As promised, here’s the newly found recording career of Bruce Ivins, the USAMRIID scientist declared the anthrax mailer by the US government.
But Ivins, in addition to being the best bioterrorist US money could buy, was by all accounts a man of many talents. His fondness for entertaining with music and keyboard playing is documented in newspaper stories worldwide.
And so the founder of Bona Fide Records, Rick Noll of Pennsy, has discovered, recovered and brought to the attention of a fascinated country, the bioterror scientist’s 7-inch vinyl, recorded as Bruce Ivins and the Country Boys.
Courtesy of Noll, DD has the music now posted here for your listening.
Noll informs the single was found in Abbottstown, PA, about forty miles northeast of Frederick (and USAMRIID’s Fort Detrick), Maryland, up Rte. 15.
[The scan shows] a white label vinyl 7-inch single produced by Nashville Recordings, a record-making facility that “did a lot of small pressings in the 70s and 80s, with a NR # for their records they pressed,??? Noll tells me. “Most likely a couple hundred or so were done …???
“The 45 is a hoot,??? he says. “It has to be the same guy.???
Maybe so. We don’t know for sure. Perhaps it’s all phlogiston, Bruce Ivins and the Country Boys another Bruce Ivins — not the Bruce Ivins at the center of the anthrax case. It’s all just a coincidence, what Klaatu was to the Beatles, sort of. It’s just one more mysterious embellishment contributing to the fascination over lore connected to the nation’s most famous bioterrorist. Like the FBI/DoJ case against Ivins, the evidence is circumstantial yet still compelling.
“Pass Me By” with a B-side of “All Shook Up” sounds just fine. And it could easily be Ivins as a one-man band. Whether or not the drummer is a real person on both tunes is difficult to tell. The A-side sounds like the former. In any case, by description Ivins was adept with his multi-faceted keyboard. The guitar line, for instance, is a keyboard simming it.
Good news, lads! Good news! If we go to war with China, there’ll be no more of these for awhile.
Laugh out loud feature piece by Bill Gertz in today’s Washington Times here.
Yet another in the popular theme of China’s growing military, listing its allegedly puissant cruise missiles, its patrolling of nearby seas, and one decrepit half-finished aircraft carrier, said to be almost ready to go, bought from the ex-Commies, the Varyag.
Breakout graph from admiral of the Pacific theatre, describing the nature of the threat:
“If I were asked what biggest challenge I face as the Pacific Command commander, I would tell you it’s the relationship between the United States and China, in order to advance that relationship to ultimately become a constructive partnership, if that’s possible,??? he said.
The admiral obviously doesn’t get out much, perhaps having only servants doing the shopping.
When all the goods in American stores are from China “constructive partnership” doesn’t really describe any present or potentially future relationship.
Here’s how it is — “Joined at the hip like Siamese twins.”
So let’s have a brief thought exercise, imagining the implausible, a shooting war breaking out between the US and China.
What happens, other than the military actions?
All goods from China cease. The middle class sees all US stores run out of stock of sundries. Wal-Mart, Target, everything like them, BestBiuy, all hardware stores, all consumer electronic stores, Bed/Bath & Beyond, sporting goods stores — all crash and go bankrupt. Unemployment becomes truly massive, a new recession to make the Great Recession look small ensues. People watch video of the bombers methodically destroying China’s military for a month. The military is the only place where employment is stable. After two months, television watching stops too as cable is disconnected for non-payment.
Fender Musical Instruments and Gibson are put out of business. The value of old, even mostly crap, instruments skyrockets. Old classic rockers enjoy revival as they are one of the only groups of musicians who can still go out and entertain locally.
In the next election, every incumbent is voted out of office.
With the flow of exports to the US and everywhere else cut off, massive unemployment in China ensues. Caught between the US military and rioting in the streets, the Chinese government destabilizes. All it’s new military hardware is destroyed in detail. This takes four to six weeks.
The war ends. The world is dragged into a great depression, having lost what’s left of the buying power of the US and almost all its sundries and electronics manufacturing in the short term.
Happily, Apple goes out of business as manufacturing for all its iKit ceases and demand subsequently plummets for what’s left because of bankruptcy in the US working class.
Used vinyl becomes very valuable. Fights break out in pawn shops as people scramble for old semi-functional turntables. What stock is left goes for thousands of dollars per item. Garages are ransacked nationwide.
The new “retro” novelty products can no longer be bought, either, because they were all made in China.
Don’t you wish you were there? Sony paid a fortune for the Cycle Sluts from Hell and fumbled the job. While they might not have been ready to take over the heartland they certainly were ready to take over something large in 1990.
As Little Jimmy Dickens might say: “I look at them. It’s hard.”
I shared a stage with ’em in Allentown. The guitarists are utterly feeble.
Note how they’re left conspicuously mostly out of the video, just around to making squealing noises. But that was so not the point.
