LOCK DOWN THEATER NIGHT 24

This is, eh, pretty cool I guess. You don't run into many clips of the early Doors where they're not lip syncing. And you certainly don't run into many clips of the Doors doing a spoken word thing that would show up on an LP three years later as a song. Or maybe you do. I'm not near that level of a Doors fiend to keep tabs on this kinda shit. The clip is from 1968, the tracks are "Alabama Song", "Back Door Man", "Texas Radio and The Big Beat", "Love Me Two Times", "When the Music is Over" and "Unknown Soldier". The part I'm taking about is "Texas..." (at 5:15), it would appear in 1971 as "The WASP (Texas Radio and the Big Beat)" on the  L.A. Woman LP.

There's some other Doors shake down there. Don't blame me for the Snoop Dogg thing. I ran across it and had never heard it. I think it was made for a video game. It's mildly amusing to hear him rattle on about the lizard king.

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

Listen:
The Doors - Five to One mp3 at M.Rouzeau (?)
The Doors - L.A. Woman mp3 at Crooke Madame (?)
The Doors - Riders on the Storm mp3 at Parakno (?)
Snoop Dogg ft [sic] the Doors - Riders on the Storm mp3 at Street Racing
The Doors - The WASP (Texas Radio and the Big Beat) (streaming) at YouTube

AT YOUR PERIL

Oh man, this a bad news, good news, good news, bad news scenario. I ran into a Donnas song from 1999, "Keep On Loving You". As soon as I read the title, I had that ultra bland top 40 song in my head, not theirs but another song that had the same title. I most certainly did not want that shit floating around in my skull. I clicked without haste to foster an intervention. The Donnas' song couldn't possibly be a cover. Fuck, it is. Oh, but it's actually not bad if you don't think of the original. Hey, maybe it will replace the original in my head , or at least cancel it out. Oh shit. The final result, bad news: I now have a fucking REO Speedwagon song stuck in my head.

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

Listen:
The Donnas - Keep On Loving You mp3 at Tumblr
The Donnas - Rock 'n' Roll Machine mp3 at Like Mike 69 (?)
The Donnas - Take It Off mp3 at Tumblr

THIS IS NOT PETER COOK.

Bedazzled happened to be on TV tonight, the original with Peter Cook, Dudley Moore and, in a small role, Raquel Welch. When I first saw the film it was all about Raquel Welch. She became my first adolescent fantasy lady. I will not go further.

Besides the scenes with Welch, there was one scene I'd forgotten about. Without giving you the context (that would ruin the continuity of the plot twists), it's Peter Cook as a pop star singing the title song on a TV show. The background music is light psyche and the lyrics are pure negativity. Like a list of the Monk's song titles: "I don't care, so you said, I don't want you, I don't need you, I don't love you, leave me alone, I'm self contained, just go away." Thanks a lot Mr. Happy.

Here's a handful of other related stuff, including covers of the song, one by Bongwater and the other by the Dudley Moore Trio, a jazz thing that's really good. There's another song by Moore and Cook "The L.S. Bumble Bee", a parody of the Beatles' and Beach Boys' veiled drug references. Apparently it was convincing enough that some bootleggers released it as a rare Beatles outtake. Who the hell knows with people?

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

Listen:
Peter Cook - Bedazzled mp3 at Dinosaur Gardens
Bongwater - Bedazzled mp3 at Dinosaur Gardens
Peter Cook and Dudley Moore- The LS Bumble Bee at 365 Days Project
Dudley Moore - Strip Club mp3 at Dinosaur Gardens
Video:
Dudley Moore Trio - Bedazzled at YouTube

RATTY ASS DENIM ROCK

Man, last night was a cornucopia of diversions. It started out with a tip from the Mystery Suggester to check Shindig! magazine's The Hot 100- The Soundtrack of Our Evolution a playlist at YouTube featuring "deep, deep cuts" all released on 45s and featured at one point or another in the first 100 issues of the magazine. Now, I've never bought the magazine as I am a tightwad, and as a British mag it's pricey here in the states. I have, however, leafed through several at length at the newsstand and it seems like a good mag. Good enough to produce a thoroughly listenable playlist of stuff I've never heard before. Good enough for me.

