SPANISH STROLL BABY

Ca-chink, ca-chink, ca-chink....That's what I heard when I was at a stop light, on a wet St. Marks Place, on my way home one night, twenty-odd years ago. Looking down at the feet next to me, well traveled pointed toe shoes, the sort of which were common in Tijuana shoe stores, but not the sort I'd been seeing on the feet of New Yorkers in the mid-eighties. I glanced to my right, and saw the pointed shoe wearer's companion, with a Ronettes style bouffant, and make-up right out of a Diane Arbus photo. Then I looked up at her man. A stoic, timelessly pompadoured, figure gazing straight ahead, waiting for the light to change. It was Willy Deville.

.

I'd been in New York for a couple months, done a few clubs, did CBGB's, had a group of friends that included a D-list of grafitti writers, artists, drunks, and the drummer on the Heartbreakers "Live at Max's" LP,...in short, I had all sorts of fringe NY moments. But here was Willy Deville, with his woman, on a wet, rainy night, in the Lower East Side. Now it really felt like New York.

.

Mink Deville (the band), though loved by critics, were vastly overlooked by record buyers. They first appeared on a lame CBGB's compilation, and likely because of that association, no one was really sure what to make of them. Deville's understated reverence for music that came before him was about as "old wave" as you could get, especially considering his CBGB's stablemates were the Ramones, Patti Smith, Blondie, et al. This was a guy who had a Spector alumni producing his first three albums, wrote with Doc Pomus, hired Elvis' rhythm section for his third album, and recorded in Paris so he could use Edith Piaf's string arranger. It's telling that, while most of his contemporaries can be pegged to a certain era because of their sound, his music is just like his look was that night, timeless.

.

Mink Deville - Spanish Stroll mp3 at Siblingshot

Mink Deville - Just to Walk That Little Girl Home mp3 at Boogie Woogie Flu

Mink Deville - This Must Be the Night mp3 at Jipes Mood

Mink Deville - "A" Train Lady mp3 at Boogie Woogie Flu

Mink Deville - Bad Boy mp3 at [Some Dutch site]

FROM WHENCE WE CAME

Just look at that picture. That's what baddass looks like. Though Howlin' Wolf should need no introduction to most ardent fiends, it seemed like high time to post a little sumpin' sumpin' to remind us what got us here.
Howlin' Wolf - Back Door Man mp3 at Snuthing Anything
Howlin' Wolf - Wang Dang Doodle mp3 at Burning Hand
Howlin' Wolf - Evil mp3 at Snuhthing Anything
Howlin' Wolf - I Ain't Superstitious at Ticket to the Blues
Howlin' Wolf & Muddy Waters - Highway 49 mp3 at Ticket to the Blues
Howlin' Wolf - Killing Floor mp3 at White Light Black Light
Howlin' Wolf - Coon on the Moon mp3 at Ticket to the Blues
The Unofficial Howlin' Wolf page at Perfect Sound Forever - A whole mess of articles, links, photos, and an extensive discography

(LAZY TITLE) STRAIGHT OUTTA TEL AVIV

Whenever I think about what I'd do if music wasn't available online, the answer is actually pretty simple. I'd be back at the record store, for several hours a week, just browsing the different sections. Right before the local Tower Records closed, I'd just become friends with a couple employees. One was a mega-pierced electro-hipster, the other a nu-hippy. They were both well versed in international music, funk, jazz, and soul. (And, like myself, both were readers of the exhaustive Wax Poetics.) Though I never really asked for recommendations, they subtly validated my purchases ('that's a good one"..."oh, you'd like..."). I miss that.

One thing that can be said, about online music sources (primarily blogs) is that I can still find the occasional surprise out of nowhere. These two cuts are an excellent example. Would the two guys at Tower ever have steered me towards some singer from Tel Aviv? Maybe, but chances are I never would have heard of Karolina if I hadn't been roaming around aimlessly online.

Karolina and Funset - Lion mp3 at Aurgasm

Kutiman featuring Karolina - Music is Ruling My World mp3 at Aurgasm

WELL, YOU TELL ME. IS IT?

A few weeks ago I posted a remix of a Billie Holiday song, that had her singing over reggae tracks, and it sounded, if not surprisingly good, at least interesting (depends on which side of the purist fence you're on). Then a few days ago, I just ran into a mash-up of Bob Marley and Soft Cell that works remarkably well. I normally hate it when someone fucks with reggae with mash-ups or remixes because I think of seventies reggae as too organic. But the Marley/Soft Cell thing caught me off guard. So here's the source material and Glories Jones' original version of Tainted Love.
.

