TEENAGERS ASSOCIATE THE DARNEDEST THINGS

I don't know what context or exactly when I first heard Max Roach's name. I know that it was after I knew that a roach was the butt of a joint, and that was when I was about fifteen. I know that it was after that, because I have always thought of a pot related roach (as opposed to a cockroach type) every time I've heard his name, ever. When I started listening to jazz decades later, I learned what Max Roach sounded like. Playing behind the greats, Coltrane, Miles Davis. Solid. Then I heard "Garvey's Ghost". My ears drooled. I just listened to it again last night and then came here to see if the old link still worked. It did not. So I took matters into my own hands, which isn't all that tough considering I'm the only person tending to matters here. Good news: I found another link to it. Dig it. If the link is dead by the time you get here, just go to YouTube and find it. It's that good.

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

Listen:
Max Roach (Abbey Lincoln, vocals) - Garvey's Ghost mp3 at Billy Chic Eric Dolphy's all over this one too.
John Colltrane (Max Roach, drums) - Ko Ko mp3 at Drummer World
Miles Davis (Max Roach, drums) - Move mp3 at Drummer World
Visit:
Max Roach - Profile at Drummer World Excellent bio, videos, cool photos and music.

THE NEXT GENERATION IS HERE

Right out of the gate I want to point out that I'm in no way trying to make fun of Greta Thunberg, the Swedish climate change activist. I've got nothing but respect for someone who uses what attention they get for the common good, and, hell, the good of the whole planet is about as common good as common good gets. The fact that she is only in her teens and able to mobilize kids all over the world is inspiring. Adults too are paying attention. I mean, c'mon, she has the attention of the United Nations. At this point, it should come as no surprise that the asshole who lives in the White House would feel threatened enough to post a sarcastic tweet. (She countered.)

I ran across that awesome image above by Gary Taxali and really wanted to post it here, as well as Thunberg's speech to the UN. I needed a musical tie-in. The first one I thought of was Edgar Winter's White Trash's "Save the Planet", a great gospel song from the first White Trash LP, with Jerry LaCroix singing lead and the background vocals of Tasha Thomas, Janice Bell, Carl Hull, Maeretha Stewart, Albertine Washington and Eileen Gilbert. I'm naming all of them because they make the song. Such a simple song, but just fucking awesome. (Check both versions. What the live version lacks in the chorus, it makes up for even more larynx shredding vocals towards the end.) Still, I was sitting on it until I ran into this video mash up. Thunberg's speech, tweaked to Swedish Death Metal. Done.

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

Listen:
Edgar Winter's White Trash - Save the Planet (streaming) at YouTube
Edgar Winter's White Trash - Save the Planet (Live) (streaming) at YouTube
Video:
Greta Thunberg's full speech to world leaders at UN Climate Action Summit at YouTube

DUDE WAS THE SHIT

I somehow ended up listening to a lot of Johnny Winter today, not something I often do. But after a few from his early LPs, I revisited "Trick Bag". Shit, that one by itself is worth a post. So I'll just stop here. Dig "Dallas", from his first LP on Columbia, his breakout. He was only twenty five when he recorded that. What were you doing when you were twenty five?

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

Listen:
Johnny Winter - Dallas mp3 at David Fulmer
Johnny Winter - Too Much Seconal mp3 at Tumblr
Johnny Winter - Still Alive and Well mp3 at Tumblr
Johnny Winter - Trick Bag mp3 at David Fulmer

OUTTA MY WAY. I SEE RECORDS.

If Nick Waterhouse is trying too hard, well, who the hell cares? I do. Because that's what keeps me from believing. I really want to like his music without thinking that "enough of this perfect picture retro shit". His shit's good, but, c'mon dude. Put on your play clothes. Get dirty. You do not want people thinking of Sha Na Na when they see you. A very good, very styling Sha Na Na maybe, but still. Hate to say it but you need a good bender. Not an off the deep end bender, just one of those downward pointed head shaking, "what the fuck got into me" morning afters. Of course, I shouldn't go off like that. I mean, I might have heard a dozen of his songs and seen a few of his videos. Nowhere near sufficient to rag like that. I guess what got to me was his r&b take on the Kinks' "I Can Only Give You Everything". Not the music, the video. Really trying too hard. Black and white? That's too much. Fuck, talk about nitpicking! Rag, rag, rag... and out.

