DEMOLITION DERBY ROCK

After spending an hour of watching videos of demolition derby races, which I might add was an excellent use of time, I went in search of a soundtrack. My first thought was Flipper's "Sex Bomb", but that was too easy. Maybe okay for regular demolition derbies, but I'd been watching demolition derbies with large vans and buses, and the harder stuff, caravan races with trailers. Those were the best. Total vehicular carnage. Like a chain fight on wheels. Nope, I needed something less obvious than "Sex Bomb". Let's see what Sonic Youth has cooking. Contrary to my usual method of finding music, I headed straight to their official site.

What's this? A new Sonic Youth LP of unreleased instrumental demos from '86? Okay, I sampled one song and it might as well have been Eno for what I needed. Stopped long enough to check out their mp3 page, and there's some interesting stuff. Their first release, backwards. Okay, but that still doesn't say "smash 'em up" to me. On to the live stuff. Quite a bit of feedback and what have you. Ordinarily that would have claimed more of my time. Really, it's the take away for tonight if you haven't been watching demolition derby videos. But, I was on a mission, and that was to find something that captured the intensity of the playful, stupid as brilliant, destruction I'd seen. I just cut to the chase and watched Einstürzende Neubauten, circa 1983. Yeah, early. It did more than hit the spot. Smashed it all to hell.

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Listen:
Flipper - Sex Bomb mp3 at Sergey Khabaroff's Holiday Songs (?)
Sonic Youth - Eric's Trip (Live 1990) mp3 at Sonic Youth
Sonic Youth - Theme with Noise (streaming) at Spinhead Sessions
Sonic Youth - More mp3s at Sonic Youth Some good stuff 
Video:
Einstürzende Neubauten - Autobahn at Vimeo 1983

COOLPEDIA

Fu-huck. Groove Addict lays it down yet again. No surprise there. Nearly every one of their posts is worthy of a visit. Very simple and straight forward, a zipped LP with album credits, and an mp3. I know, that sounds like just a download site. It would be if the posts had dogs among them. But Groove Addict doesn't do dogs, just awesome stuff, and manages to do it with very little additional copy, just the credits. That's more than ample. Think about it, if you're really into learning about the music you're listening to, you need some sort of reference. Album credits and liner notes, for some of us, are essential to getting to the next level, beyond just the aural fix. You know. "Where can I track down more if this awesome shit?" Again, that wouldn't matter at all if the music sucked. But, Groove Addict delivers time after time, heavy on jazz (this side of mod), soul and other popcorn type stuff. Another good thing: if you're unfamiliar with a particular selection, which you may well be, there's more to soak in.

This recent post is a great example of how it works over there. "Big" John Patton? Never heard of him. But I have now. "Hot Sauce", the single song sample had me intrigued. A swinging seven minute instrumental with ample space for multiple solos. Organ, sax and guitar. Check those credits. It's that Rudy Van Gelder again. He pops up as engineer on a lot of cool jazz. Grant Green on guitar, another name I recognize from other posts on the site. See where I'm going? As if that weren't enough, each post has "You might also like" thumbnail links to other posts, usually including one or more from the same artist. Groove Addict educates, in a subtle way, with impeccable taste and genre specific variety.

Here's just two. The aforementioned "Hot Sauce" and "Boogaloo Boogie", that one because it has a seriously tweaked sax solo (at 4:00). There's a lot more Patton over there, at least eight LPs worth, each with a sample song. Poke around while you're at it, You just might learn a thing or two.

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Listen: 
John Patton - Hot Sauce mp3 at Groove Addict
John Patton - Boogaloo Boogie mp3 at Groove Addict
More Patton at Groove Addict Scroll down.

SO THAT'S WHAT THEY LOOK LIKE

If you've never heard the Soul Survivors' "Expressway to Your Heart", you should. Textbook one hit wonder, soul edition. If you have heard it, even if you've heard it hundreds of times over the years, you'd be hard pressed to name another song by them. You may not have even remembered who did it. I had never heard anything else by them, and walked around like that for decades. Until two days ago, when I ran into one over at Funky 16 Corners. It's a bad quality mp3, but it sent me looking for more.

The Soul Survivors were a Gamble and Huff thing. Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff were producers who pretty much defined Philly Soul in the late sixties through the seventies. Really, they owned it. Archie Bell and the Drells, the O'Jays, Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes, and others. Oh yeah, and the People's Choice song "Do It Any Way You Wanna", the rhythm of which Dillinger borrowed for his "Cocaine (In My Brain)". I just had to add that. Anyway, trying hard here to give the Soul Survivors a belated fair shake, but, man, them O'Jays. Nevermind the Dillinger detour.