Gloria Jones - Tainted Love mp3 at Balarama Music
Soft Cell - Tainted Love mp3 at Aunt Charlie's Lounge
Bob Marley & the Wailers - Is This Love mp3 at {Some Russian site}
DJ Zebra - This Tainted Love (Bob Marley/Soft Cell Mash Up) mp3 at Popbytes
Billie Holiday - I've Got My Love To Keep Me Warm (Yesking remix) mp3 at Life Signs Project

SORRY, MORE SOUNDS FROM THE FRONT ST HI-FI

A few thanks, for friends and strangers. First off, thanks to the regular visitors of this forsaken hack job (all four of you), who have been wondering what the hell was up with the last couple of posts (and this one). Without going into too much more detail, let me just say that these posts have, admittedly, been a little indulgent, but for good reason. The people who I've written about, and those who have left comments, were all part of the embyonic San Diego punk scene, and the house we've been referring to was as close to a non-venue epicenter as there was. Like I said two posts earlier, the sharing of music in the house was amazing, and I'm sure I'm not the only one whose musical interests and tastes developed at a fast clip due to the concentration of shared enthusiasm. In short, we were fucking lucky.

Thanks, too, to everybody from the house, and the friends that stopped by either here or Facebook, I'm still in a daze. I almost feel as if the last thirty years were spent running in place. It's been a fucking crazy couple weeks. As if all the people from the house being active online isn't mindblowing enough, I reconnected with a Hitmaker on Facebook, the same day I got an email from a Dil. Gary Heffern is in town (from Finland) for another few days, and Carl Rusk (now living in New York)and Ron Silva (in San Francisco) just played at a local club, with their side project, the Nashville Ramblers on Friday night. This is all coincidental, but a mindfuck nonetheless.

A few notes about the music: Besides the now head-thumpingly obvious songs mentioned in the comments (of the earlier posts), I threw in a couple that I remember, along with a couple others. One is for Gary. I remember the exact location that Gary first told me I should check out Gram Parsons (outside the "pop art" bathroom, at the top of the stairs.) I never did hear Parsons at Front Street, but, I sure did later. So, here's a very belated thanks Gary. ("I remember something you once told me, and I'll be damned if it did not come true. Twenty thousand roads, I went down, down, down, and they all led me straight back home to you.")

The last song down there is "The Trains." by the Nashville Ramblers, Carl Rusk and Ron Silva's band. You have to hear it. It's a near perfect song. Carl's album, "Blue Period" is some pretty bad ass pop too.

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

Brian Eno - Spider and I mp3 at Pretty Goes With Pretty

Dillinger - Cocaine in my Brain mp3 at Siblingshot

Talking Heads - I Zimbra mp3 at Feel My Bicep

Wire - 12XU mp3 at Club Courtyard

David Bowie - Sound and Vision mp3 at Pretty Goes With Pretty

Sam Cooke - You Send Me mp3 at RustyKnight98

The Slits - I Heard It Through the Grapevine mp3 at Buzzgrinder

Modern Lovers - She Cracked mp3 at Recidivism
Gene Pitney - Town Without Pity mp3 at Fimoculous
Buzzcocks - Ever Fallen In Love mp3 at Pretty Goes With Pretty

Patrick Hernandez - Born to Be Alive mp3 at Ardypetit

Gram Parsons - Return of the Greivous Angel mp3 at Pretty Goes Wth Pretty

The Nashville Ramblers - The Trains mp3 at The Che Underground

Misc:

Front St. House on Google Maps

MORE SOUNDS FROM THE FRONT ST. HI-FI

Because the last post about the Front Street house led to thought (and ear) provoking comments, about certain records and their particular moments, new associations souped up already familiar songs. Not only that, all of these other songs came to mind.

Why do you remember that one music related incident, that one moment that is permanently etched? Everything seems to zero in on what is happening right when a particular song is playing. Sometimes, you don't remember it until much later. Sometimes, it stops you dead in your tracks and you give in to it.

One night I was at Margaret & Suzie's apartment on West Lewis Street, right before the move to Front Street. When I'd hang out there, we'd usually smoke cigarettes, drink jug wine (about three dollars, from the store across the street) and shoot the shit. On one certain night, I remember coming back from the store, and walking into a candle lit apartment, with a light haze of smoke, everything in a muted reddish hue. Margaret and Lisa were at the table talking, and Peter and Gordon's "World Without Love" was playing. I stopped and took it all in "I don't care, I won't live in a world without love,...". The whole scene was like something out of a movie, everything fit together, as if directed. I'd heard that song a zillion times, but that was the first time I heard it.

Jacqui mentioned Lisa possibly playing "The Letter" by the Box Tops. After listening to it again last night, it now prompts a visualization of Lisa, leaned over a (probably ramshackle) record player, putting on a scratched up 45, with all the accompanying surface noise. Whether or not the details of the imagined scene are correct, the association is not that of anyone getting a ticket for an airplane, any letter, or anything else lyrically referenced. It's of a moment.

