MUSIC FOR SPRING BREAKERS

I was going to post the Legendary Stardust Cowboy so I had to check to see how long it had been since I've posted his stuff. There's a lot of guys like him that I post every few years so they don't get forgotten, whether they're alive or dead. I want to make sure the younger generations know who he is. They can cruise through their twenties not knowing who the fuck Paul McCartney is but, goddamn it, they better know the Ledge.



When I was checking the old posts I was surprised that I really didn't repeat myself over the course of them and was considering cut and pasting them into one long post. Alas, I'm too damn lazy. You can just go to the old posts, right? It's worth it. Between the two below you can read about Bowie borrowing "Stardust" for his Ziggy Stardust persona and years later covering one of his songs. Oh, and the story about the Ledge leaving two messages on my answering machine (serious). Here's just a couple early cuts. "Paralyzed" is like his "Johnny B. Goode", that's what put him on the map. Oh yeah, T-Bone Burnett played drums on it. I'm cutting out before I really run off at the mouth.

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~ 

Listen:
The Legendary Stardust Cowboy - Paralyzed mp3 at Beware of the Blog
The Legendary Stardust Cowboy - Who's Knocking At My Door mp3 at Beware of the Blog
More at the earlier posts:
What Becomes a Legend Most? 2014
The King of Pop is Alive 2009

BOY IN CAMOUFLAGE

Yellowstone, mid-sixties.

Today is my brother's birthday. He was badass. He passed away in 1997 and I miss the fuck out of him. He was my best friend. We were twins and, more often than not, into the same shit. Sometimes he and I would would find it necessary to spread the gospel, three cuts of which are below. 

Palm Desert, mid-eighties

Dick Dale called him "Timmeeey!" Jerry Lewis shouted at him "Hey Grizzy!" Ozzy Osborne bought him breakfast at Denny's. These are true facts. He had Van Dyke Parks's phone # and self portrait on a scrap of paper. When he met Harry Nilsson, Nilsson had just hung up the phone after talking to Ringo Starr. Between his dual interests, as a guitar player and music photographer, he met a lot of the hot shots. Yet, his true spirit was wrapped up in stuff like this. Amen.

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~ 

Listen:
Hasil Adkins - She Said mp3 at Beware of the Blog
The Legendary Stardust Cowboy - Paralyzed mp3 at Beware of the Blog
The Shaggs - My Pal Foot Foot mp3 at Secret Comics

WHAT BECOMES A LEGEND MOST?

Man, oh man, any time I get discombobulated about what a clueless fucked up world it is that we live in, I know who to turn to. The Legendary Stardust Cowboy. When I listen to his records, there are moments that convince me to stop trying to make sense out of anything. For fleeting moments, everything becomes irrelevant. It's his total abandon of anything "normal". The most recent comparison to the Ledge's undefinable thing came a few weeks ago, I saw a kid that was about three or four at the beach, plowing the sand with his face, literally, as in crawling with his face in it, leaving a trail behind him. As I watched from a good distance away, I could not stop laughing. That's about as close to the Legendary Stardust Cowboy's appeal as I can really convey. Because watching this kid, I was not laughing at him, I was reacting to one of those moments that really defies rational explanation, the pure what the fuck joy. A toddler with his face in the sand just doesn't give a fuck. Don't we all wish we had a little of that? The Ledge has a lot of it.

The Legendary Stardust Cowboy is a self taught musician who is far from what a normal person would consider talented. But through perseverance, he's eked out a four and a half decade career being just as nuts as he wants. He managed to get signed to Mercury Records, appear on national television, have the "Stardust" part of his name lifted by David Bowie. He's actually had a song covered by Bowie. He's the only musician to have his music banned by NASA, and he's been backed by three members of the Gun Club. (Check the links below.) He's been the subject of many written pieces trying to make sense of him, trying to figure out just what makes him tick. From all appearances, the guy is bat shit crazy. But, really now. The world is batshit crazy. He's normal.

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~

Listen:

The Legendary Stardust Cowboy - Paralyzed mp3 at Beware of the Blog

The Legendary Stardust Cowboy - Who's Knocking At My Door mp3 at Beware of the Blog

The Legendary Stardust Cowboy - My Underwear Froze to the Clothesline mp3 at Monkey.org
The Legendary Stardust Cowboy - Space Oddity (streaming) at YouTube, Bowie covered him first. Video below.

Audio interview:

Kid Congo on Touring with the Ledge mp3 at New York Night Train

Video:

The Legendary Stardust Cowboy - Who's Knocking at My Door (live) at YouTube With former members of Gun Club: Kid Congo Powers, Patricia Morrison, and Desperate.  This sounds just like you'd think it would. Plus the Ledge strips down to his skivvies and dances around like a completely normal person.

David Bowie - I Took A Trip On Gemini Spacecraft at YouTube A Legendary Stardust Cowboy cover, Top of the Pops 2002.

David Bowie - Paralyzed (Impromptu, introduction only) at YouTube

Visit:

Wide Open Space Cadet at Perfect Sound Forever Excellent bio by Irwin Chusid

The Ledge NASA Connection Banned by space agency!