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Listen: 
Soul Survivors - Expressway to Your Heart mp3 at Friday  In Athens
Soul Survivors - Mr. Pitiful mp3 at KMPROD
Soul Survivors - Mama  Soul mp3 at Dos Rios (?)
Soul Survivors - City of Brotherly Love mp3 at Dos Rios (?)
More Gamble and Huff:
Archie Bell and the Drells -  Tighten Up (streaming) at YouTube
The O'Jays - For the Love of Money mp3 at AMPS (?)
Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes - Wake Up Everybody mp3 at Basement Rug
People's Choice - Do It Any Way You Wanna (streaming) at YouTube
Unrelated, but mentioned:
Dillinger - Cocaine (In My Brain) mp3 at Isodisco

POST PURGE PARTY CRASHERS

What do you do when you become so fascinated with a new genre of music that some of the titles in your collection lose their relevance? You start weeding out the stuff that no longer matters to you. Never was that more true then when punk rock hit. Unsure of what lied ahead, the crap of the pre-punk crop was handily purged. Like music, like collection, stripped down to the essentials. Although few in my immediate group did so with earnest, I dove in. Believe me when I say that there was a lot of overplayed, over produced, narcissistic crap weeded out. There was a point when I was living with a dozen or so of my closest friends from the still infant scene, that I received help, resigning myself to the trashing of what little I had left by visitors and roommates. Records borrowed and never returned, records taken to another room and coming back with wine and cigarette ash in the grooves, records stolen only to pop up in the used bins of the local used record store, those sorts of things. Near the end at that particular house, I remember thinking that as long as I moved out with my Dolls LPs and Eddie Cochran boxed set intact, I'd be okay. I ended up leaving with much more than that, and for every record that was involuntarily purged, there are a bunch of memories, of debating the merit, rationalizing the continued ownership, comparing it to other records, and spilled wine and cigarette ash.

Rebuilding a collection took time, and there were a lot of gambles. But, with a new set of priorities, that being simple, more straight forward no-bullshit music, other genres crept in. Reggae and rockabilly became added obsessions. And at the time, rockabilly was still just getting past the hits in terms of reissues. There were the obvious Sun compilations, notably the Charly Records single artist Sun compilations (I had the Billy Lee Riley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Howlin' Wolf and Rosco Gordon editions). But after that, the crap shoots began. One I remember taking a chance on was a CBS (Columbia) rockabilly set, the take-away on that one being the Collins Kids. The Columbia set was probably bought because I recognized the label. Not so with the King-Federal rockabilly compilation. I remember why I bought that one. It was cheap. Rockabilly from a label you never heard of, by artists you never heard of, for something like five bucks? Why the hell not?

That one compilation netted many favorites, among them those below, (and including the two in the photos, Charlie Feathers up top, and Mac "Whaddya lookin' at?" Curtis, the guy with the flat top.) All of the songs gained instant rotation status, and I'm still digging them today, some [mumble, mumble] years later. Let's put it this way: the compilation came into my possession so long ago, that my second copy, after wearing out the first, was on cassette tape. Yeah, it did it's work, hepping me to the the songs and names on it for the very first time. It didn't take Wikipedia, Mojo, a jackass with a blog, a friend, a book, or even a reference of it anywhere. It was in the record rack, it was cheap, and it said "rockabilly" on it. That was enough. 

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Listen:

Bob and Lucille - Eeny Meeny Miney Mo mp3 at Rocky 52

Bill Beach - Peg Pants mp3 at Rocky 52
Mac Curtis - Goose Bumps mp3 at Rocky 52
Joe Penny - Bip A Little, Bop A Lot mp3 at Rocky 52

Charlie Feathers - Bottle to the Baby mp3 at Madison AMPS (?)
Mac Curtis - Grandaddy's Rockin' mp3 at Rocky 52
Hank Mizell - Jungle Rock mp3 at Beware of the Blog

BECAUSE I CARN'T SPELL EITHER

What the hell happened here? I have no idea how I ended up listening to Beatles covers when I was looking for songs by the Soul Survivors. More on the latter at a later date, right now I'm ass deep in Beatles covers. First, let's get this out of the way: there's way too many. It's too easy. Everyone already knows the songs, and that's half the battle of getting someone to listen to your record. But, there's those that cover them in a different genre. Sometimes it works, most of the time it doesn't. Of the four below, there are two that work really well. Tomorrow's Children's reggae cover of "Rain", released not long after the original, and Ella Fitzgerald's cover of "Savoy Truffle", which, I might add, is insanely good.  Siouxsie and the Banshees' "Helter Skelter" does the near impossible, capturing the intensity of the original while sounding completely different. Los Fabulosos Cadillacs' version of "Strawberry Fields Forever" is notable because it's a ska version done by a Argentine band that somehow wrangled Deborah Harry to sing on it. In other words, novel. Ska-wise, it's weak, but I hadn't heard it before so you might not have.