I left a comment for the Mystery Suggester and she responded that she had detoured the list and was now on a "Budgie rampage". What a great way to say that you're binging on a particular band. I realized that I'd somehow never posted any Budgie. The MS probably did not know that, but she probably did know that I'd take the bait. (When the first three songs a rather slipshod search turned up were titled "Guts", "Homicidal Suicidal" and "Hammer and Tongs", it's hard not to.) And another reason I love the Mystery Suggester: She gets it. Name a genre and she's got a favorite, or several. It had me longing for the days when she lived in my apartment complex and we could hang out all the time.

One thing we'd do was drink and watch Rock 'n' Roll Jeopardy. If you've never heard of that game show, it aired in the U.S. from 1998 to 2001 and was a rock 'n' roll trivia version of Jeopardy. It was great fun, particularly when they'd have some unlikely famous musician as a contestant who made mincemeat out of his/her unlikely famous musician opponents (i.e. Mark McGrath made mincemeat out of Graham Nash and Joe Walsh, both of whom knew little beyond their 1970's hayday). Most of the time is was non-celebrities that seemed to carry themselves like they thought they'd slay their opponents, One thing I remember fondly about those nights was coming up with imagined background info on the contestants based on their look, their swagger and, in some cases, the look that you get when you're clearly out of your league. There's a few episodes on YouTube so go grab a friend and a twelver and live it up.

So, from Shindig's list to Budgie to Rock 'n' Roll Jeopardy. That's why I ditched yesterday. Still working on all three, so mañana.

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

Listen:
The Hot 100 - The Soundtrack Of Our Evolution at YouTube 100 song playlist by Shindig!
Budgie - Guts mp3 at Jalene 40 (?)
Budgie - Homicidal Suicidal mp3 at Tumblr
Budgie - Hammer and Tongs mp3 at Tumblr
Visit:
Rock 'n' Roll Jeopardy episodes at YouTube

CARLEEN WAITING FOR THE NEXT ADJECTIVE

Carleen and the Groovers have been here before but I'm in a Carleen and the Groovers mood and I'm dragging you with me. The four songs below are all that they recorded, two 45s. Carleen Jean Butler was the drummer, a very funky drummer. These four songs are tight as fuck.

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Listen:
Carleen & the Groovers - Can We Rap mp3 at Now Again
Carleen & the Groovers - The Thing mp3 at Now Again
Carleen & the Groovers - Right On mp3 at Now Again
Carleen & the Groovers - Hot Pants mp3 at Now Again
Visit:
Carleen and the Groovers - Profile and interview at Heavyweight Funk 45s

LOCK DOWN THEATER NIGHT 23

Okay, any film that starts with a shot of someone's feet in brothel creepers and follows it with Little Richard's "Rip It Up" as the background music has my attention. The film, Buddy's Song stars Roger Daltrey as a teddy boy. So far so good.

I'd initially been looking for That'll Be The Day,  a movie that starred David Essex ("Rock On") as a beginning rocker getting his feet wet. It also stars Ringo Starr, Billy Fury and Keith Moon. Yee haw, right? Its a great flick but unfortunately the search was fruitless, as it has always has been. (I've been wanting to post it for years and never been able to find it.) Ditto with the movies sequel, Stardust, which takes Essex's character into the seventies. That movie adds Marty Wilde, Adam Faith and Dave Edmunds to the cast.

From Stardust: Essex, Edmunds and Moon as Jim McLain and the Stray Cats

 

When I couldn't find those two, I just poked around the suggested videos in the sidebar and caught an image of Daltrey with a ducktail, drapecoat...you know, the whole teddy boy look. I'm going to give it a shot. I'm not expecting much, but it starts with creepers and Little Richard so it'll probably have a decent soundtrack. And that is my bored-as-fuck post for the night.

A footnote: It didn't occur to me until about ten minutes ago that I've never heard Essex's "Rock On" on a decent sound system. After just listening to it I'm kinda digging it in a Isaac Hayes-type string-heavy slow jam version of a rock song. It doesn't annoy me as much now.

