HOOSIER HOTSHOTS: One-and-a-half Albums

 Just realized a couple days ago that my emails have been getting deleted. If you've written to me in the past couple weeks, sorry. I am trying to restore them.

The Hoosier Hot Shots were one of the first and best of the novelty bands, predating Spike Jones & crew, as I wrote back in 2011. Since then, I've found two Hot Shots vinyl releases...er, well, one-and-a half, to be precise. Continuing our discussion of budget labels, the "Hound Dog" album was released thru one of those shoddy companies, and a number of the songs are not by the Hoosiers, but by a folk group playing the kind of standards that could be heard around any campfire. See? Not all filler is killer. The Hot Shot's tunes are great tho, just mind the dodgy sound quality, and try not to wince at the awful album cover.

Speaking of the covers, there is absolutely no info on them, but I'd wager that these tracks were recorded in the '50s or '60s judging by their hi-fi sound and the presence of popular '50s styles like calypso and rock'n'roll. One song even has not-entirely-convincing celebrity impressions. Brilliantly inventive and effortlessly enjoyable nonsense, with a surprisingly spooky interlude.

HOOSIER HOTSHOTS: One-and-a-half Albums

a1 Sweet Georgie Brown
a2 Ida
a3 Mary Ann
a4 Darktown Strutters Ball [hey, it's the one socially acceptable coon song!]
a5 Toot Toot Tootsie
b1 Washboard Stomp
b2 Down By The Riverside
b3 Indian Love Call
b4 Heartaches
b5 Wabash Charleston
c1 Intro
c2 Hound Dog
c3 Them Hillbillies Are Mountain Williams Now*
c4 Mr Sandman
c5 There's No Romance In Your Soul
c6 Meet Me at the Ice House Lizzie


*This song, about the spread of hillbilly music from it's folk roots to mainstream acceptance, is actually pretty astute - the music industry did indeed come up with the phrase 'country music' as a gentrified replacement for 'hillbilly music,' a phrase that was perceived as being too lower class to appeal to mainstream record buyers. Just as 'rock'n'roll' became 'rock,' comic books' became 'graphic novels,' 'graffiti' became 'street art'...

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ATTACK OF THE KILLER FILLER

 WILD! RAW! UNINHIBITED!

These savage young rock'n'roll instrumentals live for 'kicks'! And beware the 'square' who stands in their way!


In the 1950s and 1960s, countless records were cranked out by the "budget labels," whose releases were essentially the music industry equivalent of cheapie exploitation films. Like those groovy movies, screened at drive-ins and grindhouses away from respectable cinemas, budget records were usually not found in record stores, but in the racks of places like drugstores. They were impulse buys, sold for a dollar, at a time when proper albums went for $3-4. And like z-movie producers, budget labels used all manner of deceptive, eye-grabbing visuals to lure suckers, er, I mean customers into buying their often inferior products. Case in point: an album called "Bye Bye Birdie" with an album cover (pictured right) presumably depicting a scene from the musical film of the same name. This album features a grand total of ONE (1) song from the film (and a remake at that). Also featured here are albums by popular folk/pop star Trini Lopez, and jazz-man Buddy Tate, both featured only on side one.

So who was performing on the rest of these albums? Who knows? It is safe to say that there never were any actual bands with names like the Exotic Guitars or the Rock and Rollers Orchestra. Budget labels would acquire tapes, sometimes thru rather dubious means, and release them under a variety of phony artist names and song titles. It may seem hard to believe now, but in the '50s/early '60s such now well-regarded styles as blues, r'n'b, and rock'n'roll were, for the most part, not considered mainstream. So these tapes could be had for cheap.

It's unfortunate that we'll probably never know who performed this music, since it's quite good. The Exotic Guitars sound like session cats doing their impression of surf rock, and the Rhythm Rockers might be sessioneers, too. But I would imagine that the Rock and Rollers Orchestra was a black rhythm-and-blues nightclub band - they blow like crazy, dad. Music scientifically designed to rock a party  to da break-a-dawn. The band probably never made a penny from these recordings.

