I am pleased and mildly apprehensive to present what I hope will be an ongoing Sunday feature here on the Ludic Log:  a brief mp3 blog, featuring seven thematically linked songs and brief commentary on each.  Today's mini-mix is entitled HORNS OF SPASMOS, featuring cruel and unusual trumpet solos; click to download (.zip file). 

TRACK 01:  "The Product", the Minutemen (from 1985's Buzz or Howl Under the Influence of Heat EP).  Many years ago, a friend of mine made the observation about the late D. Boon that from moment to moment, you couldn never tell if he was the best guitarist in the world or the worst.  His uniquely sloppy, jagged, jazz-influenced punk guitars were a lot closer to great than to lousy, but you can certainly see the point, and here, on one of the terrific Buzz or Howl EP's strongest songs, guest trumpeter Crane attempts to replicate the technique on horns.  "The Product" is anchored by a monster bassline from Mike Watt beind a typically fractured guitar riff from songwriter Boon, as a cruel, jumpy drumline from George Hurley adds the chaos just enough to contrast D.'s excellent, angry lyrics about commodified culture.  It would be an outstanding track anyway, but at 1:20, Crane's demented trumpet comes in just behind Boon's passionate shouts, propelling the song from a fierce sociopolitical rant into something like a spell of destruction conjured against the whole of consumer society.  It cuts out before the final verse, generally allowing the most memorable part of the song to be Boon's damning, let-it-all-come-down shoutdown of "the product of capitalism!"  But it's enough to remind you that not only were the Minutemen the best band of their place and time, but were capable of inspiring their collaborators to play up to their level.

TRACK 02:  "March 6", Slant 6 (from 1993's Soda Pop Rip-Off anthology).  Nearly forgotten these days, Slant 6 was an early-'90s Dischord discovery, proto-riot grrrl proteges of Minor Threat's Ian MacKaye.  Though they had an interesting, angular guitar sound and a couple of excellent songs (including "What Kind of Monster Are You?", "Knights x 9" and "Poison Arrows Shot at Heroes", all included on this collection of early non-album material), and were easy on the eye, they never made much of an impact and went their separate ways in 1995.  This track, little more than piss-take bonus track that acted as a sort of theme song for the band, starts out with some sloppy, barely competent drumming by Marge Marshall that seems to signal a complete embarrassment until Myra Power's bass enters to lock it down a bit.  It would still be a throwaway track, though, if it weren't for the fact that, 37 seconds in, Marshall pulls a trumpet out of who knows where and delivers a meandering series of blats and murmurs almost free-jazzy in their inappropriateness.  It makes a pointless song...well, still pointless, really, but memorable.

TRACK 03:  "Paralyzed", the Legendary Stardust Cowboy (original 1968 Mercury Records single).  One of the most bizarre songs ever recorded, the Mercury single of the Ledge's signature song just has to be the most bizarre song ever to crack the Billboard charts.  It starts with an off-key guitar being plunked as Norman Odam  makes a pitch for "good ol' Stardust Bugles", which are the last recognizable words you will hear before he starts into his trademark hollering, wailing, hooting, gargling and bellowing.  The Ledge honed his talents by taking his car to drive-ins and standing on top of the roof, screeching to be heard over the sound of the movie, and here, he must have been competing with a doozy.  After a crushing, manic drum solo, the trumpet comes in at 1:20 -- well, it's not even a trumpet, really.  It's a good ol' Stardust Bugle, and it sounds something that sounds like a cavalry charge being played by a bugler who has already received multiple gunshot wounds and doesn't expect to live to see the end of the final note.  Luckily, he recovers, and howls us on to victory.