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Listen:
David Essex - Rock On mp3 at Whole Nuther Thing

OBSCUROPUNK'S NOT DEAD!

Believe me, you won't know these guys. Which is the point. Punk rock, like garage and rockabilly, included thousands of bands that may have put out a couple of 45s, but outside of the six clubs within a hundred mile radius from where they lived there's a good chance they're pretty much nobodies. Sometimes they deserved the obscurity, sometimes they didn't. Life is harsh. Unless your band sucked anyway.

Killed By Death is awesome. Punk and hardcore with a little power pop, all 45s and most of them by bands that you never heard of. If you think that a nobody band can't be any good, consider this: Back in the seventies my brother brought home a totally random punk 45 by a band none of us had ever heard of. It just had a plain DIY looking sleeve. Cheap enough to take a chance. It turned out to be pretty good, even laughable in parts (da-dum, da-dum). It was an original pressing of the Buzzcocks Spiral Scratch EP now worth all sorts of money.

If you don't see the merit in hearing bands that A) You've never heard of, or B) May never hear again if you don't chance a click, then you've come to the wrong place. Every favorite band was a random pick for someone at some point in time.

Here's a link to the band that started this train of thought tonight, a Swedish band, Besökarna (photo above). A song from Spiral Scratch is down there too, along with a link I just ran across tonight Old, Weak, But Always a Wanker - The Punk Years. Oh jeez, that's an old school punk rock black hole if there ever was one.

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

Listen:

Besökarna - Discobranden mp3 at Killed By Death
Besökarna - Two other songs at Killed By Death
Buzzcocks - Boredom mp3 at Inside Pulse What this song is doing buried on a site like that is beyond me.
Visit:
Old, Weak, But Always a Wanker - The Punk Years Tons of stuff here, finding the downloads is easy once you figure it out. If you can't, leave a comment and I'll spell it out.

"WHO'S THIS LAPTOP ASSHOLE?" ASKED DAD.

I haven't listened to anything by Girl Talk in years. I seem to remember the big deal with him (Girl Talk is one guy) was that he used a massive amount of samples. Tonight  I was digging around a dead blog and ran into a song of his and, guess what? Massive amount of samples. A minute after hearing a sample ot the Edgar Winter Group's "Frankenstein" I'm hearing the Beastie Boys over Iggy Pop's "Lust For Life". Then I ran into a free download of the entire LP, "authorized" by Girl Talk. Could be good, could be bad. I think I'll appreciate it more if I think about it as hanging with some stoner that wants you to hear his favorite thirty second snippets of songs all night. I've been on the receiving end of that.

A list of songs sampled on the album is also at the site, so you can play that game. When you think you hear something you recognize, check the list. What the hell, you're probably just sitting around the house anyway.

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

Listen:

Girl Talk - Jump On Stage mp3 at Right Hear Media
Full LP:
Girl Talk - All Day at Illegal Art Four format options. First option is zip with individual mp3s.
Visit:
Girl Talk - All Day Samples used at Illegal Art

LOCK DOWN THEATER NIGHT 22

Years ago I was on the road with my brother. I think we were in L.A.. We stopped at a convenience store and were walking by the magazine rack. There were a couple feather haired teen-aged girls flipping through heavy metal rock magazines and one of them said "Ohh, Jake E. Lee, he's so fine! I'd fuck him in a second!" (Lee was Ozzy Osborne's guitarist at the time.) We waited until we left the store before we started laughing. It was total teenage innocence and we did not want to break the spell. Rock star adulation is a culture I haven't participated in since pre-punk rock days. When the hair metal thing was going strong in the late eighties I was too busy listening to weird post-punk shit and other non-metal stuff.