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Listen:
Tomorrow's Children - Rain mp3 at Cover Me
Ella Fitzgerald - Savoy Truffle mp3 at Cover Me
Siouxsie and the Banshees - Helter Skelter mp3 at Cover Me
Los Fabulosos Cadillacs - Strawberry Fields Forever mp3 at ATumblr (?) With Debby Harry

SAME PUBLICIST AS JANDEK, I SWEAR.

It's not often that you go looking for a back story of an artist and realize that there is so little information available that it almost seems like the story is being repressed. Mention William Onyeabor around anyone that knows Nigerian music, even the experts, and you'll see head scratching. No one knows much about him other than what is in his music. His albums have been reissued but record labels, journalists, collectors and musicologists trying to fill in the gaps find themselves practically skunked. Even the few that have traveled to Nigeria, tracked him down and actually talked to him, come away with more questions than answers. It is inconceivable to most people that someone would make music, purposefully keep the lowest of low profiles, and not grant interviews, shunning parties, press and publicity altogether. I have my own theory why but I'm keeping my trap shut. I have to see if there's anything out there that disproves it, and with what little info there is and how seldom a new angle comes out, it could take years.

Watch the video linked below and read what little there is online. See if you can figure it out. Let's just say that involves studies in Russia, a return to Nigeria, a failed film business, an unlikely career change, an arsenal of synthesizers, keyboards, and studio equipment rarely seen in Nigeria, and an unknown source of funding. Sounds like some sort of heavy duty caper to me.

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Listen:
William Onyeabor - Body and Soul mp3 at Beardo Disco (?)
William Onyeabor - When the Going is Smooth mp3 at 360 Nobs (?)
William Onyeabor - Love Is Blind mp3 at Glitz and Armour (?)
Video:
Fantastic Man - A Film About William Onyeabor at YouTube 31 minutes
Visit:
William Onyeabor at Wikipedia
An Elusive Mystery Man of Music at New York Times
William Onyeabor at Luaka Bop

STAND BACK. IT'S BEAUTIFUL.

I'm totally aware that there are some of you who find Eddie Holman's "Hey There Lonely Girl" hokey. Tough shit. I just listened to it free of distractions for the first time in a long time. It think you ought to too. So I'm bugging out.

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Listen:
Eddie Holman - Hey There Lonely Girl mp3 at Saleesoul

DEAR STONES: WHY EVEN TRY?

Sometimes the road to a hit can get a bit convoluted. Bobby Byrd and Earl Nelson, the original Bob and Earl, started their careers in the Hollywood Flames, who had a hit in 1958 with "Buzz, Buzz, Buzz". Any of you with a cursory knowledge of doo-wop should know that one, but that's not the hit I'm talking about. At the same time Byrd also recorded as Bobby Day, and he had a hit with "Rockin' Robin". Not talking about that hit either. In 1960, Byrd and Nelson recorded their first records as a duo, and they went nowhere so Byrd resumed the Bobby Day routine, leaving Nelson in the dust. You can't very well record as Bob and Earl without a Bob, so Nelson found himself another Bob, Bobby Relf, who had been in a handful of vocal groups, including two with a young Barry White, the Upfronts and Valentino and the Lovers. I bring up White, because when Bob and Earl version two when into the studio to record "Harlem Shuffle", White did the arrangement, which is epic. I mean it. The way the horns come forward and then move to the background, the drums, the tympani accents, the constant pulse of the high hat, the hand claps. This is the hit I was talking about.

"Harlem Shuffle" was supposedly based on Round Robin's "Slauson Shuffle Time", an instrumental which only bears a resemblance in structure, but is badass in its own right. A link to that is below, along with some of the other stuff, because if I went to the trouble of looking for this stuff, I'll be damned if I'm gonna let the links go to waste.

