The Wrong Thing To Do

Due to my recent absence from work I had kind of lost the muse lately and couldn’t really think of a subject that appealed to me and I had nothing I felt that I really needed to get out of my system. Therefore I had no rants about Christmas commerciality to publish or the new religion of shopping to appease the gods of retail, no observations on the state of politics today or maybe even an odd moan about the parking issues outside my home, nothing, I had absolutely nothing to say.

So instead I thought keep it to music, it’s always all about the music, now this can be difficult for me choosing a subject on music that might interest others, something that might amuse or confuse anyone who is actually looking at this blog. Therefore I started looking into my music collection and thought about the sometimes ridiculous names groups and artists often decide to call themselves whether they might make a one-off recording and are therefore never heard of again or some that might have stuck around and actually made career whilst keeping the original name they had decided upon.

Pancho Villa

 

Below is a relatively small list of artists I found scattered across my music folders. What a music chart they would create and I’m sure you would agree that these would beat any current  itunes download chart or any top twenty chart rundown on a popular digital radio station (though you probaby wouldn't !).

The Dinks

 

There are four songs below but if you want to hear anymore from these wonderful names then leave me a comment….

Enjoy

The Bambi Molesters

The Dead Milkmen

Pancho Villa & The Bandits

S.C.U.M

Sir Rich & The Spanking Club

The Real Nasty

Pepper Rabbit

The Murderer’s Accordian

Lion & The Leprechauns

Howard Ice Berg & The Titanics

Dennis The Fox

The Ape Quartet

The Dinks

Gutterball

The Magic Christian

Untouchable Machine Shop

Matthew And The Atlas

Drunk On Crutches

Wee Willie & Winks

Ras Michael And The Sons Of Negus

The Brothers Comatose

Lafayette Yarborough

Brylan ‘Legs’ Walker with his Walkin’ Talkin’ Sax

The Gongettes

Frank Chickens

Diane Cluck

The Moongooners

Sir Bald Diddley & His Right Honourable Big Wigs

Mud, Blood And Beer

Henry’s Funeral Shoe

Jack Ruby & The Black Disciples

Peanut Faircloth with The Log Cabin Boys

Crippled Black Phoenix

The Mustard Men

 

The Brothers Comatose - Pine Box

The Dinks - Knocka Knocka Mow Mow

Mud, Blood And Beer - Lucy

Pancho Villa And The Bandits - Ain't That Bad

Soldiers Get Strange

I am not working at the moment so I have had the chance to spend a little extra time in bed. Now even though I’m off I still wake up at virtually the same time every day, the only difference being I don’t have to go to work. This has led me to lie there some mornings recently allowing random thoughts and feelings to enter my head and today was no exception and I started thinking how as child I was fascinated by war and fighting. I expect this is a period every young boy might go through and I was certainly no exception. I remember reading Sad Sack comics and going into the local paper shop to buy war comics such as Commando for a couple of pence or maybe a shilling I can’t remember the price.

Commando magazine was still being published even as late as 2007 when it reached the milestone of 4000 editions and it’s hard to imagine how they can keep filling page after page of brave English ‘Tommies’ fighting the evil Nazi empire after all these years. I avidly read books on great military battles and military uniforms but my absolute favourite playthings were Airfix toy soldiers and miniatures. Now somewhere up in my loft I still have a large plastic bag full of Airfix soldiers and these are one relic from my childhood that I could not be parted from. They remain there gathering dust but when I was young I played battle games with them nearly every day. My Grandad used to paint them and when I saw the film ‘Waterloo’ which Christopher Plummer as Wellington and Rod Steiger as Napolean I was hooked again on the Napoleanic and Spanish Peninsular wars and I would often spend hours recreating the defence of the Hougoumont Chateau at Waterloo with figures all painted by my Grandad including the kilts on the Scottish Regiments.

 

Happy days

Enjoy  

JJ Grey & Mofro - War

Reverend John Wilkins - On The Battlefield

The Godfathers - Birth School Work Death

Death By Unga Bunga

I can’t confess that I am an expert on Politics and I never went to University as a young man but as I have moved through the decades of my life I have built up certain opinions and beliefs. One of these beliefs is that I am happy to be proud of many things (obviously not everything!) regarding the country where I live without being overtly nationalistic or where I get to the point that I distrust every newcomer to my country as a corrosive influence from outside or someone who will be detrimental to the lifestyle that I have accustomed myself too and the same lifestyle that I am sure many people enjoy, of course I do not.

