PARTY WITH WORDSMITHS

Here's two sides to an always spinning coin, two takes on a hot rod Ford and a two dollar bill, both catchy mood enhancers. Hank William's "Hey Good Lookin'" is a masterwork of poetic simplicity. One of those songs that you can't imagine being improved upon. If you're ignorant of Hank Williams, go do some digging, for crying out loud. Or just check his song below. It may fit your mood at your pre-party soirée tonight. Just keep those cloth napkins the hell away from me.

Let's fast forward to midnight, because that's when things go up a notch, and where the second song comes in. The intent is clear in the title of the Cramp's "Let's Get Fucked Up", but rarely does one song cover all the bases as on topic as this one.  But then, who better then the Cramps to articulate what it's like to go absolutely nuts? They know of what they speak.

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Listen:
Hank Williams - Hey Good Lookin' mp3 at ATumblr (?)
The Cramps - Let's Get Fucked Up (streaming) at YouTube NOTE: Wasn't able to find an mp3, but Surfadelic has the whole LP. If you like it, go buy it.
Full LP:
The Cramps - Flame Job at Surfadelic Entire album in a zip. Click on "Burn!" at the end of the text.

BOTH VALID

Here you go. Two different takes on coffee, black coffee to be exact. Yeah I know, like you like your women. These are completely different, but I somehow like them both, a lot. I'd say equally, but I think Peggy Lee might win this one. All things being equal, Lee was pretty and she was sultry. I don't recall Black Flag ever being either. So she gets the edge. I have to go with her. I'm such a tool.

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Listen:
Peggy Lee - Black Coffee mp3 at Robert Barone (?)
Black Flag - Black Coffee mp3 at Pretty Goes With Pretty

THE GOOSEBUMP INDUCER

Sometimes hearing a song when you're not expecting to, even if you've heard it hundreds of times, will bring an instantaneous gut feeling, something along the lines of "I forgot what a hot shit song this is." That happened today in a record store. The song was "Rumble" by Link Wray, two and a half minutes of real attitude. Being in a record store that normally spins much lighter weight stuff, it was kind of out of context. Context in this case being within the four walls of my apartment. It made me think about how long it had been since I'd heard it played anywhere other then in my apartment or car. Not that it's that obscure. It was a hit when it came out and is on a million compilations of fifties and/or instrumental music, in other words, readily available.

Wray, as twee as he got. He'll still smoke your ass.

Maybe I rarely hear it because everybody in my crowd, whatever the hell that is, have already heard it themselves hundreds of times. Maybe it's because I don't get out much. Maybe it's because it seems so simple. There really isn't much going on in the song other than a general don't fuck with me attitude. Or so it seems. Read the thing at Wikipedia for the technical anolmanies, of which there are a few. All I care about is the feel, and no amount of factoids or other mumbo jumbo can accurately describe that.

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Listen:
Link Wray - Rumble mp3 at Joe Troiano
Link Wray - Run Chicken Run mp3 at A Tumblr (?)
Link Wray - Jack the Ripper mp3 at Joe Troiano
Link Wray - The Swag mp3 at Joe Troiano
Link Wray - Tijuana mp3 at Ray Carram

THREE FRIENDS CAN'T BE WRONG

Whenever I point you towards anything jazz related, it does occur to me that many of you may avoid the whole genre like a plague. To put it as mildly as I can, you need to get over it. I dig music as raunchy, distorted and mangled as the next guy, and I know well the whole thought process that non-jazz people go through, particularly those with out of control rock 'n' roll tastes. I swear to you, listening to jazz will not make you a Kenny G fan. That's like saying that the Stooges are the gateway to Kenny Loggins.

My first friend that was into jazz was a guy named Eric, knew him from the beach. He named his cat Miles and had a bumper sticker for the local jazz station on his truck. But, knowing Eric, I respected that he was so into it, but it still didn't appeal to me. It was too far removed from my hip shit. Then a few years later it was Dino, who dug jazz so much that he was always telling me what I was missing out on. Blah, blah, blah, get out of my face Dino. Some years later, my neighbor Denis was over one night and we were shooting the shit about music. Talked turned to jazz and I told him that I wasn't really into it, but I didn't dislike it. I was jazzgnostic. He said that he used to be the same way, he didn't get it. But, his dad was a jazz fan, so he had music on hand to check out if he wanted to. He said that it was while listening to John Coltrane's A Love Supreme that he "got" jazz. His description made it sound like a light bulb went off, like some sort of musical epiphany. He made it sound so desirable that it was hard not to want to experience the same thing. So, I went out and bought A Love Supreme. Yeah, I know, like lightning's gonna strike twice. But it did hit me, hard enough that the door had been opened.

