Friday, February 29, 2008

White House Aide Goeglein now in Google'd hall of shame

After being outed by a blogger, a Senior White House aide has admitted to plagiarism in a series of columns he wrote for an Indiana newspaper. Apparently Timothy Goeglein, 44, who'd been working in the Bush administration since 2001 pumping up conservative religious factionalism didn't know that even with God on your side, a simple Google search can unravel a retarded ruse...


What's interesting, the now notorious columns that have disgraced the good Goeglein family name he purportedly wrote weren't even paid gigs...


Congrats to blogger Nancy Nall who nailed the nerdy nincompoop after reading one too many arcane references in his banal blather in her local Fort Wayne newspaper...


In a column on the purposes of education, a reference to an obscure Dartmouth professor lead Nall to simply google the name "Eugene Rosenstock-Hussey".

Nall's simple search offered up verbatim chunks of Goeglein's text, but written by someone else in the Dartmouth Review a decade earlier. After Nall's post caught fire on the web today, within minutes other folks ran several of Goeglein's other columns through the plagiarism detectors and uncovered numerous other meretricious instances of tawdry word theft.

Leave it to the annoying Bush White House to have a special assistant "deputy director of the Office of Public Liaison" whose only intellectual capacity appears to be borrowing other peoples ideas and presenting them as his own.

The Washington Post reports the official White House comment:

"His behavior is not acceptable and we are disappointed in Tim's actions," White House spokeswoman Emily Lawrimore said. "He is offering no excuses and he agrees it was wrong."

Asked if he would keep his job, she said, "At this point we have nothing more for you on that."


But within a few more hours, Goeglein had fallen on the sword and his resignation was accepted post haste.

Ironically, or not, Nancy Nall herself was a former writer for the same newspaper Goeglein was a contributor too. Perhaps this piqued her curiosity into the pompous tone of this Rovian lapdog's agenda. The paper itself is now trying to distance themselves from the situation, saying they apparently just ran whatever unsolicited columns Goeglein submitted to The Fort Wayne News-Sentinel and never actually paid for them.

Oh I guess that makes it all like, o.k then...

Are they implying Republicans are cheap?


---------------- the sounds of the hour ------------------

Tim Goeglein, special assistant to Prez Bush reads a letter in Support of Israel

Doug Dangler - Plagiarism Blues

The Clash - Cheat

Los Campesinos! - You! Me! Plagiarizing!


Soda and his Million Piece band - You Cheat

Cazals - To Cut A Long Story Short (Xtopher Fiction Remix)

Random Leap Year Mix

Since it's a leap year and the final February Friday and the weekend is coming to take me away, I'm just gonna throw up a mutant mini mix for all those trolling by today...

Feel free to add to your own digital diversity collection by perusing the ye olde tunes I have gathered on yer behalf today...

To lead things off I'm gonna pay tribute to my favorite city.

Here's a tune by the late Mr. Turk Murphy, a trombonist who was a legend in Herb Caen's San Francisco for many years. Turk and his many musical cohorts were leading performers in a New Orleans jazz Dixieland revival that was popular here throughout the 1950's & 60's.

Here's a pic of Turk jamming away...









A veteran of Lu Watter's Yerba Buena Jazz band in the 1940's, by the 1950's Turk had his own band playing spots like The Tin Angel & a regular gig at the busy Italian Village at Lombard & Columbus.




In 1960 he opened his own club...

Even after the mob owned strip clubs & punk rockers made North Beach nightlife a less wholesome affair, Turk kept at it, but left the neighborhood.

He kept his club Earthquake McGoon's going, but moved it to a spot near the Embarcadero, and lastly it's final resting place at tourist trap Pier 39, which stayed open until the mid 80's.

Joining on vocals is fellow horn player Bob Schulz who played with the group from 1979 until the end of the Earthquake McGoon's era.




Turk Murphy - San Francisco Jazz




Continuing on this wayback machine journey, I steer this post on down to the tropical isle of Jamaica...

We head into Sir Coxsone Dodd's Studio 1, where a Mr. Welton Irie gives up a classic track fer yer perusal, it's one of about 6000 recorded songs & versions laid down in that hallowed ground...

Just in case ya never heard of this Irie individual, here's a short video clip of him boasting and a toasting of hitting the White House one night and sleeping with the President's daughter...




Welton Irie was born circa 1960, and recorded at Studio 1 circa 1977 before Dodd split for NYC. This track is also sometimes listed as featuring both Lone Ranger & Welton Irie, but what do i know. Maybe you should ask him. Welton, while obscure, is still active and has a MySpace page where you can simply be his friend, or even book him for session y'all.

Welton Irie - Chase Them Crazy




We continue drifting back into 1972, where a certain LA based latin rock group put their spin on a perpetually popular Van Morrison track...




