Friday, September 28, 2018

HOWLIN' WHO?

This sort of shit happens all the time. Ever since I first heard it on a garage compilation about ten years ago, I've played the shit out of the Groupies "Down In the Bottom". And, as I've done periodically for, shit, years, I was just looking for an mp3 of it last night. I didn't find it but, what the hell are the chances, I ran into Howlin' Wolf's original version today. (It was written by Willie Dixon, but the Wolf was the first to record it.) I hadn't heard it, or even thought of it, in years. Like I said, what are the chances?

But, back to the Groupies. They're the guys that brought you "Primitive", the song the Cramps taught us. The Groupies had but one 45 when they existed, "Primitive" backed with "Hog (I'm A Hog For You Baby)" That was it. They didn't exactly endear themselves to Atlantic Records head honcho Ahmet Ertegun. This is a good stuff (from The Great Hollywood Hangover):

"Everybody, including Ahmet, figured they had a big career ahead, but the Groupies kept screwing up. One of the worst screw-ups, was when they were scheduled for a concert appearance in Philadelphia.  The Groupies cashed in the plane tickets and flew to Los Angeles instead. That may have been the straw that broke Ahmet's backing. The Groupies, however, were only sixteen and seventeen years old, and had no handle on responsibility." Classic.

What I like about their version, or at least what attracted me to it, was the combination of snotty vocals and ratty ass, practically entry level, slide guitar. The singer's grunts and such, vocal swagger. The fact that it was a remote recording, by a fan with remarkably good equipment, of them playing live on some L.A. area beach (likely at some local radio station beach party. It was the mid-sixties) makes it better. And that it didn't see release until four decades after it was recorded makes it even better. Great, in fact. Great enough to continue trying to find a download-able version for you guys year after year. To no avail. Fuck it, here's Howlin' Wolf's.

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~
Listen:
Howlin' Wolf - Down In the Bottom mp3 at Internet Archive
The Groupies - Down In the Bottom
(streaming) at YouTube
The Groupies - Primitive
(streaming) at YouTube
The Groupies - Hog (I'm A Hog For You Baby)
(streaming) at YouTube

Wednesday, September 26, 2018

FACT: IT WON'T KILL YOU TO SMILE

Holly Cook is playing for free this weekend, at a street fair a few miles from here. Playing the day before: the Schitzophonics, Deke Dickerson, the Loons. Definitely worth seeing too. Weighing my options. Who else is playing on Sunday? Do I need to look? I mean, I like Holly Cook. Good, clean, modern reggae fun. Her records are a little too clean for me, production-wise, but maybe she's a little grittier live. Okay, so who else is playing? Oh, shit, it's the Sure Fire Soul Ensemble! A local outfit I'd completely forgotten about! I don't even remember where I've heard them but it's been a while. From their Bandcamp page: "They draw influence from the masters of the style from the past and modern day, including: Quincy Jones, Jimmy McGriff, Mulatu Astatke, Isaac Hayes, and The Poets of Rhythm." Shit, why go any further?

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~
Listen:
Holly Cook - Remember (Walking In the Sand) mp3 at 13th Floor Office
Holly Cook - You Know I'm No Good mp3
at ATumblr (?)
The Sure Fire Soul Ensemble - Out On The Coast (Full LP)
(streaming) at YouTube

Tuesday, September 25, 2018

SLY AND WHO?

If you were going to press me, I don't know if I could properly tell you why I like ESG. Quite honestly, part of the reason is that if you described them on paper, I'd probably not have the slightest interest. Wait. Nevermind. That's how I first heard of them, on paper, pre-pixel paper, an issue of New York Rocker to be exact, way back in the day. I bought their first EP on the strength of a review and didn't exactly go apeshit over it, but over the years I've returned to it, and subsequent ESG records, over and over again because when you want to hear something like ESG, you're not going to find it anywhere else. I wish I could remember what the review said because if I did, I could paraphrase it, but instead all I can come up with is that "nothing sounds like ESG". Pfft.

