17.1.12
Streets (Beggars Banquet Compilation)- (1977)
Must have sold my copy years ago, but thanks to the excellent 666 Music For Life
blog you can get it here:
30.11.11
A Third Rockabilly Selection...
So, that was Rockabilly month.
I've learned something from it- that what I look for above all else in music is excitement, and listening to these acts from the early days of Rockabilly has certainly given me plenty of that. It has also reinforced my view that music gets its power from simplicity.
My belief in the importance of Elvis has also been renewed- the right man in the right place at the right time, he ignited a cultural phenomenon that has shaped the lives of millions of people over almost sixty years. Rockabilly was happening anyway, but it would have remained a rather obscure form of country music without the transcendent impact of Elvis.
I hope that some of our readers have taken the chance to listen to some really great artists who they might otherwise have missed, in particular Mr Rockabilly himself, the great Mr Charlie Feathers.
Rock And Roll With Mom And Dad Bill Davenport & His Circle D Ranch Hands; I Need Some Lovin' Harold Allen; Lovin' Honey Gene Morris; Shook Shake Ken Davis; Betty Ann Cruisers; Rattle Shakin' Mama Mel McGonnigle; Shake It Up Baby Frankie Dee; Be My Baby F.D. Johnson With The Missouri Valley Boys; Hang Out Lloyd Arnold; It's Rock And Roll Jack Winston & The Hi-Jacks; Rock N' Roll Saddles The Whitecaps with Johnny Edwards; Sugar Sweet David Houston; If You Love My Woman Jimmy Witter & The Shadows; I Hate Myself Al Sweatt With Johnnie Cale & The Valentines; Hey Jibbo Art Wood; Robinson Crusoe Bop Sonny Cole & The Rhythm Roamers; Full-Grown Cat The McCoys; Rhythm Guitar Carl Miller; Love Bug Crawl Jim Billington; Rock, Baby, Rock Bob Hicks & The Fenders; Barefoot Baby Janis Martin; Rock-A-Bye-Baby Skeeter Bonn; Oooh-Wee Ric Cartey; Jungle Rock Hank Mizell; Rakin' And Scrapin' Dean Beard; Flying Saucers Rock 'N' Roll Billy Lee Riley; A Red Cadillac And A Black Moustache Warren Smith; Brand New Cadillac Vince Taylor; Red Hot Billy Riley And The Little Green Men; Stutterin' Papa Buck Griffin; Matchbox Carl Perkins.
I know Vince Taylor was English, but I just love the number!
20.11.11
Another Rockabilly Selection...
16.11.11
A Rockabilly Selection
- Obvious Presley influence
- Performers with a country music background
- Identifiable country and rhythm and blues inflections
- Blues structures
- Use of echo effect
- Strong rhythm and beat
- Emotion and feeling
- A wild or extreme vocal style
- An energetic blues influenced guitar solo
- Upright bass, especially if played in a slap manner.
