GET TO WORK YOU LAZY POSEURS

I've just finished reading Jon Savage's The England's Dreaming Tapes for the second time. It consists of the interviews he conducted for his earlier book England's Dreaming, an overview of the English punk scene. There's a shitload of take-aways in it, as far as common pre-punk tastes (Roxy Music, Bowie, Mott the Hoople, the Stooges, and the MC5), what gigs they went to, when they first became acquainted with the Sex Pistols, the impact of the Pistols, and so on. Everyone saying that the pre-Nancy Sid Vicious was really nice, surprisingly smart, and funny. I haven't read the book that the interviews were conducted for, but this follow up is deep, I can't imagine the earlier book adding all that much.

I haven't listened to punk rock all that much in recent years because I've listened to all of the seminal stuff so much I'd practically memorized much of it. You can debate all that you want about whether or not "punk is dead", but to me much of what has been labeled punk rock in the last thirty years is derivative, just banging out three chords and showing an angry face. All the mosh pit and stage diving nonsense, everybody's seems to forget the part about thinking for yourself and debasing what came before. Well intended or not, most of it seems disingenuous. Punk rock is decidedly dead. The spirit of punk is not, but you'll have to look elsewhere for it (the first thing that comes to mind is the lone protester standing in front of the tanks in Tiananmen Square. Oh, and the Pussy Riot thing).

In the midst of reading the book I did some poking around online and while looking for the current status of Jamie Reid, the situationist pal of Malcolm McLaren who did all of the Sex Pistols graphics, I ran into his semi-recent revisit of the original "God Save the Queen" graphic, this time around with Trump the target. It got me to thinking that if punk rock did truly still exist, shouldn't there be an anti-Trump anthem by now? There may very well have been an attempt, but if I haven't heard of it, the splash wasn't big enough. You can't leave all that to Uncle Neil. I mean, jeez, show us what you're made of.

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Listen:
The Sex Pistols - God Save the Queen mp3 at Marty Sport (?)
The Clash - I'm So Bored With the USA mp3 at Review Stalker
The Buzzcocks - Boredom mp3 at Inside Pulse (?)
The Damned - Neat, Neat, Neat at Jorge Farah (?)
Plaster these around the hood:
God Save the USA - Jamie Reid, high resolution version of above
God Save President Trump, God Save Us All, alternate version  

LET'S TALK, MAD MAN.

Me, after a trip in a time machine to 1958. Location: The office of East West Records. Addressing Mad Man Taylor:

Dude, if you haven't the imagination to come up with better lyrics, or come up with less derivative themes, you'll be seen as a bandwagon jumpin' opportunist. Don't you know that using "rock 'n' roll" repeatedly in your lyrics is so '57? Dude, you're late, and you come off as a disingenuous poseur. Sorry to say, because you quite definitely rock something.

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Listen:
Mad Man Taylor - Rock 'n' Roll Espanole mp3 at Internet Archive
Mad Man Taylor - Rumble Tumble mp3 at Internet Archive

PHIL'S LEGACY IS IN GOOGLE HELL.

I got stung by a stingray again today. That's three times in the space of five days. I'm about ready to go get some steel cleats and shin guards, and go stomp some stingray ass. Slimey ass creatures.

After it happened while soaking my foot, I tried to keep songs out of my head. Particularly because the first that came to mind, "Oops! I Did It Again" didn't bode well. What the fuck? As soon as I excluded song titles, the first stingray related thing that came to mind was Johnny Stingray, the former guitarist of the Controllers. So here's a Controllers song, a sturdy early L.A. punk slab. And one each from the Eyes and the Skulls as well. This is period perfect, Masque-era, 1978.

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Listen:
What Records Comp. E.P. 7″ - The Controllers, the Eyes and the Skulls (three mp3s) at Killed By Death

A WHITE BOY WHAT?

I think everybody knows that Elvis Presley's first record was a cover of Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup's "That's All Right". Maybe not. Even if most of you did know that, how many have actually heard Crudup's original? I didn't hear it until long after hearing Elvis's cover.  It was on my list for years, the frustration compounded by wanting to hear the original of "My Baby Left Me", a song of his covered by Creedence as well as Elvis. But nothing. Squat. There was no internet, and the demand for Crudup's work was not sufficient enough for even the blues bins. You kids have it so easy when it comes to finding music. Why do you concentrate on recent crap? Oh yeah, before I forget, get the fuck off the lawn.

