isaac hayes

 a blizzard in harlem: picture by roisin mcginn.

Contrary to popular conception, Stax legend Isaac Lee Hayes began life August 20, 1942, in Covington, Tennessee. All the way from Memphis to the Church of Scientology and South Park. Won't you tell me how to get to Sesame Street ?

▼ ISAAC HAYES: ELLIE'S LOVE THEME from "Shaft" 2 x LP (Stax Enterprise) 1971 (US)
▼ ISAAC HAYES: A FRIEND'S PLACE from "Shaft" 2 x LP (Stax Enterprise) 1971 (US)

SHAFT

quick on the draw

SibLINGSHOT ON THE BLEACHERS aims to keep you posted.

MC5

high times.

Coincidentally, a few weeks back when taking the underground (subway) back home with Rosa and the kids on a Saturday evening, I watched a young teenage guy and his girlfriend slouched on the platform waiting for a ride in the opposite direction.

They looked a little high, or maybe just pumped with adrenalin and trying to weather it out.

The guy was wearing a black t-shirt emblazoned with the MC5's colors. Striped pants and leather jacket. Very cool. Very "retro".

I'll admit I had to wonder for a second if he was really into Wayne Kramer and the Detroit five, or whether he'd just picked the shirt off the rack in some hip clothes shop ; like all these pretty adolescent girls who were running around in Ramones t-shirts a few years back, owing to the fact that some high street fashion buyer had just saturated the chain stores with another seasonal marketing ploy. None of them seemed to know who Joey Ramone had been at all. They all looked like they'd just stepped off of a San Fernando Valley porn set.



Really, I think I was just jealous there for a second sitting on that train. Jealous of the fact that t-shirt wouldn't have fitted me these days, or clung instead to all the wrong places. It's not a pleasant trait. I know. I felt vaguely like some decrepit cynical Roman sat in the senate.

Or Nero mincing about in the Ampitheatre ; thumbs up, thumbs down.

It was all immaterial to the guy and his girl. Quite rightly so.

I hope they had a great night out. Kicked out the jams.

For an honest to goodness reality check, check out what Jon has to say here. I think he would have been pleased.

▼ MC5: SHAKIN' STREET from "Back in the USA" LP (Atlantic) 1970 (US)

BUY IT, RENT IT, OR STEAL IT

terence mckenna & timothy leary

you get elves ; everybody does.


"In a dialog with Dr. Leary, Terence McKenna talks about smoking DMT, seeing the elves, aliens up the kazoo, and experimenting with mushrooms in the Amazon basin. Very cool music behind this."

The Trip Receptacles is an articulate and - let's all be serious - wildly entertaining site, but I haven't ventured down their path for a good while. Don't forget to take some bread crumbs ; you may find yourself taking so many funny turns you'll need a sherpa to get back.


▼ TERENCE MCKENNA & DR. TIMOTHY LEARY: YOU GET ELVES, EVERYBODY DOES from "Instant Insanity Drugs: The Trip Receptacles" MP3 archive (KPFA Berkeley) ? (US)

Make mine an Owsley.

ken boothe

White Man In Hammersmith Palais (1978) :

"Ken Boothe... UK pop reggae
With backing bands sound systems
And if they've got anything to say
There's many black ears here to listen"

Produced by The Cimarons & Webster Shrowder & Lloyd Charmers. Recorded at Chalk Farm Studios, London and Federal Studios, Kingston, Jamaica.

With percussion, piano and organ by Lloyd Charmers

▼ KEN BOOTHE: EVERYTHING I OWN from "Everything I Own" 45 (Trojan) 1974 (UK)

lalo schifrin / pete wingfield

It was a very hot afternoon here in Glasgow today. A carnival procession sealed off the traffic on Byres Road in the west end the entire day, and people trudged around intoxicated in sandals trying hard to believe they were in Notting Hill or New Orleans. The colours all looked a little tired to me, but that might just be down to the fact I am often a cantankerous old fart.

The best part of the day for me was watching our kids blowing these deafening air horns as we filed Indian fashion down the choked thoroughfare between the Botanic Gardens and Dumbarton Road at the foot of the hill. At £1 a pop, it was a bargain just to see the pained expressions on all and sundry.