I have had their groovy Viva Tirado LP for years, but this track also on the Kapp label is new to my world... and hopefully yers...

The band was called El Chicano, and they still play a few oldies gigs every year I believe

El Chicano - Brown Eyed Girl


A year earlier than that last track was recorded, a UK band that was signed to the Harvest label released an album called Message from The Country. Their orchestrated psychedelic pop sound is notable, mainly because it marks the beginnings of a new group that would soon sell multiple millions around the world and remain popular for decades... that being the Electric Light Orchestra.

Here's an early effort from The Move featuring Bev Bevan, Jeff Lynne and Roy Wood. It's from a remastered edition of this group's 1971 album, plus bonus tracks that EMI has painstakingly reassembled from original master tapes stored at Abbey Road and in Don Arden's archives.

The Move - Message from The Country ( 1971)



The Move, who eventually evolved into one of the slickest groups ever in ELO, were alos known for wild antics onstage, and had a crash about stage show that apparently rivaled The Who, and would not have been out of place in punk rock years later.

Here's a live Move track from 1968, a cover of a Love tune written by the late Arthur Lee. This line up predates Jeff Lynne's involvement... as he didn't join til midway through 1969.

The Move - Stephanie Knows Who

...

While I wasn't even born when the Move were tearing it up, and I got to town a bit late to enjoy Mr. Turk Murphy live, I did get in my fair share of live entertainment over the years.

One of those entertainers still going strong is the lovely Miss Stephanie Finch, a school teacher that rocks.

I have had the pleasure of watching her play and sing around these parts for quite some time and she is perhaps better known to most in her role as thee Mrs. Chuck Prophet...


As seen supporting the man in action in this here live video clip I shot & edited awhile back...







Here's a little live sonic serendipity from the same folks, a random revelations rarity for y'all ...it's a nice clean recording of Chuck and his wife Stephie pulling off a delightful cover of an old Jerry Ragovy & Mort Shuman composistion. The original is best known as a song by southern soulman Howard Tate ...



This one was recorded in my old stomping grounds up in Sonoma County in 2003...

Chuck Prophet - Shoot Em All Down



Next up is a sample from a new collection that Luaka Bop has available in yer fave download stores this week...

get DRM free mp3's at Amazon & eMusic.

It's a look at some of the best in Brazilian music, an anniversary celebration of sorts for David Byrne's pet label which first began reissuing Brazilian stuff 20 years ago...

and what a long strange, wonderful trip it's been...

I myself have to thank Mr. Byrne for turning me onto to two of my favorite groups, the legendary psychedelic sounds of Os Mutantes and this fine featured performer...

Tom Ze'...

In 1990 Byrne issued a collection of rarely heard & mostly forgotten tracks that were a revelation...

I actually was lucky enough & got a chance to see the now 70 something Mr. Ze back in the late 1990's at Bimbo's when he was in his 60's and touring with the guys from Tortoise...

It was a quirky, uplifting, silly & really remarkable show, in which Ze wore coveralls, a construction helmet and played a variety of percussive devices, and mumbled many cute but mostly indiscernable sayings in Portugese.

I would gladly do it all again...or at least buy a video if such a thing exists...

Here's a track that originally appeared on his 1975 album Estudando O Samba.
Byrne's interest in Ze's obscure music rescued Zé from a job at a relative's gas station and enabled the artist to return to professionally making music. One of Luaka Bop's first releases was the Brazil Classics Vol 4 compilation, which reappropriated 9 out of print tracks from Ze's Estudando o Samba.

Well, why should we stop milking this classic from 1975 now ...

Here is something from it again...

Brazil Classics at 20: Anti-aging Solutions RevealedTom Ze
"Mã" (mp3)
from "Brazil Classics at 20: Anti-aging Solutions Revealed"
(LUAKA BOP)

Stream at Rhapsody

Check it out at eMusic More On This Album



Anyhow... I'm exhausted from all this muckety muck mix business

y'all should enjoy something from that post...

if not, leave me alone...

I gotta go and be back here on the job by 10 am


toodles...

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Buddy Miles : R.I.P - Darby Crash lives

I am sitting here thinking I might go see the Germs movie tonight, What We Do Is Secret, but chances are it may already be sold out...

Actually that was then, this is now, and I'm happy to report I was able to get into the theater, and the very helpful ticket booth operator was Sunny and not the cranky nerdboy that I had spoken to earlier...

and despite my apprehension...

It turned out to be a great lil' rock n roll movie...


Ironically, or not, the film's cast and backers couldn't be farther from the real life of Darby Crash, amongst those appearing at the screening on behalf of the production were ER star Shane West as Darby, and film producer and millionaire scion of the SF socialite scene, Todd Traina. Other cast members up on the screen include the daughters of 60's & 70's music industry big wig's Lenny Waronker and Papa John Phillips, showing that a lil' nepotism is still hip in show biz.



