Autumn Leaves

On The Youtube

Don't know when I can furnish you with downloads again but here's some Youtube tips from the Elephant House, now coming to you from under the grey skies and drizzle of London town.

First up Bizet's Mi Par D'udir Ancora sung by Caruso, as featured in Woody Allen's Match Point. The video is an elegant slide show with images from Allen's elegant film.



Next is Jussi Björling and Robert Merrill and Bizet again taken from Les Pêcheurs De Perles. Thanks to me Ma for putting me onto that one.



Then Erik Satie with the beautiful, mournful Gnossiennes No 1. A familiar piece to us all, I often find its played too fast for my liking but this is a pretty fine version, played by someone called Ahmet Buyukkafali. The first time I became aware of this piece by name it was part of a classical collection released in conjunction with El Pais newspaper. I wont hold my breath but if anyone knows who the pianist was on that, you know where to find me. I've seen two absolute treats at the cinema since I got back to this trou de merde - James Marsh's Man On Wire about 'tightrope walker Philippe Petit's daring, but illegal, high-wire routine performed between New York City's World Trade Center's twin towers in 1974' which breathes new life into the documentary by theme and execution and Cédric Klapisch's Paris - an ensemble movie set in Paris, more of the same some may say but no problem for me, my expectations were high and it surpassed them. Juliette Binoche quite frankly made me melt. Edit: Anyway, Satie's piece featured prominently, and effectively, in both films.



Next up, of course, is Phil Collins. No explanation needed. Seriously though, I think this is a genius song. Production, voice, can't get enough of it. If you want irony and cynicism you're at the wrong blog.



Then some classic trad jazz, Django with Limehouse Blues (and a fine compilation of photos - he was some cool muthafucka) and the man Louie with Potato Head Blues. Sublime.





As is Chopin's Nocturne No.1, here performed by Maria João Pires. One of the most emotional pieces ever written is Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata which it seems no amount of exposure can kill. And João Pires's interpretation of it is, for me, a perfect reading, but I couldn't find it on Youtube. It takes me right back to a time before TV, without our lives filled with masses of wires and electronic vibrations, without houses stacked against each other and stretching for miles. A time of riding horses by night, the woods, the beach at night, moonlight, candlelight...



With that thought in mind and as we try to remind ourselves that, appearances to the contrary, we are still alive, here's some more from Caruso, Una Furtiva Lagrima by Donizetti, also I think featured in Match Point.

Nada De esto fue un error

Hasta luego Valencia! This song will always remind me of my three (mostly) happy years here.

Rec-in' Ball

Fine mix on a downbeat folksy vibe from King Creosote at OLO Radio LA Foghorns. Strong Beta Band influence here I reckon, featuring four tracks from ex-member Lone Pidgeon (who is also apparently KC's brother I just found out on Wikipedia)



Sonic Sunset out of Chicago's mixes use sounds from all over the electronic music spectrum. Check their latest, Lighter Path which ends in half an hour of achingly perfect techno.



A great album of Kerouac readings at Pathway To Unknown Worlds, that's been throwing up all kinds of nice treats on the shuffle through my lovely new Sennheisers. Really realising that reading aloud adds another dimension to Kerouac's amazingly vibrant work. Some of the best readers include Michael Stipe, John Cale and Eric Andersen. Edit - this blog is now 'open to invited readers only'. If anyone reading knows how to get me invited to this blog please email me at wooodenelephant@yahoo.co.uk. This is the 5th or 6th time this has happened and I'm losing a lot of good links here!!!



And RA on the case with a fine, fresh mix from Italian progressive house artist Donato Dozzy.

Heatwave Evening

Strange weather here in V recently but we all know the serious heat's coming. So here's a little mix to get y'all listo!

Lots of tracks didn't make the final 80 min cut on this one so vol2 soon come!

Note on the first track. Incomplete version from Soulseek's fickleness but had to include it. My favourite breakbeat, always makes me feel happy since I first heard it on a crackly pirate B-boy set. Might still have that tape somewhere...