I hate loud inconsiderate noise myself at the best of times. But when it's pre-adolescents causing the commotion during a carnival the police can't really complain. It's especially gratifying when the children responsible are, for a change, one's own.


▼ LALO SCHIFRIN: BULLITT (END TITLE) from "Bullitt" LP (Warner Bros.) 1968 (US)
▼ PETE WINGFIELD: 18 WITH A BULLET from "Breakfast Special" LP (Island) 1975 (UK)

PURCHASE BULLITT (OST) [EXTRA TRACKS]

the stooges

gimme danger.

More of a Saturday night feast than a Sunday morning pick-me-up, but what the f@ck.

From Iggy & the Stooges' third vinyl outing, recorded September 10 - October 6, 1972 at CBS Studios, London, and co-written with Stooges newcomer (relatively speaking), James Williamson.

▼ IGGY & THE STOOGES: PENETRATION from "Raw Power" LP (CBS) 1973 (US/UK)

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endless nameless

Head over tonight to Art Decade for a 10.13.1991 Seattle special.

the who

closing time: don't you all have homes to go to ?

Possibly my favourite 45 from Acton's finest. With a great Vaudvillian turn from Mr. Moon, to boot.

▼ THE WHO: DOGS (mono) from "Dogs b/w Call Me Lightning" 45 (Track/Polydor) 1968 (UK)

an interlude: fairport convention

I shouldered my way through the swinging fire door which separates our living room from the hall and slammed my ass into the rotating chair in front of my PC. My face was flushed and beaded with perspiration.

"What's wrong ? " Rosa enquired. She was reclining on the sagging settee in front of where the television used to be before it caught fire and burned itself out. The radio was not quite tuned to a talk show station. "Are you alright ?"

"It's nothing," I said. Lying as usual. "I can feel a post coming on..."

"God damn you !" she yelled. "You're always on that fucking computer ! You might as well wire yourself into it permenantly and be done with it."

She hurled her shoe across the empty space between us.

"But I could be dead tomorrow, " I whined. "I've got to get it all out before it's too late !"

Once, a long time ago, I was arguing with a work colleague regarding the merits or not of Gilbert O'Sullivan when he turned to me in disgust. Gilbert was a highly prolific singer & songwriter, he informed me. Just look at the number of hits he achieved. You can't argue with that. I turned to him and smiled evilly.

That's right, I said. Sometimes I go for a shit three times a day.

Look at me now.


▼ FAIRPORT CONVENTION: WHO KNOWS WHERE THE TIME GOES ? from "Unhalfbricking" LP (Island) 1969 (UK)

REMASTERED

caetano veloso

come on irene.

Caetano Veloso's second LP, apparently, was recorded during the period both Veloso and Gilberto Gil were slammed behind bars for disrespect in the face of the then Brazillian military dictatorship. Imprisoned in dreadful conditions in Salvador, Caetano somehow recorded the vocal and guitar segments and smuggled them out to Rogério Duprat in São Paulo, who then bravely went about arranging the tracks for commercial release.

The finished "product" was stripped of any image of the Brazillian star owing to the fact he'd had his head forcibly shaved prior to confinement - i say "forcibly" because it really wasn't the fashion back then, despite Leonard Cohen going out on a limb for "Live Songs". The signature on the album's cover is the sole statement of individual ownership.

Had it not been for this album being released to international acclaim, it is highly likely Veloso may have "disappeared" like so many others.


▼ CAETANO VELOSO: IRENE from "Caetano Veloso" LP (Philips) 1969 (Brazil)

MORE CAETANO

grateful dead

through a scanner darkly.

"The phrase seems to have come to the English language by way of the astronomers who spoke Middle High German, who in turn borrowed it from Latin, translating the phrase "stella obscura", used by Roman astronomers to describe a faint star."

Recorded at the Shrine Auditorium, Los Angeles, CA, 1968.


▼ GRATEFUL DEAD: DARK STAR from "Two From The Vault" 2 x CD (Grateful Dead Records) 1992 (US)

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incredible string band

peel me.

My celtic sibling, Robbie Williamson's paean to wan lit alabaster skin. And looking back sideways through time.

▼ THE INCREDIBLE STRING BAND: FIRST GIRL I LOVED from "5000 Spirits Or The Layers Of The Onion" (Elektra) 1967 (UK)

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communiqué #5: alabama kids

I've just this moment stepped out a bath hot enough to rattle Lee Marvin in Cat Ballou. Jane Fonda was especially sexy in that movie, don't you think ?

