Listen:
Dead Kennedys - Halloween mp3 at Hey Cool Kid
The Cramps - I Was a Teenage Werewolf mp3 at Hey Cool Kid
The Cramps - Confessions of a Psycho Cat mp3 at Review Stalker
Rocket From the Crypt - I Drink Blood mp3 at Xtrmntr
Rocket From the Crypt - Rise From the Dead mp3 at Xtrmntr
Feature presentation:
The Creepy Creeps Live at the Casbah at Twitch TV NOTE: The set doesn't start until 29:32 in the video.
Listen:
Trick or Treat, Volume 5 (via MediaFire) at Grey Haas
Trick or Treat, Volume 6 (via MediaFire) at Grey Haas
Trick or Treat, Volume 7 (via MediaFire) at Grey Haas Go there for the song list.
Trick or Treat, Volume 8 (via MediaFire) at Grey Haas Go there for the song list.
Trick or Treat, Volume 9 (via MediaFire) at Grey Haas Go there for the song list.
Trick or Treat, Volume 10 (via MediaFire) at Grey Haas
NOTE: Volumes 1-4 are kaput.
Slight return:
Trick or Treat Volumes 5-10 (streaming) at MixCloud The same mixes with less hassle
This just in: A new Sun Ra Arkestra LP, the first in twenty years or something. It's about as close as you're going to get to a new Sun Ra LP considering Space Brother #1 blasted off several years ago. I've only heard two so far and they are awesome. I'm all over this one. (More about it at Aquarium Drunkard.)
Then I remembered! Sun Ra's movie, Space Is The Place! [Palm to forehead.] A perfect selection for Lock Down Theater! The way to watch this movie is to poke around, check out a snippet here and there, No matter where you land, it's likely you'll think "What the hell is this all about?", until you'll finally break down and watch the whole thing. And then you'll think, "What the hell is this all about?"
Elmore James with horns, late but still great. You wouldn't think it would work but it does. His grit still cuts through. Dig the guitar tone. The second one down there is just a bonus.
I've listened to enough yapping today and I just ran into a collection of dub sides that King Tubby did. Recorded from 1974-1979, with his got-to posse, the Aggrovators. The Aggrovators had Carlton Barret, Sly Dunbar, Carlton "Santa' Davis, Robbie Shakespeare, Aston Barrett and Tony Chin. I would think that any of you with a decent knowledge of reggae would recognize at least a couple of those names. Just Sly and Robbie alone (pre-syn-drums!), they were the hot rhythm section at the time.
This record used to be all over the place. I put off picking it for years because the LP cover was so unimaginative. That's a nice way of saying it sucks. I've seen bad album covers on good reggae records but this one prevented me from even picking it up. And it was on a Canadian label, so I probably thought the mixes were factory seconds, not his best stuff. Once I knew more about reggae, saw the personnel listed on the back and considered the era (pre-digital), it wasn't hard to find a copy. You can usually find a used LP for less than twenty bucks. If you just want to check out an online version (with downloads) there's a link below.
The big news tonight is that, when looking at past Tubby links here, I was reminded of this Dub Selector thing. It's a interactive page with nine or so riddims that you can fuck with yourself, albeit in a primitive nature. But it's fun making noise and, depending on your level of boredom, amount of mood enhancers, and interest in dub, you could be there for a long time. My best advice is to just start clicking away on anything that's blinking or moving. Some have echo effects, some drop out one instrument or more, and some are just a rim shot here, or a reverb kick there. Most have vocals that can be brought up, or dropped out. The small dark purple icons at the bottom take you to different riddims. If you are at all into dub, this site is a something you ought to bookmark.
Listen:
King Tubby - Rastafari Dub (1974-1979) at Internet Archive 12 mp3s or streaming, In the right column, under "Download options" click on "VBR MP3 Files"
Play:
Infinite Wheel Presents Dub City Rockers (Interactive dub simulators. Description in paragraph above.)
Bob Biggs, the guy behind Slash Records, died a few days ago. He came aboard in the waning days of Slash, the magazine, and funded Slash Records, taking over that avenue when the magazine folded. I hadn't reviewed the Slash discography in a while and was surprised when I took a look. Everybody into punk rock will remember Slash as the label that put out the seminal first LPs by the Germs and X. I had forgotten that the Slash discography also included the first Dream Syndicate LP, the first Gun Club LP, Rank and File, the Blasters and Los Lobos. Each of those bands was significant, in a big way. The label also had the Violent Femmes, L7, and Faith No More. Reading further I realized that I had probably never read through the entire discography. If I had I would have definitely remembered that Slash put out two Burning Spear LPs. That I did not know.
Here's just three songs. There are more by the other bands mentioned above elsewhere on other posts here. Just use the search box (at the top left above the mast head) or the tags to the right. I'm not going to cut and paste links all night.
I don't think I've ever seen a cooler photo of Son House. From the clothes he's wearing, to the guitar he's playing, to the look on his face. Which reminded me, I've never posted anything by him. Here's one, recorded in 1965 after he'd already been recording for something like thirty years. No guitar though, this one is just vocal and what sounds like knee slapping. Believe me, his voice is enough. To Son House, Muddy Waters might as well have been Blues Hammer. The feature tonight though is the video linked below, from 1969 a "Full live performance". It looks very much like a TV studio, but that's splitting hairs, It really is worth watching because he was one of the last, truly OG, delta blues guys. His playing is good, and there's a taste of him singing with no guitar at all.
