STUCK IN MY HEAD: METERS EDITION

Last Saturday there was a street fair down the street. I usually avoid the street fair because it's kind of lame. Junk food, lame bands and booths selling rain gutters, insuramce and amatuerish artwork. So I went to the beach. On the way home I was across the street from the edge of the fair and I ran into Paul, a guy I went to high school with. I hadn't seen him in roughly twenty years. I knew he was into recording and engineering musicians and that he had worked with J.J. Cale amongst others. That's about all I knew. I was about to know more.

He'd just come from the record store and had a bag of LPs from the 99 cent bins (yes!). After he flipped through them telling me the merits of this producer and that studio, the band on the edge of the street fair started to play Robert Parker's"Barefootin'", a song I love. I mentioned that and was surprised that he knew the song and that the 45 original release was on Nola. I asked him who produced it, thinking I knew the answer. When he said Allen Toussaint, I thought, oh shit, this guy is good. My guess was Cosimo Matassa. (I ended up being correct.) When I mentioned Matassa, I was amazed that he knew the name and he started telling me what type of microphones Matassa had used! I was dealing with a full on fiend. Then the band that had been playing "Barefootin'" started playing J.J. Jackson's "It's Alright", another song I love, and Paul did too. Then he said "What's next, the Meters?" There was a mention of the Meter's "Cissy Strut" and the conversation continued for another hour. It was awesome reconnecting with him and finding that we had way more in common than we did in high school.

So, that was Saturday. On Sunday, I'm at the beach and right as I was walking past someone sitting on the wall, they hit the play button on their wireless speaker doohickey and "Cissy Strut" starts blasting. Consequently, for the past few days I've been on a Meters kick. Here's "Cissy Strut" and a few others. Check their version of Lee Dorsey's "Ride Your Pony". If you're familiar with Dorsey's original (which I love) and convinced that no one else could come close (as I was) you'll be amazed at the power of the Meters' version.

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Listen:
The Meters - Cissy Strut mp3 at Internet Archive
The Meters - Ride Your Pony mp3 at Internet Archive
The Meters - Look-Ka Py Py mp3 at Internet Archive
The Meters - Chicken Strut mp3 at Internet Archive
The Meters - Chug Chug Chug-A-Lug (Push n' Shove) Part 1 mp3 at Internet Archive
The Meters - Chug Chug Chug-A-Lug (Push n' Shove) Part 2 mp3 at Internet Archive

LOOK, OVER THERE, METERS LIVE STUFF

I'm not going to mess around here. If you want to see a well written, widely varied and well informed music site, just go the fuck to Aquarium Drunkard. It's one of the few pro sites that doesn't cater to the same popular crap. First thing you gatta know about popular crap is that if it's popular, it's probably crap. The majority of people's taste in music pretty much blows. You know that.  Anyway, Aquarium Drunkard is good, really good, and they have tons of shit from a lot of different genres. The writing's good and the music is in varied formats (some streaming, some as downloads, mp3s or zips). And all of that just to say that they have two Meters live sets from 1977 over there and nothing I could post tonight can't wait until I have a one person listening party. Wash your hands, creep.

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Listen:
The Meters - Live At The Bottom Line/Live At Showboat Lounge at Aquarium Drunkard Two live sets in two separate zips. Yee hah.

HE MADE RECORDS FOR FIFTY YEARS

Just yesterday I was walking down the street and a car drove by blasting the Meters' "Sissy Strut". It stopped me dead in my tracks. It was the first time I'd heard it out on the street (as opposed to a club, live show or record store). I wanted to take it all in, the soundtrack to navigating a crowded sidewalk, a block from the beach on a warm summer day. Click. Snapshot.

Today on the way home from work, I heard on the radio that Art Neville had died. It was if I was being told yesterday to appreciate the Meters and the Neville Brothers, because, really, the first thought I'd had in my taking-it-all-in episode was what a great musical family the Nevilles were. Man, that snapshot will stay in my album a while.

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Listen:
Art Neville - Arabian Love Call mp3 at Office Naps
The Meters - Cissy Strut mp3 at Drummer World

OLD NEW SOUND OF NEW ORLEANS

Do an old post crawl at a random music blog and sometimes you'll find some neat stuff. Updates, schmupdates. Old posts need lovin' too. And a old post at The Ear Hole proves just that. It's three live Meters cuts from 1975. Great quality sound too. So, Meters night it is. You'll want to get yourself in the mood with that first one, "Funky Miracle". Textbook Meters groove it is.

