DO IT.

FINALLY, SOMEONE GOT THE MEMO

If you're like me, you've probably wondered why more musicians aren't speaking up about what is going on in the U.S., especially the highly visible ones. Springsteen stepped up. These spoken word moments from a concert a few days ago should be heard. He does a good job of describing what's happening in plain terms, And if you're one of those people that feel celebrities and musicians should keep their traps shut and ignore the shit that's going down, pretend he's a nobody and just listen. Now, er, Boss, about that outfit....

ANY EXCUSE TO POST THIS AGAIN

Have you seen the commercials for SUVs that have a "crab walk" feature? That's a kind of steering with all four wheels turning simultaneously, instead of just the two front wheels. Rather then turning in an arc, the car goes diagonally. What could go wrong? It's not just a disaster waiting to happen. Many disasters are waiting to happen. Idiots will be driving them. Watch.

After shaking my head, I thought of Prince Jazzbo's "Crab Walking", the long disco mix.version with Jazzbo toasting over the "Skylarking" riddim, I dig it, classic Studio One. So here's that and three other cool golden age cuts.

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Listen:
Prince Jazzbo - Crab Walking mp3 at Snuhthing Anything
Gregory Isaacs - Night Nurse mp3 at Feems
Burning Spear - Social Living mp3 at Internet Archive 12" version, with a couple minutes of the version on the flip.
Horace Andy - See A Man's Face mp3 at Kazo Wailers

THE MANY MOODS OF ART PEPPER

Last night I was sick. Bad congestion, body ache, all that. I slept a good long time and got up this morning still feeling like shit, unsure if I was better or worse. Time to move.

I got and made some coffee and grabbed a book. I'm re-reading the Art Pepper memoir. I learned something. Do not read a book about a junky, particularly the part where he's describing his first fix when you're sick. It made be feel sicker. I shut the book. I gotta say, that dude had a mess of a life for someone with a talent so immense. You'd think more people would know of him just because the juxtaposition is so great. I thought I'd fix that by posting about him. In checking, I saw that I'd posted about him the first time I read the book. So below are the text and links from that (all links are still good.) From 6/9/2021:

I'm halfway through reading Art Pepper's autobiography The Straight Life (co-written with his wife Laurie). If you know anything about Pepper, you know he's a West Coast jazz guy, saxophone. If you know anything else about Pepper you know that he was a junkie, for years. He did time in a number of facilities, the most notorious San Quentin. I'm only halfway through the book (up to the mid-sixties) and I can tell you just from that that he makes Keith Richards look like a dabbler. Nothing is glossed over in the book. Not the crimes he committed, not the extent he went through to get a fix, not the lovers he treated like shit, or the dark thoughts running around in his head. It is heavy.

So I started browsing, A couple links in, I'm already distracted. There's a shitload about Pepper online. These are tonights detours.

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Listen:
Art Pepper - Caravan mp3 at Rubber City Review
Art Pepper - 'Round Midnight mp3 at Space Age Pop
Art Pepper - Straight Life mp3 at Rubber City Review From Meets the Rhythm Section
Art Pepper - Birks Works mp3 at Rubber City Review Ditto
Art Pepper - More songs and excellent profile at Rubber City Review
Video:
Art Pepper Quartet - Jazz Casual at YouTube Three songs, 29 minutes.1964
Art Pepper - Jazz Survivor at YouTube Documentary, 46 minutes, 1982
Visit:
Their Unique Love Affair at Perfect Sound Forever Profile of Art and Laurie Pepper, 2014
Laurie Pepper, Wife of Late Saxophonist Art Pepper at Fresh Air, PBS Interview podcast, 27 minutes, 2001

FOR MARGARET

I have a friend that I grew up with that now lives in New York. I touch base with her on Facebook every now and then but haven't seen her face to face in at least twenty years. It's a bummer because we went through a lot together back in the day, were roommates (with about eight others) around 1980. Back then she had a thing for David Bowie and I just ran into some Bowie oddballs and it made me think of her. She, Margaret, inventor of the Bowie Fast.

