SOCIAL STUDIES

Some of you casual reggae listeners may just know of Trench Town from the title of a Bob Marley song, without giving much thought to it. If so, this documentary is one you should see. It's a violence ridden place, not at all the reggae epicenter you might imagine it is between puffs on your giant ass bong. Even if you're a reggae fiend and know the reputation of Trench Town, you should find this interesting.

The songs below are just a few early pre-Island Records Bob Marley oddballs. The first two are Marley with the Upsetters (!), produced by Lee Perry (!). The third was produced by Leslie Kong and released on Jad Records.

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Listen:
Bob Marley and the Upsetters - Mr. Music mp3 at Club Cortez Produced by Lee Perry
Bob Marley and the Upsetters - Rainbow Country at Club Cortez Bass heavy version of above, produced by Lee Perry
Bob Marley and the Wailers - Concrete Jungle (streaming) at YouTube Produced by Leslie Kong. Jad Records release

FIFTY YEARS OF TRIANGLE HATS

You may have heard, Paul Revere of Paul Revere and the Raiders passed away yesterday. He'd been touring as recently as a few months ago with the current version of the Raiders, of which he was the sole original member, Just plugging along, keeping the Raiders thing going, in one form or another, for over fifty years, with, I think, one break of two or three years, Damn shame, to lose a trouper like that. He really earned his right to dress goofy.

I don't know, I kind of think that if I had been around and cognizant of them during their peak years, I'm not sure if I'd have been able to ignore there get-ups, the triangle hats and all that goofy stuff. They just seemed to kowtow to teenyboppers, which is kind of counter to the quality of their output, which was a little harder sounding, almost more adult. They were a part of the Northwest scene in their early years, the same circuit as the Wailers, the Sonics, and that whole mob, so there's a little of that in there, particularly their early stuff. But there's a whole lot more that you hear, They cherry picked parts of just about everything that was happening. They just threw the Kingsmen, the Monkees, Music Machine, the Turtles and Davie Allan, and everything in between into a salad bowl. They figured out the right portions. All that was left was memorable outfits and kowtowing, When it became apparent that vocalist Mark Lindsay was going to be the heartthrob of the band, they seemed to have had no problem billing the band as Paul Revere and the Raiders featuring Mark Lindsay. But their records hold up. Not all of them, but sure as shit enough.

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Listen:
Paul Revere and the Raiders - Just Like Me mp3 at Beware of the Blog
Paul Revere and the Raiders - Hungry mp3 at LZ Center
Paul Revere and the Raiders - Good thing mp3 at Sabine News (?)
Paul Revere and the Raiders - Indian Reservation mp3 at LZ Center Written by John D. Loudermilk
Early oddballs:
Paul Revere and the Raiders - Like, Long Hair (streaming) at YouTube 1961
Paul Revere and the Raiders -Cisco Party/Walking the Dog (live) (streaming) at YouTube 1964
Video:
Paul Revere and the Raiders - Let Me at YouTube
Paul Revere and the Raiders on Batman at YouTube Old school shaker, this one.

TOUGH CHOICE HERE

Driving around with my sister a couple hours ago, El Chicano's "Viva Tirado" came on and I totally lost it. I was like the train fiend this video. I love that song, and figured that there might be one or two of you who hadn't heard it in a while that would dig it, so, you know, I do what I do, I also found the original version by Gerald Wilson and it just totally swings. You gotta hear it. Okay, add that guy to the list.

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Listen:
El Chicano - Viva Tirado mp3 at 78s
Gerald Wilson - Viva Tirado mp3 at Musica del Alma
El Chicano - El Cayuco (streaming) at YouTube
El Chicano - (Se Fue Mi) Chachita (streaming) at YouTube
Video:
El Chicano - Viva Tirado (live) at YouTube

THE COOL TEACHER

Dig the band from Dondero High School Their version of "Immigrant Song" has all sorts of earnest stuff going on. There are parts that are comical, particularly when the vocalist tries to hit the high notes, but everyone seems to be giving it their best. The bass player shows off his best Flea. The very audible drummer seems to be giving his kit a sufficient bashing, The guitarist, when given his opportunity, shreds, in the way that the best  guitarist in your school shreds. I can't put my finger on it, but there's something there that really is the essence, It's sloppy in parts, but can tell that these kids practiced their asses off, In a perfect world, that best guitarist on campus would see more action than the entire football team.