Lisa mentioned a party, and Marc Rude listening to the Doors (even where he was listening and in what format). And thanks to her, after listening to "Respect" last night, the thoughts of punk girls singing along to it made me dig it more, and I'm thankful that that association is there. I dig it more; I didn't think it possible.

I remember that other party that she spoke of, the one that was videotaped. (Though, I remember it being Gary Vitalis who combed his hair, and staring unknowingly into the camera.) Early that night, while the camera was pointed toward the front of the living room and the tape rolling, there was Terry Marine with Traci's daughter, dancing in an empty room, to Tommy James and the Shondells' "Hanky Panky."

I dig that sorta shit. I hope these songs recall moments, whether shared or not. A few things to note: The more obvious Stones song would have been "My Obsession" (because it was played incessantly), but I couldn't find an mp3 of it. And something off of "Arrival" would have been a more appropriate choice for Abba, but that blue album cover of "Voulez Vous" seemed to be inescapable in that house.

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

Peter and Gordon - World Without Love mp3 at Viajando[?]
Linton Kweski Johnson - Sonny's Lettah mp3 at Le Blog de la Grande Chose
Tommy James & the Shondells - I Think We're Alone Now mp3 at Pop Wreckoning
Marianne Faithful - Broken English mp3 at Disco Workout
Abba - Voulez Vous mp3 at {Some Belgium site}
The Vouges - Five O'Clock World mp3 at Rock Town Hall
The Screamers - 122 Hours of Fear (Pt 1) and (Pt 2) at Zahnarzt
The Rolling Stones - All Sold Out mp3 at the Adios Lounge
Aretha Franklin - Respect mp3 at Skyline Church (really)
The Who - Magic Bus mp3 at Systar
Kurtis Blow - The Breaks mp3 at 8106
The Doors - Break On Through mp3 at Music is Art
The Box Tops - The Letter mp3 at Fantastic Weapon
The Zeros - Wild Weekend mp3 at Last Days of Man on Earth
The Righteous Brothers - Little Latin Lupe Lu mp3 at EWU.edu
Hank Williams - Jambalaya mp3 at Tigersoft.com
U Roy - Runaway Girl mp3 at Le Blog de la Grande Chose

ABOUT A HOUSE

If you've ever lived with a roommate, you've probably been in a situation where your musical tastes tend to cross-pollinate. It's a great learning experience, turning each other on to music you wouldn't ordinarily listen to, especially when there are shared reference points. Try multiplying that by nine roommates (and often times more), and you have a hard time soaking it all in..

For roughly a year and a half, I lived in a seven bedroom house, with what started as eight roommates. That varied wildly. With rent at $135 a bedroom, there were instances of up to four people splitting one room, and there were a lot of extended stays by couch crashers. It was a mob scene. The core group were people in and around the punk scene, but it really wasn't a "punk house". We were pretty smart kids, almost all had pre-punk histories with varied musical, artistic and literary interests. So, what to most of the punk scene seemed like a party house, was actually a melting pot of culture.

There were records, literally, everywhere in that house. There was one closet, between the kitchen and the living room, that had a pile of records just thrown in it, a couple feet high (some with covers, some without). Just about every room in the house had some sort of record player in it. (One friend told me his first impression of the house was a hanging out in the kitchen, while people ate mac and cheese with knives and Johnny Cash played on a portable record player on the sink...) Because the majority of the records were freely shared there was a lot of exploring going on, and it wasn't uncommon to have a roommate's interest in one of your records prompt a reevaluation. The breadth of taste in the house was wide, and looking back, surprisingly good. And, more often than not, there would be music blasting simultaneously from different rooms. A trip through the house might bring snippets of the Clash, Eddie Cochran, U-Roy, Eno, Howlin' Wolf, Abba, Pete Seeger, the Injections, Kraftwerk, and the Stones. And it played constantly. Because there were so many roommates, with varying schedules and levels of employment (many had neither), there was always someone up and around. (In the time that I lived there there was not one minute in which everyone was asleep.) So, musically, you had the best of situations: a multi-room, 24/7 record party with thousands of titles, and an abundance of taste.

