Dancehall King, Barrington Levy, is Jamaica's answer to Cab Calloway. I first saw him during one of the Reggae Sunsplash tours that made it's way to the US, he's a great live performer. In 1996, Barrington and the remaining members of Sublime, The Long Beach Dub All Stars, did some recording and played a few shows together. Of late, he's kept busy doing one-off collaborations and touring. Listen and find out why Barrington's so big that he's broader than Broadway.
XTC are an enigma. After releasing the classic English Settlement, the band went on a world tour to support the new release. Only nine full shows were performed before the plug was pulled - after Andy Partridge's anxiety attacks graduated from bouts of crippling stage fright to a complete nervous breakdown, he was forced to withdraw from touring permanently. XTC then became a studio band, releasing eight more albums. In 2006, Partridge announced that the only other remaining member, Colin Moulding, was no longer interested in music and without his participation, wasn't interested in releasing anymore albums under the XTC banner. I guess that closes the final chapter of the band - too bad, it's our loss.
This Eddie Floyd tune epitomizes the Memphis R&B sound - Bruce Springsteen used it to close his shows. A soul standard, backed by Stax Records house band, Booker T & The MGs.
If you asked me who my favorite Montreal laptop-techno Ambient Dub artist was, I'd have to say Deadbeat. Scott Monteith is the man behind the ultra-textured soundscapes and he's just released a new EP, Take Me Back To London Town - here's a taste.
In 1969, Marsha Hunt had an UK hit with this Dr. John song, also covered by Cher, Widespread Panic, Humble Pie, The Allman Brothers, among others. Perhaps the best version comes from The Modfather, Paul Weller. It features Oasis' Noel Gallagher, who provides guitar and backing vocals.
"You can get a lot farther with a kind word and a gun than a kind word alone." - Al Capone
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed." - Dwight David Eisenhower
"The end move in politics is always to pick up a gun." - Richard Buckminster Fuller
"Instead of a Seeing Eye dog, what about a gun? It's cheaper than a dog, plus if you walk around shooting all the time people are going to get out of the way." - Jack Handey
"Americans have the will to resist because you have weapons. If you don't have a gun, freedom of speech has no power." - Yoshimi Ishikawa
"As long as there are guns, the individual that wants a gun for a crime is going to have one and going to get it." - Ronald Reagan
"Guns will make us powerful; butter will only make us fat." - Hermann Göring
In 2004 (the most recent year for which data is available), there were 29,569 gun deaths in the U.S:
16,750 suicides (56% of all U.S gun deaths)
11,624 homicides (40% of all U.S gun deaths)
649 unintentional shootings (4% of all U.S gun deaths combined)
The University of Chicago offers an online shooting test in which you encounter a series of men holding either guns or cellphones. You'll proceed through 100 trials where you shoot the gunmen and holster your gun for the others: Shooter Effect
It's been one of those weeks that's end couldn't come quick enough. With that in mind, it's good to be reminded that in life, you only go around once - better grab that gusto and be there first. The Spud Boys do just that in song with this cut from Duty Now For The Future.
I don't think Iggy Pop is five foot one, but having met him in passing, I can say he's extremely short. Don't you wish that life can be Swedish magazines?
Did you know James Brown's last words were, "I'm on fire"? Though Christie’s holding an auction of his estate this August 1st, his family still hasn't found a final resting place for his body, so they did the next best thing and turned his daughter's backyard into a temporary burial site. Papa don't take no mess, indeed, which is a nice segue into today's selection. At 3:11 into Papa Don't Take No Mess, James sings how "papa didn't cuss, he didn't raise a whole lotta fuss, but when we did wrong, papa beat the hell out of us." Now, the idea of child abuse is disturbing in itself, but inserting audience cheers and a hearty "right on!" at the end of the stanza causes my eyebrow to go into full Stephen Colbert mode. From an early age, James had experienced a violent life, which is certainly reflected in his songs. Hopefully, he'll be put to rest in dignity, not for public display, a la Lenin's Tomb, in some bizarre Gracelandesque sideshow.
The Bar-Kays have to be one of music's saddest stories. They were aboard Otis Redding's chartered plane that crashed into Lake Monona in Madison, Wisconsin. Only one person made it out alive, Trumpeter Ben Cauley. He talks about it in an amazing must-read story: Bar-Kays hornman Ben Cauley is a survivor.
Now, it's time to throw some sawdust on the floor, fire up the jukebox and down 'em 'til I get cross-eyed. If I get to mumbling about running for President, make sure to have the bartender cut me off - have a great weekend!