Anyway, while I was stewing under the suds I got to thinking of the Alabama Kids.

I lived in the Bastion in Breda - in the south of Holland - for a short spell in the early 90s. Breda was the bithplace of Colonel Tom Parker, I believe ; I have it on good authority. The Alabama Kids were either from Breda or Eindhoven. Rotterdam possibly. They were a great group, and it's always been a minor grievance to me that I neglected to purchase their CD when I was out there. My brain was a little fried at the time. A lot of bad shit happened then, too. I think I may have met them once but I really can't remember.

They were a good deal more exciting to me than The Nits, another Dutch band from the same period.

I still have their 1991/2 album on cassette somewhere, but the fidelity is dreadful. I'd dearly like to post them up on this site. If anybody dropping in here from the Netherlands has the opportunity to set the record straight, please either leave a comment or e-mail me at the address quoted on the right hand of the page.

Shine on you crazy diamond.

Cheers.

the cramps

mr. mystic's uncle bill out on the pull.

Huge fans of Boon County's Hasil Adkins, Ivy Rorschach and longtime beau Lux Interior invite us all to a Texan hoedown with all the frills.

Just don't do it on my doorstep.

▼ THE CRAMPS: LET'S GET F*CKED UP from "Flamejob" LP/CD (Epitaph/Creation) 1994 (US)

burt bacharach & hal david

show me the way.

▼ DIONNE WARWICK: DO YOU KNOW THE WAY TO SAN JOSE ? from "Dionne Warwick In Valley Of The Dolls" LP (Scepter) 1968 (US)

▼ FRANKIE GOES TO HOLLYWOOD: SAN JOSE (THE WAY) from "Welcome To The Pleasure Dome" LP (ZTT) 1984 (UK)

william s. burroughs

paging dr. benway!

Jon mentioned somewhere that Burroughs was on a list of beatniks he met. I can't remember where, but drop in on his site Poetry Is For Assholes. It's an interesting visit.

The following track is from Gus Van Sant's 1985 release, "the Elvis of Letters", produced shortly before he dropped music in favour of film. Apparently, most of the original vocal recordings featured were culled from the 1966 "Call Me Burroughs" LP, which i've never had the pleasure of hearing.

Van Sant employed a similar "cut up" technique on this record to the one credited to Burroughs and fellow beatnik, Bryon Gysin in their pioneering early work. Burroughs, of course, subsequently returned the favour and delivered a significant cameo performance in Van Sant's "Drugstore Cowboy".

It works extremely well.

▼ WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS & GUS VAN SANT: MILLIONS OF IMAGES from "The Elvis Of Letters" EP (Cutout/Tim Kerr Records) 1985 (US)

the neon boys

the neon boys circa 1972-3: note drummer Billy Ficca's passing resemblance to one Robert Zimmerman.

Well before Richard Lloyd came to town, Tom Miller and Richard Meyers had a masterplan.

Having forged an alliance at school in Delaware, the pair lit out and were picked up by the police in Alabama for arson. The apocryphal tale goes that when routinely questioned, Tom Miller replied he was cold. Meyers looked at Tom and promptly stated for the record that he just "wanted to see it burn."

And so it was that in Alabama Richard Hell was born.

Miller followed Meyers to NYC in 1969 where Hell had already soilicted the use of an offset printing press and begun publishing his own poetry before age twenty-one. Poems quickly appeared in print in Rolling Stone and lesser periodicals. A literary bent was precociously established.

The road to perdition was paved with good intention.

In April 1973, Verlaine, Hell and Ficca recorded six demos which were to later appear illegitimately on Shake's bootleg EP. One of these proto punk demos was "Love Comes In Spurts" which Hell would later re-record with the Voidoids featuring Robert Quine on guitar.

This is a truly fascinating document, as they say. Just don't expect to hear anything approaching the psychotropic tingle of Television's "Little Johnny Jewel".



▼ THE NEON BOYS: THAT'S ALL I KNOW (RIGHT NOW) from "The Neon Boys" EP (Shake) 1973/2001 (US)
▼ THE NEON BOYS: LOVE COMES IN SPURTS from "The Neon Boys" EP (Shake) 1973/2001 (US)

flamin' groovies

Time to get down n' dirty, and hose down the sump.

