Bummed I can't embed this on the blog for you but please dig it anyway:
Click this---> :: SMOKE FAiRiES @ BLACK CAB SESSiONS
Bonus:: Seasick Steve @ Black Cab Sessions
24 December 2010
SMOKE FAiRiES @ BLACK CAB SESSiONS
Click this---> :: SMOKE FAiRiES @ BLACK CAB SESSiONS
Bonus:: Seasick Steve @ Black Cab Sessions
18 December 2010
SWEET DREAMS DEAR CAPTAiN BEEFHEART
Via Bob Lefsetz
I heard he was sick...
I'm not sure Frank Zappa is going to be remembered, to a great extent he's already been forgotten. But if you don't own the first few albums, you're missing out. "You Didn't Try To Call Me", from both the very first album, "Freak Out", and the doo-wop remake on Ruben & the Jets, encapsulates the despair of unrequited love as well as any song ever written. And when you hear the line about reprimering the right front fender, you chuckle, Zappa was not like today's artists, taking himself too seriously, he never lost his sense of humor.
And Zappa was not only about himself. He was an empire builder. He released records by acts diverse as Alice Cooper, Wild Man Fischer, the GTOs and Captain Beefheart.
The Captain did not start out with Frank. Nor did he remain with him. But his most famous work was released on Zappa's Bizarre label. Frank had two, Bizarre and Straight, eventually he had more.
"Trout Mask Replica" was not made for Top Forty radio. Hell, it wasn't made for any radio. It was an album made to be played from start to finish in your bedroom, as you tried to decipher its dense lyrics and music.
And the hype was just as good. In "Rolling Stone", Beefheart said it took only eight hours to record the record. When asked why it took so long, the Captain replied that he had to teach the band their instruments.
Not that we believed that. But how great to have someone who could reply tongue-in-cheek, who wasn't giving the bland answers television seems to require in its endless quest to appeal to everybody, ultimately appealing to nobody.
Eventually, the Captain became more comprehensible. There was that album "Clear Spot", that came in a plastic bag, which contained the positively mainstream "My Head Is My Only House Unless It Rains". Which the Tubes ultimately covered. But they've been forgotten too. The real Tubes, the "White Punks On Dope" Tubes, not the MTV eighties Tubes singing about sushi and beauties and...
And then the Captain faded away. He didn't play the oldies circuit, he went back to being Don Van Vliet and resumed painting, his first love. Supposedly the fumes got to him.
Maybe the obits will say.
And if you really care about history, if you're the type who's up for a challenge, who takes the road not traveled and doesn't turn back, check out Beefheart's work. Start with "Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller)", it's the most accessible.
But there won't be TV tributes and there won't be a funeral at Staples Center and you still won't hear his music on the radio.
But those who remember will never forget. An era when being a musician was the highest calling and financial reward was not the Holy Grail. Zappa was exploring. He and his merry band of musician/pranksters didn't compromise a whit. They just kept on doing what they believed in. Sometimes the audience caught on, sometimes it didn't.
Alice Cooper went on to hook up with Bob Ezrin and record one of the great rock albums of all time, "Killer". The fact that it took forever for the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame to acknowledge this diminishes its quality not a bit.
Pamela Des Barres, nee Miss Pamela, went on to be a famous groupie. Then again, that's what she was before she was in the GTOs. That's how close she wanted to be to the band. That's how close we all wanted to be to the band.
And Beefheart was like Zappa. Playing on a high plane, waiting for the audience to catch up with him.
Eventually Frank played on a low plane too, which gained him some commercial success, but Beefheart never did this. And when the record deals ran out, he moved on. An artist is about artistry, not fame.
I read the news today, oh boy. And I was emotionally affected and needed to reach out to you. They're rewriting rock and roll history and getting it all wrong. They want you to think that Patti Smith was more important than Alice Cooper, that Top Forty radio ruled in the late sixties and early seventies, that everybody was always in it for the money. But that's wrong. We know the truth. It's incumbent upon us to keep the flame alive. Beefheart was part of the firmament. He may not have been dead center, but he had a place. And we took notice. And his death leaves an emptiness. There's a hole in the sky tonight, a black one, where Don Van Vliet used to live and create.
I heard he was sick...
I'm not sure Frank Zappa is going to be remembered, to a great extent he's already been forgotten. But if you don't own the first few albums, you're missing out. "You Didn't Try To Call Me", from both the very first album, "Freak Out", and the doo-wop remake on Ruben & the Jets, encapsulates the despair of unrequited love as well as any song ever written. And when you hear the line about reprimering the right front fender, you chuckle, Zappa was not like today's artists, taking himself too seriously, he never lost his sense of humor.