1. Its Great To Be Here JACKSON 5 / KENNY DOPE
2. Forget Me Nots PATRICE RUSHEN
3. Peanut Dreams GRAND NATIONAL
4. The Seed ROOTS
5. She’s Not There ZOMBIES
6. Do You Feel It? JOE CUBA SEXTET
7. Rootsman Party DON CARLOS
8. Pull Up To The Bumper GRACE JONES / LARRY LEVAN
9. Summertime Lovin’ STEVE ARRINGTON / LARRY LEVAN
10. Detroit Jazzin’ INVERSE CINEMATICS / ALL GOOD FUNK ALLIANCE
11. Ease Your Mind LOS AMIGOS INVISIBLES / DJ AFRO
12. Cantos A Ochun Y Oya OSUNLADE / FRANKIE FELICIANO
13. Big Fun INNER CITY
14. The Day We Met For Coffee OSUNLADE / AFEFE IKU

Image is Just Too Hot by Rosegarden432 at Flickr here.


Han said Divshare doesn't work in Asia. Anyone else out there having trouble? Give me your suggestions. All kinds of feedback is always very welcome, of course.

Rec Yo'Self

A handful of recs for y'all tonight. First up Bacoso has a rare Yusef Lateef session cut in 58 over here. Beautiful stuff, Lateef's blissed sax soars over seriously earthy percussion. Features a 'scraped ram's horn'. Damn that's right...



Four Tet's still on fire. Don’t sleep on his mix over at RA (log-in is a pain but free). Just heard about a site called Allez Allez over at Brownswood, which also has a couple of mixes by the prolific Mr Hebden, one here and the other on the main page, May 1st. Some other tasty looking mixes here too.



Always a few good mixes in the Brownswood Beatcave. For those of you like to go waaaaaaayyyy back check this doo wap etc mix from Marc-Ocho whose blog is here.



Sublime stuff from DJ Bwyse of Talking In Stereo with two installments of ‘Salty Disco’ on a chilled California vibe. Vol 2 is here and Vol 1 is here.



And the ever-unpredictable Closet Of Curiosities has got some North American birdsong recordings here. A samplehead’s delight, I'll bet!

Disfruta!!

Woooden's weirdos

My computer's been out of service for awhile now but it seems to be back in service (minus a few blips). The first mix I'm uploading for y'all today is called Woooden's Weirdos which started life as a selection of songs featuring spoken word but has mutated into a broader mix of weird and wonderful things, coming in at a nicely burnable 78'43. Hope you enjoy!

1. The Ostrich VELVET UNDERGROUND
2. No Sleep Blues INCREDIBLE STRING BAND
3. An Ode To D A Levy BILL BISSETT
4. Do You Like Worms? BEACH BOYS
5. Automobile Ride Through Alabama RED HENDERSON
6. The Trip KIM FOWLEY
7. Sleep Patterns Of Black Expatriots Circa 1960 MIKE LADD
8. Manila SEELENLUFT / MANITOBA
9. Raise The Bells FOLK IMPLOSION
10. His Old Look BONGWATER
11. Beaujolais Nouveau Day / Root 09 THURSTON MOORE / CHEAP GLUE
12. Lullaby For Syd Barrett PSYCHIC TV
13. Cloud Song UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
14. Drum Mode GRAY
15. Recalling All Active Agents WILLIAM S BURROUGHS
16. Dimethyltriptamine JAY ELECTRONICA
17. Reflexos BEBETO
18. Quintus T NEW YORK ART QUARTET
19. Schnitzelexpress MARKUS NIKOLAI
20. The Telescope And The Bonfire GORKY’S ZYGOTIC MYNCI
21. Killing All The Flies (Peel Session) MOGWAI
22. Moanin The Blues JOHN LEE HOOKER
23. The First Big Weekend ARAB STRAP

Noble And Silver

I absolutely fucking love the art-comedy duo Noble And Silver. I have great memories of their six part TV series, 'Noble And Silver: Get Off Me!' which I was sure was going to take off, and a performance I caught in The Hen & Chickens theatre in North London. They take Reeves And Mortimer or Mighty Boosh surreality to the next level. But as Marty McFly once so wisely said: 'I guess you kids aren't ready for that just yet'

Anyway, here's some videos that Noble And Silver have recently uploaded onto YouTube to give you a flavour.

