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Fish Stalls in the Pearl River Delta |
 Ni hao.
This part of Weirdo is dedicated to sharing a big box of Cantonese Opera cassettes that I hauled in from the sidewalk. Why Cantonese Opera? Ask the sidewalk.
Some of these cassettes are pre-recorded & some aren't. Some feature opera stars from the 60s & 70s. Some are recordings of live performances that took place in my local Chinatown. A few are pop records that have nothing to do with opera. Some are even recordings of amateur opera performers learning their craft.
So you'll get a pic & a downloadable file on an entirely irregular basis, roughly once a month. I don't read Mandarin, so if you have comments or information of whatever kind I'd be most grateful & would love to post it here. Also, if you hear/see something here you really like, I do run a store, so make me an offer & maybe I'll sell it to you.
Updates to this page will be noted in the Weirdo email list & you can subscribe to an RSS feed, just like a blog, by pressing the button:
#22-Did some digging, and came up with the companion tape to #20. A little more male-singer exposition here than on that one, but still has what I think of as a "classic" sound. Probably a Mun play, but that's just a guess from the gentleman's hat on the cover.
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#21-This tape is an excerpt from a very long opera that stretches across 4 cassettes (if I find the other 3, they'll go up too). So although there's still some call & response between the clackety gong sections & the scratchy ehru/gaohu ones, there's a lot more marching cymbals than usual. Relatively solemn, & would make a great soundtrack to, oh say, the Macy's parade.
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#20-This tape needed a couple rounds of repair, but it was definitely worth having those tiny little screws & shreds of scotch tape everywhere. Just listen to the variety of percussion & the whiney men & ladies. A graceful, yet still demoniac performance.
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#19-Ah, finally one with a date! And that date is 1983. Don't be put off, for although the squeals are squeakier & a bit less nasal than they might've been in the late 50s, Cantonese opera is a conserative, well-codified style. So we're still talking about something that sounds like banging trash cans together compared to say, a Cyndi Lauper record. Or even a Minutemen record. Increased recording quality means you can hear every detail of the wobbling gaohu.
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#18-Poppy & smooth compared to some of our entries, but of course that still means it's whiney as hell compared to, well, everything else. Also just a bit of tape gargle on side 2, but repairs fixed most of the troubles.
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#17-A friendly one that's not too screechy. Probably mid-60s.
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#16-Figured it was time for another non-opera tape this week, but the one I chose turned out to be riddled with what I like to think of as 'PBS disease'. Sadly, it was polite & meant for consumption by nice people, none of whom have any business bringing their ears around here. I dipped into the pile again & whoah-ho! Came up with a real whiney winner on the 2nd try.
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#15.5-For you masochists in the crowd, here's a chunk of the reject.
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#15-An early 70s performance, if you ask me. Not a ton of gaohu & pipa, but oh those cymbals. Touch of funk in there, even.
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#14-This one's a bit more of a soap opera, with some spectacular acting that wipes the floor with most oscar winners. You won't need to understand a word to catch on to the anger, crying, tension, blowhardiness, pain, indifference to pain, etc. of the characters. Not quite so much "music" per se as bumpers between theatrical scenes, but there's, of course, a loud cymbal crash punctuating the end of every single sentence.
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#13-Here's a fine female duet, most likely from the mid 60s [note, I later decided it's more like late 70s], with pretty clear sound (at least until the age of the tape made the reels start squealing like a couple of hungry puppies). A great example of soprano versus contralto female singing and how each can squeak or just sing straight depending on the emotional content of the opera. And yeah, there's some fine clanging cymbals too.
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#12-Oof it's been way too long since I put a new cassette up here! I have my excuses, but thanks for being patient. The interspersion of songs & skits here makes me think the date here is probably around the late 60s/early 70s. That is to say, after the worldwide explosion of 'Hair' & the 'King & I'. Matter of fact, this production style really reminds me of all those Spanish soap operas I used to watch passing time on lazy summer afternoons. Odd pauses, surreal expositions, slick production equipment used by people without much experience on it, etc. Not a super wild one, but fun nonetheless.
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#11-Takes a while for those whacked cymbal crashes to kick in on this one, but once they do, they're quite out of control. The male lead also has one of the reediest whines I've heard yet. No clue why someone would write 'Old Testament' on the inside cover, but like they say at Xmas time, there's gotta be some reason for the season.
  
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#10-Been too long since I put up new tapes here, so today you get two. 1st is an oddity. Date on the cover art says 1973, but I don't believe it for a second. Everything I hear points to about 1987. The voices are impressively nasal & cartooney, and the squeaky soprano lady really lets fly a couple of times, but the synthstruments take a little getting used to. Some weird echo in a couple of places too.
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#9- Time for another pop record & this one's got some really slinky numbers & extravagant arrangements. Thought I recognized one tune & sat on this tape for a week to see if I could remember where I'd heard it before. But the train's gotta keep a-rollin', so now it's up to you instead.
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#8- This one has a date of 1972. The songs are in shorter chunks & the performances are a little less loose. No less agressive though, with some wonderful drum solos that sound like free metal, & plenty of my favorite; unholy whining.
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#7- I think this one's my fave so far. Stellar vocal performances from the growling male lead, whining supporting male, & the squeaky lady who shows up near the end of side one. Best of all, the drummer is a real ham, slamming his trash can lids around right next to the mike every chance he gets.
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#6- Couple of notes about this one. First off, the male lead is obviously a broadly comic underdog & sounds like he's having a heckuva fine time here, especially at the beginning. Really reminds me of Buddy Hackett's chinese waiter. This tape, unfortunately, was quite damaged, so you get excerpts from the best sounding sections. You also get an excerpt from the worst sounding section (which could just as well be an LAFMS or musique concrete record), because I'm here to offer you a full range of entertainment value.
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#5- A beaut! Love the strangled feline femme vocals here.
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#4- This tape needed repair, so the sound is slightly muddy. Worth it though, as there are some great gushes of drum & cymbal overload.
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#3- So here's an amateur opera performance of more recent vintage. Late 70s maybe? Side one especially, is as sleepy & easy as an old chair. A good contrast for some of the wild ones to come.
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#2- Okay, now to the meat of this series: hysterical women interrupted by boingy cymbal crashes, screeching gaoho, & loads of pancake makeup. I think it likely from the cover info that this one was recorded in '53 & reissued in '77.
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#1- Let's warm up with a nice pop record. Fans of the 'Asian Takeaways' compilation should be most pleased with this one. I especially like the ooga-booga native american number on side 1.
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