And Zappa was not only about himself. He was an empire builder. He released records by acts diverse as Alice Cooper, Wild Man Fischer, the GTOs and Captain Beefheart.
The Captain did not start out with Frank. Nor did he remain with him. But his most famous work was released on Zappa's Bizarre label. Frank had two, Bizarre and Straight, eventually he had more.
"Trout Mask Replica" was not made for Top Forty radio. Hell, it wasn't made for any radio. It was an album made to be played from start to finish in your bedroom, as you tried to decipher its dense lyrics and music.
And the hype was just as good. In "Rolling Stone", Beefheart said it took only eight hours to record the record. When asked why it took so long, the Captain replied that he had to teach the band their instruments.
Not that we believed that. But how great to have someone who could reply tongue-in-cheek, who wasn't giving the bland answers television seems to require in its endless quest to appeal to everybody, ultimately appealing to nobody.
Eventually, the Captain became more comprehensible. There was that album "Clear Spot", that came in a plastic bag, which contained the positively mainstream "My Head Is My Only House Unless It Rains". Which the Tubes ultimately covered. But they've been forgotten too. The real Tubes, the "White Punks On Dope" Tubes, not the MTV eighties Tubes singing about sushi and beauties and...
And then the Captain faded away. He didn't play the oldies circuit, he went back to being Don Van Vliet and resumed painting, his first love. Supposedly the fumes got to him.
Maybe the obits will say.
And if you really care about history, if you're the type who's up for a challenge, who takes the road not traveled and doesn't turn back, check out Beefheart's work. Start with "Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller)", it's the most accessible.
But there won't be TV tributes and there won't be a funeral at Staples Center and you still won't hear his music on the radio.
But those who remember will never forget. An era when being a musician was the highest calling and financial reward was not the Holy Grail. Zappa was exploring. He and his merry band of musician/pranksters didn't compromise a whit. They just kept on doing what they believed in. Sometimes the audience caught on, sometimes it didn't.
Alice Cooper went on to hook up with Bob Ezrin and record one of the great rock albums of all time, "Killer". The fact that it took forever for the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame to acknowledge this diminishes its quality not a bit.
Pamela Des Barres, nee Miss Pamela, went on to be a famous groupie. Then again, that's what she was before she was in the GTOs. That's how close she wanted to be to the band. That's how close we all wanted to be to the band.
And Beefheart was like Zappa. Playing on a high plane, waiting for the audience to catch up with him.
Eventually Frank played on a low plane too, which gained him some commercial success, but Beefheart never did this. And when the record deals ran out, he moved on. An artist is about artistry, not fame.
I read the news today, oh boy. And I was emotionally affected and needed to reach out to you. They're rewriting rock and roll history and getting it all wrong. They want you to think that Patti Smith was more important than Alice Cooper, that Top Forty radio ruled in the late sixties and early seventies, that everybody was always in it for the money. But that's wrong. We know the truth. It's incumbent upon us to keep the flame alive. Beefheart was part of the firmament. He may not have been dead center, but he had a place. And we took notice. And his death leaves an emptiness. There's a hole in the sky tonight, a black one, where Don Van Vliet used to live and create.
15 December 2010
TOOT BLUES: A documentary about Tim & Denise Duffy and the artists of Music Maker Relief Foundation
A fascinating documentary about the start of Music Maker Relief Foundation.
Now is a perfect time to lend them your support. Watch:
Now is a perfect time to lend them your support. Watch:
14 December 2010
BLUESMAKER.com
slide finger stolen from Ando
13 December 2010
WiLLiAM CARRADiNE aka CAT-iRON
While we're on the subject of Natchez MS, here's the late William Carradine aka Cat-iron. Vocally, he reminds me a lot of fellow Natchezite Robert Cage. According to this YouTube poster:
William Carradine was born in Garden City, LA. in 1896. In 1958 folklorist Frederic Ramsey, Jr. found him at his home in Natchez, MS. and recorded an album's worth of blues and gospel numbers by him. Ramsey had met a local musician by the name of Thurmond Monroe who was the alto saxist for a local Natchez group by the name of the Otis Smith Orchestra, who told him where to find Carradine, who lived in the slums of Buckner's Alley. Monroe would go to his shack from time to time and give him some change just to hear him play the old songs. At the time that Ramsey and Monroe went to Carradine's shack to visit him, he didn't really want to play any blues since he had found religion. He also didn't have a guitar and Monroe found someone to borrow a guitar from so he could record, and he and Ramsey managed to coax some blues numbers from him. Carradine may have never heard his recordings played back to him, he died shortly after they were made.
