A To Z: King Biscuit Flower Hour (Live 1976) - The Band

If THE BAND were any other band, their name would be audacious, obnoxious and forgettable. As it turned out, The Band aka The Hawks deserve the title of THE quintessential group of musicians and calling themselves THE BAND is as fitting a title as any.

I've loved The Band since high school. I'd seen The Last Waltz, more for the other musicians involved than The Band themselves. I found an old copy of their self-titled second album at a garage sale among the first week or two that I started collecting records. I knew "Up on Cripple Creek" and "The Weight" and a couple of other songs before I knew who sang them. I didn't know their story and I was hardly even into Bob Dylan at the time, but The Band was something special to me in those formative years.

Or rather, I claimed them to be.

After my initial exposure to The Band, I loved a handful of songs and appreciated what they were doing but I didn't really get it. I knew liking them was cooler than liking CSNY or CCR or other similarly styled bands that blurred the lines of rock, country, blues and folk. These scraggly dudes were accomplished musicians, that is what the internet told me. Robbie Robertson was one of the best songwriters of his generation, or so I heard. It took me years to finally succumb and agree.

This radio broadcast recorded live in 1976 isn't the best live document in The Band's catalogue, but for my money nothing they ever performed live was bad. It's good for a bootleg, but not the best audio quality ever. There is some major riffs and solos, but few instances that show what these musicians are actually capable of. The organ on this recording seems louder than actual studio albums which gives the songs a bit of a unique sound. They perform the songs you know, maybe some you don't. Good overview but no Last Waltz.

If you are a fan of The Band though, you should probably have this.



This is from The Last Waltz, but it still gives me chills, so I included it.

Download Here

A To Z: Freedom Flight - Shuggie Otis

What did you do when you were 18?

When I was 18 I graduated high school without a desire in the world. I worked my first real job - getting my hands cut up by sheet metal, my lungs filled with asbestos and my hair filled with fiberglass filaments. I started college, or rather, attended classes at a university for a quarter before transferring to a community college that offered me nothing more than the high school I had just left. I lacked motivation, the most creative thing I did was write my 2nd of what has become 7 "Top 50 Albums of the Year" list, in which I claimed Madvillain to reign supreme.

When Shuggie Otis was 18, he released what has become what I consider to be one of the most complete albums of the 70s and perhaps one of my very favorite releases of all time.

At it's heart, Freedom Flight is a blues album - but unlike those albums that came before it, it is a blues so forward thinking without sounding entirely alien, it is hard to pinpoint influences or relatable musicians. Blurring the lines between psychedelic, orchestral pop, floor-stomping blues, Hendrix and jamming in a sundazed haze, Shuggie presents 7 tracks (plus a bonus cut) ranging from lengths of 2:30 to 13:00. The longer tracks that close out the album, "Purple" and "Freedom Flight" might very well be the best instrumental rock songs to have come out by this time on albums that were not completely instrumental.

Shuggie's guitar playing is essential listening. You can hear influences of Santana and other Woodstock luminaries in his plucking, but perhaps the most striking thing is the direct line you can draw from many of his licks to some of Prince's best moments (and yes I know they look alike). Shuggie will almost certainly be remembered as the kid who wrote "Strawberry Letter 23" which was later popularized by The Brothers Johnson or maybe he will be remembered as the guy who put out Inspiration Information a few years later, inspiring many of the best musicians and jazz groups of the next 20 years. Despite this and despite the legacy of influence that Shuggie has left in his short career (he hasn't recorded much over the last 30 years), I honestly think that Freedom Flight is his most important moment. It's an album that says "hey I can do what you do better than you can, and check this out too..."

Freedom Flight is a treasure of an album, and a vision rarely matched.




Download Here

A To Z: Doremi Fasol Latido - Hawkwind

1972 is an absolutely incredible year in music history. I cannot help but think what it would've been like to be the age I am now back then. Where would I have stood musically? Would I find myself part of the increasingly popular Glam Rock scene? Would I find myself with long hair and a hog, listening to Deep Purple? Would I be at crux in my life - rejecting traditional rock n roll for the likes of the classical influences inherent in Progressive Rock? Could I be cool enough to have connections to people following the apex of the Brazilian music scene? Maybe I would just be listening to the popular stuff by Elton John, Paul Simon, and Stevie Wonder.

