RESOLUTION #1: SHAKE RUMP MORE

I can't think of any better way to end a year and start a new one. Fuck, I don't have to do anything tonight. I'll just do what I advise you to do. Cue up some J.B.'s, turn it up and let it all hang out. Happy New Year and all that jazz. 2021 was kind of a shit year. Here's to a better '22. A reminder: rump shaking is technically exercise.

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Listen:
The J.B.'s - Pass the Peas mp3 at Internet Archive
The J.B.'s - Givin' Up Food for Funk mp3 at Smiles Davis
The J.B.'s - Hot Pants Road mp3 at Internet Archive
The J.B.'s - Gimme Some More mp3 at Internet Archive
The J.B.'s - The Grunt mp3 at Internet Archive

NORMAN WHITFIELD OWES ME THREE HOURS

I kind of knew this would happen. After mentioning the psychedelic soul-era Temptations yesterday, I figured it was time to give them some spins again. First the few below from old posts, then a couple hours in the living room in front of the stereo, digging my own rabbit hole. And then while prepping this post, an unrelated post from a couple years ago about Blaxploitation soundtracks popped up in the Boss Ten (left column on a desktop). Here we go. Shit never ends.

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Listen:
The Temptations - Can't Get Next to You mp3 at Box.net (?)
The Temptations - Cloud Nine mp3 at Box.net (?)
The Temptations - Ball of Confusion mp3 at Snuthing Anything
The Temptations - Psychedelic Shack mp3 at AM Then FM With spoken intro
The Temptations - Papa Was a Rolling Stone (7 minute version) mp3 at Lots of Fish

RICK FUCKIN DALTON VS REAL DON STEELE

If you've seen Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, you've heard Los Angeles Boss Radio. The AM radio station KHJ is all over the soundtrack. The movie takes place in 1969, the last gasp of the Boss Radio format, just before FM radio took all of the young listeners. But, and this is a justified but, there is something to be said for AM radio back then, even the top 40 stations. They played all sorts of music. You could hear soul back to back with rock 'n' roll. Over airwaves, without a subscription, without a tether and without being monitored. I still listen to a transistor radio sometimes at the beach. Alas, no Boss Radio. 

Here's a few hours of KHJ, from 1968 and 1970. The sound on them is real good, the music anyway. Because two of them are labeled "restored" I'm guessing some of the music was redubbed with the actual records. Regardless, these are great. Steppenwolf back to back with psychedelic soul-era Temptations? I'm biting.

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Listen:
The Real Don Steele - KHJ, July 4, 1968 (Part 1) mp3 at Internet Archive 1:17:33
The Real Don Steele - KHJ, July 4, 1968 (Part 2) mp3 at Internet Archive 58:40
Shadow Stevens - KHJ, Oct 18, 1970 mp3 at Internet Archive 1:38:52
Visit:
KHJ, L.A.’s Coolest AM Radio Station, Is Basically a Background Actor in “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” at LA Mag

LAST CALL FAT MAN!

It might be kind of late for "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town" but it's still Christmas for a few hours so if Santa hasn't shown up, take it from gravel- voiced Bahamian singer Joseph Spence, he is coming to town. Granted, if you're in Australia or somewhere in the Far East, he's coming next year. For good measure, there's another version below from India by Jayram Acharya. That one is soaked in sitar, with all sorts of oddball percussion. It should have you WTFing well into the new year

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Listen:
Joseph Spence - Santa Claus is Coming to Town mp3 at Beware of the Blog
Jayran Acharya - Santa Clause Is Coming to Town mp3 at Radiodiffusion International
More Joseph Spence (streaming) at YouTube
Visit:
Joseph Spence at Wikipedia

SHOW ME JOLLY BILL

There's three types. One type would view the animated short of William Burroughs's The Junky's Christmas and be repelled. It's a drag, a downer. Another type is one who eats up anything and everything Burroughs. They've been around for years. Then there are others that might have gone through a Burroughs phase, or at least are aware of him. They don't give a shit one way or another. Regardless, here it is. Francis Ford Coppola was involved, executive producer if I remember correctly.

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Watch:
William S. Burroughs - The Junky's Christmas at YouTube Animated short 21.:27

PARTY CHECKLIIST: PUKE PROOF THE CHAIR

There's some animals outside my kitchen in a scrap. Either possum or raccoons, I can't really listen to music when Death Match '21 is going on. It doesn't happen often, I don't want to intervene and upset the balance of nature, Especially after it's provided me with what may be my lamest excuse yet. Slackfest 2021 is so on.

Here's a link to three mixes on a post from 2014 at Rock 'n' Soul Ichiban. I've likely posed them before but I couldn't find them so...  The Ichiban crew, most from the orbit of WFMU, all have good taste. These are a mix of soul, country and western, instrumental,, garage, surf, corny vocals...all sorts of shit. Three mixes in mp3 format, each a little over an hour long, They're great, tons of oddballs.

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Listen:
Merry Twistmas From Ichiban at Rock 'n' Soul Ichiban Three mixes (mp3s), total of 81 songs

IT'S GO POWER AT SLACKFEST TIME

Being someone without kids or immediate family under the same roof, the holiday season is something much more than gift giving, more than eggnog and Christmas caroling. It's more than a religious holiday and time off from work. It is the wonderful season of Slackfest. Hark, it's much easier to repost the Herald Angels. Soul Brother #1 falls under that category.

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Listen:
James Brown - Funky Christmas mp3 at SB Dave
James Brown - Go Power At Christmas Time mp3 at The Sound of Indie
James Brown - Santa Claus Go Straight to the Ghetto mp3 at New Times
James Brown - Let's Unite the World at Christmas mp3 at Probe Is Turning-On the People
James Brown - Let's Make Christmas Mean Something This Year mp3 at Big Hair and Plastic Grass

UH, KICK OUT THE JAMS?

I want to hate it. A song that goes nowhere sung by one of the least stylish front men of all time. Even by Slade standards it's bland. What is it with these guys? It's like they didn't get the memo, they were too busy making up ways to misspell song titles, Like I said, I want to hate it, the song and Slade themselves. But I don't, I love it because it is one of the reasons I've loved Slade for so many years. It reminds me, hey, it's just fucking Slade. Relax, it's not life or death. You don't have to take a stand one way or another. This video clawed at the old sour puss and made him smile.

C90 CHEER FROM THIS JOLLY FUCKER

I can't let the holidays go by without Lux Interior's Christmas mix tapes making an appearance. I guess it says something that he thought that much of the holidays, and friend Kristian Hoffman (who he made the tapes for), that he'd go though the hassle. Come to think of it, making mix tapes didn't seem like a chore back then. That's because you actually listened to the song, at the very least intently enough to anticipate the end so you could hit pause. Clicking away without listening is just not the same. Then again, back then time seemed more abundant. You weren't pulled away by "important" distractions like gaming, a thousand TV channels, streaming services, and a combination phone, camera, tracking device, shopping cart and vanity generator in your pocket.

Aw hell, this was supposed to be about Lux Interior's most excellent taste in music. Here's the cover of one so you get an idea of what you're in for.

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Listen:
Jeezus Fuck, It's Christmas!!! - A Lux Interior Christmas Tape at Boss Radio 66 37 cuts in two zips.
Christmas Beauty and Soul - A Lux Interior Christmas Tape at Boss Radio 66 26 mp3s in one zip.

CANDY CANE HATERS CLUB

It's that time. As I do just about every year, I have to endorse the Sonics' take on Christmas. They don't believe in it. Cited reasons: "didn't get nothing last year" "fat man didn't show" and the worst, "mistletoe doesn't work". They clocked out on the whole thing decades before covid made a mess of things. That would have merited an extended version.

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Listen:
The Sonics - Don't Believe In Christmas mp3 at Clayton Counts
The Sonics - Santa Claus (streaming) at YouTube

THE COOL CLIP FROM THE WEIRD MOVIE

A while back when I posted Graham Bond Organization's "Wade In the Water", my brother hepped me to a clip from a film called Gonks Go Beat. I keep going back to it because it's kind of bizarre, it's got so much going on. The film is a musical so there's dancers and assorted peripheral folks freaking out. Visually it's chaotic from both the editing and the camera angles. All the movements by the band are exaggerated. There's Graham Bond, organ and vocals, hamming it up, with an OG version of the look Jerry Dammers had back in the day. Jack Bruce on bass and harp, and some rather embarrassing moves. The coolest, Ginger Baker is shown briefly a few times. I love the way he's all hunched over. The clip as a whole is corny as hell but the song is so good and the style so cool that you get sucked in. Check the home made trailer that someone made advertising a showing of the film. It shows another clip with seven drummers playing the same solo (one of them, Baker). At YouTube one comment says of the film, "'The worst British film ever made', 'the Plan 9 From Outer Space of musicals' and 'So bad it's actually watchable'...None of these descriptions do justice to the sheer awfulness of this film." Maybe not, but all of those descriptions make me really want to see it.

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Video:
Graham Bond Organization - Harmonica at YouTube
Gonks Go Beat - Trailer (unofficial) at YouTube
Visit:
Gonks Go Beat - Entry at Wikipedia

MONKEE AS FREE AGENT

You might have heard Michael Nesmith died today. And you've probably heard enough Monkees to last a lifetime. Here's some non-Monkees stuff. A pre-Monkees instrumental (as Michael Blessing) that sounds like Davie Allan and Link Wray. Yeah baby. Then, the post-Monkees stuff. His top 40 hit from 1970, "Joanne" and an overview of his work from 1970-1975 at Aquarium Drunkard. In hindsight, he was kind of my favorite. That knit cap with the pom pom was stupid, but guess what? I had one.