The house, without any prompting from the residents, got tagged by people in the scene as "the Mod House," despite the fact that there wasn't one mod who lived there. Thirty years later, there's still theories floating around about the source of the name (one is that it was because there was a lot of early Who, Kinks and Stones played), but, nevertheless, it stuck. Oh, did it stick. All anyone had to do was open their mouth and say "party at the Mod House" as they were exiting a show, and the house would become flooded with a hundred or so of our closest uninvited guests. This, of course, would sometimes lead to bad scenes involving fights, cops, bad raps and thoroughly pissed off neighbors (not to mention a few stragglers that would be "recovering from their hangovers" for days on end, without ever vacating the house). There were quite a few musicians and wanna be musicians among the residents and visitors and, depending on what else was going on, there might be a band playing on the back porch, or in the basement (more like a storm cellar) that had been converted haphazardly as a "practice" room (when conditions were damp, it wasn't uncommon to get shocked if you weren't standing on something off of the floor). One roommate, through his reggae connections, offered up his room, a large converted patio, for a pre-tour rehearsal studio for Leroy Smart, a reggae artist whom most of us were familiar with due the Clash name-drop in "(White Man) In Hammersmith Palais." So, for roughly a week, we had a bona fide reggae icon (and/or his band) playing in our house. The same room was used for a no-bones recording studio, producing the backing tracks for two albums, one by A Doeman, and another by Mohamed I. (I have fond memories of falling asleep to the sound of thumping reggae bass lines seeping through the floor of my second floor bedroom.)

It's been thirty years since we moved into the house. My first memory is from right after we were handed the keys. Roommate Suzie, spinning around, arms outstretched, in the large empty living room exclaiming "I can't believe this is all ours!" My last memory is returning to the same living room through an unlocked and wide open front door, post eviction party. No one else was there and the house was eerily quiet. A bashed up acoustic guitar was sticking out of a hole in the wall (that it had been used to create), choice words were scrawled on walls, and shit was strewn everywhere, including, yes, many records. Suffice it to say that living there has had lasting effects on my musical tastes and interpersonal relationships. As with any big household, the bad shit was magnified, but then again, so was the good. I'm just thankful to remember the good, and even more thankful that, in hindsight, I can laugh at the bad. These songs are for Margaret, Suzie, Lisa, Kathleen, Lou, Bruce, Gary and Peter, all the later roommates, and, of course, our "guests." If someone would have told me that most of us would still be around, let alone some with families, I most assuredly would have asked for some of what they were smoking (and a generic beer or two to wash it down with).

.

2/25/2010 NOTE: Due to a notice from Blogger, all links have been removed on this post. I do not yet know which was the offending link, but I know enough to play it safe until I have more details. Sorry for the inconvenience.

SORRY, WE ALREADY HAVE YMA.

Slow loading web pages are a pisser (but you knew that). A few days ago, I was on a blog that had waaaay too many posts on the first page, so it took a painfully long time to finish loading. Yet I felt compelled to go back to it to snag an mp3 of a song by The Sound of Feeling, just for you. TSOF (as us lazy typists like to call them) were twin sisters Alyce and Rhae Andrece, whose other main "claim to fame" was as bit actresses in Star Trek and Bonanza (sometimes research leads nowhere...). I thought, maybe, one or two people might find it mildly amusing. I found it hilarious. The more I listened to it, the more I found it hard to believe that it was actually released. It's a cover of Donovan's "Hurdy Gurdy Man," a song I've never been too fond of anyways. But this cover is, well, on a different planet than the original. Really, the backing vocals make the Shaggs sound like divas. And the lead vocal sounds like somebody strangling Yma Sumac. That's no easy feat, that spread.

It starts out innocently enough, a quiet intro into the lead vocal. It's at about :34 seconds in, when the background vocals start, that you realize that something is askew. Someone had to have been sleeping with the producer. These aren't backing vocals, they're, well, closer to moans. Just about the time you get used to them, and settle in, it gets quiet. (You know in the old war movies, they used to say "it's quiet out there, too quiet."? It's kind of like that.) Keep in mind, you're only into a little over a minute of it. Then the lead vocals come back in, with a little scat sorta thing, kind of annoying, but okay.... just as soon as you drop your guard, it's staccato time. Yes. Then it slowly evolves into some high pitched theremin impressions, and you're closing in at just past 2:00 minutes, when the music dies down and is replaced by the soothing sounds of ocean surf. Then, inexplicably, in fades a street organ (that's the type that usually has a monkey attached). Okay, this is just getting all WTF, up in your face. It's exhausting. I'll leave it at that. It's five minutes and 24 seconds of misguided freakness. (And, yes, the vocals do return.)

.

The Sound of Feeling - Hurdy Gurdy Man mp3 at Ponytone

The Shaggs - The Philosophy of the World mp3 at the University of Lethbridge

(Re Shaggs link source: No shit. It was labeled as "atonal" so, it must have been for a music class.)

Yma Sumac -Ataypura mp3 at Cinecentro

REALLY, WE JUST LOOK CREEPY

There's a long bio of Richie Knight and the Mid-Knights on Garage Hangover, and I'm not sure I want to read it. Not because I'm not interested, I'd just like to believe that they were, deep down, as creepy as their cover of Otis Rush's "Homework" sounds. I mean, look at them; they've got a Twin Peaks-creepy thing going on. Maybe it's just because it's a typical early 60's band of faceless white guys. I don't know. But their reworking of "Homework" does nothing to dispel that feeling.

.