A Love Supreme was recorded fifty years ago, in December of 1964. I ran into a mention of that on a blog, and went digging. Here's some cool stuff, starting with the first two movements of A Love Supreme, "Acknowledgement" and "Resolution", which also comprise the first side of the LP. I wasn't able to find the two from side two, "Pursuance" add "Psalm", but the full album can be heard streaming at YouTube. Also check out the video above. It's the only existing footage of Coltrane performing A Love Supreme, the only time he ever performed it live. It's only a portion of the entire piece. Footage of half of the performance was destroyed, lost forever.

There's a thing on the Smithsonian site about photos of the session. They'd gone missing for fifty years. There's also links to a documentary, and another blog with nine more notable songs from other LPs. If you're not in the mood, at least bookmark some of these. They may come in handy some day.

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Listen:
John Coltrane - Acknowledgement mp3 at Get The Curse (?)
John Coltrane - Resolution mp3 at The Gio (?)
John Coltrane - Nine more songs at Rubber City Review
John Coltrane - A Love Supreme (streaming) at YouTube Entire LP
Video:
Saint John Coltrane - BBC Documentary at YouTube
Visit:
John Coltrane - Official site

John Coltrane at Wikipedia
A Love Supreme at Wikipedia The album entry
New Photos of John Coltrane Rediscovered 50 Years After They Were Shot at Smithsonian 

FIVE AND COUNTING

Man, you can't swing an electric guitar without hitting some blues guy named King. There's Freddie King, B.B. King, Albert King, Earl King, and now I've just learned there's a Little Freddie King, who is no relation to regular Freddie King, but he is the cousin of Lightning Hopkins. Shit, I'm not even going to tangle with text tonight. Too many damn Kings.

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Listen:
Freddie King - I'm Tore Down mp3 at The Riddell Family (?)
Freddie King -I'm Going Down mp3 at Dr. Mooney's
Little Freddie King -  Walkin' With Freddie mp3 at Bourbon Street

AND EXHALE.

I honestly don't know how you people who are running around all the time do it. I only had to do minor running around during the past few weeks, and it's really fucked with my normal routine of not planning anything and doing things when I feel like getting around to it. And to think that some of you had to travel over the holidays, or jet all over the place for your everyday job, and some of you have kids and their schedules to deal with...well, my hats off to you. Quite frankly, having half the duties you have, just for a short spell, has me pooped and ten kinds of discombobulated. So, while still digesting todays traditional family Christmas taco throwdown, it's time to regroup and get back into the non-holiday groove. Hey, there's Etta James! Let's flag her down!

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Listen:
Etta James - I Just Want to Make Love to You mp3 at Tsururadio
Etta James & Sugar Pie Desanto - In the Basement (Pt 1) mp3 at Dr. Mooneys
Etta James & Sugar Pie Desanto - In the Basement (Pt 2) mp3 at Dr. Mooneys
Etta James - Seven Day Fool mp3 at Soul Garage

KILLJOY TO THE WORLD

Attention party planners: skip this one. Run. It's sort of a counterpoint to all of the holiday glee. Which, of course, means some of you miscreants will eat it up. I'm not particularly fond of it, but William Burroughs has never really been my thing. I know he's an all-time writer, part of our American fabric and all that sort of underbelly stuff, but jeez, dude, do you ever lighten up? One thing I realized after looking for a photo is that Burroughs rarely smiled. I ran into a lot of images of him and only one with a smile on his face. There's quite a few of him shooting guns, and more than I expected of him with rock stars (Patti Smith, Joe Strummer, David Bowie, Debby Harry, Jim Carroll, Lenny Kaye, Jimmy Page, Madonna, Mick Jagger...), but in most photos he looks miserable, or at least reluctant to pose. Fine. I hate having my picture taken too.

So, nothing about the man here, nothing you can take home with you anyways, just another sordid tale from his Smith Corona, The Junky's Christmas. The video is a claymation short, from the studio of Francis Ford Coppola, and might just be the most depressing animated film I've ever sat through. But, counterpoint it is, and that's the rationale.

