Evie Sands

Evie Sands "I Can't Let Go". 

What a great song!

Simone Sings Cohen

Nina Simone performing Leonard Cohen's Suzanne (1969).

Not the first Nina Simone post and it won't be the last.  She is without peer.

Rubber Factory

Standard-bearers of the precious essence! 

YEAH HUP!

Gold Medal in the Rock & Roll Olympics!

It's 1977 and Radio Birdman are ripping through "New Race" at Paddington Town Hall in Sydney, Australia.  Ann Arbor, Michigan transplant Deniz Tek blasts a out a ragoid solo that must be heard.  In addition to frying faces with his guitar Tek served time as a U.S. Navy flight surgeon with the Marines and is a licensed physician specializing in emergency and aerospace medicine.  We need to clone this guy!  We are but pre-Cambrian polyps by comparison.

Birdbrain!

Allen Ginsberg with The Gluons Birdbrain 7"(1981)

Flat tire blues

Big Bill Broonzy playing "Hey Hey" in 1957. 

Recently I had a flat-tire and was in a real pinch. I pulled into the first service station I saw and asked if I could borrow the air compressor.  It was my good fortune that two gentlemen inside the garage filled the tire, found the leak (a screw), and plugged it.  I was on my way in five minutes.   What does this have to do with Big Bill Broonzy?  Good Time Tonight, the Roots & Blues  Broonzy collection was playing on the car stereo when the older mechanic jumped in to roll the car forward while the other fella looked for the leak with some soapy water.  The man behind the wheel heard the music and asked, "Is that a black guy?", and then followed with "that's real old blues isn't it?"  It seemed he had never heard anything like it was clearly enchanted.  Understandable.  I promised him a copy and will be dropping it off tomorrow. 

The Studs Terkel interview with Broonzy is available from Smithsonian Folkways.

 Broonzy's 1955 autobiography.

 

The Easybeats

Sydney, Australia's The Easybeats playing Sorry on The Coca Cola Special (1966).  Rock & Roll in all its frenzied glory! Go-Go,Ya Know Know!   Aussie Choreographer/Dancer Ross Coleman is leading the steppers in some boss moves, if there is a name for that dance I need to know it.  That's George Young on rhythm guitar, older brother to Malcolm and Angus.  Young co-authored most of The Easybeats songs and went on to produce AC/DC's first five records. Witness the birth of Oz Rock!

In the 1970's, Singer Stevie Wright was subjected to Deep Sleep Therapy for the treatment of drug and alchohol addiction.  The "therapy", as administered by Dr. Harry Bailey at the Chelmsford Private Hospital, involved the application of electroconvulsive shock therapy applied to patients placed in a state of barbituate or tranquilizer induced unconsciousness.  Wright survived, but a 1980's  inquiry attributed twenty-six deaths to Bailey's treatment.  Stevie Wright, and many more suffered life long after-effects including brain damage. 

R.I.P. Alexander Cockburn

What does it mean to be a radical?

"...challenging everything that's put before you...essentially means really unsparing criticism of the system, and beyond that, a constructive vision of how things could be better."

                                                                         Alexander Cockburn

                                                                                                        

The late, great Tuli Kupferberg (September 28, 1923-July 12, 2010) circa 1998 interviewing Alexander Cockburn (June 6, 1941-July 21, 2012) for Revolting News which airs on Manhattan's Neighborhood Network.  A great conversation about journalism, the press,  and a whole range of additional topics.  Well worth your time.  I consider Cockburn a personal hero, whose columns taught me to maintain a critical skepticism toward all received wisdom, orthodoxy and propaganda.  What a pleasure it is watching these two fellas speak with the freedom and humor found exclusively among radicals who have never given any consideration to how their opinions, ideas, and creative energy might be viewed by the establishment.  Cockburn was a genuine radical and his passing leaves a huge void in the realm of the truth-tellers.  Check out this three hour profile/interview with Cockburn from C-SPAN's, In Depth (2007). 

