Lil Mike's Last Known Thoughts & Random Revelations...

Friday, May 16, 2008

May 16

Today is May 16th

My ol' pals in Lagwagon have written a song and put it on their album Let's Talk About Feelings that has this date covered...

That sort of gets me off the literary hook I suppose

Lagwagon - May 16th

Not sure what Joey's distraught about...but somehwre under Dave's thunderclaps, and perhaps those dual guitars is a story with a meaning that will become apparent in any of the sonic gaps...

I haven't been updating the lil blog here much lately in case ye noticed...

I've had a lot of stuff going on, and not a lot of inspiration.

One of the things taking wind out of my sails recently was the painful way I've had to say goodbye to two of my closest friends recently.

Two guys I've known for nearly twenty years...

are finito, dead, gone.

Both died in my arms over the past two weeks... my cats.

About a week ago or so Cho Cho, the 18 year old gay siamese cat took ill suddenly and was gone within a couple days.

He stopped eating and drinking, went limp and the vets couldn't explain any of it.

Then just as Cho Cho was sent off for cremation, the other cat started showing the same symptoms...

So lasterday after keeping him alive with subcutaneous fluid injections, and eye dropper feedings of liquid diet, Cho Cho's roommate, 19 year old Little Ricky, just couldn't takle the 98 degree heat...

After days of agonizing, I had to take him down to the vet for some euthanasia... and $300 later I had a dead cat in my arms...

Goodbye Ricky... He fought off kicking ghetto kids in the SF projects, racoons in the hills of Sonoma, and dogs in Oakland... and even used to help me put up flyers...

i'm not sure if it was some poisoned canned food or what, but these guys weren't in that bad of health... and then blammo!

I watched the grim reaper take the life out of these good little boys...

Entrance - Grim Reaper Blues

Entrance
"Grim Reaper Blues" (mp3)
from "Prayer of Death"
(Tee Pee Records)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
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More On This Album

Anyhow...

we'll keep this Friday 5 mournful mix moving along ...

I've already bought a ticket for Motorhead this summer, and word is they're just along for the ride on a bill with Dio fronting Black Sabbath, and Judas priest with Halford back at the helm...

I'll be wearing black I suppose...

Motorhead - Killed By Death ( live from the 1985 Motorhead 10th Birthday Party at the Hammersmith Odeon )

Judas Priest - Beyond The Realms of Death ( live in Denver 1980 )

and we'll wrap up today with a track from a 1991 demo made on a 4 track cassette machine in a moldy basement on Harrison St in San Francisco. The song later appeared in a more sonically enhanced version produced by Bill Laswell on this band's major label debut...

I also helped write the last verse of the lyrics after the bridge... check it out

Bomb - All My References Are Dead ( from the Sex Kiss Cage Demo, the Bill Laswell produced major label released version available on the Hate Fed Love album on iTunes )

More Bomb info at http://www.hitsofacid.com

You could also download plenty of their indie back catalog at eMusic

Saturday, April 19, 2008

If The Blues Was Whiskey, I'd Stay Drunk All The Time...

Sunday April 20th, it's not only Adolf Hitler's... also since 1908, it's been the late great Lionel Hampton's birthday... (he was a perhaps slightly less well known 1930's & 1940's era celeb.)

Not being the biggest fan of Hitler, a man who's recorded works are many but overall somewhat lacking in entertainment value, I guess I'll talk up Mr. Hampton the musician instead...

As a Los Angeles based drummer, Lionel Hampton had a cameo in the 1934 Bing Crosby film Pennies From Heaven alongside trumpeter Louis Armstrong.^{[citatation]. Hampton took immediately to Armstrong, driving him around, and the two worked up routines in their act where they marched off the bandstand with their instruments, and ended Hampton with sliding on his belly.

From an interview with "Hamp" quoted at Big Band Library.com}

"Well, Louis was my idol. I met him, we were talking, then he said, 'Oh, I got to call a car so I can go to the city and go to work.' And I said, 'You don't need a car, you can use my car.' So I took him where he was going. yeah, we hit it off."