The best description might be stripped down funk, in the way Sly and Robbie playing together without any additional instruments is stripped down reggae. I saw that once, at a Black Uhuru show, everyone left the stage one by one until it was just the two of them. People were still dancing. Then Sly Dunbar left and it was just Robbie Shakespeare. Musically naked. Bass bones. And people were still dancing. I can see where this is going.

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~
Listen:
ESG - Erase You mp3 at Atumblr (?)
ESG - Moody mp3
at Ozgood
ESG - Earn It (live) mp3
at Beware of the Blog
ESG - Dance mp3
at Self Titled
ESG - You're No Good mp3
at Nevver Go there to get it

Sunday, September 23, 2018

"COOL RULER" FOR A REASON

It doesn't happen that often, hearing music, music that I like enough to own, in a public setting. Not a club, a record store or a friend's house, but just going about my business somewhere. That's the reason, as my recent posts about Sister Nancy and Althea and Donna attest, that I wig out. And it's happened again. I was making a regular stop in the corner market picking up a bottled water on my way to the beach. The market, curiously called Newport Farms despite the fact that they carry no produce whatsoever, has been a regular stop for years. It's owned and staffed by guys from the Middle East, I forget the actual country, Iraq or Iran I think. They sell alcohol, sodas, snacks and smokes. Not even a proper corner market really, unless having packaged snacks and toilet paper make you a corner market. So I walk in and there's Gregory Isaacs blaring away. This was a real life, honest to goodness, what-the-fuck moment. So I ask whose playlist it is, expecting it to be the younger guy behind the counter. Lo and fucking behold, the selector was the older guy, someone who I've seen, talked with, and bought crap food and water from for years. The dude is probably in his forties or fifties, from the Middle East and not at all what one would expect a person cognizant of Gregory Isaacs to look like. What is going on here? I didn't want to ask any questions. When any possible scenario would be pleasantly unlikely, I'd rather walk away imagining the least likely. Count my winnings. But it was a comforting few minutes, like we shared something. a thread of a wavelength, even if only an appreciation of one of the smoothest singers in the history of reggae. Isaacs was the shit.

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~
Listen:
Gregory Isaacs - Poor and Clean mp3 at Kazo's Wailers Discography
Gregory Isaacs - Let's Dance  mp3
at Kazo's Wailers Discography
Dirty Harry and The All Stars - [Let's Dance] Version mp3
at Kazo's Wailers Discography
Gregory Isaacs - Night Nurse mp3
at Earmilk

Saturday, September 22, 2018

HOW BIG WAS THE FISH JOE?

Ahh, that fertile period when rhythm and blues was being pilfered for rock 'n' roll. How many early rockers gave proper credit to the original artists? How many introduced a song "Now were gonna do a song from a record by Tiny Bradshaw, who really is sumpin', you should check him out."? Uh, none. Or even "Paul here is going to knock it out with a killer guitar tone which is really the thing that makes it all okay for you crazy white kids to get off on it" for that matter? Too busy counting their cover version semi-ill gotten gains, touring and combing their goddamn duck tails, shit, and getting laid. The injustice.

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~
Listen:
Tiny Bradshaw - Train Kept A Rollin' mp3 at Internet Archive
Big Joe Turner - Shake Rattle and Roll mp3 at Internet Archive
Big Mama Thornton - Hound Dog mp3 at Internet Archive
Wynonie Harris - Good Rockin' Tonight mp3 at Internet Archive

Wednesday, September 19, 2018

PICASSO NEVER POSTED REGGAE

I'm pretty sure that most of you just tolerate the reggae posts here because there's stuff on other posts you might dig. If I were an asshole, I'd say tough shit. But it's not to piss you off. It's just that there might be a handful of people that would get excited about a a combination like this: Burning Spear, Coxsone Dodd, the Sound Dimension, both sides of a 45, the B side a version. I'd be lapping that shit up if I was you. That doesn't necessarily make me an asshole.