Oh hell yeah, I just took a side trip to Internet Archive, looking for more of that Dondero High's stuff. There's seven entire concerts, hours and hours of musicians on the cusp of confidence. Can it get more honest? And the song selection is varied, Abba to Lou Reed, with the requisite Fifth Dimension, which must be the band director's litmus test, because the "Aquarius/Let the Sun Shine In" medley appears at the end of several, if not all, of the concerts. (I haven't looked at all of them yet.). Their interpretations of songs are raw enough that I found a cover of "Roundabout" listenable, and I hate the original. Oh, and don't let the "A Capella Choir" in the titles fool you. There's a band on every one, and a pretty wicked one in places. This is good stuff, not all of it, but enough to let it ride while you go about your business.

Note: Once you get to the pages for individual concerts, the streaming versions are at the top, scroll down for mp3s.

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Listen:

Dondero High School - Immigrant Song mp3 at Internet Archive From Pop Concert 2004
Dondero High School - I Hate My Generation mp3 at Internet Archive From Pop Concert 1996
Dondero High School - Fox On the Run/Sunshine of Your Love mp3 at 365 Days project 2004
The whole shooting match:
Dondero High School's A Capella Choir - Pop Concerts 1994 - 2004 at Internet Archive 
Note: Once you get to the pages for individual concerts, the streaming versions are at the top, scroll down for mp3s.
Video:
Dondero High School A Capella Choir and Pop Concert at YouTube A hour and a half, from the collection of band director Rick Hartsoe
Dondero Pop Concert Alumni Celebrate Rick Hartsoe at YouTube
Visit:
Viva Bondero! at Pop Music As Pornography Guess I'm late to the party
Band Director Rick Hartsoe at Facebook

THE REGGAE BOOSTER

Fu-huck, I was in a good mood earlier. And it's still lingering. That doesn't happen often enough. A combination of perfect weather (low 80's), warm ocean, and a chat binge with locals I see nearly every day on my way down the walkway, past the wall, and away from the beach. I was walking up the alley behind the pier when I thought about what song, of all the music I have at my disposal, would really be perfect to hear at that particular moment. Out of nowhere, Johnny Nash's "Hold Me Tight". Yeeaaahhh, I love that song.

Johnny Nash commands respect in this house. He was the first artist to make a determined effort to break rocksteady and reggae in the U.S. Okay, so Millie Small's "My Boy Lollipop" was a couple years earlier, but that was a blip in the states, a freak occurrence. Nash tried repeatedly. He first went to Jamaica in 1968, with his Jamaican girlfriend. The woman's father, a local celebrity, introduced Nash to the Wailers, who were then unknown outside of Jamaica. The Wailers turned him on to the local music scene, and Nash dug it enough to sign the Wailers to his label, Jad Records, as both writers and performers.

His first post-Jamaica LP, Hold Me Tight, featured two Peter Tosh penned songs, "You've Gotta Change Your Ways, and "Love" a non-reggae ballad. But the big hit on the LP was "Hold Me Tight", written by Nash. Man, there's something about it's humble simplicity that just soothes. Depending on your mood, the LP itself could be heard as ho-hum watered down reggae with a little light soul, or one of those freak LPs where comparisons to other music is rendered irrelevant by the vibe. It's not challenging, it's not radical, it's just a simple vibe, It's barbeque music, sunburn nursing music. You know, a tall cool one, a slow dance with a foxy chick, that sort of stuff.

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Listen:
Johnny Nash - Hold Me Tight mp3 at LZ Center 1968 from Hold Me Tight LP
Johnny Nash - Cupid (streaming) at YouTube 1968 from Hold Me Tight LP
Johnny Nash - Stir It Up mp3 at Janavision (?) 1972 from I Can See Clearly Now LP, written by Bob Marley
Johnny Nash - There Are More Questions Than Answers/Guava Jelly (streaming) at YouTube 1972 Dig the pedal steel on the first half.
Video:
Johnny Nash - Hold Me Tight at YouTube So insanely smooth, even with the out of step dancers.

