Igloo
Magazine review
from SIGNAL TO NOISE
Henry Jacobs
The Wide Weird World of Henry Jacobs / The Fine Art Of Goofing Off
Important cd/dvd
In France they give medals to cultural heroes; if the United States of
America was a land of justice, Henry Jacobs would get a big hunk of
something shiny around his neck for his enduring contributions to
counterculture. His ³Music and Folklore² radio show for KPFA got
international music on the air in 1953; four years later he helped put
together the Vortex Sound and Light Experiments, a schedule of light and
electronic music events. He recorded Zen philosopher Alan Watts and
assembled absurdist television shows for public station KQED. And he
recorded tons of comic material for radio and records. Subsequent artists
who have bitten the medium that conveys them, like Negativland and Firesign
Theater, owe him a huge debt.
This delightful collection picks up where Locust records¹ two recent CDs
leave off. The audio portion was culled from hours of tape that was found
abandoned in a Mills Valley home (Jacobs¹ own archive went up in a house
fire ten years ago); some of it previously appeared on lps like The Laughing
String. A person allergic to comedy records would love the comedic sections;
the musique concrete segments are amusing enough to charm a new music hater.
Why? Because whether he¹s sending up relaxation tapes or mumbling jazz
fans,
or simply layering incongruous sounds, Jacobs always goes for absurdity and
an effortless sense of play rather than a clearly articulated punch line. It
sure doesn¹t hurt that Jacobs also leavens his mockery with a gentleness
that seems foreign to any sort of discourse today. The dvd includes three
episodes of ³The Fine Art Of Goofing Off,² which were collaborative
efforts
involving Jacobs and a host of like-minded souls. Each blends stop-action,
claymation, and good old-fashioned animation to celebrate aimless amusement.
If you happened to sit up late watching public TV a quarter century or so
back, you might have happened across this stuff and wondered what drugs they
were taking. Look and listen now, and you might wonder if the whole world
needs more of whatever Jacobs and his cohorts were smoking.
Bill Meyer
Got a keen sense of humour and a taste for social satire? Ever wonder what would
have
happened if Lenny Bruce had taken over The Goon Show? Come and enter The Wide
Weird World of Henry Jacobs, where dialogue and tape collage meld into one strange
universe. Courtesy of the dependable Important Records (and Jack Dangers, aka
Meat
Beat Manifesto, who collaborated with Jacobs to compile this collection), Wide
Weird
World brings us the best of Jacobs’ vision, which he sculpted from the
early ’50s into the
’70s, and which heavily inspired famed sound editor Walter Murch. What’s
more, this album
comes with a bonus DVD containing all three mind-blowing episodes of The Fine
Art of
Goofing Off, a “leisurely” 1972 children’s show that combines
Bob McClay’s dazzling
animation styles with Jacobs’ subversive sound editing for an ecstatic
experience that could
only be described as Sesame Street on acid.
Kevin Hainey
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Mimaroglu Music
this is a fantastic set of henry’s radio madness (the disc) coupled with
a set of short films and
stop-fime experiments (executed with the help of jordan belson!) those of you
who know henry’s
work as released on folkways, prestige, world liberty, and his own mea label
back in the 50s and
60s will already know how great it is to have some more of his genius on disc
(the locust label has
already done a cd or two of henry’s folkways-era material.) the music/sound
queues are out-of-this-
world, the films are completely amazing in that sort of drugged-out 60s berkeley-area
kind of way.
super-necessary...
Keith Fullerton Whitman
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LA WEEKLY
The Wide Weird World of Henry Jacobs (Important Records) Following Locust’s
acclaimed reissue of Bay Area
renaissance boho Jacobs’ two 1950s Folkways albums — the soundtrack
to the milestone visual music Vortex
concerts at S.F.’s Morrison Planetarium and excerpts from his disarmingly
titled KPFA radio show Music and Folklore
— the dude from Meat Beat Manifesto found a box of old reel-to-reels stashed
under the floorboards of his house that
turned out to be a treasure trove of lost recordings. Organized in the same
dazzlingly postmodern collage as the radio
program album, Wide Weird World runs the same gamut from weedy beatnik put-ons
(“Cigarette Yoga” sounds suspiciously
like Jacobs and Ken Nordine firing up) to loopy avant-garde electronic experiments,
faux instructional recordings,
proto-hippie jams and even a prank call to vocal group the Crewcuts. And if
that wasn’t enough to recalibrate your
frequencies, there’s a bonus DVD of The Fine Art of Goofing Off, Jacobs’
legendary 1972 PBS series in collaboration
with animator Bob McClay, including contributions from Alan Watts, Victor Moscoso
and Jordan Belson. Feed your head.
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