That incident and more came to mind today when I heard Apollo 440's "Stadium Parking Lot". The first lines, after a Beastie Boys type riff intro: "Gonna make enough noise to wake the dead, It's going on in my head! Back from the land that time forgot, there's a party in the stadium parking lot!" That reminded me of a film, Heavy Metal Parking Lot (which in turn made me think of Jake E. Lee's future wife). Heavy Metal Parking Lot is a short decidedly low budget documentary. A guy takes a video camera around to different tailgate groups in a stadium parking lot to interview partiers waiting for Judas Priest to take the stage. It's hilarious. Young kids ready to party down and rock out. Definitely back from the land that time forgot.

When I first saw it, it was on VHS tape, swapped, copied, passed around, copied again, etc. It was before DVDs existed and before YouTube existed. The only way you could see it was if someone you knew had a copy, someone who had been included in the chain of copiers. I was fortunate. I had a friend named Max who seemed to have all of the tapes that no one else had. (Max was also the person to hep me to the Monks via VHS, before their LP was reissued.) So "Heavy Metal Parking Lot was one of the first things I tried to find when YouTube started. It was there very early and has been there ever since.

There have been all sorts of offshoots by the same guys. One is Neil Diamond parking lot and the tailgaters in that one are mainly middle aged women, some bringing daughters or captive husbands. It's endearing from an innocent fan adulation standpoint. There's also a "Where are they now" round up of the original heavy metal parking lotters. This shit is not me, this sort of pre-show tune up and getting too giddy for your own good. But I sure do dig watching it.

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

Listen:
Apollo Four Forty - Stadium Parking Lot (streaming) at YouTube
Watch:
Neil Diamond Parking Lot (1997) at YouTube
1986 Heavy Metal Parking Lot Alumni: Where Are They Now? (2006) at YouTube

FOR THESE TIMES

A new LP from Run the Jewels. If you're into hip hop, you know all about this. If you're not into hip hop, it's a good place to start, at least for current stuff. You have plenty of time to go backwards. I haven't heard the whole thing yet, despite the fact that it's technically free. The digital version is available on their site as a pay-whatever with the proceeds going to the Mass Defense Program, a worthy cause. I haven't downloaded it because it looks like you have to enter an email address. Mine doesn't come cheap. Regardless it's streaming at YouTube. The song in the video below has been running in my head for the last two days. Only today did I finally read the description. In part "This video is a fantasy of waking up on a day that there is no monetary system, no dividing line, no false construct to tell our fellow man that they are less or more than anyone else." Yee haw! I can most certainly get behind that.

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Listen:

Run the Jewels - RTJ4 (full LP) at Run The Jewels Scroll down for download. Liner notes too.

Run the Jewels - RTJ4 (streamimg) at YouTube

HAT SIZE? FOR WHAT?

If you know anything about the history of dub, you know who King Tubby is. He pretty much invented it. He was the first producer/engineer to fade shit out and fade shit back in. He was an electronic wizard, built his own systems, and so on. In his wake came Prince Jammy, Scientist and others. I mention those two because I ran into a mix that has all three of them. I also ran across that photo above, the first I've ever seen of Tubby with hair. That's a "stop the presses!" moment for some. Is for me.

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

Listen:

King Tubby - First Generation mp3 at Internet Archive
Prince Jammy - Second Generation mp3 at Internet Archive
Scientist - Third Generation mp3 at Internet Archive
King Tubby - Tubby's New Fashion mp3 at Internet Archive
Prince Jammy - Prince Jammy On The Scene mp3 at Internet Archive
Scientist - Scientist At His Best mp3 at Internet Archive
King Tubby - Tubb's The Originator mp3 at Internet Archive
King Tubby - Original Stylee mp3 at Internet Archive

POOR SIDE OF TOWN WITHOUT PITY

Someone asked for suggestions for a "sad song" mix on Facebook. The two standbys for me have always been "Town Without Pity" and "Poor Side of Town", the latter being a being a favorite despite my distaste foe Johnny Rivers in general. I never quite understood what the attraction was to his stuff back in the sixties. Me not liking him probably stems from my indignation that his tepid cover of Chuck Berry's "Memphis" sold more than the far superior original. It's like Pat Boone covering Little Richard. So, yeah, it's remarkable that I like "Poor Side of Town", so I'm remarking. Though his voice isn't the only thing that carries it, it ain't bad. The production (by co-writer Lou Adler) is good and the light work on the skins by Hal Blaine kinda sorta tugs the ol' heartstrings. The background vocals (Darlene Love among them) work too, just barely skimming the corny net.

