JACK ON FIRE

These are cool, four early Jack Nitzsche instrumentals. "The Lonely Surfer" I've heard a million times, but the other three I hadn't heard until a couple days ago. Imagine the Wrecking Crew doing surf music, because that's what it is. It doesn't sound like surf music because they're the fucking Wrecking Crew. They gotta do everything perfect, and big. We could go on like this all night. One of the songs, "Baja", is just the missing link I'd been hoping to find. It's a cover of a surf instrumental by the Astronauts, from Colorado of all places (everybody was getting in on the  action). Nitzsche goes big on that one, and it's great to hear juxtaposed with the original. Still, look at that photo. Dude looks like a walking time bomb.

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Listen:
Jack Nitzsche - The Lonely Surfer mp3 at Internet Archive
Jack Nitzsche - Baja mp3 at Internet Archive
The Astronauts - Baja mp3 at California Girls (?)
Jack Nitzsche - Old Town mp3 at Internet Archive
Jack Nitzsche - Puerto Vallarta mp3 at Internet Archive

SKETCHES OF BOOM BOOM (SLIGHT RETURN)

If you know the film The Hot Spot, you know it's not the greatest. But you likely also know the soundtrack, featuring collaborations with Miles Davis and John Lee Hooker. The shared material is worth hearing for two reasons. One is that you can clearly hear both, and the other is that combination works. Augmented by Taj Mahal on dobro, Roy Rodgers on slide and Earl Palmer on drums, it's a total supergroup of non-rock musicians. Credit producer Jack Nitsche for corralling these epic talents. He's no stranger to that sort of thing (ala Mick Jagger and Ry Cooder's "Memo From Turner" from the soundtrack of Performance).  

The "Ending Credits" cut has been posted here before, but I just ran across the the whole soundtrack, streaming at YouTube. Just let it rip, crank it up and go about your business. (There's YouTube to mp3 converters available online should you be particularly fiendish).

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Listen:
Miles Davis & John Lee Hooker - Ending Credits mp3 at When You Awake From The Hot Spot OST
Mick Jagger with Ry Cooder - Memo From Turner mp3 at ATumblr (?) From Performance OST
The soundtrack
The Hot Spot Original Soundtrack - Composed by Jack Nitsche (streaming) at YouTube
Video:
The Hot Spot Main Title Sequence at YouTube

DARLENE LOVE ALERT

I can really do without a lot of the Christmas bullshit. All the running around, list checking, requisite shopping, face stuffing; it gets old, particularly when you see people just lapping it up, full bore, with money flying all over the place. Before you start muttering "bah humbug", let me fill you in. It's not cynicism, it's stepping back and taking stock at what's become of us. When you look at it objectively, we've all been programmed since we were toddlers that this is the time of year to blow our collective wads. So much so, that if you don't fall into line, you're urged to "get into the spirit". WTF? Count me out, stick your red bow where the sun don't shine.

Love on her way to rehearsal, yesterday.

That said, there is a huge counterpoint that is hard for me to aptly explain. Darlene Love. Outside of seeing my family, her annual appearance on Letterman singing "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" is the highlight of my holidays. Sounds crazy, I know. You wouldn't believe it, I turn into a choked up old softy. I can't really explain it. There are a number of reasons but it still doesn't add up. Love has performed the song on Letterman's show every year since 1986 (with the exception of one year when the performance was a rerun due to a Writers Guild strike). In the earliest appearances, it was just a small band behind her, but year after year more musicians and background singers were added. Strings, brass, bells, choir, the whole thing.

Jack Nitzsche, Darlene Love, Phil Spector

If you're familiar with the original song, you know that it was produced by Phil Spector, a classic example of his Wall of Sound, arranged by Jack Nitzshe, and utilizing demigods of the studio, the Wrecking Crew. That's part of what makes these performances so special. Putting together a band of this size, with all of the assorted components on the original, is no easy feat. Doing it while trying to replicate the actual sound and arrangement of the original is even harder. But because the song is rehearsed and performed every year with many of the same players, they have it down. To top it off, Love's voice has aged well, sounding much the same as it did on her original version recorded over fifty years ago.