- Moderate to fast tempo
- A date of 1954, 1955 or 1956
- Southern origin
- Obvious commercial intent
- Condescendingly juvenile lyrics
- Chorus groups, especially female
- Harmony singing
- Bland or uninvolved singing
- Saxophone
- Electric bass
- Piano, unless it is Jerry Lee Lewis
- Weak rhythm
- Black performers
- Slower tempos
- Every year after 1957 (until the revival)
- Northern origins
- The performers perceived commitment to rockabilly (double if the performer is Charlie Feathers): this may be bolstered by hair, clothes, posture, or vintage instruments in accepted rockabilly fashion
- Acoustic guitar and electric guitar and upright bass but no drums
- Obscurity
- Sun label or Memphis origin
- The influence of Eddie Cochran, Gene Vincent or The Rock n Roll Trio ( for revival performers)
From: Go Cat Go!: Rockabilly Music And Its Makers by Craig Morrison (1996)
Tracks: Sixteen Chicks- Joe Clay, Born To Love One Woman- Ric Cartey, Six White Horses - Stan Johnson & The Blue Chips, New Shoes- Lee Denson, Little Boy Blue- Hoyt Johnson, Drugstore Rock 'n' Roll- Janis Martin , Woodpecker Rock - The Braves, Catty Town- Dick Glasser, Honey Bunn - Larry Donn, Baby Sittin' All The Time - Bob Hicks & The Fenders, Honky Tonk Mind- Tommy Blake, Teen Billy Baby – Sprouts, Don't Bug Me Baby- Milton Allen, Now Stop- Martha Carson, Milkcow Blues- Jimmie Rodgers Snow, I'm Hungry For Your Lovin' -Danny Dill, Heart Throb- Ric Cartey, One And Only- David Houston, I've Got A Dollar - Jimmy Dell, Rock Ola Ruby - Sonee West, Sweetest Thing - J. Mikel & The Fenders, Lonesome Baby Blues - David Ray, Sweet Rockin' Baby - Sonee West, Mary Nell- Autry Inman, Juke Box Rock - Dick Seaton & The Mad Lads, All Night Long - Tommy Blake, Rockin' Bones - Elroy Dietzel & The Rhythm Bandits, Just Thought I'd Set You Straight - Ted Harris, Dry Run - Parker Cunningham, Goodbye Train - Jim Floey & The Big Beats
18.5.11
The Devil's Music
Jackie Brenston - Rocket 88
Robert Johnson - Preachin' Blues (Up Jumped The Devil)
Muddy Waters - Rollin' Stone
Jimmy Rogers - Goin' Away Baby
Leadbelly - The Midnight Special
Clarence 'Gatemouth' Brown - Okie Dokie Stomp
Clifton Chenier - Ay-Te Te Fee
Professor Longhair & His Shuffling Hungarians - Mardi Gras In New Orleans
Little Richard - Good Golly Miss Molly
Billie Holiday - He's Funny That Way
John Lee Hooker - I'm In The Mood
Bob Marley & The Wailers - Jah Is Mighty
Hank Williams - You Win Again
Ike & Tina Turner - I Can't Believe What You Say
B.B. King - Everyday I Have The Blues
T-Bone Walker - (They Call It) Stormy Monday
Howlin' Wolf - Moanin' At Midnight
Blind Willie McTell - Talkin' To Your Mama
Clarence 'Bon Ton' Garlow - Bon Ton Roulet
Aaron Neville - Tell It Like It Is
Albert King - That's What The Blues Is All About
Irma Thomas - Ruler Of My Heart
Otis Redding - Pain In My Heart (alt. take)
Booker T. & The MG's - Baby, Scratch My Back
Al Green - Take Me To The River
all you need ... is five strings, two notes, two fingers and one asshole. - Keith Richards
14.4.11
Indie Top 20 Volume 12 (1991)
1. Happen To Die - The Charlatans
2. Pulling My Fingers Off - The Wendys
3. Lemon Afternoon - The Dylans
4. Chlorine Dream - Spirea X
5. Spaceman 3 - Big City - Spaceman 3
6. Nothing Can Stop Us - Saint Etienne
7. Fountain Of Youth - Candyland
8. Get Better - New Fast Automatic Daffodils
9. Don't Fear The Reaper - The Bridewell Taxis
10. Ten Little Girls - Curve
11. Counting Backwards - Throwing Muses
12. Fortune Teller - Buffalo Tom
13. You Love Us - Manic Street Preachers
14. She's My Friend - Catherine Wheel
15. Jack - Moose
16. Nadine - Levitation
17. Last Train To Trancentral - The KLF
16.2.11
Help- A Charity Project for the Children of Bosnia (1995)
The nineties passed me by in a haze. I have vague memories of drunkenly watching the nightmare of the wars in the former Yugoslavia on Newsnight . I knew I was living through a period of significant change, but it just wasn't sinking in. For example I have no recollection whatsoever of the collapse of the Soviet Union. The moon could have gone out and I wouldn't have noticed.
This record stirs some memories of watching Trainspotting on video and taking increasing amounts of alcohol fuelled sick leave.
I think that the original had no tracklisting because it was hurriedly recorded and released?