Of course, there's lots of uninteresting filler out there, too. And we're lucky with today's selections so far as sound quality is concerned, since budget labels like Crown were notorious for using the worst quality vinyl, and these sides sound pretty good. Both the Bella St Clair and the R'n'R Orch records start off fairly low key before getting increasingly crazed, so perhaps there was some actual thinking going into the sequencing at least. Those albums cover, tho...oy. That Buddy Tate one's a beauty, eh?


KILLER FILLER
(All tracks sourced from 99 cent vinyl)
Exotic Guitars:
1. Walkin Around [essentially a rock rip-off of Ray Barretto's "El Watusi," which was a great song, so fine by me.]
2. Time of My Life
3. Goin Home
4. Susan
5. Beach Party

Bella St Clair and the Rhythm Rockers:
A1 Rock A Bye [continuing in the surf-y vein]
A2 Rocking Guitar
A3 Tribute To Birdie [now it's starting to get wild, w/some screamin' sax]
A4 Rolling Theme [superb rockabilly - frantic, man, frantic!]
B1 Rolling With The Punch
B2 Teen Frenzy
B3 Jamboree
B4 Final Farewell
B5 Phone Fancy

The Rock and Rollers Orchestra:
1 - Let's Rock and Roll
2 - Romp And Stomp
3 - Long N Lean
4 - The Screwdriver No 1
5 - Cool Fool [the screwdrivers must be kicking in, cuz this song is nuts]
6 - Soda Bob [a bump-n-grinder for you burlesque dancers]

Quickly Copy Google's Translations

Google Translate added a few years ago a "select all" button that automatically selected the translation, so you could easily copy the text and paste it in an email message, a document or somewhere else. In Chrome, the "select all" has been replaced with a new "copy" button that selects the entire translation and copies the text to the clipboard. The nice thing is that this feature uses HTML5, not Flash. Unfortunately, the new feature is only available in Chrome and all the other browsers still get the old "select all" button.

You can still click the star button to save a translation to the phrasebook or copy the URL generated by Google Translate, which includes the original text.

{ Thanks, Alireza Eskandarpour Shoferi. }

YouTube's Red Settings

To make it more obvious that a certain option is enabled, YouTube player's settings menu changes the color of the menu item to red. For example, if annotations are enabled, the "annotations" menu item is red.

Mouse over a red setting and it temporarily becomes black. Disable the setting and it switches to black. Previously, only the radio box was red and I think it looked better.

A Little Tiny Smelly Bit of The Stinky Puffs

As we've learned from Stinky Picnic, child musicians like the word "stinky." But The Stinky Puffs weren't just any kiddie rockers - Simon Fair Timony (age 7 when the band was formed) was the stepson of Jad Fair of Half-Japanese, and one of his li'l bandmates was the son of Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth. If I was one of their fathers, I might be worried that one of their songs is called "Menendez Killed Their Parents."


On this 1994 release they fly thru 9 tracks in 13 minutes, first in the studio, and then live, backed by the 2 surviving members of Nirvana, and Ira Kaplan from Yo La Tengo. These kids got connections! It's surprisingly catchy and enjoyable. The kid's uninhibited sense of fun is certainly a contributing factor. And the songs sure don't overstay their welcome. The song "I'll Love You Anyway" is a heartfelt tribute to Kurt Cobain.

A Little Tiny Smelly Bit of The Stinky Puffs

1. "Buddies Aren't Butts"
2. "Menendez' Killed Their Parents"
3. "I'll Love You Anyway"
4. "I Am Gross!/No You're Not!" 
5. "Pizza Break" 
6. "Buddies Aren't Butts" (live) 
7. "Menendez' Killed Their Parents" (live)
8. "I'll Love You Anyway" (live)
9. "I Am Gross!/No You're Not!" (live)
   

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Google's Blue Tabs

Google lets you switch between its specialized search engines and check image results, video results, news articles, books, Google Maps results and more. The active tab was red, but now it switched to blue.