It would be hard to overestimate the impact of the Groovies on the British pub circuit from the mid to late 70s. From the gritty R&B of Wilko Johnson's Dr. Feelgood to the jangling guitars of a hundred power pop wannabes, the spectre of San Francisco's little league champions was never far away. They might not have been as big as the Grateful Dead but they were probably more influential in the UK in terms of inciting a minor riot.

Co-written between Cyril Jordan and Roy Loney before Loney's departure in 1971, this is the sound of someone having second thoughts long after the second helping has spiralled into an orgy of Roman proportions.

▼ FLAMIN' GROOVIES: SLOW DEATH from "Grease" EP (Skydog) 1972 (US)

FLAME GRILLED

the left banke

Baroque splendor from (lefte to right): Steve Martin (Caro) ; Rick Brand ; Mike Brown (Lookovsky) ; George Cameron ; and Tom Finn. The shot is from a Smash Records publicity still.

If you haven't yet checked out Charlemange's Left Banke fan site, follow the link permanently filed on the right of this page. You can find another Left Banke post here, previously on Art Decade.

▼ THE LEFT BANKE: PRETTY BALLERINA* from "Walk Away Renée/Pretty Ballerina" LP (Smash) 1967 (US)

* I had already cued this one up and posted it when I belatedly recalled that Brendan over on The Rising Storm had got the jump on me (way back) and posted the song I had in mind first. Get it here.

BUY IT

communiqué #4

Humour me. Hit that little green button at the foot of the page. I don't know what it does yet ; but every time it gets punched I feel a little better.

willie hutch vs. the GHA

Harlem, NYC, 40 years ago. How soon is now ?

Repeatedly, I have asked the GHA - the authority which houses me and thousands of others here in Glasgow - for paint in order to rid my landing of grafitti and the smears of unwanted guests who frequent the building late into the night to either inject drugs or get drunk while averting police intervention.

The entrance to the building is "protected" by CCTV and the concierge service is overstretched and underpaid.

I get up in the morning to take my son to school and we step gingerly over suspicious puddles to call the lift. We finally get down to the foyer and find fresh daubings on the walls under the 24 hour big brother scrutiny of strategically placed cameras. No one knows who these uninvited visitors could be. Their names are scrawled and etched into the brickwork. No dogs are allegedly allowed in the building, but the lifts are often swimming in urine.

They clean it up and the dogs keep on coming. Large, vicious looking mastifs with studded collars. Kept on a leash by chain-smoking midgets - mental or otherwise - who require a dog to pack a punch. Smoking is not permitted in these buildings either. It can not be healthy for a Rottweiler to live in a multi-storey block ; I suppose they enjoy having to do their toilet in an elevator as little as I relish stepping in it. Perhaps they will be rescued some day and retired to live on a farm.

I will invest in a baseball bat in the meantime, I tell myself.

Many Somalians live in our block. They are refugees from the war torn regions of the Somali Democratic Republic and they have nowhere else to stay. There are Iraqis and Congolese and people from Romania too. Most of them are good people. They don't do drugs and their children attend the same school as mine. At the same time, there are African youths - ex boy soldiers, perhaps - who think it is cool to live in a project more dangerous than the ones they see on MTV.

They openly sell Crystal Methamphetamine outside from the benches in front. This government puts equal opportunity high on its agenda.

I have repeatedly asked for paint but the housing authority refuses. First, they told me not to worry because they have a contract to take take care of it themselves. Then they told me it was really a Health & Safety issue. I might slip or something and perhaps break my neck. Anyway, they added, these blocks will be coming down soon. How soon ? I asked. We don't know, they replied ; there's nowhere else to put all those people right now.

I laughed. It might take another five years. Two, at the earliest.

What's five years to a ten-year-old boy ?

▼ WILLIE HUTCH: BROTHER'S GONNA WORK IT OUT from "The Mack" LP (Motown) 1973 (US)

MR. MACK

serge gainsbourg & ms. bardot

Arthur Penn's 1967 magnum opus.

Another outing for Serge here, this time with euro icon Brigitte Bardot along for the ride. Arthur Penn's glamorised portrayal of Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow's own suicidal ride into bullet riddled oblivion was a huge international hit slap bang in the middle of the summer of love, of course, and Serge Gainsbourg was far from immune to its charm.