My mom used to be an occasional dancer on the old American Bandstand teevee show. She and a group of her friends would squeeze into a car and make the trek from Flatbush to Philadelphia, all ready to show off the latest moves. Eventually, dancing was pushed aside for motherhood, but she still carried the beat in her head. For as long as I can remember, she'd have the radio on, tuned to the local pop station. Whenever this Mary Wells song would come on, it was as if a hypnotic spell had been cast over her, she'd stop whatever she was doing and dance. For me, that's what the power of music is all about.
I must confess, I love 70s Rod Stewart/Faces, even more so since bands like The Black Crowes have made a career out of doing a rather poor imitation of them. Rod the Mod entered adulthood as a footballer and grave digger. Soon after, he helped start The Ray Davies Quartet, later known as The Kinks and played with musicians such as Long John Baldry, Mick Fleetwood, Peter Green, Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger and Jeff Beck. He left Beck, taking Ron Wood along with him to join The Faces, a group that actually performed with a functioning bar onstage. Eventually, Stewart's burgeoning solo career spelled an end to the band, with Wood leaving for The Rolling Stones. Did Disco (Da Ya Think I'm Sexy) start Stewart's veer towards crass commercialism? Hard to say, but it was definitely the beginning of a creative decline. Here, Maggie Bell joins him on the tune that epitomizes the rough and ready sound of the Stewart of old.
The Kingbees came about during one of Rockbilly's umpteenth revivals. With the success of The Stray Cats, every record label were looking for their clone. About this time, Toronto-born singer/songwriter/guitarist, Jamie James, left Detroit and headed to Los Angeles, where he'd put together a Buddy Holly-styled Rockabilly trio. Unfortunately, success eluded them, but not before they'd left behind a catalogue of snappy tunes. I'm always a sucker for the crisp sound of a Strat through a Fender Twin Reverb - hopefully, with this song, you'll be as well.
This one has been posted often this week, but it's so good I want to jump right on the bandwagon because I fell in love with King Khan & The Shrines on first listen. This would sound right at home on the Nuggets collection, the tune is that authentic. Listen carefully and you can hear strains of The Strangeloves, Amboy Dukes, Them, Count Five, Question Mark & The Mysterians, and Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels.
In honor of the new Speed Racer live action movie, I've dragged out this old techno track, always good for a chuckle. Alpha Team were Chicago's Dane Roewade and Andy Adams, owner of Underground Construction records. Speed gives a new meaning to "Here comes Speed Racer" - I always knew that Trixie was a stone-cold freak!
The Father Of Delta Blues, Charley Patton, had eight wives, never stayed in one place for too long, drank and smoked excessively - it was said he was jailed at least once. He influenced Son House, Bukka White, Howlin' Wolf, Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Elmore James and was one of the idiom's first showmen, playing the guitar behind his back or between his knees, banging it like a drum. This incredible twelve page R. Crumb comic based on Robert Palmer's Deep Blues tells the whole story: Charley Patton by R. Crumb.
Honey Cone were Edna Wright, Carolyn Willis and Shellie Clarke. Wright was a singer with Ray Charles' Raelets and sister to Darlene Love, who inadvertently formed the band by asking Edna to perform a gig on teevee's Andy Williams Show that she wasn't able to fill due to previous commitments with The Blossoms. Afterwards, Honey Cone signed with Hot Wax, a label started by Motown's legendary songwriting and production team, Lamont Dozier, Brian Holland and Edward Holland, Jr. Wanted, young man single and free for a love trainee - the pay isn't very good, but the fringe benefits...
I feel one of the most important early lessons of my life was learning that everything we do is a result of routine, bad and good. We're creatures of habit and the quicker we realize it, the faster we can start changing the ones that don't serve us well.
Most of life is habitual. You do the same things you did yesterday, the day before and every day for the last month. It’s estimated that out of every 11,000 signals we receive from our senses, our brain only consciously processes 40.
Habits, good or bad, make you who you are. The key is controlling them. If you know how to change your habits, then even a small effort can create big changes.
People may not be conscious or aware of their habitual behaviors. To control it, the first thing is to bring it to the person's attention. Here are some typical habits many struggle with, perhaps you might recognize a couple.
Smoking more and enjoying it less? Nicotina, that's her name, she has a tiny voice and she sings all day.
Emphasize your productive habits, good routines lead to a more satisfying life. Here's a few to get you started.