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

Listen:
Nick Waterhouse - Some Place mp3 at Aurgasm
Nick Waterhouse - If You Want Trouble mp3 at Aurgasm

DAVIE ALLAN SAYS "WHAAA'?"

I wouldn't be linking to this if it wasn't one of the most comically abusive uses of fuzz I've ever heard. For the Sake of the Song, the hosting blog, is well worth digging around, so go on, get the hell out of here. I'm fixing dinner. Git!

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

Listen:
Ron Wray Light Show - Speed mp3 at For the Sake of the Song Go there to get it.

IT STARTED OUT BACK BY THE DUMPSTER

Yeah, so yesterday's post was thrown together quickly. My friends were coming over and I didn't want to sacrifice hanging out to sit in front of a computer. It turned out that the friends brought one of their friends, a guy from the Midwest that I'd never met. As often happens with these friends, talked turned to music. First it was chit chat about Thundercat (who my friend's son had turned them onto) and after I mentioned that I'd read that Thundercat was, for a few years, the bassist of Suicidal Tendencies, the talk turned to other types of music. All of a sudden, I forget the exact seque, the Midwest friend and I were talking Dirtbombs, then Mick Collins, the Gories, and by that point we were off the rails. Ty Seagull, King Khan and so on. It was great, it had been a while. One of those excitable music related volleys. Like I used to have with my brothers, lucky enough back then to get a fix daily. Good times.

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

Listen:
Dirtbombs - Chains of Love mp3 at Indie Dock Cafe
Dirtbombs - Can't Stop Thinking About It mp3 at Mr. Tambourin
Dirtbombs - Underdog mp3 at Tumblr
Dirtbombs - Sharevari mp3 at I Rock Cleveland
Ty Segall - The Drag mp3 at The Bay Bridged
Ty Segall - The Tongue mp3 at Tumblr
Ty Segall - Sad Fuzz mp3 at New York Market
Ty Segall - Wave Goodbye mp3 at Gimme Tinnittus
Ty Segall - I Bought My Eyes mp3 at Magnet
King Khan and the Shrines - Outta Harms Way mp3 at Urban Outfitters (?)
King Khan and the Shrines - Land of the Freak mp3 at Stereogum
King Khan and the Shrines - Don't Walk Away Mad mp3 at Music Alliance Pact
King Khan and the BBQ Show - Zombies mp3 at Indie Rock Cafe

NOT A PARTY 'TIL I GET THERE

A nutty album title and timeless cover art (as in unable to date design-wise), and I'm finally introduced to Thundercat, which will no doubt cause some of you to mutter "what took ya so long?" Here's the deal, I don't follow charts and I read very little about current music. There's so much good music that's been made in the past that I'll never catch up, and I really don't give a shit about being relevant to anything let alone current musical trends. Never forget, current musical trends gave us auto-tune, metal ballads, pop-punk, new wave and all sorts of total crap that followers follow. If the good shit is out there, it'll find it's way to me eventually.

In the case of Thundercat, the cover of his 2017 LP Drunk just sort of stared at me from the side bar of Discogs when I was looking for something else. The cover looked kind of seventies-ish and the name Thundercat seemed vaguely familiiar. There was a link to a video, and I bit. Good click there. "Them Changes", the music was good in a lightly funky soul way, like the album cover hard to peg in terms of when it was made. The video itself was trippy. Bang.

The more I listened to his stuff, the more he sounded like the Bill Withers meets Brian Wilson. Make that Bill Withers meets Brian Wilson and they both get stoned as shit. I don't really care what this music is classified as, it's interesting and nice to fill the air with. If it keeps my interest, why bother over analyzing it?

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

Listen:
Thundercat - Them Changes mp3 at Mix Tape Riot If the link doesn't work, go there to get it.
Thundercat - A Message for Austin / Praise the Lord / Enter the Void mp3 at Tumblr
Thundercat - Evangelion mp3 at Tumblr
Thundercat - Is It Love mp3 at Tumblr

GEEZ, HOW MANY LOFTS ARE THERE IN NY?

