I believe I have mentioned that alongside Brian Eno, our tutor at Art School Gavin Bryars also invited Michael Nyman to speak as visiting lecturer to us arty types. I recall both Brian and Michael being fascinating and I followed his work from Draughtsman’s Contract onward (Peter Greenway - starting a lifelong passion for his films) so here is this haunting piece to sign off the day with . . . .
The Top of the Pops recordings mentioned above make up the first three tracks, all from 1967. They also make up tracks 9 and 10, from 1973, and tracks 11, 12, and 13, from 1974. By 1973, that radio show usually just played the recorded versions, and it was getting increasingly rare for them to play unique versions recorded just for the show. But I double checked these 1973 and 1974 and confirmed they all are unique.
By the way, a few of these Top of the Pops songs have "[Edit]" in their titles. That was due to the usual problem of BBC DJ Brian Matthew talking over parts of the song. As usual, I fixed that with the help of the UVR5 program.
Put together, all those Top of the Pops recordings only make up 27 minutes of music, which would make for a very short album. So I went looking for other BBC performances she did. I found some stray things here and there, mostly from BBC TV shows. Tracks 4, 5 and 6 are from "Scott," a 1968 TV show hosted by singer Scott Walker. Tracks 7 and 8 are from different TV shows in 1971. Tracks 16 and 17 are from a 1980 show, and track 18 is from a 1981 show.
That just leaves two songs. Track 14, "Water," is from a BBC concert she did in 1975. I'm only including the one song though, because I actually found two BBC concerts she did that year, and they're very similar. I'll be posting the other one in full, so the only thing that interested me from this one was that single unique song. I also found a 1977 BBC concert she did, so expect that one to be posted soon as well.
Finally, track 15, "Don't Go Breaking My Heart," is the song Dee is best known for. This duet with Elton John was a massive hit in 1976, hitting Number One in the both the U.S. and Britain. I wanted to include a version of it on this album. However, the TV appearances I found just had Dee and John lip-syncing. But I did find a concert version from 1976 that featured both of them, so I included that one. For all the other songs with audience applause, I got rid of the applause using the MVSEP program. But I kept the applause for this one, due to the spoken intro and some other things that wouldn't have sounded right without crowd noise.
This album is 59 minutes long.
01 Excuse Me
02 If I Loved You [Edit]
03 She Was Really Saying Something [Edit]
04 Passing Strangers (Scott Walker & Kiki Dee)
05 Up, Up and Away
06 Games People Play
07 You've Made Me So Very Happy
08 Do You Know the Way to San Jose
09 Amoureuse [Edit]
10 Loving and Free
11 Little Frozen One
12 Hard Luck Story
13 I've Got the Music in Me
14 Water
15 Don't Go Breaking My Heart (Elton John & Kiki Dee)
16 Star
17 Twenty-Four Hours
18 Midnight Flyer
All songs Kiki Dee except where noted
laregly a backing singer or session singer Kiki never really hit the big time as she deserved to, except perhaps with the one off hit with Elton so this is a welcome treat to survey her extant work and show off her undated talent
CONFESSIONS OF ROBERT CRUMB (1987)
"In 1987, Robert Crumb presents himself: raised by a Marine father, educated in Catholic schools, married at 21 in Cleveland where he worked for a greeting card company, dropping acid in 1965, heading to San Francisco and getting in on the formation of Zap Comix, gaining celebrity, loving old time jazz, starting a band, living in a commune, meeting Aline Kominsky who became his second wife and his partner in art, having a daughter, and developing a more realistic drawing style. The confessions include his loneliness, his obsessions with women, his bewilderment by fame, his sense of the disintegration of Sixties' subculture, his nervous breakdown in 1973, and his peace now."
Dime Store Radio
It's pretty amazing to consider that this band was formed in 1974, which means they've been together off and on for fifty years. Frankly, this concert mostly consists of their hits, with only three relatively new songs sprinkled in. So there isn't a big need for me to post this. However, this has been unavailable on the Internet, as far as I could tell. But an anonymous musical friend taped it off the radio when it was broadcast, and sent it to me. So by posting it here, I believe I'm making it available for anyone for the first time. So thanks to that person for their help.