Anyway, I found this in a charity shop this week. No idea what happened to my original copy. I probably left it in that strange and inhospitable country- the past.
7.1.11
The Spaghetti Incident?
I'm not posting the Guns N Roses covers album The Spaghetti Incident? (1993)
Instead I've trawled through my old files and compiled the tracks as performed by the original artists. Beware of variable bitrate!
Since I don't Have You- The Skyliners. New Rose- The Damned. Down On The Farm- UK Subs. Human Being- The New York Dolls. Raw Power- The Stooges. Ain't It Fun- The Dead Boys. Buick Mackane- T-Rex. Big Dumb Sex- Soundgarden. Hair of the Dog- Nazareth. Attitude- The Misfits. Black Leather- The Professionals. You Can't Put Your Arms Around A Memory- Johnny Thunders. I Don't Care About You- Fear. Look At Your Game Girl- Charles Manson.
6.12.10
Soul
Here is a selection of 29 soul records which compel you to move, even if like me you are long past your sell by date and the prospect of an all nighter makes your spinal column freeze.
01 - The Charades- Key To My Happiness; 02- Frank Wilson - Do I Love You (Indeed I Do); 03 - Velvelettes - He Was Really Saying Something;04- R. Dean Taylor-There's A Ghost In My House; 05 - Smokey Robinson & The Miracles- The Tears Of A Clown;06 - The Flirtations -Nothing But A Heartache; 07- Marlena Shaw- Let's Wade In The Water; 08 – The Dells - It's All Up To You; 09 – The Carstairs - It Really Hurts Me Girl;10 – Earl Jackson - Soul Self Satisfaction; 11- Jackie Wilson- (Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher;12 – The Impressions - Can't Satisfy; 13 - The Originals – Suspicion; 14 - Mill Evans - Why, Why, Why; 15 – Willie Hutch- Love Runs Out; 16 – Chris Clark- Love's Gone Bad; 17 – Tony Clarke – Landslide;18 – The Prophets - I Got The Fever;19 - Velvelettes - Needle In A Haystack; 20 - Marvelettes - Too Many Fish In The Sea;21- Gladys Knight & The Pips- No One Could Love You More;22 – Dusty Springfield -Live It Up; 23 –Dobie Gray- Out On The Floor; 24- Gloria Jones - Tainted Love; 25 – Eddie Holman - I Surrender;26- Al Wilson - The Snake; 27 – Jimmy Ruffin- He Who Picks A Rose;28- Geno Washington- Michael (The Lover); 29 – The Barrino Brothers - Trapped In A Love.
30.11.10
Trojan Skinhead Reggae
What are we for? nothing really. We're just a group of blokes. We're not for anything.
A Skinhead quoted in You'll Never Be 16 Again: An Illustrated History of the British Teenager by Peter Everett (1986).
For all its aggression , skinhead was a curiously passive phenomenon with no obvious interest in interacting with, let alone changing society. And, in a first for a post- war youth cult, it didn't even produce its own music, preferring to dance to the early versions of reggae that were coming out of Jamaica.
From Crisis? What Crisis? Britain In The 1970's by Alwyn W. Turner (2008)
27.11.10
One Original Step Beyond
The Specials LP contained covers of songs by Dandy, Prince Buster and The Maytals; Madness began with a tribute to Prince Buster and followed it up with a cover of One Step Beyond.
Consequently Skinhead classics like Longshot and Liquidator reappeared in the UK charts, and acts like Derrick Morgan and Laurel Aitken enjoyed popularity with new audiences.
The original Trojan LPs became much sought after and a steady stream of compilation albums featuring the ska/ rocksteady/ reggae classics loved by the Skinheads of 1969 appeared.
This compilation was much later, 1992. From a personal point of view it was a Friday night favourite through which many of my younger friends learned about the music, whilst the older members of our gang wallowed in nostalgia.
The back cover gives the track listing along with the reasons for inclusion.
20.11.10
Oi!
We stand for punk as bootboy music. Oi! is working class, and if you’re not working class you’ll get a kick in the bollocks. – Stinky Turner, 1980.
