Neil Young at Farm Aid 2008
In case you didn’t know, the annual Farm Aid show took place a little over a week ago (June 20, to be exact). The Pretenders, Jakob Dylan, and Arlo Guthrie were among the acts that performed alongside Farm Aid stalwarts Willie Nelson, John Mellancamp, and Neil Young.
Neil Young’s set was, by most accounts, sensational. Writing on
Thrasher’s Wheat about Young’s version of the Beatles classic, “A Day in the Life,” a fan named Coby said, “I was amazed and blown away. This is what the show is all about, you bring it, and the emotion compels you. Compliments and applause. Touch that inner nerve and twist.”
Young has performed at all of the Farm Aid festivals, appearing either solo or with old band-mates Crosby, Stills, and Nash. “Just as rock & roll is loud and proud, so is Farm Aid,” Young is quoted as saying. “Farm Aid's greatest accomplishment, I believe, is in the spirit. It's the fact that we represent the spirit of the good fight, to keep something good happening. It just keeps getting stronger and stronger.”
Today’s music is a couple of tunes from Neil Young’s Farm Aid set this year. The show was broadcast in HD on DirectTV, so the sound is pretty clean. I found these tracks on a site called Big O, which often posts Recordings of Indeterminate Origin.
Jump over there for the rest of the show as well as recordings of some of the other Farm Aid performances. A warning, though: while they post awesome stuff, Big O has pretty strict time limits on how long the tracks remain up, so don’t dilly-dally!
Powderfinger.mp3 A Day in the Life (Beatles cover).mp3Labels: classic rock, covers, live music, Neil Young
Six Red Carpets
I thought I’d offer up something sort of new today: I got an email the other day from Italy’s Six Red Carpets telling me about their debut disk,
Nightmares + Lullabies.
At first glance, this trio didn’t seem like the kind of music I’m usually interested in. It falls somewhere between pop and rock – kind of alternative, kind of not – maybe a little indie. But I found something in the songs on the Six Red Carpets
MySpace that made me stop and go back for a second listen. The band recorded, mixed, mastered, and produced
Nightmares + Lullabies themselves and it has a sort of raw, DIY feel to it. The music is instantly catchy. Singer Mills has a nasally voice that, for some strange reason, brings to mind the way Scorpions vocalist Klaus Meine sounded many years ago.
The album was actually released June 28, so it’s been out a while – the band working the blogosphere to promote it. They’re also giving it away, as part of a downloadable package that includes an e-booklet, a video, and a short story that attempts to explain the concept behind the album. I’ll let you check that out and interpret the meaning yourself.
In the meantime, check out these songs. If you like what you’re hearing – and I think you might – go the Six Red Carpets’
MySpace and you can get it gratis.
Fall Asleep.mp3 Here’s to the Nightmare.mp3Labels: "alternative", indie, new stuff
"Got a Taste for OxyContin"
Today’s music comes from another band featured on Little Steven’s “Coolest Songs in the World.”
The Bleeding Hearts, from Raleigh, N.C., released
Nothing on but the Radio in June of this year. This release finally brought the band the credibility they deserve. The first single, “Rehab Girl,” almost instantly got into heavy rotation on Little Steven’s Underground Garage, and brought them not just national, but
world-wide attention.
“Would Green Day a roots-nephew?” wrote Hank, on a Dutch Web site. “Sam Madison has the largest bleeding heart. He writes the skull-with-a-laugh melodies and decorating them piece by piece with a murderous gitaarrif.” (Yeah, it’s a literal translation.)
Madison is The Bleeding Hearts founding member, putting the band together in 2003 with a trio of New York immigrants: guitarist Joe Yerry, bassist Jimbo Britt, and drummer Scott Taylor (Taylor left the band last year and was replaced by Dave Bartholomew).
“The Bleeding Hearts harnesses four decades of vinyl references into polished but hulking two-guitar paeans that meet somewhere between Mott the Hoople and Cheap Trick,” wrote Grayson Currin in Raleigh’s
The Independent Weekly. “Despite its scantily clad cover, the band's second album,
Nothin' On but the Radio, showcases a more mature, balanced approach from Sam Madison, its braggadocio-belted front man.”
Catch The Bleeding Hearts live Oct. 4 at Slim’s Downtown in Raleigh, N.C., and Oct. 10 at The Tap House in Norfolk, Va. Go to their
MySpace space for more information.
