ALL TIME AWESOME

I happened to hear Mitch Ryder's "Sock It to Me" today. Holy shit, I forgot how good it was. I used to hear it on oldies stations all the time, decades after it hit #6 (in 1967). Then I found the 45 at a thrift store and played the shit out of it. Years later when I DJ'd I used to play it. It still slays me. Behold, AM radio.

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Listen:
Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels - Sock it to Me mp3 at ATumblr (?)
Mitch Ryder = Liberty mp3 at Groove Addict with Booker T and the MGs

DAVE BRUBECK MEETS HOT DOG

Dave Brubeck and Gerry Mulligan doing a song called "Blues Roots". It could suck, right? It doesn't. It rules. Take everything "Take Five" oriented out of your head. Hear a more moody Brubeck. Towards the end of it he's just banging the shit out of his piano. Mulligan blows right and tight, per usual. No wonder he meets everybody.

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Listen:
Dave Brubeck Trio featuring Gerry Mulligan - Blues Roots mp3 at Groove Addict

OBSCURABILLY'S NOT DEAD

I never heard of Ric Cartey before today. I've listened to rockabilly for decades, read books and so on, and I still never heard of this guy, because rockabilly is just like other genres, surf, punk, garage, jazz, whatever. 90% of the fame and attention goes to 10% of the bands. It's probably more skewed than that, but the point is that there are an awful lot of might have beens. A lot of bands that will never be heard until they end up on some oddball compilation fifty years later. Even if their records are soaked in echo.

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Listen:
Ric Cartey - Scratching On My Screen mp3 at Rocky 52
Ric Cartey - Born to Love One Woman mp3 at Mp3 Rockabilly

THE LIGHT TOUCH OF IN YOUR FACE

I can't write anything while I'm listening to Bad Brains. They're too distracting, actually make that demanding. I'm gonna err on the side of my ears. This shit gets me ten kinds of riled up. If you have to read something, there's a link to an article posted elsewhere.

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Listen:
Bad Brains - Banned In DC mp3 at  Internet Archive
Bad Brains -Big Takeover mp3 at Internet Archive
The full LP:
Bad Brains - Bad Brains at Internet Archive Note: In the right column, under "Download options" click on "VBR MP3 Files"
Visit:
Band In D,C. at Wax Poetics Excellent profile.

THE HONEY-DO LIST STRIKES AGAIN

This sucker is so breezy I could just about vomit. Spring was a duo, Brian Wilson's wife Marilyn with her sister Diane Rovell. The song was produced by Brian Wilson, with assorted Beach Boys on backing vocals which is what keeps it on its breezy keel. The melody is partially borrowed from the Beach Boys' "Darlin'", so, yeah, there is more than enough indication that this never would have been committed to tape if it wasn't for their involvement. Spring's own vocals aren't the smoothest, which is oddly the one thing I like most about it. All the smooth stuff is done by the husband's band, the production, everything. Substandard (by Beach Boys standards) lead vocals keep it real. As real as it can be with one of the greatest producers of all time, and some of the best harmony vocals of all time, involved.

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Listen:
Spring - Thinkin' Bout You Baby mp3 at Don't Stay Up Too Late

RAW PATTI

I don't know how I came across this over at Aquarium Drunkard. It's from 2014 for crying out loud. Buried their old posts, a couple Patti Smith demos, "Redondo Beach" and "Distant Fingers". I've always liked "Redondo Beach". The version I knew was the one from her first LP. Most would call it reggae. Some would call it cod reggae. Some would call it Patti Smith. Some would who the fuck cares? As long as it sounds authentically Patti Smith, that's all I care about. I long ago decided to just dig it and quit the nitpicking. It's Patti fucking Smith.

The Patti Smith Group was not trying to pass their song off as Jamaican reggae. They knew the real thing. Right around this time guitarist Lenny Kaye had a record label, Mer Records. It was short lived and put out only a few releases. All but one of the releases were Patti Smith, Lenny Kaye, or a combination of the two. That one that wasn't either of them was the American release of Jamaican DJ Tapper Zukie's Man Ah Warrior (repackaged with a cover photo by Robert Mapplethorpe). I went on over to YouTube tonight and streamed the Zukie LP. I have it somewhere but it's buried, so it was the first time I'd heard in in years. I forgot how laid back it was, and barren. Fuck yeah, good to hear you again old friend.

