The Buster Mungus Diaries

The length of the typical pop song has averaged around the 3 minute mark since the beginning of recorded music. In this episode we examine how the length of a pop song is shrinking and moving closer to the 2 minute mark despite all the technological advances over the past 100+ years. 

We walk through the history of the Peter Gunn TV theme from its origin in 1958 to its influence on the surf music scene to a massive resurgence in the 1980s. We travel through time with Henri Mancini, Sara Vaughn, Duane Eddy, Jeff Beck, Jimi Hendrix and many more as we look at how each artist changed or added to the concept of the coolest TV theme to ever grace the boob tube.  Music from Peter Gunn became the number one album in the country on Billboard magazine's charts and stayed there for 10 weeks, remaining charted for 117 weeks in all.  Its status as a standard in any upstarts' repertoire carried it through the rehearsal holes of the world. Somebody somewhere would always don its instant cool, no matter whether honest or bootleg. Check out http://www.bustermungus.com/ for television episodes of "Peter Gunn", music videos and companion material relating to this episode. To shop for Buster Mungus "Merch" and "Swag" head on over to  https://the-buster-mungus-shop.myspreadshop.ca/

Perhaps the most telling static I’ve come across about disco and more specifically about the Montreal disco scene was that the police reported in 1970 that 80% of Montreal’s missing young people could be found in discothèques. During the 70s, for some people, disco was all empty glitz and glamour, smoke and mirrored balls and the pinnacle of 70s exhibitionism. Montreal exemplified those qualities during a time when the the city’s greatness was dissolving after reaching its high watermark during Expo 67. Moreover, disco’s origins were far grittier than the slick veneer of the well know Studio 54. Before your mom was doing the YMCA at weddings, disco was the beating heart of the Montreal underground. It was the music of liberation, inclusiveness and empowerment with a four-on-the-floor bassline as its rallying cry.

We examine all 17 samples from the Beastie Boys "Hey Ladies" and then play the full length versions of each sample so you can get a feel for where the samples lived prior to being used by the Beastie Boys. While most cuts are readily available digitally, several took some deep diving at the used record stores in my area in order to get copies that could be digitized for the show. If you’re like me, you expected the Beastie Boys second album, 1989’s Paul’s Boutique, to be filled with the same misogynistic lyrics and odes to frat boy parties as their freshman output Licensed to Ill. Surprisingly, their departure from Def Jam records and Rick Rubin’ s production influence, may just have been their saving grace. While Rubin’s influence extends to nearly every aspect of Licensed to Ill, it was still the perfect musical foil for the Bestie Boys. Problems arose however, when critics started referring to the band in the same context as the 1960’s TV show band the Monkeys. Could they really play any instruments? Were they just a culmination of studio production talent? Moreover, many a critic likened their cultural appropriation and plundering of black music to that of the Blues Brothers and the money train which followed them through the 1980s.

Discussing the 1930s musical evolution as it pertains to tracking down the first Rock & Roll recording. Includes music from Count Basie, Benny Goodman, Bob Wills & Texas Playboys and Big Joe Turner to name a few.

In this episode we take a look at 4 of my favourite live recordings of all-time. I grew up during the decade of the live album. You were nobody until you had a live album in those days. It announced your triumphs over the previous album releases and marked your  maturity, usually with a multi gate fold, poster sometimes included, double LP.  The albums are fabulous in their own right, but they do provide a glimpse at musicians/bands when the material is paired with great engineering and a fantastic performance. Consider the variety and range of performances by the likes of, Jerry Lee Lewis, The MC5, Deep Purple and the Allman brothers Band.

In this episode we take a look at the history of one of the most recognized and widely covered surf songs -- Misirlou. We trace the song from its origin as a middle eastern folk song in the 1920's through to its re-invention as a modern day surf classic from Dick Dale, to its impact on cinema goers as the theme song for Quentin Tarantino's 1994 film Pulp Fiction.

Bubblegum Cover Versions

So, if genre boundaries are evaporating, and presuming post-genre music doesn’t become a genre and cancel itself out, will anything replace them? What we’ve seen in the past 20 years is that consumption methods have broadened attitudes, music has changed to reflect that, and attitudes have then changed even further. We examine the evolution of musical genres and delve into what makes a classification system work.   Examples of music genres and styles covered in this episode: Free Jazz, Pts. 1 & 2 / Ornette Coleman Acid Tracks / Phuture Bitch Theme / Bratmobile When Doves Cry / Prince When Doves Cry / Rockabye Baby! When Doves Cry / Pursuit of Happiness When Doves Cry (Sea Shanty Style) / Shar... When Doves Cry / The DejaBlue Grass Band Mary Had a Little Lamb / Stevie Ray Vaugh... Dust My Broom / Elmore James Eight Days a Week / The Beatles

We take a look at those camp kings the Cramps and their early music illustrating their success by playing the original songs by the original artists, the Cramps demos and live bootlegs and then finally contrast those efforts with the final album version. Listen to the growth and evolution of Cramps classics from their first EP such as Human Fly, The Way I Walk and Domino or the ULTRA RARE Red Headed Woman from the same sessions.  Then blast head first into the first two albums with Sunglasses After Dark, Mystery Plane, Twist and Shout which ends up released as Drug Train. Finally, we look at the tracks from Psychedelic Jungle. Jungle Hop, the Crusher, and Rocking Bones. Geta master class in the Cramps and the cover songs that made them famous.

In this episode we take a look at the history of one of the most widely post WWII "Covered" popular songs in the ASCAP database. From its humble beginnings as a European folk song to its re-appearance during the American Civil War as a melody for a drinking song, to its eventual use as the basis for a song about a cautionary tale warning a cowboy that if he doesn't change his ways, he will one day join the damned cowboys doomed to try to “catch the Devil”s herd across these endless skies.

After examining the developments and evolution of American popular music from the turn of the century from the 1920's, through the 1930's & the 1940's, we examine the culmination of styles and circumstances that evolved during the 1950s. Did Rock & Roll appear before Elvis or Chuck Berry? Could it have been under our noses this whole time, or could yet be discovered in the music we'll play in this episode.

Examining the lead up to the 1950s, there were many forms of popular music that laid the foundation for the definition of Rock & Roll that we know today. Rhythm and Blues, Swing, and Hillbilly music all come together during the 1940s to illustrate hints of Rock & Roll around every turn. Maybe this episode contains the first Rock & Roll song ever recorded . . . 

Nick Tosches says it best | ”It is impossible to discern the first modern rock record, just as it is impossible to discern where blue becomes indigo in the spectrum." So why so many think that Jackie Brenston made the first rock ‘n’ roll record? Well for a start, Sam Phillips was fond of telling people that it was.   Bringing you into the folds of the shows purpose, is to better understand where modern forms of popular music are evolving from and how their history has become entrenched in our modern music belief systems.  That’s not to say that we won’t dig through the bins and listen to some fabulous examples of bad music, or listen to the same song done by 20 different bands or look at why there are more than 500 songs that talk about chicken.