Been on a Richard Hell binge today. It was really more because I wanted to hear Robert Quine's playing. They were a pretty tight band but Quine kept it real.  A bunch of his solos start out almost like regular solos then go all over the place in a matter of seconds. Not because be couldn't play. On the contrary, he most definitely could play, and probably knew more about music than most of his CBGBs contemporaries. When he wigged out it was his interpretation of haywire jazz in a rock 'n' roll setting. I would love to have seen how he developed as years went on, but he OD'd in 2004 after the death of his wife. A big loss.

As long as we're on a Richard Hell tack, I thought I'd post the cover of the first issue of Substitute, a fanzine I co-edited with my long time friend Jacqui Ramirez. That's Richard Hell on the cover. To give you an idea of how things worked back then, the photo was taken by Roberta Bayley, a photographer friend of Hell's that Jacqui had contacted to ask if she had a photo we could use. Not only did Bayley send the photo, but she asked for nothing in return other than a photo credit. Today her photos are famous for documenting the New York punk scene in its embryonic state. She took the cover photo of the first Ramones LP, so, yeah, she was there.

The fanzine came out in the pre-internet days. The interview that Jacqui did with Hell was done by mail. The questions were mailed from California and the answers were mailed back from New York. Hand written. Try that today. Just to get answers to questions took a couple weeks. Patience. Instagrammers take heed.

There is one oddball down there. A song by the Victors that the Probe posted, jokingly (I think) referring to it as "(Richard Hell's first record?)". It does sound a lot like a Richard Hell song, particularly the vocals and phrasing. I don't care if it is or not, I've come this far, I might as well like it.

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

Listen:
Richard Hell & the Voidoids - Blank Generation mp3 at Plain or Pan (1976 Ork Records 45 version)
Richard Hell & the Voidoids - Blank Generation mp3 (via Box.net) at Creuse ta Tombe (Sire LP version)
Richard Hell & the Voidoids - Love Comes In Spurts mp3 at Snuhthing Anything Definitive Quine solo on this, especially the way it ends.
The Victors - We Struck A Match mp3 at Probe Is Turning-On the People
Visit:
Roberta Bayley

DON'T BOGART THAT ABALONE

There's no doubt that most of us would have liked to see what it was like in a different era and a different music scene, in a different environment. Not necessarily permanently, just to test the waters and see what it was like. It might be a rock 'n' roll era. The fifties in Memphis, or Chicago? The sixties in Detroit or Memphis? London in the mid to late sixties? San Francisco? Bakersfield in the early sixties? Shit, Lagos, Nigeria in the early seventies? Man, I'd love to have been in any of those places back in the day(s). Another time travel fantasy for me is to have been in Southern California in the days before rock 'n' roll, before surf music, before Gidget, before the surf craze that followed, before the Beach Boys, before all that shit. When the beaches were less crowded, and you could catch dinner in the ocean. When lobster and abalone were literally free. Feast on that while feeling the burn of a day in the sun, and the powdery skin from forgetting to take a post-dip shower. Pop a few cool ones, and hang out, or head out, whatever. No hurray. Get anywhere you need to go on the PCH. Stan Getz is the soundtrack.

I love hearing his stuff when I get home from the beach. Any Getz is good for that. Here's some random stuff I was able to find. If you don't have any of his stuff, there's a handful of multi-CD sets of his early stuff that are budget priced, usually containing four or five LPs. Don't OD on the bossa nova. Great as it is, he was much more than that.

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

Listen:
Stan Getz and Zoot Sims - Five Brothers mp3 at Pixie Radio 1949
Stan Getz - Lullaby of Birdland mp3 at Tumblr
Stan Getz - Samba Triste mp3 at Tumblr
Stan Getz - Serenade In Blue mp3 at Tumblr
Stan Getz - I Remember Clifford mp3 at maelgaudry (?)
Stan Getz - O Grande Amor mp3 at Tumblr

WOMEN LEAVE, DOGS DIE, MEN DRINK. TWANG.

The documentary filmmaker Ken Burns is at it again, this time covering the history of country music. It's a eight part series airing on PBS starting Sunday, September 15, each episode two hours long. (It will also be available streaming from their site.) If you've ever seen any of his documentaries, you know he does them right. Burns first came to my attention with his exhaustive nine part documentary on baseball, likely because it aired during the baseball strike of 1994. The strike shortened the season. It was pitiful. Burns's documentary aired at the perfect time. Total serendipity. It reminded baseball people that the history of the game was a long one, and the strike was but a blip.

