100 Records

This 7″ sounds like it comes straight from the Woody Guthrie catalogue, but it’s actually a relatively contemporary record. Simple, earnest, thoughtful songwriting about injustice and governmental responsibility, “White House Soup Kitchen Blues” seems like it could be a Depression-era tune until you see that the B side is called “Amy Goodman” after the host of the liberal radio show Democracy Now!

SIDE A

Noppie Clarke is a fictional character created by Lydia DeShultz, a sociology professor living in London who was arrested in a protest against the Tony Blair administration shortly after the U.S. and U.K. led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

              From Belmarsh prison Deshultz wrote a political tract decrying the corporate agenda of her government and urging citizens to camp outside parliament gates and outside private arms companies like BAE, and other like companies in England and whom’s addresses were conveniently listed at the end of the pamphlet. The small pamphlet was printed up in the thousands and brought DeShultz a small measure of national recognition.

              Within prison she wrote two or three political songs: simple, sparse instrumentals on guitar with occasional whistling. The songs were released onto the internet freely and DeShultz enjoyed a second wave of public notoriety. Despite her cult success as a recording artist, DeSchultz regards herself primarily as a political activist, working against British companies like the National Extremism Tactical Co-ordination Unit (NETCU)  and the National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU), both of which “spy on, target, brutalize and imprison ‘domestic extremists’ – a clever title for protesters.”

Due to the peculiar nature of DeSchultz’s recording career, it’s unclear if we’ll be getting any more records from Noppie Clarke and the Protesters, but DeSchultz will occasionally play at protests and marches around the country.

Folk, Hits, News

How about that new Joanna Newsom record, huh? Pretty great. But enough people are writing about her. Sonny Smith recently turned me onto this really incredible singer that I can’t stop listening to. “Earth Girl Helen Brown,” is her monkier. She had an sad, strange life, which explains the weirdo, fascinating music.

Earth Girl Helen Brown "Hit After Hit" (Side A); El Rincon Record Palace 002

Helen Brown was born in Vancouver, Canada, but raised in an Athens, Georgia-based religious cult, and was blinded in one eye from a childhood baseball injury. As an adult, she dropped out of Evergreen and traveled the country for a while as a nomadic psychedelic folksinger, before forming her first band One Eyed Tramps. For years, she lived alone in a mountaintop in southern Alaska, where she befriended a Cherokee Shaman (later revealed as a fake) who encouraged her to pursue a frustrating academic career. Rampant drug use, frequent fainting on stage, and occasional self-inflicted knife wounds on stage led to more interest in her stage antics than her music. However, a few sides did emerge in the late ’90s (recording dates unknown), which feature a unique mix of country, girl group, R&B, and ghoulishness. Crude and amateurish at best, these recordings are appreciated for their sincerity and intensity of feeling.

 The record I’ve been listening to a lot lately is a 7″ (Shown above, great cover): “Hit After Hit,” on Side A and “So Long, Jerk” on Side B. The label is “El Rincon record Palace 002″ which I can’t find anything else about–maybe it was a home recording that was released after they were found in the ’90s. The recordings are barely audible but her anger and pain come through. The song titles break my heart a little bit. There’s something ironic in the title “Hit after Hit”: It’s like she is struggling with fame or acheivement–having “Hits”– but there’s this vulgarity and hardness to them that speaks of violence as well. Obviously, “So Long, Jerk” is about ending a romantic relationship, and it’s in this ’60s psych-folk style, but there’s something almost punk about it. It’s hard to think of this woman ever sitting behind a desk as an academic. There’s something truly wild in her voice.  

Albums, Folk, Hits, Just Weird