These two pedigreed young ladies, Anna Waronker & Bijou Phillips, get to play the punky pioneering presences of Joan Jett and Germs bassist Lorna Doon respectively, women in reallife who weren't handed any family favors by the entertainment industry, gals that had to prove their worth in inexorably inhospitable conditions.



But who ever said Hollyweird was about "keeping it real..."



It's more about attempting to keep it "presentable"...

But how does one present the life of Darby, a junkie punk who has been dead for decades, and unlike Elvis, he was pretty much last seen in 1980...

Dying a day before John Lennon, he didn't even get the press, much less the dramatic rock n roll infamy he had in mind...

His punky little life story is one of a frustrated, needle freak street hustler and his obnoxious hardcore punk band breaking down barriers to blow minds (and ear drums) in L.A's monied moron moustache rock scene of the late '70's. Let's just say the Eagles, Stevie Nicks and the rest of the denim & diamonds crowd didn't look up from their mirrored coffee tables to notice the dirty din blasting out of the Starwood in Hollywood.






I wasn't expecting there to be much meat on the film's bones, and despite my snarky suspicions, it was really a great rock n roll movie.

One really got the sense the filmmakers tried to get to the core experience of being broke, and in a band in those heady times. I actually went in thinking I was gonna hate it, and it was way better than I anticipated...

The film has been in works for the better portion of a decade, and has already generated quite a bit of "alternative" press, even inspiring the surviving band members to reunite with lead actor West singing. If the crowd I saw at Oakland's Metro club on New Year's Eve is any sign, there's still quite an appetite for the Germ's uh, music today.




That's good news for my ol' pal and Germs drummer Don Bolles, who no doubt could use a couple royalty checks. Hell his last brush with fame was when Cops last year pulled him over on his way to an AA meeting and claimed his Dr. Bronner's Magic Soap was actually a date rape drug...

Poor bastard, at least the kind folks at Dr. Bronners helped defend him and show the cops testing kits are actually wack, not simply Don Bolles...




I'll never forget him hitting on the lesbian mother of the lead singer of the Rolling Scabs one night when she gave us a all a ride home from a keg party that her 12 year son had no business being at.

The Rolling Scabs - My Mom Smokes Pot

I didn't recall having any high expectations for Don getting busy with the kid's mom, nor this film...

The reasons I didn't have real high expectations for the Germs film, are most music films suck, it's also the first effort from the director, Rodger Grossman, and it seems to have taken a roundabout route to get out to the public, and that is generally a bad sign...






The Germs - Round & Round

The truth is that this film was a labor of love, that nearly collapsed in on itself several times during filming, but the fillmakers prevailed and made a remarkable document.

Im not sure the subject matter or plot points could sustain mass audience interest, but for a fan and participant in underground music culture like myself, it has depth, and few of the faux finish type flaws I expected.

Unlike so many of the crappy music films I've seen ( think Sid & Nancy, VH1's Def Leppard movie, or even Reese Witherspoon as June Carter...huh? ) this one seemed a lot more realistic than I expected. The story is as real as could be expected, and the times and atmosphere are portrayed very accurately overall.

The viewer is immersed in the era, and the sleazy rock club world of late 70's LA.

While some characters like rodney Bingenheimer are played for comic relief, the actor playing Darby never really crosses that paradoxical line where it becomes a parody.

I was sitting there right down the aisle to Penelope Houston, whose band the Avengers graced the soundtrack and aftwerwards she was as impressed as anyone else.

early Germs

Germs - Forming





Word arrives that Buddy Miles has died at age 60 in Austin Tx where he had been living since suffering a stroke in 2005...

The Omaha Nebraska native is survived be his wife Sherrilae Miles, and many other family members.

In lieu of flowers; the family has asked to please make donations to the Jazz Foundation of America specifically in Buddy Miles' name to assist with funeral, and other expenses at http://www.jazzfoundation.org


The son of a jazz be-bop bassist, young George Miles ( aka Buddy) had an early interest in music, and had reportedly played drums on Otis Redding sessions, and done stints in Ruby & the Romantics, the Ink Spots, Wilson Pickett and even the Delfonics while still a teen.


Best known as a member of Jimi Hendrix Band of Gypsies, he also played with Santana, David Bowie, Stevie Wonder, Muddy Waters, Stephen Stills, Neil Young, Barry White, Aretha Franklin, George Clinton, Bootsy Collins, Robert Lockwood, Jr., and so many others over the years.

Before hooking up with Hendrix and playing on "Electric Ladyland", Buddy Miles had already had his own group Buddy Miles Express, and also helped found The Electric Flag with Mike Bloomfield prior to that. Sadly, all three guys I just mentioned in this paragraph were hugely talented musicians, who also developed giant size drug habits that more or less ruined their careers, some just went faster than others.