It's a great song, "Homework," one that seems hard to screw up. Probably the best known version was on the third J. Geils album, "Full House," a live set that had the band at their sweaty, greasy peak. It, like the rest of the album, was just straight ahead rockin' blues, but the pace and spontaneity captured on that album make it hard to ignore. (Really, don't dismiss the entire J. Geils Band output because of "Centerfold." It's like the Faces compared to later Rod Stewart: a whole different band.)

.

Knight & the Mid-Knight's version, done roughly ten years earlier (and just a couple years after Rush's original), is a whole different interpretation. The creep-o-vibe is a probably a sum greater than it's parts, namely the Munsters-like tempo of the organ, the extreme echo on the vocals, the weakest space filler whines ever (listen to the "awoow-ow" at :51 seconds in) and the unusual instrumentation and overall mix. It sounds like Knight must have just got a new Wurlitzer with a few more buttons, because there's several different organ sounds buried in it, ranging from aforementioned Munsters, to roller rink to Jimmy Smith. It could be just me, but the vibe is unsettling enough that I can't get enough of it. Sadly, none of their other stuff posted on Garage Hangover sounds quite the same, so historians will probably end up theorizing that recreational drug use led to this departure from their frat party sound.

Otis Rush's original, from 1962, is of course the template. It too has a pedestrian tempo and organ rather prominent in the mix, and Rush's guitar work is perfectly understated; but it's the horns that dominate. The horn arrangement, with it's intro, pulsing rhythm and it's filthy bump-n-grind burlesque sax fills, is the stuff of Daptone drool. Makes me wish I'd done my due diligence thirty years ago.

.

Richie Knight & the Mid-Knights- Homework mp3 at Garage Hangover

Richie Knight & the Mid-Knights - Packin' Up mp3 at Garage Hangover

Otis Rush - Homework mp3 at Snuhthing Anything

Alternate link:

Otis Rush - Homework mp3 at Starmaker Machine

GET DOWN AND GIVE HELP

No matter how crappy things get for you, just remember, you've got it good compared to others suffering in third world countries. The good guys at Soul Strut have organized a record auction to help out the victims of the earthquake in Haiti, and they've got some gems posted. Among the dozens of titles are an original Studio One pressing of the first Burning Spear LP (with the awesome silkscreen cover), an ultra rare Jackie Mittoo private pressing, a Daptone test pressing of the Menahan Street Band, Thee Midnighters "Unlimited" on Whittier Records,...drooling yet? When was the last time you paid (probably) too much for a record and felt good about it? Really, the champs are the guys donating the records. That's another rarity: generous record collectors!

.
Record auction to benefit victims in Haiti can be found here.

VELVET UNDERGROUND GRAB BAG

A few months ago, I was listening to mp3's on shuffle, going about my business, when I was jarred by an instrumental that I hadn't really heard. I mean, it was on my computer, so I had downloaded at some point. But I must not have listened to much of it, because I would have noticed it. It was raunchy, repetitive and kind of distorted (so, my kinda music). The playing was good, but it was basic enough that it didn't come off like hot shots. But the thing was, the mix; the mix was godhead-o-phonic. When I went to my computer to see who I'd been listening too, and saw that it was the Velvet Underground, I felt like Poseur of the Day.

Could it be, that my (new) favorite Velvet Underground song was an instrumental? And singled out, without a clue who it was? I should have recognized it, but it was from an outtakes album that I never got around to getting. And, sans vocal, it didn't sound like them. (Listen to it. The mix seems a little louder than most of their stuff.) And I like that there are breaks; the song has spots for verse, chorus and back again. And that it sounds like the Sonics doing the Velvets, (Gawd, would I like to hear Gary Roslie yelp over that!) A few months after putting it in the "save for later" pile, I figured I better put in up, before the link is dead. Do yourself a favor, get it now.

Ever wonder why all the photos you see of the Velvet Underground are in black and white?