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~
Listen:
Burning Spear - Call On You mp3 at Kazo's Wailers Discography
The Sound Dimension - Call On You Version mp3
at Kazo's Wailers Discography

Tuesday, September 18, 2018

ADJECTIVES ARE A GATEWAY

Here we go. My foot just crossed the border with into get lost territory. Starting innocently enough, taking a dive into Soul Safari's Ethiopia tagged posts. Who knows, maybe he'll have an Mulatu Astatke post. Then I see a post from 2010 titled Getatchew Mekuria & The Ex -Ethiopunk. Ethiopunk?? Okay then, here we go.

First it was just Getatchew Mekuria and the Ex and the song "Almaz Yeharerwa". Smoking in a Velvets plodding way. But the sax, by Getatchew Mekuria, an Ethiopian legend I'm soon to learn, is awesome. Kinda gives it a plodding Velvets meets X Ray Spex feel. Time to backtrack. How did this well known Ethiopian sax player end up playing with a Dutch band?

It's all at Soul Safari: "The Ex, from Holland, often described as an avant-ethno-improv-punk band, toured Ethiopia twice and fell in love with its music. The Ex had their 25th year anniversary party in November 2004 and they invited Getatchew to perform there with the ICP, the Instant Composers Pool, for many decades Holland’s most amazing free-improvising jazz group." Sounds good. But how did they end up recording together? The answer, again, at Soul Safari. I won't be a spoiler, let's just say it was Mekuria's idea.  He was seventy years old at the time.


So far pretty cool, but who are The Ex? They formed in 1979, and already in the first paragraph of their bio, I'm kinda liking their their methodology. From their bio: "...choosing their instruments by drawing straws to decide on who-plays-what, and start from scratch. For the first half year the group concentrates mainly on an extended hit-and-run graffiti publicity campaign, the name being chosen based on the fact that it could be sprayed on a wall in two seconds flat!." Sounds good enough for another detour.

I checked out a video of The Ex playing in Ethiopia. A small portion of the audience seems to be into them, but the dominant expression of the audience is WTF bewilderment. That set me thinking about other unusual audience juxtapositions. By the time I think of Crime playing at San Quentin and the Cramps playing at Napa State Mental Hospital, the wheels are coming off. I can feel the whole night getting pulled out from under me.

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~
Listen:
Getatchew Mekuria and the Ex - Yeharerwa mp3 at Soul Safari
Getatchew Mekuria and the Ex - Eywat Setenafegagn mp3 at Internet Archive

Getatchew Mekuria - Tezeta mp3 at Soul Safari

Sunday, September 16, 2018

WELL, LOOK WHO'S BACK.

Ah hell yeah. A band I thought was dead and gone has reunited for a new LP that I hadn't heard about, and it's actually a band I like. It's been twenty years but their sound really hasn't changed. Still analog. It's aged well. Actually it was old to begin with. I just realized what they sound like, one of those small combos that played in the jiggle clubs in the fifties, you know, the honking ba-boom-ba-ba-boom "go baby go!" stripper music. Impala sounds like a band like that, trying to play Henry Mancini. Here's some of their older stuff. The Teenage Tupelo flick is a film by Mike McCarthy that Impala did the soundtrack for. That was my first exposure to both the band and the film maker, A black hole right there.