Here's a screenshot that shows the blue tab:

... and a screenshot that shows the old red tab:

Back in June, I posted about a Google Mobile Search experiment that tested an oversized header and the active tab's color was blue.

Inline Search Results in Mobile Google Search?

Google's goal used to be sending users as quickly as possible to the best sites that answered their questions. Smartphone's popularity changed this and Google started to show detailed answers that used information from other sites. On-the-go users don't have much time to check multiple search results and find their answers, many sites aren't optimized for mobile, mobile data is still expensive and users have to deal with slow Internet connections.

Brandon Giesing noticed an interesting question from Google Opinion Rewards: "Imagine you're Googling on your phone. Compared to tapping on a regular search result, would tapping on a result that expanded to reveal content below where you tapped would be... much worse/worse/similar/better/much better?" It looks like Google considers adding a feature that loads the content of a search result inline, probably from Google Cache.

{ Thanks, Brandon. }

Google OnHub: Smart Router for Internet of Things

Google is all about the Web: it develops the most popular browser and mobile operating system, it has a public DNS service, it provides broadband Internet (Google Fiber) and wireless service (Project Fi). So why not build a router to improve your Internet connection and make your router as smart and easy to use as your smartphone?

Google partnered with TP-LINK to build OnHub (TGR1900), a next-generation router for the Internet of Things. It's not the fastest router (AC 1900 Mbps), it's not the most expensive router ($199.99) and it's not the best router for power users. Instead, Google focused on providing the best experience for regular users, much like Apple and its AirPort devices.

"We replaced unruly cords and blinking lights with internal antennas and subtle, useful lighting, so you'll be happy placing OnHub out in the open, where your router performs its best. A unique antenna design and smart software keep working in the background, automatically adjusting OnHub to avoid interference and keep your network at peak performance. You can even prioritize a device, so that your most important activity � like streaming your favorite show � gets the fastest speed," mentions Google.

There are mobile apps for Android and iOS which let you setup the router, change the settings and check the stats. A Google account is required and Google saves all the settings online, except for the WiFi password. Google's OnHub downloads and installs new versions of the firmware automatically and the best thing is that the router doesn't restart, so it doesn't interrupt your connection

OnHub is designed for Internet of Things and it supports Bluetooth Smart Ready, Weave (Nest protocol for the Internet of Things), IEEE 802.15.4 (a standard that focuses on low-speed connections between devices). The router has a dual-core 1.4GHz processor from Qualcomm Atheros (it's based on Snapdragon S4), 4GB of storage, 1GB of RAM, one USB 3.0 port, a 3W speaker, a WAN port and a single LAN port (both are Gigabit ports). You'll need a switch if you want more Ethernet ports.

You can pre-order OnHub from Google Store, Amazon and other sites in the US and it will ship in the coming weeks. It will also be available for sale in retail stores in the U.S. and in Canada. Google plans to release a second OnHub device later this year, in partnership with ASUS.

Many people will wonder if Google monitors the sites they're visiting. There's a help center article about this, which mentions that Google collects some data about your Internet usage (data speeds, historical network usage, network status, connected devices, network settings) and associates some of them with your Google account, but you can disable this in the settings. Google DNS is used by default, but you can change the DNS settings.

So why isn't OnHub a router for power users? It has a single WAN port, it uses mobile apps for setup and changing settings, it's complicated to connect multiple OnHubs because OnHub has a fixed subnet IP address that currently can't be changed.

Organize Albums in Google Photos

There are many Google+ Photos features that are missing from Google Photos. You can remove a few features from the list: reordering photos in an album, changing the album's cover and editing the timestamp for photos.

Just click the new "edit" button when opening an album and reorder photos using drag and drop. You can also add photos from other albums.

Open a photo, click the info icon and then click the edit button next to the date and time if you want to change them.