TURN YOUR BRAIN OFF

I know what you could use. A little old school wildness, all scratchy and stuff, right? Before tonight, all of the songs below were unknown to me, but, oh man, do they hit the spot.. Particularly that first one, "Nameless" by the Rockin' Rs, for a good reason, and for that I must warn you. The record is scratched, but not to a distracting degree. Assuming that you're the type that likes the occasional scratch or pop because it makes it seems like you're listening to vinyl, you'll probably dig it, I do, a lot. A rockin' late fifties instrumental, with what is just about the perfect amount of tolerable wear, But here's were it gets sticky. It may have occurred to you, as it has to me, that, once these records have been digitally captured, theoretically the digital version will not degrade further. So what? I'll tell you what. I'm not sure if you've yet suffered from digital scratch guilt, but let me tell you what to look out for, Don't start asking questions like "Why do we like worn records in the first place?" Obviously, those of us with vinyl know that wear is a sign that the record has been played,, and presumably enjoyed, a lot. But it is also a reminder that any physical object is subject to wear, and is therefore temporary. Even the biggest boulder, the hardest diamond, will someday be dust, Maybe we like scratched records because we're reminded that they won't last forever, Maybe we should hang our heads in shame, that we enjoy listening to recordings of scratched records on a computer of all things, or worse, a phone. Okay, forget all of that, because you know what? This music wasn't made for worry warts,

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Listen:
The Rockin' Rs - Nameless mp3 at Rocky-52
Rocky Holman - Wild Boy mp3 at Rocky-52
Jody Reynolds - Beaulah Lee mp3 at Rocky-52

MEANWHILE, IN THE DEN

Ever notice how nobody says airplane anymore? They always say plane. No panache at all. So I hear someone say airplane today, and for some odd reason, Mr. Airplane Man came to mind, probably because I never hear the word anywhere else these days. If you've never heard them, Mr, Airplane Man is two women, guitar and drums, and a right racket, Here's a few, Listen to the guitar on the first four, it's pretty crunchy stuff, and not all that far removed from the Stooges on that first one, "Up In My Room". Their quieter stuff is good too. Check the video, As my friend Dena would say, they're peckin'.

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Listen:
My Airplane Man - Up In the Room mp3 at Gimme Tinnitus
Mr. Airplane Man - Shakin' Around mp3 at Newer
Mr. Airplane Man - Wait For Your Love mp3 at X818
Mr, Airplane Man - Hey DJ (live) mp3 at Boston Rock Live
Video:
Mr. Airplane Man -  Jesus On the Machine at YouTube

YOUR PASSPORT TO JAZZ

I got kind of freaked out a couple of hours ago. After watching a live video of the reformed Stooges (semi-recent stuff with Mike Watt on bass and James Williamson on guitar), I was thinking about doing yet another Stooges thing. Then I started thinking that they were like Chuck Berry to many of us, that familiar. almost too familiar. Here's where it gets hairy. I thought "Oh shit, there are probably kids out there, coming off like musical know-it-alls in their particular crowds, that don't have the slightest idea who Chuck Berry is." I had to calm myself, and that meant backtracking to my state prior to that perilous thought. So, Stooges it was.

I'm glad I did, because otherwise I wouldn't have revisited "Funhouse", the song from the album of the same name. A couple minutes into it it occurred to me that it's essentially loud, jerky, funky, jazz. You should check it out again, especially those of you who like the Stooges, but won't set a foot near jazz, What the fuck are you afraid of anyway? Some of it is crazier than anything from your safe harbor collection, Listen to that song, "Funhouse", particularly Ron Asheton's guitar, and keep in mind that he was a John Coltrane fiend, Steve McKay's sax is also worth isolating. After that, check that Eric Dolphy cut. They don't sound anything alike, but there is something that connects them. It's that "I know what I'm playing, I hope you know what you're playing. Meet you back here in a minute" thing.

If you don't even know the Stooges, for God's sake, would you catch up already? There's a couple of their popular favorites down there, and a lot more in older posts.

