Bear market rally: Wandering Bear

The slightly mysterious Wandering Bear is the self-described IDM project of one Edward Newton, described by his record label's site as "an electronic dude from Canberra, Australia".

Don't know if he's named after the Native American guy who asked Cheryl how her vagina was in that one Curb Your Enthusiasm episode, or alternatively for a real-life wandering bear — such as the hapless wild black bear in Franee, Mississippi who got a 2½-gallon plastic jar stuck on his head and was then shot for his troubles after he wandered into a nearby town during its local Turkey Days celebration (a sad story indeed. Although, let's face it, you don't fuck with Turkey Days) — though at any rate, he makes great electronic/IDM/breakcore-type music.

So here's three to check out from Wandering Bear, for people who dig the said styles and those similar. i particularly like the plunderphonics on "Derk Simsauns Hicks", although in view of its title and general contents, it shouldn't really have taken me two plays to work out the sample source. Must have not have been listening properly or something.

If, perchance, you want to listen to or own the whole of the parent album of these tracks, its name is Pencil and Paper and it is obtainable for free from the aforesaid record label, Glitch City (or click the album cover to the left).

Glitch City continue to put out quality noise, plunderphonic, breakcore, etc. releases with an almost terrifyingly regularity, so expect more dispatches from them on here in the near future.

MP3: Wandering Bear — "Derk Simsauns Hicks"
MP3: Wandering Bear — "Luca Native Bear"
MP3: Wandering Bear — "Midbreak-Lunchbreak"

100 dumplings & 1,000,000 peas: the further adventures of Mr. Greedy

I used to have a tape of kids' songs themed around Roger Hargreaves' deathlessly wonderful Mr. Men characters. There were about five or six songs on each side of the tape, i seem to recall, up to a total of about twelve.

They were mostly third-person narrative tales about the adventures of the better known Mr. Men or some of their character traits: Mr. Happy's track, for instance, was a (rather soppy, i recall) paean to positivity, while Mr. Bump's chronicled his accident-prone nature. The odd few were told from a first-person perspective, a highlight being Mr. Nosey's painful account of the consequences of constantly sticking his ample nose in everybody's business.

(Thanks to this ace site for the cover scan.)

The best song, however, which ended side one, concerned (and was entitled) "Mr Greedy's Little Light Lunch".

One hundred dumplings and a million peas
Twenty marmalade puddings and a cheddar cheese
Bread and butter and a roll or two
Bread and butter and a roll or two, three, four

Then boiled beef and carrots in a casserole stew
And a bucket of custard, vanilla cake too
Bread and butter and a roll or two
Mr. Greedy is having a little light lunch

And then a treat for him to eat
It's roly poly pudding...

Apparently, Greedy also ate "ice cream in tons", "a gallon of soup", "bunches of bananas", and, somewhat underwhelmingly after all that lot, "plum duffs". Dunno about you, but to me that sounds like a hearty meal.

An unhealthy appetite was also the downfall of Mr. Greedy's namesake this week. The suitably rotund-looking Clive Greedy (right) was suspended from his job as a paramedic on the Isle of Wight after eating a stick of celery while attempting to revive a patient suffering from a heart attack.

According to the Beeb:

Darren Claydon, an emergency care practitioner... told a hearing in London on Monday: "My attention was called to Clive Greedy, by him saying, 'Nice celery'"...

This story just gets more and more improbable. Not just because at the time of the celery consumption, Greedy's partner paramedic John Jones was also "jesting with a prawn" and speculating as to whether said seafood would be cooked if the patient was defibrillated while it was on his chin; but also because, who, i ask you, has ever used the phrase "nice celery" before?

Obviously i wanted to give away "Mr. Greedy's Little Light Lunch" with this post, but my Mr. Men tape got lost about fifteen years ago (there's good money in it if you can get me a rip. More for a hard copy) so that went out the window. So here's some good general songs to go towards your five-a-day instead.

MP3: Minor Threat — "Salad Days"
MP3: Frank Zappa & the Mothers of Invention — "Call Any Vegetable"
MP3: The Vegetable Orchestra — "Greenhouse"