This video and the front girls ruled. If you’ve spent any time in rock dives with drunks the lyrics are wunderbar. There can be no argument.
How did a major label blow the opportunity the Cylce Sluts presented?
And this is a country where someone half-assed named Snookie is now a star?
Bruce Ivins, the best bioterrorist US taxpayer money could buy, was by all descriptions a resourceful man of many talents. Newspaper articles on him told of his fondness for playing keyboards at church and composing little humorous songs for departing colleagues at Fort Detrick/USAMRIID.
So it’s perhaps not a surprise that Bruce Ivins was also an independent recording artist.
Rick Noll, founder of the great but small independent label Bonafide Records, is a devoted scourer of the used records bins of the back country, from eastern Pennsylvania through to Maryland. He is particularly adept at finding old obscure vinyl treasures in the vicinity between York, PA and Frederick, Maryland.
It was Noll who reunited DD with an old Professor Schnitzel record from his Pennsy Dutch stomping grounds.
And it is Noll who has tipped DD to the recording career of Bruce Ivins.
Here is a scan of a white label vinyl 7-inch single produced by Nashville Recordings, a record-making facility that “did a lot of small pressings in the 70s and 80s, with a NR # for their records they pressed,” Noll tells me. “Most likely a couple hundred or so were done.”
The A-side is Bruce Ivins and the Country Boys’ rendition of Johnny Rodriguez’s lugubrious “Pass Me By (If You’re Only Passing Through.)” I’ve put this to press prior to getting mp3’s for it.)
The single’s vanity label displays a droll sense of humor. “Poplar Records.” Geddit?
“It’s novel in its one man band approach with tinges of ineptitude — an educated, somewhat accomplished, Hasil Adkins with chops!” exclaimed Noll. “Lots of crazy people put out records like this, but I think this one has a dark and ominous sound, [perhaps] hinting at a budding criminal mastermind!”
Noll estimates the recording could be from the 70’s or 80’s. It features what he believes to be a Casio and drum machine rhythm track, probably furnished by the keyboard, and simulated guitar also from the keyboard. This probably, but not assuredly, places it in the Eighties.
“Pass Me By [has] too many keyboards, including a guitar-like one,” says Noll. “All Shook Up, the B-side, is real fast and pretty good, mostly keyboards and drum machine.”
It was the only single in a crate-load of 1,000 records Noll wanted, he told me.
“The 45 is a hoot,” he says. “It has to be the same guy.”
Maybe so. We don’t know for sure. Perhaps it’s all phlogiston, Bruce Ivins and the Country Boys another Bruce Ivins — not the Bruce Ivins at the center of the anthrax case. It’s all just a coincidence, what Klaatu was to the Beatles, sort of. It’s just one more mysterious embellishment contributing to the fascination over lore connected to the nation’s most famous bioterrorist. Like the FBI/DoJ case against Ivins, the evidence is circumstantial yet still compelling.
Maybe time will sort it out.
“Ivins was a much more many-sided, social, and in this sense normal person than FBI’s Summary would lead one to believe,” reads one of the many news stories on the scientist. “He played the piano in church, played and sang in a Celtic band, composed songs for departing colleagues, was an expert juggler …”
And here is a large photo of Ivins playing keyboard in a band called Celtic Live from Bushwaller’s Irish American bar in Frederick from 2006. Readers will note it’s one of the popular keyboards which will now furnish everything from rhythm tracks to simulated instrument lines. It is most probably not the model on the single but does show Ivins was totally at ease with the type of instrument and its capabilities.
Dr. Feelgood live at the Kursaal in Southend, ’75. Part of a show that was shot for television, this is the best sounding and looking snip I’ve seen –a great stark and taut version of “Back in the Night” from Malpractice.
In the US, the Feelgoods were bottled by the rock critics. The most
insulting review was published in the infamous “red book” — Rolling Stone’s first album guide, featuring this nose-gold bit of descriptionr:
“Their LPs sound like sparse backing for a lead musician who never appears.”
And in a completely different vein, an old Chely Wright video hit creatively re-using the main riff from “The Joker”:
Wonder if she’s changed the lyrics? Anyway you sing it, it would still sound great.
See it now before it gets finked on and the corporate police come to drag it away. On YouTube, corporate America likes all the little future lickspittles who give big wet smooches to the television advertising. The other way round, not so much.
Some will have noted that last night, on MSNBC, General Electric changed its corporate advertising, rolling out a different commercial without the country line dance, one retooled to emphasize it makes stuff — like one big jet engine.
It’s everything that’s wrong with corporate power today: News broke last week that General Electric, America’s largest corporation, made $14,200,000,000 in profits last year and paid $0 in taxes — that’s right, zero dollars in taxes. At the same time, C.E.O. Jeffrey Immelt saw his compensation double. Now I hear that GE is expected to ask 15,000 of their unionized workers to make major concessions in wages and benefits.