That shows five songs were performed that didn't make it to the BBC broadcast, including the final encore, "Black Coffee in Bed."
I do have to say that although the band members are getting up there in age, you wouldn't be able to tell just from listening to it. They still sound very good.
This album is 53 minutes long.
01 Take Me, I'm Yours
02 Hourglass
03 Up the Junction
04 talk
05 One Beautiful Summer
06 talk
07 You Get the Feeling
08 Labelled with Love
09 talk
10 Goodbye Girl
11 Trixie's Hell on Earth
12 Slap and Tickle
13 Pulling Mussels [From the Shell]
14 Is That Love
15 Tempted
16 Cool for Cats
Joe Strummer was born as John Mellor in Ankara, Turkey on this day in 1952.
The ice age is coming.
Gibbons is best known for being the lead singer for the band Portishead. That band only released three albums in the 1990s and 2000s, but they were very well received, both critically and commercially. In 2024, Gibbons released just her second solo album, "Lives Outgrown." It too was critically acclaimed, making many best album of the year lists.
As with most albums I made from this festival, I took a high-quality video file of the concert, converted it to audio, and broke it into mp3s. Everything here is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent.
This album is 58 minutes long.
01 Tell Me Who You Are Today (Beth Gibbons)
02 Burden of Life (Beth Gibbons)
03 Floating on a Moment (Beth Gibbons)
04 Rewind (Beth Gibbons)
05 For Sale (Beth Gibbons)
06 Mysteries (Beth Gibbons)
07 talk (Beth Gibbons)
08 Lost Changes (Beth Gibbons)
09 Tom the Model (Beth Gibbons)
10 Beyond the Sun (Beth Gibbons)
11 Whispering Love (Beth Gibbons)
12 Glory Box (Beth Gibbons)
13 Reaching Out (Beth Gibbons)
In October 1999 The Black Crowes was joined by Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page for two pairs of shows in New York and Los Angeles, yielding a live release, Live at the Greek on TVT Records. Due
check out the other links labels below for more on Danielle!
Even if you already downloaded this elsewhere, I recommend you download this version, since it has the significant improvement of making the drumming audible.
That said, this should come with a warning, because the Beatles played raggedly in their 1966 concerts in general, and this one is no exception. The problem was, they'd been performing to screaming fans, mostly consisting of teenage girls, for three years by this time, and they were sick of it. They could barely hear themselves playing, due to all that screaming as well as very poor sound systems. So, while they still played with energy, they didn't worry about nailing their harmony vocals and being careful not to make mistakes and so on. They figured nobody would notice or care about the details.
On the plus side, the set lists in their 1966 concerts got a lot more interesting, in my opinion. They still played a few songs they'd been playing in concerts since at least 1964, but they were also playing challenging brand new songs. For instance, "Paperback Writer" had only been released as a single two months earlier. While they didn't play any songs from their "Revolver" album, as it wouldn't be released until August, they did play a couple from their most recent album "Rubber Soul," such as "Nowhere Man" and "If I Needed Someone," as well as the recent single "Day Tripper."
The one main complaint people have had about this bootleg is the drums are very low in the mix. So I used the MVSEP program to boost the drums relative to everything else. In some places on a few of the songs though, the drums were so low that there wasn't enough there for the program to find. The only song where I didn't boost the drum volume was "I Wanna Be Your Man." Since that one was sung by the drummer Ringo Starr, I'm guessing his vocals microphone picked up a lot of the drumming too. Also, by fixing the drumming volume, one interesting thing that comes through is "Yesterday." On record, and usually in concert, it was just Paul McCartney's vocals and acoustic guitar, plus sometimes strings. But this version was arranged for a full band, including drums.
Also, "If I Needed Someone" has "[Edit]" in its title because there were some sound problems going on during that song, leading to some roadie loudly saying "One, two" in the middle of the song, probably because that person was testing if a microphone was working. So I just got rid of that jarring voice while keeping everything else the same.
