Opening with an enthusiastic Yeah!, we are at a backyard party, everything loose and convivial. The music leaps into an interesting salsa rhythm of percussion and electric piano. At 0:09, a distorted guitar jams into the melody, followed a few seconds later by a somewhat jarring cascade of double time rhythms that lead into the vocals:
Fresssshhhhh Garararbage....like a street cleaner making his rounds, bring out yer freshhh garbage!
During the verse, guitar and keyboard harmonize with the vocals on lid some morning, didn't quite consume, and your fresh garbage, before gently collapsing in a heap due to the stench. Well, at least it's fresh garbage, not stale old garbage (would that make a difference?) The song loops around through the same verse, then at 1:14 we are swept into a jazzy 3/4 time keyboard solo that lulls us into dreams of flowers and clean air, away from the scourge of garbage...... until suddenly at 2:20 someone shakes us out of the dream and back to reality for the rest of the song. fresshhhh, shhsh, shhsh, shhsh.
Fresh Garbage is my favorite song by Spirit, followed closely by I Got A Line On You. It is the opening track from their self-titled debut album. The album was released on January 22, 1968. Guitarist Randy California would turn 17 in February, and drummer Ed Cassidy, Randy's stepfather, would turn 45 in May. Vocalist Jay Ferguson would go on to have a hit in the late 70s with Thunder Island, a smooth garbage-free yacht rock kinda thing.
Jah Speak in Dub begins with Tappa Zukie singing Come on, which makes me think of Shout by Tears for Fears - come on, I'm talking to you.
Cracklin dub for you today, complete with all the accoutrements: modulated EQ, delay, reverb, bass and riddims, vocals coming and going across the sonic panorama, crackles and sparks. Biblical platitudes, the word of Jah, the way to live the good life, they're all wrapped up in this tidy little dub package. It's from the excellent In Dub album, originally released in 1976, and subsequently reissued by the Blood and Fire label.
Listen to that slippery bass during the opening 0:20, how it sneaks away from the other instruments when they pause. That is probably my favorite element of Water Sly Meets Bill Bailey, by the British group Elmer Gantry's Velvet Opera. The second half of the opening segment is a quasi-Bouree guitar part while the bass steps in time.
From 0:55 - 0:58, and this is kind of a stretch, in that snippet of melody I can hear Tragedy by the Bee Gees and The Night Owls by the Little River Band. Can you hear it? I know, I'm weird. A guitar solo start in earnest at 1:10.
At 1:36 there is the sudden intrusion of (Won't You Come Home) BillBeetle Bailey, a tune originally published in 1902. (haha, I was writing this with my phone and after I typed Bill, the suggested next word was Clinton). I can only hear Bill Bailey won't you please come home, the other words are hard to decipher. At 2:06, uh-oh, Bill Bailey is being sucked down the drain by the sly water creature, Charybdis, along with Elmer Gantry and the rest of his gang. Down down down...echo echo echo.
1) French Kiss - Bad Taste & Broken Bones (Caen, France)
This song makes me think of Nirvana. I like the singer's French voice. It's pretty basic, kind of catchy. Middle breakdown section. Sounds like the lyrics are all about a girl(?) who doesn't want to french kiss.
Sounds like 7/4 time? I like the vocalist. His voice is fragile. As the music increases in intensity, I wonder if he's going to break out into a serious Chris Cornell style. Nope.
High tempo drum machine, slower vocals. The synths are pretty cool. I like it. It sounds like other stuff I've heard, so it feels somewhat generic to me. I don't often listen to music like this. Nice piano after 2:30 or so.
Let's have a brief history of Bobby Darin's Mack the Knife. Its origins are in Die Moritat von Mackie Messer, The Ballad of Mack the Knife (1928), music by Kurt Weill and lyrics by Bertolt Brecht, from Die Dreigroschenoper, The Threepenny Opera. A moritat is a murder ballad, and Mack the Knife is a killer.
The strict English translation of the first verse is:
And the shark, it has teeth,
And it wears them in the face.
And Macheath, he has a knife,
But the knife can't be seen.
The lyrics are concise and factual, like a police report...nothing to see here, folks. In 1954, Marc Blitzstein dressed them up a bit:
Oh, the shark has pretty teeth, dear,
And he shows them pearly white.