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Listen:
William S. Burroughs - The Junky's Christmas mp3 at Boogie Woogie Flu
Video:
William S. Burroughs - The Junky's Christmas at YouTube
Visit:
William S. Burroughs at Wikipedia Enough to get you started.

DIG THE CHESTNUTS BABY

I'm not a real fan of "The Christmas Song", but if it's done by an old school jazz guy, I'll bite. So I did. The damn thing sounds so much like that photo above looks, I had to slap it up here. Listen to it and you'll see. The others are just random findings. You can decide if they're good Gordon or not. I plead ignorance when it comes to his body of work. He's just a another big name on the waiting list. It reminds me of when I owned no jazz at all. I asked the jazz buyer at Tower Records, then the boyfriend of a friend of mine, what Charlie Parker album was the one to start with. He looked at me with a look of conviction, and just said "All of Charlie Parker's stuff is great." It was as if to say, "if you put your foot in the pool, it's gonna be a long swim."

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Listen:
Dexter Gordon - The Christmas Song mp3 at Boogie Woogie Flu
Dexter Gordon - Love For Sale mp3 at Pixie Radio
Dexter Gordon - Cheesecake mp3 at Synthesis Radio
Dexter Gordon - As Time Goes By mp3 at Tafunus

THE LIFER

How much of a fiend are you? Check out that photo above, one of the greatest Christmas related photos ever, and tell me, if it was 1966, and you were buddies with a teenage Lester Bangs, what present would you open first? Probably a flat 12" x 12" package, right? And if that package contained a Music Machine LP, hell yeah, you'd stop and snap a photo. The photo was posted by Gary Ràchac, a friend of mine from way back, and the recipient of Santa's dead on selection.

The loot.

Ràchac is one of those guys that a true local music scene is made of, a musician, former record store employee and a man of taste. And he seems to know everybody. He once threw a couch out a fifth floor hotel window. With Keith Moon. One time I stopped by the record store where he worked, and just before I entered I passed an exiting Wild Man Fisher out on the sidewalk. Ràchac had just 86'd him. Ràchac does radio too, with Vince Martell (Vanilla Fudge) and May Pang (John Lennon's squeeze during the "lost weekend" period).  His favorite ball player is Ty Cobb, or at least that's what he told me about twenty years ago. It impressed me. Though Cobb was a son of a bitch, pure and simple, I liked that he liked Cobb. I don't exactly know why. The last time I ran into Ràchac was a few years ago, at one of the Brian Wilson Pet Sounds show.

At the office in the eighties. Photo: Harold Gee

One of the things I like the most about Gary Ràchac is that he represents a local scene lineage, from the mid-late sixties and all the way up to today. He's from the Bangs era, and he's still talking shop with people within the scene that are a generation or two younger. Every major city with a long running music scene probably has a few of people like him in their midst, the mainstays, seeing the scene change and evolve, keeping things real, so to speak. Reminding them that there once was a time when cleats were sharpened.

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Listen:
The Music Machine - Talk Talk mp3 at Sous les Paves, la Plage
The Music Machine - Trouble mp3 at Sous les Paves, la Plage
The Music Machine - Double Yellow Line mp3 at The Rising Storm
Visit:
Gary Ràchac profile at San Diego Reader

DARLENE LOVE ALERT

I can really do without a lot of the Christmas bullshit. All the running around, list checking, requisite shopping, face stuffing; it gets old, particularly when you see people just lapping it up, full bore, with money flying all over the place. Before you start muttering "bah humbug", let me fill you in. It's not cynicism, it's stepping back and taking stock at what's become of us. When you look at it objectively, we've all been programmed since we were toddlers that this is the time of year to blow our collective wads. So much so, that if you don't fall into line, you're urged to "get into the spirit". WTF? Count me out, stick your red bow where the sun don't shine.

Love on her way to rehearsal, yesterday.

That said, there is a huge counterpoint that is hard for me to aptly explain. Darlene Love. Outside of seeing my family, her annual appearance on Letterman singing "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" is the highlight of my holidays. Sounds crazy, I know. You wouldn't believe it, I turn into a choked up old softy. I can't really explain it. There are a number of reasons but it still doesn't add up. Love has performed the song on Letterman's show every year since 1986 (with the exception of one year when the performance was a rerun due to a Writers Guild strike). In the earliest appearances, it was just a small band behind her, but year after year more musicians and background singers were added. Strings, brass, bells, choir, the whole thing.

