Archives

All posts for the month May, 2017

Testify! Episode #2

Posted by funky16corners on May 28, 2017
Posted in: 45s, Atomic Guitar Destruction, Au Go Go, Beatles-esque Sounds, Brill Building, British Beat, Bubblegum, cover versions, Culture, Curt Boettcher, Easy, folk rock, Funky16Corners, garage punk, Iron Leg, Jimi Hendrix, Laurel Canyon, Music, Original versions, Pledge Drive, pop, psychedelia, R&Beat, Rock, Soundtrack, Sunset Strip, Sunshine Pop, Super Rock, Surf Music, Testify!, Wall of Sound, WFMU's Give the Drummer Radio. Leave a comment

Example

Testify Episode #2. Originally broadcast 05/24/2017

Testify Intro
Roger and the Gypsies – Pass the Hatchet Pt1 (Seven B)
Roy Ward – Horse With a Freeze Pt1 (SevenB)
Bobby Williams – Boogaloo Mardi Gras Pt1 (Capitol)
James K Nine – Live It Up (Federal)
Curly Moore and the Kool Ones – Shelley’s Rubber Band (House of the Fox)
Doug Anderson – Hey Mama Here Comes the Preacher (Janus)

Theme From the Saint
Billy Strange – Theme From the Man From U.N.C.L.E. (GNP)
Baker Knight and the Knightmares – Hallucinations (Reprise)
Beckett Quintet – No Correspondence (Gemcor)
Blue Things – Orange Rooftop of Your Mind (RCA)
Cast of Thousands – Girl What You Gonna Do (Tower)
Motifs – If I Gave You Love (Selsom)
Beauregard and the Tuffs – Ramblin’ Rose (Decca)
The Kinks – The Last of the Steam Powered Trains (Reprise)

Soupy Sales – The Mouse (ABC-Paramount)
Maggie Thrett – Soupy (From tha Soul)
Evie Sands – I Can’t Let Go (Blue Cat)
Shangri Las – Bulldog (Red Bird)
Janis Ian – Letter To John (Verve)
Sly and the Family Stone – Dance to the Medley (Epic)

The Isley Brothers – Testify Pts 1&2 (T-Neck)
Ray Sharpe – Help Me (Get the Feeling) (Atco)
Billy Lamont – Sweet Thang (20th Century Fox)
Lonnie Youngblood – Go Go Shoes (Fairmount)
Lonnie Youngblood – Soul Food (That’s What I Like) (Fairmount)
Sonny Hopson WHAT Aircheck 1969
Jerry Blavat and Yon Teenagers – Discophonic Walk (Favor)
Georgie Woods – Potato Salad Pt1 (Fat Back)
John R – Keep On Scratchin’ (Smash)
E Rodney Jones with Larry and the Hippies Band – Right On Right On Sex Machine (Westbound)
Hank Marr – White House Party (Wingate)
Music Out
Rex Garvin and the Mighty Cravers – I Gotta Go Now (Out On the Floor) (Like)

 _______________________________________________________

Greetings all

I am in the process of gearing up for this year’s fundraiser, as well as a reassessment of blogging/podcasting workload.

All podcasts, Funky16Corners Radio Show, Iron Leg Radio Show and my weekly live bag, Testify! on WFMU’s Give the Drummer Radio will continue going forward.

The actual written end of the blogs may undergo some truncation to accommodate the increased production schedule.

I want to keep the Iron Leg Radio Show as the first post of the month, so the new episode will be dropping next Sunday, 6/2/17.

This week I’m posting this past week’s episode of Testify! which I think you’ll dig if you enjoy either of the blogs/podcasts.

You can also hit up my archive page over at WFMU for the previous episode, as well as all episodes going forward (broadcast every Wednesday night from 10-12).

So dig this, and I’ll see you all next week.

Peace

Larry

Advertisement

Playboys of Edinburg – Mickey’s Monkey

Posted by funky16corners on May 21, 2017
Posted in: 45s, cover versions, Culture, garage punk, Iron Leg, Music, R&Beat, Rock, Texas music, Uncategorized. Leave a comment

Example

Playboys of Edinburg

Example

Listen/Download – Playboys of Edinburg – Mickey’s Monkey

Greetings all.

Before we get started this week I have some important news.

________________________________________________
Example

In related news, my new weekly radio show for WFMU’s Give the Drummer Radio, Testify! had it’s inaugural episode last week and is archived over there. If you dig Funky16Corners and/or Iron Leg I think you’ll dig it. I’ll be on the air every Wednesday night from 10-12, live, so tune in when you get a chance!
_______________________________________________

The record I bring you today is the result of a seed planted in my head way back in the 80s, when their name popped up in a spectacular radio station promo from a mid-60s concert in Texas called the Now Sounds Groove In.

The radio spot appeared on a compilation of Texas garage punk, and it became a staple of my mix tapes back in the day.

Hosted by the Houston Post (the spot was narrated by Scott Holtzman of the Fever Tree, who provided an original psychedelic jingle for the ad), the concert featured a bunch of Texas bands, some of which I knew (the Fever Tree, Moving Sidewalks, Countdown 5, A440, Neal Ford and the Fanatics) and some that were new to me (The Glass Can, Coastliners, Sixpence, Thursday’s Children, Dimensions) including the Playboys of Edinburg.

Though I had never heard the group, the name stuck in my head (along with the rest of the commercial) and when I happened upon the 45 you see before you today, I had to grab it.

When I had only heard the ad, I assumed that the name was yet another grab at the British Invasion, a la the Playboys of Edinburgh (Scotland). The band was in fact the Playboys of Edinburg (Texas), a border down in the Southeast part of the state.