I mentioned to Emmett previously that I considered Serge's regular forays into extended play - from 1970 on - to be among his best, but this is the 45 and album stealer which, for me, mapped out disco territory writ large long before it filtered down to Studio 54.

The go-go backing on this one is dazzling. A cocaine infused incitement to get onto the dance floor and sparkle.

Miles Davis was a genius. Serge Gainsbourg was an inspiration.




▼ SERGE GAINSBOURG: BONNIE & CLYDE from "Initials B.B." LP (Philips) 1968 (France)

butthole surfers

on air
More from the mighty Buttholes. We all know Charlie don't surf, butt do you ?

▼ BUTTHOLE SURFERS: 22 GOING ON 23 from "Locust Abortion Technician" LP/CD (Touch & Go) 1987 (US)

alex chilton

SibLINGSHHOT appears to have picked up an occasional visitor from Thailand over the past week. Let's hope it's a regular backpacker or nicely relaxed hotelier.

How's it going out there, dude ?

In honour of our guest and fellow sibling, here's Alex Chilton's 45 from 1978 on Fun Records. Featuring a Sky Saxon of The Seeds composition from the flip side.


▼ ALEX CHILTON: BANGKOK from "Bangkok" 45 (Fun Records) 1978 (US)

▼ ALEX CHILTON: CAN'T SEEM TO MAKE YOU MINE from "Bangkok" 45 (Fun Records) 1978 (US)

LOST DECADE

simon dupree & the big sound

"Simon Dupree" was vocalist Derek Shulman, one of three brothers from Portsmouth, on the southern coast of England. A modestly successful R&B outfit, their management pressed them to cash in on the burgeoning market for the psychedelic.

Prominently featuring a distinctly oriental Mellotron vibe, the self-penned end result was this 45 written and recorded at Abbey Road. Their first major commercial breakthrough, the song soared into the UK Top Ten.

The Shulman brothers were far from happy with their new-found celebrity. They journeyed north to Scotland with Elton John. Like budding Dostoyevskys tortured into writing a Mills & Boon, they bowed their collective head in shame and quit in 1969. The gig was up. Their snow white kite tumbled back to earth like a lead balloon.

They changed their name to Gentle Giant.


▼ SIMON DUPREE & THE BIG SOUND: KITES from "Kites" 45 (EMI) 1967 (UK)

GO FLY A KITE

frank sinatra

"le ballon rouge" by Albert Lamorisse, 1956.
Summer beckons, the man on the tv said. But today it's too windy to suspend disbelief. When I looked out my window at 6:30am this morning, the sun was lighting up the glass on another residential tower block to the west of the city. Just this one building. It looked like a polished diamond twinkling back at me from a pawnshop jeweller's blanket.

On a cloudy day it looks like shit.

This song was written by Heinz Meier ; Hans Bradtke and Johnny Mercer. It's from the last album Sinatra performed with long-suffering arranger and conductor Nelson Riddle. Sinatra was not an easy man to get along with by all accounts. A good part of the time he could be a complete prick. But he had talent. A wonderful voice and an intuitive grasp of how best to deliver a song. When he behaved badly, acquaintances and family would look down deep in their highballs and smile, that's Frank for you. That's life.

This was recorded on May 16, 1966.
That's three sixes for you. An ace for snake eyes.

▼ FRANK SINATRA: SUMMER WIND from "Strangers In The Night" LP (Reprise) 1966 (US)

DON'T BE A STRANGER

charles bukowski

cloud nine.

If you fly too high, of course, you may well land on cloud 9. And no one likes a cocky bastard. Least of all the U.S. Postal Service.

Recorded at MCCC-TV studio, Detroit - 31st October 1974 - and released on Giorno Poetry Systems, here's a taste of literary submission from downtown Hollywood. This is for Beer, whose black day at the track had an unexpected silver lining.

Ha.

▼ CHARLES BUKOWSKI: CLOUD 9/I LIVE IN A NEIGHBORHOOD OF MURDERERS/TWO HORSE COLLARS from "Totally Corrupt" LP (GPS) 1976 (US)

the 5th dimension

For anonymous, who boldly requested Sir Elton John. Great song. Hope this will suffice.

