HELLO AGAIN, SONG.

I'm not a big Arlo Guthrie fan. I don't have any of his records, but he doesn't bug me. He was counter culture enough in his day and, shit, his dad was Woody Guthrie. I haven't heard full albums of his in years. But I was checking up on Tibbles's posts over at Time Goes By, because it's been a while. His name is Peter Tibbles, but he has too perfect of a last name to not use it by itself. Tibbles. Sounds like a character in a movie. (Hope you don't mind Peter!) Tibbles has tastes that intersect mine a lot, but he gets into stuff that's way off my radar. Like Guthrie's "Coming Into Los Angeles", a song about flying into L.A. with a bunch of weed. I knew the song, but it's been years since I've heard it. What the fuck. Click.

Wow. My ear has changed in the last few decades. When I first heard the song, in my teens, smuggling weed into L.A. seemed exotic, dangerous. Nowadays, you can buy it in a store. But that's not the big difference, When I heard it today I was struck by the awesome guitar work. It's just too good, and there's more than one expert picker playing simultaneously. How many, I'm not sure. But a look at Wikipedia tells me that there were no fewer than four that played on the LP that contains this song. Check this: Ry Cooder. James Burton. Clarence White. Gene Parsons. Man, any pair of those names would be enough. Make it three and you have a country rock Blue Öyster Cult going on.

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

Listen:
Arlo Guthrie - Coming into Los Angeles mp3 at Time Goes By

BOY GENIUS

"Summertime Blues". You've heard it a million times. "Ho-hum" you think. Well fuck you. I've heard it a zillion times and I heard it today and was reminded what an awesome piece of work it is. Eddie Cochran was barely in his twenties when he recorded it. The kid was a genius. Here's a few of his, and other people covering him. Plus a really good appreciation by Binky Phillips. Go on and do your ho-hum thing somewhere else.

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

Listen:

Eddie Cochran - Summertime Blues mp3 at Rocky 52
Eddie Cochran - Something Else mp3 at Rocky 52
Eddie Cochran - C'mon Everybody mp3 at Rocky 52
Covers:
Black Keys - Summertime Blues mp3 at ATumblr
Blue Cheer - Summertime Blues mp3 at Beware of the Blog
Mick Farren - Summertime Blues mp3 at Beware of the Blog
Flying Lizzards - Summertime Blues mp3 at Beware of the Blog
Video:
The Who - Summertime Blues (Live, 1969) at YouTube
T Rex - Summertime Blues (Live, 1972) at YouTube
Visit:
It’s All Eddie Cochran’s Fault! at Huffington Post Excellent profile by Binky Phillips

DO YOU LIKE MY HAT?

Sun Ra has a thousand records out and I've heard only a handful. This I do know: every Sun Ra tune that I've ever heard is, at the very least, interesting. More often than not, they're other worldly. What better representation of this than his "There Are Other Worlds (They Have Not Told You Of)"? For Sun Ra it's typical, ten minutes of dramatic slow moving space jazz. If you want to read the story of how someone scored an original pressing of this record, head over to the hosting blog, Melting Pot. There's two more long songs too.

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

Listen:
Sun Ra - There Are Other Worlds (They Have Not Told You Of) mp3 at Melting Pot
Sun Ra – Twin Stars Of Thence mp3 at Melting Pot Go there to get it.
Sun Ra – Lanquidity mp3 at Melting Pot Ditto

I LIKE MY HAIR LIKE MY ROADS

What became of my third night of a three day Memorial Day weekend? I'm not one to bow their head in reverence to fallen soldiers. In some sort of way, all service men and women are answering the call to duty to defend our country. In the end though, they're basically signing up to kill or be killed, and as cynical as that sounds I have the quote from my friend Harold, ten years older than me and a source for many beer drinking insights, who once said that he could not be in the military because he's just as soon turn around and shoot someone he didn't like than someone he didn't even know. It's all bullshit. Yeah baby, peace, love and dope. As misguided and corny as hippies were (and bad dancers to boot), at least they offered a counterpoint.

Whatever. Trying my best to put on a patriotic front, I ended up thinking about what American music was most American, undeniably born here and done better here than elsewhere. Fuck, where to start? Blues, jazz, country and western, surf, rockabilly? I settled on country and western, after revisiting Porter Wagoner's "The Rubber Room", a sure fire Lux and Ivy favorite had they ever ventured near the pedal steel abyss. Really, nothing says good ol' American country and western than a song about being institutionalized, replete with echo that would make King Tubby sit up straight for a minute.