Just a jack-knife has Macheath, dear,
And he keeps it out of sight.
Bobby Darin dressed the lyrics up even more, as his addition of 'babe' and other vocal flourishes added a hip Vegas feel to it:
Oh, the shark, babe, has such teeth, dear, And it shows them pearly white. Just a jackknife has old Macheath, babe, And he keeps it, ah, out of sight.
The original song is a basic narrative about a murderer. Bobby Darin elevates it to a virtual celebration, singing it so enthusiastically that Mack becomes a heroic figure. Musically, the tone rises a half step with nearly each verse, and the orchestration builds along with it, all leading to a big frenzy of sound by the end:
The Paul Butterfield Blues Band were from Chicago, and consisted of Paul Butterfield on harp and vocals, Elvin Bishop on rhythm guitar, Jerome Arnold on bass, Sam Lay on drums, and the legendary Mike Bloomfield on lead guitar. If you've never seen Mike's 'groovy' speech from the Monterey Pop Festival, all I can tell you is it's really groovy.
The two -fields are the notable performers on Born in Chicago, the first track from the first, self-titled album. Paul blows an intense harp and he sings with a purity of tone that fluctuates evenly between glossy and rough. My favorite lyrics are:
first verse: well my first friend went down, when I was 17 years old
second verse: well my second friend went down, when I was 21 years of age
You hardly ever hear 'years of age' anymore, do you? Poetically, old is coupled with go, and age is coupled with pray. I also like how Paul sings I was born in Chicago, in 19 and 41. Classy.
Mike sounds like he could be playing in an alley off Maxwell Street - crisp and clean, great string bends and licks right out of the Chicago blues guitar manual. The rest of the band keep things flowing along. Bloom and Butter are, sadly, playing in the field of dreams; the other three are still alive and, I hope, doing well.
Born in Chicago was written by Nick Gravenites (also still kicking out there), who later formed the Electric Flag with Mike Bloomfield and Buddy Miles. He also produced Brewer and Shipley's One Toke Over the Line, a song I don't like very much. Speaking of those, I really can't stand Elvin Bishop's Fooled Around and Fell in Love, mostly because of that dude from Jefferson Starship on lead vocals.
Hello Cleveland! Art rock post punk stuff from Pere Ubu here, and Street Waves is one of those 'crikey I have no idea what the heck this guy is singing' tunes. David Thomas lollygags these slurred one note lines into my ears.
I love the sounds. The guitar is excellent. A hot hazy summer wind blows through the music, street heatwaves, tires churning blacktop with a rubbery squeal, the high frequency guitar solo melts the city at 1:11. The bass and rhythm guitar lay the foundation. The wind even gets a 45 second solo after 1:45, that's how important it is to the song. Low distorted guitar gurgles and grunts among the detritus in the gutter.
Perhaps the heat is messing with David Thomas, he sounds pretty desperate and concerned, ringing his hands in vain. He needs to go hang out at a cooling shelter. Get off the street, dude. Hey, I call em like I hear em.
I love their style. No pretension, just some guys hangin out, and hangin tough. In the Land of Cleve.
When I listen to The 15th by Wire, I always think of Pixies. The vocals make me think of Black Francis on his gentler songs, the guitar chords are like some Pixies template they used on various songs, the keyboard could be from Trompe le Monde. I might be picking at straws, but in my mind there's a connection. (Hey, someone out there already thought of this!)
Of course, I'm also reminded of other Wire tunes, like French Film Blurred, Outdoor Miner, and Mannequin. But, hey, let's talk about The 15th. The vocals are delicate and clipped to square edges, touching on abstract ideas of worth, materialism, production. There are many thoughts on its meaning out there in interweb land. It might not mean anything. The overall feel is soft and fuzzy, the guitars pulsing along, little lines here and there, light synth tone. It gets into this repetitive droning groove during the final minute. Nice song.
Tractor Rape Chain...what is that, some kind of torture device? As I discovered, there is something called rapeseed. What an awful name, it should be removed from the seed family. I don't care if it is the third largest source of vegetable oil in the world. In farming, the tractors are plowing the fields, dragging chains that leave lines as they move along. Gotta get that rapeseed planted.