37 years past that particular year, I find myself wanting to be a part of all these scenes, loving many albums released during this year retrospectively. I have no context of what it would have been like to actually have BEEN THERE. I've seen concerts, I've read anecdotes, I'm jealous to not have lived through this time, just as I'm jealous to not have lived through any significant time in pop music history.

As a natural extension and rebirth of the hippies at the end of the 60's, perhaps the burgeoning Space Rock, psych folk, Glastonbury scene would've been the scene for me. These people held true to what they wanted to do, mixing pop, rock and electronics to create music that was similar to that being created in Germany at the time - but distinctly different.

The difference was Hawkwind.

Doremi Fasol Latido came out on the heels of the massive UK single "Silver Machine" - a song that was not found on any Hawkwind album at the time, but still featured a sound that would soon define them. Lemmy's vocals sound like Roger Daltry, the guitar and bass chugging is reminiscent of the heavy rock found in Uriah Heep and Deep Purple - yet there was this ambience added to the music. A constant humming sound that gently slid up and down the scales, not distracting from the music but definitely noticable. Imagine your rock band performing in the middle of a hurricane, attempting to send it back from where it came. You get the point.

Doremi was 7 tracks the first time it was released. Alternating between hard rock, proto punk, kraut rock, and a handful of British folk moments - many consider this their masterpiece.

I've never really understood the genre title of "Space Rock" beyond the occasional synthesizer whirlings. To me, I think of the serene, minimal, bleep blopp fizz captured perfectly in the soundtracks to movies like Solaris, Moon and Sunshine as something "true" to space. I see The Orb as much more indicative of the loneliness I imagine space to be rather than what Hawkwind present it as.

A party. A huge, drug-fueled, week-long, awesome party.

If those soundtracks (or even perhaps the 2001: A Space Odyssey score) are what I imagine the true sound of space to be like, Doremi Fasol Latido is the quintessential soundtrack for teenagers traveling to space in rebellion against their aging parents. You see, there is a sense of urgency and defiance found throughout the album. The guitar is harsh, the recording is shit and everytime lyrics and singing are introduced I can't help but feel that Hawkwind is trying to write some melodramatic space opera.

But the drawn-out, mind-melting, feedback laden instrumental passages rock. This isn't space music to float around to. This is the your soundtrack to conquer space.

It's not a perfect album, I don't think it's even the best Hawkwind album, but it's fun to pull out every now and then and listen to loud. Grow your hair out, put on some bizarre threads. Hell, paint your face if you must. It might not be your version of space, but it's theirs. And it is one hell of a fun vision to have.

Download Here

PS. Album includes 4 bonus tracks - none of which I find as good as the any of the preceding 7.

Terry Reid's First 3 Albums

The story goes something like this: Terry Reid was still a teenage guitar player making waves in England. Proposed to be one of the next big things at the end of the 60s. By 18 or 19, Jimmy Page approaches him with an opportunity to sing for "The New Yardbirds." Reid declines, possibly for personal reasons or possibly because he was the opening act on a Stones tour. Reid tells Page he should pursue drummer John Bonham and vocalist Robert Plant. The New Yardbirds become Led Zeppelin, Terry Reid stays a solo act. Later in the 70s, Reid is approached to be the new vocalist for Deep Purple, declines and that title goes to Ian Gillian.

Is Reid the ultimate failed opportunist? Possibly. But at the end of the 60s, and into the 70s, the young Terry Reid put out some pretty excellent rock n roll.

The funny thing is the direct reference point to Terry Reid is probably Robert Plant. Especially his first two albums, and especially when the music turns a bit more to the folk-side of things. Otherwise, he has a high voice but not near the shrieking of Plant. Solid proto-hard rock. All albums are good, none are all-time greats, but the self-titled just misses. Make sure to watch the Youtube performance from 1971 (Glatsonbary Fayre DVD) that is one of the most badass performances there is.