Out of the Blue

Roxy Music playing Out of the Blue on German television (1975).  Witness a great moment in televised live music, this band smokes!  Check out Brian Eno replacement Eddie Jobson's violin solo!  I'm not sure if the American music press ever recognized Roxy Music as the rock & roll/punk avant-garde that they truly were.  Every time I see a clip from the 1970's RM appear to have arrived from outer-space already having mastered some of the musical instruments found on earth, but uninfluenced by any existing musical style or genre.  Out of the Blue, indeed.

Ode to Life

Don Pullen, Ode to Life.

 A solo piano performance from The Boston Globe Jazz Festival 1992. 

This is beautiful music.  Thanks to aparxa for the youtube post. 

Funky Kingston

Toots and the Maytals, Funky Kingston (1972).  Funky Piano!

Funky 8 yr. old! 

Lamento De Un Guajiro

Johnny Pacheco and Ismael Miranda in a street performance from Our Latin Thing (1971)

Soul Power!

Wow!  A 1971 Italian Television studio clip featuring James Brown, Bobby Byrd, the JB's and Bootsy Psychoticbumpschool Collins on bass.  100 proof! Get drunk on the funk!

Maggot Mastery

Guitar monk, Michael Hampton destroys on Eddie "Maggot Brain" Hazel's signature 'lectric smokery.  Maggot Overlord George Clinton is King of the Butterfly People.  The United States of Funkalica is where bumpschool lives.  All Power to the People! 

Goddamn Right

The real stuff!   From Nine Pound Hammer's 2004 Kentucky Breakdown.   Scot Luallen's song ending quadruple scream (2:18) is simply stupendous, Goddamn Right.

Taana Gardner

Taana Gardner takin' you back to '81. Recently played on WFMU (Jack Mello) and perpertually spinning in my head ever since. Heartbeat, in its extended Larry Levan produced club mix glory.  Move ya!

Star Spangled Eyes

The most radical song in the history of American popular music.  

In the late 1990's Fortunate Son was edited into nationalist pap to sell godamn Wrangler Jeans .  Wrangler, who closed their last U.S. sewing plant in 1995, ran a flagsturbating television commercial that included only the lines, "some folks are born made to wave the flag/ooh they're red white and blue." Yep. Here is a company  manufacturing jeans in Mexican maquiladoras wrapping itself in the American flag.  They may as well burn the flag along with all the U.S. jobs they've outsourced. 

With the support of both political parties  the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was signed into law on December 8, 1993.  The outsourcing of U.S. jobs was now being aggressively facilitated by the American worker's own government.  Our nation's unions don't get a pass either.  The AFL-CIO's failure to mount a campaign of resistance helped seal the deal.  Offering up "reluctant" acquiescence was a monumental failure of labor's leadership and a disaster for U.S. workers and their communities.  What's that you say?  Surely organized labor would not sit quietly?  Indeed they haven't! American unions have for the most part continued to use member dues to subsidize the duplicitous Democratic Party.   Had the Democrats withheld support for NAFTA it would never have seen the light of day.  Perhaps it is a given that our political system exists to serve internationalized corporate power, but for labor and "progressives" to offer automatic support to a party that continuously crosses the aisle in the service of this destructive agenda is a disgrace.  Enough already!

At the very least, we should no longer tolerate the fraudulent patriotism of corporations nor the servile political class that slavishly does their bidding. 

Love and eternal respect to John Fogerty for tellin' like it is. 

Happy Independence Day! 

"Fortunate Son"

Some folks are born made to wave the flag
Ooh, they're red, white and blue
And when the band plays "Hail to the chief"
Ooh, they point the cannon at you, Lord
It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no senator's son, son
It ain't me, it ain't me; I ain't no fortunate one, no

Yeah!
Some folks are born silver spoon in hand
Lord, don't they help themselves, oh
But when the taxman comes to the door
Lord, the house looks like a rummage sale, yes

It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no millionaire's son, no
It ain't me, it ain't me; I ain't no fortunate one, no

Some folks inherit star spangled eyes
Ooh, they send you down to war, Lord
And when you ask them, "How much should we give?"
Ooh, they only answer More! more! more! yoh

Cavett, Stills, and Hippies

Dick Cavett and a circle of hippies.

Harmony In My Head

The Steve Diggle penned, Harmony In My Head (1979). 

 The Buzzcocks are without peer.