TRACK 04:  "Drunk Trumpet", Kid Koala (from 2000's Carpal Tunnel Syndrome album).  Sino-Canadian turntablist Eric "Kid Koala" San has a lot more in common with crate-digging collage artistes like the Avalanches than he does finger-banging thrashers like Mix Master Mike; he's more interested in creating thematic soundscapes (like this album's fantastic "Fender Bender", "Barhopper 1", and "A Night at the Nufonia") than showing off his handskills.  Still, he can occasionally rip shit up just to prove he's capable, as he does on this showcase number:  using a technique he pioneered where he alternates dragging and pressing notes under a needle for long periods so that they shudder and warp, he takes an old Kid Ory-era jazz trumpet solo, and, with the help of the crossfader, turns it into the sound of a fat sloppy drunk trying to negotiate a winding set of stairs.  By the end of the song, there's so much pressure and flutter on the hapless horn from Kid Koala's magic fingers that it sounds less like a recording of a musical instrument than it does the purring of an obese, sleeping cat.

TRACK 05:  "The Urban Spaceman", the Bonzo Dog Band (from 1969's Urban Spaceman album.)  Astonishingly, this goofball-psychedelia from Neil Innes and his collaborators in the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band is the biggest chart hit from the Horns of Spasmos collection, crushing even the top 200 powerhouse "Paralyzed".   Its #5 peak may have had less to do with the British public's lust for gently whimsical psychedelia than it did the fact that the song was produced by Paul McCartney, who was pretty popular around that time.  It's actually a bit mild for a Bonzo Dog tune of the time -- a bit more tuneful in a Beatlesy way (Innes was learning the lessons he'd one day put to use in the Rutles), but not as clever or inventively satirical as most of their contemporary work.  You have to wait for the trumpet -- I'm not sure what instrument that is carrying the main melodic line, but it sounds like a flute into which someone has crudely and unthinkingly jammed a kazoo.  Bob Kerr's trumpet (or, excuse me, the "hose trumpet") doesn't kick in until 2:08, after the weak lyrical punchline has already been delivered, but it ends the song on a surreally zany note funnier and more daring than the rest of the song.

TRACK 06:  "Movement I of Pini di Roma:  Pini de Borghese", Ottorini Respighi (composed  1924;  from 1990's  Dorati Conducts Respighi album, feat. Antal Dorati conducting the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra).  Laboring under the burden of generations of brilliant Italian operatic composers, and living in the shadow of the French Impressionists, composer Ottorino Respighi had a lot of work to do when he began the second of his "Pines of Rome" trilogy.  He anticipated a hostile reaction to his tone poem from the opera-loving, anti-modernist Italian public; "Let them boo," he is reported to have said during rehearsals, "what do I care?"  Boo they did, most especially during a key moment at the end of this lovely, energetic opening movement that seems to anticipate much of the film music of the 1930s and 1940s.  The bleating, atonal honk of the trumpet near the very end may, indeed, have been designed to piss off the audience and get their boos out of the way early; more than one critic has described it as a "raspberry" in tone.  Still, it served its purpose; by the end of the performance, audiences were on their feet cheering.

TRACK 07:  "Out to Lunch", Eric Dolphy (from 1964's Out to Lunch album).  When you're talking about lurching, stabbing, blatting trumpetwork, it doesn't get any better than this 12-minute title track from Eric Dolphy's finest album.  Starting out fairly normal, with a jaunty vibes riff and a loping main melody over a stuttering drumline, it takes almost no time at all to open up into something with enough space to get really weird -- and get really weird it does, with Dolphy's sax sniffing around the corners of strange time signatures and angular sounds that are almost unnerving in their complexity.  But it's not until the trumpet (played here by Freddie Hubbard, a tremendous jazz horn player who was never as daring and brilliant as when he was playing with Dolphy) shows up that things get really bizarre.  Around 3:15, Hubbard shows up, and within a minute, he's jabbing and thrusting through the song as if he's trying to poke holes in the whole edifice of jazz horns.  A fantastic performance from one of the best jazz records of all time.

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"A director makes only one movie in his life. Then he breaks it into pieces and makes it again." (Jean Renoir)