After that it was the George Jones's "The Race Is On" which may be my favorite country and western song ever. (That's him at the top of the post.) It's not high art, but it's perfect. 1964 who the fuck are the Beatles flat top twang. After playing that it became an orgy of my dog died yesterday and my wife left me. I was so damn forlorn, I could only muster the energy to cut and paste four songs.

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

Listen:
Porter Wagoner - Rubber Room mp3 at April Winchell
George Jones - The Race Is On mp3 at David Fullmer
Hank Williams - Your Cheatin' Heart mp3 at Rocky 52
Red Simpson - (Hello) I'm a Truck mp3 at ATumblr (?)

1956: CAT'S OUT OF THE BAG

Can you imagine? One minute it's lightweight vocal stuff, then the next, Elvis hits and every other song has "rock 'n' roll" in the title. 1956 seems to be the year everybody knew the phrase that pays. That year, Johnny Carroll (above) had at least five songs with "rock 'n' roll" (or some deviant of "rock") in the title. That was just one guy. Everyone was doing it, whether or not they were even playing rock 'n' roll. It was a total free for all.

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

Listen:
Mickey Hawks - Rock 'n' Roll Rhythm mp3 at Internet Archive
Mabel King - Alabama Rock 'n' Roll mp3 at Internet Archive
Johnny Carroll - Rock 'n' Roll Ruby mp3 at Internet Archive

THUMPIN'

I was driving around the hood today and the Coaster's "Poison Ivy" came up on a mix unexpectedly. I did what any reasonable person would do. I rolled the windows down and blasted it as loud as I could. Yeah, look at me neighbors. I'm badass. Hey ladies, whenever you get tired of the cars that go boom, there's a guy with thinning hair and a breast pocket with a hundred pens blastin' OG Leiber and Stoller right over here. Fuck yeah. Coasters rule.

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

Listen:
The Coasters - Poison Ivy mp3 at Angelfire.com (?)
The Coasters - Little Egypt mp3 at Angelfire.com (?)
The Coasters - Charlie Brown mp3 at Andree Blisson (?)
The Coasters - Yakety Yak mp3 at Angelfire.com (?)

TIMMY THOMAS CHILLIN' IN A LOUD SUIT

You know, in keeping with my practice of not uploading any music, instead linking to stuff that's already sitting around online, it narrows the scope of music that I can mention or write about. But it's still a pretty deep well. I just know that if I started uploading, it would be a total rabbit hole. I know that with certainty. So when I run across a well written blog that has personal stuff with musical factoids and a wide range of music, I have to point you to it. It's really my favorite type of music blog. Sure, there are blogs with exhaustive research and biographical details. Those serve their purpose. But the type I'm talking about makes it feel like you're sitting around some unidentified living room, drinking and listening to music with the host. Margauxville totally fits that bill.

Here are just two random tunes, both awesome on their own and for very different reasons. Which speaks volumes about the host.

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

Listen:
Timmy Thomas - Why Can’t We Live Together mp3 at Margauxville
The Mekons - Memphis, Egypt mp3 at Margauxville
Really, just go there:
Margauxville

THE NO DOWNLOAD LOW DOWN BLUES

Robert Nighthawk's stuff is all over YouTube but I couldn't find any downloads. No matter, you don't have to own it to sink into it. And you should sink into this. His music sounds like he looks. Come to think of it, that photo is the best song I've heard in days.

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

Listen:
Robert Nighthawk - I Need Love So Bad (streaming) at YouTube

JERRY LACROIX. REMEMBER THAT.

I ran into John D. Loudermilk's original version of "Tobacco Road" and I figured I'd go listen to Edgar Winter's version. The wheels came off, I ran into some Edgar Winter's White Trash with Jerry LaCroix and spent a good hour running down LaCroix's stuff. Here's a couple with him with White Trash and a video from when he was with Blood, Sweat and Tears. Man that guy could belt.

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

Listen:
Edgar Winter's White Trash - I've Got News For You mp3 at Kellworth (?) LaCroix, lead vocal
Edgar Winter's White Trash - Let's Get It On (streaming) at YouTube Ditto

YOU SHOULD HAVE THIS

Over at Facebook a friend dragged me into a thing where you post the cover of one of your top ten favorite LPs every day for ten days. The catch is that they have to still be in your regular rotation. Today was day three and it was the LP above, the only good Modern Lovers LP. The best stuff on it was produced by John Cale. Here's two of them.

