Now the perceptive among you will have realised that RYP over at the brilliant and always fascinating Twightzone has been posting his ENTIRE singles record collection of singles lately and it occurred to me you might like some encouragement to check them out. One of the things we shared was buying The Jam Singles when they came out and this is about as complete a run as I have of these precious things. Beautifully executed and gleaned using Audacity so they are all uniformly great quality. Avail yourself of the lot here:
A lot of the Velvet Underground fans are saying this is the one VU bootleg to get if I had to get just one."The Psychopath's Rolling Stones" is just as odds-n-ends as those excellent "Ultra Rare Trax" CDs and even as random as the official "Peel Slowly and See" box set itself, but it has got some incredible numbers & versions I've never heard elsewhere.
Let's start with the definitive live version of "Run Run Run" -- for me, the most underrated Velvets song of all time and one that's easily in my Top 5 along with the other ones we all love. This one's a long version from February 8th, 1969 in New Hampshire, and as the back cover says, "features some remarkable guitar work.
The solos (Reed's?) are just blistering -- the song is transformed into the latter 2/3rds of "European Son" while still maintaining its bounce and chugga-chugga drive.
Also revelatory is the demo version of "Chelsea Girl" recorded in those famous hotel sessions, just Lou and Nico and a beat-up old tape deck. That's my favorite song on her first record, and this version's better.
Other hotties of note are a fire-breathing Cleveland 1967 "Guess I'm Falling In Love" (with vocals and another killer solo) and the 1966 tin pan alley studio outtake "Sheltered Life".
And what 70s-era bootleg wouldn't be complete without a hidden track not by the featured artist? This one's got one and a half: a warbling, half-insane live version of Nico doing "The End", and a choogling 1920s-era jump blues called "Bootleggin' Blues" from someone certainly not from the lower east side*.
This collection is heavy on the first two VU records, so if the rough, sodom-and-gomorrah Velvets are your thing and you're pretty sure Yule's a fool, this digital platter of scorching obscurities is your ticket to hog heaven.
Tracks:
1. Star Spangled Banner (2:06)
2. White Light/White Heat (4:33)
3. I'm Waiting For My Man (4:07)
4. All Tomorrow's Parties (5:14)
5. Run Run Run (8:48)
6. Guess I'm Falling In Love (4:11)
7. Venus In Furs (5:02)
8. Black Angel's Death Song (2:53)
9. I Can't Stand It (8:01)
10. Sheltered Life (2:51)
11. Vernissage (0:58)
12. Real Good Time Together (2:34)
13. Chelsea Girl (3:12)
14. Pale Blue Eyes (5:59)
15. I'll Be Your Mirror (2:37)
16. The End (8:06)
17. "Bootlegging The Bootleggers”*
Sources:
1 : listed as "unreleased track, shortlisted as the intro to the 1993 concerts but later rejected”
2, 3 : Max's Kansas City, Summer 1970
4 : Valleydale Ballroom, November 4,1966
5 : Hilltop Festival, August 2, 1969
6 : Gymnasium, April 1967
7 : End Of Cole Ave, October 18, 1969
8, 15 : Bataclan, January 29, 1972
9 : The Matrix, late November - early December 1969 (pirated from official 1969 Live)
10 : Ludlow street loft demo, early 1967
11 : radio ad for third LP
12 : demo, late 1969
13. Nico & Joe Bidewell, BBC TV program on Chelsea Hotel, 1981
I love the internet . . . not least because we discover new sounds and new artists and Facebook this morning was no different and posted me to these two lassies! THE MONA LISA TWINS!
Two for one album offer now on!
I bought two and they’re fab!
Mona and Lisa with John B Sebastian
Wiki notes (this explains a lot (to me at any rate)
The twins were born in Austria (born in Vienna, on June 16, 1994) and are based in Liverpool, in the United Kingdom. Known for their YouTube video covers of songs by The Beatles and other 1960s bands, many of which have been issued on a series of albums, they also have released three albums of original songs, inspired by the music of the 1960s. They have toured with Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel, performed at the Glastonbury Festival, collaborated with American musician John Sebastian, and held a two-year residency at the Cavern Club!
By sheer coincidence (I don’t think . . . . . synchronicity) after posting the links yesterday to the newly spruced vids of Bobbie playing an early Letterman, Flaggin Down The Double Es maestro Ray Padgett posted an interview with the bass player Tony Marsico and a truly astonishingly fascinating read it is too . . . . . . .
Months of rehearsals led to one of the most unusual, and memorable, performances of Dylan's career
Ray says:
On today’s date in 1984, Bob Dylan gave one of the most memorable performances of his career. He appeared on David Letterman’s fairly-new late night TV show backed by a fairly-new band: The Plugz. It would be the only time he’d play with this young Latino punk group – publicly, at least. They had been quietly rehearsing for months at Dylan’s Malibu house. All for three songs on national TV: the Sonny Boy Williamson blues tune “Don’t Start Me Talkin’” (the only time Bob’s ever played that one) followed by two cuts from his recently-released Infidels: “License to Kill” and “Jokerman.”