This years performance on Letterman is tonight, and it's bittersweet. Letterman is retiring and this will be her last appearance on the show. It'll be all over the internet tomorrow, but in the meantime, check the video mash up of past appearances above, and watch it until the end. The montage of Letterman greeting Love over the years is heartwarming (did I just say that?). For a chuckle, check the video linked below, a claymation video of her singing "Christmastime For Jews", an old short from Saturday Night Live.

Update, 12/20: Here's the clip from last night (click on the photo above).

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Listen:

Darlene Love - Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) mp3 at Boogie Woogie Flu

Darlene Love - White Christmas mp3 at Boogie Woogie Flu

Darlene Love - Winter Wonderland mp3 at Celebration of

Watch:

Darlene Love - Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) (2013 performance) at YouTube

Darlene Love - Christmastime For Jews at Vimeo

Visit:

Darlene Love's Last Letterman Christmas at New York Times

Darlene Love - Official site

Darlene Love at Wikipedia

DARLENE LOVE ALERT

Here's another dependable holiday standby, Darlene Love, doing "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)".  She performs it every year on Late Night With David Letterman, on the Friday before Christmas, this year falling on Friday, December 20, as in tomorrow (or today, depending on when you're reading this). This will be her twenty seventh year doing it. You should check it out. It's as close to seeing an ersatz Wall of Sound, playing live, as you'll get, particularly one with an original Spector affiliated singer, using the original arrangement. It's great. Cynicism takes three minutes off.

December 2012

It came out fifty years ago, on a compilation called A Christmas Gift For You From Phillies Records, an LP that consisted of all new recordings, all produced by Phil Spector, and all backed by the Wrecking Crew. Love's song was the only non-standard, written specifically for the album by Ellie Greenwich, Jeff Barry and Phil Spector. It was released the day Kennedy was shot, and the nation wasn't all that interested. But over time, that LP has become a whopper.

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Listen:

Darlene Love - Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) mp3 at Stereogum Mono

Darlene Love - Christmas (Baby, Please Come Home) mp3 at AM Then FM Simulated stereo

Visit:
A Christmas Gift For You From Phillies Records at Wikipedia

ACCORDING TO NITZSCHE

He was one piece of work, I tell you. In a good way. The homely looking guy up there got Miles Davis and John Lee Hooker together. Put Ry Cooder behind Jagger. And recorded some bad ass music of his own. Really, I don't have the time to go on about Jack Nitzsche right this minute. I just ran into his song, "Lower Califonia" and had to point you to it. (The third song below): Q: How to cram Pet Sounds into two minutes? A: Nitzsche did his best. Whether you hear it like that or not, the song is fucking amazing. There's so much there in just two short minutes.

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Listen: 
Jack Nitzsche - The Lonely Surfer Race mp3 at Music Pop Hits (?)
Jack Nitzsche - The Last Race mp3 at MarkMizzles.WhyPrime 
Jack Nitzsche - Lower California mp3 at Robots In Heat If the song link doesn't work, go there. The songs are dated in reverse chronological order. This was posted on 5.23.2011. 
Produced by Jack Nitzsche: 
Mick Jagger - Memo From Turner mp3 at Giant Panther  with Ry Cooder 
John Lee Hooker & Miles Davis - End Credits mp3 at When You Awake
Visit (both highly recommended): 
Jack Nitzsche - Excellent profile at The Hound
Extensive fan page at Spectropop 

I'LL GIVE IT A REST. AFTER THIS.

Holy shit, there's a lot of Beach Boys stuff floating around out there right now; probably because of the recent release of the previously unreleased (and now reconstructed) '66/'67 LP Smile. So here's a few I ran into.

First off, if you think my bagging on Mike Love is a little harsh, check out the post from Man vs Clown, appropriately titled, "Why I Hate Mike Love." It is awesome. Dead on. What surprises me is that, where I have a strong distaste for Mike Love, it was in general, but it had building for years. After reading the piece, it occurred to me that I'd heard just about every incident that's cited, but over a long period of time. So, it grew from general annoyance, to exaggerated hatred. I say "exaggerated" because, it's not evil hate. Truth be known, I just hate his actions. Every last one of them.