Another recently added feature: changing the album cover. Open a photo from an album, click the 3-dot menu icon and select "use as album cover".

{ via +GooglePhotos }

Standalone Google Hangouts Web App

Now you don't have to open Gmail or Google+ to use Google Hangouts: just go to hangouts.google.com in your favorite desktop browser and check the new standalone web app for Google Hangouts. The site redirects to talkgadget.google.com, so you can use this URL too.

"We are launching another way to use Hangouts today. From our new site you'll be able to take advantage of the best of Hangouts in the browser, along with an inspiring image to get you through the day," says Google's Jordanna Chord.

It's actually a slightly different interface for the Hangouts feature from Gmail, except that Gmail has been replaced with a wallpaper you can't change, the Hangouts roaster is bigger and there's a navigation menu.

THE CORILLIONS DOUBLE ALBUM

 The liner notes on the back of this true outsider music classic detail Marlin Wallace's years of pain at the hands of communists (or "reds," as he calls them) shooting painful laser-like rays at him and his mother. Mad? You call him mad?! Say what you like, but he had his act together enough to hire pro singers and musicians to perform his songs and release this 1981 double album. The slick studio country rock is, as in song poems, at odds with the unpredictable, idiosyncratic lyrics.

The album starts off fairly sensibly, but the eccentricities in both lyrics and vocal performances start to add up to truly one of the more bizarre listening experiences you're likely to encounter. Songs like "La-Lo-Ram-Ya" are as kooky as the titles. "The Jungle in Flight" is smothered in gratuitous sound effects. The singer in "Wildcat Mabellene" breaks into hilariously spazzy vocals. Heartfelt ballads might lull you into thinking: aw, this guy's not that crazy, a little sappy perhaps...until you hear a lounge crooner belting out: "Abominabllllle...snow creatuuuure...." 

The second disk in general is a lot stronger, with such must-listens as the prehysterical "Millions of Years Ago," the rhythmically propulsive jungle adventure "Head-Hunters," and, really, just one goodie after another right up thru the Revelations-inspired closer "Mark Of The Beast." Some of the 'professional' singers sound fairly inept at times. Hope they didn't cost too much. Might be Marlin himself singing songs like "Stranger In The Land."

Marlin Wallace ?� The Corillions / Double Album

1	Sweet Love Of Mine
2	Mekong
3	I'll Try
4	La-lo-ram-ya
5	The Planet Mars
6	Georgia Corn Liquor Man
7	The Jungle In Flight
8	Love Me Tonight
9	Whistlin' Bill
10	How It Feels To Be Alone
11	Wildcat Mabellene
12	Ghost Train
13	Little Orphan Girl
14	This Is War
15	Heart Full Of Pain
16	Gray Wolf
17	Abominable Snow Creature
18	Colorado River
19	Midnight Train
20	Golden Dreams
21	Millions Of Years Ago
22	Head-hunters
23	The Song Of The Wind
24	The Flower Of Love
25	Colombus
26	Only You
27	Before The White Man Came
28	The Russian Bear
29	A Stranger In The Land
30	Big Eight Wheels
31	Mark Of The Beast

Wallace survived the red's attacks and, as pointed out in this post from 2011, he's been cranking out albums ever since, performing (with some help) and singing his songs all by himself.  As I wrote: "His albums are usually themed. Wanna hear a whole collection of songs about bugs and insects? Interested in rivers? Outer space? Jungles? Well, Wallace has written entire albums dedicated to these concepts. Give that boxing fan in your life a copy of "Songs of Pugilism."  

Google Photos Card Shows More Results

In 2013 Google added a cool feature that allowed you to find your photos directly from Google Search. You could search for [my photos], [my photos of beaches], [my photos from New York], [my photos from 2011] and many other similar queries.

At that time, Google displayed small thumbnails for some of the search results. It looks like Google has updated the photos card and now shows a lot more photos, bigger thumbnails and it also includes some information about the photos (date, location). For some of my queries, Google displayed more than 100 results.