The biggee though, for me, in the sad song category is Gene Pitney's "Town Without Pity". What a fucking piece of work that one is. I'm not a musician so I don't know what the technical aspects are that make it such a gut punch, but there's something very effective in the key changes or whatever. The drums to brass intro just slays me. And Pitney sounds like the flood gates are about to open. This was the last song he sang live.

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

Listen:
Gene Pitney - Town Without Pity mp3 at Fimoculous 
Johnny Rivers - Poor Side of Town mp3 at Smokeys Trail

MILKING A MOMENT

I've been running into that image above for years. Decades. It might have been Creem magazine, that's how long ago. It's Iggy Pop at an appearance with the Funhouse era Stooges at the Cincinnati Pop Festival.in 1970. I just ran into a clip of that show, two songs; "TV Eye" and "1970", with Pop doing his walking on hands thing on the latter. Throwing peanut butter? Same episode. This is classic Stooges. Two songs from Funhouse, audience taunting and topped with that awesome sax freakout near the end of "1970". Unfortunately the quality of the video isn't the best, but cool to see regardless. While doing a search for that image above I ran into an article at Goldmine about the resin figure below. Released last November. $250. Ouch.

Without further ado, here's the clip. Hang around for the sax freakout at the end. It would have been great to see live. "You should been here yesterday,"

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Listen:
The Stooges - 1970 mp3 at Tumblr
The Stooges - TV Eye (streaming) at YouTube
Video:
Various Stooges clips at Heliotricity About a half dozen live videos, home movie quality. Sound is not synched
Visit:
Iggy Pop "1970" limited edition wax collectibles at Goldmine

LOCK DOWN THEATER NIGHT 21

Been a little busy the last few days. Busy being lazy. Seriously, if you had the choice of a day at the beach, relatively uncrowded (making social distancing easy) with crystal clear 70 degree water and air temperature in the high seventies what would you do? I'm pretty much fried. After hanging on the beach and getting in the water, on the walk home I stopped by the fishing pier to chat with my niece and her not-boyfriend and ended up there for a couple hours (one small holy mackerel, tossed back). It was a great day. A great day to be lazy.

I had a tentative plan for a post but that all went outr the window when I ran into this thing, Rhythm and Blues Revue, a 1955 movie with Lionel Hampton, Big Joe Turner, Amos Milburn, The Larks, Sarah Vaughan, Count Basie, Nat King Cole, Cab Calloway, Ruth Brown and others. Music à la miscreant will resume shortly.

NON-DREAD IN A BABYLON

The other night, Saturday to be exact, I was in the shower and for some reason Sam Cooke's "Another Saturday Night" popped into my head. No clue why. Despite the fact that he was an extraordinary singer singing a great song, the song itself, lyrically, has for me lost its relevance over the years, albeit "another Saturday night and I ain't got nobody" is the story of my life. But it was different for me back then when I first heard it. If, like most Saturday nights, I didn't have anybody, it meant one of two things. Either someone had just broken up with me, or I was on the prowl. To be on the prowl and be successful, one has to assert themselves. This I did to some degree when I was younger. As I got older it was less about getting laid and more about being able to laugh after getting laid, and that meant you had to really know the other person. Full stop. Shit, a snippet of a song nearly turned into True Confessions.

I'd known of Sam Cooke since my teens. They would play "You Send Me" and "Cupid" on the oldies station and that was about it. When I hit my mid-teens Rod Stewart released his Never a Dull Moment LP, his last solo album that came anywhere near the sound of his work with the Faces. Believe it kids, Rod Stewart did not always suck. At that point in his career he still had it. I listened the shit out of that LP and one song I particularly liked was "Twistin' the Night Away". Perusing the liner notes, which I sill do with every album, I saw that the song was written by Cooke. So Sam Cooke was now officially on the list.  I picked up a best-of which has served me well over the years but I know it's not enough. Having just one Sam Cooke LP, a greatest hits package at that, leaves a whole lot more untouched. It's like having the #1 combination plate at the taco shop for years without ever trying a tamale. So, yeah, though Cooke has been on the list for decades now, on my sad sack ain't got nobody Saturday I finally started digging around listening to more of his non-hit stuff. Hearing his "Yeah, Man" I realized how ignorant I'd been. I had no idea that Arthur Conley's "Sweet Soul Music" was adapted from a Sam Cooke song. Rather than beat myself up for not knowing that I was stoked. After listening to music for [mumble, mumble] years there is still much to be uncovered. 

