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)

BUY IT

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.

Thank you for subscribing, and your patience. Our aim may be occasionally awry, but we strive to hit the target.

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

MC5

kick out the jams
Anyone in the house from Detroit ? And this one's for Sheridan Dupre X, who I'm gravely disappointed hasn't stopped by so far. In light of last week's post on AD. Drop by and leave a comment, why don'cha ?

▼ MC5: KICK OUT THE JAMS from "Kick Out The Jams" LP (Elektra) 1969 (US)

eumir deodato

LOOK THROUGH ANY WINDOW.



Gorbals High Rise, Waddell Court: 1960's
This one's for Emmett. Recorded at Van Gelder Studios, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey in 1973.


▼ EUMIR DEODATO: SKYSCRAPERS from "Deodato 2" LP (CTI) 1973 (US)

DEODATO 2

la düsseldorf

....TOO MANY GANGSTERS.

A splinter project from mighty krautrockers, Neu!, Klaus Dinger and younger brother, Thomas, began experimenting with more "song" oriented material on making their break from the violence and dischord which had grown around the greatest collective on the German progressive scene.

I first heard the title track from this album broadcast on the 'John Peel Show' in 1977 while laid-up in bed recovering from a viral infection. The curtains were tightly drawn and I could hear kids outside still volleying footballs well into a late humid summer's night. Coincidentally, the song kicked-off with the stadium chanting of an assembled audience hungry for goals, and if not, a pitch invasion. It didn't seem like a coincidence as I lay there quietly sweating.

I am still convinced, listening to this now, that Malcolm McLaren must have had this album stashed behind the counter of Seditionaries on the Kings Road, London while "auditioning" John Lydon for the Sex Pistols. Listen to the vocals and you'll see what I mean.

Recorded September - December 1975 at La Düsseldorf & Conny Plank's Studio; engineered by Conny Plank and assisted by Petrus & Udo.

▼ LA DUSSELDORF: LA DUSSELDORF from "La Düsseldorf" LP (Germaohon/Captain Trip) 1976 (Germany)

▼ LA DUSSELDORF: SILVER CLOUD from "La Düsseldorf" LP (Germaohon/Captain Trip) 1976 (Germany)

BUY IT HERE

nick lowe

jesus of cool: "if it ain't stiff, it ain't worth a fuck..."

BUY 1: the debut single on Jake Riviera and Dave Robinson's Stiff Records by legendary Brinsley Schwarz prime mover, Nick Lowe, was a 45 of pure pop energy and proto-punk sensibility.

Allegedly costing just £45 to produce, the b-side was 'record of the week' in at least two of the UK's music weeklies. Nick Lowe, of course, went on to produce the first homegrown British punk single, "New Rose", for the Damned - released in November 1976 - and with Riviera and Robinson at the helm kick-started Elvis Costello's eventually successful bid to break into the U.S.

Nick plays all the instruments on this 45, bar the drumming provided by Steve Goulding. Pop music never sounded so good.

Play Loud!

▼ NICK LOWE: SO IT GOES from "So It Goes" 45 (Stiff) 1976 (UK)

▼ NICK LOWE: HEART OF THE CITY from "So It Goes" 45 (Stiff) 1976 (UK)

I LOVE MY LABEL

carl orff: musica poetica

Gassenhauer Für Kinder iii: the unreleased theme to"Badlands".
This piece is improvised around a composition for flute - from 1536 - by Gunild Keetman, under the mentorship of Carl Orff. Although inseparably associated with Terrence Malick's movie "Badlands", this recording can be found more readily on the Orff-Schulwerk - Volume 1" CD released on the Celestial Harmonies label, given that the soundtrack to the 1973 Martin Sheen/Sissy Spacek vehicle was never officially released. Despite overwhelming demand.

Generally credited to the Munich born, Orff - July 10, 1895 – March 29, 1982 - the score was later reworked and released on the soundtrack to 1993's "True Romance".

Confusing ? It certainly bubbled my head.

▼ CARL ORFF: GASSENHAUER FUR KINDER III #15 from "Musica Poetica" (1952) recorded 1963-1975 (RCA)

PURCHASE ORFF-SCHULWERK VOL. 1: MUSICA POETICA

gabriel yared

voodoo chili.

Superior soundtrack fare from Jean-Jacques Beineix's smash 80's hit starring Jean-Hugues Anglade and the charmingly photogenic Béatrice Dalle. With Cinematography by Jean-François Robin making every image on the screen a potential bedsit poster, this film undoubtably did more for the French tourist industry than a thousand market research campaigns.