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Listen:

The Stooges - Funhouse mp3 at Boogie Woogie Flu
Eric Dolphy - Mandrake mp3 at Pixieradio
The Stooges - I Wanna Be Your Dog mp3 at Mustard Relics
Iggy and the Stooges - Raw Power (mono) mp3 at Boogie Woogie Flu
Visit:
Earlier Stooges posts Scroll down

MIX MEAT

Here's some shake from the last week or so. Just stuff that I ran across that hit the spot. Some have been posted before, but even those are of the "I forgot how good this was" variety: Chow down,

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Listen:

Kenny and the Kasuals - Journet to Tyme mp3 at Beware of the Blog

The Saints - I'm Stranded (1976) mp3 at Inside Pulse Dig the scratches

The Other Half - Mr. Pharmacist mp3 at Beware of the Blog

Gross National Product - Little Girl mp3 at 60s Garage Bands Guitar freakout at the end

The Rock Shop - State of Your Mind mp3 at Office Naps

The Romancers - Love's the Thing mp3 at Office Naps

The Gories - My Baby Says Unh! mp3 at Beware of the Blog

WATT'S HIS NAME

Oh no, I'm not stepping a foot towards this black hole. Too deep, not tonight. The black hole in question is Mike Watt, or rather his output over the years. There's just too much to do a comprehensive overview. I'm not a full on fiend of Watt, which isn't to say I don't dig his work. It's just that my high regard for him is tainted by a long list of non-musical reasons, all based on general impressions. First and foremost, he seems like a regular guy. If he didn't, the whole thing would go bust. He's also hardworking, always playing with this person or that, and, from what I've seen in interviews, he's a good conversationalist, coming off as genuine, humble, and excitable, the type of guy you could imagine having a beer with.

The thing I like most about Mike Watt is that you just know that, at every milestone in his post-Minuteman career, he's paused to think about the late D,Boon, his childhood friend and band mate in the Minutemen. At least that's the type of guy he seems to be. The two met as kids, they were thirteen, when D, Boon fell out of a tree, right when Watt happened to be walking by. I forget all the details, but that's how they met. They discovered punk rock together, started a band together, the Reactionaries, and then the Minutemen, Then, in 1985, Boon was killed in a traffic accident. These guys were tight, like brothers. It had to hurt. Yet, Watt continued, and still does, to grind away.

Watt started another band, firehouse, and after that did some solo stuff and a lot of collaborating (a big part of any black hole), There was the band with Thurston Moore and Ron Asheton, another with Nels Cline and two drummers. There was the Ball-Hog or Tugboat LP with one hell of a cast, members of Black Flag, the Germs, Nirvana, Sonic Youth, Parliament, the Pixies, Dinosaur Jr., the Screamers, and that's only about half of them (check the entry at Wikipedia). The collaboration that got me thinking about Watt a couple of days ago was a TV appearance from the Jon Stewart show, in 1995. The song was "Big Train", written by Chip and Tony Kinman, two ex-Dils, Assembled to play the song, Eddie Vedder on rhythm guitar, ex-Germ Pat Smear on lead guitar (slide of all things), and ex-Nirvana Dave Grohl on drums, Of course all these guys were in other subsequent bands, I'm just mentioning the early ones for some historical context. I think the song is from the Kinman's Blackbird period, several years after the Dils. (Those Kinmans are another black hole.) I almost forgot to mention that Watt was a latter day member of the Stooges, and might still be off and on. I don't know, I don't keep track of these things.

Here's a mess of stuff, beginning with the Reactionaries, Watt and Boon's pre-Minutemen band. There's a few Minutemen cuts, and some solo stuff. The live cuts aren't the best quality, but included because of the telling choices in covers. If you want to know the story of the Minutemen, there's a link to the documentary We Jam Econo. There's another documentary about Watt, Eyegifts From Minnesota, And to get an idea of what winds his watch, and hear him shooting the shit with on air guests. check out his radio show.  

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Listen:
The Reactionaries - Cheap False Teeth mp3 at Corn Dogs
The Reactionaries - Brigate Rose mp3 at Corn Dogs
The Reactionaries - Video Madonna mp3 at Corn Dogs
The Reactionaries - Innuendo mp3 at Corn Dogs
The Reactionaries - Four more mp3s at Corn Dogs

Minutemen - Fortunate Son mp3 at Corn Dogs Creedence cover

Minutemen - Corona mp3 at Internet Archive

Minutemen - Party With Me Punker mp3 at We Got Power

Mike Watt and the Pair of Pliers mp3 at Corn Dogs Blackbird cover
Mike Watt - Liars Beware (live) mp3 at Corn Dogs Richard Hell cover

Mike Watt - She Don't Know Why I'm Here (live) mp3 at Corn Dogs The Last cover

The Crew of the Flying Saucer - The Little Drummer Boys (streaming) at Groove Shark With Nels Cline and two drummers

Video:

We Jam Econo - Minutemen documentary at YouTube

Eyegifts From Minnesota - Mike Watt documentary at YouTube

Mike Watt - Big Train at YouTube From the Jon Stewart Show 1995, with Pat Smear, Dave Grohl and Eddie Vedder

Visit:
CornDogs.org - Mike Watt fan site with tons of stuff
Mike Watt's Hoot Page
Mike Watts Tour Diary - From the 2011 Stooges European tour (with James Williamson)
The Watt from Pedro Show - Mike Watt's online radio show. A regular salad bowl.

