Cocktail Nuts!

i'm in the middle of a long weekend, and if all the booze, lack of sleep, extra sunshine & whatnot wasn't enough, I just got my first email threatening me for violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act... gottta love it!

It makes me wanna harken back, to a kinder, gentler time... when men could swing without fear...

the Cocktail Nuts are a legendary band o' swinging jazz musicians who've influenced a generation of musicians including the Ramones & Dire Straits with their hopping original jazzy sound...

"Very few people outside of the inner circle of the music industry's elite understand the significance of the all-too-short career of the Cocktail Nuts. The midwestern jazz quintet toured relentlessly throughout the mid-50's and, with an LP's worth of original material on tape and a national distribution deal with the Planters label (a major contender at the time), the group seemed poised for success if not for the untimely death of singer and song-writer Pat Stachio due to a boating accident in Kansas during early 1958. " - from The Cocktail Nutsofficial website.
To better understand the group, we suggest you read the website devoted to the Cocktail Nuts Mythology

Check out a streaming audio sample of their early version of Blitzkreig Bop ( later recorded by the Ramones )

Download an mp3 of Sultans of Swing ( the track that put Dire Straits on the map)

Hank Thompson - living country music legend

from my collection, an autographed Hank Thompson songbook

Today I'm pleased to present one of country music's greatest performers, who even though he's in his late 70's is still touring and playing.

Born in 1925, Hank grew up in Waco Tx, he grew up in the depression, fascinated with a neighbor lady's Victrola, emanating sounds of Dalhart's Texas Panhandlers, The Carter Family & Jimmie Rodgers, at the movies Gene Autry was singing on the big screen, and Earnest Tubb was broadcasting out of Fort Worth, and The Grand Ol' Opry on WLS every Saturday night out of Nashville.

download a track by one of Hank's early influences

Dalhart's Texas Panhandlers - Better Get Out of My Way
From A 78 RPM Diamond Disc from 1926

He learned guitar & harmonica by age 10 and could pick tunes up by ear of the radio, or via the nickel jukes & by the time he was in high school, Hank had his own sponsored radio show on WACO.

He started writing his own material aboard ship in the Navy circa WWII, and returned to Texas and got shows on the big Mexican radio stations like XCLO & XERF known as "border boomers". The signals were so strong they could be heard as far as Hong Kong, and of course throughout the entire US.

His homespun diction, and memorable tales of love & woe , jubilation & rebel rousing soon earned him fans near & far.

His first record was written while in the Navy, 1946's Whoa Sailor b/w Swing Wide Your Gate of Love and were big on the hit pardade on KRDL in Dallas. He bounced around on indies like Globe, & Blue Bonnent, but with help from Tex Ritter, he landed a deal with Capitol in 1947, and finally struck it big with "Humpty Dumpty Heart" in 1949. He quit a regular run on the Grand Ol' Opry in 1949, and travelled the back country playing country's version of the vaudeville circuit, consisting of school houses, barn dances, saloons & grange halls.

Hank Thompson - Fool To Fool Around With You.mp3



IN 1952 after hitting a 33 week stint in the top 10 with "Wild Side of Life" (a.k.a Honky Tonk Angels), he began a string of 21 top 20 hits, many in the top 5. His road band the Brazos Valley Boys had two fiddlers , wore suave suits, and featured their own sound and lighting system ( built using expertise learned as a Navy radioman and via a brief collegiate G.I Bill stint at Princeton). With his big band, they played , and played, hitting county fairs and on into larger ballrooms like the Trianon in Chicago, Meadowbrook in New York, The Panther Hall in Fort Worth & Prom in Minneapolis, with later appearances at venues such as the Smithsonian Institute, the Hollywood Palladium, Carnegie Hall. His charming personality, hit making and sense of showmanship & style found him offered a television show in Oklahoma City, the first variety show broadcast in color.

Says Thompson of his colorful sequined studded Nudie suits and blazing stage show "The public is entitled to something that is colourful and flashy. We're in showbusiness and there's nothing colourful about a T-shirt and ragged jeans."