A few things you should know about Sam Cooke: He is credited by many as the first soul singer. How the fuck that's determined is beyond me. There was a big gray area when rhythm and blues morphed into soul, so I ain't committing to that one. Cooke wrote a lot of his own songs and had his own record label. He was about having control over his own music. He could have been one of the greatest but he died young (age 33), shot by a woman running a hotel. The incident was a bit of a mess and you can find out the details on other sites, but it involves him possibly raping a woman, the woman possibly escaping through a bathroom window and then Cooke shows up at the managers office missing some of his clothes and one shoe. She shot him, possibly in self defense, and that was the end of Sam Cooke.

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

Listen:
Sam Cooke - Another Saturday Night mp3 at Tumblr
Sam Cooke - Twistin' the Night Away mp3 at Rocky 52 Check the horns-to-drums intro.
Sam Cooke - Yeah Man mp3 at Tumblr
Rod Stewart - Twistin' the Night Away (streaming) at YouTube When the drums come in at 2:40.
Arthur Conley - Sweet Soul Music at Tumblr

ENNIO HAS A POSSE

Ennio Morricone passed. I heard about it earlier today, but would have forgotten to mention it here had it not been for a heads up from the man from Bergen. Morricone should be familiar to most of you even if you don't know his name. Rather than blab on, here's the text and songs from a post a year and a half ago. A link to the obit at the Guardian is below.

I was in the cereal aisle of a major retailer, going about my business, some distant whistling drifting in from the next aisle. Whoever it was that was whistling, they were good. Real smooth, no phlegm or dryness in the mouth. And it wasn't a boastfully loud whistling, more like "I'm hanging by the cart while my wife finishes pulling stuff from the shelves" type whistling. The type that old men do when they're casually walking from this point to that, because they're retired and don't have to do shit today. The kind of whistling that someone does without thinking about what they're doing. Then it hit me. The person was whistling Ennio Morricone's "For A Few Dollars More". Ho-ly shit. Stuff like that gets me more excited than any normal person should be. I left my cart and went around to the other aisle. Just as I imagined, a guy leaning on the cart, waiting for his old lady. A Mexican guy, faded plaid shirt, worn jeans, like he'd be back tinkering in the garage as soon a he got home. When he stopped whistling, I told him I loved that song and complimented his whistling.

If you know anything about Ennio Morricone, you'd know that he made his nut in soundtracks for Sergio Leone's spaghetti westerns. It was only a small part of his career, but that's why middleweights know him. The real fiends know his other work as well. A big part of the Morricone western soundtracks was the use of voices, often wordless grunts and such, and dead on, in tune and in time, whistling. Allessandro Allessandroni was the name of the whistler Morricone used. That's what he did, and what he was called. The Whistler. Aisle five, yo.

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

Listen:
Ennio Morricone - For A Few Dollars More mp3 at Blondin
Ennio Morricone - The Good, the Bad and the Ugly mp3 at Tumblr
Ennio Morricone - A Fistful of Dollars mp3 at Gyuermekeknek (?)
Ennio Morricone - The Ecstasy of Gold mp3 at Tumblr
Visit:
Ennio Morricone, Oscar-winning Italian film composer, dies aged 91 at Guardian 

RANDOM ROCKERS NIGHT

Alright, what we got here is three songs that have been posted before. Go ahead. I'll wait until the whining dies down. That's good, that's a big boy. Let it all out. Okay, now I'll proceed.

