Goin’ Home

Paul Hester, former drummer for Australian New Zealand bands Crowded House and Split Enz, hung himself yesterday.

I have one Split Enz album, but have yet to really explore their music. As for Crowded House, I’ve had their first two records for years, though I don’t pull them off the shelf all that often. I grew up hearing “Something So Strong” and “Don’t Dream It’s Over” on the radio when I was a kid, and they’ve stuck with me all these years. Great songs, if the victims of radio saturation.

Their second album, Temple of Low Men, didn’t do all that well commercially, but its first single and closing number, “Better Be Home Soon”, was an absolutely gorgeous song that seems a somber goodbye of sorts. Here’s to peace on the other side.

Crowded House – Better Be Home Soon

N/P Current 93 - Calling for Vanished Faces

Absence, Overhaul, Vinyl Haul, MP3

Hello everyone, I’m back from my extended absence. I know that lately the posts have been fewer and farther between, but I’ve had a lot going on and just couldn’t get around to the dear ol’ blog. I had a job interview last week and was out of town for a couple of days—everybody cross yr fingers for me—and I’ve also been mulling over some significant changes to the site—changes which will paradoxically result in both more consistent updates and less self-imposed pressure to post nearly every day. I got a phone call this morning that has me excited to get on with it—so hopefully you will see said changes in the not-so-distant future.

Jodi was out of town again this weekend, so I spent its entirety in anti-social hibernation, curled up with my record collection, reading a fantastic book (John Fowles’ The Magus), and watching movies. I hit up a number of record stores and traded in a fat stack of unwanted vinyl and CDs for a good chunk of my current wish list and some used gems. I finally picked up the Joanna Newsom record, got the new double LP issue of Devendra Banhart’s last two, and snagged the excellent new Out Hud record.

Other essential pick-ups this weekend:

• Sandy Denny – Sandy LP (now that I finally “get” Ms. Denny, I’m, like, SO in love)
• Alex Chilton – Like Flies on Sherbert (one of the classic “bad” records of all time)
• The Other Half – s/t LP (smokin' sixties garage rock featuring guitar virtuoso and future Blue Cheer member Randy Holden)
• The Pentangle – Basket of Light (one of the best records from this English folk supergroup)
• Townes Van Zandt – High Low and In Between (Getting close to completing my Townes collection)
• Robbie Basho – The Falconer’s Arm I (stylistically similar to fellow Takoma-ite John Fahey)
• Betty Davis – s/t LP (sizzling, sultry funk from ex-wife of Miles Davis)
• Rocket from the Tombs – The Day the Earth Met the Rocket From the Tombs (wasn’t sure I’d see this on vinyl ever again; legendary, pre-Pere Ubu and pre-Dead Boys)
• Bobby Womack & various artists – Across 110th Street soundtrack (just saw this movie a few weeks ago when I was sick—one of the better blaxploitation flicks, WAY better than Van Peebles’ incoherent Sweet Sweetback's Baad Asssss Song)

I know, it’s quite the haul. God, how I’m gonna miss these record stores when it comes time for us to leave this town in the proverbial dust!

I also spent some time in front of the tube this weekend. Saturday night’s Illini game—omigod! Can a mere basketball game get any better than that? Methinks, um, no. I could barely speak afterward, I was screaming so loud those last four minutes, plus OT. It was a nice change of pace from the dullness and drudgery of Oliver Stone’s HBO documentary, Looking For Fidel, which I had just finished watching—only an hour long, but it easily seemed like two. Earlier today I caught Gary Cooper in High Noon for the first time. I figured this was one of those movies one should just be familiar with. It was okay, worth watching once, but I don’t know if I really understand why it’s such a classic.

Saving the best for last, I finally watched Prince’s 1987 concert film, Sign O’ the Times, for the first time today, and I just can’t say enough great things about it. An absolutely sizzling performance, it is everything a good concert film should be—it made me wish I was there—SO BAD I wish I could have been there—yet it stood on its own legs as a satisfying experience in its own right. There’s so very few concert films that you ever wanna watch more than once or twice—usually one viewing is enough—but I’m already thinkin’ ‘bout picking up a copy of the DVD so I can watch this one over and over.