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

Listen:
Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup - That's All Right mp3 at Internet Archive 1946
Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup - That's All Right mp3 at Internet Archive 1962
Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup - My Baby Left Me (streaming) at YouTube 1950
Elvis Presley - That's All Right (streaming) at YouTube 1954
Creedence Clearwater Revival - My Baby Left Me mp3 at Adios Lounge 1970

HOWDY FROM THE BACK OF THE STACK

Fuck, I'm lame. Ever go walking around with nothing but disdain for people that cherry pick LPs and don't listen to them in their entirety? Not that many LPs before the late sixties were actually conceived as a full albums, rather a handful of recent singles with some filler B material, but still, to know a band is to know more than the hits, the "deep cuts". So I'm an asshole. I believe all of that, yet I still came across a Mitch Ryder song, "I Got It Made", that I don't remember ever hearing, despite having owned the LP it's from for well over twenty years. It could be that I never really listened to it closely enough to hear the battle of the honking saxes, because once you've noticed the sax interplay in in, you cannot un-hear it. Check it out, an :57 right after the second verse and sporadically through the second half of the song. How the hell could I have not noticed that? There is only one answer. Guilty as charged: cherry picker.

Thankfully, "Sock It to Me Baby!" never suffered that fate. Had that one on a  45 with a picture sleeve, courtesy of the thrift store that used to be on Market Street, just past Thirteenth (records in the back room to the left). Funny, the shit you remember.

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Listen:
Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels - I Had It Made mp3 at Groove Addict
Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels - Sock It to Me Baby! mp3 ATumblr (?)

TRUST ME, THEY LOOK LIKE DORKS

Songs will return when they do, at the oddest moment a song that you forgot about. Today for instance, I got stung by two stingrays, within minutes. Twice. If you know how painful one stingray sting can be, multiply it by two. Fucking ouch is right. And for some stupid reason, "Double Shot (of My Babies Love)" by the Swinging Medallions started going through my head. Probably the "double shot" part, there was no baby or love involved. Okay, too much pain right now, I'll go with that one.

The song has the sound of a band playing at a party, which I'm sure was just a bunch of assorted people in the studio, but it does lend itself to imagining a not-quite frat house band, not quite garage, but a good time nonetheless. Too bad it doesn't work as a pain killer.

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Listen:
The Swingin' Medallions - Double Shot (of My Baby's Love) mp3 at ATumblr

IF YOU CAN'T WIN, CHANGE THE GAME

In the early to mid-sixties, American bands had to compete with the British Invasion. Around 1966 they threw in the towel, as if Rubber Soul convinced them to just be their simple three chord selves. Snotty vocals, fuzz, a little organ and an air of arrogance. Two and a half minutes on plastic. Done. Not rocket science here.

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Listen:
The 13th Floor Elevators - You're Gonna Miss Me mp3 at Internet Archive
The Standells - Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White mp3 at Internet Archive
Love - My Little Red Book mp3 at Internet Archive
The Barbarians - Are You A Boy or Are You a Girl mp3 at Internet Archive
Syndicate of Sound - Hey Little Girl mp3 at Internet Archive
Count Five - Psychotic Reaction mp3 at Internet Archive

COULD'VE BEEN THE SUITS.

Doinking around with old random bookmarks again, ran into a few of the Jam. Haven't heard them in ages. After their second LP I lost interest and never really went back. They've been in the back of the stack for years so if there was ever a chance to hear them objectively it would be now. But no. Something about them bugs me still and I can't peg it. Might be the way they tried to distance themselves from punk rock, or something like that.

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Listen:
The Jam - Art School mp3 at Internet Archive
The Jam - Slow Down mp3 at Internet Archive
The Jam - In the City mp3 at Internet Archive

SONG THE NOMADIC HIPPIE TAUGHT ME

I was down at the beach today, shooting the shit with a guy who lives in a converted school bus ("Adam, like the first fuck up" is how he introduced himself a while back). Nice guy, and a good talker, with an opinion about everything. Today there was another converted school bus parked by his, and it was his buddy's, the guy lounging on the grass doing some sort of art project. That guy had a speaker thing hooked up to his phone. I was drawn by Otis Redding's "Dock of the Bay", a song I wouldn't expect to be on the playlist of some long hair with those Frisbee things in his ears. As I was talking to the first fuck up, the next song was Al Green's "Tired of Being Alone". At this point I'm paying more attention to the playlist than the conversation.

The next song was "He Was Really Saying Something" by the Velvelettes. Well shut my mouth, I never realized that Bananarama's "Really Saying Something" was a cover. I shouldn't be surprised because Bananarama did a ton of covers, and it's been so long since I listened to them, or even thought about them, I'll give myself a pass. Full disclosure: I liked them for about a year or so back in the eighties. I gotta admit, I thought they were cool looking gals, I mean, look at them. Pretty, yes, but not the sort of band you're going to latch onto for years to come.