Burny123

When I first found Flickr I was reminiscing and looking for pictures of spliffs and found this great set of photos by Burny123 and his friend dan garrett.
There's something poignant and beautiful about these young lads' photos which reminded me of my own adolescence, last day of school, social stoning sessions etc. Both lads are funny, if sometimes a bit cruel, and burny123 especially has a talent for abstract photography, evoking a sense of how young life is out of the city - in this case Lincoln in the Midlands. You couldn't fake photos like these - its the real deal. Brilliant.

On 90 Day Jane

So some of you have probably heard about this blog called 90 Day Jane which has been causing a lot of commotion amongst the sunlight dodgers. It was apparently a blog by a woman planning to kill herself in exactly 90 days. Recently she revealed it to be an artistic statement and she says she's going to take it down tonight. So for posterity here is her last comment and conclusion about the project and my own comment which I was unable to post and where I've started to wax about my own personal philosophy.

EDIT : I suppose she took it down earlier and the hyperlink above is actually someone else who's posted the whole blog.

''90DayJane is a personal art piece about me. It was meant for me and (what I ignorantly thought would be) a small number of people who might find it on BlogSpot. It is the result of me tapping into the darkest part of myself and seeing where it led.
What I have written and filmed, at its core, is from a place of truth. I am the girl in the videos. I have great disappointment with my generation and its obvious obsession with celebrity culture rather than their fellow man, thus the former Chuck Palahniuk reference.
I wanted this blog to be about personal discovery and truth. But the correspondences I have received have taught me more about those qualities than I could ever express. 90DayJane has become its own entity and has influenced me. In fact, it has changed my perspective as a human being.
I feel a massive sense of responsibility to my art, but more importantly the readers of this blog. My closeness to this project must have made art seem like reality to many people. That is not a reaction that I expected nor can I morally justify. This is why my project, 90DayJane, will be taken down in the next few hours.
90DayJane was meant to mirror the tragic figure, Christine Chubbuck. Newscaster Christine Chubbuck committed suicide in 1974 by shooting herself in the head live on air. She was very vocal about her depression to those around her and gave every indication of her exact intentions leading up to the event. Sadly, no one reacted or helped Christine and those left behind could only ask "why".
Her story both inspired and terrified me because I can truly empathize with her rage and even her isolation. I wondered how Christine's life and subsequent suicide would play out in our time. Would the internet be yet another place of isolation to her or an escape? If she remained vocal about her intentions would anyone bother asking "why" or even noticing before the fact? Would the reaction (if any) of the public change her intentions?
I thought this mirror might reflect the isolation everyday people feel and the lack of true human connection on the internet.
It is my feeling that the internet is the best and worst example of human interaction. This was painfully proven to me by reading every comment and every email. I believe I owed that to everyone. I know we all saw the dark side of the reactions in the blog comments. There was so much hate, immaturity and apathy. But, I truly wish everyone could see the beauty and honesty in the emails; many people feel like Jane (me). People have been more real and heartfelt than I thought was possible. I owe them a debt of gratitude for showing me the difference between people's reactions and their true feelings. I understand.
I do want everyone to know that I accepted no money for 90DayJane despite multiple offers from television, film, books, etc... I will not release my identity and I ask not to be contacted for any type of promotion. I want only for the people who wrote to me to know that I hear them and feel the same way. Your emails touched me so much. Please, share your thoughts with someone in your life or express them in a positive way''

Wooodenelephant's response...