Bang, Bang You're Terry Reid (1968)

First album proper. Some excellent guitar playing, but a number of throwaway cuts. Still sort of establishing his sound.
Download Here

Terry Reid (1969)

Almost certainly his best album. Good material, awesome jamming, great mixture of the harder sound and the folky stuff. Really solid.
Download Here

River (1973)

A looser affair. Definitely sounds like a rock album from 1973. A little more blues influence, a little tropical rhythm here and there. Also a really good album. Not quite as raw as the s/t, but at 7 tracks it's a solid listen and good for these hot summer months.
Download Here

Live Performance of "Dean"-1971

The Critters - Anthology: The Complete Kapp Recordings 1965-1967 (1994)

Great summertime pop music. Incredibly catchy songs. I haven't listened to this collection in awhile, but a few years ago I used to listen to a lot. Definitely a product of it's time, but some of the absolute best guitar/folk/sunshine pop of its kind.

New Jersey's Critters have earned a reputation as a bubblegum pop group, but they really had a lot more going for them than that. For starters, founding members Jim Ryan and Don Ciccone were both gifted songwriters, singers, and arrangers, and if they had a sort of soft, sunshine approach to things, well, they did it as well as anyone. This anthology collects their Kapp recordings (which essentially means their one album for Kama Sutra and a handful of singles and B-sides) from 1965 to 1967, and it shows a versatile band that was much more than a sort of precursor to Bread. Their first single, a folk-rock cover of Jackie DeShannon's "Children and Flowers," leads things off here, and yes, it's sappy, but wonderfully so, and once you accept the lyrics, it emerges as a bit of a lost treasure. The next two tracks are also striking, the Beatlesque "He'll Make You Cry" and the equally impressive "Little Girl," both of which could have -- and should have -- been AM radio hits. "Mr. Dieingly Sad," a group original that out-associates the Association, is another highlight, and the set closes with a surprisingly bright, joyous, and breezy version of the Motown classic "Dancing in the Street." Leaving Kama Sutra at the end of 1967, the band recorded a second album on the Project 3 label before calling it quits. The Critters, like Chicago's Cryan' Shames, might have gone on to bigger and better things if the military draft, label snafus, and public perception hadn't short-circuited the creative life span of the group. As it is, they'll make you smile on a rainy day. There's something really valuable in that. - Steve Legget, AMG

Download Here

Baby Grandmothers - Baby Grandmothers (1968)

Awesome Swedish heavy psychedelic music from perhaps the best year in rock history. I'm not gonna relay the history of the band or anything, but just describe what it sounds like. Basically this band is the antecedent of the sound that the currently "popular" Dungen imitates, which is even more evidenced by the fact that the album was remastered/re-released a few years ago on Dungen's label Subliminal Sounds.

If none of this makes sense to you, think of this: Long-haired blond dudes, attacking you with long guitar solos, few words that make any sense to you, alternating between heavy and soft, but not doing anything too technical (this isn't no god damn prog record). However, one song is just over 16 minutes, and the other over 19, and these are in the middle of the album. What's interesting is that while the length of these tracks may seem overkill (I feel this sometimes), the album doesn't really "drag" on. The tracks are that length to establish the feeling, and they do it pretty damn well.

It's not the most inventive record ever, but it's definitely a solid psychedelic record and one that was once a lost treasure but has now seen the light of day in many circles. Enjoy it.

Download Here

2:22 (A Mix)

Here's my mix of songs that are 2:22 long. It's just a zip folder of mp3s but here is the tracklist. Mostly tried to keep it halfway consistent throughout and applicable for some sort of social gathering (not that anyone is going to listen to this in that way) but I think it's pretty good. 30 songs, though I guess I should have narrowed it to 22. silly me. it's almost all rock n roll, soul, country/rockabilly and a couple punkish songs. Some of the mp3s come out as 2:23, but they are actually 2:22 in length when they play. Itunes is just weird sometimes. again, i didn't retag because i just did this pretty quick for fun, so if you add these files to your itunes or whatever, just add them to a playlist in this order.