Jack Nitzsche, Darlene Love, Phil Spector

If you're familiar with the original song, you know that it was produced by Phil Spector, a classic example of his Wall of Sound, arranged by Jack Nitzshe, and utilizing demigods of the studio, the Wrecking Crew. That's part of what makes these performances so special. Putting together a band of this size, with all of the assorted components on the original, is no easy feat. Doing it while trying to replicate the actual sound and arrangement of the original is even harder. But because the song is rehearsed and performed every year with many of the same players, they have it down. To top it off, Love's voice has aged well, sounding much the same as it did on her original version recorded over fifty years ago.

This years performance on Letterman is tonight, and it's bittersweet. Letterman is retiring and this will be her last appearance on the show. It'll be all over the internet tomorrow, but in the meantime, check the video mash up of past appearances above, and watch it until the end. The montage of Letterman greeting Love over the years is heartwarming (did I just say that?). For a chuckle, check the video linked below, a claymation video of her singing "Christmastime For Jews", an old short from Saturday Night Live.

Update, 12/20: Here's the clip from last night (click on the photo above).

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Listen:

Darlene Love - Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) mp3 at Boogie Woogie Flu

Darlene Love - White Christmas mp3 at Boogie Woogie Flu

Darlene Love - Winter Wonderland mp3 at Celebration of

Watch:

Darlene Love - Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) (2013 performance) at YouTube

Darlene Love - Christmastime For Jews at Vimeo

Visit:

Darlene Love's Last Letterman Christmas at New York Times

Darlene Love - Official site

Darlene Love at Wikipedia

THE GATEKEEPER

If you hate malls as much as I do, you avoid them like the plague. Alas, as dumb luck would have it, yesterday I had to go to a mall, a busy mall packed with sweater assholes in Santa hats, to get some glasses at one of those quickie shops. (My glasses broke and reading classes were killing my eyes.) I waited, holding it together for an hour and a half, while all of that rampant consumerism was giving me the creeps. That kind of negative thing, somewhere between bemusement and disgust. All I could think about is rushing home and listening to Hasil Adkins to wipe the whole experience out of my head. Seriously, it seemed the only antidote. And the dude delivered. Good ol' reliable Haze. It was if he were waiting there for me, at ready, drawbridge down, rushing me back into Fort Weird. Home sweat home.

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Listen:

Hasil Adkins - She Said mp3 at Beware of the Blog

Hasil Adkins - No More Hot Dogs mp3 at David Garlitz 

Hasil Adkins - The Hunch mp3 at Rocky 52

Hasil Adkins - Go Go Go Down the Line mp3 at Beware of the Blog Solid jam, listen to the whole thing

Hasil Adkins - The Great Lost Album at Beware of the Blog 15 mp3s

Visit:

Hasil Adkins - The Great Lost Album at The Hound Blog The story behind the album with photos and a video of a 1984 performance of "She Said"

TAKE THAT CASTRO!

What? The U.S and Cuba are going back to their corners? Man, what food for thought. Without going into the whole cold war thing and what the implications were and will be, the first thing I flashed on were some of the things that may or may not have happened had the whole foreign relations pissing match never happened. What would have done to the whole cigar thing?  Would they have been such hot property? How many more Cuban players would be in Major League Baseball? Oh, and the vintage wheels in Cuba? If they could buy any car (nevermind the fact that few can afford a new car), would all of those classic daily drivers have been maintained? The lengths Cubans went through to keep the cars running are heart-wrenching to anyone who's ever owned a beater. An article at the Detroit Free Press tells of one man tearing up at the gift of used spark plugs, and that some Cubans made homemade brake fluid "mixing detergent and rubbing alcohol, with maybe a bit of tree sap...". What will become of the cars?

And what about the music? As loved as Cuban music is, not to mention music incorporating Cuban elements, how many average Americans are even cognizant of it? Would their national music have been vastly more popular overseas? Or would popular American acts, unrestricted from touring there, have influenced younger generations decades ago, to the point that it just blends in. A sea of Gloria Estefans. One thing the U.S. did gain though, was Celia Cruz. She was in the U.S. with her husband when the shit went down and decided to stay, becoming an American citizen in 1966. What would happen if she went back, just before it happened? Would any of us, excepting freaks of international music, have noticed? There's a thousand what-ifs. Tonight it's all azúcar. Listen to these Celia Cruz songs and look at photos of old cars. Yee haw.

