When Wednesday Comes, Bill's Asleep, Tuesdays Gone

Monday was a day off for a lot of Americans.

Apparently it's because some preacher got shot a long time ago trying to help out some striking sanitation workers.

Just goes to show you better stay out of other people's business, especially if it's garbage business.

My favorite MLK celebrant had to be the white guy smoking in the doorway of the copy shop I went to. All the machines & lights were on there yesterday, he just didn't feel like working I guess. Said he was on holiday. Wouldn't let me in out of the rain to copy a couple sheets of paper.

Dude if yer still at work, then that's not a holiday...



Looks like Bill Clinton could have used a day off Monday...

Apparently Bill's wife might be keeping him a little too busy...

What happened to all the pizza & b.j's?

So By Now, Tuesday Is Almost Gone...

Which was supposed to me some sort of U.S financial market meltdown, but that funky Bernanke cut the interest rate just enough to keep the bleeding in check.

Darn... I really wanted people to jump out windows, and that guy Cramer to blow a gasket or off himself on CNBC.

Remember last year when he aploogized for saying stock manipulation was easy, and that all the hedge funds were doing it?

Oh I guess he didn't "really" mean it...

well neither does anybody anymore...

Except our little Amy,

Despite the US financial markets escaping a serious meltdown, Ms. Winehouse seemed to suffer another PR blow as some skanko friends sold a cellphone video of her to the UK tabloid the Sun.

In the video, she babbles a bit in her thick cockney and pulls a few crack hits off some sort of glass pipe contraption. Nice...

Amy Winehouse, of course, has apparently refused any induction to a rehab.

here she is in another cellphone video, this one from her appearance less than a year ago in SF, opening with the prescient addicted.


And a local DJ's remix of her biggest hit...


Amy Winehouse - Rehab - Party Ben Remix Mash Up

And then as if that wasn't enough drama, some Australian Brokeback Joker dude named after a candy bar turned up dead of an O.D in New York.

Sounds like a good day for a song...

Hmm...

Being that I never paid to much attention to these classic shlock type things, all I know is this is the most mournful song ever composed for the day before hump day.

Lynyrd Skynyrd - Tuesday's Gone

Maybe Tuesday is the name of the chick... or something. The thing does go on and on a bit...

Tuesday's gone with the wind.
Tuesday's gone with the wind.
Tuesday's gone with the wind.
My baby's gone with the wind.
Train, roll on 'cause my baby's gone..
I'm riding my blues away, baby
turn around my blues
ride on, train, ride on, train
ridin' my blues, babe
come back to me, babe
come back to me
oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-ooh train...

oo-ooo, boo f*ing hoo ya big redneck galoots...

We know the rest of the story...

yer so sad to see yer baby bye bye that within minutes it's all "What's yer name little girl?"

Then there's something about the hassle of "Working for MCA". I know, Wasserman and them cats, they shoved all that blow, needles, spoons and groupies down yer throat.

We didn't exactly see ya reaching for any "Saturday Night Specials", and taking yer own life of misery did I ?

Like ya'll didn't just love it when yer woman was crying, and yer road manager was smacking around shyster club owners, and you were packing arenas, and stadiums and picking on Neil Young and getting in private plane crashes...



and suffering 30 more years of Tuesdays...

anyhow...

I'm a bit busy here...

So we'll leave it like this...

One more Tuesday track:

This one a Jagger/Richards composition from the soundtrack to Children of Men... ( a movie sitting on the DVR at home that I've sorta been meaning to watch, but have never gotten around to for one reason or another.)

Franco Battiato - Ruby Tuesday


And in honor of Wednesday...which is already here in many time zones...

Let's do these:


From a 1983 recording featuring the late Paula Pierce (later of The Pandoras)

Action Now - When Wednesday Comes

The Guthries are a rootsy combo that hail from Nova Scotia, and this was on their 2000 release "Off Windmill".

The Guthries
"Wednesday Night" (mp3)
from "Off Windmill"
(Hay Sale Records)

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Stream from Rhapsody
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More On This Album

End of Summertime Thing

Amy Winehouse, has gone from pop darling to pooped out hag at an alarmingly quick rate. Her debut US breakthrough track 'Rehab' was apparently no tongue in cheek joke.

Amy Winehouse - Rehab

It took many years for folks like Courtney Love, Liza Minelli & Billie Holiday to hit the real life rehab circuit, but Winehouse is apparently really on the fast track to hell...

Amy Winehouse - Help Yourself

She's canceled all her upcoming appearances while on an island respite, including a high profile spot on the MTV awards.

Nasty pix of Amy Winehouse in a bathing suit frolicking on vacation & even some of her junkie beau bleeding abounded this week at This Is London
.



Amy Winehouse - Monkey Man ( Specials cover)


The stories continue of public repudiations from her in-laws, followed by angry rebuttals from her dad. It's all the dirty drama that sleazy UK tabloids love, with bonus bleeding scars, bruises and track marks.

