WELL, SHIT, I DIDN'T KNOW

Here's an oddball. Might be a case of mistaken identity, I'm too lazy to do research tonight. What caught my eye was the title, "The Beatles - Sour Milk Sea (1968 - Full Remastered)". I'm thinking, well that's a Beatles song I've not heard. So, while I'm listening to it, it's really good by the way, I see in the credits "Artist Jackie Lomax". Okay, I'm thinking it's just a misleading title. Lomax had been on Apple, so let's see if this is his. So I checked. The version of it by Lomax was different, but the song was written by George Harrison and Lomax's version was produced by Harrison. So, here's my guesses. The "Beatles" version was a demo made for Lomax, by Harrison (the vocal on that version sounds like him) or it actually is a Beatles recording that was left unreleased for some reason. It's not as if it matters. It's just the Beatles.
Wait. This just in, from Wikipedia: "The group recorded a demo of the song while considering material for their 1968 double album The Beatles (also known as the White Album)."

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Listen:
The Beatles - Sour Milk Sea (1968 - Full Remastered) (streaming) at YouTube
Jackie Lomax - Sour Milk Sea (Remastered 2010) (streaming) at YouTube
Visit:
Sour Milk Sea at Wikipedia The whole story behind the song. Interesting. I'm done.

OH YES IT'S PENANCE NIGHT

After hearing Dusty Hill, ZZ Top bassist, passed away, I went looking for some early stuff. All of the old links here were dead so I did a search and came up with squat outside of YouTube. I am not going to bother recommending particular songs, just start with their first album, imaginatively titled ZZ Top's First Album. If you dig that, move on to the second, Rio Grande Mud, ditto the third, Tres Hombres. Digest those and then listen to Fandango. Pause and get to know it, because the overblown stage act and gimmick after gimmick hell ride is about to begin. Me? I jumped ship and never went back.

In looking for shit I did run into something cool. Most of you that have known ZZ Top since the early days are probably about as sick of hearing "La Grange" as I am. I think it's an excellent song but it is, at this point, way too familiar. I'm fucking over it. I would have been fine never hearing it again. Then I ran into this piece of whacked out brilliance. Someone remixed and/or re-edited it, stretching it to twenty minutes long. It is exhausting. After having listened to it I began to think. What if I were to put it on repeat and let it go for hours at a time? Yikes. I might have to do it.

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Listen:
20 Minutes of La Grange (streaming) at YouTube

DECADES OF COOL, WITH HEAVY HITTERS

I started early today, a little after 8 AM. In my car and switched to the jazz station. Milt Jackson, some song that was really swinging. I put Milt Jackson under my thinking cap. If I couldn't think of anything else to post during the course of the day, Jackson would be it. Guess what? I couldn't think of anything else during the coarse of the day so it's Milt Jackson and some of his heavy friends. The Ray Brown Big Band? Okay, not familiar with them. But I am familiar with Thelonius Monk, Art Blakey, the Modern Jazz Quartet, Freddie Hubbard, Herbie Hancock, Billy Cobham, and Ray Charles. Wait? Ray Charles? Yep. Milt Jackson is that cool.

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Listen:
Milt Jackson with the Ray Brown Big Band - Braddok Breakdown mp3 at Groove Addict 1969
Milt Jackson - Willow Weep For Me mp3 at Internet Archive With Thelonius Monk and Art Blakey 1952
Milt Jackson and the Modern Jazz Quartet - But Not for Me mp3 at Internet Archive 1953
Milt Jackson with Ray Charles - How Long Blues mp3 at Groove Addict 1957
Milt Jackson - Born Free mp3 at Groove Addict 1966
Milt Jackson - A Time and a Place mp3 at Groove Addict 1966
Milt Jackson - Sunflower mp3 at London Jazz Collector With Freddie Hubbard, Herbie Hancock and Billy Cobham 1972

OH, COUNT OSSIE. EXPLAINS EVERYTHING.

I've been listening to reggae for a long ass time, since my late teens. I'm a total sucker for anything that producer and label owner Coxsone Dodd was involved in. He was as instrumental in the sound and development of Jamaican music as it evolved from mento and  rhythm and blues to ska, rock steady and reggae. Here's the deal: I just heard one of his early releases today. It was "Lumumba" by Bunnie & Skitter released on Dodd's Worldisc label. It surprised the hell of of me when I found multiple sources that had the release date as 1960. For that era, it was heavy. Bare bones but heavy. Bass in your face. It does not sound like 1960. Something might be fucked up here.

The Cedric IM Brooks song is down there because it was at the same post. What the hell, it's a great song, from several years later but also a Dodd thing.