~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~
Listen:
Impala - Epilogue mp3
at Electraphonic Recording
Impala - Night Full of Sirens mp3
at Electraphonic Recording
Impala - Rope of Sand mp3
at Electraphonic Recording
Impala - Tomb of the Tupelo Twin mp3
at Electraphonic Recording

The new one:
Impala - In the Late Hours - Promo video at Pledge Music

Friday, September 14, 2018

TONIGHTS OXYMORON: A WORKING CONGRESS

I don't know about you, but to me "My Little Red Book" has always been a Love song, as in by Love (not a lower case love song). It had meat on it. I never bothered to see who wrote it. My first exposure to it was on the original Nuggets garage compilation that Lenny Kaye put together back in the seventies. Back then Nuggets was two LPs, later expanded to a 4 CD box set in the eighties, and later joined by Nuggets II (international garage rock) and then Children of Nuggets (eighties revivalist bands). It was a fucking cottage industry once Rhino got wise to it. Then there were Pebbles compilations, Back From the Grave compilations. The shit got deep. Where was I? Oh yeah, so, given that my first exposure was that long ago, I'm not all that embarrassed to admit that I never knew it was a Burt Bacharach song. No clue. Love made it sound so tough, it never occurred to me. After running into a post at Aquarium Drunkard, I went looking. Their post had a Hammond dominated version by Robert Walter's 20th Congress. Walter (above) was somewhere in the middle of that whole Greboy All-Stars mob, which I've always had a soft spot for. T'was a time when Greyboy's All-Stars and the B-Side Players were gigging all over locally (this was the nineties) and it was a very cool scene. A break from all of the post-punk, alternative and in-your-face stuff. Who was that guy, the sax player who ended up taking over Bobby Keys's spot on a Stones tour a few years back? Oh yeah, Karl Denson, he was in one of those bands as well. The music these guys were making was somewhat smart, if only because it wasn't dumb. They appealed to your books/film side, art that didn't have to be trashy to be cool. Anyway, here's some versions of "My Little Red Book". Dig the Other Half's version. (Love who?) You can do a search for stuff by the other people I'm too lazy to search for. I'm interactive, dad, just the first step of you getting lost.

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~
Listen:
Robert Walters 20th Congress - My Little Red Book mp3 at Aquarium Drunkard Go there to get it. Three other covers as well.
Love - My Little Red Book
(streaming) at YouTube
Burt Bacharach (Tony Middleton: vocals) - My Little Red Book
(streaming) at YouTube
The Other Half - My Little Red Book mp3
at Garage Hangover TOUGH! This one is a keeper!

Thursday, September 13, 2018

GOOD SHIT MAYNARD

A band called the Flaming Souls. I don't care what they look like, what their record covers look like, where they're from or anything at all about the band. I will click, on the merit of their band name. It got my attention, just as they had hoped for five decades ago. The click paid off. It is South African soul jazz. I don't really like the term soul jazz, but that's what, I guess, this stuff is. It is good stuff, just weird enough production to let you know what the budget was and were it wasn't recorded. Think Booker T, only stoned.

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~
Listen:
The Flaming Souls - Souly Mama mp3 at Soul Safari
The Flaming Souls - Soul Again mp3
at Soul Safari
The Flaming Souls - Two more
at Soul Safari

Wednesday, September 12, 2018

WHO MADE YOU BOSS, SINGER?

I was listening to stuff from the Nuggets II boxed set and it hit me that it was about 1965-66 that guitar playing really started to change. Prior to that time, guitar playing was tasty, expert, precision and at times, primitive. But not much was aggressive, chest-beating, over-indulgent or even dangerous sounding, not en masse anyway. You had your odd Link Wray, your Paul Burlison/Grady Martin, Dick Dale or what have you, you know, ego driven maybe but not hairy. But somewhere around '64 or '65, someone pushed the Davie Allan button and fuzz and distortion spread like an infection. Guitar players started to value the whole badass thing, If your phallic instrument of choice is a guitar rather than a dainty lil microphone, it would stand to reason that your stand-in balls are bigger as well. "Give me a section in the middle of a song so I can wack off. And at least one really long song so I can have an overly long session that bores even me." You can point out any number of guitarists of note that defy my theory. There were bands that were completely wild before the mid-sxties, I know that. But it wasn't until the mid-sixties that bands like the La De Das (seen above) and the Voice got the memo.Thousands of bands like them too. Disciples of fuzz.