Google shows the search results from Google+ Photos and individual links send you to the Google+ Photos pages, but the link below the search results is for Google Photos. For some searches, Google Photos returns fewer results, since it doesn't include images from Blogger and photo spheres.

Google's Sign In Card

If you're not signed in, but you search Google for information from other Google products, you'll now see a special card that suggests to sign in. For example, if you search for [my packages], Google shows this message: "Looking for your orders? Sign in to see your package orders from Gmail."

When you search for [my photos], you'll get a similar message: "Looking for your photos? Sign in to see photos from your account."

Other queries that trigger the "sign in" card: [my events], [my agenda], [my calendar], [my mail], [my files], [my drive], [my documents], [my spreadsheet], [my presentations], [my bills], [my reservations], [my hotel reservations], [my restaurant reservations], [track my package], [my flights], [my tickets].

When Android Updates Are Faster

While Google and Android OEMs still have issues with releasing timely updates that fix bugs and add new features, there's something they got right: adding built-in apps to the Play Store and updating them independently, without requiring OS updates.

Apple has released iOS 8.4 back in June and the main changes were a redesigned Music app with Apple Music support and some new iBooks features. Google would have simply updated Play Music and Play Books and all Android users would have gotten the new features without manually installing a new Android version.

The only way for Apple to add new features to Safari, Apple Maps, App Store, the music app, the calendar app, the mail app, iBooks and all the other built-in apps is to update the operating system. That's an outdated model and it's pretty inefficient.

Everytime you hear about a new release for Google's Android apps (Chrome, Play Store, Play Music, Play Books, Gmail, Google Drive, YouTube and more), that could be a new Android version. Some Android OEMs like Motorola, Sony and HTC moved core apps to the Play Store to update them faster.

It's worth pointing out that iOS updates include many security updates and other bug fixes. Right now, these updates can't be installed without an operating system update in Android, but that may change in the future. Google promised to release monthly security patches for Nexus devices, while Samsung and LG will also update their devices monthly.

Android's OEMs update their devices faster then a few years ago, but the process is still slow because of the carriers, custom user interfaces like TouchWiz and the number of devices released every year.

Niantic Becomes an Independent Company

Niantic Labs was a startup inside Google that developed the popular game Ingress and the Field Trip app. Niantic announced that it will become an independent company and Google will transfer Ingress user data to Niantic Inc.

"We'll be taking our unique blend of exploration and fun to even bigger audiences with some amazing new partners joining Google as collaborators and backers. Niantic will be building on the success of Ingress, which has been downloaded more than 12M times, has attracted more than 250,000 people to live events around the world, and has inspired users to collectively walk the distance from the earth to the sun while playing, exploring and discovering," mentions Niantic.

Ingress data will be automatically transferred to the new company starting from September 11. You can opt out using this link, but only until September 10.

Niantic Labs was founded by John Hanke, the former CEO of Keyhole. Google acquired Keyhole back in 2004 and changed the name of the software to Google Earth.

From 2004 to 2010, John Hanke was Google's Vice President for Geo Products, which included Maps, Earth, Local Search, Transit, Street View, SketchUp. He left his role at Google in 2010 and created Niantic, which was supposed to be a new company, but became a startup inside Google.

"Staying at Google gave us the advantage of being able to tap into the data we have in Geo and the infrastructure in Google. There were a lot of advantages to doing that from inside Google with everything we could leverage," mentioned John Hanke in an interesting interview from 2012.

Yet Another Experimental YouTube Search Box

YouTube tests a new search UI for the desktop. The experimental search box uses a small magnifying glass icon and adds this text: "search YouTube", so that users know it's an actual search box.

The new search box is gray and has a special "Enter" icon, just in case you don't like the keyboard key.

Back in April, YouTube tested a plain white search box.

{ Thanks, Giorgio Marinelli. }

Google Knowledge Graph Adds Movie Reviews

Last week, Google's movie cards added snippets from critic reviews. You can find quotes from sites like Variety, Rolling Stone, New York Times and click the links to read the full reviews.