Anyway, to celebrate my vinyl haul, I got an eclectic assortment of mp3s for ya this week:

Sandy Denny – It Suits Me Well
Bobby Womack - Across 110th Street
The Other Half – Mr. Pharmacist
Prince – U Got the Look
Townes Van Zandt – To Live is to Fly
Serge Gainsbourg – New York USA

N/P The Jam – All Mod Cons

Hold Steady for Indie’s Uncle Remus

May 3rd, baby, mark that date on yr calendars right now, for that’s the day that The Hold Steady’s sophomore effort, Separation Sunday, hits the street. If you missed this genius band the first time around, on last year’s Almost Killed Me (one of my Top Ten records of ’04), do not—DO NOT—miss out this time.



Led by one of the cooolest motherfuckers in all of indie rock, former Lifter Puller (please…do yourself a favor and check them out too) frontman Craig Finn, The Hold Steady is a wild romp through bar band rock that serves as a platform for the twisted tales of Finn. Finn is like a modern-day, indie rock Uncle Remus, spinning stream-of-consciousness tall tales like everyday conversation in the most distinctive voice this side of Waits or Dulli. Listening to The Hold Steady is like watching Saturday morning cartoons on four hits of blotter at two in the morning in a dive bar just outside the Minneapolis city limits.

The new album, while very much in the same vein as the first, is quite possibly a slightly more mature effort. The riffs are catchier and nearer classic rock, supported by the funk of piano and a horn section, while the lyrics display less emphasis on proper names and pop culture (though MacKenzie Phillips makes a hilarious appearance on “Cattle and the Creeping Things”).

Here are two of my favorite tracks from the forthcoming release—May 3rd, don’t forget!

The Hold Steady - Cattle and the Creeping Things
The Hold Steady - Your Little Hoodrat Friend

Hit up French Kiss Records for some MP3s from the first album.

The official Hold Steady site

N/P The Hold Steady - Separation Sunday

My Main Man Willie Hightower

And now for part two of my favorite new soul obscurities. Earlier this year, Damon Albarn’s Astralwerks-affiliated Honest Jon’s label released an eighteen-song collection of Willie Hightower’s late sixties recordings (three brilliant singles and one incredible album), and it’s simply mahvelous, dahling.



I haven’t actually managed to pick up the CD yet, but I did snag the six-track 12” sampler at my favorite local record store. Why the entire record wasn’t issued on vinyl with full artwork and documentation, rather than a skimpy one-third of its tracks and no liner notes, is beyond me. Someday, perhaps. Still, listening to these tracks, one can hardly complain, and the sampler does serve its purpose, I suppose, only whetting my appetite for the full disc.

Alabama’s own Willie Hightower is one of the forgotten men of Southern Soul, but with any justice this collection should vault him back up where he belongs—with the company of Otis Redding and James Carr, in the pantheon of the masters. It’s certainly no accident that, like much of the great Southern Soul playbook, a number of these tracks were recorded by Rick Hall at the legendary Muscle Shoals’ Fame Studios—they certainly stand alongside anything that ever came out of that studio, and that's saying something. Hightower’s debt to Sam Cooke is an obvious one, and he carried his legacy into a new era that Cooke, sadly, was not around to see.

For any lover of soul music, it is absolutely thrilling, almost dreamlike, to hear such striking echoes of Cooke in a deep soul setting; although he was arguably the most important forebear of the southern soul style, Cooke died before the sound of southern soul solidified, and the question of how his talent might have been applied in the idiom has been left hanging for forty years. Hightower’s music, while absolutely his own, gives some hint on how exhilarating a Muscle Shoals Cooke would have been.

Unfortunately, as the sixties became the seventies, Willie was a casualty of the shifting sands of musical styles and largely disappeared from sight. Since then, his lone LP and handful of singles have become collector’s items, worth a pretty penny on the market. But now, finally, his work is available to the masses, and supposedly, due to the success of this collection, Hightower has been sought out and is presently at work on a new album, proving that miracles do happen, and that great music does eventually receive its due.

And now, a feast for yer ears:

Willie Hightower – Walk a Mile in My Shoes
Willie Hightower – Back Road Into Town

Pick this up at Amazon , like yesterday. You NEED this in yr life.

N/P Hala Strana – These Villages

A New Day! The Complete Mus-I-Col Recordings of J.C. Davis

The last several months have brought to light a number of excellent reissues of out-of-print and obscure artists from the heyday of soul music, and I’ve had the great pleasure of picking up several of them. You just can’t go wrong with good soul music—I don’t know anyone who doesn’t dig on a little Otis Redding or Sam Cooke from time to time—and frankly, if those people are out there, I don’t know that I’d want to know ‘em. :) The recent unearthing of these neglected classics is a cause for celebration, not to mention a source of astonishment at the ridiculously high quality of said recordings compared to the ridiculously low number of people who actually heard them the first time around.