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

Listen:
Modern Lovers - She Cracked mp3 at The Rising Storm
Modern Lovers - Pablo Picasso mp3 at Sutros (?)

THE UTILITY GUY

Ry Cooder is so all over the place, it's hard to figure out where to begin. He's played with everybody. His first band, the Rising Sons, included Taj Majal and Ed Cassidy. He was playing with Captain Beefheart by the time he was twenty. He went on to play with the Stones, Van Morrison, Neil Young, Eric Clapton, Randy Newman, David Lindley, The Chieftains, the Buena Vista Social Club, Ali Farka Touré. I think Flaco Jimenez is in there someplace too. He does his own solo stuff too. 

My sister used to have one of his albums, Boomer's Story, but I don't remember her ever listing to it. The first time I really heard him, and knew it was him, was on the budget LP Jamming With Edward. Recorded during the Let It Bleed LP sessions but released after Sticky Fingers and before Exile. The band is Bill Wyman, Charlie Watts, Mick Jagger, Nicky Hopkins and Cooder. It's jams they had while waiting for Keith Richards to return to the studio. Cooder's slide is all over it. Shortly after that I heard Cooder again, with Jagger, on "Memo From Turner" from the soundtrack of the film Performance. Then he started popping up all over the damn place.

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

Listen:
Jamming With Edward - Blow With Ry (streaming) at YouTube Cooder, Charlie Watts, Bill Wyman, Mick Jagger, Nicky Hopkins
Mick Jagger with Ry Cooder - Memo From Turner mp3 at ATumblr (?) From Performance OST
Ry Cooder w/Jim Keltner, Ice T and Ice Cude - King of the Street mp3 at Drummer World WTF
Ry Cooder - Down In Hollywood mp3 at Pierre Cabel (?)
Ry Cooder and Ali Farka Touré - [Title unknown] mp3 at H Chicha (?)

INDEPENDENT GEORGE WILL CEASE TO EXIST

I don't know if you own any of the Nuggets box sets (Nuggets, Nuggets II, Children of Nuggets) but they're pretty decent cross sections. The first set, Nuggets, was American garage era, Nuggets II centers on the UK and "beyond". Children of Nuggets is garage bands and the paisley underground type stuff from the eighties. The four below are from Nuggets II.

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

Listen:
The Slaves - Slaves Time mp3 at Internet Archive
The Downliners Sect - Glendora mp3 at Internet Archive
The Pretty Things - Rosalyn mp3 at Internet Archive
The Missing Links - You're Driving Me Insane mp3 at Internet Archive

THE HASIL ADKINS RESET BUTTON

A couple friends dropped by tonight, so I'm a little low on time. Here's a quickie Haze break. Hasil Adkins should need no introduction around here. I would hope most of you are familiar with "No More Hot Dogs". If not, look him up. He was a good ol' fashioned primitive hillbilly nutcase.

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

Listen:
Hasil Askins - No More Hot Dogs mp3 at David Garlitz (>)
Hasil Adkins - Waitin' For the Graveyard mp3 at Beware of the Blog

FROM THE LAND OF LUX AND IVY'S FAVORITES

I really don't know what to think of Jack Scott. He's the guy that did the original version of "The Way I Walk" (later covered by the Cramps and Robert Gordon). That's a wicked song, and he has other wicked songs. Some decent rockers too. He's got the Jody Reynolds "She's My Witch" vibe thing going on some of his stuff too. His only demerit for me is the sometimes cheesy, often unneeded, background vocals. The whole package though is a net mega-plus.

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

Listen:
Jack Scott - The Way I Walk mp3 at Internet Archive
Jack Scott - Baby, She's Gone mp3 at Internet Archive
Jack Scott - Bella mp3 at Internet Archive
Robert Gordon w/Link Wray - The Way I Walk (streaming) at YouTube
The Cramps - The Way I Walk (streaming) at YouTube
Video:
The Cramps - The Way I Walk (live) at YouTube California State Mental Hospital in Napa, CA 1978

THAT WENT BY FAST

I heard the Breeders' "Cannonball" today, for the first time in ages. It still sounds good, not really dated at all unless you remember it from back in the day. Further back than I remembered it being. Shit, it's been twenty five years.