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Listen:
Bob and Earl - Harlem Shuffle mp3 at Groove Addict
The Hollywood Flames - Buzz,Buzz, Buzz mp3 at Beware of the Blog
Bobby Day - Rockin' Robin mp3 at Keep the Coffee Coming
The Upfronts - It Took Time (streaming) at YouTube
Round Robin - Slauson Shuffle Time (streaming) at YouTube
The full LP:
Bob and Earl - Harlem Shuffle at Groove Addict

THE PURPLE PLAYLIST

As you know by now Prince is dead. You have been, or will be soon, inundated with his music and non-stop coverage of the details surrounding his death. So I will spare you here, for a couple reasons. I'd be lying if I said I was a solid Prince fan. I think he's put out a fair amount of excellent music and there's no denying his massive talent. What I think he did most effectively was mix all of his influences and still manage to sound like himself. But if you listen, you can hear all sorts of things. Case in point: I happened to listen to Prince just two days ago, to compare his stuff to Eddie Hazel's work. So that's my theme tonight. Shit that I hear in Prince's music, some of his stated influences and some undeclared. Anyway you look at it, it'll be a while before we experience anybody who carried the torch quite like he did.

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Listen:
James Brown - Give It Up or Turnit a Loose mp3 at ATumblr (?)
Curtis Mayfield - Right Now mp3 at Aadtcp (?)
Marvin Gaye - Mercy Mercy Me mp3 at Michael Axx (?)
Sly and the Family Stone - If You Want Me to Stay mp3 at Angel's Desl (?)
Jimi Hendrix - If Six Was Nine mp3 at Electric Adolescence
Graham Central Station - Now Do-U-Wanta Dance mp3 at ATumblr (?)
Earth Wind and Fire - Evil mp3 at ATumblr (?)
Parliament - We Got the Funk mp3 at ATumblr (?)

RETURN OF PARKING LOT CHICK

Yeah, the day's almost over, but it's still 4/20 somewhere. A most ridiculous holiday if there ever was one. Which makes it perfect for those who celebrate it, because to them everyday is 4/20. What? Do you think people who really smoke weed only smoke weed once a year? You is or you ain't. The Donnas were. I know. My nephew smoked out with a couple of them after a show once. It was years ago and it still makes me immensely proud. Why? Because if I was his age, I would have done the exact same thing. A way early start on the bucket list. Smoke out with the Donnas. Check. Hell yeah.

The Donnas should have been huge. They really didn't fuck around, just simple catchy rock 'n' roll songs about partying, sneaking out, making out, rocking out, and smoking out. I ask you, what is there not to like? Particularly if you're around the same age and have the same delinquent habits. Surely if we can all praise the Ramones singing about sniffing glue, or raise our fists because Joan Jett loves rock 'n' roll, there must be a place for the Donnas.

Maybe the Donnas were too basic. Maybe there wasn't enough to dissect, or maybe they were too much like their audience. Who knows. I'll tell you one thing. Parking lot chick don't care. She smokes weed any day she wants.

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Listen:
The Donnas - Who Invited You? mp3 at Scarlet (?)
The Donnas - Take Me to the Backseat mp3 at Sapicenter (?)
The Donnas - Don't Wait Up For Me mp3 at Better Propaganda
Video:
The Donnas - Take It Off at YouTube
The Donnas - Too Bad About Your Girl at YouTube
The Donnas - Who Invited You? at YouTube
The Donnas - Strutter at YouTube Kiss cover ala Redd Kross
The Donna - Fall Behind Me at YouTube in Black-Llight-Poster-Vision
The Donnas - You Wanna Get Me High (live) at YouTube

EDDIE HAZEL AT HOME WITH HIS MOTHER

You have to know my sister. Parliament and Funkadelic are about the furthest thing from her playlist that there is. And she is not one to suggest a subject to post knowing that I often poo-poo other people's ideas. Not often, almost always. So when she suggested posting something by Eddie Hazel my first thought was where in the hell did she pull that out of?!  I mean it, she's a seventies soft rock lady. This was weird. After the idea festered for a few days I figured the thought of her suggesting Hazel was too monumental to ignore. It may not happen again, and I'd be remiss if I didn't document it. In a years time I'd convince myself that it was an imagined event.

Hazel was the guitarist for that whole Parliment/Funkadelic mob, but he shouldn't be associated with funk alone. He was one of those guitarists' guitarists, capable of rock and blues and everything in between. But he was clean and his licks, er, tasty. "Tasty licks", high school descriptions never die. Before the recording of "Maggot Brain", George Clinton suggested how it should be played, and his instructions were for Hazel to think his saddest thoughts. Hazel thought of his deceased mother and cried through his guitar. For ten minutes, the guitar sobs. And that would be the second use of douchy high school era guitar playing slang in one post.

Hazel's solo cover of "California Dreamin'" is something like the missing link between Isaac Hayes and Hendrix. Laid back, drawn out soul with guitar all over the place. As good a cover as there is, and not at all like the original. I always thought the Mamas and Papas' version was too sunny anyway.