 

Now what really annoys me is the way we (e.g. the government, our society ??) let’s everything be sold off for a king’s shilling to the highest bidder and offers no protectionist policies whatsoever. Lately Penguin (yes Penquin Books !! the unique and treasured Penquin Books) have been sold/merged with Random House Publishing a German company and also my beloved Branston Pickle is now owned by a Japanese conglomerate. I’ve seen HP Sauce sold abroad and Cadbury’s taken over by Nestle (they will always be Nestles to me). I have nothing against either Germany or Japan or any of its citizens I just feel passionately that these brands remain British owned and British made and then they should be sold everywhere as a purely British product. The trouble is the whole world is now seen as a global village with no borders  and apparently these outdated opinions don’t matter anymore but to me they do matter and they should matter more too others as well. I love Marmite,  Branston Pickle, Cheddar Cheese, HP Sauce, Sarsons Vinegar, choclate etc  but as a country we do not value these products and we seem quite happy to see factories and jobs move abroad  to produce these products, make huge profits and sell it back to us without a whimper of protest.

Well shame on us all I say.

Let's enjoy some music...

Woody Guthrie - Do Re Mi (Recorded By Alan Lomax)

Ry Cooder - Money Honey

The Mummies - Food, Sickles and Girls

Music Music Music

‘Music was my first love and it will be my last ‘, so sang John Miles and really he could have been singing about me or any other serious muso on this planet. Some people might give you this as a definition :- A muso is a person who is obsessed with music. Their record collection will contain music and artists nobody else has heard of. This would not be entirely accurate but it bears more than a great deal of the real truth in my case and I have been obsessed by music since about the age of 10 or 11 years old. I remember listening to my family’s Top Of The Pops compilations, records by Alf Garnett aka Warren Mitchell singing first and second world war songs and music hall classics, listening to the charts on Sunday evenings replayed on a reel to reel tape recorder mostly compared by Jimmy Savile (oh dear !!!) and also hearing my dear old Granddad singing off-key ditties and his unique versions from the music hall in his armchair while he rolled his own cigarettes and we all watched Hawaii 5-O on the television. I remember buying my first single from Woolworths, it was Mungo Jerry’s ‘Baby Jump’ and my first proper LP was T.Rex’s ‘Bolan Boogie’. I can recall the thrill of buying Dr Feelgood’s ‘Down By The Jetty’ and realising it was recorded in mono not stereo. I even lusted over the sexy female model covers of the early Roxy Music albums, I can remember watching Johnny Winter somewhere on whatever channel it was on at the time and then rushing out to buy his first drugs free comeback effort ‘Still Alive & Well’ and then playing it non- stop for weeks on end, I can recall dancing on my bed to Mud’s ‘Tiger Feet’ and having my first real kiss to Mott’s ‘All The Young Dudes’.    I remember being fascinated by a fold-out Vertigo records LP from Juicy Lucy and wondering why did Status Quo have their previous album covers embossed on the back of each new album release. Why did I have an album by Tony Williams Lifetime and one by the Carry On Team singing novelty songs and why was Ernie the Fastest Milkman In The West by Benny Hill not regarded as one of the truly great modern English Folk Songs  ? So as I have said before I have been obsessed for years and at various periods collected over 2000 LP’s, 500 cassettes, 1000 CD’s, various minidiscs, occasional eight tracks and boxes of 45’s. Now after years of buying, selling and culling I have about 1000 LP’s left, no cassettes anymore, about 100 CD’s and around 60,000 mp3’s – yes I went digital a few years back for storage purposes mainly and yes because I do love ‘ the shuffle’ on all my media devices. So I really cannot capture in four tracks my career as a musicologist (sounds like I was somehow aiming to be the new Alan Lomax) but seriously folks below is some music that I have always regarded very highly and will go back to even while I’m trying to capture, listen to and file whatever else hits my musical radar on a daily basis.