Now that that's out of the way, the music. If all you know about the Beach Boys are the early hits ("Surfin' USA," "Surfin' Safari," et al), I highly recommend checking out the Pop Dose Guide to the Beach Boys, a career spanning sampler, with about fifty songs, with some pretty good descriptions of what you're hearing, and the significance of the songs posted. Beware, there are a few stinkers, particularly post-Holland. I posted a few highlights below, along with their first hit, "Surfin' Safari.". It's really remarkable when you listen to that one, followed by "The Warmth of the Sun, " and consider that that huge leap in sound happened in two years.



There's a single song, found on No Genre; because it's the only post I've found with (what is presumably) a cut from the reconstructed Smile, the 2011 version of "Good Vibrations." (The version posted on Popdose is presumably the older single version, because it was posted a couple weeks before the new one was released.) And then there's Aquarium Drunkard, who posted some rehearsal tapes of songs in their working versions leading up to the final recording for Smile. Haven't heard it yet, but if you're interested, there it is.

Then there's the Beach Bastards. Beach Boys sound alikes, rip offs and other related things. It's a 23 song mix at Obscure Sound (with eight single song downloads). I just posted a couple below. One from Spring, which included Brian Wilson's wife Marilyn on vocals. The other is by the Modern Folk Quartet, posted because it's produced by Jack Nitzsche, who takes his experience from working with Phil Spector and does an able job of ripping off Wilson's Pet Sounds era sound.

We will return to the more square repellent stuff soon, promise. Just had to post these now, because the links may be short lived.

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Listen:
The Beach Boys - Surfin' Safari mp3 at Pop Dose
The Beach Boys - The Warmth of the Sun mp3 at Pop Dose
The Beach Boys - Wouldn't It Be Nice mp3 at Pop Dose
The Beach Boys - Good Vibrations mp3 at Pop Dose
The Beach Boys - Feel Flows mp3 at Pop Dose
MORE: The Pop Dose Guide to the Beach Boys 50 or so songs
Presumably from Smile (2011):
The Beach Boys - Good Vibrations (from Smile) mp3 at No Genre
Multiple song download:
The Beach Boys - 1967 Rehearsal sessions at Aquarium Drunkard Eight songs
The Beach Bastards:
Spring - Down Home mp3 at Obscure Sound
The Modern Folk Quartet - This Could Be the Night mp3 at Obscure Sound
MORE: It's Not Me: The Best of the Beach Bastards, 23 songs at Obscure Sound
Visit:
Why I Hate Mike Love at Man vs Clown

SKETCHES OF BOOM BOOM

Here's a couple from the soundtrack of the Dennis Hopper film, The Hot Spot. The soundtrack was put together by Jack Nitzsche, and he recruited quite a crew of musicians. Besides Davis and Hooker, the soundtrack features Taj Mahal, Roy Rogers (the slide player, not the cowboy) and legendary drummer Earl Palmer. One of these cuts has been posted here before, but I just came across the other, and even though they sound an awful lot alike, it is a pretty unique combination. The soundtrack is out of print* (and copies selling in the $45-$55 range), so you make want to...you know. (*Note: I was looking for vinyl, but have just been informed by a trusted adviser that it's readily available on CD.)

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Listen:
Miles Davis & John Lee Hooker - Bank Robber mp3 at Aquarium Drunkard Direct linking disabled, go there to get it.
Miles Davis & John Lee Hooker - Ending Credits mp3 at When You Awake
Earlier Nitzsche post:
Produced By Jack Nitzsche with "Memo From Turner" (from the soundtrack of Performance) and "The Last Race" (used in soundtracks to both Death Proof and The Village of the Giants).
Jack Nitzsche at Wikipedia

PRODUCED BY JACK NITZSCHE

A while back, I ran across someone writing about the soundtrack to Nicolas Roeg's Performance, saying that, upon revisiting it, he was reminded what a great soundtrack it was. My vinyl copy long gone (again, into the DJ ether), it prompted me to repurchase it, and I gotta say, he was right. Some of you are probably aware of the Mick Jagger cut on it, "Memo From Turner," but the quality of the whole thing is more a testament to Jack Nitzsche's conception, production and the talent he amassed.