Ian Dury has all sorts of rationales to be happy, amongst them - John Coltrane's soprano, Adi Celentano and Bonar Colleano. In fact, the BBC complied a list of Reasons To Be Cheerful.
"The chains of habit are generally too small to be felt until they are too strong to be broken." - Samuel Johnson
"Habit is habit, and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed downstairs a step at a time." - Mark Twain
"A habit is something you can do without thinking - which is why most of us have so many of them." - Frank A. Clark
"Ill habits gather by unseen degrees - As brooks make rivers, rivers run to seas." - John Dryden
"Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going." - Jim Ryun
"Bad habits are easier to abandon today than tomorrow." - Yiddish Proverb
"The unfortunate thing about this world is that good habits are so much easier to give up than bad ones." - Somerset Maugham
"Habit, if not resisted, soon becomes necessity." - St. Augustine
"The second half of a man's life is made up of nothing but the habits he has acquired during the first half." - Feodor Dostoevski
"Enduring habits I hate... Yes, at the very bottom of my soul I feel grateful to all my misery and bouts of sickness and everything about me that is imperfect, because this sort of thing leaves me with a hundred backdoors through which I can escape from enduring habits." - Friedrich Nietzsche
"Habits are at first cobwebs, then cables." - Spanish Proverb
"Habit is a second nature which prevents us from knowing the first, of which it has neither the cruelties nor the enchantments." - Marcel Proust
"The easier it is to do, the harder it is to change." - Eng's Principle
"The satisfied, the happy, do not live; they fall asleep in habit, near neighbor to annihilation." - Miguel de Unamuno
"Habits are safer than rules; you don't have to watch them. And you don't have to keep them, either. They keep you." - Frank Crane
"Habit is thus the enormous flywheel of society, its most precious conservative agent. It alone is what keeps us all within the bounds of ordinance, and saves the children of fortune from the envious uprisings of the poor." - William James
"In any family, measles are less contagious than bad habits." - Mignon McLaughlin
"Men's natures are alike; it is their habits that separate them." - Confucius
"Habit with him was all the test of truth; It must be right: I've done it from my youth." - George Crabbe
"Habit is a cable; we weave a thread each day, and at last we cannot break it." - Horace Mann
"Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits." - Mark Twain
"Small habits well pursued betimes. May reach the dignity of crimes." - Hannah More
"To fall into a habit is to begin to cease to be." - Miguel de Unamuno
"Habit is a man's sole comfort. We dislike doing without even unpleasant things to which we have become accustomed." - Goethe
"The best way to break a bad habit is to drop it." - Leo Aikman
"Every grown-up man consists wholly of habits, although he is often unaware of it and even denies having any habits at all." - Georges Gurdjieff
Life is to be enjoyed, not a hardship to be endured. Why not start today?
If only Steve Marriott's manager let him take the Led Zeppelin gig instead of Humble Pie... the man could sing his ass off. Can you catch all this song's illicit drug references? Those nutty seventies!
I've just come across The Ruby Suns, a New Zealand band. Think sunny psych-pop with strains of African township jive and flamenco, sung in Maori and led by a d00d relocated from Ventura, California. Your head will swirl from all the different sounds. The video is pretty awesome, as well.
After getting jailed for non-payment of tickets, Eric Wright (Eazy-E) bails out Andre Young (Dr. Dre) on the condition he'll produce music for Eazy's new company, Ruthless Records. Dre talks Eazy into rapping some O'Shea Jackson (Ice Cube) songs and the rest is Gangsta Rap history.
Formerly James Brown's band during the first half of the 1970s, The J.B.'s, (hormen Fred Wesley, Maceo Parker, Pee Wee Ellis and Bobby Byrd) reunited in 2002 to record Bring the Funk on Down, a snappy collection of funkified songs. This tune was featured to good effect in HBO's The Wire.
King Stitt... where does one start? Winston "King Stitt" Spark is the oldest living Jamaican DJ. Born with a facial malformation, King Stitt used it to his advantage and named himself The Ugly One, in reference to Sergio Leone's spaghetti Western, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Watch a great video interview with him here. Now, listen to King explain how smoking is a habit.
This year, Spring begins in the Northern Hemisphere with the vernal equinox on March 20th. It's the season for hope and renewal as humankind ventures back outdoors, let's celebrate it with music.
The sun is returning after a long cold, lonely winter. I really enjoy the understated performance of this interesting duo.
After a Spring shower ends and the sun shines down, don't forget to sip your lemonade in the shade. Turn on, tune in, drop out to some spacey Beatles Psychedelia.