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Listen:
Celia Cruz and Johnny Pacheco - Quimbara mp3 at ATumbr(?)
Celia Cruz - La Vida es un Carnaval mp3 at ATumbr(?)
Celia Cruz - Yo Vivre (I Will Survive) mp3 at Clones Project
Celia Cruz - Ob La Di Ob La Da mp3 at BBC
Video:
Celia Cruz - A Night of Salsa at YouTube With Tito Puente, full 1999 concert
Celia Cruz at YouTube Take your pick. 
Visit:
Celia Cruz at the Smithsonian
Cuban cars - Look and drool
1950s American cars aren't collector's items in Cuba at Detroit Free Press

BUBBLEGUM? WHAT'S THAT?

How the fuck did that just happen? One minute my interest is piqued by an Archies cover by Big Youth, then six clicks later I'm digging through the catalog of Pressure Sounds, a UK label, They specialize in obscure and never released reggae, much of it from the golden era. I think you know what that means. About Big Youth. the cover is great, it's him with Junior Byles, from 1977. It's on a post with nine songs, a good cross section, a couple of which are below. There's some even you hot shots might not recognize (Pluto? The Eagles?). 

Looking for more info about the Big Youth cut, I ended up on the page for his "Town Without Pity" 45 at Pressure Sounds. A nice 45 I may purchase one day. A couple clicks later I ran into a compilation of versions, all from the Micron label, and deep with heavy hitters. Holy jeez, add that to the list. Looks like this fantasy shopping trip is gonna take a while. The song snippets sucked me right in.

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Listen:
Big Youth with Junior Byles - Sugar Sugar mp3 at Now That's What I Call Bullshit
U Roy - Dreadlocks Dread mp3 at Now That's What I Call Bullshit
Dr, Alimantado - I Killed the Barber mp3 at Now That's What I Call Bullshit
Big Youth - Hit the Road Jack mp3 at PashPash
Big Youth - Cool Breeze mp3 at Le Blog de la Grande Chose
Visit:
Pressure Sounds  

THEE WORKAHOLIC

Billy Childish has never been one to sit around scheming, planning, negotiating or primping. He's too busy creating. He just gets out there and does it. A lot of it. Music, art, books, poetry, film and photography, the whole shooting match. He's like one of those people that just churn out stuff because they don't know how not to. Roughly a hundred and fifty LPs, forty plus books of poetry, plus all that other stuff. You have to think, how much of it could possibly be good? That's a grey area. It depends on what your thresholds are, and what your tastes are. He doesn't seem to care, he considers himself an amateur.

I haven't made it past the music and not more than random samples of that. But what I've heard, I've liked, and that goes for the three below, from a 2007 Christmas LP by one of his zillion bands, Billy Childish and the Musicians of the British Empire, They include a Who sound-alike and a Sonics cover. There's a link to another post down there too, with four songs from another of his bands, Thee Headcoats.You may want to check out the videos on his site, a four part series documents the making of one of his paintings. As far as music videos go, you know how to search YouTube as well as I do, but you probably won't have to. You can just throw a rock over there and hit something.

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

Listen:

Billy Childish and the Musicians of the British Empire - A Quick One (Pete Townshend's Christmas) mp3 at Black Squirrel Amusements

Billy Childish and the Musicians of the British Empire - Santa Claus mp3 at Indie Rock Cafe
Billy Childish and the Musicians of the British Empire - Father Christmas is Dressed In Green mp3 (via Box.net) at Big Rock Candy Mountain

Thee Headcoats - Four songs at this old post

Visit:

Billy Childish - Official Site Videos, discography, interviews, etc,

Billy Childish at Wikipedia

RUDOLPH BETTER HAUL ASS

You gotta like Lemmy. He's his own man, isn't he? He never seems to say no, and he leaves it all out there. Even with a Christmas song. On "Run Rudolph Run" he teams up with Billy Gibbons and Dave Grohl, but really, it's all Lemmy. Every song he does sounds like the last song of a live set, on the last date of a long tour. And he's been like that for how long? God love him.