Recorded sometime between April 1966 and May 1967, and produced by Marc Gordon ; Willie Hutch ; Johnny Rivers and Rob Santos for the Grammy winning Soul City label. Written, of course, by the inimitable Jimmy Webb.

▼ THE 5th DIMENSION: UP, UP AND AWAY from "Up, Up and Away" LP (Soul City) 1967 (US)

communiqué #3

Having closely monitored site activity on SibLINGSHOT over the past week - hunched over my keyboard like a rat catcher on commission - I can safely announce that the post which received both the highest turnover of pages and plays was THE PRETTY THINGS. This is great news in that it proves beyond doubt that visitors here possess good taste, but a little surprising in that the post received zero comments.

Come on, chaps. If you like something leave a comment. Sounds fair ?

To all those who did comment, who were either stoned or inebriated enough to massage my ego, god bless you! There is a mouldy Jaffa Cake and a glass of Buckfast up for grabs for the first brave soul who parachutes down and carves their initials in the grass.

Cheers!

happy mondays

step on.

Two for monday from Tony Wilson's Factory, and both produced by Paul Oakenfold & Steve Osborne. Shaun Ryder never sounded so good. A much brighter intellect than his media hyped "thug" status suggests, Ryder was once married to my fellow Glaswegian Donovan Phillips Leitch's daughter, Oriole. Robert Plant famously implored one and all to squeeze his lemon, but you'd have to twist Mr. Ryder's melon, apparently, just to get a reaction.

This post's for Steve \m/ from Morningside Heights, NYC & Afghanistan. Play safe!

▼ HAPPY MONDAYS: STEP ON from "Pills 'n' Thrills & Bellyaches" CD (Factory) 1990 (UK)

▼ HAPPY MONDAYS: LOOSE FIT from "Step On: Remix '91" CD (Factory) 1991 (UK)

PILLS 'N' THRILLS & BELLYACHES

grateful dead

kaleidoscope rat.

Live at the Fillmore East, New York, April 28th 1971. Written by Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter ; remastered in 2000 from their marathon five night run minus second drummer, Mickey Hart.

▼ GRATEFUL DEAD: WHARF RAT from "Ladies and Gentlemen... The Grateful Dead" 4xCD (Arista) 1971 (US)

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communiqué #2

Friends of SibLINGSHOT, at a little after noon this Sunday, disaster struck whilst in the midst of some minor mid-morning site maintenance. You may have noticed the sidebar links to "honorary siblings" to the right of the page mysteriously vanished into the ether earlier. Sadly, the data therein appeared, to all intents, irretrievably lost.

The prognosis was not good.

Since then we have toiled ceaselessly on your behalf to reinstate those missing links manually. Should you identify your good self as one - low forehead ; vaguely neanderthal gait - please leave a comment post haste and we will endeavour to set the record straight. To all those already reinterred, kindly disregard this message.

Thank you.

quicksilver messenger service

Dino Valente, right on the button.

The sixth QMS release was the also the first to be recorded without the extraordinary guitar of John Cipollina. Nicky Hopkins joined the group in 1969 - replacing Gary Duncan - but by 1970 founding member Dino Valente was out of prison after serving a two year sentence for possession of marijuana, and the cat was back among the pigeons.

John Cippolina left soon after, unable to reconcile with Valente and the folkier direction the group was moving in, and for most fans of QMS's spidery mushrooming explorations the story ends there.

Except, this is a fine album, seriously worthy of reinvestigation if you've only paid it cursory attention in the past. The first side doesn't really work for me, with the notable exception of "Rebel", but side 2 more than makes up for the shaky start, with "Out Of My Mind" recalling Arthur Lee and Ray Davies, curiously, with its fragility. Reissued on CD in 1994 you could do far worse than seek it out.

Hello Ken.

▼ QUICKSILVER MESSENGER SERVICE: DON'T CRY MY LADY LOVE from "Quicksilver" LP (Capitol) 1971 (US)

QUICKSILVER GOLD

nick drake

good morning rosa.

Recorded with the assistance of John Cale and a good part of the Fairport Convention. One of those rare track's where Nick's presence isn't defined by his vocal.

▼ NICK DRAKE: SUNDAY from "Bryter, Layter" LP (Island) 1970 (UK)

BRYTER, LAYTER

butthole surfers

paging Mr. Hendrix...