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Listen:

Funkadelic - Maggot Brain mp3 at Margauxville
Eddie Hazel - California Dreamin' mp3 at Place.org (?)

I HATE STICKERS

Here's three unrelated instrumentals, one each by Watel Branco (that's him above), Rafael Somavilla, and Hugo Montenegro. You might recognize Montenegro by name. He did all sorts of instrumental stuff. His album of Ennio Morricone spaghetti western covers probably outsold Morricone's LPs in the US. Sanitized, well done covers without all of Morricone's weird quirks. It was his version of "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" that made it on the charts. The one below, though, is early, from 1960, a version of "In the Hall of the Mountain King" that's almost all drums and brass, heavy on the bongos. You can totally imagine it as a soundtrack to something, maybe a chase scene. Likewise with Rafael Somavilla's "En Casa de Pobre", but a totally different movie this one. Some foreign art flick. Nice little flute and buried wah-wah in that one. As good as both of those are, "Zorra", by Watel Branco is the happening song of the night. It's like a one of Isaac Hayes's long drawn out jams crammed into two and a half minutes.

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Listen:
Hugo Montenegro - In the Hall of the Mountain King mp3 at The Basement Rug
Rafael Somavilla - En Casa de Pobre mp3 at The Melting Pot
Watel Branco - Zorra mp3 at The Melting Pot

THE BACK CATALOG MINE FIELD

Why the hell not Boris Gardiner? Jamaican funk, sure, sounds good to me. A heads up: Some of his other stuff can be borderline schmaltzy. Look further with due caution.

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Listen:
Boris Gardiner - Ghetto Funk mp3 at Roots and Culture
Boris Gardiner - Melting Pot (streaming) at YouTube
Visit:
Boris Gardiner at Wikipedia

THE COOL SLEEVE DETOUR

I ran into that image above, and had never heard "Blackberry Way". I know little of the Move's work, so I checked it. It was good, actually really good, but something was buggin'. Then I remembered their original version of "Do Ya". So good. More meat than the Electric Light Orchestra's hit version. That must have been it.

Then there's always their original version of "California Man", that Cheap Trick covered to great effect. You see where this is going. I have to wrap this thing up. I have a rabbit hole I have to tend to.

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Listen:
The Move - Blackberry Way (outtake) mp3 at Mr. Suave
The Move - Do Ya mp3 at Art Decade
Video:
The Move - California Man at YouTube Jeff Lynne doing his best Jerry Lee.
Cheap Trick - California Man at YouTube

ALOHA MR. BYRD

I don't know anything about Hawaiian music. I know what I like, and what I don't like. I don't go in for any of that hokey stuff, big fancy bands, or much of the vocal stuff. I dig it plain. Slack key, steel or ukulele, that's it. Maybe someone beating on something. That doesn't seem to be asking for much. But you'd be surprised at how hard it is to find, at least in my cursory searches. I've had bum advice from a local Hawaiian store (glossy versions of standards, heavy on choruses), and an acquaintance that grew up in Hawaii (stuff by that big Izzy guy). Both of those were on the parameters, but not hitting the spot.

Yesterday, while looking for something else entirely, I happened on an image of Jerry Byrd, playing lap steel. I know relatively few steel players by name, lap or pedal, and fewer by face, so what the hell. I read a bio saying that he had a fondness for Hawaiian music at a very early age (he was born in 1920), but would end up in country and western bands for decades, releasing sporadic Hawaiian stuff along the way. He eventually moved to Hawaii in 1968, and that's all she wrote. He lived out his life playing Hawaiian music in Hawaii. The thought of that fulfilling some boyhood dream is almost impossible to ignore.

The first song of his I heard, right after reading the short bio, was "Hanalei Moon". This was it, the type of Hawaiian music I'd been looking for. From further searches I found other stuff, and there's much more to pour through. He has done some of the aforementioned hokey stuff, but there's a lot more grade A stuff floating around. I did run across an album, that seems to cover it all, "Hawaiian Style Guitars: Slack Key by Hui Ohana / Steel Guitar by Jerry Byrd". This had more slack key, so it was a good mix. I sampled about half the songs on it and it was added to the list. Near the top I might add. That damn list.

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Listen:
Jerry Byrd - Hanalei Moon mp3 at Rocky 52
Jerry Byrd - Elmer's Tune mp3 at Rocky 52
Non-Hawaiian:
Jerry Byrd - Theme for a DJ mp3 at Rock 'n' Soul Ichiban
Video:
Jerry Byrd and Marty Robbins - Unknown Hula at YouTube So cool.