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~
Listen:
The La De Das - How Is the Air Up There? mp3 at Internet Archive
The Voice - The Train to Disaster mp3
at Internet Archive

Monday, September 10, 2018

THE AFTER BEACH RECORD

Ken Boothe is the type of reggae singer I like. Long career, good voice, and an ample golden age era catalog, much of it on Studio One. I happened to find the LP below a few years ago at a record store a few blocks away. Fucking store is always hit and miss. Hits were/are few and far between but just often enough that you go regularly. It's maddening. Record store roulette. But sometimes you go in at the right time (The Fabulous Wailers in the 99 cent bin anyone?). I had some Boothe previously, but only on compilations. Having this thing on vinyl only enhanced it, being able to physically put the needle on it felt like a privilege. Here's a few unrelated Boothe songs from over the years, at least a couple from Studio One.



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

Sunday, September 9, 2018

COOL PHOTO NIGHT

Clearing out the backlog. I've been meaning to post a link to the original of the photo above. An uncropped high resolution version (not the chintzy one above). It's just a great image. Try isolating or cropping any part of it and you still have something cool. I kept putting it off, because then I'd have to think about the accompanying text that goes with the photo. Or not. Fuck it, here's five from the happy household.

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~
Listen:
Ike and Tina Turner - Wake Up mp3 at Groove Addict
Ike and Tina Turner - Stagger Lee and Billy mp3
at Groove Addict
Visit:

Saturday, September 8, 2018

VELVET HILLBILLIES

I'd been meaning to repost this for a while but kept forgetting. Then I stumbled onto a post at Crying All the Way to the Chip Shop with Steve Miller's "Jet Airliner'. I remembered the Romans covered it and I was reminded. The Roman's second, a solid LP, is out of print, but one of the band members put it online. It's worth it. Here's the old post:

I ran into that fake album cover above on Pinterest a week or so ago. It's one I did for a post about the Romans, posted a year ago. Distraction prone as I am, I was off to re-visit their music and, you know what? I try to be as objective as I can, this is some hot ass shit. I do know two of the guys, but trust me on this one, you'll want this stuff. It's almost impossible to find, it's really really good. And it's guilt free, posted on a site by one of the band members.

If you're hesitant, do this. Listen to "Last Days" below. It's five minutes long. Dig the guitar interplay, take it all in. At 2:56, an extended outro begins. Guitar, then drums. Then it gets wicked sick all up in there. At 3:13, feeding back guitar and a banjo fade in at the same time, to great effect. It's a most awesome racket. And it gets noisier. It's the Velvet Underground on The Beverly Hillbillies. 

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~
Listen:
The Romans - Last Days mp3 at House of Here
The Romans - Greed, Hate and Drinking mp3 at House of Here
The Romans - You're Coming With Me mp3 at House of Here
Unreleased:
The Romans - A Wretched Son of Satan mp3 at House of Here
The whole collection:
The Romans - Last Days at the Ranch at House of Here The whole album plus 12 unreleased tracks, in individual mp3s.
Visit:
The Romans at House of Here
The Romans at Facebook
The Romans - You Only Live Once available at Warning Label Records

Friday, September 7, 2018

LODESTAR

I've got my nose in Ry Cooder's book again, reading it for the second time, trying to connect more dots. It's a series of short stories but nearly every chapter mentions some dive bar or restaurant that's mentioned in another story. There's more than a few shady characters and musicians mentioned in nearly every story. Some of the musicians actually existed, but it's hard to figure out if the scenarios he paints around them are factual or not. For instance it the chapter that mentioned Lorrie Collins (of the Collins Kids) it has her in a car with two hoods that are up to no good and a bottle of hooch. Did that really happen? Who knows?