Here's Buddy from likely his best known solo album, one of at least 40 or so he's appeared on, it was the title track called Them Changes...

Buddy Miles - Them Changes

Buddy played this classic song at one of his last public performances, as a guest onstage with the New Orleans Social Club, at the Austin City Limits Music Festival in Sept. 2006.



Here's a sorta superfluous, but none the less excellent quality 1994 recording produced by Bill Laswell of Buddy revisiting past glory, and his vocals are in great shape. The album released on Ryko was entitled Hell and Back.

Buddy Miles Express - All Along The Watchtower (1994)


I had a friend who worked at a pawn shop in Marin back in the late 80's and many of the 60's rock royalty living nearby were faded but still pretty strung out. They were often found hocking jewelry, instruments & guns for fixes on a regular basis at this spot. I hate to report that Buddy Miles, who'd been in & out of jail on drug charges throughout the late 70's & early 80's, was now a regular habitue, alongside David Crosby, and many others including the lonely gal pal of one Jerry Garcia.

One of Buddy's his biggest post-Hendrix gigs would be as vocalist for the California Raisins.

By the early 2000's Buddy had reportedly put his substance issues behind him, and was attempting to keep up a live concert schedule, despite having a serious back problem, and had been appearing at some shows in a wheel chair.

Here's one of Buddy's last known musical recording releases, an effort done in conjunction with bassist Billy Cox approx 35 years after they worked on the same material with Jimi Hendrix in the band of Gypsies.

Buddy Miles & Billy Cox - Manic Depression (2006)

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Black History Mystery Mini Mix

Wacky Wednesday has almost passed, and Thirsty Thursday's almost here...

So I'm gonna keep it really random as usual, so I can make it out to get a drinkee...

Across the street there's currently a panel going on with minority lawyers, and down the street there's a town hall meeting starting at our local War Memorial based around the theme "Are Black People In San Francisco Becoming History?"

Over the past 40 years San Francisco has done a remarkable job of shedding members of the African-American persuasion from it's 49 square miles.

In 1970 San Francisco's census reported about 96,000 black folks living in San Francisco, but there's been a steady decline in those numbers, and as we enter the "Year of the Rat", it's estimated there's only around 38,000 black residents left. That's less than arrived here in the 1940's...
blackhistory-date.jpg
blackhist.jpg

For all it's perception as a liberal melting pot, San Francisco has a nasty racist past that's never really completely been erased from the political spheres.

Since the first white settlers arrived, the policies have been somewhat barbaric, and have included hunting indians into extinction (and speeding it up by paying on a per scalp basis).

Asians who arrived to the Pacific coast were quarantined, burned, beaten, deprived of property rights and prevented from marrying for decades. Even while finally earning barely beyond basic rights in the mid 20th century, there's still a report of a lynching on Market St when a Filipino man was caught with a white woman in the 1950's.


As for blacks, San Francisco never really welcomed them in the first place, racism in pre-Civil War San Francisco had even led to an exodus of black settlers to Victoria island off the Canadian coast. Most blacks arrived 80 years later to a racially intolerant city only after a need to fill WWII factories in the early 1940's, and they soon found out they could not join white unions. They were only able to settle into empty housing in 1940's SF because it had once been filled with Japanese citizenry who were conveniently being detained first to racetracks and then onto bleak relocation camps like Manzanar in the middle of nowhere.

After the war, work at the many shipyards & war industries started drying up, and with that so did the hopes of the many southern blacks who'd moved here from Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma and other places.

Blacks in San Francisco soon discovered that were not welcome at many workplaces, restaurants, hotels etc and were redlined from obtaining loans and owning homes in most neighborhoods. Just like in Jim Crow states in Dixie, it wasn't until the 1960's that any blacks found employment at major businesses like car dealerships, or SF's famous Palace Hotel who only succumbed after an ugly boycott and picketing.

Here's a song that manages to appropriately depict some of the race issues of the post war era...

Big Bill Broonzy - Get Back ( Black, Brown & White )

When Willie Mays moved out here from New York in 1958 he was amazed to discover he was not allowed to purchase the home he wanted in a tony white neighborhood called Forest Hill, despite being a highly paid well known American hero. It finally took his sneaky jewish lawyer to construct a phony transaction & quiet property transfer to Willie that needed a mayoral intervention, and even then a brick was thrown through the window of his first residence.

At one press conference when Roger Lapham was mayor of San Francisco (1944-48). he came up to a black reporter and asked

"Mr. Fleming, how long do you think these colored people are going to be here?"

Fleming's story was that he said,
"Mr. Mayor, do you know how permanent the Golden Gate is?" He said yes. I said, "Well, the black population is just as permanent. They're here to stay, and the city fathers may as well make up their minds to find housing and employment for them, because they're not going back down South." He turned red in the face. That was the only exchange of words I ever had with him.