William Carradine (Cat-Iron):Vocals & Guitar
Recorded in Buckner's Alley Natchez, MS. 1958
Originally issued on and this recording taken from the 1958 album "Cat-Iron Sings Blues and Hymns" (Folkways FA 2389)
(MP3)
William Carradine (Cat-Iron):Vocals & Guitar
Recorded in Buckner's Alley Natchez, MS. 1958
Originally issued on and this recording taken from the 1958 album "Cat-Iron Sings Blues and Hymns" (Folkways FA 2389)
(MP3)
NATCHEZ BLUES: New Tintype Photos by Bill Steber
Bill Steber: Stones In My Pathway // Bill's band: Jake Leg Stompers
I've been a fan of Bill Steber's photography since I first saw his iconic black and white photos on the cd covers of Fat Possum Records artists like Junior Kimbrough. Bill recently posted these photos on Facebook and with his kind permission i'm posting them here.
Bill writes:
"In May of 2010 I traveled to Natchez MS with my darkroom and 8x10 view cameras to make wetplate photos for a story on the Natchez blues scene for Living Blues magazine. Natchez has a such a haunted history, being the site of one of the largest slave auctions in the antebellum south, Civil War battles, and in 1940-the nation's most tragic single fire to date, when 209 people died at the Rhythm Club. I wanted the photos to capture the gothic and timeless feeling of Natchez. Many thanks to the performers there who sat for long exposures in the sweltering heat to make this story possible. This issue of Living Blues is now on newsstands"
Tintype photo of Little Poochie at Rosalie Mansion for Living Blues story on the Natchez, MS blues scene.
Tintype photo of Mississippi River Bridge connecting Natchez MS to
Vidalia, LA for Living Blues story on the Natchez, MS blues scene.
Tintype photo of Trustee Prisoners working the 1st annual Soul Survivors Blues festival in downtown Ferriday, LA that featured performers from the Natchez area
Tintype photo of Mammy Restaurant on Hwy. 61 just South of Natchez
Tintype photo of slave chains embedded in concrete at the Forks in the Road historical slave auction site in Natchez MS. Located at the edge of the city limit along what is now St. Catherine at Liberty Rd., the Forks in the Road contained numerous wooden buildings housing slaves and the second largest slave auction site in the South.
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Tintype of YZ Ealey
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Tintype photo of (l to r) Little Poochie, Hezekiah Early and YZ Ealey
 | ||
12 December 2010
BLUES HOUSEPARTY - A Documentary
via Metafilter:
"Blues Houseparty is a fun, entertaining and highly recommended 57 minute documentary that takes us into a Virginia houseparty of 1989, where the assembled Piedmont blues and gospel musicians and their friends pick guitars, sing, dance and engagingly reminisce on the houseparties of old. Amidst hearty laughs, barbecue and general good times, the guests recount personal memories of fun and rowdiness, corn liquor, 500-pound hogs, the devil's music and the Lord's music. There's a whole lot of cultural history on display here, a slice of black American life that is all but gone now. The mood is infectious, to say the least, and the music just keeps getting better and better throughout the film. The next best thing to being there!"
"Blues Houseparty is a fun, entertaining and highly recommended 57 minute documentary that takes us into a Virginia houseparty of 1989, where the assembled Piedmont blues and gospel musicians and their friends pick guitars, sing, dance and engagingly reminisce on the houseparties of old. Amidst hearty laughs, barbecue and general good times, the guests recount personal memories of fun and rowdiness, corn liquor, 500-pound hogs, the devil's music and the Lord's music. There's a whole lot of cultural history on display here, a slice of black American life that is all but gone now. The mood is infectious, to say the least, and the music just keeps getting better and better throughout the film. The next best thing to being there!"
R.L. BURNSiDE ~ Rollin' & Tumblin'
My oft-mentioned pal DJ Hillfunk sez:
"Here's another reminder of why we're here...a lot of friendships that have taken me to many states & met a whole lot of good people & made so many friendships home & beyond,more than my wildest dreams that like the same music that I use to listen to by myself !"
You got that right buddy.
"Here's another reminder of why we're here...a lot of friendships that have taken me to many states & met a whole lot of good people & made so many friendships home & beyond,more than my wildest dreams that like the same music that I use to listen to by myself !"
You got that right buddy.
09 December 2010
05 December 2010
Check out this wicked Deep Blues/Roots/Punk Podcast!
Dave Holt does a terrific podcast oriented towards Deep Blues/ Roots Music and Punk called called Mottey's Garage. Check it out!
04 December 2010
03 December 2010
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