The second song down there is a cover of "Stand By Your Man" with the late Wendy O. Williams (Plasmatics), and it sounds like you'd think it would sound, at the punk end of the metal-o-meter. There's a couple covers of Motorhead's "Ace of Spades" down there too. One is an awesome soul version by Eli "Paperboy" Reed, and the other by Union Avenue, a Johnny Cash tribute band from Scotland. Their entire repertoire seems to be covers done in the style of Johnny Cash. That shit might get old. But do check the version by Reed. And check the trailer for the Lemmy documentary if you haven't already seen it. See what all the fuss is about.

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Listen:
Lemmy, Billy Gibbons and Dave Grohl - Run Rudolph Run mp3 at What Hh8r (?)
Lemmy and Wendy O. Williams - Stand By Your Man mp3 at Beware of the Blog
Eli "Paperboy" Reed - Ace of Spades mp3 at Ryan's Smashing Life
Union Avenue - Ace of Spades mp3 at Cover Me
Video:
Lemmy- Documentary trailer at YouTube
Motorhead - Ace of Spades (live) at YouTube

CHARLIE HAS GOOD BUD

I ran into an interesting post at this weeks salvage yard, Now That's What I Call Bullshit. The site hasn't been updated for a year, but there's a lot of good stuff buried in their old posts. This particular one is from 2009.  It's four songs by the those guys pictured above. I'm not linking to the songs themselves because every time I link to mp3s by them I get a nasty visit from the goon squad. I'll just give you an idea of what's there, give you a link to the post that has them, and be on my way.

It's four oddballs, three of which are Beggars Banquet outtakes. "Pay Your Dues" is an alternate version of "Street Fighting Man" with different lyrics and title. The second is from the last session with Brian Jones, a ten minute version of Muddy Waters's "Still A Fool". The third outtake is"Sweet Lucy", a version of which ended up on Metamorphosis (a cash-in compilation of Stones oddballs), as "Downtown Suzie". The other song is "Memo From Turner", released in two different versions, one on Metamorphosis, and the other on the soundtrack to the film Performance. The one posted over there is the soundtrack version, and is actually Jagger's vocal laid over backing tracks recorded later, the slide by Ry Cooder, with Randy Newman playing piano, and Jack Nitzsche producing. There's at least one other version that's wound up on bootlegs, supposedly with some or all members of Traffic, and few Stones. I'm not sure of all of the details, but there's a whole Wiki page for the song, so dig in if you're so inclined. But, the one on the soundtrack is the defining version, with Cooder's slide, which really is what makes the song.

Besides the four songs mentioned above, as mp3s (at the bottom of their post), and some text, there's a letter from Big Lips McGhee to Andy Warhol, wherein he thanks him for taking on the Sticky Fingers album art job, and then proceeds to make suggestions. Yeesh.

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

Listen:
Four Stones oddballs at Now That's What I Call Bullshit (see above)
Rolling Stones - Memo From Turner (streaming) at YouTube Personnel unclear
Rolling Stones - Memo From Turner (streaming) at YouTube Ditto
Video:
Mick Jagger - Memo From Turner at YouTube A clip from the film Performance
Visit:
Memo From Turner entry at Wikipedia
Letter from Jagger to Warhol Large readable scan
Pay Your Dues lyrics (scroll down)

MISSION: MAKE IT SWING

Among holiday songs, one of the least likely to swing would have to be "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen". You can't imagine it, it's that unthought of. But it has happened. If you haven't heard it, you have to check what Jimmy Smith does to it. What seems impossible sounds effortless for him. Seriously.

"Jingle Bells" is down there too, along with his most awesome version of "Mission Impossible", that one for all of you last minute shoppers.

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

Listen:
Jimmy Smith - God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman mp3 at Panic Stream
Jimmy Smith - Jingle Bells mp3 at Panic Stream
NOTE: Links to Panic Stream, the uploader of the songs, have been disabled, The song links work, but the links to the actual site were loaded with pop-ups,
Last minute special:
Jimmy Smith - Mission Impossible mp3 at AM Then FM

TELL ME ABOUT THIS WAITS FELLA

Here's a good one to slip in towards the end of your holiday mix, so it comes on when everybody's drunk. It's not that the song is about being drunk, or sung by a drunk, it's just because it sounds like a normal song would when heard by a drunk. You'll be able to peg the non-drunks by the baffled look on their faces when they hear this. The drunks will just take it stride.