Amy Winehouse - There Is No Greater Love


Speaking of sleazy tabloid news, how about that kooky Senator Craig of Idaho who plead guilty to some airport men's room soliciting, and now claims it was a simple misunderstanding. Here's his new hit single, recorded live in Minnesota, called lying & denying during interrogation...

Senator Larry Craig - Lying & Denying


Manu Chao is set to release a new disk this coming week, his first studio effort in 6 years. Nacional Records will be handling "La Radiolina" in the U.S, his fourth stateside release and they have high hopes that this CD can top the 200,000 cumulative units he's shifted here previously.

La Radiolina available Tuesday Sept 4th
Catalog ID: NCL 68496
UPC: 689076849623
c 2007 Radio Bemba Music






Here's a preview track, the catchy number known as Me Llaman Calle

Manu Chao - Me Llaman Calle

Manu Chao
"Me Llaman Calle" (mp3)
from "La Radiolina"
(Nacional Records)

More On This Album

Marin County's storied Sweetwater venue in Mill Valley closes down this fall. Friday night August 31st is a farewell night featuring music from longtime local SF rocker Chuck Prophet and The Mission Express.

So if ya wanna enjoy the joint one last time, head on down for a final summertime thing...

Chuck Prophet - Summertime Thing (mp3 download coming soon as I get a chance to upload it)

The venue, in biz for some 30 years was an intimate spot where musical luminaries like Bonnie Raitt, Jimmy Scott, Jerry Garcia, Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe and countless local musicians captivated audiences in the cozy confines off Throckmorton St. Given a 30 day notice by the landlord last month, It's a double death knell to Mill Valley & Marin's once world renowned music scene this fall as Village Music, another longtime fixture in the community closes as well.



Where some go down, another Phoenix rises...

Rumor has it that legendary SF punk venue The Mabuhay Gardens in North Beach is scheduled to host a grand re-opening party on Sept 7th. The venue, most recently The Velvet Lounge, was a former Filipino supper club that started hosting punk shows and art damaged music catering to the nearby SF Art Institute crowd circa 1976. It's reputation built up as a sort of west coast CBGB's in the late 70's, while hosting acts like The Ramones, Devo, The Avengers, Tuxedomoon, Mutants, The Nuns and Nico. Later until the late 80's under late booker Dirk Dirksen's guidance it hosted numerous hardcore & indie rock bills including acts like Flipper, Metallica, Green on Red, Black Flag, Mojo Nixon, Dag Nasty, Sea Hags, Soul Asylum and many more.

Mabuhay History:

In 1976, Filipino restaurateur Ness Aquino opened up his sleepy struggling venue to a bill featuring The Ramones & The Dils. Soon a bunch of art damaged kids who were anything but hippies started hanging out nightly. For the next decade the Mabuhay Gardens aka Fab Mab, was booked by Dirk Dirksen and became the defacto center of the city's punk scene. Hosting local bands like The Mutants, Avengers, Nuns, Crime, Chrome, Offs, Dead Kennedys, Flipper, Pink Section, Lewd, Toiling Midgets, Inflatable Boy Clams and many more the venue gained an international reputation similar to NYC's CBGB's. Touring groups that passed through included acts like The Damned, Blondie, Suicide, TSOL, Husker Du , Toxic Reasons, DOA , and tons of others.

Upstairs a larger space was called The On Broadway Theater and handled the bands as punk begat hardcore and groups drew larger crowds in from the suburbs. Dirksen grew less interested in the knuckleheaded Hardcore scene by the mid 80's, and Paul Rat started presenting the events. The Mab venue ceased presenting bands by mid 1987.

The lower portion of the venue operated until recently under the name Velvet Lounge.

443 Broadway St
San Francisco, CA 94133

The upstairs space is now known as Broadway Studios, and has occasionally presented bands since the glory days ended. I helped promote a Sublime show their in 1994 with the late Wes Robinson, and saw Convoy there in 1998. It's also been used as a comedy venue for cable telecasts and last weekend a Sublime tribute act played the house.

Playing the reopening night downstairs at the reinvigorated Mab on Sept 7th will be the Radishes, a new LA/SF axis band featuring indie rock vets like Scrote of the Billy Nayer Show and leader Paul Stinson . No word on whether they'll be joined by recent recording collaborators Rey Washem of Scratch Acid/Jesus Lizard, and Paul Barker of Ministry.

Here in San Francisco this year, a local character known as Chicken John is running for mayor. In fact, the gene pool for mayoral candidates is so thin, that this guy is likely going to come in second. He just qualified for matching campaign funds, which means the city will double is money, meaning with 25 grand he's now got a campaign war chest of approx $50,000 currently. That dough is a drop in the chicken coop to the real mayor who's likely got a million bucks saved up, but still not bad for a part time auto mechanic who used to play in a band with G.G Allin.