1. bullion - i just wasn't made for these times
2. al green - ride sally ride (single edit)
3. rufus thomas - i think i made a boo boo
4. jr. walker & the all-stars - do the boomerang
5. them - just a little bit
6. herbie duncan - hot lips baby
7. boyd bennett - move
8. patsy cline - stop, look & listen
9. speedy west & jimmy bryant - old joe clark
10. meat puppets - buckethead
11. blondie - hanging on the telephone
12. the clean - billy two
13. the rolling stones - rip this joint
14. johnny thunders & heartbreakers - baby talk
15. lizzy mercier descloux - wawa
16. the rumblers - clap hands
17. james bell & the turner brothers - the funky buzzard
18. the bar-kays - soul finger
19. sly & the family stone - everyday people
20. the soul seven - the cissy's thang
21. mel & tim - ain't love wonderful
22. the pretty things - there will never be another day
23. the animals - baby let me take you home
24. lightnin' hopkins - my little kewpie doll (bad boogie)
25. johnny cash - blistered
26. wanda jackson - tongue tied
27. the troggs - come now
28. the kinks - animals in the zoo
29. billy nichols - london social degree
30. the beatles - no reply

Download Here

A To Z: H - Hard Rain by Bob Dylan

In a catalog full of records in which opinions are divided, maybe no other record in Bob Dylan's career is more divided than his 1974 live disc, Hard Rain.

A look at the AMG review of the album, and one gets a 2-star rating, dismissing it as a record of excess without the sound quality to match. A mess of a record, yes. That's why it is great. This, perhaps as much as his Royal Albert Concert Hall performance, is Dylan the punk.

In his catalog it follows Blood on the Tracks, probably one of his more mellow and contemplative records. However, where that record is full of the insight of his failing marriage and brutally honest, with Dylan sounding emotionally torn, Hard Rain is a big FUCK YOU and takes the songs (with the help of the Rolling Thunder Revue) to a level of near insanity.

Most of the songs are screamed and shouted, not sung. This is a passionate performance that holds nothing back. Songs of break-up, with new lines that shed light on the shambles that Dylan is in. One listen to "Lay Lady Lay" will show you that this is different. It pleases in the way that a live Stooges record does, or a live Stones record. This hardly sounds like Dylan, it's loud and raucous.

So while opinions are certainly going to continue being divided, this record is an important document into the career of Bob Dylan. And I love it.

Download Here:
Hard Rain

A To Z: B - Back In The USA by the MC5

Oh those Detroit rockers. For my money, Punk basically started with the MC5's Kick Out The Jams along with the Stooges' Stooges. Debate with me if you want, I won't follow it up. Back In The USA is the second album by this group of faster than fuck rockin' dudes. It's much cleaner than the first album, and plays much like a Chuck Berry tribute record. It's the softest of their 3 records, bu it's also the most accomplished, and sounds the most like an actual album. Regardless if it's 5 stars or 4 stars or whatever, it definitely influenced the power pop and punk sounds that were around the corner. Wayne Davis wrote a great review in 1972, a couple years after the album was released. I'll just post that.