If Matt from Minneapolis is still out there or happens to drop in again, I hope this qualifies as "more noise, please." I've added a link belatedly to the sidebar on SibLINGSHOT to your site Perceptions. Delusions but I'm out of Mountain Dew to welcome you back to pull up a chair. Apologies that it took me so long to look in on you, but this last week setting up here has sucked up more of my time than I guessed.

This one comes direct from Dallas, Texas ; so i'd like to say hello to Big B from AD while I'm at it.

The first behemoth of a track features Gibby Haynes ; Paul Leary ; Terence Smart ; King Coffey ; and Teresa Nervosa (very possibly). I can't believe it's 20 years already since this album first appeared. Their 4th, no less - co-produced by Ric Wallace - it was reissued on Latino Buggerveil in 1999.


▼ BUTTHOLE SURFERS: JIMI from "Hairway to Steven" LP/CD (Touch & Go) 1988 (US)

▼ BUTTHOLE SURFERS: I HATE MY JOB from "Humpty Dumpty LSD" (Latino Buggerveil) 2002 (US)

SURFING THE AMAZON

wilson simonal

Another track from Wilson Simonal's classic 1967 album as featured on SibLINGSHOT's debut post. Composed by legend Caetano Veloso, the silky crooner from Rio shows less capable exponents of Latin showboating exactly how it's done.

▼ WILSON SIMONAL: REMELEXO from "Alegria, Alegria!!!" LP (Odeon) 1967 (Brazil)

SEMINAL SIMONAL

rockstar games: unaesta

life is a lentil.

Following a little "shooting the shit" with Emmett on SibLINGHOT's comments section regarding Eumir Deodato, I thought it might be apt to highlight how the video-gaming revolution has influenced music taste.

One title is particular, Rockstar NYC's "Grand Theft Auto" series, has done more in a few years to promote Latin Fusion to young white kids the world over than a shedload of BBC documentaries on the World Service. Rockstar is a development division of video game publisher Take-Two Interactive, based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Didn't know that ? You do now.

My son almost overnight developed an appetite for old-timers Tito Puente and Machito y Sus Afro Cubanos based solely, I suspect, on his brief introductory exposure to riding the streets of a thinly disguised Miami with an uzi pointing out the side window just to keep an eye on the passing scenery. Oh, and he loved the decrepit cuban automobile design in Ubisoft Reflections Driver's downtown Havana too.

The great buzz with GTA is that you can tune the in-car radio to a station of your choice just like you CAN'T in real life ; the music is much more diverse and exciting than anything you might pick up normally on a run-of-the-mill FM channel. Soon his taste soared to embrace Bob James and Kenny Rogers & the First Edition. Fusion 45 recently highlighted the 1968 track "First Dropped In..." on his series on session drummer Hal Blaine. My pre-adolescent son first got to know this song by heart from playing Driver 2 a good few years back. Strange fare indeed for a young kid these days, and thrilling for me.

This song by Unaesta caused quite a stir when it was initially released on Grand Theft Auto III: Vice City a few years back. A lot of people scoured the internet looking to locate a bio on the group and to find the original of "La Vida Es Una Lenteja" which featured so prominently on Radio Espantoso in the game.

The title, it transpired, translates as "Life Is A Lentil". It was written by GTA producer Craig Connor and recorded specifically for Rockstar's release. Highly creative marketing, indeed.

My son and stepson badgered me incessantly at the time of the launch of the Playstation 3. Unfortunately, this event took place right before Christmas. How could Santa be so stingy ? they demanded. But you already have a Playstation 2, I replied. Yes, but you can't play GTA IV on a Playstation 2, the urchins snivelled.

The upshot of all this is that my son is now saving up to buy a new console himself. Whether he'll have enough to get one in time for this X-Mas coming is another story.

Life is a lentil, son.

▼ UNAESTA: LA VIDA ES UNA LENTEJA from "GTA vice city: vol. VII; radio espantoso" CD (Epic/Sony) 2002 (US)

miles davis

on the corner.

Lester Bangs rated this album almost as highly as the Velvet Underground's "White Light/White Heat", and it would be churlish to disagree.