What is the Bowie Fast, you ask? Something that, at one time seemed silly, worthy of a teasing. Later it made total sense. I think it was somewhere around 1978-79, someone was putting on a record and they were asked not to play Bowie. It seemed Margaret liked Bowie so much that she didn't want to risk getting sick of him. She was on a Bowie Fast. Now I know what you're thinking, that Bowie's catalog is so vast that it would be nearly impossible, particularly for a Bowie fan, to even hear all that he's recorded enough times to go to that length. Not the ease in 1978. Bowie only had about a dozen albums out. There was no internet, no downloads or search engines, no deluxe editions. Outtakes, then only on bootleg LPs or via tape swapping, were hard to come by if they existed at all,  There was roughly twelve hours (or less) of Bowie recordings readily available. The Bowie Fast makes total sense.

Here's three covers and a link to a collection of more outtakes, demos and the like. Margaret, hope you like :)

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Listen:
David Bowie - Mother mp3 at Internet Archive Orig: John Lennon
David Bowie- Chim Chimney mp3 at Internet Archive From Mary Poppins
David Bowie and Bryan Ferry - The In Crowd mp3 at Internet Archive Orig: Dobie Gray (?)
The collection (80 cuts):
Bowie For Bowie Fans at Internet Archive

GOT IT, FUNKY WITH GO POWER.

Yep, another Holiday Slackfest All-Star, the GFOS, once a year whether you need it or not. These reposts are getting to be a season all their own. Really though, were you gonna listen to these in July?

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Listen:
James Brown - Funky Christmas mp3 at SB Dave
James Brown - Go Power At Christmas Time mp3 at The Sound of Indie
James Brown - Let's Unite the World at Christmas mp3 at Panic Stream
James Brown - Please Come Home For Christmas mp3 at Panic Stream

IT'S A WALL OF SOUND SOMEWHERE

Joseph Spence, I gotta. Even if I'm not in the mood for writing much, I can't risk forgetting him. He's like Darlene Love was a few years back, a different style but also a go-to holiday favorite. If you haven't heard him, when you do you'll know immediately what makes him so special. If I have to spell it out for you, to put it bluntly, he sounds like he's drunk off his ass.

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Listen:
Joseph Spence - Santa Claus is Coming to Town mp3 at Beware of the Blog
Oddball bonus:
Jayran Acharya - Santa Clause Is Coming to Town mp3 at Radiodiffusion International India

HERE'S YOUR SLOPPY HUG

Back in the day, a lot of my friends from the music scene were into the Pogues and, looking back, I realized that there was a certain type of person that liked the band. I can't really put my finger on it but it was beyond the binary cool/not cool classification. It was like a secret that this small slice of the scene "got" while others were trying too hard to be the coolest in the room. I started thinking about those friends, some now deceased, and got all warm and fuzzy, remembering the Christmas Eve DJ gigs my friend Julie and I had (at the Pink Panther and later the Casbah) and the reaction that "Fairytale of New York" would get whether we played it or one of our DJ friends did.. All of the faces of drunk friends, cigarette smoke softening the view, a few on the plywood covered pool table that did double duty as a dance floor when things got crowded. Shane MacGowan was one of us on those nights.