I could well be the world's foremost authority on this LP. On the way it sounds, at least, having played it in it's entirely between three hundred and five hundred (who counts?) times. In fact, I just saw this record in a cut out rack which suggested two things to me--(1) I'd better replace my worn out copy now while I can still find it (I did) and (2) WHAT THE HELL IS THE GREATEST AMERICAN ROCK 'N' ROLL ALBUM OF MODERN HISTORY DOING IN A CUT OUT RACK??
I'll tell you why. Because it didn't sell, that's why. And that's a pity, too, because here's an LP that absolutely DRIPS brilliance off its grooves. An LP that, had it been a hit in early 1970 when it was released, would have been influential enough to have spawned a whole flock of blessfully incompetent imitations & thereby change the course of musical history forever. Or if not forever , then at least for a couple of years, anyway. Long enough to ensure that turning on the radio in early 1972 wouldn't have to be the real drag that it usually is.
It doesn't help, really, that most of the critics who literally blasted the shit out of this album have come back to it now. Now it's a bargain bin oldie, when it could have been a real landmark record. It got the shaft for all kinds of reasons, all of which had one thing in common: none of them had anything to do with the music contained on the album. And that's all that counts! If I told you that the Rolling Stones were hippie cult murderers who supported the Vietnam war & were responsible for 85% of the world's pollution, would it make BETWEEN THE BUTTONS sound any different ? Nope. it might make you stop listening to it, but it wouldn't change the fact that it's a great album. Well,. that may be hypothetical (maybe not) but the point is this: all that counts is what happens when that needle hits the grooves, and nothing else.
I mean people were criticising this record because it signified that the MC5 wanted to be pop- stars, because the MC5 deserted John Sinclair because the lyrics contained no revolutionary rhetoric, because Jon Landau was producing it (rock critic envy on that one) and because--this one floors me-- IT WAS PRETENTIOUS. Pretentious ? What on earth is pretentious about a great rock and roll band trying to make a great rock and roll album? It might be pretentious for Simon & Garfunkel or James Taylor to try it, BUT THE MC5? WHAT ELSE COULD THEY DO?
Listen gang, I'm here to tell you DON'T PAY ANY ATTENTION TO THESE ROCK CRITICS! What do they know? Not one of'em has bought an album in the last four years, they all get free copies. What do they know about spending your last four bucks on some supposed masterpiece, only to get home & find out it's a dud ? Nothing, that's what! And don't listen to me, either, in a couple of months when FLASH is on everybody's promo lists. But right now, we're not and I paid the full fare for BACK IN THE USA and just a couple of days ago spent another two bucks for a fresh copy out of the cut out racks, so I've given Atlantic Records six bucks and what they given me?
A great, great album. Man, I just love it. It's been #1 in this house for almost two years and playing it is a daily ritual, just like brushing your teeth or lighting up a cigarette in the morning.
After three or four hundred plays, one no longer hears it as merely a brilliantly executed rock and roll extravaganza; it becomes more, somehow. Sort of like the Band's second album. It's a portrait of America, but not the civil-war America that the Band dealt with which nobody alive today can relate to or refute, but 1960-70 America, the one everybody lives in. And instead of another "America Eats It" album, this one's a rock 'n' roll celebration of everything that's made us great. It's about McDonald's and jukeboxes, and fast cars, and highschool, and teenage lust, and basically HAVING FUN. You know, all the things that so many intellectuals have been trying to tell you was WRONG with America, that it has no culture, no depth, no tradition, no class. You know, the same type of people who don't dig the Seeds. .Well, fuck them, Jack, this may be the hamburger culture, but it's the only thing we've ever known so those of us who dig it should tell these assholes to beat it--to go read a book or something for crissakes, to just LEAVE US ALONE. We wanna have some fun!

(Hey, wait a minute. Is this a record review or is this a THINLY VEILED POLITICAL DIATRIBE??)

Yeah, 'cause this record is chock full of real honest-to-goodness authentic NEW American rock 'n' roll, and we haven't had any since the original kings stepped down. Or at least since the Beach Boys started meditating and the Standells hung up their guitar picks. None of this British shit. Give the English credit for copying American rock so well, from the DC5 to Shakin' Stevens &. the Sunsets to the Beatles-- I dig it, they're all great. They remembered what we forgot, and earn our thanks for that. But who could be better qualified to write and sing rock and roll than one of us?