Rehab Girl.mp3 Insanity.mp3 Cruel to be Kind (live-Nick Lowe cover).mp3Labels: covers, garage rock, pop-punk
If You Want Blood...
You’re only as popular as your last post, as my grandfather used to say, and with my hits here dropping like the dollars in my 401(k), I thought it might be a good idea to post a little more frequently.
That said, those of you who are still prisoners of government radio are probably unaware that Sirius Satellite Radio recently launched
AC/DC Radio. It’s been quite a while since I’ve spent any amount of time listening to AC/DC, but it’s been fun tuning in for a couple of hours here and there and hearing some songs I haven’t heard in years.
This all-AC/DC-all-the-time channel is part of the media blitz surrounding the October 20 release of
Black Ice, the band’s first studio album since 2000’s
Stiff Upper Lip. I’m looking forward to hearing the album, which singer Brian Johnson has said is harder-edged than its predecessor. There’s also the news, reported by
Rolling Stone, that for the first time on album Angus Young will be playing slide guitar.
Jumping fully on the AC/DC blitz bandwagon, I’ve decided to post up a few of the band’s songs today. Like I’ve done in the past, I went through the disks I have and pulled one song from each, trying where I could to stick to the deep tracks.
Some trivia notes – where applicable – about today’s music:
Gone Shootin’: Written by Malcolm and Angus Young, and Bon Scott, is about a heroin overdose. The song was re-recorded in 2007 with Brian Johnson on vocals.
Love at First Feel: One of only two tracks from international AC/DC albums not available on the band's Australian albums. It was released as a single in Australia, however.
The Jack: According to interviews, the song stemmed from real events when the five members of the band were sharing a house. A groupie who had slept with most – if not all – of the band contracted gonorrhea and subsequently accused one of them of giving it to her.
The live recordings of “The Jack” have very different lyrics than the original studio versions. Whereas the studio version of the song uses poker metaphors as sexual innuendo, the live version tells the story in a literal manner.
Night Prowler: In June 1984, a highly publicized murder case began revolving around Richard Ramirez, who was responsible for several brutal killings in Los Angeles. Nicknamed the “Night Stalker,” Ramirez was a fan of AC/DC, particularly the song “Night Prowler.” Police also claimed that Ramirez was wearing an AC/DC shirt and left an AC/DC hat at one of his crime scenes. During the trial, Ramirez shouted “Hail Satan!” and showed off the pentagram carved into his palm. On VH1's Behind the Music on AC/DC, the band claimed that while the song had taken on a murderous connotation by Ramirez, it is actually about a boy sneaking into his girlfriend's bedroom at night.
Chase the Ace: One of two instrumental tracks from the Who Made Who album. This album, which serves as a soundtrack for the Stephen King film, is also the closest thing AC/DC has to a “greatest hits” album.
Rock ‘n’ Roll Train: The first release from the upcoming Black Ice album. On August 30, the first Saturday of the U.S. college football season, the song was played extensively on ESPN and ABC college football broadcasts as intro and bumper music.
Can I Sit Next to You Girl.mp3 ~ from
High VoltageGone Shootin’.mp3 ~ from
PowerageLove at First Feel.mp3 ~ from
Dirty Deeds Done Dirt CheapThe Jack (live version).mp3 ~ from
If You Want BloodNight Prowler.mp3 ~ from
Highway to HellHave a Drink On Me.mp3 ~ from
Back in BlackChase the Ace.mp3 ~ from
Who Made WhoMeanstreak.mp3 ~ from
Blow Up Your VideoIf You Dare.mp3 ~ from
The Razor’s EdgeBig Gun.mp3 ~ from
The Last Action Hero soundtrack
Rock ‘n’ Roll Train.mp3 ~ from
Black IceLabels: AC/DC, classic rock, guitar heroes
Hideous Barbie
I had some other stuff I was going to post, but I found instead something I think is great: Punk rock that is nothing but ridiculous fun.
I first found Rotterdam’s Hideous Barbie at
Mohawk Radio.com. From there I checked around a little and found a non-functioning Web site and a
MySpace they haven’t visited in about a month. So how fuckin’ punk is that?