Case in point, one James C. Davis. Known primarily for his role as the band director of the James Brown Orchestra in the mid-60s, Davis played a significant role in establishing the sound that would make The Godfather rich, revered, and famous. After leaving that band, he cut several records for Chess Records before retiring to the quiet life in central Ohio, where he still kept a band and played local shows. In May 1969, J.C. and his band laid down six cuts at John Hull’s Mus-I-Col Studio in Columbus, four of which were released on 45s on the band’s own New Day label. These same 45s now fetch hundreds of dollars apiece on the collector’s market.

Enter Chicago turntablist Dante Carfagna and Josh Davis, aka DJ Shadow, and their Quannum-affiliated Cali-Tex label. Having exclusively licensed these rare tracks, Cali-Tex has pressed up a super-limited vinyl-only run of 1500 copies, collecting the entire Mus-I-Col Studios session recordings on one thick-ass black slab for the first time.

You can definitely hear that JB sound on these tracks, as Davis wails on the tenor sax and his band drops some of the baddest funk breaks ever heard, alternating between sung songs and wicked instrumentals. And hearing Benny the Hat kick out the percussion, it’s no wonder that the Shadow swooped in on this stuff. Now, about those Chess sides…

J.C. Davis – A New Day (is Here at Last)
J.C. Davis – Coconut Brown

Order the vinyl at Forced Exposure

N/P British Sea Power – The Decline of British Sea Power

More Tales of Woe, and Nevermind the Good Doctor Mingus, Here’s Schooner

Well, this’ll hafta be another short one. I was oh-so-mistaken when I ventured to guess on Sunday’s post that I had kicked the virus—I tried work the next day and all was well until mid-afternoon, when I started feeling it again. Came home, crashed for three hours, cold sweat and a bloody fever. So I’ve spent the rest of this week at home, yet again, taking four naps a day, watching my vacation time plummet to absolutely nothing, pleading with the man upstairs to help me get better. I do think I’m getting there, but damn, it’s already been two weeks. I’ve never felt quite like this before—feeling totally overcome and beaten down by a mystery virus, never knowing when the next fever will hit. And I’ve never wanted to get back to work more.

But then, you’ve gotta be sick to death of my illness rants. I know I am. I’m sorry, folks, I just can’t help it. I ain’t used ta being held hostage like this.

Somewhere along the line this week, I picked up a jazz bug. My love affair with jazz is a flighty thing. I’ve got a pretty decent-sized collection of wax, but the majority of the time I’ll go months and months without putting on a single jazz record. But this week I’ve found myself playing the hell outta some Charlie Mingus. Toss in a little Roland Kirk, sprinkle on some Stan Getz (with Astrud Gilberto), and top it off with a pinch of Ornette Coleman, and I’d say there’s the makings of a mini-renaissance there.

But that ain’t what this post is about. Fooled ya.

I don’t remember exactly where I first heard about the North Carolina band called Schooner, but I was impressed enough to pick up a copy of their debut recording, You Forget About Your Heart. Released in 2004 on Pox World Empire, whose web site features a delightfully unique user interface, the eight-song disc is a charming and enjoyable romp through a range of fuzzed-out pop music, Smiths-esque balladry, and indie rock stylings that just don’t go out of style, at least in my book. Don’t look to this band for the pushing of envelopes or the cutting of edges, for you’ll be disappointed. But if you just want a catchy little bit of ear candy, this one is worth your while. A promising, if uneven debut, I’m interested to see where these guys (and girl) go from here.

Schooner - My Friend’s Band
Schooner - Trains and Parades


Visit Schooner Headquarters


N/P Big Boys – Where’s My Towel

Ladies and Gentlemen...The Phenomenal Nick Castro

It was early January when I chanced across a review on the Foxy Digitalis web site extolling the virtues of one Nick Castro. Intrigued, I put him on my list to check out, and lo and behold, less than a week later, I came across a vinyl copy of his debut LP, A Spy in the House of God, and snatched it up. Limited to 300 copies (mine is #210), you probably won’t be able to find this on wax anymore, but the disc can certainly still be had at Eclipse or Midheaven.



Castro also has a sophomore LP that should be out in the next month or so, and I, for one, cannot wait. I suppose that with all the new folk stuff coming out these days, Castro just flew under the radar and got lost in the shuffle, but he deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as Devendra Banhart, Six Organs of Admittance, and Matt Valentine. His work is along similar lines, cutting traditional songwriting with an experimental edge, at times recalling the brilliance of Nick Drake.