The song is by Bahamian guitarist and singer Joseph Spence, who was known for this style of singing. It is guttural and almost unintelligible. Don't laugh at it (okay, maybe a little, it's almost unavoidable). Think of it this way; if a guitarist does wacky things with feedback, to the point of almost derailing a song, many of us would applaud that, Why not a vocalist delivering lyrics? Shouldn't they be afforded the same amount of legroom?

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

Listen:
Joseph Spence - Santa Claus is Coming to Town mp3 at Now That's What I call Bullshit Four other holiday songs too.
More Joseph Spence (streaming) at YouTube
Visit:
Joseph Spence at Wikipedia

REALLY LISTEN THIS TIME. PUNK.

Looking at the photo above while listening to a scratchy copy of "Merry Christmas" froze me in my tracks, probably the last reflective moment I'll get for a while, what with all of this holiday mayhem. But, dig this, Chuck Berry still walks the earth. Hell yeah, the man is still alive. That alone is worth celebrating. On top of all that, his "Merry Christmas Baby" is godhead.

The song is as perfect as they come. With Johnny Johnson, his long time piano player, filling like he invented it, the great Willie Dixon on bass, and Fred Below with the insanely restrained brushwork, plus the little pops and surface noise on the copy posted at Boogie Woogie Flu, this will make you stop what you're doing and slow the fuck down for three minutes. Turn your cell phone off.

Leave your phone off. Listen to "Run Rudolph Run". This is greatness, the messenger and the package, These songs are just two of many, This man is still alive. We may never see the likes of him again. Okay, just throw your phone away.

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Listen:
Chuck Berry - Merry Christmas Baby mp3 at Boogie Woogie Flu
Chuck Berry - Run Rudolph Run mp3 at Boogie Woogie Flu
For your locker:
High resolution version of above photo

MEET 后海大鲨鱼

I don't know what to think about these guys. First the name, Queen Sea Big Shark. Awesome, a name that doesn't mean anything. That's just great. I checked out a video, for a song called "Bling Bling Bling", that sounds like (asshole alert) Ennio Morricone arranged by Lee Hazelwood, with Billy Strange or a stoned Duane Eddy playing guitar, and a woman singer. After watching the video a couple times (because Ennio Hazelwood does that to me), I run into an acoustic version, performed while driving around in a car, and even with just an acoustic guitar it retains the feel.

Not quite satiated, I run into a radically different sounding collaboration with someone named Llman, called "Dirty Party", It sounds like electro or some such shit, but it's really catchy and fairly hard sounding for synth based stuff. By this time I'm getting all sorts of mixed signals. I checked some song samples at Amazon and on their web page and didn't get one step closer to figuring them out. Then I run into a video of that raises all sorts of questions. Apparently they had a beef with a sound guy, and they, the drummer in particular, give him a skinny band beatdown, Dude tries to sucker punch him and doesn't really make contact, but it would have been hard enough that you have to wonder what the fallout would be. Being in China, would there be public scorn, or was it enabled by the same celebrity amnesty that happens in Western countries? Would they be charged with anything? Screw it. I'll let you take it from here.

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Listen:

Llman with Queen Sea Big Shark - Dirty Party mp3 at Tian Shan Net (?)

Queen Sea Big Shark -  Seven songs (streaming) at Queen Bee Big Shark

Video:

Queen Sea Big Shark - Bling Bling Bling (official) at YouTube

Queen Sea Big Shark - Bling Bling Bling (acoustic, in car) at YouTube

Queen Sea Big Shark - Beat on the Sound Man at YouTube

Visit:

Queen Sea Big Shark Official site

Queen Sea Big Shark at Wikipedia

More Chinese bands with funny names at Edge

SONICS VS SANTA

The Sonics don't believe in Christmas. Can you blame them? Santa doesn't show, Rudolph is downing moonshine and the damn mistletoe doesn't work. You'd have a bone to pick too. The Sonics certainly did. In "Santa Claus", the fat man responds to a request for a twangy guitar, a car, a girl, and money by flat out saying he's not putting out, period. You can hear the frustration in the Sonics' camp, even when they try to soften the story by rewriting Don and Dewey's "Farmer John", That's when that rat bastard Santa adds insult to injury, messing with the mistletoe and getting Rudolph buzzed. You do that to the Sonics and you know all hell is going to break loose.