Hideous Barbie have been together (assuming they are still together) for about three years. They had a cut on Skratch Magazine’s compilation No. 28, which probably came out just after the band formed. About themselves, they say, “We don't like long intros, just 1, 2, 3, 4, and GO. Buy (or download) our music and give it to everybody. Don't care about us, just like the fucking music!”
Ramon (vocals and guitar), Robert (vocals and bass), Markus (guitar), and Dave (drums) are the Hideous Barbies. There is nothing redeeming about these guys and I mean that in the best possible way. These are kids having a good time, playing Ramones-inspired punk rock. Close your eyes, listen, and think about the fun you could have if your only responsibility was to play rock and roll.
Beer Shades.mp3 Somethin’ Else (Eddie Cochran cover).mp3 Your Boyfriend is Retarded.mp3Labels: punk
Former Blink Drummer Injured in Plane Crash
Heard about this on the news this morning:
COLUMBIA, S.C. - Former Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker and a popular disc jockey were critically injured in a Learjet crash in South Carolina that killed four people, authorities said Saturday.
Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen said the plane carrying six people was departing shortly before midnight Friday when air traffic controllers reporting seeing sparks. The plane went off a runway and crashed on a nearby road, she said.
Hospital spokeswoman Beth Frits said Barker and DJ AM, whose real name is Adam Goldstein, were in critical condition at a burn center in Augusta, Ga., about 75 miles southwest of Columbia.
NBC News reported that Barker, who also starred in MTV reality show "Meet the Barkers", had performed Friday night at an event alongside Perry Farrell, the former Jane's Addiction singer, as well as Gavin DeGraw and Goldstein.
Barker and Goldstein perform together under the name TRVSDJ-AM.
After Blink-182, Barker went on to form the rock band (+44) — pronounced "plus forty-four." He appeared in "Meet the Barkers" with former Miss USA Shanna Moakler, to whom he was married at the time. The show documented the former couple's lavish wedding and life.
Goldstein at one time was engaged to celebrity Nicole Richie.
(source - MSNBC)
What’s My Age Again.mp3 ~ Blink 182, from
Enema of the StateLabels: current events, pop-punk
Untitled Zeppelin post (take 7)
Consider this the Jimmy Page edition of my temporarily recurring feature here at the Licorice Pizza: The Ultimate Led Zeppelin Sessions disks.
There’s nothing on these recordings but Page, and while there are a couple of tracks with piano or keyboard in the background, primarily you’ve got the erstwhile Zeppelin axe-meister strumming away on an acoustic guitar.
The notes that came with the recordings indicate that the first three tracks, all titled “Lucifer Rising,” were recorded at Boleskine House, in Loch Ness, Scotland, during October and November 1973. The remaining 28 “untitled instrumentals” were recorded either in 1971 at Jimmy Page's home studio in the U.K., or at Headley Grange Studios during November 1973.
Here’s some additional information I found about the origin of the Lucifer Rising tracks: For a one-year period, starting in mid-1973, Page worked on the soundtrack of a film called Lucifer Rising. The film's director, Kenneth Anger, premiered the initial film rushes (accompanied by Page's score) at a movie theater in Los Angeles during September 1976.
Anger, who had a falling-out with Page before the film's completion, eventually commissioned a new soundtrack from an early protégé with whom he'd reconciled, Bobby Beausoleil. (You may recognize Beausoleil as also being one of Charles Manson’s protégés.) It was Beausoleil’s soundtrack that appeared in the commercially released version of the film. An audio recording from Page's score was later released as a bootleg titled
Solo Performances.
In the early 1980’s, Anger sold one of the early prints to a collector, who proceeded to copyright both the film and soundtrack. He had the audio from the soundtrack transferred and digitally enhanced before releasing it on his own Boleskine House Records label. The 23 minutes of audio was split in two, and pressed onto a clear blue vinyl 12-inch 45 RPM EP, in an edition of 1,000 copies.
The remaining tracks, may have come from 1971, as many of them bring to mind the riffs from The Rain Song, which was released in 1973 on
Houses of the Holy.
Bottom line – much of this is only going to appeal to the serious Zeppelin die-hards. I’m a huge fan and even I got a little tired of hearing Page just riffing on the guitar. No pyrotechnics here. Per usual, I’ve pulled a couple of the more interesting tracks, and then zipped the rest up for you.
Tracks 1-3: Lucifer Rising
Tracks 4-32: untitled instrumentals
1.