Johnnie Allan - Promised Land

Question Mark & The Mysterians - 96 Tears

The Fabulous Thunderbirds - Marked Deck

Palace Bros - Ohio River Boat Song

Caravans, Council Estates and Class

.

I spent last weekend in a caravan at a holiday centre in the North East of England. This was my second of such adventures this year as I had been previously enticed by an offer of some collectable vouchers in a daily newspaper offering luxury caravan breaks at bargain prices. I hadn’t enjoyed the first one in July very much so I was not particularly looking forward to this one either but the difference being this break was over a weekend not a week this time around. Due to a change in circumstances we arrived on the Saturday morning rather than the designated check-in on Friday evening. Saturday night proved to be quite an experience for me and is not something I shall ever want repeated, for me it was as if I had moved to a sink estate overnight. I am not a snob and see myself as somewhat lower Middle Class in the so-called class pecking order that still pervades this country where I live. I have always worked, my parents have always worked and my grandparents all worked their whole lives and we have never been poor, never missed paying bills or mortgages and I have been brought up to be respectable, have good manners and be considerate of others. These attributes were certainly absent from a minority of my fellow caravan park dwellers on Saturday night and caused me to exhibit feelings of anger, extreme annoyance and exasperation as time moved into the early hours of Sunday morning. I have sworn never to darken the doors of one of these holiday destinations again as in my normal life I spend quite a bit of time avoiding people often labelled as a ‘chav’.

I know a lot of the media intelligentsia think that ‘chav’ is a demeaning word for the Working Class but to me it does not so much sum up a class more a certain type of individual behaviour that has become more prevalent year after year since the fall of Thatcher and then the rise and fall of Blair & Brown. I personally think these people are clueless, stupid and don’t deserve to be included in any class system breakdown whatsoever. They are thick, feral and a fucking blight that festers in the concrete council estate undergrowth that has been allowed to grow like mould in a petri dish with successive governments ignoring the issues and focusing more on looking upwards in the class chain towards the major capitalist corporations and financial bully boys rather than actually trying to bring some decency and a change of philosophy for people at the other extreme end of society instead of leaving them to rely on benefits and charitable benevolence with no decent future prospects in sight other than a weekend trip to a caravan park every now and again……………

Enjoy

 

 

Steve & The Holidays - Unemployment

Albertina Walker & The Caravans - Put A Little Love In Your Heart

Blitzen Trapper - Country Caravan

William Bell - Every Day Will Be Like A Holiday

catl - Working Man Soul

I Heard That Pardon

Noise is everywhere today, you just cannot escape it. Personally I hate noise especially any that is created by selfish inconsiderate people and believe me there are quite a few. I have never lived too far from noise and when I go anywhere that you cannot hear anything but silence, nature’s silence then it becomes blissful, something mystical.

Sadly I’m never in those places very often so I have to put up with cars with booming bass stereos, massive exhausts, screeching tyres, loud revving engines, neighbours who think having a full drum kit and playing it with the windows open in a suburban house is cool. People you cannot talk unless they are virtually shouting so that everyone in their vicinity can hear every useless, pointless word they have to say. People who walk along the road talking into tiny earphones, so they can have a conversation with someone else somewhere on their important and magical ‘iphone or android thingy’.

Many play their crappy moronic chart music to the whole street as they walk past rather than actually wear some fucking earphones and of course there are those that somehow cannot seem to work out that their mp3 player is so loud that everyone on the train or bus can hear this totally annoying buzzing, scratching sound for what often seems like forever. Probably by now you can see where I’m coming from and I haven’t even mentioned the constant irritation of living under a major airport flight path of which I have had to do so many times in the past.

Anyway when it comes to music, noise and feedback isn’t very high on my list of listening habits but I do try but it has to happen in very small doses.

So today I now give you three examples of the sort of levels of noise that I can listen to and feel reasonably comfortable with.

Enjoy

 

Japandroids - The House That Heaven Built

Bob Mould - Keep Believing

Great White Buffalo - Jaybells

Mix No 3 Sept 2012

Apologies but I have been lacking once again in my duties as The Man Who Rode The Mule recently so below is my new monthly choice of sounds for any interweb viewers who care about this blog

 

The Man Who Rode The Mule Hopes That You Like It......