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Listen:
Bunnie and Skitter - Lumumba mp3 at Cocoringo's Circadian Sounds
Cedric IM Brooks w/the Sound Dimension - Mun-Dun-Gu mp3 at Cocoringo's Circadian Sounds

GRAB BAG SPECIAL

I dig it when someone does a cover that isn't an obvious choice for them. Especially when it's not like they're cashing in on a recent hit by someone else. That's the common thread with these, to varying degrees. The Black Keys covering Eddie Cochran? Not that big of a stretch. But Eli "Paperboy" Reed covering Motorhead? Bluegrass granddad Ralph Stanley covering the Velvet Underground?

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Listen:
Black Keys - Summertime Blues mp3 at Tumblr
Eli "Paperboy" Reed - Ace of Spades mp3 at Thersl Weblog Motorhead cover
Ralph Stanley - White Light/White Heat mp3 at Tumblr Velvet Underground cover
Glen Campbell - Jesus (streaming) at YouTube Velvet Underground cover
Jon Spencer Blues Explosion - She's On It mp3 at Internet Archive Beastie Boys cover with a snippet of Link Wray. Live in studio.

THE BAD HAND GESTURE CLUB

The opening ceremonies of the Olympics are being replayed on TV and it occurred to me that it's been some time since I posted anything by the Olympics, the vocal group. That's a stretch. How about this: The first song I found was "Private Eye" and this was just after putting down the Raymond Chandler book I'm reading (Chandler was the one who wrote the Phillip Marlow pulp paperbacks). Regardless, "Private Eye" is a great. I used to play it when I DJd because any song that starts out with gunshots and a scream gets people's attention in a crowded bar. It probably wouldn't be a good idea these days. The Olympics were one of the sorta second tier groups, not in quality but in recognition. The Coasters and the Drifters were cleaning up. But like most doo wop groups they did have some killer stuff in them. "Private Eye" is one, "Pete Butter" is another. Many more, blah, blah, blah. What I dig is the sound, the mix or whatever, These sound, in parts, like you're there in the room.

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Listen:
The Olympics - Private Eye mp3 at Rocky 52
The Olympics - Peanut Butter (streaming) at YouTube
The Olympics - (Baby) Hully Gully mp3 at Rocky 52
The Olympics - Western Movies mp3 at Rocky 52

THEY'RE HOLDING MY HEAD HOSTAGE

This song has not left my head for days. Someone drove by and whatever they were blasting had the same kind of boom as JJ Fad's "Supersonic". I know it well. So that song stuck in my head, for a couple days before I even went to listen to it again. I bought the 12" out of a 99 cent bin with no idea who they were. That was probably thirty years ago. I still dig it.

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Listen:
J.J. Fad - Supersonic mp3 at Tumblr

POST LOCK DOWN THEATER NIGHT 2

A double feature tonight because I ran into Desperate Teenage Lovedolls and the sequel, Lovedolls Superstar both on YouTube. Both were made on shoestring budgets by Dave Markey and both have band members from L.A. punk scene. I forget all of them. Some of the soundtrack cuts are below. The video directly below is the first film, Desperate Teenage Lovedolls. The sequel is linked below.

[Cut and paste snippet from old post because you're lazy like that.] This stuff is perfect for tonight. It speaks to me. It instills in me the spirit of the rascals singing. Sloppy and a little reckless, without a care in the goddamn world. It says to me, make it short asshole, and get back to goofing off.

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Watch:
Lovedolls Superstar at YouTube Full film, director's cut, sequel to above.
Listen:
Redd Kross - Lovedolls Superstar mp3 at We Got Power Films
The Lovedolls w/Redd Kross - Beer & Ludes mp3 at We Got Power Films
The Lovedolls w/Redd Kross - Rex Smith (I Want to Be A Cholo Chick) mp3 at We Got Power Films
The Lovedolls w/Redd Kross - Sunshine Day mp3 at We Got Power Films
Sonic Youth - Hallowed By Thy Name mp3 at We Got Power Films
Lawndale - Wing Tips mp3 at We Got Power Films

LEI'D BACK. SUE ME.

A bunch of old Hawaiian guitar records, from the 1920s-30s. I don't know anything at all about this vintage of Hawaiian guitar other than it really hits the spot after coming home from a quick dip in the ocean. I also know that a collection like this is worth checking out. It may be gone tomorrow. Aloha Mr, Hand.