Well it sure ain't some late-blooming adolescent in England who was eating tea & crumpets five years ago while reading about gardening and had ever-so- nice manners while training as an apprentice baker so he could perhaps raise his social status that they're all so concerned with. Wouldn't you rather hear it from a bunch of American punks like yourself who've eaten at McDonald's and spent whole portions of their life cruisin' down Shakin' Street, and gone to highschool and dodged the draft? A bunch of kids who grew up in a land where rock and roll was a daily reality through a six inch speaker and not a rumor floating off the coast in a pirate radio station, or a half- hour a day thrill on the BBC.
What they need over there is a string of beautiful McDonald's & Jack In The Boxes. & Shakey's Pizza Palaces & Bob' s Big Boys and all the-rest, from coast to coast. I mean if they're really serious about playing our music, well then they're just gonna have to understand what it's all about. They're WRONG, see. And now we're paying for the fact that we paid so much attention to them for the last six years because by and large they've grown tired of altering the old American jams of 15 years ago and have gone back to the only music they can REALLY understand: the Elton John. Cat Stevens, new John Lennon, Paul McCartney type of English schmaltz/folk/ballad shit. But for some inexplicable reason these radio programmers & record companies still think that England is fab or something and when they're not dominating the charts, then their influence is.
Who needs Cat Stevens and his "Peace Train " or Lennon's "Imagine?" Not only are they lousy rock songs (which disqualifies them right off the bat) but they're so incredibly simple minded that they constitute a massive insult to the intelligence of anyone old enough to buy a transistor radio. "Everybody wants peace," Nixon says, and for once he's right (maybe everybody but him, but that' s beside the point). But is listening to Cat Stevens going to bring peace any sooner? Oh fuck,no it isn't and we both know this. When everybody wanted a hot rod they gave us hot rod music. So everybody wants peace and they give us peace music. And you can bet your balls that if Cat Stevens had been around back then, he'd have been churning out hot rod music by the truckload. And as for Lennon, who hasn't imagined that kind of world? It would be real nice, sure, BUT IT JUST AIN'T GONNA HAPPEN, and it would be a much healthier country if some more people would accept this. It's just as true as the fact that if you played "Imagine" for your landlord when he wants to know why the rent's two weeks late, that he'd bop you over the head with that fucking album. And with good reason, too, 'cause anybody that really and truly gets off on that song is a daydreaming fop, anyway. That's why they call it "Imagine," isn't it?
The point is this: the Swinging Medallions are smarter, better, and have more respect for you than either Lennon or Stevens because they KNOW that war is evil, that pollution is bad, that it would be really neat to live in a non-mercenary world, and all the rest, but even more important, THEY KNOW THAT YOU ALREADY KNOW THIS. The Swinging Medallions have that all-important awareness, but Lennon and these other clowns think you need this information, they think you're some kind of feeble brained idiot who prefers war to peace! Who prefers soot to clean air! Doesn't this make you mad?
The Swinging Medallions say "fuck it, we both know what's going on, why write a dumbshit folkie song and send out weird vibrations to innocent people, when we can write "Double Shot Of My Baby's Love" and give these kids something to dig forever." And I thank 'em for that.
What does all this have to do with BACK IN THE USA ? A lot, that's what. But I'm not gonna disect it cut by cut, if you try to get clinical with this album it'd get up off the turntable & walk away laughing. Who could blame it?
But just listen to "High School," with it's great cheerleader chorus. Ain't no gear English band in the world who could write a song like that. Eric Clapton may be the best guitarist on earth, but has he ever dated a cheerleader? Or take "Shakin' Street," the best song on the album, all about that estatic drag in your very own home town! I mean, could they get any closer to your own experience? And it's a fantastic song too. Listen to "Tonight," and tell me it wouldn't sound beautiful coming out of an AM radio in your car at 60 m.p.h. And dig the beautifully true lyrics of Chuck Berry' s "Back In The USA" itself:

Looked hard for a drive-in,
Searchin' for a corner cafe,
Where hamburgers sizzle
On an open grill nite & day
Yeah, and the jukebox is jumpin'
With records, like back in the USA!

DOWNLOAD:

BACK IN THE USA

Surf's Up, Bros

So in light of me being home on the coast, the first days of spring and the sun shining, I decided to upload The Trashmen's only full length album, "Surfin' Bird".

The album is named after their hit single that shares the name, which is one of the most raucous, over the top rock n roll anthems ever recorded. The album is just awesome surf rock through and through. Rev up your hot rod, put in your long board, hang out with the other hip cats and throw away your cares. Not all the songs on the album are as heavy as Surfin Bird, but it's a nice beach record and a lot of fun throughout. Enjoy.

Download Here