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Listen:
The Pogues featuring Kirsty MacColl - Fairytale of New York mp3 at Internet Archive

ATTN: PARTY PLANNING COMITTEE

As you've no doubt noticed, posts here have been really sporadic. I wasn't really planning on posting anything holiday related, but last night my mood changed. I was out in the alley having a smoke and heard a band a few blocks away. They were playing a hopped up version of "Little Drummer Boy" in a sort of fifties style, replete with horns. Then they played "Run Rudolf Run" followed by "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)". Even a couple blocks away it was apparent it was a large band and they were tight. So I locked up and went to find out where the band was playing. Turns out it was a Christmas party thrown by Pacific Shores, a bar that has been around since the forties and, back when I was a lush, my home away from home. I had approached the shindig from the alley so I was at the side of the stage with a good look at the crowd. It had been some time since I was at the bar and it occurred to me that I was now part of the old guard. It was a younger crowd. What pleased me was that it wasn't a bunch of hipster douche bags. In my absence from the bar it had been my worry that it would be slowly taken over by kids that just try too hard to be cool. It was reassuring that the next wave of drinking kids in my neighborhood seemed down to earth, comfortable in their own skin. I actually got kind of choked up with a feeling that could only be described as All is good. So, in the spirit of slack and holiday tradition, at the peak of laziness and in need of breathing room, the annual reposting of Reverend Tom Frost's Bloody Xmas Mixes.

For all of you party planners running around like headless chickens, a reminder is in order. Spread the Good Word's Bloody Christmas mixes are still online. They used to be downloads, but they're now streaming (click on the "download" links below the song lists). Though they are streaming, I'm sure someone you know is savvy enough to run them through your sound system.

The Mixes:
Spread The Good Word Bloody Holiday Mix 9
Spread The Good Word Bloody Holiday Mix 8
Spread The Good Word Bloody Holiday Mix 7
Spread The Good Word Bloody Holiday Mix 6
Spread The Good Word Bloody Holiday Mix 5
Spread The Good Word Bloody Holiday Mix 4
Spread The Good Word Bloody Holiday Mix 3
Spread The Good Word Bloody Holiday Mix 2
Spread The Good Word Bloody Holiday Mix 1
From the Reverend
Reverend Tom Frost - A Bloody Life (streaming) at YouTube
Reverend Tom Frost - Much more at YouTube
Visit:
Reverend Tom Frost at BandCamp

CRACK THEM KNUCKLES

Last Wednesday morning when I saw the election results, in my head I heard the opening eight seconds of the Stooges "TV Eye". If you know the song, you know what I'm talking about. If you don't know the song, get with the program (song link below, play loud). After the initial shock I remembered what helped in 2016 when the fuckhead was elected the first time. The clip from the film Animal House with John Belushi as Bluto (below). The image above was done in 2016 by Jamie Reid, the guy who did all of the Sex Pistol's graphics including the iconic "God Save the Queen" sleeve.

There's a few additional unrelated cuts from the Stooge's Fun House down there too, perfect for pulling your hair out. Play loud. Then turn it up.

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Listen:
The Stooges - TV Eye mp3 at Internet Archive
The Stooges - 1970 mp3 at Internet Archive
The Stooges - Loose mp3 at Internet Archive
The Stooges - LA Blues mp3 at Internet Archive

THIS ONE REALLY MATTERS

How do you rid your life of a major asshole that's been whining for years? It's simple. Vote. No candidate is perfect. Vote for the one that will do the most good for the most people. It's not all about you. 

FUCK DONALD TRUMP

The last time I posted "Fuck Donald Trump" was right before the asshole was inaugurated. Though some of the rhymes could use a tune-up, hearing this again is somewhat cathartic. Before tonight I didn't know that there was a part two. That'll do for now. I might be back, but I'm kinda stuck watching the minute to minute post election developments. It's like the longest ninth inning ever. Two outs, two strikes and foul ball after foul ball. For four fucking years. Fuck Donald Trump.

 

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Video:
YG feat G Eazy & Macklemore - Fuck Donald Trump at YouTube
Listen:
YG feat G Eazy & Macklemore - Fuck Donald Trump Part 2 (streaming) at YouTube

THEY WILL NOT GO QUIETLY

It's that time. Here's all of Rev Tom Frost's Bloody Halloween mixes. Every year, a grand Halloween lazy night repost cop out. I'd imagine there are a few of you who haven't heard any of them. If you're unfamiliar with Reverend, there's bits and pieces in these past posts.

