The Wonderful and the Obscure Volume 1: Rodd Keith

This compilation of song-poems by the great Rodd Keith is from the private collection of Bob Purse, music-lover and music-maker (see "The Many Moods of Bob Purse").

I’ve been a fan of Rodd’s a little over 15 years, when I first heard the MSR Madness CDs, and started collecting whatever song-poems I could. In Canada, there aren’t a lot of them to be found.. I imagine they are much more common in the USA (given the nature of many of the poets were from the States, this isn’t surprising).

However, it does make it difficult to discover them – ebay auctions have gotten tremendously over-priced since the PBS "Off the Charts" songpoem story documentary, and that’s why I can thank Bob for sharing his massive collection on his blog The Wonderful and the Obscure.

He posts not just Rodd Keith tracks, but many many other wonderful gems that you should really visit his site to find for yourself. However, since I’m a big Rodd fan and Bob’s online archive is massive, I thought it would be fun to put together this compilation of Rodd’s tracks that Bob has previously shared and I also thanks Bob for giving me permission to do this.

Some of the tracks might not seem all that special, or "weird", but not everything Rodd did was like that. Despite that, there are always little moments in the songs that make them special and make them distinctly unique to his productions.

As Bob puts it, "I'm not really part of the Rodd cult - I enjoy his records about on a par with any other song-poem artist or label, loving some and finding others deadly dull, and everything in between - but I know I'm in the minority with that viewpoint."

Download it here!

Two new items!

We've just posted the third volume of King For A Day: a fan tribute to XTC, and Adam Sigmund (aka Origami Repetika) has sent his a new EP called Little Bumble, full of bubbly chiptunes that we think kids might like too, not just adults. Share and enjoy!

poems4songs!

Back in 2006, Tony "Phoneyfresh" Vosik created poems4song.blogspot.com with the intention of creating new 'song-poems' based on lyrics he was sent.

A little over 10 songs were created over the following months, including submissions from Otis Fodder and Trademark G of Evolution Control Committee.

Sadly, the files were deleted over time from the free filesharing sites, and Tony had a computer crash, losing all his originals.

However, fellow song-poem fan Lee Rosevere had been collecting these songs, and with Tony's permission have put them back online again. Unfortunately, Lee didn't get ALL the tracks - 3 songs are still missing in the ether, and if the original songwriters have their mp3 copy still, please get in touch so we can complete the collection!

Thanks to Tony and all the original lyricists for these wonderfully bizarre creations - download for free now!

Makers of Smooth Music

It's no secret that we love song-poems around here, so we're especially thrilled that Lee is doing a bi-weekly song-poem show on basic.fm!

The Makers of Smooth Music debuts this week, February 19 at 9pm UK time (4pm EST, 1pm PST) and replays twice more over the next two weeks. Tune in!

New release: Peter DiPhillips - Midnight Sun

We're very pleased here at Happy Puppy to announce a new album by instrumentalist Peter DiPhillips. This is Peter's second album on the label, after releasing Omphalos last year.

Midnight Sun continues Peter's atmospheric and enveloping ambient music, with subtle dark moments that certainly take their time unfolding, with five pieces that run a little over an hour.

We really can't say it better than Michael Diamond, quoted "Peter creates electronic soundscapes from minimalist and meditative to darker and densely layered. There is a cinematic quality in a number of his compositions that could work well as a film soundtrack."

You can download more music from Peter over on his Bandcamp or Soundcloud page.

New EP: DJ Fudge - The Jem Remixes 1998-2000

Back in 1998, the Jem Starlight Jukebox was a one-of-a-kind place on the internet. Sure, there were lots of fan pages and message boards (the biggest one is still going!) but for a time, the JSS was the only website that housed every single song from every single episode of the animated series.

This was not easy in 1998, as Geocities had limited storage space and kept changing the rules about how much you could put on a single account, and how much people could download from you.

Run by the mysterious character Fudge (yes, our very own Fudge.. Mr. Lee Rosevere) the site featured not only every song in streaming Real Audio format (the preferred choice of the day), but also instrumental versions, and specially fan-created medleys. It also was the home of the internet's earliest original remixes of Jem songs done by DJ Fudge.

These remixes were given away for free download in mp3 format for a number of years, until Fudge discovered that some unscrupulous "fans" were selling these remixes, along with every song from the show (some possibly taken from his freely-available Jukebox) on CD sets on Ebay (there are still a few out there too - but don't buy them, eh?).

As a result, all the remixes were removed from the site, never to return. Until now.

Happy Puppy has gone into the vault and remastered all the Starlight Jukebox remixes, originally created and released during 1998-2000.

With advances in Creative Commons licensing and the Internet Archive, DJ Fudge believes the time is right to make these available again.

Sadly, the main Starlight Jukebox will remain offline, since it's impossible to find a reliable home for the files - and with the re-release of the entire series on DVD last year, the copyright cops would likely have the files taken down quickly. Oh, for the golden age of the internet.

Meanwhile, the remixes live again and we hope you enjoy them, share them, do your own remixes... and to those greedy Ebay bastards, respect the Creative Commons Non-Commercial license attributed to them.

Truly Outrageous!

new EP release: Lee Rosevere - Xeno

Happy new year! We start off the year with a brand new release...

...an extended-play release featuring all new compositions by LR written over the past year. Styles range from outer-planetary space sounds, to dance music of the traditional rhythmic and interpretive variety.

The EP is available digitally in FLAC and mp3 from Bandcamp in a deluxe edition, which comes with front and back artwork, and an exclusive bonus 30-page PDF photo book.

The regular version will be released on iTunes on February 12, 2013 (only the front artwork, no back or photo book).

A review copy is available on request.

File under: electronic, library music