The Watt from Pedro Show - Past shows

I Stand for Language, I Speak for Truth, I Shout for History at The Adios Lounge Excellent post about the Minutemen

HOLD YOUR HOOKA, GIVE ME BOURBON

Here's some phoney Middle Eastern flavored jams. Not at all authentic, more like a bachelor pad exotica version.. There's all sorts of stuff going on in songs like these. Sometimes it's just the title, sometimes a little finger cymbal craziness, tabla, or snake charmer type shit. I'm sure there's something technical that's Middle Eastern, maybe the scales or whatever, I don't care. It just makes me want to break out the old pointy-toed slippers and dust off the turban.

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Listen:
The Glenrays - Egyptian Nightmare mp3 at Office Naps

The Johnny Lewis Trio and Millie, Snake Hips mp3 at Office Naps
The Lombardo Twins and Combo - Arabian Drums mp3 at Office Naps
The Merits - Arabian Jerk mp3 at Office Naps
Jack La Forge - The Cleopatra Kick mp3 at Office Naps
The Embers and Joe Mack Lackey - Alexandria mp3 at Office Naps

A mix:

Office Naps Middle Eastern Mix at Office Naps Once there, right click on mix title, Roughly 30 songs

THE CRAZY GIRLFRIEND

I don't like to think of Lydia Lunch as a brand, which is why I only follow her intermittently.  I don't know, she could be a Henry Rollins, as in a "You want to know what I think? Sure. And you'll give me money to let it rip, okay, let's go" type deal. She began her thing as the singer of Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, then solo, Eight Eyed Spy, spoken word, books, and, if I remember correctly, a handful of films. In other words she's been all over the place in the last few decades. The damn buffet is right there, but I'm not going near it. Why? It's like this, although Henry Rollins can be entertaining, and he does have relatable insights, sometimes I wonder if I know too much, I'd almost rather know him as the singer of Black Flag and that's it. I don't want to know Henry Rollins, the brand, In other words, I'm trying my damnedest to avoid thinking of Lydia Lunch as a brand.

But, I dig her. Not really sure why, it might just be that she is one of the very few people that can pull off the I don't give a shit attitude for decades, or at least seem to, Again, could just be the brand, Regardless, I was pleased as punch to run into this thing below. A video where she throws it all out there, publicly inviting Louis C,K, to do all sorts of nasty things. Here's what I dig about it, other than the fact that she's held up well over the years. It might occur to you, as it did me, that the Louis C,K, that she is all hot about, is his character in his TV show, not necessarily the real life C.K. Acknowledging that the two C,K,s are closely related, it still begs the question, what if this video is just another movie role, a "project"? Occam says: "Who cares?!!"

For any of you unfamiliar with Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, here's about where they exist. You know the band Wire, right? In particular, their first LP, Pink Flag, It's entirely listenable minimalist punk, some would say post-punk, Whatever, it's punchy and, like I said, entirely listenable, to the point of awesomeness.. Okay, so you have them on one side on the room, right? On the other side of the room you have Yoko Ono, whose shrieking-era music is about as abrasive vocally as it gets. Nails on a chalkboard, I believe, is how it is most often described, Okay, so she's on the other side of the room. Somewhere in between the two is Teenage Jesus and the Jerks. Just exactly where in between depends on your taste and your preference for abrasive stuff. I happen to dig them.

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Listen:
Teenage Jesus and the Jerks - Burning Rubber mp3 at You Better Shut Up and Listen
Teenage Jesus and the Jerks - Orphans mp3 at Cold Crush
Teenage Jesus and the Jerks - Baby Doll mp3 at Dusted
Teenage Jesus and the Jerks - Woke Up Dreaming mp3 at Warped Reality

DITCH THOSE WING TIPS

Bob Crewe died a few weeks ago, He's the guy wrote one "Music To Watch Girls By", a sixties bachelor anthem with one of the best song titles ever. He wrote a lot of other hits too, but, yeah, for reasons you can well imagine, that's the one that stuck.