Nevermind the vocals (Jagger, Merry Clayton, Buffy Sainte-Marie, the Last Poets, and a young Randy Newman), the backing band included Ry Cooder, Lowell George, Gene Clark and Russ Titleman, among others. The instrumentation included everything from soup to nuts: sitar, dulcimer, Cooder bottleneck, and some Moog (that's an early synthesizer, for you young lawn dwellers). I could only find "Memo From Turner," from that soundtrack, so to round things out, here's "The Last Race," a Nitzsche original that old farts might remember from 1965 film, The Village of the Giants, and you youngsters will recognize as a song from Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof. Nitzsche didn't do just soundtracks, he was everywhere, as writer, producer and conduit of talent. To really appreciate Nitzsche, you ought to check out the excellent profile at The Hound Blog. Though the mp3 links have expired, read it. You will be blown away at how many things have Nitzschtink on them. These two are just a molecule on the tip of the iceberg.

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Mick Jagger - Memo From Turner mp3 at Giant Panther
Jack Nitzsche - The Last Race mp3 at MarkMizzles.WhyPrime
Jack Nitzsche - Excellent profile at The Hound
Jack Nitzsche - Exhaustive discography at Spectropop

AN UNLIKELY COLLABORATION

If you're a Miles Davis or John Lee Hooker completist (which I'm not) you may already have known about this one (I didn't). It's from the soundtrack to Dennis Hopper's "The Hot Spot," which features collaborations between these two giants, along with Taj Majal and Roy Rogers (not the cowboy). Leave it to Jack Nitzsche, who wrote the score and put these guys together.

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John Lee Hooker & Miles Davis - End Credits mp3 (right click to save) at When You Awake

START THE COALS

What is typically seen as the last day of summer, is commonly know in these parts as the day before the day we get our beach back. Gone are the people from Arizona. Gone are the inexperienced surfers and boogie boarders crowding the line-ups. Gone are the long lines at Hodad's, blocking the entrance to Newport Farms. Gone are those who wear flip flops in the sand, blast boom boxes playing classic rock, and leave shit everywhere in their trail. I don't hate these people. I just hope the door does hit them on the way out.

For another month or two, there will be pleasant days and warm-enough water. And fewer people. Starting tomorrow, the day after Labor day, things return to normal (or normal for Ocean Beach anyways). The locals will still be here. The Guitar Man will still be on his rock playing the same crappy two chords that he's been playing for the past fifteen years. The guy that brings his iguana to the beach (whom he calls Elvis but everybody else refers to as "wishes it was a chick magnet") will still be here. John, the homeless guy in the wheel chair, will still be at the foot of Newport. Boston James may or may not return, depending on if they charge him with Jimbo's death (after the two had a drunken brawl). But there will be pleasant days and warm-enough water. Now, it's the locals turn to chill. And these three songs are about as chill as I get.

Jack Nitzsche - The Lonely Surfer Race mp3
The Sandals - (Theme from) The Endless Summer mp3
Santo and Johnny - Sleepwalk mp3

THIS JUST IN: It wasn't more than a couple hours after I posted the above blurb that I ran into a guy name Tim, who used to drink with Jimbo and Boston James down at the beach. I hadn't seen him for a couple years (since alcohol was banned at the beach), so I asked him if he had heard about Jimbo dying. He answered that he had, and then told me that Big Bill (known to the kids at the beach as "Mad Dog") was up the street, outside the liquor store (aka Newport Farms, which, despite it's name, sells only fermented produce). I asked if he was sure if it was Bill, because he disappeared a couple years ago. "I know," he said, "everybody thought Bill was dead. I did too." So, it was, of course, my civic duty to welcome Bill back from wherever he'd been. On my way home, I stopped by to see him. He'd been in and out of hospitals, and just recently kicked out of a convalescent home. He is now back on the street, and already dialed in to the comings and goings of that ol' gang of his. He had heard about Jimbo, and told me that Boston James, though not charged with Jimbo's death, is now banned from the streets of O.B.. So that's your local update. Jimbo's dead, Boston James is banned and Big Bill is back. And the water is still warm enough....