This of course, gave me the excuse to post the backlog of Velvets/Lou Reed mp3s and links that I had. So here's the rundown: The first is the aforementioned instrumental version, followed by the live "gymnasium bootleg" version, with vocals. That's followed by the live gymnasium recording of "I'm Not A Young Man Anymore" (the only known recording of that song). "Pale Blue Eyes" is on here because it reminds me of my brother. "The Gift" is on here because it reminds me of a long lost friend, Doug Diaz, who transcribed the whole damn thing and turned it in as his own short story back when he was in high school. Then there's nine songs (at Beware of the Blog) from the "Ultra-Rare Acetate," unreleased studio recordings that were found in a stack of old records and sold for some ungodly sum a while back. Next is a Lou Reed interview from 1974, just because I find funny; it's right out of the Warhol interview hand book (you know: short, inconclusive answers). Then there's one of very few videos that's labeled as the Velvet Underground and Nico on YouTube (though it seems like it's just Lou Reed and Nico) doing an acoustic "Femme Fatal". I followed that with Nico, from the mid-80's doing "All Tomorrows Parties". I included that because it was about the time I saw her live in Amsterdam (and, you know what? The bitch didn't even look at me). After that is the Primitives, a demo-only pre-Velvets group of Reed and Cale's, who were working as songwriters for Pickwick at the time. Somehow "Do the Ostrich" got released and became a minor regional hit, forcing them to throw together a group to promote it. (A complete pre-Velvets discography can be found here.) I had to include "Perfect Day" not only because it's beautiful, it's also a go-to tear-jerker for anyone DJing a wedding. The promo for the BBC using the song is pretty tight too. (Don't turn it off when Bowie flashes on your screen. You'll be rewarded with snippets of Burning Spear, Shane McGown, Emmylou Harris, Dr. John, and Tom Jones as compensation.) Then there's the mildly amusing "Sister Ray" mash-up with the VU dubbed over a video of a Lawrence Welk band. Next is an interview with Reed at Kung Fu magazine, about the "Tai Chi of Rock n' Roll," which I haven't read, but still induced a nice smirk when I saw his poses (here's the cover). Last on the list is yet another mash-up by Go Home Productions, this time mashing Christina Aguilera and the Velvets.

So, I've pretty much depleted my stock of oddball Velvets/Reed links. Now a challenge: Five, count'em five, American dollars to anyone who sends me an mp3 of their own (or someone else's) vocals over the instrumental version of "Guess I'm Falling In Love". The only criteria is that it can't be Reed's vocals. You can make up lyrics, do a mash-up or whatever. If there's more than one sent, I'll post them all and let people vote on them. If you drop Gary Roslie's vocals over it, you'll be an instant winner of ten American dollars. Just throwin' it out there...

One more thing, just remember folks, per Reed, his reissued Metal Machine Music is "the perfect holiday gift for your loved one."

.

The Velvet Underground - Guess I'm Falling In Love (Instrumental) mp3 at Boogie Woogie Flu

The Velvet Underground - Guess I'm Falling In Love (Live) mp3 at Dead Flowers

The Velvet Underground - I'm Not a Young Man Anymore (Live) mp3 at Dead Flowers

The Velvet Underground - Pale Blue Eyes mp3 at Pinglewood.com

The Velvet Underground - The Gift mp3 at Boogie Woogie Flu

The Velvet Underground - The Ultra Rare Acetates (9 mp3s) at Beware of the Blog

Lou Reed 1974 interview at YouTube

The Velvet Underground & Nico - Femme Fatale video at YouTube

Nico - All Tomorrows Parties video at YouTube

The Primitives - Do the Ostrich and Sneaky Pete mp3s at Beware of the Blog

Lou Reed - Perfect Day mp3 at The Walrus

Lou Reed and others - Perfect Day video at YouTube

Lawrence Welk meets Velvet Underground (spoof) video at YouTube
Lou Reed on the Tai Chi of Rock n' Roll at Kung Fu magazine

Go Home Productions -Girl Just Want to Say Goodbye to Rock n' Roll (VU vs Christina Aguilera mash up) mp3 at Beware of the Blog

OK, I'LL SAY IT: HE AIN'T HEAVY

The photo above is pretty telling. It's of my brother Tim, gazing lovingly at a Telecaster that had been hanging in a guitar shop. Left for dead, it's body scarred by fire, and deemed unsavable, it was a magnet for Tim, who took it home and rebuilt it, from its naked charred body up. After adding a new neck, tuning pegs, bridge and all of the electronic gizmos, it turned out to be more than playable. And, although he had about a dozen better guitars at the time, it held a much more significance for him. It was, first and foremost, oddball. But it was also something that no one would want. Discarded, overlooked, unloved, funky, challenging, weird, dirty and pretty fuckin' homemade cool.

Today is our birthday, we are twins. He passed away roughly 13 years ago. And he is the reason for this blog. Because he was my primary source for musical dialogue. And, if you knew him, you know that he was wild about music. Let me rephrase that: he was wild about wild music. And he loved to talk it. So, I had to start doing this to make up for the conversations I so missed.

Because of our impending birthday, last night I wrote a friend of Tim's, to thank her. She was one of the last really good friends Tim had made, and really special to him. So, I wrote her and didn't think much more about it. I looked at a few photos of Tim and, while doing so, the terms "big shot" and "bad ass" both came to mind. Not really in a chest-beating sort of way, but kind of self effacing, but also with a little bit of truth. Then today, I received an email back from Tim's friend. It was a long, stream of consciousness email, in which she splattered some of the best words written about my brother. She's was one of the last people to know Tim well, and she pretty much summed him in one particular spurt (of many). She described him as "one amazing freaky free rock n' roll sweet bad ass nice guy..." I give. That pretty much pegs him.