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Listen:
The Sonics - Santa Claus mp3 at The Decibel Tolls
The Sonics - Don't Believe In Christmas mp3 at Scratch Bomb

YOU FIGURE IT OUT

You can't just stand there and look at a link to a song by a band called Shark Move, titled "Evil War", and do nothing. You bite or move on, Then you find out it's Indonesian psych-prog whatever, Now, that sounds like it just could be the right type of fucked up. It is. It has elements that I love, and some I hate. On top of each other. There are parts that are just mind numbingly repetitive, Then it'll go into a this pretty part and you'll be all "aw c'mon guys, don't do that to me". Then they throw in a few solos. Before you know it you're in the middle of second string Emerson, Lake and Palmer type organ jam, With a buzz saw fuzz guitar. I know, and yes. It is that kind of fucked up.

The other band down there, Haa! is just as all over the place. Their song sounds like it was conceived after a lengthy band meeting, going back and forth about whether to go the trippy Beatles route, or Led Zeppelin. They just threw their hands up and said, "let;s do both". They did their damnedest, I'm sure.

Both of these should be heard in their entirety. You'll hear parts you like and some you hate. They keep changing, like movements. Maybe that's what prog or psych is supposed to do. Whatever, these nuts keep it interesting.

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Listen:
Shark Move - Evil War mp3 at Now Again
Haa! - Panber mp3 at Clumsy and Shy

'TIS THE GO POWER

We take his music for granted don't we? Even if you recognize James Brown's greatness, how often do you ponder the consistency and breadth of his output? He, more than anyone, was capable of mastering evolving styles over the years without missing a beat, and backing it up well past middle age with dynamic live performances. You can throw all the clichés in there, the hardest working man in show business, soul brother number one, the godfather of soul, and so on, the bottom line is that the guy had it, whatever it is, even with Christmas music, and he did a lot of Christmas music. Even that sounded badass.

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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 - Santa Claus Go Straight to the Ghetto mp3 at The Mob Third Coast
James Brown - Christmas In Heaven mp3 at Pup 'n' Taco
James Brown - Let's Unite the World at Christmas mp3 at Panic Stream
James Brown - Please Come Home For Christmas mp3 at Panic Stream

FOUR STONERS AND A BASS PLAYER

Oh hell yeah, another holiday with all sorts of thematic stuff to be found. I'm not nuts about holiday music, but people entertain this time of year, and with parties comes the requirement for tunes. So, let's start this stuff early. I guess.

Check these guys, the Blue Star Chorus. I've posted them before, but just look at them. Where to start? First, the pose. What the hell? This is way before irony and intentionally bad became fashionable. So what is is? Lame, or genius? Who knows, but the photo has me talking about it decades later, so it did its job. You will note that the guy on the right is the only one displaying even an ounce of enthusiasm. It's not like the others are trying to look badass. They look sedated. And what about the ukelele player sitting on his duff? He can't even muster the energy to sit in a chair, let alone hold it guitar? You'd be forgiven if you thought that this would be tryptophan rock. Thankfully it's just a Ventures-type instrumental, but there they go again! An instrumental, played by a band called Blue Star Chorus. The nuts!

Seeing that the Blue Star Chorus is from Taiwan, let's just make this an international holiday crowd pleaser special. Next up is Jayran Achary, from India, though you wouldn't guess it. It features sitar so tame that it makes "Paint It Black" sound like Ravi Shankar. Lest we mention the marimba, or whatever the hell it is. Full sellout. Worry not, redemption is here. Ghana's Pee Wee Dynamite's "Groovy Christmas and New Year", a tight James Brown influenced afrofunk jam that'll have them spilling eggnog. The Ghanafather of Soul. Someone had to say it.

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Listen:
Blue Star Chorus - Silent Night at Radiodiffusion International Taiwan
Jayran Achary - Santa Clause Is Coming to Town mp3 at Radiodiffusion International India
Pee Wee Dynamite - A Groovy Christmas and New Year mp3 at Voodoo Funk Ghana
Alternate link:

Pee Wee Dynamite - A Groovy Christmas and New Year mp3 (via Soundcloud) at Christmas A Go Go

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