By the 1960's, city fathers were angry about the blacks who still remained in the area, and devised a plan to "redevelop" the Fillmore neighborhood in the city's Western Addition. Hundreds of beautiful Victorian homes were slated for demolition, and black businesses were shuttered & given worthless promissory notes that they'd be first to come back if and when the plans were ever finished.

Many blacks moved out to Bay View / Hunters Point where white highway planners had conveniently just built a freeway that bypassed this burgeoning black district.

The area has remained mostly abandoned by the city & government for decades, and after the contaminated Navy Base closed, often the only signs of government existing are occasional squad cars & ambulances passing through.

At one time it was predominantly black, but now a more mixed race population of Asians, White & Latinos dominate, most having swooped up previously black owned properties that are priced somewhat cheaper than in other areas of the city.

So, uh what do do but leave my visitors a mini mix to pacify them while I contemplate the meaning of all this...


I know that Black History month is February and it's almost over already, cuz February is the shortest month. A fact which black folks never seem to forget, go figger.

I can't stand it when people say stupid flat faced ignorant statements like " I Hate The Blues" or "I Hate Country Music"...

If these folks could only understand that most western pop music they adore really is just a rearrangement of the same basic chords & concepts of scales that have been going on for 50 if not 500 years, I doubt they would announce such ridiculous statements.

The blues are the basis for just about everything you hear on rock, pop pr top 40 radio, only that many dorky musicians & bands these days have been so removed from the sources of modern musical material they barely know this.

Many would do well to go back & study...


Although, what good would it do them if audiences don't know the difference either?


It's sad ironic daze indeed when in order for a jazz great like Herbie Hancock to gain attention he has to cover the least black sounding hippie chanteuse to ever shack in Laurel Canyon in order to beat out the blackest sounding junkie white chick in England for a Grammy Award...

Hoo Boy...

Anyhow

Let's get on with a black history month moment
with a bit of some African blues for ya'll

Notable, ( and also Grammy winning) African guitarist Ali Farka Toure has a saying that goes, “America only have the blues leaves, the roots of blues are in Africa”.

This fact is corroborated by historians who acknowledge that blues had been introduced in America by the African slaves. The earliest known recordings of this musical style are oft nostalgic melancholic laments of the impoverished and downtrodden. These songs were rooted in expressions of the slaves’ desire for rebellion in North America, originally sung far from the master's quarters, in the cotton fields or in their shanty's after a long, hard day’s work.


Here's the late great Ossie Davis narrating some tales of singing slaves, from a reading of the letters of Frederick Douglass

Ossie Davis Singing Slaves

The modern African blues I am familiar with are a rhythmic world removed from the often less complex slower country blues we hear in the southern US. Here's a singer that embodies the beauteous melodies I associate with African music. Salif Keita, whose been called one of Africa's greatest voices is an albino guitarist from Mali...

I bet if anything might give ya the blues, it could be being mistaken for a white guy in Africa...

Africa: Mother of The BluesSalif Keita
"I Djo Famâ" (mp3)

from "Africa: Mother of The Blues"
(Sheer Sound)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
Buy at eMusic
Stream from Rhapsody
Buy at Amazon
More On This Album


Here's another artist from this same great collection, and this guy is a legendary artist from Senegal (by way of Niger)...

Ismael Lo

A little more commercial at times, but he has a unique sound as well...




Ismael Lo - "Maria Lo" (mp3)
from "Africa: Mother of The Blues"
(Sheer Sound)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
Buy at eMusic
Stream from Rhapsody
Buy at Amazon
More On This Album






Here is a track from a mixed race group out of Cape town South Africa, and basically one of the first African pop groups I had ever heard of...

Juluka, an 80's world beat band fronted by Mr. Johnny Clegg, a white jewish kid who had an interest in Zulu culture & music...

They become a famous & somewhat symbolic band that rode a tide of millions around the globe in the 80's who were rooting for the end of apartheid. This very commercial track is likely their biggest hit, or at at least the most well known internationally...


ScatterlingsJohnny Clegg & Juluka - Scatterlings of Africa
(mp3)
from "Scatterlings"
(Rhythm Safari Pty Ltd)

Buy at eMusic
Buy at Amazon
More On This Album



Long before Johnny Clegg brought African pop stylings to the world, Miriam Makeba & her former husband Hugh Masakela were making music that caught attention of western ears.

Makeba had a big hit with Click Song #1 in the early 60's, and ended up testifying about the bane of apartheid in front of the United Nations in 1963. That act of supposed treason on the world stage cost her citizenship in her home country. It took 40 years for the fall of the apartheid system for her to regain entry into her country.

Here's a remake of that first very vital hit song she did half a century ago, the 70 something singer recut it on her 2004 album Reflections that came out via Telarc...