This album is 31 minutes long.
01 talk
02 Rock and Roll Music
03 She's a Woman
04 talk
05 If I Needed Someone [Edit]
06 talk
07 Day Tripper
08 Baby's in Black
09 talk
10 I Feel Fine
11 talk
12 Yesterday
13 talk
14 I Wanna Be Your Man
15 talk
16 Nowhere Man
17 talk
18 Paperback Writer
19 talk
20 I'm Down
Lu’s Jukebox In Studio Concert Series is Lucinda Williams at her most fearless and generous, a sprawling seven-volume tribute to the music that shaped her, recorded during a time when the world stood still. Born out of the pandemic’s silence and the shuttering of live venues, the project began as a way to support independent clubs and theaters, but quickly evolved into something far more personal: a love letter to American music, filtered through Williams’ unmistakable voice and emotional depth.Each volume is a themed set, recorded live in-studio with her crack band at Room & Board Studio in Nashville. From the aching vulnerability of her Tom Petty tribute to the swampy grooves of Southern Soul, Williams doesn’t just cover songs, she inhabits them. Her take on Bob Dylan is reverent yet raw, peeling back layers of lyrical mystique with a voice that’s lived every line. The ’60s Country Classics volume is a masterclass in heartbreak, while her Rockin’ Little Christmas set is playful and loose, like a holiday jam session with friends.Then came Volume 6, her fiery homage to The Rolling Stones, where she channels their swagger with Southern grit. But it’s Volume 7, Lucinda Williams Sings The Beatles From Abbey Road that feels like the crown jewel. Recorded at the legendary Abbey Road Studios, it’s a full-circle moment: an American artist reinterpreting British icons in their own sacred space. Her rendition of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” is drenched in sorrow and soul, while “Yer Blues” becomes a swampy howl of defiance. “Let It Be” is stripped down and intimate, as if whispered from a back porch at dusk.What makes Lu’s Jukebox magical isn’t just the song choices, it’s the emotional honesty. Williams doesn’t mimic; she translates. Each track carries the weight of her experience, her phrasing bending lyrics into new shapes. There’s no studio gloss, no overproduction, just a band locked in, a voice that knows pain and joy, and a deep respect for the music that raised her.Across seven volumes, Williams builds a sonic scrapbook of influence and admiration. It’s not just a covers series, it’s a testament to resilience, reinvention, and the power of music to connect across time and genre. Lu’s Jukebox is a journey worth taking, one that feels both familiar and freshly profound (Butterboy)
I have said what a profound effect The Animals had on me and my interest in blues music and R nB sources from my beloved brother Steve’s copy of The Most of The Animals at the age of 12/3!? and it introduced me of course to material from John Lee Hooker et al but these live TV versions may have eluded me for a while ( looks like commercial TV which we weren't allowed to watch! long story) Still this is also the first time I heard blues standards (made Geordie) like the ubiquitous CC Rider! A longstanding all time favourite number . . . . .
Say what now? . . . . . . may have to look this one up and this is why I LOVE visiting Tripping Mantras!
Farewell, Farwell oh yea lonely travellers all
This is worth a read for Beefeart fans . . . .