But what really adds insult to injury is the prestigious and influential position Jeffrey Immelt holds as chair of President Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. That’s wrong. Someone like Immelt, who has helped his company evade taxes on its huge profits — and is now looking to workers to take major pay cuts after his compensation was doubled — should not lead the administration’s effort to create jobs.
We cannot stand by and watch while we are led down this road. Mr. Immelt must step down from the president’s jobs panel — and if he won’t, President Obama needs to ask for his resignation.
Help us build public pressure on GE’s Jeffrey Immelt to step down or President Obama to get his resignation from the jobs council: Sign our petition at www.ImmeltMustGo.com today!
How can someone like Immelt be given the responsibility of heading a jobs creation task force when his company has been creating more jobs overseas while reducing its American workforce? And under Immelt’s direction, GE spends hundreds of millions of dollars hiring lawyers and lobbyists to evade taxes. All of this at a time when Fox News and the right wing are demonizing public workers, like teachers, as the cause of our economic problems.
Even the most specious arguments are granted legitimacy simply for having been made. Every opinion, however uninformed, is seen as inherently valuable. No argument is too preposterous or dishonest to share …
It’s how so-called conservatives can insist that the Wall Street bankers who crashed the economy should keep their astronomical bonuses, but unionized public employees should give up their hard-won pensions. It’s how President Obama can tap General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt to help “reform??? the corporate tax structure, even as the New York Times reveals that GE – with worldwide profits of $14.2 billion last year – paid zero U.S. taxes.
Abject illogic is a good way to describe the legal tax cheating practiced by GE and the president’s appointing of Immelt as an economic advisor.
GE and Jeffrey — with a borrowed Alan Jackson — here.
“Jeff Immelt — he understands what it takes for America to compete in the global economy. And I am so proud and pleased to chair this panel, my council on jobs and competitiveness, because we think GE has something to teach businesses all across America.” — the President
One now assumes that such advice on competition means giving more of a green light to looting and offshoring labor.
Well, I hear it’s fine if you got the time, and the ten to get yourself in. A hmm-hmm.
Three-wheeled touring motorcycle ad, set to ZZ Top’s La Grange, a song about whores in a shack in Texas. Taken from Tres Hombres, one of the ultimate blue collar classic rock albums, songs entirely devoted to the underclass — Master of Sparks (being thrown off the back of a pickuup tack in a ball made out of bailing wire and rebar), Beerdrinkers and Hellraisers (having your “can of dinner” — cheap beer as the evening’s repast) and Precious & Grace (picking up two dangerous-looking prostitutes who might have just gotten out of prison, on a lonely back road).
Of course, it’s a two-way street. ZZ Top consented for the money.
And what did they consent to — ad music for an expensive motorized conveyance aimed at the plutocracy, those people who can wear five hundred dollars or more worth of custom leather. And who are afraid of wiping out with all their stuff in the baggage pods when they ride.
Ludicrous. Not exactly the stuff of rattlesnakes in cages onstage and young guys passed out and stacked up in the lavatories at the Philly Spectrum.
Not worth clicking the link explaining only once again why I have only minimal use for Twitter and vice versa. I remain surprised I even have one follower.
This is worth a listen, though. Good version of a good tune.
Facebook = functionally similar. Forced jollity, optimism and glad-handing or you’ve no ‘friends’ and no one to ‘like’ your posts.
Related:
Norman Vincent Peale-ism by way of Colin Powell:
Don’t follow anyone who’s not going anywhere.
With some people you spend an evening: with others you invest it.
Be careful where you stop to inquire for directions along the road of life.
Wise is the person who fortifies his life with the right friendships.
If you run with wolves, you will learn how to howl. But, if you associate with eagles, you will learn how to soar to great heights.
From a bit review of Barbara Ehrenreich’s Bright-Sidedhere.
Ted Nugent released a digital single today, a download aimed at increasing membership to his mailing list. It’s a reasonable trade.
Now for the bad news.
It’s called “I Still Believe.” Ted has made the song to tell us he still believes in the American dream and that we are not in decline. Or at least he’s not in decline.
Unfortunately, lyric fail.
Here’s a sample:
I pursue life
I pursue my happiness
I’m so damn alive
I’m so in love with this
Geezus.
When the bridge hits, Nugent inexplicably shifts to referring to himself in the third person:
He believes
He still believes it
He believes in America
I’m going out on a limb here in thinking Nugent did it this way because he couldn’t find any female backing singers to deliver it inexpensively enough.
Music and riff: B
Message hindered by too high school-ish (or Tea Party) clumsy way with words: C-
If you want it, go to his website. A couple extra points taken off for bad web delivery which shoves the mp3 file at you in some browsers as I_Still_Believe.htm. Which, of course, won’t work until you rename the extent back to what it should actually be.