Miriam Makeba - Click Song


I am no doubt, a big fan of black American soul music from the 1960's...

There's something so wonderful about the spirited sounds made by guys like Curtis Mayfield, Holland-Dozier-Holland and Little Jerry "swamp dogg" Williams. If I had to make a desrt island disc list, you know it couldn't be without something on the Stax label etc.

Unfortunately the 60's are over, and soul has given way to something radio programmers call "Smooth R&B", but there's nothing in it for me.

R. Kelly and a stretch Hummer load of whining modern chick singers backed up with an army of slick producers can't do with millions & all the studio time in the world what a handful of underpaid southern folks in Detroit, Muscle Shoals or Memphis in the 1960's could do in an hour before lunch.

Since I've already got most of the big hits from that era, I'm always on the lookout for undiscovered gems, b-sides, regional hit records and tunes on little labels that couldn't payola their way onto the Billboard charts.

One of the greatest re-issue labels going these days is Chicago's Numero Group...

These folks ccome up with the goods everytime, finding obscure stuff, often totally unreleased back in the day. Songs that shoulda, coula, woulda if only things had worked out differently.

Their latest vital work in the Eccentric Soul compilation series is called Outskits of Deep City. It was painstakingly compiled with the help of scenester Willie Clarke, and it covers the Miami scene of the late 60's & early 70's. There's some damn good soulful black music on this collection, and I'm gonna give ya just a tease from the set, the lead off track by the obscure group known as The Rollers, and immediately you know these are not the Bay City boys from Scotland...

Rollers - Knockin' At The Wrong Door


Going into more contemporary time a bit, no look back into Black History, at least from the American perspective could exclude gangsta rap, and how would that be complete without including the saga of N.W.A...

Straight Outta Compton, these guys blasted through the 80's pablum with material that told of turf wars, beeeotches, ho's and dodging 5-0, all with a crazed non-Politically Correct bravado that could make Public Enemy blush...

N. W. A - F*ck The Police ( DJ Shadow Remix )

Now in the interest of being equal opportunity, how about a very caucasian reinterpretation of one of this prolific rap group's biggest tracks:


Nina Gordon Straight Outta Compton


And how about one more goofy white chick to finish off this post...

Last up is the latest retro sounding pop blend from a band called "She and Him", the collab where actress Zooey Deschanel plays Amy Winehouse to M.Ward's Mark Ronson...

Or hopefully not...

I get the feeling Ms Deschanel while not as alluring in that nasty way, is also a little better adjusted, having grown up in a Hollywood show biz family...




On her new album she goes gung ho for the classic cutesy Girl Group sound. One can only guess why she chose the mopey M.Ward to be her Phil Spector, but the results ain't bad from what I've been privy too. She even covers Carole King, and that means she knows the Brill Building from her BrylCream and respects the Mid 60's Motown-esque medium folks.


Either way, whether you care about that stuff or not, it's a fairly delightful sounding work.

Here's a track:

She and He - I Was Made For Him

Hope that suffices for tonight...

cuz, it's definitely beer thirty...

Good Night & Good Luck y'all

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Are You Sure Everything's Tuesday Two Times Blue ?

We just finished a big ol' holiday weekend and in honor of the arrival of Tuesday...here's my fave Tuesday tune...

Chairmen Of The Board - Everything's Tuesday

General Johnson and The Chairmen of The Board have a long history, and the next time I have time I'll lay out a bit more of their legend. Let's say it's one that has the General interacting with everyone from the legendary Allen Toussaint and the ol' Minit Records gang in New Orleans on to Detroit's Holland-Dozier-Holland. Later he works with Honey Cone, and even Joey Ramone, and somehow becomes the classic elder statesman the Carolina Beach Music Scene.


---------------------------------------

On this past Friday night I entered the West Hollywood nightlife scene briefly to check out a show at the Mint on West Pico. I was stunned to find a club that actually has a sign proclaiming they charge $75 for someone to videotape inside, but share none of that revenue with the artists being taped... hmmm.
I was considering passing on the opportunity to record the gig for posterity... and just then, oddly enough, while standing by the door, the bouncer alerted me that someone outside was looking for me about some video footage.
They said I had to go outside and sign a release. Huh?
Sure enough I poked my head outside and there was a filmmaker who'd tracked me down, and actually had paperwork for me...Wow!

LA is all business folks... and there's the proof.

And lawyers be damned it looks like an important music documentary I got involved with that's years in the making is heading into theaters finally, and indeed I'll keep y'all posted when i know more.

Anyhow, after that, I was privileged to see a fine upstanding rock concert of sorts, and I'll tell ya more about it...

I had just seen these guys a week before at a sold out show in San Francisco, and now I can testify that the Chuck Prophet and Mission Express touring band is in as fine a shape as can be expected considering he's had some lineup changes since his last album. The band's set only get's tighter as the feel gets looser...