THE TIE BREAKER

On any other night, that photo above would have been of Warren Smith. It was to be his post, and it was, until I ran into, uh, that photo above, of Barbara Lynn. Now hold on a second, I know what you're thinking. I'd be a liar if I said that photo above wasn't fetching to a certain degree. As a straight male with a deep love of cool music shit, I can't be objective. But listen to the covers of "I Got Love If You Want It", by both Smith and Lynn, back to back. Completely different interpretations, apples and oranges, equal only in their quality. In other words, both hot shit. Smith's version getting a slight edge because it's a rockabilly version, the only one I'm aware of. Unfortunately my eyeballs get a vote too. And both vote for Barbara Lynn. It was close.

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Listen:
Warren Smith - I Got Love If You Want It mp3 at Mp3 Rockabilly
Barbara Lynn - I Got Love If You Want It mp3 at Diatone Reccords (?)
Slim Harpo - I Got Love If You Want It mp3 at Beware of the Blog

THE BLUES ROCK TEMPLATE

It's about that time again, time for some of your basic twelve bar blues progressions. Or something like that. Back to basics type shit. And it doesn't get any more basic than John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers, the "With Eric Clapton" LP in particular. Very big with the guitarists I knew back in the day, my brother included, a gateway to Muddy so to speak. And I don't mean basic in a bad way. Textbook early blues rock is more like it, heavier on the blues side. It's when Clapton first stretched his legs. How this could devolve into "Layla" a decade later I'll never know.

The first two are from the LP, which I haven't yet mentioned is the Mayall LP to own. I don't know where "It Ain't Right" is from, maybe an outtake or something. But it's got Clapton, so it's the same era.

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Listen:

John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers - All Your Love mp3 at Unified Reality (?)
John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers - Parchman Farm mp3 at Scissor Soft (?)
John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers - It Ain't Right mp3 at Scissor Soft (?)
The full LP:
John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton (streaming) at YouTube

IT'S PENTATONIC DAD!

After the line "I can’t get enough of the entrancing pentatonic grooves of Malian Bambara music", I about busted a gut. The first line in a post and I'm off to look up the definition of "pentatonic". The post goes on to describe the orchestres of Mopti as being like the city, "a funky, crazy yet laid-back, dirty crossroads". Sold.

I don't know how I found Cocoringo's Circadian Sounds, but after poking around over there, I'm thoroughly sucked in. If you dig international music, one night won't do it. Bookmark the sucker. The post that hooked me was about the Orchestre Régional de Mopti, and it only got less familiar, more far flung and more enjoyable from there. Your three chord blues progressions will resume shortly.

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Listen:
Orchestre Régional de Mopti -Boro mp3 at Cocoringo's Circadian Sounds
Antoine Dougbé - Honton Soukpo Gnon mp3 at Cocoringo's Circadian Sounds Pickin' it up a notch.
Jacky Molard Quartet & Foune Diarra Trio “N’Diale” - Kelemagny mp3 at Cocoringo's Circadian Sounds What the hell is this?
Then, I happened on this:
Tropical Beats - A page with dozens of streaming podcasts. Music from, you guessed it, tropical environs. Insanely good mixes.
Visit:
Cocoringo's Circadian Sounds

VINTAGE EQUIPMPENT GIVES YOU WIGGLE ROOM

I'm a sucker for surf music, as you might be. If you are, you may have noticed a lack of contemporary surf music around here. There's a simple reason for that. Most of it sucks. Enough so that when a band has the chops and doesn't do something stupid, they stand out like a sore thumb. So, the Trabants (named after a Russian made compact car) already stood out, just by not being shitty. They are far from that. Being into vintage equipment and recording modes, and avoiding the better known instrumentals, you'd be hard pressed to peg when they were recorded. I sampled quite a few of their songs and I gotta say, the stuff kicks ass. There's only a handful of surf bands in the last ten or twenty years that I would heartily endorse, and these guys could have been one of them. But, while they're still good, their latest incorporates some more rock sounding guitar. A small complaint. There's still Farfisa, sitar and Dave Allen type fuzz, and it's still really good, just not what you'd consider straight up surf. But then, there's not much of that going around these days. 

I couldn't find any mp3s but there's plenty to sample on their Bandcamp page and their web page. Hell their Bandcamp stuff is so cheap, I may break into the lawn mowing money.