So what is Robert Pollard trying to tell us? Well, folks, sounds like we got ourselves a metaphor, a metaphor, a metaphor....Is the song about a failing relationship? Parallel lines on a slow decline...two people going along on tracks that never meet. The trust is gone, the environment in unstable. Since the name of the group is Guided By Voices, perhaps Pollard did see a ghost in my room that told him to write these lyrics.
It's probably my favorite song by these guys. I can usually do without the acoustic guitar at the beginning, but once the whole ensemble starts up at 0:18, I am loving it. Wall of guitar, Pollard's Dayton, Ohio, vocals all husky and weathered, the electricity a buzz of a thousands bees?
I've seen this band exactly once, and it was pretty frickin stunning...on stage beer guzzling, lots of smoking, Pollard more energetic as the show went on in spite of the alcohol intake. The whole band was great.
The Monks were five American G.I.s stationed in Germany during the mid 60s, playing proto-punk music that included electric banjo, organ, and tribal rhythms. They released one album, the completely original, and cult classic, Black Monk Time, in 1966. Their look included uniform black attire and real tonsures.
He Went Down to the Sea was the B-side of a single released in 1967 and is quite unlike any of the album tracks. It more closely resembles Sloop John B than a freakbeat manifesto. In addition to the usual guitar bass and drums, the song features glockenspiel and a trumpet solo. What makes it pure Monks is Gary Burger's idiosyncratic vocals of soft coos, odd inflections, and high-pitched yowls. Lyrically, the song presents a series of actions taken by the main character, after which he then heads down to the sea:
He winked an eye and the sun went out He winked another and the stars came out He drew his breath and the wind blew soft And then he went down to the sea
Even at the end, after he turned and walked into the night, he (still) went down to the sea. Can't say I blame him, I'm sure that would be my choice as well.
Well what do you know, another recording from the late 60s. We have had a number of these lately. This time it's a tune from San Francisco's ultra-talented but ultimately misguided and tragic Moby Grape. Murder in my Heart for the Judge is taken from the Wow half of the Wow/Grape Jam album, two separate albums that were packaged together for one low price.
The song is a funky blues story about a guy who goes to court for a violation of some sort, and the judge tells him:
...if you look like a man, I would be your friend, but just give me your money give me your time* I don't want to see your ugly face again
Like CSNY's Almost Cut My Hair and Five Man Electrical Band's Signs, it deals with the older square generation's persecution of long haired freaky hippie people. The music is a ramshackle mess of various guitars and low end bass. The vocal harmonies are soulful and loose.
I first heard this song in the late 80s. WCKG in Chicago had a program called the Psychedelic Supper that featured lesser known songs by some of their regular classic rock artists (not that Moby Grape was ever a 'classic rock' group; I don't think they ever had any hits).
* Or and cut off your hair, boy...this is the lyric according to various online sources. That's not what I hear at all, perhaps it's in an alternate version?
Eric Burdon and the Animals formed in late 1966 following the dissolution of the original lineup, and was an entirely different...animal. Eric Burdon became psychedelicized and the music did as well. When I Was Young opens with a bass and cymbal, then at 0:05 a heavily picked low guitar string shatters the moment and dissolves into the ether, a war plane passing overhead. A violin joins the mix, and then Burdon begins singing at 0:20,
The rooms were so much colder then My father was a soldier then And times were very hard When I was young
Like Neil Young's Sugar Mountain, it is a song about childhood and rites of passage, but in this case there is no sugar, no mother and dad, and no puppy love romance. The first cigarette and romantic experience are seedy and indifferent. The hardships and challenges of World War II on many British families like Eric's forced kids to grow up faster and tougher. Pain was more painful but one was expected to laugh it off, to keep a stiff upper lip, to be a man while still a boy. Childhood was like a Charlie Brown world without parental guidance. As Eric bitterly sings at 2:24,
I was so much older then When I was young
The music is haunting and dark, a nightmare of confusion and mystery, guitar and violin tumbling downhill into a bombed out crater of despair.
Get ready, let's do rocksteady. This has some nice flute in it, very tropical feeling. Lazy sunny day, no need to move so fast. I really like this recording a lot. Each instrument gets a chance to be on display.
RævJäger (Saint Petersburg, Russia) In ancient days of yore...very medieval tone, riders heading out in search of conquest. Multi-layered keyboards, pounding timpani, choral effects, little bells. Dramatic, powerful.