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Listen:
The Meters - Funky Miracle mp3 at Drummer World
The Meters - Yeah, You're Right mp3 at Paul Conner
The Meters - Cissy Strut mp3 at Ansgeht Immano
The Meters - Look-Ka Py Py mp3 at The L Word Online
The Meters - Pass the Peas mp3 at Noise Collective
The Meters and Lee Dorsey - Occapella mp3 at DJNoDJ
The live cuts:
The Meters – Right Place, Wrong Time  at The Ear Hole
The Meters – People Say at The Ear Hole
The Meters – Stand By Me, Cupid, Don't Play That Song, He Don't Love You at The Ear Hole

ATTN: PARTY PLANNING COMMITTEE

Don't get me started about New Orleans. I love that city. Within hours of my first arrival (on my only visit), my brother scored a Little Richard 78, and it just got better after that. There was a contingent of San Diegans that all happened to be going the same year, and we all had common friends in a couple that lived there, Harold and Holly. They lived right in the thick of it, both literally and figuratively. It was a great few days, I'll leave it at that.

Ever since then, my soft spot for New Orleans music has grown. Here's a random sampling. Not all are Mardi Gras related, but all have that feeling, that certain vibe that only one region can produce. Have fun; don't be stupid. Best advice I ever got.

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Professor Longhair - Tipitina mp3 (via Box.net) at Carnival Saloon
Ernie K-Doe - A Certain Girl mp3 at MBrownI.com
Dr. John, the Night Tripper - Mama Roux mp3 at Home of the Groove
Clifton Chenier - Zydeco Sont Pas Sale mp3 at Let's Polka
Eddie Bo - Check Mr. Popeye mp3 at Probe Is Turning-On the People
Dirty Dozen Brass Band - Feet Can't Fail Me Now mp3 at Home of the Groove
Professor Longhair - Going To Mardi Gras mp3 at Carnival Saloon
The Wild Magnolias - Handa Wanda mp3 at Vibrations Music
Lee Dorsey - Tears, Tears and More Tears mp3 at Home of the Groove
Sugar Boy Crawford and his Cane Cutters - Jock-A-Mo at Carnival Saloon
Fats Domino - Walkin' To New Orleans mp3 at Carnival Saloon
Bill Sinigal and the Skyliners - Second Line, Part I mp3 at Home of the Groove
The Meters - Hey Pocky-A-Way mp3 at Carnival Saloon
Dejan's Olympia Brass Band - Ain't My Fault mp3 at Carnival Saloon
Bonus:
Ernie K-Doe - WWOZ radio show mp3 at Beware of the Blog Over an hour of Mr. "Mother In Law" spinning wax and testifying on the air.
Neat images:
The Mistick Krew of Comus - 1873 Designs For Parade Costumes at Twisted Vingtage

RIGHT PLACE, WRONG TIME

One thing that continually amazes me, because I'm of the pre-internet generation, is the ability to find people with like tastes, halfway across the world. There are a few blogs that I always check out, and two I link to quite often are Diddy Wah (UK) and Spread the Good Word (France). The hosts of these two sites seem to have tastes parallel to mine, which means that I'm constantly finding stuff that, for one reason or another, I've never added to my physical music stash (not to mention, getting turned onto stuff I've never heard).

"Right Place, Wrong Time" is one that I've always loved. A hit for Dr. John in the seventies, it's probably his best known song, and, as far as I know, the only one to chart. The fact that it did is kind of amazing in itself. The intro is killer, with a clavinet (I think) starting for a couple measures, followed by the drums and horns, then the bass and congas, and finally the guitar. An excellent cut of funky seventies New Orleans gumbo. Turn it up, loud and crank up the bass!

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Dr. John - Right Place, Wrong Time, and I Been Hoodood mp3s at Diddy Wah
The Meters - Right Place, Wrong Time mp3 (+ 2 others) at Ear Hole
Jon Spencer Blues Explosion - Right Place, Wrong Time at Soundtracks.cz