This new Knowledge Graph feature uses schema.org structured markup from websites. "With the recent launch of critic reviews in the Knowledge Graph, we've leveraged this technology to once again provide publishers with an opportunity to increase the discoverability and consumption of their reviews using markup. This feature, available across mobile, tablet, and desktop, organizes publishers� reviews into a prominent card at the top of the page," informs Google. Here's the help center article for webmasters.

You can search Google for [minions reviews], [reviews for ex machina] or ask Google: "did Fantastic Four get bad reviews?" and you'll see a list of reviews. Critic reviews are also displayed in the regular cards for movies and Google plans to expand this feature to books and TV shows.

Google Card for Software Downloads

Sometimes you're trying to download a desktop software and you're searching Google for things like [chrome download], [latest java], [install itunes], [get skype]. The top result is usually the official download page, but there are various other download sites. Some of them might offer outdated versions, others might install their own software and even download adware or malware.

Google now shows a special card for software downloads. There's a big logo, the name of the organization that develops the application, the download URL and a link: "go to download".

The new card might seem redundant, but some users will find it reassuring. It also works for operating systems.

Just in case you're thinking that Google always picks the URL from the top search result, I found an example which shows that's not the case. When searching for [download audacity], Google's card links to SourceForge instead of Audacity's official site and that's not a good idea.

TALES OF MANHATTAN: The Cool Philosophy Of Babs Gonzales

In this 1959 album of rhymed poems set over a cool jazz beat, Babs Gonzalez posits himself as the hippest of the hip, here to school all you cosplay-wearin', video-game playin', indie "rock"-listenin' rubes 'n' cubes. This cat wants to pull your coat to, like, where it's at, ya dig?  A fun relic from the days when jazz was part of a low-down street culture, not today's boring, conservatory-trained "American Classical Music."

You will be forgiven for thinking that Babs was a Latina, going by his name and that album cover, but nope, he was a black man. Not much of a singer, he got by on sheer attitude. This album makes an interesting contrast to the Buddy Starcher album we posted last week - tho they are both spoken word over music, they're pretty much poles apart. Babs is everything Buddy wasn't: cool, cynical, urban, sophisticated, and non-white. A hipster, in the original sense of the word. If those two ever met, like matter and anti-matter, they might have annihilated each other.

Tales Of Manhattan: The Cool Philosophy Of Babs Gonzales

A1	The Hat Box Chicks
A2	Broadway - 4 A.M.
A3	You Need Connections
A4	'Dem Resolution Liars
A5	Manhattan Fable
B1	'Dem Jive New Yorkers
B2	The Squares
B3	A Dollar Is Your Only Friend
B4	The Cool Cat's Philosophy
B5	Ole Braggin' Freddie

I have no beef with today's trendy urban youth, they got their own thing. I just wish they hadn't stolen the word "hipster," esp. since they don't even seem to like it. In Bab's day, you had to earn that designation. After all, he named his memoirs "I Paid My Dues." The hip scene was a secret underworld society. They needed these code words, as this was the era before the civil rights/black power movement, and long before the decriminalization of, er, "reefers" ("tea," "gage," etc). In these songs you'll hear such slang expressions as: 

Cadillac boys = pimps
frail = girl
pound = $5 (a lot of money in those days)
black and whites = night and days
vine = a suit of clothes
long green = lots of money

Still can't figure the lingo? For further research, digeth:

Cab Calloway's Jive Dictionary

Slim Gailard's Vout-o-Reenee Dictionary

Del Close & John Brent: "How To Speak Hip" (booklet)
                               "                                  (album - individual mp3s)
                               "                                  (album)

Which is all well and good, but what's the lingo for modern life? We need words for: computers, the internet, blogs, cell phones; synthesizers, CDs, mp3s; gays and alternate lifestyle stuff; etc., etc., etc. Come on, you real hipsters, start coining!