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Listen:
Bob Crewe Generation - Music To Watch Girls By mp3 at Radio George
Bob Crewe Generation - Barbarella (opening theme) at YouTube
Leonard Nimoy  - Music To Watch Space Girls By mp3 at Clayton Counts
Living Marimbas - Music To Watch Girls By mp3 at Beware of the Blog 
 

NICE TRY KIDS

That's the High Numbers up there, roughly fifty years ago, the real deal. I'll get to them in the minute. I just wanted to point out that it is not the 45s. Have you heard of the 45s? Oh, brother. Don't know anything about them, but it's gonna take quite a bit to stop these eyes from rolling. They're chops are decent. Unfortunately, they wear their hearts on their sleeves, or rather, the medals on their jackets, just a little too obviously. It might be just the one video I've seen, so some slack may be be in order, but, man, this one goes way past homage, to the point of being a ripoff. Check out both of the videos below. The first is Kit Lambert's excellent footage of the Who, then performing as the High Numbers, in a small club '64-ish, doing Jessie Hill's "Ooh Poo Pah Doo". A great video that won't be online long, (It keeps being taken down. If so, just do a search, it'll pop up somewhere.). The second video is the 45s trying to cop the vibe, doing the same song, and like Lambert's footage, shot in a small club, shot in black and white, and interspersed with shots of the dancers. The appearance of scooters near the beginning of that footage, and the aforementioned medals being worn on the bands jackets, that just smacks of a half-assed nod to mod, particularly when you hear them. They're just a rock band with an informed choice of covers.Speaking of covers, Jessie Hill's original is the pre-game.

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Listen:
Jessie Hill - Ooh Poo Pah Doo, Pt 1 mp3 (via DivShare) at Junk Shop Juke Box
Jessie Hill - Ooh Poo Pah Doo, Pt 2 mp3 (via DivShare) at Junk Shop Juke Box
The 45's - Four songs (streaming) at Whiter Trash Soul
Video:
The High Numbers - Ooh Poo Pah Doo (live) at YouTube Exhibit A
The 45s - Ooh Poo Pah Doo (live) at YouTube Exhibit B

MULTITASKING'S OVERRATED

These will get you out of your chair. Did me. Don't know anything about these guys and, I'll be honest here, right now they're competing with an old black and white Brigitte Bardot flick on TV. It's in French, so, you know, gotta pay attention to the subtitles.

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Listen:
Diplomats of Solid Sound - Plenty Nasty mp3 at Ear Hole
Diplomats of Solid Sound - Lights Out mp3 at Daily Rind
Diplomats of Solid Sound - B-A-B-Y mp3 at Ear Hole 

ANYONE CAN MAKE A RECORD

Back in the late seventies, when the punk scene in L.A. was just getting off the ground, like other scenes that were springing up it was predominantly guitar based bands. Some may have had a sax here or some keyboards there, but it was all but written that a band be centered around the standard guitar-bass-drums foundation. This coming from a movement that was about tossing out the old way of doing things and starting from scratch, With the benefit of hindsight, from a musical standpoint it seems almost reactionary. Louder, faster, tough lyrics, yeah, yeah, but that's not exactly turning things upside down. That might be the reason why the Screamers, despite having never officially released a single record, have proven to be one of the most significant bands of that era. They consisted of two keyboards, a drummer and a vocalist. Not a single stringed instrument, Before you go spouting off, consider that this was before synth based bands really existed, and before industrial music was a definable movement.

Rather than rehash what I wrote a few years ago (you can read that here). I'll cut to the quick, The late Tomata Du Plenty was the lead singer of the Screamers. From the violent unfamiliar sound of the Screamers, and Du Plenty's intense stage presence, one could easily be intimidated by him from afar. But if you knew him as many, many people did, you know what an incredibly gracious person he was face to face, I was lucky enough to had a bunch of interactions with him back then. The man was totally disarming.

There's a documentary being made about Du Plenty, and I hope it covers him as a person, his being, as much as it does his music and various other works (acting, painting). Because first and foremost, that, to me, was what made him special, the standout member of a standout band.