From the upcoming LP, Further From Grace
Nick Castro - Sun Song
Nick Castro - To This Earth

From A Spy in the House of God
Nick Castro - Jack of All Seasons
Nick Castro - If Your Soul Could Sing (edit)



Castro’s web site
An interview with Castro

N/P The Twilight Singers - The Twilight Singers Play Blackberry Belle

This is Spinal Tap or Total Freakout?

I don’t wanna jinx it, but it looks like I may have just about kicked this damned mystery virus. The last week, especially the last five days, has been a seesaw of fever, malaise, and a dearth of inspiration, all tidily wrapped in a vicodin-based numbness; thus, the lack of updates. I spent Friday afternoon in a hospital bed getting a freakin’ spinal tap, for chrissakes—fortunately, ‘twas not the dreaded meningitis as suspected, or I wouldn’t be tappin’ this note out to ya’ll right now. Best to be cautious, though, and withhold judgment ‘til tomorrow, at least, as I’ve thought this beast kicked before.

So, for my first night back, I briefly toyed with the notion of a timely post on Spinal Tap, the band, but, for some unknown yet prudent reason, I nixed that idea. Instead, I will be reporting on a thoroughly wonderful and equally obscure comp of French, Belgian, and Canadian psych bands from the late sixties and early seventies:

Satan Belanger presente:
Total Freakout Volume 3
Quebec-France-Belgique 1968-1973 Psyche Jello

First things first. Just dig on that album cover. A coupla wackos, fer sure, all duded up in bear costumes AND space suits.

Secondly, on compilations in general. There was a time not so long ago, that I didn’t spend much time on them, but as I dig deeper into the obscurities of the past, I continue to find a multitude of absolutely stellar collections that end up spending a great deal of time in my disc player. Surely there will be more similar-minded posts to come in the future.

And you thought the French-speaking weren’t psychedelic? This is some of the nuttiest, most exotic, all-over-the-place music I’ve ever heard! Compiled by Satan Belanger aka Biberons Batis aka Bruno Tanguay, an apparently legendary underground musician and record collector from Quebec and issued on the Montreal-based Mucho Gusto Records, these eighteen tracks of wah-wah, fuzz, horns, echo, shakers, strings, and sound effects, will get yer booty a-shakin’ and yer lysergic dreams a-flowin’.

Consisting mostly, but not entirely, of total obscurities and one-hit wonders (the liner notes do claim that one of these songs hit #1 in Quebec in 1973), this compilation comes highly, highly recommended. I’m a bit skeptical as to whether the first two volumes of Total Freakout even exist, as I can’t find any information online to support that notion, or if maybe this disc was labeled "Volume 3" just to fuck with me. If not, I’d love to track down copies of those earlier volumes.

And now, the mp3s. Song-by-song analysis c/o Aquarius Records—head over there now to order this gem!

P.B. + 3 ½ - Gazou, gazou
The opening track by P.B. + 3 1/2 is a funky soft porn soundtrack (well, sounds like it, the liner notes assure us it is not even though the artist did indeed do porn sountracks) slowly loping bassline and the melody played by a kazoo. Yep, a kazoo. Complete with summery feel-good background vocals and bizarre Perrey And Kingsley sound effects. Apparently P.B moved to L.A. and recorded music for Star Trek: The Next Generation!

Chris Gallbert – Sing-Sing

Track two is just as wacked with a total head nodding groove, the main riff played on a violin and booming Morricone choral style men's choir background vocals, swirling cinematic strings and a wailing Scott Walker-ish vocal, super dramatic and WAY over the top.

Stella – L’idole des jaunes

The third track is a fuzzy, psychedelic girl-group-groove from Sixties French pop idol Stella, a totally guitar heavy workout, with a super Hendrixy 'scuse me.. type riff, kick ass horns and her throaty, over affected vocals, but totally catchy and wonderful.

N/P Fit & Limo – Terra Incognita

The Dolphin Whisperer

I’d wanted to check out Fred Neil for many years, but just never got around to it until recently. In January, I went to New York City and stood on the corner of Bleecker and MacDougal, taking in the famed Café Wha?, and thought to myself, man, I should really pick up that Fred Neil record when I get back home. And so it was that I finally made the acquaintance of one of the great legends of our times.