 

1. Galactic - Voyage Ton Flag

2. John Paul Keith - Bad Luck Baby

3. Herbie Duncan w/Red Wells & His Caravan - Little Angel

4. Joey Allcorn - Huntsville

5. The Heavy - Big Bad Wolf

6. Loudon Wainwright III - Somebody Else

7. Roxy Music - Out Of The Blue

8. The Dirty Guv'nahs - Quiet Tigers

9. Eddie Lang - Something Within Me

10. Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band - Too Much Time

11. Camper Van Beethoven - Take The Skinheads Bowling

12. American Aquarium - Coffee And Cigarettes

13. Townes Van Zandt - Racing In The Street 

14. Whispering Pines - Purest Dreams

15. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Babe, You Turn Me On

16. Varnaline - Saviours

17. Ponderosa - Never Come Back

The Man Who Mix No 3 - Sept 2012

Mix No 2 August 2012

The Man Who Rode The Mule Hopes That You Like It......

• 1.   I, Ludicrous - Preposterous Tales
• 2.   Gladys Knight & The Pips - Didn't You Know (You'd Have To Cry Sometime)
• 3.   Jim Boss & The Sundowners - Your Love Is Stronger Than Dirt
• 4.   Robert Smith-Hald - Thou Mayest 
• 5.   Bob Dylan - Dixie
• 6.   4h Royalty - Fall Of The Face Of The Earth With Me
• 7.   Muddy Waters - Unk In Funk
• 8.   JKutchma - Used To Believe
• 9.   Mondo Davis - Dear London
• 10.  The Dimestore Junkies - The Machine
• 11.  Hacienda - Don't You Ever
• 12.  Dolly Parton and Porter Wagoner - Jeannie's Afraid Of The Dark
• 13.  Floyd Dakin Combo - Look What You Gone And Done
• 14.  Hurray For The Riff Raff - Ode to John And Yoko
• 15.  Lisa Cormier & The Sundown Playboys - Saturday Night Special
• 16.  Roger Alan Wade - Cars And Guns
• 17.  T.Rex - Woodland Rock

The Man Who Mix No 2 - August 2012

And as the poor worked for a life at every waking hour

Last week I had just departed the train station in a large student enclave outside a major Northern city when I saw stencilled on a wall the following  logo ‘Slave To The Wage’, this made me chuckle slightly as it hit home to me immediately that this message completely put a name to my current feelings at work. I have been a Wage Slave now for about 35 years without a major break. Not for me a life changing gap year, no staying at home in my late teens with my parents paying all the bills, no long term sick, absolutely nothing, ‘nada’, other than the six months in 1985 that I spent travelling  the USA with my best mate Paul H.

I guess almost certainly by reading these comments you can probably tell that I’ve had enough and dear readers that would be a spot on assessment of my current work life predicament. I Want Out……no more days spent listening to bullshit, staring at spreadsheets, glancing at the clock on my PC then pretending I actually care about my job, my employer, my future prospects. I’ve done my bit for Queen & Country, I’ve paid my tax, I’ve contributed to National Insurance, I’ve maintained my pension and contributed to a Union for all those years and continue to do so BUT now I want a rest and a chance to live my life the way I want and not be a Wage Slave anymore.

So I have chosen four tracks that represent a wide ranging summation of my feelings on the matter of work. We have Australian anti-capitalist/consumerism electro band Snog, next are the legendary Gourds from Austin Texas, long term purveyors of mad Alternative Country with a twist, followed by the jazz/soul ensemble The Young Holt Trio from Chicago performing live and finally from further along the States in Ohio you can find ex-Soledad Brothers member Johnny Walker’s kicking up a storm of noise with his superb new band The Cut In The Hill Gang. 

Enjoy

Snog - Corporate Slave

The Gourds - When The Money Comes Rolling In

Young Holt Trio - Aint There Something Money Cant Buy (Live Medley)

Cut in the Hill Gang - Fuck The People/Revolution

Better Call Saul

I try not to watch too much TV, and most of my favourite programmes over the last few years have hardly managed to break into the mainstream TV schedules anyway. Of course BBC4 is on freeview and there you can view great Nordic Noir and I have especially enjoyed The Bridge, The Killing and Borgen recently, all of which were high class series written for people who actually like to think about what they are watching.

