A stage was being built so that Tibetan freedom and human rights protestors could rally against the symbolic torch run being conducted here in San Francisco today...
We had Richard Gere & Archbishop Desmond Tutu in the hizzo, calling for a boycott of the Olympics, or at least the opening ceremonies...
The torchm supposedly a symbol of peace, now a controversial beacon, had to be doused and moved to a van a couple times due to French protestors over the weekend...and it took an army of about 3000 security people using clubs and painful restraint holds on people to get the runners through...nice.
Didja know the first torch rally propaganda moment of our modern era was launched by an obscure German dude named Adolf Hitler for his 1936 games?
He was way ahead of the times, had a good PR staff, and if I remember correctly, had something to do in the field of human rights as well...
We should all look him up on Wikipedia... I bet they'd fill in the missing pieces...
Anyhow...
I doubt China will stop killing monks and harvesting the organs of prisoners & Falun Gong members just because we blocked a few joggers in town...
Hmm... maybe we should stop buying all their crap... nahhh! We like crap!
More on the torch below in a brief spot from a Minneapolis TV station...
Hey I love running & fire as much as the next grill happy American, but it all sounds a bit crazy to me...
So who better to comment musically today than Roky Erikson...
Roky Erikson - Burn The Flames
from the soundtrack to the 1984 film "Night of the Living Dead" (also now available on the collection Don't Slander me)
Wonderous , Ponderous & Thunderous
Life working & jerking around in a big city just keeps me busy...
And I'll be too busy to check out the flag wavers on the inane torch rally protest thang...
I did see the torch go by a few years ago... I suppose it was for the 1996 Games...
Fairly uneventful at that time as i recall... I was walking by civic center on my way to work or something, suddenly a motorcade arrived and a real thin crowd of lookee loos gathered and watched some guy jog by carrying a flame... not that big of a deal really.
I remember the sponsoring Coca Cola truck handing out free sodas much more clearly...
nuff said...
In honor of the fact that I'm knee deep in nothing at the moment, and slipping ever further into nonesense, without time to analyze it ... let's cut to the sonic chase...
I dredged up a few choice items for y'all this past weekend from my vast unwieldy archives...
I do believe I am the first to offer a couple of these tracks for human consumption via the internet...
The first gem is from a guy who kinda helped give four lads from liverpool a break... they actually opened up for him on a british tour back in the wee 60s...
Well actually he was the lowly harmonica man, in the band with star Bruce Channel who had a huge hit going with Hey Baby circa 1962.
In fact, it was on that tour, that a young John Lennon was advised on his harmonica technique by this young Texan, and this supposedly resulted in what you hear on "Love Me Do"...
That fella is Mr. Delbert McClinton,
Onward and off we go... and we find Mr. McClinton hanging in the music biz throughout the years, earning his chops, doing dual duty in the Dallas / Fort Worth honky tonk & blues circuit.
Later as Delbert & Dean in the 70's, and eventually he scores a solo contract, and a major solo chart topper in 1980 under the title, "Giving It Up For Your Love"...
March onward another few decades and he's part of the Texas Blues revival scene, an Americana icon of sorts... and still at it...
His recent release "Cost of Living" on New West won a Grammy for Contemporary Blues Album, his third...
But with record sales a smaller percentage of artist income these days, one has to keep the bills paid...
And you can bet Delbert does...
I just discovered at Delbert.com that his latest enterprising venture is taking boatloads of people out on sentimental yet rawkin journeys at sea...
He's working on a DVD documentary about this process, and of course lotsa clips of great musicians dusting up a storm at sea including friends like Marcia Ball & Tommy Castro ...
All Hands on Deck!!!
Check out this video clip...
He calls these ventures Sandy Beaches Cruises ( http://www.sandybeachescruises.com )named after the hit song Sandy Beaches from the album Plain From The Heart...
Here's a rare demo version, a bit different than the snazzier one you heard on the 1980 LP ...
There are no drums or other instruments other than piano. This is just Delbert backed with piano played by John Barlow Jarvis, a version that was submitted as a publisher's demo to Morris Music before the album was recorded.
Delbert McClinton - Sandy Beaches ( demo)
Here's a few more McClinton moments to enlighten the unenlightened
This song is from his first record for New West, and I do believe this well traveled man copped a Grammy for the lil' indie thang that year as well. Here's from 2002's "Nothing Personal"
Delbert McClinton - Baggage Claim
This from an earlier Alligator Records release Delbert McClinton's "Live In Austin", where he's putting the grit & gristle into what I remember as an old Phoebe Snow song...
Delbert McClinton - Standing On Shakey Ground
and just because it's Wednesday... the official hump day... I wanna post one more classic american tune...
Most of the folks I know seem to think it has something to do with Elvis Costello...
Which is only partly true, as Costello covered this on the 2006 River in Reverse album which was recorded along with Allen Toussaint.
This was indeed a tune written by Allen Toussaint, but way back in the very late 50's I believe... and it was released on Ace Records originally as single by Chuck Carbo circa 1961.
This version here is Jimmy Clanton and the Heartbeats having a go at it, and it ain't have bad either...
I don't believe it was ever put out until the mid 80's, and that was on a fairly rare, now out of print collection of old New Orleans Rock n Roll sides...
a vinyl rip for my sad lil' peeps...wherever ye may be...
Jimmy Clanton - Tears , Tears, and More Tears
Stay Gold Y'all
2 comments:
love the roky tune and have done since i saw the movie in the 80's, the song makes the scene where one of the cast incinerates himself rather than join the brain hungry living dead, better than it sounds (trust me) sadly the dvd has been edited and most of the cool bits of the soundtrack have dissapeared, pick up a VHS copy from the bargain bin
Hey Mike - where'd you find the Delbert Sandy Beaches demo? What a great treat. If you can sweep together the moola you should give the Delbert cruise a try - great music, great people, and more fun than anything else I've ever done. It's going out of San Diego again in January 2009, so this would be a great chance for a left coast newbie to c'mon aboard.
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