Assorted Aleatory Moondog

November 26, 2022 2:26 PM

How Moondog Captured the Sounds of New York

Synchronizing his work to traffic and footsteps, the musician and composer translated the clamor of street life into song.

The weird and true story of Moondog

Moondog -- Do Your Own Thing

The Genius of Moondog, New York’s Homeless Composer

Random Moondoggery and details within regarding the life of someone Mefi's Own nickyskye knew well and counted as a close friend...

*jeez, now that I've searched nicky's FB pages I fear a severe link overlap with this will ensue but oh, well, onward and upward...*

One of the most important men in the music and ideology of the second half of the 20th century was a vagabond musician known as Moondog. Almost forgotten today, once upon a time the world saw him every day. New Yorkers and tourists would see him as they walked up Sixth Avenue and 53rd Street, where he lived for 30 years as an old and blind bard playing music he composed himself on instruments that he invented.

Moondog, who was almost two meters tall, would be standing there like a statue armed with a lance taller than he was, wearing a skin helmet with Viking horns, a cape and a long, white beard ––like a visitor from another world. People would pass him without ever realizing that there was one of history’s great composers and one of the first real figures of US counter culture.

Moondog, The Blind Genius of New York’s Streets

MOONDOG | The authorized website of the Estate of Louis Hardin aka Moondog

The Viking of 6th Avenue - A Feature Documentary

Moondog -- The Viking of Sixth Avenue (soundtrack album)

Here for the most part -- I know not Sepultura from Massive Attack -- is another album recorded both in studio and on the sidewalk of 6th Avenue itself: Moondog -- On the Streets of New-York City

And this is Moondog -- Stamping Ground

With which he upped the hipitude of the Big Lebowski to 11 on a scale of 10 herein


Moondog -- The Last Concert

Moondog's Corner -
Wolfgang's Moondog Website

Not to mention Previously by vronsky, 0bvious and 1f2frfbf. And here I was worried about overlap with Miss Victoria... sheesh

posted by y2karl (34 comments total)

Oh boy, am I going to dig into these links for a while. This is amazing. I've recently been kind of obsessed with his 1978 album "H'art Songs" with its myriad looping songs. Especially "Enough About Human Rights", I can't get enough of this song.

Thanks for putting this together!
posted by jeremias at 2:36 PM on November 26, 2022 [5 favorites]

I don't know a goddamn thing about music but I know what I like, and I like this a lot.
posted by Frowner at 2:37 PM on November 26, 2022 [1 favorite]

It's an obvious choice, but my favorite Moondog album will always be Moondog 2. I find his canons and rounds so utterly delightful, and the minimalist production is A+. A masterpiece of musical economy: nothing more is needed and nothing less is given. (And I just learned that all the vocals were performed by Moondog and his daughter.)
posted by mykescipark at 2:41 PM on November 26, 2022 [2 favorites]

H'art Songs

Ha, missed that -- thanks jeremias!
posted by y2karl at 2:42 PM on November 26, 2022 [1 favorite]

Walking around midtown NYC back in the 1970s my stepdad pointed him out to me...dude dressed up like a viking. I don't think he did a good job explaining who exactly this fellow was or why he was even worth mentioning. And I don't recall that Moondog was performing, just hanging out at the time we passed by. 'Old New York' indeed! Wish I had dialed into who I was witnessing a bit better at the time.
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 2:52 PM on November 26, 2022 [4 favorites]

Bob Dylan Who's Who: Moondog
posted by y2karl at 3:00 PM on November 26, 2022 [1 favorite]

Here is Moondog's Rabbit Hop interpreted in 2006 by an ensemble of English classical musicians augmented by jazz and Indian players. More Moondog but in a completely different mood is Voices of Spring by the same group. These are tracks from their album Sidewalk Dances, others are on YouTube also.
posted by JonJacky at 3:50 PM on November 26, 2022 [1 favorite]

Gonna throw my hat in the ring for the staggering and mostly-forgotten Sax Pax for Sax. Few albums bring me as much joy out of the gate.
posted by dobbs at 3:54 PM on November 26, 2022 [5 favorites]

I love Moondog! His shifting, wandering percussion always feels so right. Thanks for all the links to peruse!
posted by crossswords at 3:54 PM on November 26, 2022

Sax Pax for a Sax is great! Not his best-known album, but totally delightful.

My favorite bit of Moondog trivia is that he was hanging out with the French filmmaker Chris Marker on the day that Stalin died.
posted by Gerald Bostock at 4:23 PM on November 26, 2022 [1 favorite]

According to wikipedia (which cites his authorized biography),

He was rarely if ever homeless, and maintained an apartment in upper Manhattan and had a country retreat in Candor, New York, to which he moved full-time in 1972.[9]

and

In 1949, he traveled to a Blackfoot Sun Dance in Idaho[11] where he performed on percussion and flute, returning to the Native American music he first came in contact with as a child. It was this Native music, along with contemporary jazz and classical, mixed with the ambient sounds from his environment (city traffic, ocean waves, babies crying, etc.) that created the foundation of Moondog's music.

posted by aniola at 4:25 PM on November 26, 2022 [1 favorite]

All
Is loneliness here for me
Loneliness here for me
Loneliness
posted by alex_skazat at 4:25 PM on November 26, 2022

Like the young folks, I first discovered Moondog through Our Flag Means Death, and have been catching up on his discography ever since. Come to find out, his country house isn’t far from where I live now.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 4:25 PM on November 26, 2022 [2 favorites]

While I was at Wikipedia, I clicked on the death mask link because Moondog has a death mask and I didn't know what it was. That's how I learned about the death mask of L'Inconnue de la Seine. Which is how I ended up learning that the face of a girl who died hundreds of years ago is on countless copies of CPR Resusci Anne, which is the subject of the song with the line "Annie, are you ok?" and now we're back to music.