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Listen:
Patti Smith - Redondo Beach / Distant Fingers mp3s at Aqwuarium Drunkard Go there to get them.
Patti Smith - Redondo Beach (from Horses LP) (streaming) at YouTube
Patti Smith - Distant Fingers (from Radio Ethiopia LP) (streaming) at YouTube
Tapper Zukie - Man Ah Warrior (Side 1) (streaming) at YouTube
Tapper Zukie - Man Ah Warrior (Side 2) (streaming) at YouTube

GO OVER THERE

Okay, first the mix. Funky 16 Corners Summer of Soul Pt 9 - Fuzzed Out, a two hour mix of all sorts of bombastic funk, soul and r&b, with a Led Zeppelin song smack dab in the middle of it. Who the fuck knows why, but it makes a handy piss break a half hour in. The rest of the mix is solid. It's a single mp3, not separate individual mp3s, but you can stream it without downloading it,

When I was looking for an image for the post I came across the one above, posted with a link to another Funky 16 Corners post a few years ago. I was slobbering all over it back then, and it still sounds tight so what the hell.

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Listen:
The Chevelles - The Gallop mp3 at Funky 16 Corners Go there to get it.
The mix:
Funky 16 Corners Summer of Soul Pt 9 - Fuzzed Out at Funky 16 Corners 17 song mix

SHIT. WE'RE OUT OF ICE.

Gal Costa, the end of the weekend, and a carbonated beverage. Sounds pretty simple. That's exactly what it is. No additives needed. Tropicalia will work. It's good music for eclipses too.

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Listen:
Gal Costa - Baby mp3 at Aquarium Drunkard Go there to get it.
Gal Costa - Vou Recomecar mp3 at Super Sonido
Gal Costa - Relance mp3 at Super Sonido
Gal Costa - Acauã mp3 at Super Sonido Wait for the freakout.
Gal Costa - Pontos de Luz mp3 at Super Sonido
Gal Costa & Gilberto Gil - Sebastiania mp3 at Super Sonido Freakout endings seem to be a trend.
Gal Costa -10 more cuts, 15 in all and great copy at Super Sonido

IT'S ALL GOOD

I don't exactly know how I did it, but I ended up going from Jimmy McGriff to the Trashwomen in about thirty minutes of random browsing. That should tell you what my attention span is tonight. There's no way to retrace my steps, so you get the beginning, and the unlikely end.

Once you see the Trashwomen live clip you might wonder why I bothered with it. I'll just answer that one in advance. It's because the longer I watched the video, the more I was convinced that it would be really fun to hang in their van. Like a well worn Donnas. With much simpler surf-inflected licks, with an abundance of slop. And a few years on them. Rough years. But they make mince meat with a Don & Dewey cover, and that's worth a few beers right there.

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Listen:
Jimmy McGriff - Something to Listen To mp3 at Groove Addict
Jimmy McGriff - Discotheque USA mp3 at Groove Addict
Jimmy McGriff - Funky Junk mp3 at Groove Addict This one has a lot of skips. I miss skipped records.
Jimmy McGriff - After Hours mp3 at Groove Addict
Video (totally unrelated):
The Trashwomen - Live at Burger Boogaloo at YouTube Full set, 2016

MOHAWK?? YEAH, RIGHT.

Earlier tonight I was going off about the lack of originality and authenticity in younger bands. All of the bullshit hipster hype shit. I had to post the Middle Class, a late seventies band that, for me, has always been the best example of an un-hyped, non-posing, original and groundbreaking band. Informed by the early (pre-hardcore) L.A. punk scene, they were younger, from Orange County, and they played fast. Real fast. And they did it before anyone else. 1978. Some consider their "Out of Vogue" the first hardcore 45. I know it was the first hardcore record I heard. Even if you were used to the wildly varied salad bowl of L.A. punk styles, you had to stand back and think "Just what the fuck is this?!?" I'd seen them a few times before it came out, and even then I was taken aback. Those of you born into a world where hardcore already existed, imagine hearing it sped up like this for the first time. No one sounded like the Middle Class when they hit. And they were just kids, literally jacked up on soda pop, playing within their abilities, perfectly stripped punk rock blasts.

