wherever it was that week – was transformed into a palace with a constantly rotating cast of comedians, musicians, writers, sex workers, philosophers, dancers, drug dealers, anyone sufficiently groovy. Buckley would hold court among these friends and admirers, performing constantly.

For a man so constantly ‘on,’ it’s a shame there is such comparatively little material in circulation. In fact, the best collections of His Royal Hipness’ work were released after his death in 1960, and this compilation album helped solidify his enduring reputation as a genius in his field. It collects seven of the most well-known entries in to Buckley’s Hiparama of the Classics – retellings of classic tales in the Hipsemantic. It includes both word-for-word translations and hip tales of the lives of historical and Biblical figures. Of the former we get a hip Gettysburg Address and Marc Anthony’s Funeral Oration from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, where ‘Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears’ becomes the wonderful ‘Hipsters, flipsters and finger-poppin’ daddies, knock me your lobes;’ of the latter we hear the stories of Nero, Cabeza de Vaca (‘the Gasser’), Jonah and the whale, Gandhi (‘The Hip Gan’) and, most impressively ‘The Nazz’ – the story of three of Jesus’ most delicious miracles.

I could talk about Lord Buckley all day. It’s an effect that he has, even after so long, that seems to affect those that truly dig him – he seems to invite a sort of excessive fan. Perhaps it’s his uniqueness or the amount of off-the-wall stories from his life that range from the insane-yet-verifiable to the surely, surely mythical…or are they? If you’re interested in the life, times and work of Lord Buckley, I heartily recommend the book Dig Infinity! The Life and Art of Lord Buckley by Oliver Trager. It’s a magnificent work of scholarship piecing together the Lord’s story through many interviews and recollections from those that knew him or were influenced by him, as well as some hardcore archive diving too. It’s a pretty rare book, but you will occasionally find a copy going for a reasonable price on eBay now and then. Immerse yourself in the world of Lord Buckley and become a member of his infinite, extra-temporal court of grooviness.

096: Na$tyjam$, by Crudbump

Crudbump (USA)
Na$tyjam$ (2010)
15 tracks, 38 minutes
Bandcamp

Drew Fairweather is a true renaissance man. Research scientist, artist of various schools (see here, here and here), novelist, YouTube reviewing superstar, blogger, pioneer of Weird Twitter and all-around internet troll – he does it all. Of course, he is also a musician. Or, several musicians. Like Señor Coconut, Drew has a bunch of aliases for his many different musical projects: for industrial hip-hop, he was KOMPRESSOR, for vaporwave he’s Cyber Vision, and for…whatever this is, he’s Crudbump.

Crudbump is hip-hop, on the spoken end of rap. There’s not that much use in talking about the quality of the music, the production or the rhymes though, because they’re really not important. The point is that, as with everything Drew does (except, I guess when he was a research scientist), Crudbump is really funny. There’s all manner of humour here: it’s childish and child-like, it’s brash . It’s sometimes satirical, sometimes scatological, and usually boner-centric. Above all, it’s really, really bizarre.

This is absurdity as art, and it really is rather beautiful. Who can argue with lyrics such as ‘Welcome to Horsetown: here’s a horse’? Then there’s classics such as ‘My Dick’s On The Phone (Rang Rang),’ (‘You better pick up the phone / you better chat with the bone / it’s got important information’) and ‘I Don’t Do Shit’ (‘I don’t do shit that’s my decision / not doing shit is like my religion / look to the east five times a day / and if I’m doing shit then I put it away’). I also want to mention another track by Crudbump but not on Na$tyjam$, a stand-alone single and one of the best Christmas songs ever, ‘Fuck You If You Don’t Like Christmas.’ It’s a staple on my Christmas playlists and a sentiment I heartily agree with.

To be honest, I’m not sure what I can say about this album that isn’t either immediately obvious or just completely beyond words. It’s weird and surreal, and I suspect it might be working on brain-levels far above and beyond anything comprehensible by humans. Meanwhile, I find it just hilarious. Give it a go.