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

Listen:
The Breeders - Cannonball mp3 at Snuhthing Anything
The Breeders - Cannonball (Live, 2008) mp3 at Bradcast
Video:
The Breeders - Cannonball (John Stewart Show) at YouTube

DON AND DEWEY VS SHIT WEEK TWO

It wasn't quite Shit Week II, but it might as well have been. Just before my, er, "event", San Diego suffered the loss of two true believers from back in the day. Frank Gutch, the owner of one of the very few independent record stores, and Kit Johnson, a super fan turned front woman of her own band, Pharmacy. Then, the day after returning home, word came that Tony Kinman, bassist and co-lead vocalist of the Dils, Rank and File, Blackbird and Cowboy Nation, passed from cancer. Kinman was from Carlsbad, just about forty miles from here and the Dils were one of the first punk bands to play in San Diego. The very first punk show to be exact, a show that was organized at meetings at Gutch's store, and attended by Kit who was scene fixture from day one. All that shit tied together, with my own near miss, made for a very personal Shit Week II. I'll probably touch on all three in the coming days, but it's too much to cover in one post. Right now I just want to fucking wig out and listen to some favorites, you know, chicken soup shit. Don and Dewey were posted just a few months ago but, fuck it, they fit that bill handily.

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

Listen:
Don and Dewey - Jungle Hop mp3 at The Adios Lounge
Don and Dewey - Justine mp3 at Diddy Wah
Don and Dewey - Bim Bam mp3 at Diddy Wah
Don and Dewey - Farmer John mp3 at Rock Town Hall

MONK TO THE RESCUE

You may have noticed the lack of updates for the past couple weeks. Out of nowhere I had a leak in the engine room. It started as a bad headache, really bad headache, and within three hours I was in intensive care, official diagnosis: nontraumatic subarachnoid hemorrhage. Basically, bleeding in the brain that didn't kill me. So I was on my back in the hospital for a week, doped to the gills, with another week before I could resume to semi-normal activities.

They had me so sedated that it wasn't until about the third or fourth day that I realized that I hadn't heard a lick of music since entering the hospital. When a nurse came in to check my vitals (this happened every hour or so) I asked why there wasn't any music in the hospital. She said that most people who wanted to hear music in their room just used the keyboard and accessed YouTube through their TV. No one had told me that there was a keyboard in the room, not that I was in the condition to fuck around online. It hurt my head to even watch TV. But now, armed with the keyboard, the first thing that came to mind that would sooth me was one of Stan Getz's Brasil/bossa nova type things. Dude had at least four LPs of that type of stuff. I just needed something to doze to. Click.

For days, whenever my pain medications started to wear off my head would feel like it exploded. This would wake me from my Getz la-la land. Luckily, it was time for the nurse to check my vitals again because she would also ask me what my pain level was, on a scale of one to ten. On this particular occasion it was about a six or seven. The nurse gave me a shot of morphine, straight into the vein, no drip bag. I could feel the relaxation creep up my arm and take over my entire body, right when the YouTube playlist that had been playing Getz clicked over to Thelonious Monk's Monk's Dream. Folks, this was a match made in heaven, morphine and Monk. It was the first time I was able to ignore all the shit that had happened. Needless to say, my pain level would be about a six or seven again before I left the hospital, and I listened to Monk every time.

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

Listen:
Thelonious Monk - Caravan mp3 at In Bed With Dactylo
Thelonious Monk Quartety w/John Coltrane - Epistrophy mp3 at Petit Family
Thelonious Monk - Work mp3 at Pixie Radio
The LP that saved the day:
Thelonious Monk - Monk's Dream (streaming) at YouTube

YO, CHECKIN' IN.

I didn't forget about you. A whole lotta shit has happened in the past week or so. Long story short, I ended up in the hospital for five days and am still recovering at home. My screen time is to remain limited, scaling back up as the days progress.  I'm OK, just have to recover physically from laying around for five days straight. My muscle tissue is basically saying: "Fuck off, you ignored us for five days straight." The top half of my body is saying, "Hey we're cool, we want to move around again anyway" but the thighs and calves are being total bitches.

Here's a song I may have posted before. Whatever. I'm really just posting to let you know what's been going on. I'll be banging on all cylinders sooner than you want me to be.

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

Listen:
The Art Blakey Percussion Ensemble - The Sacrifice mp3 at Internet Archive