The mixes (25 of them!) are only available streaming, but by now most of you have the gizmo arsenal required to blast them at a party.

And don't forget, the Frosty one is a kick ass musician himself. Ask your local Mr. Record Store Man to put the Reverend's goods in their racks. While you wait, buy his shit at Bandcamp.

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY SPREAD THE GOOD WORD ~ 

The mixes:
NOTE: Song lists are available for mixes 1-16 and the links to the mixes are below the song listings. The links to the other mixes go directly to the posts at MixCloud.
Bloody Halloween Mix 25
Bloody Halloween Mix 24
Bloody Halloween Mix 23
Bloody Halloween Mix 22
Bloody Halloween Mix 21
Bloody Halloween Mix 20
Bloody Halloween Mix 19
Bloody Halloween Mix 18
Bloody Halloween mix 17
Bloody Halloween mix 16
Bloody Halloween mix 15
Bloody Halloween mix 14
Bloody Halloween mix 13
Bloody Halloween mix 12
Bloody Halloween mix 11
Bloody Halloween mix 10
Bloody Halloween mix 9
Bloody Halloween mix 8
Bloody Halloween mix 7
Bloody Halloween mix 6
Bloody Halloween mix 5
Bloody Halloween mix 4
Bloody Halloween mix 3
Bloody Halloween mix 2
Bloody Halloween mix 1
From the Reverend
Reverend Tom Frost - Malaguena mp3 at Spread the Good Word
Reverend Tom Frost - A Bloody Life (streaming) at YouTube
Reverend Tom Frost - Much more at YouTube
Visit:
Reverend Tom Frost at BandCamp

DAMN.

 

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~

Listen:
Kris Kristofferson - Sunday Morning Comin' Down mp3 at Internet Archive
Kris Kristofferson - Me and Bobby McGee mp3 at Internet Archive
Kris Kristofferson - For the Good Times mp3 at Internet Archive
Kris Kristofferson - Help Me Make It Through the Night mp3 at Internet Archive

DEFINE POSEUR

Holy shit! It's the last day of summer. That went by fast. Granted I've been summer lazy and posts here have been sporadic, there's just less urgency. That said, it being the last day of summer, I figured it high time to post some surf music. I picked an unlikely band because, well, they're a borderline surf-ploitation outfit, the Lively Ones. Some of you may know the name from their cover of the Ventures' "Surf Rider" on the soundtrack of Pulp Fiction.  Why Quentin Tarantino chose their version over the Ventures' is anyone's guess. Maybe it was too expensive to license the original. Who knows.

The reason why I consider the Lively Ones a surf-ploitation band is because they did so many covers of other surf tunes and, as far as I can recollect, didn't have any bona fide hits that were self-penned. I was listening to a few cuts of there fourth LP titled The Lively Ones And Surf Mariachis – Surfin' South Of The Border and it occurred to me that they were like a surf version of Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass, by no means authentic but entirely listenable.

The few below are from Surfing Drums, their second LP and one of three LPs released in 1963. The thing is dripping in covers,  Duane Eddy, the Rockin' Rebels, the Tornadoes, the Bel-Airs and Link Wray and others. (Their first LP begins with three Dick Dale covers.) You gotta check out their cover of Link Wray's "Rumble". Dig the guitar/floor tom freakout at 1:18 and 3:26. (I know what you Wray eggheads are thinking: 3:26?  That's right. At 4:10 this cover is almost twice as long as Wray's OG). Returning to the floor tom thing, just listen to the spare primal pounding. Something about it slays me.

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Listen:
The Lively Ones - Rumble mp3 at Internet Archive
The Lively Ones - Mr. Moto mp3 at Internet Archive
The Lively Ones - Bustin' Surfboards mp3 at Internet Archive
The Lively Ones - Surfing Drums (entire LP) at Internet Archive Streaming and downloads

UNIONS WORK

I work and I believe in unions and I believe in workers' rights. I also believe that I will keep it short because today is Labor Day, a holiday for American workers. Though Billy Bragg is British, his "There Is Power In a Union" is right on the money.