Hank's hits during the 1950's included "Waiting in the Lobby of Your Heart" (1952), "Rub-A-Dub-Dub" (1953), "Breakin' the Rules" (1954), "Honky Tonk Girl" (1954), "The New Green Light" (1954), "The Blackboard of My Heart" (1956).

Hank Thompson- Rub-A-Dub-Dub.mp3

Click to direct to an an mp3 of Rub-A-Dub-Dub, from a rare early 1950's radio transcription recording released by Bloodshot Records of Chicago

In 1957 he recorded the album "Songs For Rounders" ( the first stereo country LP) that featured rough hewn rowdy western swing tracks like "I'll Be A Bachelor Til I Die" and his version of "Cocaine Blues" ( years before Johnny Cash got around to releasing it). Other highpoints in the 50's included "Driving Nails In My Coffin" & "Squaws Along the Yukon" (1958) not to mention being voted #1 Country Western Band in Billboard for 14 straight years, and in that time played 14 Texas State Fairs.

Cocaine Blues

track from his out of print LP

Songs for Rounders - Capitol
1957

Play: Streaming Windows Media .asf
file28K

His 1960 release "Hank Thompson, Live at the Golden Nugget in Las Vegas" showcased his groundbreaking Las Vegas country show featuring Merle Travis on guitar and Bobby Garrett on pedal steel and was the first live country album. The live album was so successful two more live albums followed within two years. His hits in the early 60's included "A Six Pack To Go" & 1961's "Oklahoma Hills."

Hank Thompson - A Six Pack To Go

As the decade wore on Hank switched allegiances from Capitol where he'd done 25 albums, and he began working with Warner Brothers in '64, charting with "Where Is the Circus" and "He's Got A Way With Women." By '68 ABC/Dot became his label where he recorded 18 albums including tributes to Nat King Cole & The Mills Bros as well as classic drinking themed tunes "On Tap, In the Can, or In the Bottle (1968), and "Smoky the Bar" (1969).

Hank Thompson - Smoky The Bar

Approximately 12 more albums followed on a smattering of labels. One was a 1997 tribute/duet album of sorts featuring Vince Gill, Lyle Lovett, Marty Stuart and others. The standout track for me is a medley mash-up of his breakthrough hit Wild Side of Life featuring the inclusion of the famous answer track by Kitty Wells (& in amarketing ploy, how about Tanya Tucker who is tossed in the song for her who knows what, as she definitely sounds worse for wear than either of her elders).

Click to start listening and we'll let Hank tell his own story of the song...


Play: Streaming Windows Media .asf
file The
Wild Side Of Life/It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels

Hank, Kitty & Tanya - Curb Records 1997

Whatever meaningful contributions I may have made to this industry must pale by comparison to the profound effect of my recording of "Wild Side Of Live."
Not so much what the song did for me, but that it spawned an answer song
(not unusual back then), "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels."
It catapulted a relatively unknown young girl vocalist, Kitty Wells, to immortal stardom. Prior to Kitty's emergence, female singers in Country Music (and all other forms as well) had only modest success. It is now academic to
say that she paved the road. Kitty cut the ribbon to the freeway for those to come: Patsy Cline, Tammy Wynette, Reba McEntyre, Tanya Tucker and other
superstars. Kitty Wells came into the studio and sang her signature song as well, if not better than she did on the original recording. The clarity and charm of her voice project an exhilaration that is unmistakable! By contrast
and compliment, Tanya Tucker added her saucy, and even sassy, retaliation. She
put a sting to those lyrics so characteristic of her style and personality.
And to think Kitty and I recorded those songs years before Tanya was born! Who
would have thought that someday we would be here for this historic event. It
makes us very proud!