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Listen:
Jim and Bob - By the Waters of the Minnetonka mp3 at Internet Archive That's them, Jim and Bob, in the photo above.
MKane's Hawaiians - Hilo mp3 at Internet Archive
Sol Ho'op'i - In Ma-La-Ka-Mo-Ka-Lu mp3 at Internet Archive
The whole collection:
Hawaiian Guitar Hot Shots at Internet Archive Note: In the right column, under "Download options" click on "VBR MP3 Files"

RETURN TO NORMALCY

A couple days ago an old friend and roommate mentioned a book he'd read about the Replacements and said that he had never had the chance to see them live. That prompted a string of comments from others, most of them about how drunk and sloppy the Replacements were live. I saw them a few times and I don't remember the shows being that way at all, probably because I don't remember much of anything about the shows. In those years, when I was seeing them, I was drunk and sloppy. See there? A nice little circular thing. Everyone's drunk, everyone's happy. Everyone's hungover.

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Listen:
The Replacements - Tommy Gets His Tonsils Out mp3 at Tumblr
The Replacements - Black Diamond mp3 at Tumblr
The Replacements - Beer For Breakfast mp3 at Review Stalker
The Replacements - Can't Hardly Wait (alternate take) mp3 at Tumblr
The Replacements - I will Dare  mp3 at Tumblr
Live stuff:
The Replacements Live Archive Project A shitload of live stuff.
Video:
Replacements - 7th Street Entry, second set at YouTube The first set is the video above.
Replacements - 7th Street Entry at YouTube (Same show, divided into six parts)

STRAIGHT OUTTA WORLD, OKAY? DONE.

I revisited Zara Moussa again. Who? I know. I'd forgotten. She's a rapper from Niger, West Africa. There a couple things that kind of stood out listening this time. One is that her sound seems more organic, in a way, than American hip hop. While there are synthetic (er, digital) elements, the sparse backing with even the lightest touch of percussion grounds it. It might just be the locale, because hip hop from other countries always sounds less processed that the American version. In Moussa's case it might too be that with fewer rappers, particularly female rappers, in West Africa there's less of a chest beating attitude. At least I think there is, I can't understand a single word she's saying. But the delivery is less in-your-face than it is matter-of-fact. The other thing that hit me is that this might have been the sort of thing that the re-formed Slits would have been headed for had the late Ari Up still been alive. Who the hell knows? I just dig this stuff. Check the video below. I don't even want to describe it or say how much I like it. I don't want to ruin it for...fuck it. The thing is awesome.

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Listen:
Zara Moussa - Soyeya mp3 at Awesome Tapes From Africa
Zara Moussa - Femme mp3 at Awesome Tapes From Africa
Zara Moussa - 11 more songs at Awesome Tapes From Africa Go there to get them
Video:

 Zara Moussa (ZM) - "Maté Gaté" Live at YouTube

NEED A NAME

This is cool. A minimal sax and drum combo. This is raw bare bones jazz funk no wave whatever. If I ever came across this in a subway, i spring for a buck and I know I'd be late for something. Wait for his moving in a circle thing, just past the one minute mark. Super smooth.

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Watch:
Sax and drum buskers at Union Square Station at Still Not Dead Yet

READY HEADPHONES. CHECK.

Oh, well, hell yeah. I was thinking of something completely different to post tonight, but then I ran into a Fela song that I'd never linked to. Whenever I think of Fela, I think of what the former boyfriend of a friend of mine said. He was the jazz buyer for Tower Records, so I figured he'd be the one to ask, so I asked. "What is a good Charlie Parker album to get?" (We all have to start somewhere, us jazz plebeians). He answered "There's no bad Charlie Parker." So I bought the cheapest compilation they had. I haven't listened to it a whole lot, but I have listened to Fela Kuti quite a bit. If someone asked me what Fela album to buy, I would have to answer "There's no bad Fela." Honestly, there may be, but if there is I sure haven't heard it. So here you go, a fifteen minute jam from the man. Extended sax soloing in the middle, with that grounding beat, like a pulse. This certainly is no bad Fela.

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Listen:
Fela Kuti - No Agreement mp3 at Rock Town Hall

OH YES IT'S PLUNDER NIGHT

Fu-huck. I don't know how much longer I'm going to be doing this. In the past I was able to find shit at other blogs or the odd archive pretty easily. There were more people posting, much less reliance on YouTube, And there were decent safe mp3 search sites. What once took about the same effort as going to the kitchen for a beer, now becomes a time consuming scavenger hunt. A right pain in the ass. All spontaneity is lost. So, at times like these I seek out the old links here. Plunder and pillage my own blog for old links to other blogs? How messed up is that? Watch out, it's digital cannibalism. It'll do until I make up my mind.

