Hello out there, kats and kittens...

November 18, 2007 8:19 AM

WFMU's The Houndhas been delighting record geeks for the past few decades with sets of some of the wildest, wooliest rockabilly, R&B, blues, gospel, garage rock, and punk that can be dug out of crates. His site offers full podcasts, and individual mp3's under the show links, and organized by artist, and title. Bo Diddley singing to Kruschev! Blues songs about the Kinsey report! The Cashmere's talking about the hop! Brownie McGee singing about baseball's integration! Roughly 4 million variations on 'The Twist!' And that;s just the tip of this glorious iceberg.

The music is presented without museum piece reverence and with humor and style. This must be what the glory days of rock and roll radio were like. Audio quality is mediocre, but the file sizes are small, but that only makes it more like hearing it on the radio, right? You want this stuff, even if you don't know it yet. Enjoy.

posted by jonmc (12 comments total)

Cool, I love the Hound. 13th Floor Elevators, Charlie Feathers, The Everly Brothers... this is great. Plus, hundreds of artists I've never even heard of. Like "The Del-Vikings," "Gar Bacon," "The Inconceivables," "The Reekers."

I think band names have really started to slide downhill compared to these, personally.
posted by synaesthetichaze at 8:35 AM on November 18, 2007

This looks good. I found a compilation disk a while back called Songs We Taught the Detroit Cobras. It has all the original recordings of the songs the Detroit Cobras cover. Another comp I've been getting into is a collection of songs that inspired Lux and Ivy. It looks like many of those songs can be found on this site.
posted by Sailormom at 8:48 AM on November 18, 2007

Like "The Del-Vikings,..."

"Come Go With Me", one of my all-time favorites, but I'm an oldster. Thanks for this link. I can't wait to explore.
posted by wafaa at 9:27 AM on November 18, 2007

"Come Go With Me", one of my all-time favorites, but I'm an oldster.

"Whispering Bells" ain't bad either.
posted by jonmc at 9:28 AM on November 18, 2007

Ooh! Ooh! Sir Douglas Quintet! I love Doug Sahm. I gotta go. I'm gonna be busy for a while...
posted by wafaa at 9:47 AM on November 18, 2007

You're obviously about a mover, wafaa.
posted by jonmc at 9:51 AM on November 18, 2007

Some previous houndness on metafilter from mwhybark, but it's always nice to be reminded of the site, jonmc.
posted by sleepy pete at 9:58 AM on November 18, 2007

How is it that a nation of some 300 million people can only support ONE truly great radio station? WFMU FTW.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 10:04 AM on November 18, 2007

April 25, 1987. Special Guest...his majesty, Handsome Dick Manitoba.
posted by jonmc at 10:32 AM on November 18, 2007

Heh. About every six months, someone sends me a link to the Hound, usually with some sort of "I think you'd really like this!"

Yeah, I've been listening for years (ever since FMU started streaming), and I still haven't waded through even half of the archives.

Great stuff. Current favorite is The Pharoahs doing "Have Love, Will Travel." I especially like the ambiguity in the line "If you need a lovin' man, will/we'll travel," because I like the thought of a traveling band of guys providin' good loving.
posted by klangklangston at 11:19 AM on November 18, 2007

I have had occasion to correspond with the curator of the Hound site since my old post and he's always expressed delight in the interest folks show to these projects.

A pal of mine who lived in pre-Katrina NOLA alleges that the Hound owns (or owned) a bar down yonder.
posted by mwhybark at 11:25 AM on November 18, 2007

Fuckin A! jon -- excellent
posted by Pressed Rat at 6:38 PM on November 18, 2007