Amazingly , Hank who has had 7 decades of hit making is still on the road as I started this piece in late April, playing a Knights of Columbus hall in deep in the heart of Texas with the lastest edition of The Brazos Valley Boys , featuring Hank's fiddle player since 1955, Curly Lewis. Look for them on the road , still rousing up crowds at Theaters, Fairs, Ballrooms and Casinos coast to coast...dates are posted at http://www.HankThompson.net/

Other recent efforts from Hank include an indie released retro collection of radio transcripts on Bloodshot & and his latest release Drinking Songs and 2000's "Seven Decades" on Hightone.

While yer there at his site, pick up an autographed photo from this country legend and a CD !!

Hank Thompson - last of the living legends,

The Cult Inside My Intoxicated Man

I first ran across the raving lunatic known as Pat Ryan when he was sputtering about onstage with some kinda globe trotting quasi african/euro trash Partridge Family-esque industrial punk fusion orchestra replete with homemade metal percussion devices. I can't remember if the percussion devices or their white bus, or their relationships broke down first, but their only real obvious mistake was naming their band after some kind of vaguely defined disease.

All the good disease names were taken I guess they figured, so they couldn't ever be Anthrax anyhow. However, they also missed out on a lot of medical association convention work and high school proms due to this marketing faux pas.

The first bass player thought he was actually the next Bob Mould , and defected to Minneapolis with his wife on the drunken off hand advice of Dave Pirner, and was never to be heard from again. I seem to recall the drummers were soon realizing the ship was leaking next. One apparently made it to New Zealand safely and got a paying job with The Chills for awhile before breeding & then trying to beg himself onto the Goo Goo Dolls road crew. A percussionist left to become some kind of cane wielding cartoon animator. Another drummer was brought in, already a beaten refugee from Poi Dog Pondering ( I suppose once you've taken orders from that evil beast Frank Orral, you'll pretty much salute a wet dishrag on a stick if the bassist tells you it's a flag). The rest of these guys that Pat cavorted around with were either always working out visa details in Hungary or Germany or one of the lesser evil Slavic countries. Then again it seems they were also spotted moonlighting illegally in the flagship location of a chain of Senegalese Tamarind Whisky bars in some west coast barrio or something like that too. One could never tell with these type of gypsy people...

Pat shuts his eyes to the harsh reality of another sordid
homo-erotic modeling session to earn room and gruel & pirate radio play in a squat
in the wintry city of far off Fluffennutter


As grunge swept the charts, the bands' street cred was irreparably harmed when a leaked translation document showed that the German version of Rolling Stone magazine had called them "a Grateful Dead of the 90's".

The band remained hopeful, especially after one big break involved a stadium tour supporting a French band that was really big in Belgium. The new connections were paying off until the headliners lead singer decided to bludgeon to death his French movie star girlfriend in a Romanian hotel, making for a plot of yet another bad French movie that would haunt the band on European Hotel TV's for years. Fortunately, the band was forced to stop playing the t.v, and returned to playing the squats, playing the tarot, and playing with each others minds.

Eventually court records rveal that even children were involved, but none were Pat's, at least that he knows of, because by then he was a broke pseudo-alcoholic poet gypsy road dog with only partial custody of his faculties. Other than some faded passport stamps & even more faded handstamps, there is very little evidence of this period to go on.

Eventually the band formed their own religious cult for tax dodging purposes, and prayed that the wacky original material about killing the president, plus the random Bob Dylan, Daniel Johnston and Nick Cave covers would crack the charts as a soundtrack to an as yet unmade action adventure teen exploitation type movie about their lives. Unable however to secure releases from the long missing bassists & drummers, they could not sell the film rights, but kept churning out various sundry tunes on at least 5 or 6 obscure labels. They held long group therapy sesions in search of a hit and even brought in Andy Gill from Gang of Four to produce before hiring their own mothers & even more attractive girlfriends to lead the band in tawdry onstage strip teases. These moves never got 'em much airplay or chart action, or even additional chicks. Unbeknownst to the band, it was a period in Europe where Gang of Four were long forgotten, and even thinking about sex, particularly with krauts and M.I.L.F's had become unfashionable at the time.