It’s about as direct an intersection as Bob ever had with punk rock. The sound was raw and ragged, in contrast to the far slicker Infidels. Very ragged, in the case of “Jokerman,” which featured an unplanned instrumental interlude while Bob fumbled around finding the right harmonica.
To this day, this Letterman appearance is remembered by fans as a classic. One performance from the show, “License to Kill,” was included on the recent Springtime in New York box set. There’s also a little Plugz display at the Bob Dylan Center in Tulsa. An impressive legacy for just three songs.
The band technically comprised just two of The Plugz – bassist Tony Marsico and drummer Charlie Quintana – alongside their friend JJ Holiday on guitar. I called Marsico up last week to find out how it all went down. . . . . . . . .
Backstage at Letterman, L-R: Tony Marsico, Bob Dylan, Charlie Quintana, JJ Holiday
One of Tony’s cheat sheet from the Malibu rehearsals. Look at all the songs – originals and covers – they rehearsed. Many of the covers Bob’s never played live (“My Guy?” “Back in My Arms Again”?? “Gimme Some Lovin’”???) apparently Bobby loved playing Gimme Some Lovin’!
sometimes ‘mercurial’ doesn’t even quite cut it . . . . . . . . . . !?
How did this even HAPPEN?
DREAM TWISTER!
Youtube poster Peter Stoner Brown Archive notes:
With Dylan, all dressed in black, were three unknown 20-somethings and they were killing it.
Guitarist J.J. Holiday, drummer Charlie Quintana, and bassist Tony Marsico — the latter two of whom were members of the L.A. punk band the Plugz — backed Dylan on three songs that night, a fierce “Jokerman” and a perfectly raucous “License to Kill,” both from Dylan’s then-new semi-return-to-form album Infidels, and a swaggering cover of Sonny Boy Williamson’s “Don’t Start Me Talking.” For 12 minutes or so, the musicians proved that Bob Dylan could be jolted out of the perfunctory performances he’d been accustomed to giving then and suggested a future beyond the living relic circuit.
License to Kill
Letterman rehearsals !!
22 March 1984.
Band: Bob Dylan, J.J. Holiday, Tony Marsico, and Charlie Quintana.
Setlist:
I Once Knew A Man
Jokerman
License to Kill
Treat Her Right
My Guy
BONNIE RAITT, Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix, Nick Cave and Kylie Minogue . . . . . .
Bonnie early days . . . . .
Photo: Sam Jones
Bonnie Raitt:
It was unusual for a woman to play a bottleneck guitar and play styles of guitar that mostly men were doing… I came out of folk music and all those women were great accompanists. It’s about the song and about accompanying yourself and not about chops. It probably set me apart and helped me in a way. I don’t want to say it was a gimmick, but it was something that was unusual and made people pay attention.
Ry Cooder is still a god to me. Ry and Lowell George are the biggest influences on my playing. I love the Delta blues: Son House, Fred McDowell, Robert Johnson, Johnny Shines, John Hammond. But Ry wrote the book on making it sound like your voice, which is what I try to do. He and Stevie Ray Vaughan are the greatest guitar players I've ever heard.”
Occasionally a new ROIO will turn up and Jeremiah turns up trumps today with a beauty from the Captain . . . now mostly I have everything and pride myself on it but had to check this one out at The Radar Station and Steve the Boss there at Beefheart.com points out it's the sound track for the concert broadcast in France and available on YouTube which of course it is . . . . . . . . not so tragic in retrospect though I get it but even this is better than an absent Captain . . . . . . . IMHO
07. Who Will Be Next?---You’re Gonna Need Somebody On Yer Bond
Don Van Vliet - Harmonica, Saxophone, Clarinet, Vocals
Fuzzy Fuscaldo - Guitar
Dean Smith - Guitar
Michael Smotherman - Keyboards
Paul Uhrig - Bass
Ty Grimes - Drums
Del Simmons - Tenor Saxophone, Flute
‘yere ’tis!
Thanks Steve and thank you to Jeremiah for wherever he got it from . . . . . . . . .
Of course they were busy that year and managed to drop in for a Whistle Test
Upon The My Oh My
Some notes from the ‘tinterwebbie mcthingie!
Nearly forgot Ry Cooder’s birthday alongside this staggering portrait photo
Photo by Clive Arrowsmith
Happy 76th Birthday Maestro!
"In my point of view, it’s that when I was younger, let’s say 12 or 13, what I was trying to do was to learn how to play like the records. I heard banjo. Bluegrass. I said, “I’m going to learn to do that.”
Not to copy somebody—you don’t wanna play exactly like Earl Scruggs note-for-note. I never wanted to do that, but just get to where I could play that type of music, which was great because later on, when I was recording, if I felt I needed some skills, I knew I could play blues and I understood open tunings. Therefore, if I want to play a Blind Blake song, I knew exactly what those notes were. So that I could play it, and I could please myself and then hear it back in the recording studio. That’s a key difference because you don’t do that. I knew you never wanted to be somebody who studied source materials, with the idea that you were gonna replicate Uncle Dave Macon on the array mbira.