Well, another winter is almost over and March true to form has come in like a lion, and hopefully will go out like a lamb. At least that's how March works here in the United States.
But did you know that March behaves differently in other countries? In Norway, for example, March comes in like a polar bear and goes out like a walrus. Or, take the case of Honduras where March comes in like a lamb and goes out like a salt marsh harvest mouse.
Let's compare this to the Maldive Islands where March comes in like a wildebeest and goes out like an ant. A tiny, little ant about this big.
Unlike the Malay Peninsula where March comes in like a worm-eating fernbird and goes out like a worm-eating fernbird. In fact, their whole year is like a worm-eating fernbird.
Or consider the Republic of South Africa where March comes in like a lion and goes out like a different lion. Like one has a mane, and one doesn't have a mane. Or in certain parts of South America where March swims in like a sea otter, and then it slithers out like a giant anaconda.
There you can buy land real cheap, you know. And there's a country where March hops in like a kangaroo, and stays a kangaroo for a while, and then it becomes a slightly smaller kangaroo. Then, for a couple of days it's sort of a cross between a frilled lizard and a common house cat.
Wait... then it changes back into a smaller kangaroo, and then it goes out like a wild dingo. Now, and it's not Australia! Now, you'd think it would be Australia, but it's not!
Now look, pal! I know a country where March comes in like an emu and goes out like a tapir. And they don't even know what it means! All right? Now listen, there are nine different countries, where March comes in like a frog, and goes out like a golden retriever. But that, that's not the weird part! No, the weird part is the frog...
Now, get out from behind that screen and take a deep breath of some of that fresh Springtime air. You'll thank me later, unless you live in Elizabeth, New Jersey.
This year, St. Patrick's Day is celebrated on March 15th because the church decreed it couldn't fall during Holy Week. I didn't have time to get together a proper St. Patrick's Day post, but since last year's has been getting quite a few hits, I have a great excuse for a repost. Here's music from some of Ireland's finest bands, enjoy:
The 1980 Hope And Anchor show is indispensable for Elvis Costello fans. I used to play it for fellow musicians, explaining this is how a live band should sound. It also has the absolute best version of Watching The Detectives, guitarist Martin Belmont really goes to town on it. All in all, this is the live album Elvis should've released. I could gone on, but Mr. Moderator over at Rock Town Hall put it best:
Here are some tracks from the most-influential bootleg/radio concert of my youth: Elvis Costello & The Attractions with Martin Belmont (Graham Parker and The Rumour) subbing on guitar for injured keyboardist Steve Nieve. This is a King Biscuit Flour Hour concert that I taped off the radio when I was however old I was the year my favorite album of all time, Get Happy!!, was released.
I love the way the band steamrolls through these songs. I love the way the recording actually sounds like someone stuck a mic up in the middle of the club (ie, rather than a dreadful "board mix"). I love the material. I especially love the way the band takes command of the material and makes it work be sheer force of will (and the strength of rock's finest rhythm section ever). No slight to Steve Nieve, because the full-strength Attractions back then could also pull this off, but as a youngster in the process of forming a 2-guitar band - without organ - getting to hear one of our favorite artist's music performed in this configuration was a godsend. I can't tell you how many times we sat around the bong and played the cassette of this concert, detailing all that was right about this approach. We might as well have been studying Ted Williams' swing.
Hope And Anchor – Islington, London, England - Elvis Costello & The Attractions with Martin Belmont 1980-05-14
This YouTube video does a great job conveying what a typical Elvis concert was like during this period. Watch EC eying the audience with his steely gaze.
Huge shoutouts go to Matthew Berlyant & Rock Town Hall, both who went out of their way making the Hope & Anchor show available. Check out their sites - they're chock full of heady goodness.
FYI - Sadie Hawkins Day is NOT February 29, so all the bachelors out there should be safe for a while longer. TGIF - Today's selections bring some eighties synthpop, the amazing bluesman Henry Thomas and his quills (this site explains why it sounds so pleasing), late Dance Hall queen Natasja Saad, James Brown, live at the Olympia, Paris, 1971, with two drummers, a teenage Bootsy Collins and his best horn section ever, finalizing with the Clinton that *did* inhale - I don't think he ever stopped. Have a good weekend!
Elvis Costello was born Declan Patrick MacManus on the 25th of August, 1954, at St Mary's Hospital, Paddington in London, England. At sixteen, the only child of trumpeter, vocalist and bandleader Ronald "Ross" MacManus and record store manager Lillian MacManus, moved to Liverpool with his mom and finished high school there, completing his A Levels in English.