Written and performed by Lebanese composer Gabriel Yared. Not so hot until you consider that 37.2°C = 99°F.

▼ GABRIEL YARED: CHILI CON CARNE from "Betty Blue (37°2 Le Matin)" LP (Virgin) 1986 (France)

BETTY BLUE

the fall

Written by Craig Scanlon and Mark E. Smith, with Brix Smith sadly no longer on board.

Open the bedroom window and let the warm breath of morning wash the lingering ghost from your sheets.

▼ THE FALL: BILL IS DEAD from "Extricate" LP (Cog Sinister/Fontana) 1990 (UK)

EXTRICATE

serge gainsbourg

THE OLDER YOU GET, THE SWEETER THE TOOTH.



Serge Gainsbourg: born Paris, France; April 2, 1928 – March 2, 1991.

Those of you familiar with Serge Gainsbourg's prodigious output may well be wondering why the highlighted track is chosen from a much earlier album than the cover image to 1981's "Mauvaises Nouvelles des Etoiles". I just love the pic. Simple as that.

On this one Serge manages to name-check Jimi Hendrix ; Elvis ; T. Rex ; Lou Reed ; the Rolling Stones - and what sounds shockingly like a fatherly nod to Mark E. Smith's then embroyonic The Fall. Surely not ? All this in addition to suspiciously scurrilous references to Coca-Cola and Lewis Carroll.

Marvellous.

▼ SERGE GAINSBOURG: VARIATIONS SUR MARILOU from "L' Homme à Tête de Chou" LP (Philips) 1976 (France)

BLUE SERGE NEW

roy harper

▼ ROY HARPER: ANOTHER DAY from "Flat, Baroque and Berserk" LP (Harvest EMI) 1970 (UK)

FLAT, BAROQUE

the pretty things

OH, YOU PRETTY THINGS !...



photograph by Mike Dowson

More renowned for their 1968 double slab of narrative psychedelia, S.F. SORROW - a "rock opera" first, beating Pete Townshend's "Tommy" by a year in terms of its conception - The Pretty Things had a lot more to offer than this mere footnote alone. Or their predictable earlier years on the live circuit, hammering out raw stonesy R&B riffs to the immense enjoyment of Bo Diddley fans the world over, culminating in a string of hits in the UK between 1964 and 1965.

So far as I'm concerned, the early 70s were the Pretties' finest twinkling hour. Ladbroke Grove was their acid drenched stamping ground, home to Van Morrison's Madam George and the group's fluctuating line-up saw them brazenly trading key members with pioneering mental cases, the Pink Fairies ; recording in and out of Abbey Road studios and switching record labels as quick as jumping on a London borough bus.

What made them so popular when they played screwed-down solid tight as part of the British Invasion made them even better when they finally loosened up and really let it roll.

Glam without the ham.

1970's "Parachute" was a critical triumph, Rolling Stone's album of the year, but it didn't convert into commercial sales and made them precious few new executive friends in the music business. And what an album it is. As smokey brown as the Beatles' "Abbey Road" in places, but shimmering and translucent too as the best of Chilton & Bell's Big Star. A perfect pop masterpiece painted from a well rehearsed palette of limited colour, a perfect teenage summer's trip.

And it didn't end right there. Jettisoned by Harvest EMI and picked back up by Warner Bros., their follow-up two years later, "Freeway Madness", could scarcely be derided as dull. The lead track , "Love Is Good", is a huge relief ; coming on like a ex-girlfriend as it does. Not as urgently imbued an affair as first time around, but familiar and tenderly warm.

A misplaced love briefly rekindled.



▼ THE PRETTY THINGS: GRASS from "Parachute" LP (Harvest EMI) 1970 (UK)
▼ THE PRETTY THINGS: SHE WAS TALL, SHE WAS HIGH from "Parachute" LP (Harvest EMI) 1970 (UK)
▼ THE PRETTY THINGS: RAIN from "Parachute" LP (Harvest EMI) 1970 (UK)
▼ THE PRETTY THINGS: LOVE IS GOOD from "Freeway Madness" LP (Warner Bros.) 1972 (UK)

PRETTY AMAZONIANS

wild cherry

careful with that cherry picker, eugene.



With a collective inspired by a box of cough drops consumed during a brief hospital visit in Steubenville, Ohio, 1970, how could Rob Parissi possibly go wrong ? No. 1 on the Billboard Charts and a major contender for the widest flares on the dance-floor.

Do cherries go with cream cheese ?

▼ WILD CHERRY: PLAY THAT FUNKY MUSIC from "Play That Funky Music" 45 (Epic) 1976 (US)

MINT CHERRY

elvis costello

WELCOME TO THE WORKING WEEK!