The baseball series gave me an appreciation for the game that I've retained all these years, twenty five to be exact. Ken Burns did that. Not Little League, not watching games on TV, or going to the ball bark. But, he hade me appreciate all of those things more. I'm a country and western music dabbler. I'm anxious to see what this series will do for me.

Dig around at the site for the series. There's schedules, previews and streaming mixes of featured artists. If you're a dabbler like me, consider it a crash course.

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

Listen:
Bill Monroe - Orange Blossom Special mp3 at Rocky 52 1941
Roy Acuff - Blue Moon of Kentucky mp3 at Rocky 52 1946
Hank Williams - Move It On Over mp3 at Rocky 52 1947
Kitty Wells - Release Me mp3 at Rocky 52 1954
Johnny Cash - I Walk the Line mp3 at Rocky 52 1956
Maddox Brothers and Rose - I'll Go Steppin' Too mp3 at Rocky 52 1957
George Jones - White Lightning mp3 at Rocky 52 1959
Patsy Cline - Walking After Midnight mp3 at Rocky 52 1960
Buck Owens - I Don't Care (Just As Long As Love Me) mp3 at Rocky 52 1964
Willie Nelson - I Love You Because mp3 at Rocky 52 1966
Merle Haggard - Branded mp3 at Rocky 52 1967
Visit:
Country Music - A Film by Ken Burns at PBS
Rocky 52 - Country music, hillbilly, rockabilly and blugrass Bios, discographies and music.

HE ALSO DID THIS

Robert Frank just died, on Monday. He was 94. He was a damn good photographer whose lifes work would be complete if he did nothing other than The Americans, a book of his photographic images, with text by Jack Kerouac, published in 1958. In the glossy days of Ozzie and Harriet, white picket fences and All-Americans, he chose as his subject matter the flip side. The seedy, the poor, the tough, all the shit that the get-off-my-lawners wanted to pretend didn't exist.

Robert Frank, 1973, photographed by Richard Avedon.

 

Frank also made films. A year after The Americans, he made his first film, Pull My Daisy, with narration by Kerouac and featuring poets Allen Ginsberg, Peter Orlovsky and Gregory Corso. That's some heavy hitters. In the early seventies, he worked with some other heavy hitters, making a feature length film with the Rolling Stones. (His photography was also featured on the cover of Exile on Main St.) Finished in 1972, the film, Cocksucker Blues was never widely released, apparently a little too telling. If you know anything about the Stones, you can probably think of a dozen things that happen behind the scenes with them on tour that they would think would damage their career. Probably two dozen. The Stones tried to keep the lid on it but Frank wanted it released. After the dust settled the court order stated that it could be shown, but only if Frank was present in the theater. Now that Frank is dead, what happens?

~ NOTE: HOSTED AT YOUTUBE. UPLOADER UNKNOWN. ~

I only mention this because I was amazed to find it online, on YouTube of all places. There are a few links to it on dubious looking sites so I went way back in the search results. If you want to see it, particularly if you're a Robert Frank person, I'd check it out right away. With Frank's profile raised after his passing, it probably won't be up for long. Check the comment by "whenAM radiorocked" under the video (at YouTube) for the story of how it ended up there. And check out Frank's work. Photography today would be different if he had not been so tuned to the street.

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

Visit:
Robert Frank Dies; Pivotal Documentary Photographer Was 94 at NY Times
The Shock of Robert Frank's "The Americans" at The New Yorker
Robert Frank at Wikipedia
Robert Frank photos via Google image search
Video:
The Rolling Stones - Rocks Off at YouTube Shot by Frank

URSULA'S THINKING "WHERE'S VIC FLICK?"

One of the cable stations (TCM) is showing James Bond movies on Thursday nights for the month of September. Last Thursday it was all early ones with Sean Connery. It was awesome being able to turn on the TV at any time over the course of eight hours and know that I'd be catching some vintage Bond. Next week they have the one with George Lazenby as Bond, then one more Sean Connery and then it's off to the Roger Moore era. I prefer the earliest, but as the movies progress, so do the stunts and special effects. They're still entertaining, but they lack the Connery cool.

