Here’s a chance to be a patron of the arts on what­ev­er scale you can afford. Last week Ken Berman, a San Fran­cis­co-based jazz musi­cian (and the teacher of an excel­lent Bob Dylan class at Stan­ford) launched a Kick­starter cam­paign to fund the record­ing of an album called Sound Poet­ry. Born out of Berman’s friend­ship with the late poet Eythan Klam­ka (1967–2011), the project builds on Klamka’s notion that “any good musi­cian is a sound poet.” “Con­vinced that the finest impro­vi­sa­tion is essen­tial­ly a lyri­cal art,” Berman draws “inspi­ra­tion from a range of diverse sources, whether Zen prac­ti­tion­er Thich Nhat Hanh, W.B. Yeats, Langston Hugh­es, George Gersh­win, Bob Dylan, and of course the jazz greats from Duke Elling­ton, Lester Young, Bil­ly Stray­horn, Miles Davis to Bill Frisell – all of whose unique con­tri­bu­tions con­tin­ue to be guide­posts and indi­cate the realm of pos­si­bil­i­ty in impro­visato­ry art.” To date, sup­port­ers of the Sound Poet­ry project have pledged $4,956 of the $11,150 goal, and the fund­ing peri­od still has 25 days to go. Con­tri­bu­tions will help pay for every­thing from stu­dio time, mix­ing and mas­ter­ing, to cre­at­ing cov­er art, man­u­fac­tur­ing CDs & DVDs, pub­lic­i­ty for the album, and a three con­ti­nent tour. You can learn more about Sound Poet­ry from the video above and make your own con­tri­bu­tions here. If you pledge $15 or more, you’ll get a copy of the album upon its com­ple­tion.

You can also sam­ple Ken’s ear­li­er com­po­si­tions here or vis­it his web site here. And if you live in the San Fran­cis­co Bay Area, I’d encour­age you to check out Ken’s course Like a Rolling Stone: The Life and Music of Bob Dylan. It will be offered in July through Stan­ford Con­tin­u­ing Stud­ies and it’s open to the pub­lic.

Here’s clas­sic footage of the Ramones in their prime, per­form­ing at a club in 1977. The film’s open­ing title says it was shot on June 10, 1977 at CBGB, but that is appar­ent­ly not true. Singer Joey Ramone tells the audi­ence that the band’s third album, Rock­et to Rus­sia, will be com­ing out “in about two weeks” as the band launch­es into a song from the album. But Rock­et to Rus­sia was­n’t record­ed until late August of 1977, and was released on Novem­ber 4. So per­haps the film was shot dur­ing one of the band’s Octo­ber 1977 shows. What­ev­er the exact date and place, the Ramones were clear­ly at the top of their form when this film was made. In the two clips pre­sent­ed here, they burn through the fol­low­ing songs:

Part one (above)

1. “Blitzkrieg Bop”
2. “Sheena is a Punk Rock­er”
3. “Beat on the Brat”
4. “Now I Wan­na Sniff Some Glue”

Part two (below):

1. “Rock­away Beach”
2. “Cretin Hop”
3. “Oh,Oh, I Love Her So”
4. “Today Your Love, Tomor­row the World”

Relat­ed con­tent:

The Ramones Play a New Year’s Eve Con­cert in Lon­don, 1977

Image Tobias Aker­boom via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

Did you know that the Span­ish gui­tar intro to the Bea­t­les’ “Bun­ga­low Bill” was not played by George Har­ri­son, but rather by an odd elec­tron­ic instru­ment called a Mel­lotron, the same strange pro­to-syn­the­siz­er respon­si­ble for the flute intro to “Straw­ber­ry Fields For­ev­er”? You’ll learn quite a bit more about the “rash break­ing out all over pop music” that was the Mel­lotron in the audio sto­ry above, nar­rat­ed by Rick Wake­man.

From the afore­men­tioned Bea­t­les’ songs to The Band’s “This Wheel’s on Fire” to pret­ty much every song in 60s pop and 70s pro­gres­sive rock, as well as in 60s revival­ists like Oasis, the Mel­lotron makes an appear­ance. It even shows up on Skynyrd’s “Free­bird” of all things.

Wake­man sketch­es the his­to­ry of the odd­ball instru­ment, from its hum­ble begin­nings in the garage of Cal­i­for­nia inven­tor Har­ry Cham­ber­lin, to its pop­u­lar­iza­tion by sales­man Bill Fransen, who took Chamberlin’s design and made it his own.

Bear in mind, as we enter the world of Mel­lotron­ics, that the instru­men­tal bits you hear through­out Wakeman’s sto­ry were played by some­one, some­time. The sounds made by this key­board-like thing are in fact actu­al parts from live orches­tras and sundry oth­er musi­cal arrange­ments, record­ed onto tape loops and con­fig­ured in an inge­nious way so that they cor­re­spond to a stan­dard key­board and a vari­ety of pre­sets and knob­by-dial­ly-things.

You might even call it an ana­log sam­pler. The more tech­ni­cal­ly-mind­ed among you may wish to read this Sound on Sound arti­cle for specs. For you enthu­si­asts, key­boardist Mike Pin­dar of the Moody Blues—whose “Nights in White Satin” would nev­er have been with­out the Mellotron—demonstrates the instrument’s inner work­ings in the short video above.

Inven­tor Har­ry Cham­ber­lin orig­i­nal­ly designed the Mel­lotron (which he called, of course, the Cham­ber­lin) to re-cre­ate the sound of an orches­tra at home, or in the local lodge or cabaret, pre­sum­ably. This is the use Paul McCart­ney divines in the funky demon­stra­tion of his Mel­lotron above. Sir Paul, in a cabaret set­ting, does a goofy lounge singer act, then plays the “Straw­ber­ry Fields” intro.

Dig­i­tal syn­the­siz­ers and com­put­ers over­took the Mel­lotron, as they did all ana­log elec­tron­ics. But like all things old, it’s new again, in sim­u­lat­ed form, avail­able to iPhone users via the Manetron app (Mel­lotron also makes a phys­i­cal, dig­i­tal ver­sion of their vin­tage instru­ment). The sto­ry and sound of the Mel­lotron recent­ly inspired a full doc­u­men­tary treat­ment in the 2010 film Mel­lodra­ma: The Mel­lotron Movie, now out on DVD, which may be the most com­pelling doc­u­men­tary about a pio­neer­ing elec­tron­ic instru­ment ever made (far bet­ter than 2004’s dis­ap­point­ing Moog). As for­mer Beach Boy Bri­an Wil­son says in the film, “the Mel­lotron stays cool.” And indeed, it does.

via Coudal

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Meet the Dr. Who Com­pos­er Who Almost Turned The Bea­t­les’ “Yes­ter­day” Into Ear­ly Elec­tron­i­ca

The Genius of Bri­an Eno On Dis­play in 80 Minute Q&A: Talks Art, iPad Apps, ABBA, & More

All Hail the Beat: How the 1980 Roland TR-808 Drum Machine Changed Pop Music

The “Amen Break”: The Most Famous 6‑Second Drum Loop & How It Spawned a Sam­pling Rev­o­lu­tion

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Wash­ing­ton, DC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness