If I don't post it now, I'll forget. For all of you into beat poetry, here's Allen Ginsberg reading Howl and Jack Kerouac reading his October in the Railroad Earth (with Steve Allen on the 88s). It's mind blowing to think that Howl was such a controversial piece when Ginsberg first read it in public in 1955. (The reading below is from 1959). It had a way of getting under the skin of straights, that I understand, but banning it? Come on, that's like banning people for thinking.
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The other night I had the ball game on with the sound off. The Padres got hammered by the Yankees. The post game coverage came on and there were two Padres commentators talking to each other. The sound was still off. In my head I was imagining that one said to the other "Ahh, we sucked pretty bad on that one." What the hell? Where did that I get that from? Then I remembered. It was uttered by a young teenager in 1967 during the Croton-on-Hudson Band Festival. I last heard it in 2012 when I posted a video of the festival. Yeah, selective memory. Here's the original post:
No mp3 today. Instead, I'd like to direct your attention to the video
below. It is most awesome. It's a few different groups playing in some
sort of battle of the bands in Croton-On-Hudson, NY in 1967. This
sucker's a hoot, so many things to dig. The teen dancers, the
distinctly different bands, the venue. You've got your choice here. It
opens with a standard (for the time) group, the Active Ingredients,
followed by three other groups that didn't have the wherewithal to put
their band name on the drum head, so I can't ID them. The Active
Ingredients do "Midnight Hour," passably for school age kids I suppose.
I love the ad-lib grunts and such towards the end. When the second
band comes on (at 2:06)...well, the first thing that hit me was that
they had a Monks-like beat. All repetitive, all banging thuds. I
really like them. The drummer plays funny to boot. They're followed by
a guy who probably thought of himself as some sort of sensitive John
Mayer-type lady killer, at least of Croton-On-Hudson in 1967. I was
kind of annoyed with this guy. I wouldn't go so far as to say his band
have this thing completely nailed down, but they're far better than
the rest of the bands, and that of course makes them completely
uninteresting to me. The fourth band, whoa, they're my favorite. It's
kids, really, trying their hardest, bless their jumping-the-gun hearts.
Their tune (at 3:25) is quite a racket. In a way that I love, meaning
that the only redeeming thing about it is that they are trying so hard
to hold it together. And, they're at least doing it. (Proto-William Hung.)
The kid singer assesses the performance at the end. Clearly audible
as the song ends (at 3:51), he says "ahhh, we sucked pretty bad on that
one..." It is a defining moment in rock 'n' roll, because every rock
'n' roll band has had one of those moments.
What I like about this video, and what made it worth watching several
times, and posting it without accompanying tunes of any sort, is that
it really has the timeless elements of shitty bands everywhere, from
every era. To a certain degree, even the winner of this band contest,
even the second runner up, let's just cut to the chase here, even the
Beatles, at one time or another, sucked pretty bad on that one.
In a book I'm currently reading, it mentioned Head, the 1968 film that starred the Monkees. The book described the film as "A whoopee cushion that belched pot smoke." It's that and more. Besides the Monkees, the film also had Annette Funicello, Frank Zappa, Carol Doda, Sonny Liston, Victor Mature and uncredited cameos by Dennis Hopper and Jack Nicholson. If that sounds like a surreal cast, you're starting to get the idea. It's worth a viewing if for no other reason than to see a disjointed stoner flick written in a weekend long pot party by Bob Rafelson and Jack Nicholson. Case in point: While writing the script, one of them brings up the ridiculous idea of having the Monkees come flying out of Victor Mature's hair. Later, when they came back to earth, they realized that the idea would require Victor Mature's participation. (He signed on.) That's just one short weird scene. Expand that to a feature length full of short weird scenes and you have an idea of what it's like to spend a weekend getting stoned with Bob Rafelson and Jack Nicholson. (Note: If you're a regular here you know, it's been posted before. But, shit, it's been three years. What did you post today?)
While I was trying to decide whether or not I was going to post tonight, I figured I'd listen to some African music that I hadn't heard. Destination: Internet Archive. I'm blown away at the amount of music, books and other stuff over there. It's a rabbit hole of many flavors. Todays gamble certainly paid off. It's eight episodes of a radio show, "The Africa Express", from KOOP in Austin. They're good and varied. A LOT of more obscure stuff, even for those into African music. Book mark it, it's eight hour-long shows. Note: You can also download them from the the link in one the right of the page about halfway down, click on "Download Options". Click on "VBR MP3" for the mp3s. I guess I am posting.
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If you're at all into reggae, you know who Lee Perry is. What you may not know is that as far back as his Black Ark studio days he was working with non-reggae musicians, the best known collaboration being with the Clash. Amongst others he worked with were the McCartneys, those McCartneys. I had heard about the collaboration and shuddered at the thought. I recently gave in and gave two cuts a listen. While not as offensive as I expected, it's still just bland cod reggae. But, man, would I have loved being a fly on the wall at Black Ark. Imagine the conversations that may have occurred. As it is, two years later Perry would end up intentionally burning down Black Ark. Were the events connected? While you ponder that, here's the two cuts and a link to posts about Lee Perry from the past.
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I ran into a collection of songs, nearly all hits, all backed by the Wrecking Crew. If you're not familiar with the Wrecking Crew, go look it up and come back. We've been over it here. [Documentary below. Recommended.] In short, they were shifting number of studio musicians (the core were roughly a couple dozen) who played on a shitload of hits in the sixties and early seventies. The thing that kills me is that, of the many hits that they played on, no matter who produced the sessions, the arrangements and playing carry the songs. The players, usually not credited, were the real stars.
I've posted stuff about the Wrecking Crew several times. I've known their story for years but I'm still finding out about songs that they played on that I didn't know of. Case in point, the Ventures version of the "Hawaii Five-O" theme, just mentioned in a post a week or so ago. The Ventures were an proto-surf instrumental band. What? An instrumental band that had to have help? They weren't alone either. Other instrumental bands leaned on the Wrecking Crew as well; the Marketts, a surf band, jazz dude Lalo Schifrin and Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass to name three. Then there were the fictitious bands of scores of surf cash-in records. (Sundazed Records has a number of the latter in their Surf Legends series of compilations. Highly recommended.) I love studio geeks in general. When they're musician studio geeks, forget it, it's off the charts. Total unequivocal respect.
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There I was, perusing a song list of sixties British female pop, stuff like Dusty Springfield, Lulu and Sandie Shaw. Bam! There were a couple cuts by the Liverbirds! I've a soft spot for the Liverbirds. Unlike a lot of British female singers at the time, the Liverbirds played their own instruments. Better, they looked as if they were not to be messed with. They were the cool chicks. That's all fine and dandy if their music backed it up. It did.
Having posted about them several times in the past, I didn't expect find much of anything new online. I was surprised to see that they now have their own YouTube channel and that the two surviving members wrote a book about their band. I'm still in rabbit hole mode. Join me, it beats doing the dishes.
First off, check the live clip, "Peanut Butter". So completely badass. A shitload more of that at their YouTube page. When you check the mp3s below, just imagine them with a meatier production. Even a crunchy Kinks-like sound. Even better? A time machine wherein Jon Spencer produces them à la Blues Explosion. Shit. now I'm just fantasizing.
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Duane Eddy wasn't a surf guitarist but his sound, the echo and tone of his guitar, were hugely influential. There had been guitar instrumentals as long as there have been guitars but Eddy played his leads largely on the bass strings and that, combined with the echo, provided the "twang" that producer Lee Hazelwood dubbed his sound. (Hazelwood devised the echo chamber from an empty 2,000 gallon water tank.) This was a couple years before Leo Fender made the first reverb unit for Dick Dale. So, in regards to his influence on surf music, as one of his album titles says, "The 'Twangs' The 'Thang'"
Duane Eddy died last week. For me it's almost like losing a relative. [Personal story alert.] Hear me out. When I was about ten, my Uncle Mike had just returned home after an Air Force stint in Okinawa. When we went to visit him at my Grandma's he had this enormous sound system set up. He'd had bought it in Japan and had it shipped home. He asked my brothers and I if we wanted to hear it. At that young age our collective record collection consisted of three 45s. We'd only heard music from transistor and clock radios and a crappy portable record player. We did not know what we were in for. Uncle Mike proceeded to blast the Ventures' version of the "Hawaii Five-O" theme at a thousand decibels. There it began.
A while later we got a few hand me down LPs from Uncle Mike. The Ventures, Santo and Johnny and Duane Eddy. Having no LPs of our own, these ushered in the guitar mania that would dominate the next several decades of our listening habits. I know, I can hear it. You're saying "It's not all about you. How about some Duane Eddy background info?" Fine.
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