The original James Bond theme by John Barry is all-time, particularly the guitar tone. It's always reminded me of someone like Billy Strange, but Strange was an American studio guitarist, and Barry was British so one would assume that he recorded in England. After hearing the song countless times over the years, it finally occurred to me in a Homer Simpson "Doh!" moment, Google the fucker. The answer: Vic Flick. Who? Here we go. While I'm out looking into this Flick character, here's a few Bond related things, including Barry's version, and a version that Billy Strange did do. I gotta say, Flick wins the guitar tone contest. This time.

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

Listen:
John Barry - James Bond Theme mp3 at Tumblr
Billy Strange - James Bond Theme (streaming) at YouTube
John Zorn - James Bond Theme mp3 at Pat's Lies Killer.
Shirley Bassey - Goldfinger mp3 at Tumblr
John Barry Orchestra - On Her Majesty's Secret Service mp3 at Like A Blockbuster
Visit:
Vic Flick - Interview from Vintage Guitar (pdf) at Vic Flick

ONE AMERICAN BAND

A friend mentioned that he had some Replacements live sets on Color Me Impressed, a site that archives old Replacements sets. That reminded me. I hadn't listened to the Replacements in a while so I started digging through the old stuff here and found enough to occupy the rest of my night. I'm cutting out early because at this point in my night I'm thinking that, upon updated assessment, the Replacements are one of the greatest American rock 'n' roll bands that ever existed. When I think great American rock 'n' roll band, I'm not thinking about a band that resembles anything in particular, in sound, era, look or anything. It's more like they have some sort of secret combination of slop, style, chops, fuck it all attitude, volume, and songwriting. All those qualities can be found in Creedence Clearwater Revival or the Flamin' Grooves, bands like that. But the Replacements were later, throw in a dash of punk rock. These guys are you before the neck tie, before settling down, before the kids, before the mortgage, before punk rock reunions. Get lit.

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

Listen:

The Replacements - Tommy Gets His Tonsils Out mp3 at Tumblr

The Replacements - Black Diamond (live) mp3 at Tumblr
The Replacements - Beer For Breakfast mp3 at Review Stalker
The Replacements - Alex Chilton mp3 at Flux Blog
The Replacements - Can't Hardly Wait (alternate take) mp3 at Tumblr

Live stuff:

The Replacements Live Archive Project A shitload of live stuff.

Video (highly recommended):
The Replacements - Live in 1981, at the 7th Street Entry in Minneapolis, 25 songs in six videos at TwinTone This is good.

TONY BENNETT'S SPIT IS STILL ON THIS THING.

I was looking for something completely different, yeah again, and ran across a cover of Dylan's "Wicked Messenger" by the Black Keys. I'd never heard it before and it was sufficiently crunchy, like the Keys of yore. I was just on the cusp of going to check on some of their old stuff (I stopped after their second LP), but the thought that there had been a lot of covers of "Wicked Messenger", for a song that wasn't close to a hit, popped into my head.. The Faces were my indoctrination, so I have a sentimental attachment. But, shit, Patti Smith does something with that song. That might be tainted by me just digging the type of person she is, but she feels the song, puts more into it. Mitch Ryders approach is total seventies rock. I'd probably like it better if it didn't screw up "Little Latin Lupe Lu" for me going forward. Now I'm just nit picking. Just listen to Patti Smith's and go from there.

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

Listen:

The Black Keys - Wicked Messenger mp3 at Tumblr
The Faces - Wicked Messenger (streaming) at YouTube
Patti Smith - Wicked Messenger (streaming) at YouTube
Mitch Ryder - Wicked Messenger (streaming) at YouTube
Bob Dylan - Wicked Messenger (streaming) at YouTube

REMEMBER WHEN THIS USED TO HAPPEN?

A friend posted a thing on Facebook today of kids reacting to the music of Led Zeppelin. Sounds straight forward enough right? Some of the kids show signs of familiarity from hearing them when their parents played them, one from having heard one of the songs from a video game or cartoon, and one kid who tries to appear above it all, voicing a distaste for "real instruments". There are some that really get off on the songs.

I've mentioned several times in past posts how lucky I was to have grown up sharing a bedroom with two brothers who were also music fiends. That all came rushing back when I watched the video. See that kid above? Totally digs Zeppelin. His reactions to the songs totally reminds me of my younger brother at that age. It also takes me back to the enthusiasm that you have as a kid when you first start buying records. The "This is the shit!" mind set. Fuck yeah.

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

Listen:
Kids React to Guns n' Roses at YouTube
Kids React to Nirvana at YouTube