Here's some Jackie Mittoo. First posted him around 2009 and he's been here a few times since. Are you going to sit there and tell me that posting Jackie Mitto every few years is overdoing it? The original Skatalites keyboard player at age 15? Part and parcel of the sound of Studio One before he was twenty one tears old, that Jackie Mittoo?

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Listen:

Jackie Mittoo - Hang 'em High mp3 at Passion of the Weiss

Jackie Mittoo - Grand Funk mp3 at Passion of the Weiss

Jackie Mittoo - Black Organ mp3 at Passion of the Weiss

AND THE WINNAH IS

Some friends were posting links to a gig by the Nashville Ramblers, who rarely play out. They're playing at Tiki Oasis this year. Tiki Oasis is like a convention for people into all that tiki stuff. They have other stuff too, burlesque, exotica and assorted retro stuff and I've never been. The thought of seeing the Nashville Ramblers appealed to me enough to check out the event site. Once there I saw the other bands that are playing. One of the bands was the Toumaliners, who I'd never heard of. There's a old man's surf spot a few miles north called Tourmaline, so I figured they were a surf band, although curious as to why the picked a not-so-challenging surf spot to name their band after. What the hell, I headed to their site to see what they were all about. One song and already dismissed. A "surf" cover of a Coldplay song. What. The. Fuck. Bad idea all around. Then I looked at their photos and saw that their keyboard player had a laptop in here set up. And done.

I started thinking about contemporary surf bands and how the bulk of them always have something that they just get wrong. I don't mind if the equipment's isn't all vintage or how their dressed, shit like that. The real surf bands can still pull it off. And the ones that can't sure as hell shouldn't cover Coldplay. No surf band should. And it's not because it's not a vintage song. It's just so, well, nothing. It has no punch. It's Chris fucking Martin. There are thousands of songs that would make good surf covers. Never mind the band's name, the surf spot or the laptop. The song choice alone invalidates them for me. Adding reverb to a shitty overplayed and overrated song does not work. Unless you're mining for page views.

Here's a couple medleys by two instrumental bands that slay the Tourmalamers. Both irreverent in style (power chords?) and song juxtapositions. But they make up for it in their deal-with-it blasphemy. I'll deal with it, especially if it gets me the hell away from Coldplay.

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Listen:
Tourmaliners - Clocks mp3 at Tourmaliners Orig: Coldfuckingplay
Surf Manchu - Pipeline Über Alles mp3 at Internet Archive  Orig: Chantays/Dead Kennedys
Lawndale - Interstellar Caravan (streaming) at YouTube Orig: Pink Floyd/Duke Ellington

WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?

Sanford Clark died yesterday, from covid. "Sanford who?" you say. I said it too, then racked my brain. The headline referred to him as a rockabilly artist, that's what threw me. Once I saw the song "The Fool" mentioned it came back to me. Yeeaahhh, I guess you could consider him rockabilly in a stretch, he did have some more up-tempo stuff. But "The Fool", like a lot of his stuff, has more of a Ricky Nelson's "Lonesome Town" or Jody Reynolds' "Endless Sleep" vibe. More of a downer-billy thing going on. You know, the sultry sullen plaintive thing that Chris Isaak borrowed liberally from, to great effect.

For you fiends, check out the full size version of the photo above. Duane Eddy is playing behind him. What's wrong with this picture? The guy that looks like Eddy is the guitar player on the right. The other guitar player, behind the drummer, doesn't really look like him. Now what's wrong with this picture? Hint, two words: solid body.

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Listen:
Sanford Clark - The Fool mp3 at Rockabilly Hall
Sanford Clark - Usta Be My Baby mp3 at Rocky 52
Sanford Clark - A Cheat mp3 at Rockabilly Hall
Sanford Clark - Modern Romance mp3 at Rocky 52
Sanford Clark - It's Nothin' To Me mp3 at Rockabilly Hall

AND I'LL NEVER HEAR IT THE SAME WAY AGAIN.

Walking back from the beach tonight, I passed by the Noodle House and Ragland, two restaurants a block and a half away from where I live. They are the last possible danger zones in the musical mine field I traverse coming back from the beach. You might remember the Noodle House from a couple days ago when I was ragging about them blasting "Freebird". Today it was worse. The two restaurants were both blasting music. The Noodle House was blasting the Marshall Tucker Band and Ragland was blasting something with Auto-Tune. Hearing both at the same time as I was walking past was like a perfect storm of music I can't stand. Once I got home I remembered the reprieve I enjoyed yesterday. Among the nuts blasting fireworks in a crowded residential area was one nut to my liking. For whatever reason this guy, or gal, was driving down the street every fifteen minutes or so. Though I didn't see him, or her, I knew it was the same person because they were blasting the Champ's "Tequila" from their car, every mother loving time they drove by. Any other day it might have been slightly annoying, but under duress from the shitty music I heard all weekend, it was welcome, and comical, relief. Who the hell does that? Driving back and forth down the same street blasting a song as inane as "Tequila" over and over for what must have been thirty or forty minutes? They wore me out and I had to laugh. I've heard that song a thousand times but it was such a respite. Corny, ridiculous, and way too familiar, but objectively a great tight instrumental.