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Listen:
Billy Bragg - There Is Power In A Union mp3 at Zed Equals Zee
Visit:
Labor Day Purpose and History at ThoughtCo

WHY NOTHING EVER GETS DONE

You know rabbit holes. I'm sure you do. Once you hear one thing, it reminds you of something else so you go hunting for that. That leads to another song or artist, and so on. When I fall into a rabbit hole, it can last for days. This time it was Ten Years After that started the wandering. It was their version of "Good Morning Little Schoolgirl", a live thing from 1975. Originally released in 1969 (I think) I'd heard them do it, but it's been years. But first, take a moment to behold the epic guitar face of Alvin Lee.

After listening/watching it, I was reminded that their arrangement was pretty thin and that guitar heroics don't age well.. I tracked down Johnny Winter's version from his 1969 Columbia debut for a comparison. I really wanted to hear his live version, but not until after I heard the earlier version because it was on a blues album and "Good Morning Little Schoolgirl" is essentially a blues song. Cue it up and sit between your speakers, The guitar is in one channel and the horns are in the other. The riffs are like a call and response. It's a great version and I really dig both the guitar tone and the Stax-like horns. But, ho-ly shit, the live version, from 1971 is a masterpiece in the live blues-rock canon. After his first LP on Columbia, Winter started delving more into rock 'n' roll. Three LPs into the change he recorded a live album, billed as Johnny Winter And, with backing from former McCoys ("Hang On Sloopy") which included Rick Derringer. On the live version, the guitars, his and Rick Derringer's, are the dueling channels.(Winter is in the right channel, unless my speakers are hooked up wrong.) This is some awesome raunchy guitar interplay. Serious, sit your ass down between the speakers. The way the guitars weave in and out with each other, so fucking good. This is the essence of that short lived line up. The live LP is a near perfect live template: insanely loud, blues and rock, heavy on distorted licks. Consider it mandatory..I added Muddy Waters to contrast with Winter's versions. Waters was a huge influence on Winter (they would later record the song together) and it's interesting to hear the two versions back to back. Only eight years separated them. Last down there is the OG, Sonny Boy Williamson from 1937. Respect.

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~

Listen:

Johnny Winter - Good Morning Little Schoolgirl (streaming) at YouTube 1969
Johnny Winter And - Good Morning Little Schoolgirl (live) (streaming) at YouTube 1971
Muddy Waters - Good Morning Little School Girl (streaming) at YouTube 1963
Sonny Boy Williamson - Good Morning Little Schoolgirl (streaming) at YouTube 1937

THE UNEXPECTED HELL YEAH

I don't know how it happened but..just wow! The Cuban born Queen of Salsa, Celia Cruz, is slated to be on a U.S. minted quarter. (That's a 25¢ piece). Soul sister Lady Spinsta hepped me to it. She knows. I totally dig Celia Cruz. Seriously, with that giant smile she had, and that voice, how could you not? And, jeez, talk about the jams?! With stellar backing and collaborators (Tito Puente, Johnny Pacheco and that whole Fania mob) her stature in Latin music was like Aretha's in soul. Massive.

I checked the old posts and none of them had any working links so, yeah, I dutifully trackew down a few. Like it or not, my super long break seems to have ended.

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~

Listen:
Celia Cruz Y La Sonora Ponceña - Sonaremos El Tambo mp3 at Internet Archive
Fania All-Stars Feat. Celia Cruz -Cuando Despiertes mp3 at Internet Archive
Celia Cruz - Four early cuts (mix) mp3 at Internet Archive

THE SECOND TIER ESSENTIAL

I just heard that John Mayall passed away on the 22nd at the age of 90. There are all sorts of profiles, tributes and obituaries already online so that's covered, Here's a post I did several years ago, now with updated links...