This fascinating tale, just posted by Voot Zombo on the 'Fast & Bulbous: The Cap'n Beefheart Society' facebook group page concerning Don Van Vliet and his then good friend and fellow musician Gary Marker, is a wonderful read.Voot Zombo: 'This is a long read but worth your time. . .Gary "Magic" Marker (pictured in the photo on the left, with Don Van Vliet on the right) passed away in December of 2015.Gary was a bass player and recording engineer who was involved with Capt. Beefheart in his early recording days and was his friend.This is an interesting tale “Magic” Marker tells about an incident that took place back in the 1960s.'Gary Marker:'Back in the late 60s Don’s appetite for LSD had been voracious, although it brought on panic attacks, which often resulted in him being taken to hospital. And on one particular occasion this was due to a chance encounter with a bag of yams.These attacks were dubbed, ‘The Don Patrol’ by guitarist by Alex StClair, a play on words of the old war flick The Dawn Patrol, because,In Marker’s words, “whenever Don decided to have some kind of freak-out or mental break, it was always around dawn, when most people were trying to get some sleep”.He was offered prescription tranquillizers to calm him down, butinevitably he refused to take them, fearing they would somehow blunt his creative drive.Marker takes up the story: “I’d say, ‘You won’t take a prescriptiondrug that’ll make you feel better and might keep you from having your fake heart attacks, but you’ll take any sort of dirt acid that someone will hand you on the street – don’t you see a contradiction here?’ And he’d go off on some rant, a diversionary tactic to get you off of what was going on.”Don came to spend a couple of days with me at my place in Venice, California. As usual, he popped some street acid someone gave him, with absolutely no knowledge about its quality or quantity. He got buzzed and for some odd reason I recall we watched an awful, unintentionally hilarious, late night film on TV called Legs Diamond – or something like that – starring the now mostly forgotten actor Ray Danton.Anyway, Don started coming down off his peak, but was stillhallucinating somewhat and was feeling a tad paranoid. He wantedsomething to drink. I reminded him he left his orange juice andvarious alcoholic drinks in the fridge – he seemed to prefer evenwhiskey well below room temperature. So he wandered into the kitchen, but didn’t turn on the light because he claimed acid made it possible for him to see in the dark – like a cat.I could hear him opening cupboard doors, looking for a drinkingglass. As I was a bit buzzed on weed myself, it was too much of aneffort to tell him which cupboard the glasses were in. A couple ofmonths earlier I went to a friend’s big pot luck Thanksgiving Day bash and my task was to make a big, traditional baked yam/sweet potato casserole dish, and a couple of sweet potato pies.So, for some reason I bought a huge 15 pound bag of yams - but of course couldn’t possibly prepare all of them, so when I finished, Iput the remaining potatoes, in their net bag, up in the cupboard. Iwas seldom home then and forgot about the unused potatoes.Don found them when he opened the overhead cupboard theywere in, while looking for a drinking glass. Any kind of tuber of thepotato family, left in the dark for a couple of months, will grow longtendrils whilst seeking root space and/or sunlight. And that’s whatalmost ten remaining pounds of yams did: grew lots and lots of two to three-foot long tendrils.When Don opened the cupboard door in the dark, hundreds of long, thin white tendrils cascaded down on him. He let out a shriek like James Brown’s opening volley on ‘I Feel Good’, but about an octave higher.Seconds later, he bolted out through the kitchen door, ashen, eyesthe size of boiled eggs, still screaming and waving his armsfrantically. Bits and pieces of severed yam tendrils were flyingeverywhere and hanging from his hair. A huge cluster had plastereditself to the front of his shirt, another hung from his pocket. Hestarted flashing that he’d been attacked by aliens hiding in mykitchen cabinet.It took me two hours to get him calm enough to understand what had happened. But by then he was in a full blown ‘heart attack’ mode, one of his frequent panic attacks. Pulse and respiration were way, way up.This precipitated another episode in the ‘Don Patrol’ chronicles andhe had to be transported to the UCLA medical center emergency room at 4:30 AM, where they were becoming well acquainted with him."Back in town again, Mr. Vliet?" asked the intern/resident who hadalready dealt with Don on previous occasions. "What is it this time?Another heart attack, or were you attacked by space aliens?""How the hell did he know?" Don asked me, absolutely stunned. "Is he psychic?" I thought I’d gotten him to understand about the potatoes, even showed him a couple, but he was slipping back into some acid-induced haze and fantasy world. Don eventually calmed down - or got as calm as he ever got - and drove himself back home to the desert the next afternoon.Several times after that, when the topic came up, he asked menot to tell anyone that he’d been freaked out by a bag of yams.Because, he explained, "It’s kind of embarrassing. You know what Imean?”'
The Kinks: Waterloo Sunset
Terry meets Julie
Waterloo stationEvery Friday night
R.I.P. Terence Stamp