Kevin T. White on bass holds down the bottom end along with drummer Todd Roper ( ex-Cake). New hotshot kid guitarist James DePrato is anything but depraved, and politely plays a supportive role, filling out the sound but never stepping on his master's toes. Chuck's wife Stef shines whenever she's given opportunity, currently it's during an old Gene Pitney cover that was written by Jerry "Swamp Dogg" Williams back in the Musicor days.

I'll feature a video of this cut soon, I promise y'all... it's truly a long forgotten but amazingly ripping tune... especially when this band builds up the tension.

Despite the fact that Chuck's van was seizing up & very ill in the parking lot, they ignored the pain, pumped up the volume, prevailed and pulled off a fine set. I truly wanted to drive up to Santa Barbara the next day to catch them on a double bill with the retiring country chanteuse Kelly Willis, but there was literally no room at the inn...

I checked dozens of potential motel rooms and nothing was available anywhere near Santa Barbara or even the coastal enclaves of Montecito, or Isla Vista.

It twas a shame, but damn if I'm gonna drive all that way to stay in a motel Carpinteria, Ventura or gawd forbid Santa Maria...yuck...

Anyhow, lucky attendees of Chuck Prophet's past few shows have been able to scoop up a certain collectors item that's in very short supply. It's a ltd edition CD with a phat booklet of which only a few hundred copies are circulating. They are all nicely hand assembled, bound and letter pressed by Bruce Licher of Independent Project Press, and the story of the music is as good as the songs themselves.

Seems that last January, Chuck, his wife Stef, his old guitar player Max Butler, and another handful of fine local musicians got trapped in a local recording studio...literally.

No one knew the access code for the door, and no who did was answering the phone all weekend. With only a lone Waylon Jennings LP on a battery operated turntable to entertain them, they soon got a lil' stir crazy.

On the third listen through, someone suggested they simply re-record it themselves, and with nothing but studio time to kill they went ahead. The results are pretty amazing whether you like country music or not, and I'm gonna throw up one sample cut for those who'd like to know more.

The album is called "Dreaming Waylon's Dreams" and is a song by song extrapolation/tribute to Waylon Jennings 1975 masterpiece "Dreaming My Dreams"

Here's the lead off track:

Chuck Prophet - Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way?

( psst since this disc is basically sold out already and yer unlikely to score a physical copy - here's a special link available to download mp3 versions of all the tracks... here)


That would be enough sonic serendipity for ya folks but not on my two fer tuesday...

Here's another rarity...

I wanted to share a mix I whipped up just prior to Xmas...but never got around to sharing with anyone just yet.

Debbie Harry put out a new record late last year called Necessary Evil, and although she was playing in LA while I was there one night, I missed the gig but did get my hands on the 12" vinyl of her latest single while at an ice skating rink ( don't ask).


Debbie Harry - Blondie Mash Up



Anyhow, here's a special mix I made that involves mashing in some Moroder-cized bytes off the "Call Me" single from 1981. I guess you could say that this mini mix is three decades in the making...

It's a late Christmas present to all Debbie's fans, and even my cover art for yer iTunes "cover flow" comes in a vaguely X-messy color scheme.




Debbie Harry - Call Me Two Times Blue 2


Anyhow...

that should about do it for me tonight.

I should be back later in the week, with new scoops & songs for you to learn & sing.

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Valentine's Daze

Hmmmm

Valentine's Day is creeping up on us...

and because of this, we get the supposed first pictures of gorillas copulating face to face...





Since I'm short of Chocolates & Flowers...

Howz a bout a virtual mixtape...





Califone - Black Metal Valentine

Here's some more relevant music tracks for this greeting card industry staple holiday...

This next one came from a benefit compilation called Genocide in Sudan, which doesn't sound very romantic...but the hearts of the contributors was certainly in the right place I suppose. It was assembled by the Waxploitation label with help from Serj from System of a Down, and this instrumental probably won't grate much on yer valentine's nerves...maybe.

Teargas & Plateglass - A Book Of Black Valentines

The compilation I got this track from is almost 4 years old, but like the Genocide in Sudan, is still mostly unheralded, and sadly fresh & relevant. Other contributors included The Pretenders, Jurassic 5, Danger Mouse/Murs, Jill Scott, Mark Farina, Thievery Corporation, Kinky, X-ecutioners, DJ Spooky, Tweaker, Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra amongst others. Order the Genocide in Sudan compilation new for less than $12 at this url

This one is also from a compilation called Rhythms Del Mundo: Cuba





From The Rhythms Del Mundo Cuba CD


It was even co-written by a Mr. James Valentine

Maroon 5 - She Will Be Loved(Cuban Mix)

It also features a reinterpretation of a certain Coldplay tune featuring members of The Buena Vista Social Club and other Latin musical specialists getting down on modern rawk hits

I had never heard of it, or Maestro Demetrio Muniz who did the arrangements, but when I saw it in the window of a record shop next to my bus stop a couple years back I knew i had to have it. Why it wasn't plopped on the shelf at every frickin' Starbucks is a mystery to me...