▼ ELVIS COSTELLO: WELCOME TO THE WORKING WEEK from "Alison" 45 (Stiff) 1977 (UK)

MY AIM IS TRUE DELUXE

steven "jesse" bernstein

THERE'S GONNA BE A BORSTAL BREAKOUT...



Steven "Jesse" Bernstein: December 4, 1950 – October 22, 1991.

L.A. born homeboy and Seattle resident, Steven Jesse Bernstein, was a poet who literally put his skin on the line and turned an anglepoise torch on his eviscerated soul. There was nothing heroic in his demise, but a good deal to be admired in his tenacity to hold onto life so long. Unlike Charles Bukowski, there was no happy financial pay-off to ultimately facilitate social rehabilitation. His self disgust was tangibly carniverous, and therein lies the rub.

No reluctantly resigned self-depracating black streak of humour to enlighten Monday morning's hungover slumber.

The rip of the following tracks I originally "found" on the now defunct Post-Punk Junk. Bret now curates a spot on Egg City Radio.

Prior to stumbling on it, I had "Prison" - appropriately released on April Fool's Day - on a disintegrating C-90 cassette ; a gift from a friend. A pirated confession, crumbling into premature decrepitude with much audio infedelity. And prior to its CD reissue it really mattered little that it was falling apart.

Painful, but essential listening, and harrowingly funny too - compare the laugh on "Face" to Wilson Simonal's from a couple of posts back to have Robert Crumb's snoid well and truly hammered home. Go on, break your face. See the hands on your analogue watch jump like sticks.

I tried like a motherf*@!er to get Kelsey Grammer to sign off this post with a hearty "Good night, Seattle!" but fortunately for everybody he was otherwise engaged.

 
▼ STEVEN JESSE BERNSTEIN: NO NO MAN (PART I) from "Prison" CD (Sub Pop) 1992 (US) 
▼ STEVEN JESSE BERNSTEIN: FACE from "Prison" CD (Sub Pop) 1992 (US)

UNLOCK IT ON CD

media hosting query: tell me why

If anyone dropping in has any advice on how to embed files for console play within the page, i'd appreciate some input. Currently, I'm using MediaFire as a free hosting sevice, but you will notice that clicking on an audio link redirects the visitor (you!) to a new page with a download option. This process is a little cumbersome when dealing with individual files, the whole intention of this site being to provide the user with a sense of immediacy. Ideas, anybody ?

sandy bull

a big slice of little beirut.



Well, it's a done deal. The twin blocks came safely cascading down in a torrent of debris and dust at a little after 9:30 am. Klaxons announced the detonation and cell phone cameras poked out of windows on the other side of the exclusion zone like snipers taking a holiday snapshot before the kill.

I even videoed the event with the intention of posting it, and got so far as previewing the footage a couple of times before passing it back to Rosa only to find it had "disappeared". Puff! Was it accidentally deleted ? Apparently not. It was just no longer there - erased from short term memory like an Alzheimer victim's latest transgression. It's a sore point, but I'm sure I'll find something remarkably similar on YouTube later this afternoon.

As early as 7, police with sniffer dogs patrolled the Rose Garden - a tiny patch of well tended shrubbery - between my own block and ground zero. Black plastic sheeting wound around the tower blocks behind them like ribbons on a poorly decorated wedding cake. It seemed a fairly futile light early morning excercise. Any tiny packets of narcotics stashed carefully in the flower beds were surely now long gone. The German shepherds at least appeared well fed and groomed. Not as unkempt as the few spectators with sleep creased faces.

Emmett over on Art Decade recently introduced me to the versatile Sandy Bull. In 1965 on the cover of his second album he looked like he'd stepped straight off the set of the Ed Sullivan Show. Clean-cut and as collegiate as Dennis Wilson. Dip into his eastern flavoured recording and you soon discover the manicured image cannot have been self-imposed.

By the time of his fourth release in 1972, the last cut for Vanguard, Sandy was already deep in the grip of a heroin habit and the industry suits were at a loss as to how best market him. Cast adrift without a label to support his talent, this pioneer of fusion struggled through the next decade just to reach an audience.

This album, as per virtually all Bull recorded, has a fragile crystal clarity.

▼ SANDY BULL: GOTTA BE JUICY (OR IT AIN'T LOVE) from "Demolition Derby" LP (Vanguard) 1972 (US)

▼ SANDY BULL: CARNIVAL JUMP from "Demolition Derby" LP (Vanguard) 1972 (US)

LET'S TALK TURKEY, NOT BULL