They did pick some good covers. When I went searching for the Velvelette's original, I found that Bananarama's first 45, "Aie a Mwana" was a cover as well. Theirs seems to be based not on the original by Le Monde fabuleux des Yamasuki, but another cover by Black Blood. Ah, Black Blood, never heard of 'em, but the live video of them at YouTube has me going in an entirely different direction. Time to cut out before this turns into one of those all night webs of distraction. I'll report back.

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Listen:
Bananarama - Really Saying Something mp3 at ATumblr (?)
Bananarama - Aie a Mwana mp3 at Narod.ru (?) Note: Russian site, phasers on stun.
Bananarama - No Feelings mp3 at Narod.ru (?) Sex Pistols cover. Ditto above warning.
Video:
Black Blood - Aie a Mwana at YouTube

LOOK WHAT THEY DONE TO MY SONG MA

I'm not sure exactly when it happened, probably around the late sixties. Prior to that, early rock 'n' roll bands covered older songs, but it was basically just different ways of interpreting them. But as soon as big amps started showing up, rather than interpreting songs in a different way, it seems it was all about destroying the songs. Not necessarily with bad intent, just a louder, more amplified way. And a lot of people first heard old blues or jazz songs through whoever the guitar hero of the day was, which could be said to be a good thing. There were some musicians that kind of straddled the line, that really thought they were being reverent (Johnny Winter, a blues guy at heart, comes to mind). But somewhere in there, it got loud, really loud, the covers often unrecognizable, which may have been the whole point. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't.

It hit me recently when someone posted the Who's version of Mose Allison's "Young Man Blues", which is just about the most stark example of obliterating the original that there is. Given that Allison was so laid back in his delivery, it wouldn't take much, a standard rock 'n' roll band could have done it, but the Who completely destroyed it. Yeah, Clapton, suck on that.

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Listen:
Willie Dixon - Spoonful mp3 at Le Melletron
Cream - Spoonful (streaming) at YouTube
Willie Dixon - I Just Want To Make Love to You (streaming) at YouTube
Foghat - I Just Want To Make Love to You mp3 at Internet Archive
Mississippi Fred McDowell - Good Morning Little Schoolgirl mp3 at Keep the Coffee Coming
Ten Years After - Good Morning Little Schoolgirl (live) (streaming) at YouTube
Mose Allison - Young Man Blues mp3 at Blog Noblat (?)
The Who - Young Man Blues (live) mp3 at ATumblr (?)

AND LOOK COOL DOING IT

Just this morning I was thinking that I need to go digging for some Bunny Lee stuff. After that Lee produced John Holt song a couple days, I realized that I'd never given him his due. Tonight, as shit sometimes happens, I ran smack dab into 38 song set, all produced by Lee. Good to go.

Bunny "Striker" Lee might be a second tier producer in terms of recognition, but then if you're only peripherally interested in reggae, you probably don't give a shit about producers anyway. If you're pretty into reggae you could rattle off a half dozen or so producers, and Lee would likely be among them. Let's see, Coxsone Dodd and Duke Reid, Lee Perry, and Joe Gibbs. That Chin guy. More come to you when you're not trying so hard. Regardless, Lee would be up there.

The collection of songs is great, a lot of heavy hitters: Alton Ellis, U Roy, Nora Dean, Slim Smith, Pat Kelly, Delroy Wilson, and on and on. This is golden era shit, late sixties to mid seventies, and not overly familiar; a winning combo.

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Listen:
Producer Series: The Cool Operator Bunny Lee at Underground Uncovered 38 mp3s in a zip. NOTE: Click on "The Man!" at the end of the text, right above the song list.
Visit:
The LargeUp Interview: Bunny “Striker” Lee at Large Up
Bunny Striker Lee - Bio at Reggaeville

WILLIE TEE. I DIDN'T KNOW EITHER.

Man, I love it when this happens. Going through old bookmarks, I ended up on a post from 2009 on Soul Garage. Willie Tee. Never heard of him. After checking "Sweet Thing", it became apparent that despite my lack of familiarity and the budget look of the 45, this was a guy who should have been a household name. "Sweet Thing" sounds an awful lot like the Norman Whitfield produced psychedelic soul-era Temptations, but with one singer instead of five. Actually, he sounds like Marvin Gaye being produced by Whitfield. Whatever, it's great, and remarkable in that it was on what appears to be a self financed label, Gatur Records. Tee, as it turns out, was in two New Orleads bands, the Wild Magnolias and the Gaturs. I'm gonna go out on a limb here and assume that, if he was the singer in the Gaturs, and the record was on Gatur Records, it was probably the Gaturs backing him.