.

Happy Birthday bro. I'll post some music tomorrow.

ENTRY LEVEL COUNTRY

Everyone who's really into music has done it. You find out someone you're not quite familiar with covered a song that you already know like the back of your hand. So, you buy their record, and find yourself liking it. You notice other covers, so you check out the originals, and all of a sudden you find yourself working backwards, getting closer to the source. So it is that the Rolling Stones can lead to Merle Haggard, or Commander Cody can lead to Red Sovine or Bob Wills, and so on. Pretty soon, you're looking for session players like Sneaky Pete, Don Rich and Phil Baugh. To paraphrase the Talking Heads, "You might find yourself saying, 'how did I get here?'" It seems especially true for genres left under explored in your younger years. But that's the cool thing about music.

There's a neat quote that was on some blog somewhere, that was from a sign in a record store. It was directed at music fiends, but, shit, it applies to everything, across the board. It said "You will never know everything. You will never hear everything. You will never own everything. You will never remember everything." I'd like to think that it came from a wise old sage, but more than likely it came from a snotty record store counter guy who was being a little profound completely by accident.

I can think of at least a dozen people in my past who have emphatically pointed me in the direction of a country artist of some sort. All had different starting points, and all were followed up on. But, still, I'm a country neophyte, so a rather obvious starting point was Gram Parsons and the Flying Burrito Brothers. I got as far as Buck and Merle, realized that I was opening up a can of worms and just cut to the chase, one of the aforementioned session guys, Phil Baugh. As a side note, I've got to add that Dave Dudley's "Two Six Packs Away" is a personal favorite. Not only does he sound drunk, but those perky backing vocals piping in repeatedly with "Two Six Packs Away" always manage to slay me.

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

Listen:
The Flying Burrito Brothers - Christine's Tune (Devil in Disguise) mp3 at Rock-52.net

The Flying Burrito Brothers - Wheels mp3 at Rocky-52.net

The Flying Burrito Brothers - Wild Horses - mp3 at bpfastball.com

The Flying Burrito Brothers - Six Days on the Road mp3 at Leaky Sparrow

Gram Parsons - Drug Store Truck Drivin' Man mp3 at bpfastball.com

Gram Parsons with Emmylou Harris - Love Hurts mp3 at Boogie Woogie Flu

Commander Cody & the Lost Planet Airmen - Seeds and Stems mp3 at Cover Lay Down

Dave Dudley - Two Six Packs Away mp3 at Rocky-52 .net

Buck Owens - Close Up the Honky Tonks mp3 at Big Rock Candy Mountain
Buck Owens - Rollin' in My Sweet Baby's Arms mp3 at Rocky-52.net

Buck Owens - I Don't Care (Just As Long As You Love me) mp3 at Rocky-52.net

Merle Haggard - Sing Me Back Home mp3 at Rocky-52.net

Phil Baugh (with Vern Stovall) - Country Guitar mp3 at Beware of the Blog

POP THE COURVOISIER

That's right, it's Black Moses time. Another long, totally reinterpreted, cover by Isaac Hayes. Here he stretches the Beatles "Something" to almost 12 minutes. (Could you imagine if he did a Fela cover?!?) Some of his extended songs can be hard to appreciate, but you really do have to listen to the whole thing and not try so hard. For that reason, it makes for good driving music.

.

I found it on the blog, Ear Hole, which also had about its pages tons of assorted soul and funk jams, making it yet another blog on the "must really dig in to one of these days" list. I'll limit it to two, the Diplomats of Solid Sound and Spanky Wilson, two keepers. (Remember the drill, right click on title and "save as...")

.

Spanky Wilson and the Quantic Soul Orchestra - I'm Thankful mp3 at Ear Hole
Diplomats of Solid Sound - Plenty Nasty mp3 at Ear Hole
Isaac Hayes - Something mp3 at Ear Hole
Ear Hole's main page

2010 PREDICTION: THE NEXT ALBUM WON'T STINK

Flipping through Rolling Stone at the drug store about a week ago, I saw a short article about the Black Keys recording at Muscle Shoals, the legendary Alabama recording studio (Aretha, Wilson Picket, Stones, etc.). I made a mental note to check out the details online (Rule #143: Never buy a magazine with a teen heartthrob on the cover), but before I got a chance to, I was told by an old acquaintance, Dave Doyle, that his ex-band mate Mark Neill was producing. I got all sorts of worked up, for a few reasons. Number one is that the Black Keys shit don't stink. Number two: neither does Neill's. There's two right there. And Muscle Shoals studio has produced some epic shit in the past, so it seems like it could be the perfect storm for a landmark album.