In the story I reread yesterday, it mentions Esquerita. He was a real person, a singer in the mold of Little Richard. They actually knew each other which, given Esquerita's appearance, sometimes leads to chicken or egg debates, who influenced who. In this story he's mentioned because a shady guy needs a plastic surgeon for a sex change. A mechanic he encounters might know a guy, one who did some fine work on Esquerita. "You know what you're doing Doc. Esquerita was good work." And that's about where the mention ends. But it was enough to remind me that I haven't listened to Esquerita in a long time.

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~
Listen:
Esquerita - Hole In My Heart mp3 at Rocky 52
Esquerita - Rockin' the Joint mp3
at Rocky 52
Esquerita - Crazy Crazy Feeling mp3
at Rocky 52

Wednesday, September 5, 2018

RELIABLE CRUNCH

I'm not a completist anymore. Not of anyone or anything. Why? If there's an artist I like and they're prolific, and if I adjust my pace of consumption, there will always be something left to hear that I've never heard. What's the rush? If it goes out of print, I can usually find it again, if nothing else but a YouTube stream. I don't have a need to keep current with anyone, but I'll check every once in a while.

I was fixin' for some crunchy guitar. It's been a while since I checked in on good ol' reliable Jon Spencer. I checked the Blues Explosion page and it seems that the last thing he put out was last year. Didn't know about that one, but being a reformed completist, I am relieved of that sort of transgression. No matter, as stated above, there's plenty of Spencer's stuff I've yet to hear so I went dinking around and what is below is some of what I tracked down. One thing I did find is that some of his earlier out of print stuff with Pussy Galore is now available again, albeit digitally, on BandCamp. Good to know since I can't play my records in the car. Note to self: get Right Now and Dial M For Motherfucker before they disappear again.

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~
Listen:
Jon Spencer and the Elegant Trio - Here Come the Fuzz mp3 at ATumblr (?)
Jon Spencer Blues Explosion - Money Rock 'n' Roll mp3
at Review Stalker
Jon Spencer Blues Explosion - Dynamite Lover mp3
at Alexi Hobbs
Jon Spencer Blues Explosion - Get Your Pants Off mp3
at Vibe Right
Jon Spencer Blues Explosion - She's On It/Jack the Ripper mp3
at Plain or Pan
Jon Spencer Blues Explosion - Live set, WFMU
at Internet Archive 12 songs

Tuesday, September 4, 2018

NICE BAYOU, SWAMP MAN.

A photo of Creedence chowing down at Taco Bell, around 1967. The five item menu days. Tacos, tostadas, burritos, Bellburgers and frijoles. That's it. Pre-Enchiritos. Long before the ridiculous combinations, Aurally, there's a live version of "I Put a Spell On You" from right around that same time ((I think). I dig it. There's more distortion than there is on the record. And with that I am done for the night.

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~
Listen:
Creedence Clearwater Revival - I Put a Spell On You (live) mp3 at Internet Archive

Sunday, September 2, 2018

THE PACKAGE

I went on a mini-Barbara Lynn tear. Her name popped up somewhere and the next day I was doing a search for Barbara Franklin, and Lynn showed up again. I got to thinking about how entirely badass she was. She co-wrote "You'll Lose a Good Thing" with Huey Meaux (great producer but deeply flawed human being), and it was recorded at Cosimo Matassa's. That's the shit right there. It went to #1 on the r&b charts was a top ten Billboard Hot 100 hit in 1962. Not bad for a beginning. She played lead guitar, a rarity among female singers at the time, and wrote or co-wrote ten of the songs on her first LP. And she looked cool doing it.


This was a mini-tear because I re-visited an clip of Lynn from the television show The !!! Beat, that aired in 1966. She's doing "What I'd Say" and shares guitar duties with a young Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, then guitarist with the shows house band (link below). After that I just let the rest of the episode roll. And then another episode.  And another.

The !!! Beat was a syndicated TV show that would feature big names and regional names. All twenty six episodes aired in 1966, and a whole bunch of them are on YouTube. It's hard to resist binge watching them. I don't know about you but I get tired of screens. Bookmark them.

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