Lucifer Rising.mp3 9.
untitled instrumental.mp3 10.
untitled instrumental.mp3 22.
untitled instrumental.mp3 30.
untitled instrumental.mp3 32.
untitled instrumental.mp3 Unzip ‘em all right
here.
Labels: classic rock, Led Zeppelin, outtakes
Rick Wright, 1943-2008
By now I’m sure everyone’s heard the news about the passing of Rick Wright, one of the founding members of Pink Floyd. According to Wright’s spokesman, he died today after a short battle with cancer. Wright was 65.
The following note, from David Gilmour’s
Web site, is, I think, a wonderful tribute to Rick Wright’s career and what he meant to Pink Floyd and to music.
No one can replace Richard Wright. He was my musical partner and my friend.
In the welter of arguments about who or what was Pink Floyd, Rick’s enormous input was frequently forgotten.
He was gentle, unassuming and private but his soulful voice and playing were vital, magical components of our most recognised Pink Floyd sound.
I have never played with anyone quite like him. The blend of his and my voices and our musical telepathy reached their first major flowering in 1971 on “Echoes”. In my view all the greatest PF moments are the ones where he is in full flow. After all, without “Us and Them” and “The Great Gig In The Sky”, both of which he wrote, what would The Dark Side Of The Moon have been? Without his quiet touch the album Wish You Were Here would not quite have worked.
In our middle years, for many reasons he lost his way for a while, but in the early Nineties, with The Division Bell, his vitality, spark and humour returned to him and then the audience reaction to his appearances on my tour in 2006 was hugely uplifting and it's a mark of his modesty that those standing ovations came as a huge surprise to him, (though not to the rest of us).
Like Rick, I don't find it easy to express my feelings in words, but I loved him and will miss him enormously.
“The Great Gig in the Sky,” from
Dark Side of the Moon, is a Wright composition. Ironically, the song deals with death, specifically the emotions involved with death: “And I am not frightened of dying, any time will do – I don’t mind. Why should I be frightened of dying? There’s no reason for it, you’ve gotta go sometime.
I never said I was frightened of dying.”
The music of the song is said to represent the spectrum of emotions associated with death. It is both somber and uplifting, and even pained at times. One fan wrote, “The words in the piece are what we say; the vocals are what we feel. I think the song is about how we are extremely frightened and saddened by death and even the thought/concept of death, but cannot admit it.”
The Great Gig in the Sky.mp3 For more about Rick Wright, check out his
bio page at Pink Floyd online.
Labels: classic rock, current events
Music of the Sine Wave Variety
Few things make my miserable life happier than when a musician looks at my little blog and thinks, “Hmm, my music might fit there.” Then he or she or they send me a note along with some music and ask what I think. Actually, I’m flattered you’re looking for my opinion.
And that’s from whence comes today’s music. L.A.-based singer/songwriter Leerone sent me a very nice note a couple of weeks ago, complementing the variety of stuff I post here and asking if I cared to listen to her music. Flattery will get you everywhere with me, so of course I agreed. I found her music perfect for a day like today: a Sunday afternoon, lazing around the house, relaxing. I also found a lot of it really catchy; the sort of songs that stick in your head long after the CD is over. But there is a darkness in the lyrics that comes from her background.
Born in the Israeli port city of Haifa, Leerone’s (pronounced Leeee-rhone. Like the “Lee” of Leroy and the “Rone” of Tyrone) family relocated to America when she was still an infant. Growing up, she attended school in suburban L.A. while spending summers in her Middle Eastern homeland. “The experience definitely changed me,” she says. “I think having two homes makes you more open and critical of who you are, because you're more aware of the things that are shaping you.”
Leerone says her world changed when she first heard PJ Harvey's 1992 album
Dry. Riveted by Harvey's psychosexual meditations on contemporary romance, Leerone knew her days as a passive music listener were over. “I loved that record, but at the same time I was jealous," she said. “It was killing me. I felt like, ‘I want to do that.’”
Earlier this year, Leerone released her first full-length album,
Imaginary Biographies. She described the album as “a cohesive mélange of mod British pop, pianissimo balladry, rococo classicism, minimalist Euro-rock, soul melting love songs, top-hatted show tunes, haunting musique noir, and German opera of the Three-penny sort.” That pretty much covers everything, I think. Less esoteric comparisons might be Fiona Apple or Tori Amos.