Loud, raw and violent, Oi-Oi is the musical battle cry of the skinheads, and like them it pulls no punches. News Of The World, 1981.
Punk Rock a la 1976 was a middle class movement that had more to do with art colleges and fashion designers than working class youth.
The original guttersnipe sneers of The Sex Pistols in the UK and the dumbed down cartoon personae of the glue sniffin' Ramones in the states were carefully crafted rather than being a spontaneous reaction to their situation. The Pistols might have been ordinary estate kids, but the band was all about McLaren.
And of course, punk appealed to the ordinary kids- with bands who swore on TV and caused spluttering outrage amongst the elders. Anarchy and chaos were quite appealing propositions to the boot-boys of the 70's, and Jimmy Pursey's Sham 69 introduced the populist terrace mentality to punk, engaging Skinheads in the punk scene.
The way in which punk diversified from 1977 onwards is very telling. Many of the original bands either disappeared or came clean about their more 'serious' musical aspirations. We got the earnest 'post punk' of bands like Joy Division and Gang of Four. The DIY punk ethos gave us Scritti Polliti as well as Crass.
On the other hand the myth of punk as the music of the streets, the highrise and the disaffected youth became a reality in the hands of groups who actually were made up of dead end kids with knocked off instruments and three chords.
I've slagged Garry Bushell off before, and I can't take to the bloke- he's a gutter patriot, but he does provide us with a comprehensive if rather apologist (it was the other side wot started it) history of Oi!
By 1983 the chances were that if you saw a young Skinhead he would be listening to fast three chord punk, not reggae or ska, and that the image would be less 'clean' than that favoured by his forebears. The original skins had placed great emphasis on the need for smartness and sharpness, but now came the tattered jeans patched with beer towels, the totally shaved heads.
Chris Killip- Angelic Upstarts at a Miners’ Benefit Dance at the Barbary Coast Club, Sunderland, Wearside, 1984.
I've knocked this compilation together from a variety of sources- if there's one thing Oi wasn't about it was hi- fidelity!
Sham 69- If The Kids Are United, Angels With Dirty Faces, Hurry Up Harry, Borstal Breakout.
The Cockney Rejects- Flares and Slippers, War On The Terraces.
Angelic Upstarts- Teenage Warning, Upstart.
Cock Sparrer - Take 'Em All.
The Adicts- Bad Boy.
Red Alert- In Britain.
Peter & The Test Tube Babies- Banned From The Pubs.
Combat 84- Violence.
Action Pact- London Bouncers.
The Business- Harry May.
Blitz- Someone's Gonna Die, New Age.
The Oppressed- Living With Unemployment, Riot.
The Ejected- I'm Gonna Get A Gun.
10.11.10
4.11.10
Ride Your Donkey- (1969)
Oh yeah, it's Skinhead month at Burning Aquarium. Here is some music for Skinheads...a
Trojan Records compilation from 1969.
3.6.10
A Break From The Norm - Various (2001)
1 Take Yo' Praise- Camille Yarbrough (Praise You)
2 Love Loves to Love Love- Lulu (Santa Cruz)
3 Higher Ground- Ellen McIlwaine (Song for Lindy)
4 Shake Whatcha Mama Gave Ya- Stik E and The Hoodz (Ya Mama)
5 Can't Write Left Handed- Bill Withers (Demons)
6 I Can't Explain- Yvonne Elliman (Going Out of My Head)
7 Let the Rhythm Pump- Doug Lazy (Ya Mama)
8 Beatbox Wash (Rinse It Rmx)- Dust Junkys (Gangster Trippin)
9 Sliced Tomatoes- Just Brothers (The Rockafeller Skank)
10 Young Scene- Keith Mansfield (Punk to Funk)
11 Humpin', Bumpin' and Thumpin'- Andre Willilams (Sho Nuff)
12 I'll Do A Little Bit More- Olympics (Soul Surfing)
13 The Acid Test- Leo Muller (Build It Up - Tear It Down)
14 The Beat Girl- John Barry Seven (The Rockafeller Skank)
15 The Kettle- Colosseum -(Ya Mama)
16 Ashes, The Rain and I- The James Gang (Right Here Right Now)
Between 1998 and 2000 Fatboy Slim had 5 consecutive UK top ten singles.