I went looking for clips and ran into two that were interesting, for different reasons. The first video is live in some bar in Reseda, from 2013, and while not the best Middle Class video, is notable for the lame pit. Watch the drama unfold. It starts as a small but relatively earnest group of kids whose parents probably hadn't even met when hardcore first picked up steam. It shows because by the 1:15 point in the video, they're just walking is a circle like the mental patients in "Midnight Express". I won't criticize the kid up front with the hat and "ska" emblazoned on the back of his jacket because he's probably the coolest kid back at school. It should be noted here that Middle Class never wore any of the clichéd punk or hardcore gear (leather, spikes, patches, bandanas, slogans, etc.). The photos above, taken roughly 35 years apart, are pretty representative of how they looked. Always stealth.

The second video, from the Echoplex in 2011, is particularly for those of you already familiar with the Middle Class. It's a cover of Devo's "Gut Feeling" and they manage to make it sound just like Middle Class, particularly Jeff Atta's monotonal vocal. It's followed by "Out of Vogue" and I gotta say it still has that punch three and a half decades later.

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Listen:
Middle Class - Out of Vogue mp3 at Killed By Death Go there to get it
Middle Class - Three other songs (from the first 45) at Killed By Death Ditto
Middle Class - Twenty songs streaming at Sonic Hits
Video:
The Middle Class - Live at Weber's Place (2013) at YouTube
The Middle Class - Gut Feeling/Out of Vogue (2011) at YouTube
Visit:
Interview with Mike Atta [RIP] at Agony Shorthand
Interview with Jeff Atta at Noisey
The Middle Class - Discography at Punky Gibbon

LAZY NIGHT ONE AND DONE SPECIAL

I don't know a lot about jazz, but I know enough that when I see a song called "Tenor Madness" and its by Sonny Rollins with John Coltrane, it's worth a click. Holy shit was it, twelve minutes of a Battle Royale. I'm gonna go listen to it again. And out.

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Listen:
Sonny Rollins Quartet with John Coltrane - Tenor Madness mp3 at Sunrise Musics

STEP ONE

This seems fairly straight forward to me, but I don't think of any of my friends or relatives as racists, so I can't imagine it being tough or even questionable. "If you have a racist friend, now is the time for that friendship to end." It seems easy, it might take conviction beyond the comfort level for some, but if you don't have that you might as well throw in the towel. I mean, c'mon. There's no excuse. Post the video below on your wall and then unfriend them. Baby steps. Or go big at Thanksgiving. Make a scene n' shit. All joking aside, you really don't need toxic shit in your life. You won't ever be able to totally avoid it, but that doesn't mean you have to hang around with it.

LOOKING SHAGGY YOU GUYS

Booker T and the MGs' version of "Summertime" is uncharacteristically slow for them, brooding. Which does nothing to pep up the song for what it's supposed to be, a happy go lucky song from a musical. Instead it's sounding all wicked and dark. Or extremely chill. Maybe that's it, maybe they were stoned.

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Listen:
Booker T and the MGs - Summertime mp3 at Soul Sides
Sam Cooke - Summertime mp3 at Soul Sides
Four more versions of "Summertime" at Soul Sides

THE FRENCH VERSION

Metal Urbain was a anomaly in 1977. There were very few punk bands that incorporated a drum machine. I can't think of any other punk bands from back then that did. Because Metal Urbain were from France, I just figured it was a French thing. They just have to be different. But I do remember being surprised that someone managed an aggressive record with a drum machine on it.

Killed By Death just posted a record of theirs from 1977, so that's down there, along with the one that made it to a San Diego record store back then, "Paris Marquis". You really should check out their version of "Train Kept A-Rollin'". It sounds like Wire, the Cramps and Suicide sweatin' to the oldies.