I like all three of these pieces, it feels like there is a little thread that weaves their different genres together.
More fuzz guitar! It's time for The Mops, with their own theme song, I'm Just A Mops. This song appears on the Nuggets II box set. It's also on the Mops album Psychedelic Sounds in Japan. They are remembered as the first psychedelic band in Japan. OK, they were only 'psychedelic' in the purloined imitation marketed corporate way, like Strawberry Alarm Clock or 'My Green Tambourine'. Yeah, just stick in some effects and have some counter-cultural lyrics and we'll sell a lot of records. Wow, man...psychedelic. That's heavy. Let me put on some love beads and sunglasses and we'll go down to Rainbow Bridge Park and dance around in a big circle.
The best part of this song is the endearingly imprecise grammar of the English lyrics:
But I don't care of them so I'm just a mops
When I come back to home my mother says I'm a mops
Mops, like moptops. Cute Asians with their straight black hair. The bass is good. The opening guitars remind me of G-l-o-r-i-a. The guitar solo is like something from the Monkees. There's also that stutter into a quasi-Yardbirds middle rave-up section at 1:00.
Hello, we are just a Mops! We went to Carnaby Street. Now we are officially groovy.
This collection was culled from over 150 ravaged cassettes found in Oakland, California at the public library's Asian branch. Many of the tracks were recorded post Pol Pot holocaust between the 1970s and 1990s in Khmer-operated studios spread throughout the geography of the diaspora - from Cambodia to Thailand.
It's a wonderful collection. This tune has so many of the elements I like from this era of Cambodian music: fuzz guitar, reverb vocals, lo-fi production. Wish I knew more about it. It rocks. Great wild guitar solos after 2:00. Amazing.
My friend Annie introduced me to the live album from Robyn Hitchcock & the Egyptians called Gotta Let This Hen Out! It's a fantastic album: the audience is enthusiastic, the sound quality is very good, and the band is tremendous. Highlights are Brenda's Iron Sledge, The Face of Death, and Acid Bird.
My favorite track is Listening to the Higsons. As I was researching it, it got me thinking about lyrics. Sometimes a song's meaning is obvious, like Love Me Do. Other times the lyrics are so esoteric that your brain may explode if you think too much about them (like most songs by Yes). Some lyrics are by Bob Dylan. Some lyrics are in a language you do not speak, but you like how the words sound. And finally, sometimes you have your own interpretation of a song and although you hope you're right, you could very well be wrong. For me, this is one of those songs.
Let's take a closer look at what I hear and understand compared with the true meaning:
1) I've always heard the first line as There's a varied problem. The actual line is Lucifer in Frognal.
Huh? What the heck is Lucifer in Frognal? Frognal is an area of Hampstead, North West London. There is also a Frognal House. I do not know which one Robyn means, or why Lucifer is there, I am just shocked that there is actually no varied problem. This misheard lyric sets me up for the rest of the tune.
2) I therefore thought the "problem" was related to listening to the Higsons. Perhaps they are some neighbors that make a lot of noise, singing loudly and carrying on at all hours. As it turns out, the Higsons is the name of an actual band. Robyn was just listening to one of their songs on the radio, at home, or on the road.
3) One night in November, and I thought I heard them singing. There they are, at it again next door. I should call Scotland Yard and report them.
4) The next line I hear is so I gotta let this hen out. When the Higsons start singing, Robyn's natural reaction is to let a hen out...he owns a hen, and the hen is like a spy that goes to investigate. The actual line is said "I gotta let this hen out." The Higsons band have a song called Got to Let this Heat Out, but Robyn misheard the words to include a hen.
5) I have to face it, I have no clue. The song continues on, stating that the Higsons come from Norwich. The band actually does, but I thought that's where these nieghbors were originally from before they moved next door to Robyn. They eat a lot of porridge simply makes a good rhyme.
6) Next I hear, but I prefer these Grimsteads, being Robyn's other, quieter, neighbors. Makes me think of the Griswolds from Vacation. Actual line is but I prefer East Grinstead. This is a town, located about a three hour drive from Norwich. That's fine, Robyn, you can prefer what you want.