“Care for some Whiskey” was more or less the first single from
Imaginary Biographies. It’s also the song that hooked me into Leerone. Maybe it’ll do the same to you.
Care for some Whiskey.mp3 (
NOTE: Top photo by Walter Briski Jr., from Leerone’s Web site.)
Labels: indie
9/11
Long Road.mp3 ~ Eddie Vedder, with Mike McCready and Neil Young, from
America: A Tribute to HeroesLabels: current events, Neil Young, Pearl Jam
John the Revelator
The other day, when I was posting music by Lonnie Pitchford, I found another interesting song on the
Harry Smith Connection album: a version of “John the Revelator” by Ethel Caffie.
At the risk of sounding ignorant, all I really knew about this song was that the White Stripes had covered it and I assumed it was a traditional blues or folk song. My original thought for today’s post was to post Caffie’s version alongside the White Stripes’ version. As I dug around a little, though, I learned more about the song. I also learned exactly who John the Revelator was.
By way of some background, I’ve pretty much lapsed in my church attendance and religious studies. If I have ever heard the name “John the Revelator” outside of the context of the song, I’ve long since forgotten.
So, for my fellow heathens, here’s today’s lesson: John the Revelator is/was St. John, one of Jesus’ Apostles. In addition to several other New Testament works, he also wrote the Book of Revelations. Hence, “Revelator.” Tradition holds that St. John was exiled to the island of Patmos where he received a vision of Christ. It was there that he wrote of his revelations.
Now, as far as the song, it
is a traditional gospel/blues song. In the chorus, John is writing “the book of the seven seals.” As far as I could find, the earliest recorded version is from Blind Willie Johnson, dating to 1930. And after all that trouble, the White Stripes don’t even have a full version of the song; they just included part of it in their song “Cannon” from their debut disk.
Just from looking around, I know there are dozens of versions of “John the Revelator” out there. I read that both Beck and the Blues Brothers have covered it, but I couldn’t find those versions. Here are just some of the ones I enjoyed the most.
Cannon.mp3 ~
White StripesJohn the Revelator.mp3 ~
Blind Willie JohnsonJohn the Revelator.mp3 ~
Son HouseJohn the Revelator.mp3 ~
Ethel CaffieJohn the Revelator.mp3 ~
Gov’t MuleJohn the Revelator.mp3 ~
Chicken Legs WeaverLabels: blues, covers, White Stripes
Blues Calendar Blues: Lonnie Pitchford
Lest anyone think I've forgotten the Blues Calendar blues, it's still on - I've just been thrown a little off my usual rhythm by the time I spent away from home the last couple of weeks.
This month’s featured artist is Lonnie Pitchford. When Pitchford came up this month, the name sounded familiar, but I couldn’t identify anything I’d ever heard from him. It turns out he only released one solo album,
All Around Man, although his music appears on several compilation albums. He also played slide on John Mellencamp’s 1996 album,
Mr. Happy Go Lucky.
From the calendar:
Lonnie Pitchford loved to play the diddley bow. This instrument, not even mentioned in most American dictionaries, is a single wire strung between two nails with a tin box as bridge: plucked, it resonates at different pitches depending on where a slide is placed. The slide might be a classic bottleneck, made by snapping the neck from a glass bottle and then heating it until it can be kneaded smooth, or the steel socket from a Sears socket wrench, or the blade of a jackknife. Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, and B.B. King all made that wire sing. And the name of the instrument, reversed, provided the stage name for the man who transformed the blues into rock and roll.
Pitchford (1955-1998) spent his life in Mississippi, absorbing and playing traditional Delta blues on guitar, piano, and diddley bow. Among his teachers were Eugene Powell and Robert Lockwood Jr., the stepson of Robert Johnson.
Nearly all sources are as lacking in detail as that from the calendar. Pitchford’s
New York Times obituary indicates he made his first diddley bow from baling wire nailed to the side of his family's house in rural Lexington. By 12, he was sharing a guitar with his brothers and was performing outside of Mississippi by the time he was a teenager.
As you can imagine, I had a bit of a difficult time tracking down some music, but I managed to find a couple of songs. The first, “Old Dog Blue,” is straight-up Delta blues. It comes from
The Harry Smith Connection: A Live Tribute To The Anthology Of American Folk Music, a 1998 compilation that also features performances from Roger McGuinn and Jeff Tweedy. The other song, “One String Boogie,” comes from the
American Folk Blues Festival Live ‘83 album. It features Pitchford tearing up that diddley bow.