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Listen:
Metal Urbain - Paris Marquis (streaming) at YouTube
Metal Urbain - Panik mp3 at Killed By Death Go there to get it.
Metal Urbain - Lady Coca Cola mp3 at Killed By Death Ditto.
Metal Urbain - Train Kept A-Rollin' (streaming) at YouTube

NO LONGER A SLAP FIGHT

I say lock the both of them in a room together amd be done with it. Can you imagine them fighting? It would be the slap fight for the ages. Maybe a spill or two after one of them tries a high kick. And they'd be bitching like high schoolers, "fire and fury" and all that, threats and insults you'd expect from a teenager who'd never had to fight. But this shit is serious. People will die because Donald Trump likes to shoot his mouth off. This will happen unless someone puts a muzzle on him.

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Listen:
Edwin Starr - War mp3 at 720th Military Police Battalion (?)

FROM THE LAND OF FORGOTTEN BOOKMARKS

After not really listening to a lot of blues in recent months, this sure sounded good. Been a while, It happens. The genre rotation. It could be a handful of songs or days of fiending, but eventually another genre calls. I can't stick to one thing, not with so much other stuff waiting in the wings. Tonight Elmore James popped up. Out of the blue, a random forgotten bookmark. It just really hit the spot.

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Listen:
Elmore James - Goodbye Baby mp3 at Clayton Counts

MADE PERFECT RECORDS, COVERED THE VELVETS

Glen Campbell died today. I was prepared for it, I thought, I knew it was coming. Ever since he went public with his Alzheimers diagnosis, you knew it wasn't going to end pretty. Somehow it did, as pretty as it could have been. He managed, with the help of his band, his family and various caretakers, a final tour. He gave that to his fans, going on stage knowing that he would forget lyrics, play songs twice, and sometimes not know what city he was in. Everybody knew that there would be trying moments, but there would be moments between audience and performer that would never be forgotten. If this sounds like total corn to you, fuck off. Fuck off, because Glen Campbell was everything you could ask for in a musician. An excellent guitarist, and a great, great singer, and he carried with him an aura of humility that belied his talent.

Campbell's music was part of the soundtrack of my youth, via my Dad's radio in the garage. Back then, though my brothers and I were more interested in rock 'n' roll, there were parts of Campbell's output that we appreciated. There's no denying the craftsmanship of his Jimmy Webb penned hits, but our attention was more directed at parts of songs. Example: the guitar outro on "Galveston". It's so damn simple, so pure and the guitar tone so perfectly suited to the song that it still gives me goosebumps decades after hearing it from my Dad's tinny radio.

While Campbell was never seen as an entirely hip performer, he seemed so unconcerned with hip, he transcended the whole damn idea. He was a musician first and foremost, good enough that he was a member of the Wrecking Crew, the crack team of studio performers that played on a who's who of sixties chart toppers. In 1963 alone he played on sessions for over five hundred songs. He stood in for Brian Wilson when Wilson retreated from the road, and to repay him Wilson produced an early single, "Guess I'm Dumb". The hits would come, a TV show "The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour", and a movie role in True Grit (with John Wayne).

All through it he continued recording, and he never really stopped. Even after his diagnosis, he released a couple albums. Here's just a smattering of songs. There's a few of the hits, all perfect parent pop records, a Jackson Browne cover, "These Days", and the aforementioned Wilson produced "Guess I'm Dumb" The real interesting oddball is Campbell covering a Velvet Underground song, "Jesus". No one ever told me about that one.