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Listen:
Michael Blessing - A Journey With Michael Blessing mp3 at Probe Is Turning-On the People Scroll down to "Session 180"
Michael Nesmith and the First National Band - Joanne (streaming) at YouTube
The mix:
The Grand Ennui: Michael Nesmith 1970-1975 at Aquarium Drunkard 21 songs

'TIS THE SEASON FOR SLACKFEST

It's been three years since these have been posted (I think) so I'm taking slack whether it's granted or not. "Cut me some slack"? What's that all about anyway? I don't want some, I want all slack. I'm exaggerating of course. I will take partial slack for not saying anything about the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion Christmas record.

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Listen:
Jon Spencer - Big Yule Log Boogie mp3 at I Am Fuel You Are Friends
Jon Spencer - My Christmas Wish mp3 at I Am Fuel You Are Friends

AND THEN THE SECOND LEFT AFTER THE LIGHT

With music blogs going belly up left and right, take a tip from me: If you find a blog you like, dig through some of their older posts. Many will have a bunch of old posts that you can check out and many of those will still have links to mp3s, mixes and what-not. That goes for this blog too. There are 3615 posts here going back to 2007. Don't get too focused on just the latest posts.

I had to point that out because I was digging through old posts at Probe Is Turning-On the People (online since 2005) and ran into one from 2012 that I hadn't checked out. It's two different versions of Mable John's "Who Wouldn't Love A Man Like That?" One from 1960, the other from 1963, both on Tamla (Motown). What makes this interesting is that the later version, according to John, was not produced by Brian Holland and Lamont Dozier as the official credits list, but by Stevie Wonder who was then 13 years old.

Here was another cool turn. I hadn't been to Motown Junkies (online since 2009) in a while so I went there to hopefully get the skinny on the two versions, not sure if they had them covered. To my surprise they had entries for both. The full stories behind both versions and why there were two. Very interesting reading, for geeks anyway. Hey, now I know that Mable John is the sister of Little Willie John ("Fever"). I didn't know any of this stuff this morning.

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Listen:
Mable John - Who Wouldn't Love A Man Like That (1960) mp3 at Probe Is Turning On the People
Mable John - Who Wouldn't Love A Man Like That (1963) mp3 at Probe Is Turning On the People
Read:
Mable John - Who Wouldn't Love A Man Like That (1960) at Motown Junkies
Mable John - Who Wouldn't Love A Man Like That (1963) at Motown Junkies

OH, THE PLACES YOU'LL GO (SLIGHT RETURN)

If the name Lester Bangs doesn't mean anything to you, then you're not the type of person who reads rock criticism from forty years ago. Bangs wrote for the San Diego Door, Rolling Stone, Creem, the Village Voice, New Musical Express,  Penthouse, Playboy and High Times among others. There are at least two collections of his writings and a biography written after his death in 1982. His writing reads like you're having beers with a smart well read friend who knows way more about music than you do, irreverent and eloquent, and he rants.

I just ran into the documentary, A Box Full of Rocks: The El Cajon Years of Lester Bangs, about Bang's high school and young adult years. I've only watched a few minutes of it and have already seen three friends. So I'm posting it before I watch it to be objective. If you're a Bangs freak, check the old post linked below. It's got some sloppy songs by him and Peter Laughner (Rocket From the Tomb, Pere Ubu).

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Listen:
Lester Bangs - Let It Blurt (streaming) at YouTube
Lester Bangs . Live (streaming) at YouTube
Birdland with Lester Bangs - Kill Him Again (streaming) at YouTube
Lester Bangs and The Delinquents - Life is not Worth Living (But Suicide is a Waste of Time) (streaming) at YouTube
Lester Bangs and Peter Laughner - Six songs at this past post

THIS WOULD BE THE "LOOKING DOWN" SHOT

When all else fails, it's back to the garage. Here's four random cuts I ran across. A Count Five cut that isn't "Psychotic Reaction" and a Music Explosion cut that isn't "Little Bit of Soul". There's a certifiably crunchy cover of the Kinks' already crunchy "I Need You" and another by the lesser known Harbinger Complex because, well, fuzz.

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Listen:
The Count Five - Declaration Of Independence mp3 at Internet Archive
The Music Explosion - Let Yourself Go mp3 at Internet Archive
The Rationals -I Need You mp3 at Internet Archive
Harbinger Complex - I Think I'm Down mp3 at Internet Archive

YOU NEVER FORGET YOUR FIRST

Those headphones (above) are the same make and model as the first headphones that entered our household when I was a kid. We didn't use them much because we were kids, we moved around too much. I remember my first full on headphone moment. The Edgar Winter Group's "Frankenstein", the longer LP version. There's a synthesizer part that went back and forth through my skull. Up to that point all my experiences with stereo were with musicians in stationary locations, without any fading back and forth. It was the first time I'd ever heard the song too. I was blown away.

Yesterday I revisited Cornelius's Fantasma LP. That's what triggered the Edgar Winter memory. Fantasma is made for headphones, a sonic trip practically swirling around you. I closed my eyes and it was like being underwater. That's high praise here. It really pretty amazing that it's from 1996. If you can't listen with headphones, make sure you're dead center between the speakers. And it's a good idea to listen to it all the way through.

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Listen:
Cornelius - Fantasma (Full Album) (streaming) at YouTube