Old Dog Blue.mp3 One String Boogie.mp3Labels: blues
Untitled Zeppelin post (take 6)
At long last, it’s the long-delayed, finally got home, waiting on Ike to flatten Miami edition of my temporarily recurring feature here at the Licorice Pizza: The Ultimate Led Zeppelin Sessions disks.
Of the disks I’ve posted so far, this sixth disk is the most fun to listen to. Zeppelin sounds like a garage band, running through loose versions of old fifties songs and trying out songs that would appear on
Physical Graffiti.
According to the notes that came with these files, these tracks come from two different sound checks: 1-4 were recorded at the Gaumont Theatre in Southampton, England, on Jan. 21 1973. The note on the remaining tracks is unclear. It says, “Sound check, unknown venue May 3 '73 - not Chicago Auditorium, Chicago, Ill. July 6 '73.” If this means the recordings come from May 3, that would have been the day before Zep’s North American tour started at Fulton County Arena in Atlanta, so they may have been recorded there.
This 1973 tour was Zeppelin’s biggest to date, ultimately grossing more than $4 million. At the same time, the marathon performances were draining to the band, as Jimmy Page noted in a 1975 interview with William Burroughs for
Crawdaddy magazine: [W]e were playing [sets] for three hours solid, and physically that was a real...I mean, when I came back from the last tour I didn't know where I was,” he said. “I didn't even know where I was going. We ended up in New York and the only thing that I could relate to was the instrument onstage. I just couldn't...I was just totally and completely spaced out.”
Like usual, I’ve pulled some of the more interesting tracks, and then zipped the whole thing up for you.
Complete Track List:1. Drums and Mellotron Tuning/Love Me
2. Frankfurt Special
3.
King Creole.mp3 4. Love Me (reprise)
5.
Sugar Baby (aka Strawberry Jam).mp3 6-7. Sugar Baby (aka Strawberry Jam)
8. The Wanton Song
9-12. The Rover
13-16. Night Flight
17.
School Days.mp3 18.
Nadine.mp3 19.
Round and Round.mp3 20.
Move On Down the Line.mp3 21.
Please Don’t Tease.mp3 22-23. Move It
24. Dynamite
25.
Shakin’ All Over.mp3 26. Hungry For Love
27. I'll Never Get Over You
28.
Reelin’ and Rockin’.mp329. Drums and Mellotron Tuning
Unzip it all hereLabels: guitar heroes, Led Zeppelin, outtakes
Anyone care for a coupla 'grams?
Today’s music is nothing too new, even to me. It’s just a couple of songs from a band I’ve heard recently on Little Steven’s Underground Garage.
The Holograms, from Los Angeles, released
Night of 1000 Ex-Boyfriends in 2005. The album, somewhat accurately described as the “sonically-satisfying results of Josie and the Pussycats getting carjacked by the Misfits,” caught the ear of Kim Fowley, a DJ on Sirius’ Underground Garage channel. Fowley played up the ‘grams on his radio show, and personally gave a copy of
Night of 1000 Ex-Boyfriends to the main Underground Garager himself, Little Steven Van Zandt. Thanks in no small part to that strong support, “Are You Ready for It,” from their debut topped Billboard’s “Garage Rock” charts in early 2006 and was also the Underground Garage’s “Coolest Song in the World” for a period.
Bassist Samantha “Sammi” Franklin founded the Holograms in 2000. Sammi decided to start a band after interning at a record label. It was a “harebrained idea,” she told Hustler magazine in a December 2006 interview. “We could hardly play, but we just kept going. It was initially a very humbling beginning.”
The Holograms since have gone through a few line-up changes. Drummer Yumi Adachi, vocalist/keyboardist Jen Nguyen and guitarist Jean Hsu are the current members and have been with Sammi the last couple of years.
The Holograms are hard at work on their sophomore release,
The New I Love You. They promise it will be “riddled with joyfully debauched gems” and be the same sort of infectious bubble-scum pop as their debut.