I think artists are as much a part of society as stockbrokers or people who build roads. They're not good or bad - just a part of things.
This was an interesting project that caused a lot of people to consider things they normally would not.
Most people have responded using the language most prevalent in the 'user-developed' Internet (I know that's not the official term but I can't remember what is) - language that is overtly agressive, cynical and negative. But we are all used to this.
I read a quote from Javier Bardem on Imdb who said that 'We are so scared about talking about death that we are letting people die in silence. It is good to talk publicly'
I think this is right. Death should not be a taboo. Death is part of life. No, death is life. They are the same thing, viewed from different ends of a straight line. Incidentally, it is true to say 'we will never die' if you believe that at the moment death begins you will cease to perceive. There will never be a moment when you are perceiving death. Therefore you will only ever perceive life. Your time will end but it is not true to say you will die. There will only be the last moment you will be alive, which is still 'living' and no more 'dying' than any other moment of living. It is just closer to the end of the line.
But what is time? Another illusion. Just a measurement. Monday is not really Monday just because everyone calls it Monday. It actually is one revolution of the Sun. The thing we call the Sun etc etc etc etc... (Edit: Scientists, spot the deliberate mistake!)
I imagine those who talk themselves into suicide will often experience that moment as a realization they have been very stupid. I believe the meaning of life is to sleep, eat, fuck, shit etc. In short, to do. Its stupid not to.
That's why depression is rightly defined as a disease as it makes our bodies do something stupid - though its psychological rather than physical. I am lucky enough not to be depressed but I recognise that I was for much of my adolescence. I survived and it has helped teach me to rationalise my way out of negativity - which (in my understanding) is also the end result of cognitive psychology. The key is acceptance. I don't have the patience or the goodness to convince a depressed person that the key is acceptance - though there are people around who try.
Anyway, Jane, well done for making people think a little deeper about what life really is - something we can rarely even begin to grasp (in the rich world, anyway) as we are distracted by so many illusions - for example language, the rules of society, the hypnotic effect of the TV and Internet (which robs us of so much real life), information systems and the mental construct of memory we call 'the self'. Without these illusions (and also perhaps the reality of being part of an overpopulated world) I do not believe people would be so ready to part with life. Life is a purely subjective experience whose ultimate reality can never fully reveal itself.
Sartre (and doubtlessly others too - I am no authority on philosophical history) said we can never fully know ourselves nor can we fully know what is outside of us. We can only ever know a combination of these two things. One can never be distinct from the other for us. Life is always a combination of two unknowable things, then. So its this purely solitary, subjective experience that we find ourselves in, in our secular society.
Incidentally I find it impossible to be completely secular. I've experienced things that rationalists would say were only my psyche applying a logic to random events. But then I believe we come down to semantics (the meanings of words and what we associate with them) - and one man's mysticism can be another man's rationality.
I also believe all atheists and believers are essentially the same. Atheists believe there is nothing outside of the Universe we know - matter, anti-matter, whatever. Believers (at least some of them) believe there is something outside of the Universe we know ('God'). As we can never know the believers' something or the atheists' nothing, they seem to be different ways of looking at the same thing; Something outside of what we know and can perceive is, by definition, exactly the same as nothing. We just think about the same essential mystery in different ways.
It is surely beneficial to have faith in something that can help us, if we can overcome our rationality to have that faith (and many would like to but cannot, I realise). Saying this, I personally believe all organised religion to be a kind of hysteria (very well controlled but hysteria nonetheless) though I fully respect it helps other people and I try to keep an open mind.
In conlusion, think life can be a real cunt sometimes but it can also be fucking amazing. I sympathise if you've had more of the former than the latter (or even none of the latter) but I say keep throwing the dice.

Low Trousered Taste Making

Its all a bit frustrating ahora mismo, dig, cos I got serious ganas to throw some musical NRG your ways - but I ain't got the means to upload tunes. BUT y'know what? I can still legally share a bit of music lovin' (though I'm ethically opposed to it).

DETOUR: I mentioned that I have no problem whatsoever downloading music illegally to this square I teach English to and he laughed in that pompous uproarious way that people do when they think there's something wrong with society and its only you and not them. 'Listen cunt,' I felt like saying, 'just because capitalism and highest bidder gets the private healthcare and natural resources is law doesn't make it moral, fool!' Gah!!! Blind fuck. Ah well, rant over.