His name is John Rinaldi, and he came to town years ago from NY when he was dating a cute local indie filmmaker friend of mine, she dumped him eventually in an ugly breakup, but he didn't go away. Chicken went on to make a name for himselfin san Francisco exploiting just about any angle he could, from running a gypsy like circus troupe on a shoestring where he ended up with more string than anyone else, to running a bar for awhile called The Odeon.

I'm not exactly endorsing the guy, because i find him to be a little bit more than self centered, and can vouch for some creepy, callous and corrupt behaviors on his part. Although, in politics, that describes just about everyone...

So, despite my better judgment, I probably will vote for him I suppose...

Despite that he considers himself a "showman", he's not much of a musical artist, so I'll just insert some music from LA's Pigeon John. Sounds close enough, and likely way more enjoyable than hearing Chicken rant at ya.

Pigeon John
"Freaks! Freaks!" (mp3)
from "Pigeon John & The Summertime Pool Party"
(Quannum Projects)

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More On This Album





Bonus Track:

Pigeon John - Weight of The World(live)

Anyhow...

That's all for now...


Next week I'll have previews of Michael Franti's Power to The Peaceful Concert in SF's Chrissy Field where our lil' company EventMagic is involved in the logistics.

Anyhow, I'm on way down to Southern California for a few days this weekend, see ya I return...

Memory Almost Failed...

Tuesday as you may have realized, is Paul McCartney's first as an indie act...




At least since the Beatles were on Vee-Jay briefly stateside in the early 60's...

He even played a record release party at a small-ish 500 head venue called the Electric Ballroom in London to celebrate the occasion

Of course his indie label is owned by Starbucks...so that's not exactly selling discs from the truck of a car...

I was looking around on Emusic today and noticed that they had got on the new Paul McCartney album release bandwagon as well today...

No $16 digi-pack CD , but high bitrate DRM free mp3s, the whole album for about what a drink at Starbucks sets ya back...while I-Tunes is jacking .99 a song, and is not offering this release DRM free go figger...

The album is produced by David Kahne, who brought you Sublime's major label debut 10 years back that had the "What I Got" single. Kahne has also worked on hits for Sugar Ray, Tony Bennett, Cher, Shawn Colvin, Bruce Springsteen, The Bangles, Fishbone, The Strokes, Sean Lennon and got his start as a producer at SF's Hyde Street Studios, and at 415 Records.

My fave Mac track so far was the short lil' howling rabble rouser tacked onto the end

Nod Your Head...

Paul Mc Cartney - Nod Your Head



I got on the bandwagon a bit late for Cheap Trick's 40th anniversary Tribute to the Beatles Sgt Pepper's album...

All the good up front, & box type seats were taken, so here's my bench seat at the Hollywood Bowl this August. I'm sure I'll be fine with it...





I'm really excited to see the Sgt Pepper album performed live, and figure who needs Paul McCartney, when ya got Robin Zander. I'd post some Cheap Trick doing stuff from Sgy Pepper but it looks like I've got them doing Daytripper, Magical Mystery Tour, John Lennon's Cold Turkey and just can't find anything from Rockford's finest from the Beatles landmark psychedelic '67 masterpiece...

so here get these instead...

First my 7 yr old niece singing Strawberyy Fields Forever with the Ventures

Arianna vs Ventures - Strawberry Fields Forever

and a track ya can get off of Amy Winehouse's debut CD "Frank"

Amy Winehouse - There Is No Greater Love

it's a $25 or so import here until Universal gets it issued without import tariffs stateside finally in the fall...

Pssst...If ya want Frank by Amy Winehouse now, I suggest the Canadian import version for just about $12 right now here

oh and don't forget...

Pssst... Click Here To Get eMusic's FREE MP3 Daily Download!

Friday On My Mind

By the time ya read this, I'll already be hurtling down the I-5 towards LA for the weekend...




I'll be staying smack dab downtown...staying on Olive st, which no longer looks like this


or this...


but more like this...


In fact I suspect it'll be mind numbingly dull perhaps, but at least with supposed "4 star" corporate comfort upgrade ...



here's a few pix from the last time I was down there...

Here's some tunes i'll be jamming in the car tonight on the long 5 or 6ish hour journey and likely I'll have some new stuff to crank when i come back...


1st up, the Australian band whose founding members in the 70's helped manage their nephew's band AC/DC and get a bit o' recognition...

Easybeats - Friday On My Mind

Here's a remix of Portland Ore's sons of liberty who helped us fight the british invasion in the 60's...

Paul Revere & The Raiders - Kicks (Millenium Remix)

I just can't get enough of that drunken brit chanteuse

Amy Winehouse - You Know I'm No Good ( Skeewiff Mix )

and here's a fun Quincy Jones cover from the British DJ crew of Al & El who did the remix above

Skeewiff - Soul Bossanova

and one more mash up for the road...

gotta go...

Outkast vs Marvin Gaye - So Fresh & So Clean vs Let's Get It On