While Elvis was still a child, Ross was a featured vocalist with the Joe Loss Orchestra and would bring home acetate recordings to practice the latest pop tunes. From Rolling Stone article, Fathers & Sons: The Costellos:
Elvis: "Originally my dad was a bop player; the dance band that he (later) sang with was based on the Glenn Miller model, that swinging beat. They included the tunes from the hit parade in the set in the dance hall, and they did a radio broadcast every Friday - not just the ballads but the rocking stuff. I've got a recording of this orchestra playing Pink Floyd's "See Emily Play." Can you imagine? So we never had that generational divide. I had my dad literally coming home and learning the hit-parade tunes every week; there's a record called Ross MacManus Sings Frank Sinatra."
Ross: "We had a radio program in which we did all the hits live. So I might be Jim Reeves, or I might be Roy Orbison, the Beatles or the Rolling Stones. Elvis was listening to all this. The famous story about him is that his very first words were, "Skin, Mommy." He wanted "I've Got You Under My Skin," by Sinatra. That and Peggy Lee singing the "Siamese Cat Song." I think he was determined to succeed and knew he would succeed. He had perfect faith in himself. Dec used to go out and do shows when he was thirteen, fourteen, fifteen. He developed bit by bit under his own steam."
In 1964, Ross wrote and recorded a bluebeat/ska song called "Patsy Girl" (HMV, POP 1279, credited to Ross McManus) which failed upon it's UK release, but later entered the Top 5 in Germany in July, 1966.
What causes this tune to be particularity ironic was Elvis' quote about The Police's lead singer: "Somebody should clip Sting around the head and tell him to stop using that ridiculous Jamaican accent."
Ross McManus & The Joe Loss Blue Beats: Patsy Girl - 2.26MB
Here's a short interview with Elvis on his father's music career:
In 1970, Elvis started performing his own compositions in London folk clubs. Two years later, he played with the band Rusty and in 1974, joined Flip City, a band that made it's mark playing the burgeoning UK Pub Rock scene. It was then that he married his first wife, Mary Burgoyne, who had chose the group's name from an expression comedians Cheech and Chong used on a Joni Mitchell cover of the old Annie Ross tune, Twisted. Here's a great website that has mp3s, pics, set lists and a biography of the band - Flip City: The True Story.
Flip City folded in 1975 and Elvis went back to playing solo gigs billed as DP Costello (Costello being the maiden name of his paternal great-grandmother, Elizabeth Costello). Having to provide for his young family, Costello took a job as a computer operator for the Elizabeth Arden factory in Wales Farm Road, Acton where he used his free time to write songs and map out his music career. In his bedroom, he recorded a bare-bones demo tape, featuring just vocals and acoustic guitar, which he shopped around to various record companies with little success. He also forwarded his tape to Charlie Gillett, who featured recordings of new artists on his BBC radio show. Gillett thought highly of the songs and considered producing an album himself if funding could be obtained.
The Bedroom Demos
Elvis: "Despite the presence of familiar titles and lyrics which re-appear in later compositions, this group of songs are in a radically different style to those on My Aim Is True. With hindsight, I must confess that I am uneasy with my blatant imitation of certain American singers and songwriters. However, to be truthful I learned a great deal from trying (and failing) to copy such artists as Randy Newman, Hoagy Carmichael, Lowell George, John Prine and The Band. Even though some of these names became unfashionable in 1976 and I abandoned this particular borrowed style in favor of the more direct sound of My Aim Is True, I hope the listener will be amused one way or another by these steps in my apprenticeship."
During 1976, Stiff Records placed an ad in the UK music press asking for demo tapes. Elvis dropped off his at the Stiff office, as soon as staff producer Nick Lowe heard it, Costello was signed. It took seven years, but now Elvis was an overnight sensation.
Later - a wicked live show from Costello's peak period. In my opinion, his greatest one ever. Stay tuned...
Another week of illness - like The Damned, I'm sick of being sick. Hopefully, I'm back on track. Today's presentation includes the nimble syncopation of Blind Blake, some old skool with Doug E. Fresh and Slick Rick, Copenhagen Electronica with People Press Play and a much sampled George McCrae number. Weekend, ho!
One of the top search strings on the Internet is "What is love?". If any of you netizens ever find out, please let me know. In the meantime, happy Valentine's day.
![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
snuh's journal