"Louis used to sing 'Rockin' Chair Got Me' and I'd be the old man in the rocking chair. 'Old rockin' chair's got you, father, cane by your side,' he'd sing to me, and I'd have on a duster coat, a false beard, an old straw hat and a cane-my props. Oh, boy! I thought I was something, doing that with Louis Armstrong!"

"Louis and I did an act on 'Hold That Tiger.' I'd go into the audience hollering through my snare drum: 'Oh! (Hold that tiger!), Oh! (Hold that tiger!).' And on the last one, when Louis hit that high C or F-which in those days, every trumpet player would try to hit, but Louis would hit it and hold it-I'd run from the audience and slide on my belly, with the snare drum on, across the dance floor, and hit the cymbal I'd set up with my bass drum on the floor. I'd hit my cymbal to cut off Louis' high note, and the band would cut off, too, and we never missed, we'd always hit it right on time. People got a big kick out of that. Yeah, Louis and I were tight."

It would not be as a drummer though that he would gain his fame, but as a vibraphonist...

Lionel Hampton played vibraphone publicly for the 1st time in a gig backing up Louis Armstrong, while a member of the Stan Hite orchestra, who'd all been hired in LA as a backing group by the famous New Orleans jazz man.

Armstrong was reputably Hampton's musical inspiration, but another man played a very important role, his next boss and musical collaborator...

After a stint attempting to lead his own group, Lionel eventually joined forces with famed clarinetist Benny Goodman. Hampton often credited Goodman with leading a wave of integration, giving breaks to "colored" musicians like Hamp in the days of deep seeded racist segregation.

Hampton was a dynamite performer as a drummer, also a respected pianist who could boogie woogie with the best of 'em, and also an occasional vocalist...

Here's Lionel Hampton on an old Victor disc in a rare spot of singing & of course playing his vibraphone in the Benny Goodman Quartet, a 1937 era combo ...

Lionel Hampton - Vibraphone Blues

"If The Blues Was Whiskey, I'd Stay Drunk All The Time..."

Here's Hampton backing up vocalist Johnny Hodges's reading of "Sunny Side of the Street"

Lionel Hampton ( w/ Johnny Hodges) - Sunnyside Of The Street

Hampton soon became very popular, not only as a member of Benny Goodman's band in the later 1930's, but beginning in 1940 and through the early 1950s , as a notable "big band" leader on his own. Hamp's orchestra's third recording in 1942 produced the classic version of "Flying Home", featuring a solo by Illinois Jacquet that helped pave the way for the music that eventually became popularly known as Rhythm & Blues.

Lionel Hampton - Flying Home

Over the years Lionel Hampton's big band had many notable players including composer and bassist Charles Mingus, trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, saxophonist Johnny Griffin, guitarist Wes Montgomery, vocalist Dinah Washington and keyboardist Milt Buckner. Other musicians who got their start through Hampton's auspices or at least passed throug included trumpeters Cat Anderson, Kenny Dorham and Snooky Young, pianist Art Farmer, trombonist Jimmy Cleveland, sax men Earl Bostic & Jerome Richardson, and even the funky Pazant Brothers, not too mention vocalists Betty Carter, and Little Jimmy Scott.

While the big band years faded, Hampton's talents remained strong and he continued to record in smaller combos notably many sessions for Joel Dorn's Verve label, including those with Oscar Peterson, and a notable team up with Stan Getz in 1955.

Here's their intensely virtuosotic version of Jumpin at The Woodside captured at a scorching hot summer session taped in LA from the classic LP Hamp & Getz.

Hamp & Getz - Jumpin' At The Woodside

Unlike the stereotypes you might have of many Jazz musicians, Hampton eschewed the norms, including bypassing the cigar chomping conventional management. He controlled more of his money by using his wife Gladys as his booking agent, forming the Glad-Hamp organization, which she ran until her death in 1971. Gladys had actually started off as a club dancer, and after catching each other's attentions with their talents, she bought Hamp his first set of vibes back in the LA days in the latter 1930's.