Musically, the whoa-oa-oas are very catchy, as is the chorus of won't you see for me. I was a bit shocked by the truth, but I will continue to enjoy my own impression. See, you start poking around on the internet and this is what you get...the end of your blissful ignorance.
Boogie woogie zydeco pop stuff, nice piano, big horns. Vocals great, lead singer reminds of Peter Wolf from J Geils Band.
2) Pank Frissbee - We're High on Drugs (Fishers, Indiana)
OK, where is Fishers, IN? Ah, ok, it's a fairly large suburb of Indianapolis. Remember that song by Menudo? Well, this sounds nothing like that. This is a lo-fi Jandek/Velvet Underground mess, I love stuff like this. Well, it's mostly because I've made lots of stuff like this.
3) Summer Dub - The Oceanside Dub Experience (Oceanside, New York)
I wonder if Oceanside is on the ocean? Looks like it is, but it's not like it has it all to itself, it's crammed against it with a bunch of other land. It's a hamlet. Like Hobbiton, I suppose. The organ is slightly grating, but the other dulcimer-sounding thing is nice. The music meanders about here and there, wearing out its welcome after two minutes or so. Not bad, just kind of unfocused...too much gluten? Not enough dub.
Ween jams us into the three-minute zone with a rocking lounge act for drunk Vegas swingers called Take Me Away. There's only one verse, repeated 3 1/2 times. Gene Ween sings it like an alternative Elvis, throwing off those thank you asides with confident nonchalance. He's singing about being dumped or cheated on, and now he wants to get far away from her because the whole thing is driving him nuts. But hey, people, who needs her, right? I got all you lovely folks to understand, to buy me a drink and help me drown my sorrows.
The intro chord is tenth fret Gm, and the primary chords are Em to F#m. The solo starts right in the middle, at 1:30 (same as When the Screams Come, how about that?). It's a wild ride on the ol' fretboard. Gene slows to catch his breath, but then brings the house down at 2:29, on the final sweep through the verse.
It was a perfect Spring day here in Portland. This is my favorite time of year, when everything is new and fresh, the flowering trees are so pretty. People in the neighborhood have been out gardening and mowing their lawns. The birds around my house have been busy, too. Today there was a happy little black-capped chickadee singing nearby.
I am hearing the birds even now...in the opening of Sketch for Summer. After twenty seconds they are joined by a one beat drum and a couple of shimmering entwined guitars. Around 1:00 the guitars become a bouquet of chords, complementing each other with Bb and Gm7 chords, key of F. Two guitars with the same tones and some delay can kind of blur the lines. Those birds just keep on singing throughout the instrumental.
Sketch for Summer is the first track on the first album by The Durutti Column. They formed in Manchester, England, and were one of the first groups signed to Factory Records. Their name is a variation on the Durruti Column, an anarchist military unit in the Spanish Civil War. They are still performing today.
When the Screams Come is a three-minute sludgy doom metal masterpiece from Black Sabbath disciple Pentagram. Drums enter in unison with a catchy guitar riff, and at 0:06 the bass leans in as well, the drums tumbling alongside. The vocals of Bobby Liebling come in at 0:17, lecturing on the perils of the deadly sin of greed. Doom metal is all about darkness and the occult, and the potential of ending up in Satan's dark abyss:
Have you ever felt pain When the screams come you know That you're dying in vain
Wow, that's harsh. A pattern of ominous riffs at 0:55 leads us into a series of pitch bends at 1:02. Beware of Bobby's freaky double-tracked vocal on warn you at 1:18. Whoa, dude, take it easy. The classic rock Mountain/Imaginary Western guitar solo comes in right at 1:30, the halfway point of the song. I tell you, the pop structure is perfect. Coming out of the solo at 2:00, we get the requisite stop and start guitar and drum fills, then a bit of Sabbath/Zeppelin uptempo rollicking. Bobby sounds so much like Dickie Peterson from Blue Cheer, really uncanny. Finally, at 2:32 we settle back into the opening riff and the ride comes to a stop.
Pentagram could have been huge in their own time, if only Bobby Liebling hadn't ruined their chances by being a complete egomaniac control freak over the top drug fiend. I recently watched a documentary about him called Last Days Here. Highly recommended. He's had so many problems, but he is still alive and kicking, taking some version of Pentagram out on the road, in Europe at the time of this writing.
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