 Alan Mills Now, I'm all for this "lo-fi" revolution that Modern Maturity is always talking about nowadays, but it's a disgrace to see early pioneers in the field to be completely thrown to the wolves. Case in point: Alan Mills, of whom I am a huge fan. In fact, as far as I know, I own his entire recorded musical output, which consists solely of one existing acetate, a spooky collection of recordings entitled Animal Songs that I found in a pile of mostly broken sad-clown figurines in a cobwebby corner of my local Goodwill. Ok, maybe I'm not such a huge fan. In fact, I'm grimacing while having to listen to this hiss. So, to keep myself occupied, I'm trying to determine where/when this was recorded. So far, I've narrowed it down to somewhere in the English-speaking Western hemisphere between (I honestly can't tell) 1933 and 1979. Why did he record this? For his grandchildren? Did they enjoy listening to their then-supposed grandpa sing in a faux-burly Burl Ives fashion, meandering through such animal ditty stumbling-blocks like "Poor Cock Robin" and "I Had a Cat?" Is it THEIR Victrola that, through repeated listenns, scratched this heavily muffled, guitar-accompanied, pops-and-clicks-ridden musical dreamscape into approximately the same sound spectrum of early talkie movies? Someone please tell me … would the previous owners of this record actually sit around and listen to it? Or did Mills himself drop it off at the local Goodwill when his children's music career proved to be a total bust? Hm, maybe I should have bought the clown figurines instead.
Review by Quinzio |