It’s interpretive, of course, but it’s completely unexampled and completely creative and new. New being a kind of a silly word, but I mean different. A way to re-envision. But somebody like me or somebody like Dan Gellert and Rayna Gellert, for that matter, on fiddle, we learned the original because we liked it. So, when you hear something you like, you want to do it, too. That’s all. I wanted to do it well. But you don’t necessarily stop there. Because I always knew if I was gonna record, there would be very little point in doing all that music, whether it was Charlie Poole or Lead Belly or Blind Blake or somebody, note-for-note wouldn’t work because they already did it, so it was already done to perfection. If you love the record so much, you’re so impressed with this—so imprinted by it—then you had to do something about it. But what was that gonna be? That was gonna be to develop it a little and see how far you could go or see what sounded good. Do you like the playback? Go in the booth and listen. Got to record. Fantastic. Did I succeed? I don’t know. Sometimes I thought the ideas were good, the execution was questionable. But what you did with this record and have been doing for quite some time, is to completely recast the whole entire thing."
Interview By Whalebone
Jerry Garcia in front of the Grateful Dead’s “Wall of Sound” in 1974. The PA system would come to weigh more than 70 tons, and contain hundreds of amps and speakers that stood over three stories tall and 100 feet wide.
and people wondered how rock stars ended up with tinnitus?
Photo by Mark Junge
Did you think of Jimi as coming out of the blues tradition?
Stevie Ray Vaughan: Some people don’t see it. Some people really do see it. See, I don’t know whether to call Hendrix a blues player along with a lot of the originals, but he did go and play with a lot of those people. He did do a lot of it during that heyday, before he got famous. It’s like he was on the tail end of something.
- That whole R&B movement.
SRV: Yeah. And a lot of it wasn’t even the tail end. A lot of it was the peak of it. He was doing that stuff as it was going on, you know. See, in his music, I hear not just the newer stuff that everybody seems to think was a lot different – and a lot of it is – but to my ears, there’s just as much of the old-style warmth.
- The blues style.
SRV: Yeah! Like “Red House.” I hear it in that. I hear it in just the way he approaches things. Even though he was not ashamed at all of doing some things different, I still hear the roots of the old style. I mean, not just roots, but the whole attitude of it.
I think a lot of it’s his touch and his confidence. I mean, his touch was not just playing-wise, but the way he looked at it, like his perspective. His perspective on everything seemed to be reaching up – not just for more recognition, but more giving. I may be wrong about that, but that’s what I get out of it. And he did that with his touch on the guitar and his sounds and his whole attitude – it was the same kind of thing.
Interview By Jas Obrecht - 1989
Stevie Ray Vaughan - Voodoo Chile Live in Austin Texas
Photo: Bruce Weber 2014
Dr. John:
I would like to have done enough good stuff so that maybe somebody who does remember something will say, "He did the best he could with it all". That’s all anybody can do. I’d like to have that thought somewhere along the line, if there’s a thought at all. I mean I come from the city of spirits. N’awlins has more people in touch with the spirit kingdom than most places. The point is that we respect our ancestors. In day by day livin’ and survivin’, it’s not your first thought. Right? Music keeps things alive in its own way. It’s a powerful thing. That’s why I believe if you touch someone with music, then we’ve done something. I’ve been tryin’ to reach different angles of hittin’ people with some truths, making nice music and hittin’ them with something that’s not really a nice thing to say. If you hit them from both angles, maybe they’ll get something out of it because it doesn’t seem like a real dismal event
Listen, nobody’s perfect. We all make some serious, crucial mistakes. We all do some things that sidetrack us from the direction you was goin’ on. You wind up takin’ a detour somewhere and you didn’t intend that, but it happens. You’ve got to do everything you can that’s possible to make a better world to live in, to get to a point where you can say, "Hey – I feel good about this". It’s hard to do. N’awlins has been through a lot of mess. I’ve been through a lot of mess. Everything goes through a lot of mess. The way to get past all of that is to take action. If you do it right, you’ll get somewhere beyond all that. Sometimes you take a path that feels right and down the line, it turns out not be the path you wanted. It may have wound you up in some place you never wanted to be in the first place. Well, you gotta get a look at that and make an ol’ manoeuvre and so something else. This kind of stuff happens. Freq-uently.
So some really nice posts over at HQ the last day or so . . . . first the Queen of Nawleans Soul herself Irma Thomas live! Over at Floppy Boot Stomp from Jeremiah who found some sterling stuff . . . . . . I discovered Irma through Dr John of course and have most officially released stuff so her live performances are always worth checking out apart from being a stone cold fox her entire life she was blessed with the most beautiful voice
For Mums everywhere and for those we miss . . . . . . . . what could be better than Chet Atkins, Mark Knopfler and The Everly Brothers? Why worry?
It always makes me laugh when Christian festivals are subsumed and adopted by the secular world and Mother’s Day is a classic example . . . . originally a day of trying to get the working class into church by letting them have one day off to visit the ‘Mother' Church . . . . . inevitably it meant folks went back home for the day and it began being associated with visiting their mothers! Brilliant!