The A-side of their 1967 45, ‘Sanford Ringleton the 3rd of Abernathy’ is a kind of Kinks-y pop thing, but the flip, a cover of the Miracles ‘Mickey’s Monkey’ is a smoker.

They really lay into the tune, with some wailing organ and pounding drums (and handclaps) and I’d put their take right up there with the Rascals version.

The group released a handful of 45s for local and national labels between 1966 and 1970 (including a few later on as POE) and their version of ‘Mickey’s Monkey’ was a regional hit in Texas.

It’s a groovy 45, and I hope you dig it.

See you next week.

Peace

Larry

 

Example

PS Head over to Funky16Corners for some soul.

The Cowsills – Anything Changes

Posted by funky16corners on May 14, 2017
Posted in: Cowsills Project, Culture, Iron Leg, Music, Rock, Uncategorized. 2 Comments

Example

The (Bill-less) Cowsills performing ‘Anything Changes’ on TV

Example

Listen/Download – The Cowsills – Anything Changes

Greetings all.

It is always – even in a small degree – my intention that your mind be blown when you visit Iron Leg. Mileage will vary, depending on the proximity of your tastes to my own, but every once in a while I know that I’m posting something pretty much guaranteed to hit the mark.

Today’s selection is one of those.

The Cowsills are one of the truly great, and deeply underestimated pop bands of the 1960s.

Their greatness owes a lot to the vision of the eldest Cowsill brother, and de facto leader of the band, Bill.

Unfortunately, due to his clashing with their father, a volatile individual who was seemingly more interested in marketing his children as teen idols than in nurturing their musical talent, Bill the younger was forced out of the Cowsills in 1968 (though there seem to be indicators that he was clandestinely involved in the group’s records to some extent afterward).

The first album the Cowsills would record after his departure would be 1969’s ‘II x II’.

Today’s selection blew me away the first time I heard it, mainly because it’s one of the heaviest things the Cowsills ever recorded.

‘Anything Changes’, written by Bob and Paul Cowsill, opens with what sounds like a Hammond organ being pushed into a giant reverb tank, followed by fuzz guitar and heavy bass.

The sound is a lot closer to the kind of thing Stephen Stills was doing toward the end of his tenure with the Buffalo Springfield and on into CSNY, and the really groovy thing is, that on top of all this heaviness is a nice, juicy layer of those patented Cowsills harmonies.

Though Bill co-wrote a few songs on the album, I have no idea if he managed to play on it at all.

In the years after he was ousted, he recorded a very cool solo album for MGM (‘Nervous Breakthrough’) and did some freelance production work for Bodine (featuring ex-members of the Daily Flash) and Lightmyth.

He would eventually make a brief reconnection with the Cowsills, and then do a one-off (and rare) single in 1974 with a band called Bridey Murphy, composed of Barry, Paul and Bill Cowsill as well as Waddy Wachtel, who along with his girlfriend Judi Pulver had been in the oribit of the Cowsills for a few years as songwriters.

Fortunately, all of the Cowsills albums are excellent, cheap and plentiful, and if you don’t have them, you should go out to one of your finer garage sales or flea markets and scoop them up.

Dig the sounds, and I’ll be back next week with a new episode of the Iron Leg Radio Show.

Until then

Peace

Larry

 

Example

PS Head over to Funky16Corners for some soul.

Rocky and the Border Kings – Michoacan

Posted by funky16corners on May 7, 2017
Posted in: 45s, cover versions, Culture, folk rock, Iron Leg, Music, Texas music. Leave a comment

Example

J.J. Light aka ‘Rocky’

Example

Listen/Download – Rocky and the Border Kings – Michoacan

Greetings all.

If you have been coming around Iron Leg for a while, or you know me in the real world, you already know that I am a huge, lifelong fan of Doug Sahm and the Sir Douglas Quintet.

Their music is a cornerstone of my listening, and I was lucky enough to see them live, meet Sir Doug and even hoist a beer and share some conversation with him back in the day.

Way back in the 80s (I think) Mercury did a CD comp of the Doug and he SDQ’s Smash/Mercury stuff, and one of my favorite songs on the disc was a tune called ‘Michaocan’.

Flash forward about two decades and I find today’s 45 and grab it instantly, assuming that it was an SDQ joint.

So, I get it home and the version of the song is clearly different that the one on the comp, and the singer doesn’t sound like Mr Sahm. I found this especially puzzling since the 45 says that the song comes from the soundtrack to ‘Cisco Pike’, a great movie in which Sir Doug appears.

So, off to the interwebs I go, trying to track down some more info, and what do I find but an interview with Kim Fowley (producer of the track) at the WFMU Rock and Soul Ichiban blog (all roads lead back to WFMU) where it is revealed that ‘Rocky’ is in fact one-time SDQ member JJ Light (I had originally thought it might have been longtime Sahm sideman, horn player Eraclio ‘Rocky’ Morales).

Now, I wouldn’t be surprised if the rest of the SDQ appears on the 45, but it doesn’t seem that anyone out there has ever gone into that much detail on the track.

As it stands, ‘Michoacan’ is a happy, grooving piece of Tex/Mex rock and roll, chugging full steam ahead with that Augie Meyers style organ, pumping bass and guitar and a great melody.

Light recorded a bunch of stuff under his own name, but I am not familiar with it (though it comes highly recommended).

I hope you dig the tune, and I’ll see you all next week.

Peace

Larry

 

Example

PS Head over to Funky16Corners for some soul.