Off to YouTube, to check out these Gaturs. Click. Oh holy hell, I'm gonna OD on gaturs. The first song I hear is "Gatur Bait". Here I go, careening into a black hole of Gatur all up in your face. And this is how you lose an evening. And lengthen the list.

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Listen:
Willie Tee - Sweet Thing mp3 at Soul Garage
The Gaturs - Gatur Bait (streaming) at YouTube
Willie Tee - Man That I Am mp3 at Soul Garage Go there to get it.

PART TIME COVER

I ran into a John Holt cover of "Bring It On Home". It was good, but exactly the way you'd imagine him covering it. No surprises. He's done a shit ton of covers over the years and some hit the spot, some seem like he's just going through the paces. So, that cover just made me want to dig for a non-cover. I happened on "Riding For a Fall". Holy shit, insanely cool horns, a prominent trombone and flute. A Bunny Lee joint, yo. I'd never heard it before tonight and after listening to it a few times, it has me not wanting to be in front of a computer. I'll post some more Holt soon.

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Listen:
John Holt - Bring It On Home mp3 at Kazo
John Holt - Riding For a Fall mp3 at ATumblr (?)

THE LURE OF THE THROWAWAY INSTRUMENTAL

Like most people who bought records at thrift stores in the golden age of pre-ebay thrifting, before everything got picked over, I accumulated a bunch of cheap 45s of bands I've never heard of. Most were bought for one of two reasons. The name of the band or the title of the song. It was usually the song title, and there's a higher percentage of instrumental records with good song titles than there are with non-instrumentals. Two reasons: one is that, because there are no lyrics, you can name the song virtually anything. You can go with the obvious, or something way out, or dark. The possibilities are endless. And the other reason that instrumentals have to have a good name is because it has to be memorable, there are no lyrics that repeat the title. That title better be badass and the tune itself better back it up. So, yeah, a bunch of instrumentals are socked away in the hall closet of curiosities. 

I really didn't play them with any regularity after a while. My brother was about the only person I knew who appreciated the oddballness of them like I did, and since he passed away in '97, I haven't dug them out very often. As my trips to the thrift stores dwindled, so did the serendipitous scores. They slowly drifted to the back of the stack, and that's where the genre stayed for me, for a good ten years. Then came a chance visit to a graphic designer's website. Patrick Broderick's Rotodesign used to have a song playing in the background, an oddball instrumental that I found myself going back to his site to listen to. At one point I found it silly to go to a website just to hear a song, so I sent him an email asking what the song was. The answer, "Panic Button" by Edgar Alan and the Po' Boys. There you go, an attractive title right there. Turned out that Broderick had found it on one of the Las Vegas Grind compilations. Talk about a can of worms. That series is oddball instrumental gold. My interest was back. Soon fortified by a surge in "(fill in the blank) shakers" interest on blogs, particularly the great Beware of the Blog and Rock 'n' Soul Ichiban, both products of WFMU in New York. In the ensuing years, I've found the oddball instrumental pot is bottomless. You will never come close to hearing even half of them. It seems that every group with four or more members was on that bandwagon in the fifties and early sixties. They were simple, easy, and cheap to record. Hell, as much as I like them, they're not Mozart. Any seventeen year old kid could play them, and most did. They served as entry level records for young recording artists as well as cash-ins for lounge bands that would never get their full due, and studio musicians looking for a quick novelty buck.

Rock 'n' Soul Ichiban is still riding on the "Instrumental 45 of the Week" series, and that's where I go if I need a fix, which I do, at least once a week.

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

Listen:
Edgar Alan and the Po' Boys - Panic Button mp3 at Probe is Turning-On the People
The Jaguars - Drive-In mp3 at Plastik Props
The Gee Cees - Buzzsaw Twist mp3 at Rocky 52 Glen Campbell '61
More:
Instrumental 45 of the Week at Rock 'n' Soul Ichiban 
Las Vegas Grind (streaming) at YouTube
Las Vegas Grind, Vol 2 (streaming) at YouTube
Las Vegas Grind, Vol 3 (streaming) at YouTube
Las Vegas Grind, Vol 4 (streaming) at YouTube

HOWDY FROM THE HELL AWAY FROM HERE

Okay, first off, you've no doubt noticed that fantastic album cover above. Simple, no over-designed nonsense. Inoffensive font, nice color contrast with a beautiful woman to boot. Hell yes I clicked.

Akova Akoussah's "I Tcho Tchass" is awesome. Dreamy, smokey, like a torch singer. The vocals are in a language I don't understand which only adds to the song being beyond a song, or really maybe the whole point of song. This thing, this ethereal blob.