Not only does it offer some palatable but not too spicy sonic tapas, it even includes the late Ibrahim Ferrer's last vocal recording done in Madrid of the Casablanca classic "As Time Goes By"

The the booklet is also chock full of info on global warming / climate change from folks like Al Gore etc... and even the mighty Sting is included.

it seems like a perfect match for the greedy yet guilt-free gravitas of corporate cafe culture...




My friend Kelley Stoltz ( he's the one in the picture that's not naked) has just released a doozy of a new disc called Circular Sounds on Sub Pop, and I wanted to feature a tune.

But then I thought, y'all should have no problem finding this in the hipper shops, or online stores, or even some tracks via the usual web sources.



But how many have heard Kelley doing his Lynn Anderson imitation?



Not too many I suppose...

It's a song perfect for a Valentine's day that is more honest than the usual hyperbole...

So for a few days, here's yer chance


It's also keeping with the crazed compilation theme I guess, this is a track from a Joe South tribute record assembled by "teenage" Rob Douglas a few years back.
Joes South ( born: Joe Souter 1940, now 68 years young) is a great songwriter of course who penned some other nuggets you might know including Games People Play, Walk A Mile In My Shoes and Down In The Boondocks. Kudos for Rob getting a diverse buncha guys like Otis Clay, Paul Cebar, Chuck Prophet and Kelley all on one disc covering his past glories.

Kelley Stoltz - I Never Promised You A Rose Garden

I also thought maybe, you'd all like to perhaps catch Kelley Stoltz on tour.

Especially relevant to those of y'all in Australia currently...





Feb 14 2008 9:00P
Great Northern Hotel Byron Bay Australia

Feb 15 2008 9:00P
Troubador Brisbane Australia

Feb 16 2008 9:00P
Annandale Sydney Australia

Feb 17 2008 8:00P
The Tote, melbourne, Victoria , Australia

Feb 28 2008 8:00P
independent - noise pop SAN FRANCISCO CA

SPRING US TOUR

Friday, March 14, 2008 Bourbon Rocks, Austin TX (Sub Pop SXSW showcase )

Friday, March 21, 2008 Jake's Nightclub, Bloomington IN

Saturday, March 22, 2008 Mercy Lounge, Nashville TN

Monday, March 24, 2008 Hi-Tone, Memphis TN

Tuesday, March 25, 2008 AR Revolution Music Room, Little Rock AR

Wednesday, March 26, 2008 House of Blues (Dallas), Dallas TX

Thursday, March 27, 2008 Emos, Austin TX

Friday, March 28, 2008 Rudyard's British Pub, Houston TX

Saturday, March 29, 2008 One Eyed Jacks, New Orleans LA

Monday, March 31, 2008 Orange Peel, Asheville NC

Tuesday, April 1, 2008 Bottletree, Birmingham AL

Wednesday, April 2, 2008 The Earl, Atlanta GA

Thursday, April 3, 2008 Local 506, Chapel Hill NC

Friday, April 4, 2008 Sonar, Baltimore MD

Saturday, April 5, 2008 Rock and Roll Hotel, Washington DC

Sunday, April 6, 2008 Maxwells, Hoboken NJ

Tuesday, April 8, 2008 Cafe Nine, New Haven CT

Thursday, April 10, 2008 Johnny Brenda's, Philadelphia PA

Friday, April 11, 2008 Bowery Ballroom, The, New York City NY

Saturday, April 12, 2008 Middle East, Cambridge MA

Sunday, April 13, 2008 Cabaret Music Hall, Montreal Canada

Tuesday, April 15, 2008 Babylon, Ottowa Canada

Wednesday, April 16, 2008 Horseshoe Tavern, Toronto Canada

Friday, April 18, 2008 Frankie's, Toledo OH

Saturday, April 19, 2008 Blind Pig, Ann Arbor MI


Now that we got that stuff out of the way, there's plenty more stuff going on to keep us distracted ...



My pals who works in the Yahoo music/media group is of course likely sweating bullets... as the search engine under siege lays off a 1000 and enters into talks with Murdoch's minions.

Geez... you know it's gotta be bad when merging with Rupert Murdoch is seen as the lesser evil.




Is Redmond really hell?

I was there earlier last year for a day and it seemed kinda quiet & sleepy to me.





I drank some decent beer, karaoked in two bars...even went to the farmer's market where I scored some fresh salmon & apples...

Dull, but not exactly evil...


I also am pleased as punch to report,

that I have nothing more to add tonight...