Hamp became a staunch Republican, who did many fundraisers, and served as a delegate to several Republican National Conventions during his lifetime.

Not too mention his recording & releasing on his Glad-Hamp label this cheer for future pardoned Watergate co-conspirator Richard Nixon...

Lionel Hampton - We Need Nixon

He also served as Vice-Chairman of the New York Republican County Committee for some years, and was very interested in fundraising for Israel. After his death the Harlem Republican club renamed itself The Lionel Hampton Republican Club. Before his death the University of Idaho had named their annual Jazz Festival after him, as well as the school's jazz program.

Happy Birthday Lionel Hampton... rest in peace...

and I agree: If The Blues Was Whisky, I'd Stay Drunk All The Time...

Earth Day Blues Birthday

Friday, I meant to get a happy birthday post up to honor the life of the late great Clarence Gatemouth Brown. I was a bit distracted by the usual whatnot, so I hope to combine this announcement...

Since this weekend is also the anniversary of Earth Day, here's a track that combines both Gate's birthday, and his interest in ecology. Here's "Man and his Environment" from a mid 1970's release "Gate's On The Heat", that aimed a song at outgoing prez Nixon, and presciently predates our current Republican President's vague recognition of global warming.

Clarence Gatemouth Brown - Man and His Environment

How ironic that his final days as an 81 year old man suffering from cancer were spent evacuating his Slidell Louisiana home, and dealing with the effects of the catastrophic consequences of Hurricane Katrina, and the lame government response to the aftermath.

Clarence Gatemouth Brown was born in Orange Texas on April 18th 1924, and he began playing music professionally in the post war 1940's period. After winning over the crowd's at Houston's Peacock club, he also recorded originally for The Peacock label. His "Oakie Dokie Blues" becoming one of the all time electric guitar showcases in the genre. He eventually ended up in Nashville heading up the houseband for 26 episodes of the Beat TV show in the early 60's.

After decades of juke joints and obscurity, ups & downs, and even a stint as a deputy sheriff, in the 1980's his southern blues stylings and immense musical talents were finally better recognized and he won a blues Grammy for his Rounder album 'Alright Again!'.

Alright Again!

Gatemouth was increasingly sought out on the festival circuit, and played up to 300 dates a year. He was even recognized by the US State Dept as an official American ambassador of music, and had toured worldwide, including war torn and politically unstable places like East Africa, Central America and parts of the former Soviet Union. He released "Timeless", his last album of a 60 year career, shortly before he died in a stressful period of September 2005 right after moving out of his flooded home during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

One of the unique aspects of Clarence Gatemouth Brown's popularity were his appearances on Hee Haw with pal Roy Clark. Here's a tune from a record they did together in the late 1970's...

Clarence 'Gatemouth' Brown & Roy Clark - The Drifter

From Makin' Music released on MCA in the fall of 1979, despite a 90's reissue, the record is now quite rare, with a recent perusal of Amazon showing the cheapest used copy available for $173...yikes!

Below is a list of some of the many recordings still available at reasonable prices via either the usual online CD dispensaries, or for as downloads through iTunes, Amazon, eMusic and other digital music stores that Clarence Gatemouth Brown's music is featured on...

wow....

yer still here?

ok

so, fer all the real blues hounds diligently digging through the digital dirt,

here's a couple bonus tracks, the first from the late great Memphis Slim, off the classic Rockin The Blues collection...

Memphis Slim - Mother Earth

And, just because I can, here's something obscure about your planet from the irrepresible and naughty nutcase known as Kim Fowley...

From the long out of print album "The Day The Earth Stood Still"...

Released in 1970, the year of the 1st ever Earth Day, it has a tune that delves into the state of the seas as only Mr. Fowley can...

Kim Fowley - The Frail Ocean

Hope ya enjoy these hard to find recycled tunes...
and have a good weekend or whatever folks,...