When the first Black Keys album, The Big Come Up, came out in 2002, there were all these stories of guitarist Dan Auerbach honing his chops and blues cred hanging out with T-Model Ford for an extended length of time (not something your everyday guitarist would bother doing). Their sound was extraordinarily full for a two piece, more so than the White Stripes, the "other two piece" band that they were often compared to. The production, by drummer Patrick Carney, was awesome and meaty. They referred to it as "medium fidelity" ("equal parts broke ass shit and hot ass shit") and had somehow tapped into that missing link between distorto-blues and the heavy thud seventies guitar sound of bands like Mountain, Cactus, and raunchier Led Zepplin. It was an impressive debut and, other than producers, they've pretty much stuck to the same formula in their subsequent releases. That's not to say they don't branch out; they do. But they do so with other projects.

A year or so ago, Auerbach released a solid solo album (mixed by Neill), and Carney followed that up with his side band, Drummer (self described as shoegaze on the MySpace page...blech). And recently, as Blakroc, the two teamed up with a hip hop A-listers, which has probably brought unfair comparisons to other hip hop/rock collaborations. It's a bit more significant, to team up a primarily roots type band with rappers doing new material, than, say, Aerosmith and Run DMC teaming up for "Walk this Way." Time will tell if it carries the weight of some sort of groundbreaking fusion, but as a concept it clearly kicks ass.

How the Black Keys know Mark Neill, I've got no idea. He's familiar to many of the old San Diego punk rock/retro crowd through his work as guitarist for the Unknowns. One of the few local bands in the early eighties that could actually play well, they somehow managed to mesh a sixties reverb drenched sound with a little organ and, surprisingly enough, actual singing. To call them a punk band is inaccurate at best, but that's the crowd they were lumped with, such was San Diego's sad state for non-cover bands at the time. Singer Bruce Joyner was studied, and really into good singers (Del Shannon and Roy Orbison come to mind). Neill was all about Mosrite guitars and the Ventures/Semie Moseley lineage, showing a keen interest in sound, not just songs. It was that interest, and his disappointment with the production of the Unknowns early output, that led him to open his own studio (in '82 or '83).

Neill's studio, Soil of the South, is, at this point, very well known for it's retro sound and vintage equipment. Not unlike Liam Watson's Toe Rag Studios in the UK, bands record there to get that stamp of authenticity. Neill's recorded the elite of the pomade army, notably Deke Dickerson, Big Sandy, Rip Carson, and the Paladins, along with Billy Zoom, Carl Rusk, the Tell-Tale Hearts and surf stalwarts Los Straightjackets. Suffice it to say, with Neill's equipment, the Black Keys sensibilities and the walls of Muscle Shoals, there's every reason to expect good things to come out of the ten day recording session. That Neill's been quoted as saying that the album would be "their biggest statement...the equivalent to Radiohead's 'OK Computer'" not only raises expectations, but begs the question: Mark Neill was cognizant of Radiohead?

The Black Keys - Do the Rump mp3 at Paulaltobelli.com

The Black Keys - The Moan (Peel Session) mp3 at The Ear Hole

The Black Keys - Thickfreakness mp3 at Rollo & Grady

The Black Keys - No Fun (Stooges cover) mp3 at Rollo & Grady

The Black Keys - Have Mercy On Me mp3 at Macktronic

The Black Keys - Funk #49 (James Gang cover) mp3 at Berkeley Place

T-Model Ford - Backdoor Man mp3 at Macktronic

T-Model Ford - Ugly Ass Grin mp3 at Big Rock Candy Mountain

Dan Auerbach - Heartbroken, In Disrepair mp3 at Giant Panther

Dan Auerbach - Trouble Weighs A Ton mp3 at Quiet Color

Blakroc (Raekwon) -Stay Off the Fuckin' Flowers at Fuck Yeah! Go Team!

Blakroc (Pharoah Monch and RZA) - Dollaz and Sense/Tellin' Me Things mp3 at Passion of the Weiss

Blakroc (RZA) - Dollaz and Sense/Tellin Me Things (live) mp3 with videos at All the Way Live

Blakroc (Nicole Wray) - Why Can't I Forget Him mp3 at HaHaMusic

Blakrok (Mos Def & Jim Jones) - Ain't Nothing Like You (Hoochie Coo) mp3 at HaHaMusic

Black Keys Producer Sets Record Straight at TimesDaily.com

Mark Neill's Soil of the South studio (with excellent in-studio photography by Dave Doyle)

The Unknowns - Flip Your Switch mp3 at the Che Underground

The Unknowns story, at the Che Underground

WANT TO SEE A GROWN MAN CRY?

Johnny Cash and Joe Strummer cover Bob Marley. All three are gone. Play this sucker a couple of times in a row, and reflect. Because a little reflection won't make you a wuss, and it might do you some good. Motherfucker.

Johnny Cash and Joe Strummer - Redemption Song mp3 at Boogie Woogie Flu