“Scene Whore” (“a foray into nonsensical nightclubbing habits”) comes from
Night of 1000 Ex-Boyfriends. This is the song I’ve been hearing on the Underground Garage that sent me in search of more ‘grams. “Your Ex is Turning Tricks Again” comes from a 2004 Teenacide Records compilation
Hey! It's a Teenacide Pajama Party. It’s a different version than you’ll find on
1000 Ex-Boyfriends; more crunchy and guitar-oriented, with the keyboards mixed way down.
Scene Whore.mp3 Your Ex is Turning Tricks Again (alternate version).mp3Labels: pop-punk
Jerry Reed, 1937-2008
I need to take time to comment on the death from emphysema yesterday of country music legend Jerry Reed. He was 71.
I was never what you would call a huge fan of Reed. Like a lot of people my age, I remember him best from the Smokey and the Bandit movies with Burt Reynolds. He played Cletus “Snowman” Snow and sang the title track, “Eastbound and Down.”
I also remember Reed’s string of hits through the 70’s, mostly because my uncle used to play them constantly. For a time, I don’t think I could go to his house without hearing songs such as “When You're Hot, You're Hot,” “East Bound and Down,” and “The Bird.”
For some reason, though, the song that stands out in my mind and always reminds me of my uncle and being at his house as a kid, is “Amos Moses.” My uncle, of course, was nothing like the one-armed alligator poacher who could “eat his weight in groceries” and was named “after a man of the cloth.” On the rare occasions these days when I hear “Amos Moses” it never fails to take me back to when I was eight years old and up to some sort of mischief with my younger cousins.
As time passed, Reed’s musical career took a backseat to his acting ambitions. Besides co-starring in all three “Bandit” movies, he also appeared in Hot Stuff, The Survivors, Bat 21, and The Waterboy, to name just a couple. Reed never entirely disappeared, however: In 1998, Primus covered “Amos Moses” on their
Rhinoplasty EP. That same year, Reed teamed up with Waylon Jennings, Mel Tillis, and Bobby Bare in the group Old Dogs. They recorded one album,
Old Dogs. (
CMT.com has a full Reed biography.)
“For 50 years, all I’d done was take, take, take,” Reed told the Nashville
Tennessean in an interview last year. “I decided from now on it is going to be giving. And I’m way behind. We’re all way behind. We live this life like what’s down here is what it’s all about. We’re temporary, son, like a wisp of smoke.”
Amos Moses.mp3 East Bound and Down.mp3Labels: country music, current events
“If we can’t afford to buy antiques, we’ll just copulate”
This is one of those beautiful posts that’s guaranteed to offend someone. I hope.
I got an email the other day telling me about the new album from a band called Jesus H. Christ and the Four Hornsmen of the Apocalypse. I’ve mentioned before that I am a sucker for an interesting band name so I knew right away I had to see what these New Yorkers are about. Here’s what I learned (bio mostly swiped from the JHC&TFHotA
Web site):
“Jesus H. Christ and the Four Hornsmen of the Apocalypse are an eight-piece rock/pop/metal/psychedelic/cabaret band – sometimes all in the same song. Likened to B-52s meets X-Ray Spex meets Weezer meets Blood Sweat and Tears, the JHC ‘difference’ is horny, thinking-person's, emotionally-bare lyrics protectively cloaked in hard candy pop.
Poignant, laughable, awash in sound and fury, signifying almost nothing, but saying everything that no one usually dares to say, JHC&TFHotA are really just eager to be held and loved. At which point they'll become distant and forget to buy toilet paper.”
JHC&TFHotA’s new album,
Happier Than You, will be out October 28. You can preview tracks and buy the album at
CD Baby. To sort of whet your appetite, I have a couple of songs from their 2006 self-titled debut album, which
The New Yorker called, “One of 10 CDs of 2006 worth a second listen.”
Connecticut’s for F*cking.mp3 Nipples.mp3 ~~~~~
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NOTE: I found that if I use the Ethernet cable at this hotel, I can get around a little faster than with the wireless connection. So, I’m going to hold strong to my promise of trying to post this week. And I also promise to resume the Zeppelin series once I get back home.)
Labels: "alternative", indie, new wave, pop-punk
In case you didn’t know, the annual Farm Aid show took place a little over a week ago (June 20, to be exact). The Pretenders, Jakob Dylan, and Arlo Guthrie were among the acts that performed alongside Farm Aid stalwarts Willie Nelson, John Mellancamp, and Neil Young. 