Back to the plot... I'm a bit like Simon Cowell you know (only I wear my trousers at a sane height and never get laid) cos I can spot the talent - believe.

So the big news is you have to check out this band Summer Holiday (pictured). The tune on their Myarse right now is called You Can Have It All Slowly - it has the plaintive, anthemic quality of Keane but its stripped down and not crap. Happened to see them live at 93 Feet East in January and they play a blinding set. Uplifting, disco, New Wave style shenanigans. Original sound and tight musical unit. Plus they have the great gimmick of doing gigs on the roof of their car. Massive respect - seriously. They deserve to go far. Remember you heard about them here first.

Going back for time bre, I heard Lily Cushman's Love Song remixed by DJ Afro of Los Amigos Invisibles here. Deeeeeeep. Intimidatingly cool New York people what I'd never get to know in real life but then this is all fantasy anyway, right?

Usually I've got no time for indie bands but Bronze Age Fox are an exception - anyway they're not that indie as one of their number is electronica bod Minatour Shock. A little bit poppy you might say but there's an unmistakeable tang of quality to it.

And check out this animation by Michal Levy to the music of John Coltrane's Giant Steps. Next level.

I have to tidy up some of the fallen brethren and quitters from my links sometime. A few of them have become invitation-only blogs. Contact the blog administrator they say... How the Cribbins can I do that then?

Any ideas, lurkers???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

Anyway Dilated Choonz, Orgy, Paris DJs and Newmixes are still very much delivering for those of you still racking up the GBs.

Jah recognise. BLOA!

My Cats by Charles Bukowski

My Cats

I know. I know.
they are limited, have different
needs and
concerns.

but I watch and learn from them.
I like the little they know,
which is so
much.

they complain but never
worry,
they walk with a surprising dignity.
they sleep with a direct simplicity that
humans just can’t
understand.

their eyes are more
beautiful than our eyes.
and they can sleep 20 hours
a day
without
hesitation or
remorse.

when I am feeling
low
all I have to do is
watch my cats
and my
courage
returns.

I study these
creatures.

they are my
teachers.

Image is 'Favourite' from Quite Nice Pictures

Back In The Game

Just had my first DJ session for a while once again at the great little club Black Note (Calle Polo y Peylorón, 15 - come and visit if you're ever in Valencia. Tell Herman that Howard sent you!!!)
Here's my playlist as far as I remember it...
Any feedback would be welcome. By the way Paul Raymond doesn't get enough props! Monstrous!!

1. Cantos A Ochun Et Oya - OSUNLADE
2. Tito - RED ASTAIRE
3. Greedy G - BRENTFORD ALL STARS
4. Its Great To Be Here - JACKSON FIVE / KENNY DOPE
5. I Got Da Feeling - SWEET TEE
6. Music - ERICK SERMON
7. Follow Me - RED ASTAIRE
8. Baltimore - THE TAMLINS
9. I Love Marijuana - LINVAL THOMPSON
10. La Bamba - DAVE PIKE
11. Mau Mau - THE WAILERS
12. SUPER CUT v O.D.B.
13. Independent Woman v Dreadlocked Holiday - 2 MANY DJ'S
14. At Midnite - T CONNECTION / PAUL RAYMOND
15. Dancing In Paradise - CANDIDO / JOHN 'JULIUS' KNIGHT
16. This Time Baby - JACKIE WILSON
17. Ai No Corrida - CHAS JANKEL
18. Street Player - CHICAGO / PAUL RAYMOND
19. We Lift Our Hands In The Sanctuary - DJ OJI & UNA
20. Opium Scumbagz - OLAV BASOSKI / SWAG
21. Calling All Dancers - PAPA WASHINGTON TRIO
22. My Beat - BLAZE / SUMO

A Band Who Take Themselves Very Seriously

Thanks to Gary Walsh for this one. By the way, a computer virus has stopped my fun recently but stay in touch!!!