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Listen:
The Screamers - Punish Or Be Damned (demo) mp3 at HoboFM
The Screamers - 122 Hours of Fear (streaming) at Avant Avant
Video:
The Screamers - Punish or Be Damned (live) at YouTube
The Screamers - In A Better World (live) at YouTube
The Screamers at Network Awesome Eight live videos, in succession
The Screamers - Tons more at YouTube
Population 1 - Trailer/movie site Expanded two DVD edition for sale, bonus disc with 40 minutes of the Screamers
Visit:
The Life and Times of Tomata Du Plenty - Kickstarter Campign (Relax, it's funded.)
The Screamers - Unofficial site Very comprehensive
The Screamers - Profile at Beware of the Blog
The Screamers - Profile at Perfect Sound Forever 

SPREAD THIS ON YOUR SKULL

Porfi Jimenez is not someone familiar to many. You'd probably have to be more than a casual Latin music dabbler to know him, which most of us are not. That's why I still go digging through old posts at Musica del Alma. They're not dabblers over their, they're fiends of the highest order. Jimenez stuck out because of "Coro", a pounding three and a half minute jam, dyn-o-mite Latin funk that sounds like the theme to some seventies cop show, if the cop show was from Venezuela. Blazing horns, guitar freak out, with a conga and bass heavy rhythm that just doesn't let up.

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Listen:
Porfi Jimenez y su Orquesta - Coro mp3 at Musica del Alma
Porfi Jimenez y su Orquesta - Echate Pa Ca mp3 at Musica del Alma
Porfi Jimenez y su Orquesta- Mi Consentida mp3 at Musica del Alma
Visit:
Musica del Alma

MOVIE NIGHT, OR NOT

A quick one here for that small group of people who dig X, but have never seen the movie The Unheard Music. It's worth seeing, and even though it's been tucked away on YouTube for a while, I guarantee it won't be online for long, So make hay while the sun shines sucka. If the video's gone by the time you read this, wallow in audio.

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Listen:

X - We're Desperate mp3 at Killed By Death Go there to get it

X - Adult Books mp3 at Killed By Death Go there to get it

NO SHIT, HE DID MORE THAN ONE.

Yeah, I know you. You're like the rest of us who like to pat ourselves on the back because we know the original version of a song that someone later covered in a radically different way. You're not like that? Let's take Ted Taylor's "Ramblin' Rose" as an example. I can hear you, "Ooh, ooh, that's an easy one, that's the song that MC5 covered". Very clever.  Now name one more Ted Taylor song. See what I mean? We've got to get over ourselves. We really don't know shit.

That all came to mind when I ran into another fine cut by Taylor at Diddy Wah, "I Don't Care". I realized that I knew none of Taylor's other work, so I did so preliminary digging. You know what I found out? Nearly everything I heard by Taylor was top shelf "How come this guy's just a footnote?" quality. Humbled again.

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

Listen:
Ted Taylor - I Don't Care mp3 at Diddy Wah Go there to get it.
Ted Taylor - Somebody's Always Trying mp3 at Soul Garage
Ted Taylor - Top Of the World mp3 at Soul Garage
Ted Taylor - Ramblin' Rose mp3 (via Box.com) at If There Is a Hell Below 1966. Note: At Box.com, click on the "Download" button in the top right
MC5 - Ramblin' Rose mp3 at Probe is Turning-On the People
Ted Taylor - 16 more cuts (streaming) at YouTube
Visit:
Ted Taylor at Wkipedia  

OCCAM'S CLIP JOINT

There is calamity in the blogosphere. Pete Shelley of the Buzzcocks has grown a beard. Actually. I only saw it mentioned on one blog. When it all comes down to it though, other than the beau going cheek to cheek with him, this should be of no particular interest to anyone. But look around you. We're all a bunch of superficial creeps. Just hearing about said beard  made you stop for a split second and think something. I'd like to think that rather than modeling it after some singer/songwriter salt of the earth stuff, or any deference to hipster clichés, or trying to make a statement of any kind, it is simply hair, whiskers. Not shaving. That is it. So what if it's not your bag?

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

Listen:
The Buzzcocks - Ever Fallen In Love mp3 at Absageagentur (?)
The Buzzcocks - Something's Gone Wrong Again mp3 at X818
The Buzzcocks -  Oh Shit, and What Do I Get mp3s at Killed By Death Go there to get them.