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Listen:
Glen Campbell - Galveston mp3 at Cold Splinters
Glen Campbell - Gentle On My Mind mp3 at Pretty Goes With Pretty
Glen Campbell - Wichita Lineman (streaming) at YouTube
Glen Campbell - Guess I'm Dumb mp3 at Margauxville Produced by Brian Wilson
Glen Campbell - These Days mp3 at Rock Town Hall Jackson Browne cover
Glen Campbell - Jesus (streaming) at YouTube Velvet Underground cover

THE PACKAGE

The first song on the first solo album by Curtis Mayfield is "(Don't Worry) If there's a Hell Below We're All Going to Go". It's a whopper, a jam and a half. Fu-huck yeah. It starts out kinda quiet with fuzz bass and a woman saying that people should start reading the Book of Revelations, ho-hum, but then the congas seep in, okay, so now we're moving. Then Mayfield, with heavy echo, comes in, "Sisters! Niggers! Whities! Jews! Crackers! Don't worry, if there's a hell below, we're all gonna go!", followed by a scream, and then the thing just takes off. It's got everything you could ask for. strings and horns playing off each and that glorious wah-wah. As close to ground zero of the classic blaxsploitation sound as it gets. ("Shaft"? Get out of town. This is a year before Isaac Haye's signature song.) And it's probably Mayfield doing the fret to pedal work, being that he did when it was played live. The drums? Shit, that funky beat is unrelenting. As are the congas, bongos and the heavy, heavy bass line. As amazing as the song is, it's but one on an LP that is similarly packed with thick layers of psychedelic soul (listen to "Move On Up"). And all of this written, sung, and produced by Mayfield after a successful run with the Impressions and his own record label.

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Listen:
Curtis Mayfield - (Don't Worry) If there's a Hell Below We're All Going to Go mp3 at Internet Archive
Curtis Mayfield - Move On Up mp3 at SGS (?)

LOOK WHAT THEY'VE DONE TO MY SONG, MA

I'm sure that the Who have been asked a thousand questions about "My Generation" over the years, if they see any irony in an autumn rocker singing the line "hope I die before I get old". The song never lost it's relevance (for young people anyway), and they did do the original version so why wouldn't they continue to play it, even if they seemed rather self conscious about the age thing just a scant four years later ("we're gettin' a bit old now")? Did Peter Townsend ever have any regrets about writing it? Probably not. It paid the bills for years, and still is. But, if he had ever heard the lead singer of the Contradictions sing it, he might regret having ever picked up a pen. This is bad folks, really bad. I'm all for song stylists trying to make a song their own, even if their style is abrasive, out of tune or generally amateurish. I like weird. It doesn't bother me in the least, except when it doesn't seen genuine. I'm sorry to whoever knows and likes the Contradictions. I'd never heard of them and was not at all put off by the opening chords of their version of "My Generation". It really could have gone either way. Then the song stylist insists on putting her own stamp on the song and it is total crap. Sidesplitting hilarious in it's forced weirdness "just b-[mumble]-se we get aro-ow-ow-oouuund". Like a shitfaced Lydia Lunch getting her fingernails yanked out. Jeffrey Lee Pierce can pull that shit off, but not this lady.

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Listen:
The Contradictions - My Generation mp3 at Internet Archive
The Who - My Generation mp3 at Internet Archive
The full LP
The Who Sing My Generation at Internet Archive NOTE: In the right column, under "Download options" click on "VBR MP3 Files"

NOTHING FANCY

Phew, that was a close one. I found myself watching a Reverend Horton Heat video, thinking "Does this guy realize how many rockabilly cliches he's got in one video?" "Why the hell am I watching this when I could be listening to The Flat Duo Jets"

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Listen:
The Flat Duo Jets - Lucky Eye mp3 at Indy Week
The Flat Duo Jets - Harlem Nocturne mp3 at Beware of the Blog
The Flat Duo Jets - Golden Stings mp3 at Leave You Wanting Less

A SOLID JAM FROM OUT OF NOWHERE

One of the reasons I still browse online is because every once in a while I run into something that I never would have gone looking for, something totally random. In this case, Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou. Man, do they hit the spot tonight. Check that clip below. It's quite a fucking jam. Pretty good quality too, While checking it out, dig on the singer on the left, particularly in contrast to the singer on the right. Left singer has ants all up in his pants, high kicks and all that. Right singer is just chillin', grooving. The band is tight, the whole thing is worth seeing. Wait until you see the synth solo by the guitarist.

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Listen:
Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou - Se Tche We Djo Mon mp3 at 27 Leggies Go there to get it.
Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou - Zizi mp3 at 27 Leggies Ditto.