After that, a completely different band, Les Ambassadeurs Du Motel De Bamako (above), every bit as evening changing. After listening to it their "M’bouram Mousso", I kept playing it, three times in a row, to try and figure out why I liked music like theirs. Yes, it's remotely like Fela, African music that jams and has an unusual assortment of instruments, but why do I like Fela? It's because music like that takes me out of here, away from all sorts of toxic American shit, away from work, bills, cleaning the toilet. When I listen to music like that, I'm in some sort of place-less orb. Ain't nothing wrong with that.

The hosting site, Aquarium Drunkard posted these two songs, and a handful of others. They discourage direct linking to the mp3s, but if you go there, you can click on the song titles to get them. The post is about Akoussah and Sonafric Records and it is a worthy exit.

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Listen:
Akova Akoussah - Sonafric Records at Aquarium Drunkard Eight assorted songs from the Sonafric Records label. Go there to get them. Don't forget the Les Ambassadeurs Du Motel De Bamako cut.

THE HALF ASSED CLASSIC

Forty years after the a band's peak, you should start to get a feel of what their legacy will shake out to be. Some of them anyway. Some are murky. The Hearbreakers are one of those murky bands. Hard to imagine what these would sound like for the first time if you knew nothing of the band. Me? Love 'em. Stupid rock 'n' roll, who cares sloppy, in an attitude cul-de-sac.

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Listen:
The Heartbreakers - Chinese Rocks mp3 at Killed By Death
The Heartbreakers - One Track Mind mp3 at ATumblr
The Heartbreakers - Baby Talk mp3 at The Adios Lounge
The Heartbreakers - Get Off the Phone mp3 at ATumblr
The Heartbreakers - Let Go mp3 at ATumblr

THE "WHO FARTED?" PROMO SHOT

Here's a few oddballs from the Yardbirds. Not sure if it's Jimmy Page or Jeff Beck or both on guitar on these and I'm not going to wager a guess. I'm too lazy to look it up. Personally, I don't care. It's the Yardbirds and whoever's playing guitar bears part of the blame for turning electric blues into Blues Hammer. The Stones hadn't even turned it into some guitar hero wacking off "look at me" sort of shit, at least not at that point. All that griping done, I do like these. That they are blues based notwithstanding, they do provide a certain crunch.

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Listen:
Yardbirds - Rack My Mind mp3 at ATumblr (?)
Yardbirds - New York City Blues mp3 at ATumblr (?)
Yardbirds - Psycho Daisies mp3 at ATumblr (?)
Yardbirds - I'm a Man mp3 at ATumblr (?)

SWITCHED ON RA

I was already in the mood for something like "I don't give a shit tonight. I'll just paste something on the screen and let them figure it out." And then I ran into an early use of the Minimoog by Mr. Out There himself, Sun Ra. That led to more Sun Ra and now I'm trying to figure it out.

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Listen:
Sun Ra - Seen III Took 4 mp3 at Rising Storm 1970 Sun Ra discovers the synthesizer
Sun Ra - Music From the World Tomorrow mp3 at Rock Town Hall 1956
Sun Ra - Angels and Devils at Play mp3 at Rock Town Hall 1956

ON THE FIVE YEAR ROTATION

I'd forgotten all about Romeo Void. They pop up into my head every five years or so, and it's almost always the line "I might like you better if we slept together" from "Never Say Never". I used to always lump that record in with new wave, but in hindsight it's probably because people hadn't started throwing around the post-punk category. Love the scratchy guitar and the sax on this one, that sax sounding like Andy Mackay (Roxy Music) meets Jak Airport (X Ray Spex). Good stuff.

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Listen:
Romeo Void - Never Say Never mp3 at ATumblr (?)
Video:
Romeo Void - Never Say Never at YouTube Tell the sax player not to smile. That bugs me.

NEVER HEARD OF THEM. OH HELL YEAH.

A random click with little to go on other than it was current jazz and it was on Impulse. It could have gone either way, but this was good one, one of those totally random clicks that turns into "Whoa! What is this?!" In this case it was The Sons of Kemet's "My Queen Is Angela Davis". I don't know enough about jazz to really describe this song accurately in those terms. I will say this, it reminds me of Sun Ra but it's leaner (two drummers, a sax and a tuba) and harder. Totally crazy in parts.

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Listen:
Sons of Kemet - My Queen Is Angela Davis mp3 at For the Sake of the Song Go there to get it.
Video:
Sons of Kemet - My Queen Is Angela Davis (live) at YouTube