Visit:

The Trabants Band Camp page More music, lots.
The Trabants - Freak Out (Latest LP) streaming at The Active Listener

The Trabants - Bio
Video:

The Trabants video page

GIVE ME CREEPY RONNIE

The photo above of Ronnie Dawson, the so-called blond bomber, seems a little off, something about it. Which, of course, is why I like it. His music is like that too. It's not at all the hiccupy panting type rockabilly. On "Action Packed" he's nineteen, but it sounds like his voice hasn't even cracked. A fair amount of male attitude for someone with that high of a voice. I don't know, maybe he was boy band rockabilly or something. Regardless, I'd be tempted to tie his shoestrings together, if I were the type that does that sort of thing.

Dawson's voice eventually did change, and he continued to play rockabilly, not half bad either judging by "Rockin' Dog", recorded in 1994, and the live clip, "Sucker For a Cheap Guitar", from 1997. Still though, there's one piece that just doesn't sit right. If he was so action packed, how did he find all the time for flat top maintenance?

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

Listen:
Ronnie Dawson - Action Packed mp3 at Rocky 52 1958
Ronnie Dawson - Rockin' Bones mp3 at Rocky 52 1959
Ronnie Dawson - Who's Been Here? mp3 at Rocky 52 1961
Ronnie Dawson - Rockin' Dog mp3 at Rocky 52 1994
Video:
Ronnie Dawson - Sucker For a Cheap Guitar at YouTube 1997, Nick Curran on guitar

DON'T EVEN TRY THE DRUMS AND CLAVINET THING

Rule number one in doing a cover is pick a good song. That could go any number of ways. You could pick an excellent song, based on the original version, because it's iconic in some way or another. You could pull it out of obscurity, either because it deserves to be brought to public attention, or because the earlier version doesn't do the song itself justice. Or you could pick a cover specifically because it is an unlikely song for you to cover. You get carried away with that, it could be one of those asshole attempts at irony. Is an intended attempt to be ironic still ironic? Remember white belts?

Out of all of the different types of covers, the hardest type to pull off is undoubtedly covering an excellent song, already close to perfect the first time it was recorded. You're only hope there is to reinvent it. Record it as if it was your own song, in your own style. Sink or swim.

Cover Me recently posted several versions of Bill Withers's "Use Me". If you don't know the song, you need to. Listen to it repeatedly. I've heard Withers's version a thousand times and it still amazes me. It's one of those near perfect songs. "Near" because perfect doesn't really exist. You think it does, but it really doesn't. Just fucking with you. Anyway, I sampled three of the versions and if the first I listened to wasn't any good, I wouldn't have gone any further. But Holly Golightly does reinvent it, and she does play it as her own. The second one I sampled, by Grace Jones, was also seriously tweaked. With Sly and Robbie as rhythm section, it's pretty much an electro-reggae version. The third one I checked was Jim White's, which has a certain vibe to it, like a soundtrack to someone being led to the gallows. That's an unintentional metaphor there. A real cool version was posted here a while back, so what the hell, the Outfit's version is down there too, a solid jam from Barbados.

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

Listen:
Bill Withers - Use Me mp3 at The Giant Panther
Holly Golightly - Use Me mp3 at Cover Me If the link doesn't get you to it, go here.
Grace Jones - Use Me mp3 at Cover Me
Jim White - Use Me mp3 at Cover Me
The Outfit - Use Me mp3 at Soul Garage
Two more versions at Cover Me

THE SOUL SISTER

No one's got the voice of Aretha Franklin. Even if you're the sister of the Queen of Soul, and you yourself are a soul singer, that doesn't necessarily make you soul sister #1. But it doesn't hurt, especially if you were brought up in the same gospel choir and have mighty pipes of your own. Erma Franklin may not have been as well known as her younger sister, but you take that surname out of the equation and she still rates high on the soul-o-meter.

Groove Addict just posted two of her LPs, and if you ever wondered what she sounded like, beyond "Piece of My Heart", dig in. And check that mix. Bold Soul Sisters, from Funky 16 Corners. Holy shit is all I've got to say about that one. 

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

Listen:
Erma Franklin - Piece of My Heart mp3 at Web o' Sounds
Erma Franklin - It's Over mp3 at Groove Merchant
Erma Franklin - Light My Fire mp3 at Groove Merchant
Erma Franklin - By the Time I Get to Phoenix mp3 at Saleesoul
The LPs:
Erma Franklin - Her Name Is Erma at Groove Addict
Erma Franklin - Soul Sister at Groove Addict
Speaking of soul sisters:
Bold Soul Sisters - 17 song mix at Funky 16 Corners 
Dig it: Thelma Jones, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Ike and Tina Turner, Tina Britt,  Ann Sexton, Viola Wills, Martha Turner, Shirley Vaughn, Ruby Andrews, Helena Hollins  Monica, Lyn Collins, Gi Gi, Erma Franklin, Yvonne Fair, Brenda and The Tabulations, and Cold Blood.