Pat and our protagonists would forge on, rock a festival of 9000 outside The Palais du Malaise on Thursday afternoon, hit a club and play to 1000 in Farfigneuton that night, and a wild party of 800 punks in a squat outside Rottenburg on the next day and still be playing to 8 folks in a dilapitated movie theater in West Sacto Ca. within the week. In no time at all, they'd go from interviews on international radio to interviews for gigs laying sheetrock. They somehow managed this shtick for over decade until being forced by socio-economic factors, inner strife and child protective services into downsizing their operation.

I'd get all the details & dates straight for ya, but then I'd still have to change the names to protect the guilty, and then again, what's the point?


Well the point is, I guess, weaker poet thinking man's rocker dudes woulda O.D'ed, faded into rehab or blown their pretty little brains out, but our hero Pat Ryan simply survived. He just crept away quietly one day at customs with his dignity wrapped in an old tour t-shirt (hand-stitched by his mother), and the band just rolled on without him. They all got dysentary in southeast asia and a write up in a Thai rock magazine, and Pat, well, he went and got a job.

He was in his mid thirties, and had never sat at a fake wood veneer desk before. Yes, indeed he was born anew.

Rumor says he's somewhere downtown, and I wouldn't be surprised if he's like the quintessential quiet festering accountant guy, with a secret creative life that no one at the office need know about. A proverbial Clark Kent with thick rimmed glasses , hiding his secret powers from the secretaries & middle management types. In fact he's probably web surfing up his name right now and finding this horrible spiel that insists on revealing his depraved destiny and his terrible treasure trove of tales to the world.

I bet he'd even think this was funny, if it wasn't all pretty much fucking true.



"I can see severely now..."

Pat Ryan is a rare creative character, and someone whose talents and charisma lie hidden from public view these days like a guerilla sleeper cell. He's been keeping busy, spider holed, observing the world, working in the lab and waiting to strike.

For sometime now he's been recording & mixing a solo album called "THE CULT INSIDE MY HEAD" that is far more complex and rich in tones & content than the entire ouevre of most of the twee tweedle knobbers and disco dumble dee dee dahs that I hear sputtering on the radio these daze.

Of course I know deep down , Pat's project, like most from unheralded indie warriors, will be commercially doomed, at least until he can get out on the road, and win those bleeding hearts in the nosebleed seats one by one. Unfortunately he's too old for American Idol tryouts, and I doubt Paula Abdul would wanna bump uglies with him. Besides he'd probably engage Paula in some sort of off camera banter about the neo-fascist resurgence in Eastern Europe and completely lose her.

But dammit, why should we punish him for that? He's an old fashioned idea man, and is willing To get up & boogie & shout bam-a-lama if he has too. That courageous boy wonder of so many years ago was born to do it and Amerikkka needs him now more than ever. He has a special wily onstage persona that somehow invokes the terrifying & dramatic spectre of Allan Ginsberg morphing into Joe Pesci doing a Van Morrison imitation at a Lenny Bruce Memorial Pow Wow Can-Can rain dance & seance in the Naropa Institute teacher's smoking lounge. He's like a drunken demon leperchaun on ludes leaping about in high heeled jack boots & rallying Ward Churchill's Bar Mitzvah crowd at the Mos Eisley space station dive bar lounge. I ain't making any of that shit up either you goddamned bored blog reading fools...plus he's sensitive & cute as a button!

anyhow, Pat's revealing tracks from his soon to be released magnum opus one by one and unless you frequent the bars on the wrong side of 12 Galaxies, you might not be hip to this shite yet...

The Cult Inside My Head - Slowly

deal wit it , it's deep y'all...

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p.s if ya made it through that, then here's some more mp3'z for ya that'll tell ya where I'm at tonight :

Serge Gainsbourg + Brigette Bardot - Intoxicated Man

Green Day - Blood Sex & Booze

Teenage Head - Ain't Got No Sense

Devo + Isaac Hayes - Huboon Stomp

James Brown - Funky Women