"I still love horned helmets and swords and spears."
Moondog! A blind genius who dressed like a viking wizard (were there wizards in the viking community?), performed on street corners in New York City for years, and made the most perfect orchestra street jazz I've ever heard. Its awesome (and obviously shouldn't be confused with Walter Schreifels' post-GB, pre-Quicksand project)! I'd recommend starting with The Viking of Sixth Avenue, a sort of best-of compilation spanning nearly 50 years of his career that Honest Jon's (partly run by Damon Albarn, who I kind of admire because he's constantly doing new shit, but who I would probably admire more if I liked anything he did musically) put out in 2005. Lots of raw vocal rounds, jazz stomps, animal sounds, etc. Sometimes it reminds me of music that would show up in a Woody Allen film, or like Godspeed or Silver Mt. Zion or that kind of classical punk stuff--only shorter and without any of the really heavy-handed anarchist scrabba-doob, or like less California-y, wackier Brian Wilson vocal workouts--but it doesn't necessarily sound exactly like any of those things. It doesn't sound like anything else in the world, actually.

Moondog - "Theme and Variations" (from The Viking of Sixth Avenue)
Moondog - "Dog Trot" (from The Viking of Sixth Avenue)
Moondog - "Down is Up" (from The Viking of Sixth Avenue)

Song of the day is the Venom stage banter 7", originally released on Ecstatic Peace some time ago. This is a guaranteed day-brightener that would also make a stellar birthday gift for me!! Thank you Jake Fogelnest for talking about it on your Sirius morning show, and thank you WFMU's Beware of the Blog for posting it up so I could download it several hours later. Song of the day runner-up is "Who Are You?" from Sabbath Bloody Sabbath. I listened to Sabbath for about 6 hours straight yesterday (Black Sabbath through Never Say Die!, in chronological order) and it was tits, although I will say things start to go south slightly once you get to Sabotage (hour 3? 4?).