THE KING OF POP IS STILL ALIVE

Several years ago, I came home from the beach and there was a message on my answering machine. After tracking sand all over the living room, as is my habit, I played the message, and practically fell on the floor. "Tom Griswold, this is the Legendary Stardust Cowboy, I want to play in your town..." the message started. Lower jaw agape, I listened to the rest of the short message, and wrote down the phone number he left. It was the same one I had left a message at a few weeks earlier, after seeing it on the bottom of a promo 8 x 10. When I called it a few days later, it turns out that it was a record store that "the Ledge" hung out at, and the record store employee told me that everyone at the store was kind of amused by his eccentric ways, but that he could be kind of a pest. ("Every record store has its pests," I was thinking, remembering a past visit to Tasha's, a old beater of a record store in downtown San Diego, arriving just as Wildman Fisher was getting 86'd.) I left my phone number with the employee and just kind of forgot about it. About a year later, I came home , and, again, there's another message from the Ledge. "Tom Griswold, this is the Legendary Stardust Cowboy. I have a new record coming out on New Rose Records...," it began. This call, more than the first, amazed me. I could just picture him, dialing every goddamn phone number he had, long distance be damned, to promote his record, simultaneously wiping out any royalties he may have earned. It defied rational explanation; a hallmark of an outsider.

Perhaps the most endearing quality of a real outsider is that they do not share the usual motivation of most artists. Their primary reason for creating is not profit, fame, adulation or to get laid. They simply do not know how not to create. And, while they may be cognizant of criticism, they are not beholden to it. (Talent is subjective anyways.) In short, it's punk rock with an added dose of sincerity, minus the swagger and (all too frequent) veiled intent.

The Legendary Stardust Cowboy - Paralyzed mp3 at Beware of the Blog

The Legendary Stardust Cowboy - Who's Knocking At My Door mp3 at Beware of the Blog

The Legendary Stardust Cowboy page at MySpace

The Official Legendary Stardust Cowboy site

Lengthy Ledge bio by Irwin Chusid at Perfect Sound Forever

The Legendary Stardust Cowboy - Videos: TV appearances, live clips and interviews on YouTube

FRIDAY NIGHT BUCKSHOT!

Here's a whole mess of mp3s, of every flavor. You should really be bookmarking these hosting sites because they're the ones in the trenches:

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First off: Emy Jackson and the Smashmen. Really, no cooler name exists. Because of that, all objectivity goes out the window. It doesn't hurt that Jackson is Japanese and sings in English, and the guitarist sounds like he just got his first surf record the day before (not to mention his first whammy bar). Oh, and the way she sings "why" sounds certifiably tortured. All this and a bare production render it a must-right-click-now-Batman classic.

Emy Jackson & the Smashmen - Crying in a Storm MP3 at Garage Hangover

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Next up, Roy Head and the Traits' "Treat Her Right" which some of you aging hipsters may remember from Johnny Thunders' cover of it on "Copy Cats" about 15 or 20 years ago. I played the shit out of Thunders' version because I could never find the original and I knew I remembered hearing it out of the radio on my Dad's workbench when I was growing up. (Al Hirt's "Java" was another long sought workbench record). I finally happened upon it at The A Side, the companion site to The B Side (host of the outasight Willie Mitchell cuts posted on Monday). The introduction to the post pretty much sums it up: "This song just kills me. Two minutes and five seconds of in your face Texas swagger that just doesn't let up. How cool is Roy Head, man?"

Here, here!

Roy Head and the Traits - Treat Her Right mp3 at The A Side

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The big news around Bacon St. is that Reverend Frost, of Spread the Good Word, is posting again. He is, of course, the person who unleashed Al Garcia and the Rhythym Kings "Exotic" on this dry sod, making him feel drunk again, if only for 2:14. Now, after an absense that he seemed apologetic for (despite the fact that he was homeless!) he returns with more of the twisted fare that made him a saint in these parts. The latest: Buck Griffin, a hill-a-rocka-billy that you and I would have never heard about otherwise, despite the fact that he's in the Rockabilly Hall of Fame.

Buck Griffin - Stutterin' Papa mp3, Cochise mp3, Let's Elope Baby mp3 at Spread the Good Word

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Next up, some equal time for the soccer kids of trash, Tiny Masters of Today, a 13 year-old brother and 11 year-old sister duo who have become the darlings of...well, they have a Blues Explosion drummer, a Moldy Peach, two Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs, and a B52 on their debut, so you figure out who-dragged-who. David Bowie called them "genius" but also said that they sounded like a mix of Suicide and the Shags, which isn't at all accurate. What they do sound like is a couple of kids that were mentored by a member of the Blues Explosion (drummer Russel Simmins, who produced them). That said, any kids who write a song called "Stickin' It to the Man" before they've reached junior high, they're the Sound of Young America that I want to hear.

Tiny Masters of Today - Stickin' it to the Man mp3 at The Devil Has the Best Tuna

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Which reminds me...I sure wish Bowie would keep his stink off of other people. He's been doing it for years. Shit, he's the one who dragged the synth-weakened Iggy Pop onto the Dinah Shore show, and that was thirty years ago. (Memo to Thin White Parasite: I have a long memory when it comes to rock crimes.) Then, he trampled the Pope of Out-There, dishonoring the Legendary Stardust Cowboy by covering one of his songs as a ballad. Blasphemy! Quickly, cleanse yourself of the thought!:

The Legendary Stardust Cowboy - Paralyzed mp3 and Who's Knocking at My Door mp3 at WFMU's Beware of the Blog