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Listen:
The Champs - Tequila mp3 at Rocky 52
The Champs - Midnighter mp3 at Rocky 52
Video:
The Champs - Tequila (live) at YouTube TV appearance. The sax player is a totally crazed clapper towards the end.

THANKS STRANGER'S T-SHIRT!

Ack! Holiday weekends are challenging when you live near the beach. It's like hosting a completely different community for two or three days. I'm not complaining, I'm lucky to live where I do. And I do get a kick watching people experience the ocean on a rare visit or for the first time. Sincerely. No one can have that experience more than once, so it's nice to see at least that on a holiday weekend. The one thing bad about the crowds though is the omnipresent Bluetooth speakers or whatever the fuck they are. They're always pumping crap with Auto=Tune. Then there's the mega-woofers on wheels, the bass that you can hear two blocks away. I get it. I love bass, I really do. But you don't have to subject everyone in a two block radius. The capper, today's lowlight, was hearing "Freebird" blasting from the Noodle House of all places. A song high on my list of songs I would not miss. Today's silver lining: The one thing that cancels out all of the bad musical crap was seeing a guy at the beach with a Viceroys T-shirt. I came home and listened to the Viceroys and forgot all about Bluetooth speakers, Auto-Tune, loud woofers and fucking "Freebird".

The first two below are on Sly and Robbie's Taxi label. from 1980. Do listen to the version. It's not all that dub-like. Though it gets stripped and rebuilt, there's relatively few electronic gizmos firing.

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Listen:
Viceroys - Heart Made Of Stone mp3 at Marley Discography
Viceroys - Version mp3 at Marley Discography
Viceroys - Ya Ho (Full LP) (streaming) at YouTube

REMOTE LEARNING: SUN RA 101

Sometimes the inexplicable happens. The New Yorker just ran a story on Sun Ra. Although it does mention a couple relatively recent reissues, that doesn't seem to be the reason for the story. Usually when they print a profile of someone it's because of a book they recently wrote or a movie the made or something else that's newsworthy. Sun Ra is not newsworthy. As good as the article is, I was left wondering why it was in the magazine in the first place. The only thing I can surmise is that Sun Ra claims to have been abducted by aliens back in the thirties. With all of the "now we're going to take them serious" reports on past UFO sightings recently, maybe that's the reason. Whatever. Here's the article, a good introduction. The documentary directly below is by Don Letts, some of you know who he is. I also threw a few songs down there that have been posted before just because, if you've never heard them or Sun Ra before, now you have no excuse.

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Read:
How Sun Ra Taught Us to Believe in the Impossible at New Yorker
Listen:
Sun Ra - Astro Black mp3 at Destination-Out 1973
Sun Ra and the Myth Science Akestra - Eve mp at Now You're at Soundblaque
Sun Ra - Angels and Demons at Play mp3 at Destination Out
Sun Ra - The Sun Man Speaks mp3 at Now You're at Songblague 
Sun Ra - Door to the Cosmos mp3 at I'm Waking Up to... 
Sun Ra - Omnisonicism mp3 at Lost Tones 
Sun Ra - Intensity mp3 at Lost Tones

I'LL POST IT AGAIN AND AGAIN. SO?...

After hearing Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels' "Devil In Blue Dress" a thousand times, I had no inclination to go further. Then, sometime in my twenties, I ran into a 45 of "Sock It to Me Baby" in a thrift store. What a game-changer. I didn't think that "Devil.." was bad, I was just sick of hearing it. It is a major drag that the Devil song is the only one you ever hear. It was like that back then and it still is. But, boy, "Sock It ti Me Baby" is a piece of work. It's got a heavy sound, the beat and the horns are a deadly combo. It's got fuzz and slide whistle all over it. What's not to like? After hearing a decent amount of his non-Devil stuff, I gotta say, I think that one was the fluke. All of his other stuff is good. Dig "Liberty" below, Ryder backed by Booker T and the MGs and the Memphis Horns. It is a whopper. Funky soul, hard driving. Devil who?

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Listen:
Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels -  Sock It to Me Baby mp3 at Tumblr
Mitch Ryder - Liberty mp3 at Groove Addict Backed by Booker T and the MGs and the Memphis Horns.