Back when I was in high school I had an art class with Mrs. Land, a cool lady who let students bring in records to listen to when we were painting. For whatever reason, maybe because in that class there were several of them, the surf chicks dominated record player, a standard heavy duty AV Department special, built to survive the clumsiest of AV monitors. Not that these gals were clumsy, if they were I wouldn't have noticed anyway. (What part of surf chicks didn't you get?) There were four records that they played more than others. The soundtrack to the surf movie "Five Summer Stories", which everybody had. Within the surf crowd, and the peripheral beachy non-surfers, that soundtrack would have been what Nirvana's Nevermind was in the nineties, not in sound but in ubiquitousness, at least with that small demographic. I had it (surprisingly some of it still holds up). Other LPs that got repeated plays were Van Morrison's Moondance, and the most annoying of the bunch, the self titled It's A Beautiful Day. That one snuck in there because the most annoying song on that most annoying LP, "White Bird", was in the soundtrack of a surf movie. Fuck, I don't care, I hated that song and that band and still do. Surf chicks can do no wrong? Bullshit: "White Bird".

The one LP that was was on the surf chicks playlist that was kind of surprising was John Mayall's The Turning Point, an interesting choice, one that they probably rallied around because of the flute in it, precisely what bugged me about it. All of this manic breathy flute playing where the huffing and puffing is supposed be a replacement for guitar heroics. The single benefit to hearing that was that I was exposed to John Mayall, whom I didn't hate because he wasn't the flute player.

Just a year or two later, my brother brought home the first studio LP by Mayall, Blues Breakers, released in 1966 three years prior to The Turning Point. What a mind fuck that was. Not blues as I was used to, not black blues and not even American blues. Despite having covers of songs Otis Rush, Freddy King, Ray Charles, Little Walter, Mose Allison and Robert Johnson, it was 100% British blues. You've no doubt looked at the cover above, so you already know that Eric Clapton was in the band, in this case not a bad thing. It was post Yardbirds, so he knew how to turn it up, but he wasn't quite the deity he would become with "Clapton Is God" knuckleheads. Everything on this LP is period perfect, the production, guitar tone, the solos, even with some bordering on annoyingly long (a two minute drum solo in a four minute rendition of "What I'd Say"). This LP is a milestone in British blues and I've no doubt that some of you may know it backwards and forwards. For those of you who don't, I suggest you listen to the whole thing in it's entirety. One song just isn't enough. And all twelve songs on the original LP feature something different, sometimes guitar, sometimes Mayall's Hammond chops, but most importantly, no flute.

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Listen:
John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers - All Your Love mp3 at Internet Archive
John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers - Double Crossing Time mp3 at Internet Archive
The whole LP:
John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers -Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton at Internet Archive NOTE: Under "Download options" on the right side of the page, select "VBR MP3" for individual songs, or you can just stream it. Download a torrent, if you're one of those rascals.

EARLY SURF ALERT!

This is just a heads up to surf geeks: On Tuesday July 23 TCM (Turner Classic Movies) is airing all five pre-Endless Summer surf movies by Bruce Brown. Filmed from '58'-''62 these were made before the wide scale commodification of surf culture. Starting at 8:00 on Tuesday, going into the early morning, all followed by John Milius's Big Wednesday (1978).

Slippery When Wet (1958), Surf Crazy (1959), Barefoot Adventure (1960), Surfin Shorts (1960), Surfing Hollow Days (1962). The quality is crude and the narration corny as hell, but they capture the era well.

Bud Shank did the soundtracks to Slippery When Wet and Barefoot Adventure. It's total West Coat jazz. Used vinyl copies of both are pretty cheap and they're both really good. 

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Listen:
Bud Shank - The Surf and I (streaming) at YouTube
Full LPs:
Bud Shank - Barefoot Adventure (streaming) at YouTube
Bud Shank - Slippery When Wet (streaming) at YouTube