In July 2002, he performed to an estimated audience of 250,000 (the second of his free open air concerts on Brighton beach).
25.5.10
Welcome to Comboland- A collection of 12 artists from North Carolina (1986)
What it says on the cover.
Tracklisting:
The Othermothers - Rodeo
The Connells - Brighter Worlds
Right Profile - Cosmopolitan Lovesick Blues
The Graphic - I Flew Like a Bird
Rod Dash - Jimmy's Out of Touch
Southern Culture on the Skids - Love in 4D
The Woods - Battleships Chains
Fetchin Bones - Plus 7
The Spongetones - Torn Apart
The Accelerators - Leave My Heart
Scott Davison - Velvet Elvis
Don Dixon - When a Man Loves a Woman
More Don Dixon coming soon...
7.5.10
135 Grand Street, New York, 1979 (?)
This is the soundtrack from Ericka Beckman's documentary on the New York No Wave scene. Dodgy sound quality, as you would expect. File includes booklet.
1. Theoretical Girls — Glazened Eyes
2. Ut — Sharp's Loose
3. A Band — Sand and Sea
4. A Band — Mirror, Mirror
5. Rhys Chatham — Guitar Trio
6. Chinese Puzzle — Great Wall Of Prague
7. The Static — Spectacular Commodity
8. Morales — Gay Girl In a Gay Bar
9. Youth in Asia — Talking Heads pt.1
10. Youth in Asia — Amnesia
11. Steve Piccolo — Superior Genes
12. Chinese Puzzle - Chinese Funk
13. Jill Kroesen — Fay Shism Blues
14. Steve Piccolo — It's Hard to Be in Love in Times Like These
15. The Static — My Relationship
16. Theoretical Girls — Contrary Motion
2.4.10
Who? What? Why? When? Where? (1984)
Printed on the cover: There is absolutely NO reason for this LP to cost more than £3.50...
When, in 1984, Conflict left Crass to establish their own Mortarhate label they carried on many of the traditions of their mentors, providing gritty anarcho punk at pocket money prices and giving vinyl exposure to smaller, often D.I.Y bands.
This is a vinyl rip of the 1984 release. I gather that there was a CD issue in 2003, same tracks but with a tidy booklet. No booklet here but the authentic crackle of the cider fuelled wrath of the Thatcher years. Firm historical orientation is provided Conflicts opener, Cruise, which I'm sure some people will insist was about the diminuative star of 1983's Risky Business rather than the ballistic missiles that President Reagan planted in the UK.
17.3.10
Punk
Punk anthologies tend to be flawed in the following ways:
They exclude important acts such as The Clash, The Sex Pistols and The Ramones (contractual reasons are usually cited).
They don’t know where to begin.
They don’t know where to stop.
They include a lot of ‘new wave’ pop music that whilst touched by punk was not really punk (what is punk? submit your definitions here please…).
Seriously- let's have some debate on this folks...
This compilation is pretty good. Here I state opinion as though it was fact.
Its real strength lies in the presence of a lot of proto punk, plus there are tracks from 'all' the major bands of 76-78.
The point is stretched when it comes to the inclusion of Joy Division- but that’s about as far off on a tangent as we are taken. Having said that Steel Pulse are here, but I can understand the inclusion of a reggae track as reggae was a vital part of the punk scene.
There’s no Oi (unless you count Sham 69), nothing gothic, no anarcho punk and none of the so called second wave stuff.
This was released as a companion to a book .
24.1.10
Red Wave-4 Underground Bands From The USSR (1986)
This LP, put together by American producer Joanna Stingray, was the first western release of rock music from the Soviet Union.
At this time rock music in the Soviet Union was still largely an underground affair.
The four bands featured were all from Leningrad (now St Petersburg):
Аквaриум (Aquarium)