OH YES HE DID. JUST NOT IN MUSKOGEE.

Merle Haggard died today. Shit. No one lives forever, but he was one of those people that I can't remember not being cognizant of. Always around somewhere. That's the sort of thing that makes you stop and think. My earliest memories of him were from appearances on Hee Haw, a TV show that my Dad watched. From there it was cover versions of his songs in my own record collection, by John Fogerty, Gram Parsons and the Knitters (John Doe and Exene from X and Dave Alvin from the Blasters). By that time he had all the credibility a younger me needed. Not that it mattered. As I would find out, he was country cred incarnate.

As a kid he was in and out of juvenile detention centers, escaping twice, ran away, hitch hiked and rode the rails, and ended up in full grown prison before he even reached drinking age. It was after seeing Johnny Cash play while he was doing time in San Quentin that he decided to turn his life around. But before any sort of music career, in the midst of all that running around before and after his release, he worked as a short order cook, a ditch digger, he wired homes and he drove a potato truck. He was a regular guy. So, when he sang songs like "Working Man Blues", or songs about drinking or break ups, it wasn't patronizing fluff. In terms of American music, country or otherwise, he was the real deal. Shit.

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

Listen:
Merle Haggard - Skid Row (streaming) at YouTube His first record
Merle Haggard - Today I Started Loving You Again mp3 at Internet Archive
Merle Haggard - You Got the Money mp3 at Internet Archive
Merle Haggard - Turn Me Loose mp3 at Internet Archive
Merle Haggard - Green Green Grass of Home mp3 at Internet Archive
Merle Haggard - Long Black Limousine mp3 at Internet Archive
Merle Haggard - Tonight the Bottle Let Me Down mp3 at Internet Archive
Merle Haggard - Silver Wings mp3 at Internet Archive
Merle Haggard - Please Mr. DJ mp3 at Internet Archive
Now, go attack the search engines.

WALKED THE WALK

All it took was one photo and it became Dick Dale oddball night. Randy Nauert posted the photo below on Facebook today. Nauert was the former bass player for the Challengers, one of the biggest of the first wave of surf bands back in the early sixties. He knows of what he speaks/posts. He was also a life long friend of Rick Griffin. But that's another story. Anyways, he posts a lot of cool shit on Facebook.

When I saw the photo, I looked for a similar high resolution uncropped copy of the photo, so I could link to it (the one on Facebook can't be linked). I couldn't find one, but it lead to a succession of Dick Dale oddballs, so there you have it.

The first thing to check below are the videos, very cool footage, and surprisingly good quality, of a very early performance in a club in Anaheim. It's a packed house, a lot of bodies moving. The odd thing is that there's no footage of him playing guitar, only drums, sax, and in the second video just singing. Go figure. But it is notable, particularly because the crowd continues to bee bop their heads off, during during his "Look Ma, I'm Gene Krupa" portion of the song. Then, an 6:31, the birth of pogo dancing. The second video has him singing "Greenback Dollar", again without a guitar, and again, the crowd keeps going. Those kids are nuts.

Check the photo above. The lean, the one foot in the air, the look on his face, the collarless jacket, the drum head, the well lit room, the checkered floor..., does that not epitomize that era of surf music? (Large version here.) Nevermind the fact that Dale actually did get wet (see the photo at the top of the post).

The other stuff down there is just random crap that I ran across. A couple are lesser known songs. "Taboo" is exotica noir, spooky sounding or just chill, depending on your predilection. "Death of a Gremmie" sounds like some prankster swapped out Link Wray's distortion and plugged him into a reverb. (Hate to be that guy.) It's Dale trying his best in the baddass game. Maybe his picking hand was fatigued after all that staccato picking 'n' shit.

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

Listen:
Dick Dale and the Deltones - Taboo mp3 at Internet Archive
Dick Dale and the Deltones - Death of a Gremmie mp3 at Internet Archive
Dick Dale and the Deltones - Surf Beat mp3 at Internet Archive
Dick Dale and the Deltones - Mr. Eliminator mp3 at Internet Archive
Video
Dick Dale and the Deltones - Teen Beat/All Night Long at YouTube Pogoing commences at 6:31
Dick Dale and the Deltones - Greenback Dollar at YouTube
Podcast:
Dick Dale and the Birth of Surf Rock at NPR 13 minutes, from Fresh Air