Moondog!
posted by aniola at 4:34 PM on November 26, 2022 [4 favorites]

Thanks for this post. I've learned more about Moondog than I had ever known!
posted by kittensofthenight at 5:01 PM on November 26, 2022

High on a Rocky Ledge is a wedding song recommended on AskMeFi.
posted by ovvl at 5:11 PM on November 26, 2022 [3 favorites]

A number of Moondog recordings - including the full "On the Streets of New York" - are available via Bandcamp thanks to his estate and the bequest made to the Library of Congress by his friend and collaborator (and fellow visionary and eccentric of mid-20th century New York) Tony Schwartz.
posted by ryanshepard at 5:15 PM on November 26, 2022 [5 favorites]

This post and all the wonderful comments would have made Moondog so pleased, y2karl.

He was a loving, unpretentiously brilliant and gentle person, whose excellent music is worthy of knowing.
posted by nickyskye at 6:20 PM on November 26, 2022 [11 favorites]

Well since you are 1° of if not at Moondog Center on the Kevin Bacon metric, you should know.
posted by y2karl at 7:05 PM on November 26, 2022 [1 favorite]

High on a Rocky Ledge is a wedding song recommended on AskMeFi.

That’s the piece that’s used in the first episode of Our Flag Means Death, and it never fails to reduce me to tears.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 7:20 PM on November 26, 2022 [1 favorite]

Moondog opened doors that I didn't really know existed before, and made sense of other things by artists who'd obviously been influenced by him. Whenever I listen to him, I always think of him trying to distance himself from the jazz community, but going so far as to claim he could write fugues better than Bach. Which I think was a reach, but I really appreciate that I was able to listen to some of that wierd ol guy's music. The kinda Ur-insider/outsider
posted by not_on_display at 8:17 PM on November 26, 2022

There are two Moondog songs that I was obsessed with: Oasis and Single Foot. The latter is a cover of his own song from many years previous, and both were from an album he did with a large church organ. Very haunting and unique music. For me those two songs really stand out.
posted by zardoz at 11:25 PM on November 26, 2022

Adding two of my favorite Moondog songs to the mix:

Enough about human rights
Why spend the dark night with you
posted by nikoniko at 12:28 AM on November 27, 2022

I'm just fascinated how Moondog, after concerts in Germany 1974, just sort of hung around in Hamburg for a bit.

He initially was hosted in the circle around self-help organisation 'Release', then Hamburg photographer Beatrice Frehn invites him to their flatshare for several weeks. In this short time moondog organises a concert in the Hamburger Fabrik for the 10.May 1974. The musicians are from the Philharmonia Hungarica, Hungarian musicians in exile who live and work in Marl (Recklinghausen), and young organist Fritz Storfinger [...]

In summer Moondog follows the written invitation of 19 year old fan Tom Klatt and decides on the spot to travel per taxi from Hamburg to Marl ... Moondog and Klatt rent a timber frame house in the Recklinghausen old town. Klatt becomes his first manager and organises further concerts in Marl, Münster, Düsseldorf and Recklinghausen. For his daily work Moondog now performs in his viking outfit in the pedestrian zones of Recklinghausen and Münster.

In 1976, the 60 year old Moondog is taken in by Familie Göbel from Ober-Erkenschwick. Daughter Ilona Göbel (later Ilona Sommer, 1951–2011) will become Moondog's manager and companion until his death in 1999. Her care allowed Moondog to, up into his advanced age, create an impressive late work and perform successful tours in Sweden, England, France, Switzerland and New York.

Source (in German, quite poor translation mine)

Shoutout to Ilona Sommer.
Moondog - The German Years
Fog on the Hudson, an old favourite for teaching music.
"And who for? and what for? I don't know..."
posted by yoHighness at 3:02 AM on November 27, 2022 [3 favorites]

I became aware of Moondog from the short piece "Bird's Lament" which was sampled by Mr. Scruff in "Get a Move On".
posted by Acey at 3:11 AM on November 27, 2022 [6 favorites]

My dad (also very musical) used to walk past Moondog on his commute every morning Wasn't until college I actually got a CD of his stuff though. Glad to hear others are discovering it as well!
posted by metahacker at 4:49 AM on November 27, 2022

Acey: I prefer the not so percussion-heavy version of "Bird's Lament" from "Sax for a Pax" that dobbs mentioned above. I think the slower movement enhances the "lament" feel. YMMV.
posted by techSupp0rt at 5:53 AM on November 27, 2022 [1 favorite]

You also heard a piece in The big Labowski https://youtu.be/m-fAm3Nva2w
posted by boilermonster at 9:39 AM on November 27, 2022

See also third from last link in the More Inside above.
posted by y2karl at 10:45 AM on November 27, 2022

I know pretty much every Moondog round by heart - except, only the first third-to-half of each one, because in his recordings I rarely get to hear the whole thing before a second or third layer is added, making it too complicated for me to follow the tune or understand all the words.
posted by moonmilk at 11:35 AM on November 27, 2022

Does the thread have Viking 1 in it yet? Because it really should.

Because of the influence on the New York artists who had a huge impact on me (thinking Reich, Glass and Laurie Anderson particularly), hearing Moondog is strangely like coming home for me.
posted by Grangousier at 3:45 PM on November 27, 2022 [4 favorites]

It's like he's the invisible part of their iceberg.
posted by y2karl at 3:58 PM on November 27, 2022

H’art Songs rates very high on my list of great albums from a pretty stellar year in recording history.
posted by aspersioncast at 10:46 AM on November 28, 2022

-The Story of Moondog
-A Brief History of Moondog
posted by kliuless at 11:09 PM on December 1, 2022 [1 favorite]