Fred Neil – Bleecker & MacDougal

While I certainly dig a lot of sixties folk music, much of it sounds the same to me. But the instant I dropped the needle on that Neil record for the first time, I knew that this man was something special. Mystical. That voice, the one John Sebastian dubbed a “honey-laden baritone with the Southern lilt,” it got way under my skin. His songs, self-penned, timeless, many of them already familiar to these ears by way of innumerable cover versions, they stuck with me. They res-o-nated.

From Bleecker & MacDougal, “Other Side to This Life” became a staple in the sixties songbook and was covered by the likes of Peter, Paul, and Mary, The Youngbloods, The Animals, The Lovin' Spoonful, and the Jefferson Airplane. Here is a 1965 recording of Gram Parsons, back when he was just another folkie, performing this song, along with Neil’s original.

Gram Parsons – Another Side of This Life
Fred Neil – Other Side to This Life

And, from the same album, Neil’s “Candy Man” was also a modest hit for Roy Orbison.

Roy Orbison – Candy Man
Fred Neil – Candy Man

Neil’s influence on the Greenwich Village folk scene of the early-to-mid-sixties is difficult to overestimate. By most accounts, he, along with Dylan, were the best of a talented bunch that also included Mr. Sebastian, Odetta, David Crosby, Stephen Stills, and Richie Havens.

Bob Dylan, Karen Dalton and Fred Neil
at the Cafe Wha? Feb. 1961

Among his fellow folk song purists, Neil stood out, with his mournful and emotional voice adding experience far beyond his years. And Fred not only kept the classic folk songs alive (his interpretation of the traditional, 'Cocaine', was bone-chilling), he was writing his own songs. Few of the Village performers were contributing new material in their efforts to carry forward the folk tradition. In Fred's case, you couldn't really tell that he was. His songs sounded as old and road-weary as his voice did.

—Rush Evans, Discoveries magazine, September 2001 issue.

And so, after playing the hell out of Bleecker & MacDougal, I bought his second solo record, the self-titled one that most fans consider his finest hour. While still a folk album, Neil has fleshed out his sound by adding electricity and drums to his bag of tricks. “The Dolphins” opens the album with a wash of reverb and a touch of Eastern influence and stands as one of his greatest creations, while most famously, the record features the song “Everybody's Talkin’”, covered by more than a hundred artists and made famous by Harry Nilsson in Midnight Cowboy.

Fred Neil – The Dolphins
Fred Neil – Everybody’s Talkin’

The intensely private Neil was an enigma to most, even to those who knew him best. He detested the promotional trappings of the music industry and refused to play that game, declining opportunities to perform on the Tonight Show and the Johnny Cash Show as well as turning down a tour with Harry Belafonte. Throughout his entire life he only granted one interview, to Hit Parader in 1966.


He would go on to record only a couple more records before withdrawing from public life and retreating to his beloved Florida. There, he would explore his lifelong love and passion for dolphins, dedicating the rest of his life to dolphin research and preservation. When he did make a rare public appearance, it was nearly always in conjunction with the Dolphin Project, an organization he co-founded in 1970, dedicated to preventing the capture and exploitation of dolphins worldwide. He passed away quietly in 2001.

FredNeil.com

the flatmates 86-89

I don’t have my usual energy for a big ol’ long-winded post tonight, and, because I’m still battling a mild temperature which drifts in and out between doses of Dayquil, I’d like to get to bed at a semi-decent hour. So I’m taking it easy. Please forgive this half-assed post—the Flatmates certainly deserve more than I can give ‘em tonight.



Long story short, the Flatmates were around for the latter part of the eighties and were a part of what later came to be known as the C86 scene in Britain. They recorded a number of killer singles and the usual number of comp tracks before going bust in ’89. A posthumous LP, Love and Death, followed, collecting the best of the singles and comp tracks alongside new recordings from the band. After being out-of-print for years, someone (Thank you, Clairecords) finally had the sense to reissue this band’s finest moments.

Something that's really bemused me in the intervening years is how The Flatmates picked up a twee tag. Our early demos were cover versions of songs by The Ramones, Stooges and Velvet Underground. Whilst I'll never deny the debt owed to Blondie, The Ronettes and Shangri Las we always tried to combine that with gutsy guitar thrash.
—guitarist Martin Whitehead on TweeNet

The Flatmates – I Could Be in Heaven
The Flatmates – So In Love With You
The Flatmates – Shimmer

Official site

More mp3s

Splendid Magazine review

Pop Matters review

Buy this excellent CD at Parasol Records.

N/P The Sleepy Jackson - Lovers