Man, I just heard a Joe Cuba song, "Gimme Some Love" so I revisited some other stuff and it hit me. The Joe Cuba Sextet was like a Latin version of Doug Clark and the Hot Nuts. Hear me out here. Doug Clark and the Hot Nuts were essentially a frat house circuit band. All sorts of sexual innuendos and puns. Their records were like a soul/r&b version of a Rusty Warren record. "Panty Raid", "Baby Let Me Bang Your Box", "Double Stroke of My Twelve Inch Pet", song titles like that. For his part, though not in frat houses, Cuba and his conveniently named Sextet, did "Bang Bang", "Push Push Push" and "Pud-Da-Din", and like Clark and the Nuts, there was often no lead singer, just a bunch of guys hollering in unison. That gets the guys riled up. You know, like a Sham 69 audience. But Cuba did tamer stuff as well, He was like some sort of link between Ray Barretto and the Hot Nuts. Whatever, that's what ran in my head.
Jubilee wasn't always on my list. It seemed to me like a punksploitaion affair, meh, and all that jazz. So I wasn't looking for it but ran into it anyway on YouTube. I remembered my mind being half-changed in recent years due to positive mentions in books and magazines and the fact that Criterion had re-issued it. The film, directed by Derek Jarman, stars Jordan, who worked at Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood's Sex clothes store (social hub of the early Sex Pistols crowd). The cast also includes Toyah Willcox, Adam Ant and the Ants, and Wayne County (semi-punk B-listers) with cameos by Siouxie and the Banshees and the Slits. The film score was by Brian Eno. A weird mix. I haven't seen it so I can't vouch for it, but, what the hell, I'm gonna give it a shot.
I can't inbed it, so you'll have to go there to see it. If you want to figure out if you want to risk an hour and a half of your time, there's an essay at The Criterion Collection.
I don't remember what I was listening to in 1992, but I know I wasn't listening to newer Bob Dylan stuff. When it comes to artists with long careers, I tend to listen to their classic material and maybe dabble in some of their newer stuff. There was a Dylan LP that came out in 1992 that I know I was cognizant of (I recognize the LP cover) but I never even looked into. It was a live recording of his 30th anniversary concert (30th annniversary of his recording career) held at Madison Square Garden. I'm not usually into all star events, but after seeing a clip on YouTube, when I looked deeper I was blown away by the amount of artists involved.
The clip was just one song, "My Back Pages" and it featured Dylan, Roger McGuinn, Tom Petty, Neil Young, George Harrison and Eric Clapton. I was first taken aback seeing Neil Young and Tom Petty sharing a mic doing background vocals. It hit me that it might have been the first and last time those two ever shared a stage. That in itself made me stop and think about the collective history of the musicians on that song. Between just the featured artists on that one song, their past history (sometimes shared) includes Bob Dylan (solo), Traveling Wilburys, the Byrds, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Neil Young (solo/Crazy Horse), Buffalo Springfield, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, George Harrison (solo), the Beatles, Eric Clapton (solo), Bluesbreakers, Cream, Blind Faith, and Derek and the Dominos. Then I realized that Steve Cropper was there so the other MGs could have been as well.
Here's another "posted before, I don't care". When I hear a song I'd forgotten about and it gets me bopping around like a fool, I don't give a damn if I have posted it before. If you're hanging in my pad, you're going to hear some things twice (as any of my friends that endured Pussy Galore's "Sweet Little Hi-Fi" repeatedly will attest to). This blog is just an extension of my apartment. And, hell, it's been five years since I've posted them. Bop like a fool.
Nash himself had a rocksteady song, "Hold Me Tight", reach #7 in the U.S., a total anomaly in 1968. The LP that contained it had two Bunny Wailer songs. Then, in 1972, he had a hit with "I Can See Clearly Now" a reggae-lite tune that went to #1. On the LP of the same name were three Marley compositions and one that Nash co-wrote with Marley. Nash was an early highly visible reggae booster, notably before Marley exploded.
Bunny "Striker" Lee was a producer. If Coxsone Dodd and Duke Reed were the top dogs (which they were) Lee was right there behind them, coming in a little later but staying a little longer. The tracks he produced with his studio band, the Aggrovators, supplied King Tubby with all the raw dub meat he needed. Shit, just the list of deejays he worked with is a Who's Who: Dennis Alcapone, U-Roy, I-Roy, Prince Jazzbo, U Brown, Dr Alimantado, Jah Stitch, Trinity, and Tapper Zukie. Beat that Coxsonne.
I've heard "The Pusher" by Steppenwolf a thousand times. It was on the soundtrack LP of Easy Rider, an LP that used to pop up all the time in thrift stores and garage sales. I still have a beat up copy somewhere. I ran into the original tonight, written and recorded by Hoyt Axton. Sonofabitch. I never knew that I was listening to a cover. Although you'd think that, because Steppenwolf was a little edgier, a little more counter culture, that their version would be the creepiest. But, no, Axton's is way creepier.
There's another interesting link down there , the opening scene in Easy Rider where the song comes in. Peter Fonda's character is selling drugs to a guy in a car, played by Phil Spector (speaking of creepy).