These three songs are all excellent examples of the in-the-red recording method, where a little bit of distortion serves to amplify the wildness of the song.  Sometimes it's an accident, sometimes it's not. And when it isn't an accident, when it's intentional, it's either to honor the lo-fi of yore, a by-product of vocal chords shredded by abuse, or just simply to wake the dead (see Guitar Wolf). Two of these are older, late fifties or early sixties, the Nick Curran cut was released in '94. Regardless of the amount of distortion or the source, I'd place them smack dab in the red. They go together well and they hit the spot. What more of a reason do you need?

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Listen:

The Night Raiders - Bip Bop Boom mp3 at Rockabilly Hall
Bunker Hill - The Girls Can't Dance mp3 at Secret Comics
Nick Curran and the Lowlifes - Heebie Jeebies mp3 at Smokestack Lightnin'

I'M SORRY MS JACKSON

You'll have to forgive me for subjecting you to this one. I'll assume that most of the nuts that hang around here are familiar with Wanda Jackson. Right up there with her biggest songs is "Let's Have A Party". It's a great song that should rate high for anyone into old school rockabilly. That isn't what you'll have to forgive me for. You should eat up every last note of that song, her version in particular. Now, here's the tough part. Try forgiving me for plopping down this short cover by a German outfit that goes by the name of Psychotic Tanks (or went, the song was recorded in 1980). Theirs is quite possibly one of the worst cover versions of any song that I've heard in my life, and believe me I've heard a shitload of dubious covers. This one takes the cake. I'm not sure what kind of party they're singing about, but it sure sounds like a downer. I'm not going to bag on every last note. Listen to it and let me know if there is anything redeeming in it. Okay, they reinvented the song, but that's like reinventing the wheel and making it square.  To be more accurate, a square wheel and you're trying to roll it uphill in deep mud. Choosing this song to cover is not even clever. I don't mind the abrasiveness of it, but, shit, why this song. Where the fuck is Blixa when you need him?

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

Listen:
Wanda Jackson - Let's Have a Party mp3 at Rockabilly Hall
Psychotic Tanks - Let's Have a Party mp3 at Margauxville

IT'S ON.

Step it up rockers. You are lagging. I've mentioned this bugaboo a half dozen times here. Where are all the artists when it comes to making a musical statement against the moron occupying the White House? What the fuck does it take? How many more playings of "You Can't Always Get What You Want" at Trump rallies does there have to be before the Stones publicly denounce the use of their song? A message to Mssr Keith Richards: You're shit to me if you don't speak out. Of all the Stones I always thought of you as the no nonsense one. What the fuck?

I'm pissed, you bet. People in the public eye have an opportunity to make a difference. Maybe, like Republicans, they're staying mute so as to not upset their base. Fuck that. A line's been drawn, and you're either with Trump, or your against him. And if you're not using your voice, your visibility, you're either a Trump apologist or a coward. Or both.

Thankfully not all artists are patsies. Here's what Public Enemy did. First they recorded a new song "State Of The Union (STFU)" which pretty much goes off against Trump. They still have the fire, though the chorus by Flavor Flav gets a bit worn (as does Flav himself). They're giving it away as a "free" download. ("Free" in quotes because you have to submit your email address.) The song is an excellent effort and something I would expect from others that "care". (This just in: After bringing Bush era "American Idiot" all the way to Broadway, Green Day has avoided mentioning Trump by name on their newest record. Their stylist must have some pull.)

After releasing that, Public Enemy opened the BET awards last weekend with a video of an updated version of "Fight the Power" with a handful of younger rappers. I gotta say that watching that at the beginning of an awards show, with the backdrop of current events, was pretty damn effective.

Public Enemy did it right, highly visible and without apology. What the fuck rockers?

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

Listen/Watch:
Public Enemy (with others) - Fight the Power at YouTube From the BET Awards
Public Enemy - State Of The Union (STFU) mp3 at Public Enemy Must provide email address. I don't like that deal a bit.
Public Enemy - You're Gonna Get Yours mp3 at Acquiesce to Music
Public Enemy - Don't Believe the Hype mp3 at Polaroidallaradio (?)