On certain days this too can be my favourite Miles Davis statement on the human condition, and on others it might prove too abrasive. On such days maybe 1969's "In A Silent Way" might be more on the money, more on the button ; it all depends on where your head is at. Lester Bangs was a spectacular commentator most of the time. Miles Davis was a genius.

And I don't use that word lightly.

It would be an entirely pointless excercise to attempt to expound any further. Too much has already been written elsewhere, and to greater effect than anything I might add. It's almost ten o' clock this Saturday morning and I'm almost out of cigarettes. Rosa is curled up warmly in bed in a sleep as deep as a coma, and the kids are away for the weekend. I miss their laughter and bickering already but I'm glad too for the peace and quiet.

When I was a younger man and living on my own, those silences could be deafening. And that contradiction is what music is all about.

One more thing. I wish HBO's "OZ" was back on the box ; that shit was awesome.

 
▼ MILES DAVIS: ON THE CORNER from "On the Corner" LP (Columbia) 1972 (US)

▼ MILES DAVIS: BLACK SATIN from "On the Corner" LP (Columbia) 1972 (US)

Buy it!

the tea company

COME AND HAVE SOME TEA WITH ME PART II



Original photograph by Alex Waterford Hayward

Those of you familiar with my post on ART DECADE a couple of weeks back will already know that one of the chief tracks featured was the Box Tops' version of Holland-Dozier-Holland's "You Keep Me Hangin' On", replete with tongue-in-cheek "... walked on down the hall" reference to Jim Morrison & the Doors.

In all truth I was itching to post the Tea Company's splendid version of the same song too, but at 8:47 the file size proved prohibitive. This is Bubblegum Psychedelia at its absolute finest ; a prolongued dizzy jam which recalls the house-band from your senior prom, perhaps, if you happened to live in the USA at that particularly emotional juncture. Throwing up whiskey drunk straight from a hip flask in the flower beds behind your school, sniffing sticky fingers a good few years before the Rolling Stones made them fashionable.

And the very next week - if you were unlucky - choking back tepid water from a government issued canteen deep in the roiling jungles.

NYC group, the Tea Company, were never going to make it big. They struggled just to get to first base. They evolved apparently from a ballroom support band playing permanent second fiddle to Ritchie Havens and the Lovin' Spoonful. Once, they even opened for Bob Dylan.

With a 12 string Rickenbacher and Syd Barrett era inspired lunacy, these friends of Vanilla Fudge mashed out this near perfect 9 minute jam which rightly dominates their debut LP on Smash - home to the Left Banke - from 1968. Freshly remastered, it melts the Fudge and puts Alex Chilton's version simultaneously in the shade.

▼ THE TEA COMPANY: YOU KEEP ME HANGIN' ON from "Come And Have Some Tea With Me" LP (Smash) 1968 (US)

the clash

radio free europe

▼ THE CLASH: THIS IS RADIO CLASH from "Radio Clash" EP (CBS/Columbia) 1981 ( UK/US)

communiqué

Apologies to all friends of SibLINGSHOT who have recently subscribed to FREE rss feeds, and have dropped back in on confirmation of an update only to find that recent posts have simply been amended. This site is brand new - less than a week old, as you know - and as such is still in the process of refinement.

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hawkwind

in search of deep space.

Two from Hawkwind, as in fingers jutting above the parapet.

Both tracks recorded at Olympic Studios and Barnes & London Air Studios, and featuring the elegantly named Ian Fraser Kilmister on bass and vocals. If you haven't yet dropped in on dope city press, please do so. Some seriously funny shit ; this man is forewarned and very possibly dangerous.

▼ HAWKWIND: SILVER MACHINE from "Kings Of Speed" 45 (UA) 1975 (UK)

▼ HAWKWIND: SPACE IS DEEP from "Doremi Fasol Latido" LP (UA) 1972 (UK)

HAWKWIND AT AMAZON

stretch

why did you do it ?
Stretch were a UK duo - Elmer Gantry & Kirby (dig the pseudonyms!) - who scored a modest Top 20 hit on the UK independent label, Anchor. By 1977 this great label was fighting receivership, but promptly snapped back into business like an elastic band with the arrival of punk and a deluge of new signing opportunities.

Is Friday night still curry night, Gus ?

▼ STRETCH: WHY DID YOU DO IT ? from "Elastique" LP (Anchor) 1975 (UK)

STRETCH YOUR BUDGET