Thinking about this in more detail I realised that over the years I have always gravitated towards shows from the US most of all. I remember Barney Miller, The Rockford Files and Hill Street Blues. Who could forget Jack Lord on Hawaii Five-O every Friday night in the 1970’s. Recently though things have changed and American TV series have a harder more contemporary edge.

Series such as The Sopranos, The Wire, Boardwalk Empire, Game Of Thrones and others such as Justified, The Walking Dead, Oz, Falling Skies to name some more. Although I will admit that none of these have moved me and caused such anticipation in me every time a new series was produced until AMC’s Breaking Bad appeared in 2008. Now this is a show that deserves a wider audience, it is often only found on the more obscure satellite channels and then put on with no fanfare or advanced warning which is a TV crime because  this series has just everything. Great acting, great storylines, great music and it also has the unique ability to pull you into this fictional story and you really live these characters. I won’t bore you with a long synopsis (try Wikipedia Folks !) other than to mention that it’s the story of two men Walter White played by the majestic Bryan Cranston and Jesse Pinkman played by actor Aaron Paul and their life and death struggle to produce and sell Crystal Meth on the streets of Albuquerque, New Mexico, but it is so much more than that so please go and purchase the DVD’s, you would not be disappointed. I know the final and fifth series has just begun in the States and I am ready and waiting to see these guy’s through to a conclusion. As I have said earlier the show has tremendous background music supplied and sourced by David Porter and I was lucky enough to find a ‘homemade’ compilation on the net with all the music from the first three series, so below are a few personal choices.

Enjoy

Buddy Stuart - Sun Shine On Me

Darondo - Didn't I

Son Of Dave - Shake A Bone

Teddy Bears {Feat Eve} - Rocket Scientist

Worse Things Happen At Sea

I’ve been a bit busy lately and I have also taken some deserved holidays, so I haven’t had much time to think about this blog and what music I want to present. Also I must admit I have been a bit lacking in ideas as well.
I thought about picking some of the songs that have always made a great impression on me and had them chosen when I got sidetracked by listening to a version of Ewan McColl’s ‘Manchester Rambler’ which then took me far away from my original idea completely and led me back to creating a classic British Folk musicians feature.
I had all the tracks ready and then I unfortunately lost interest again. I waited a few days, tried to catch up on my outstanding listening list, which is so long it often resembles the Tour De France peloton and so maybe in the most perfect symmetry I am now creating this post after watching the Olympics Cycling Road Race failure of the British Team and also feeling exhausted from watching last night’s Danny Boyle opening ceremony extravaganza that like a lot of things these days made me shout rude and obscene comments at my TV . The contradictions surrounding these latest Olympic Games make me rather angry and last night was no exception. I won’t bore anybody here with all my negative thoughts suffice to say I am still bereft of inspiration so I will leave you now with just one track from modern folk’s latest Mr Popular (not even sure if I’m being ironic here).

Enjoy

Frank Turner - Reasons Not To Be An Idiot

Mix No 1 July 2012

The Man Who Rode The Mule Hopes That You Like It......

• 1.   Fort Atlantic - Let Your Heart Hold Fast
• 2.   The Rainmakers - Missouri Girl
• 3.   Roosevelt Graves & Brother - Woke Up This Morning (With My Mind On Jesus)
• 4.   Gangstagrass featuring T.O.N.E.z - I'm Gonna Put You Down 
• 5.   Fraser & DeBolt - Them Dance Hall Girls
• 6.   Paul "Sir Raggedy" Flagg - Papa Momma Romper Stomper
• 7.   Joe Henry - One Day When The Weather Is Warm
• 8.   Los Locos Del Ritmo - Polvora
• 9.   Turnpike Troubadours - 7 And 7
• 10.  ZZ Top - Chevrolet
• 11.  Powder Mill - Devil In New Orleans
• 12.  Luke Haines - Gorgeous George
• 13.  Apache Relay - Mission Bells
• 14.  Lee Bell - Beatin' Out The Boogie On The Mississippi Mud
• 15.  Randy & The Radiants - My Way Of Thinking
• 16.  Bloody Ol Mule - BBQ Song
• 17.  Indigo Girls - Beauty Queen Sister
• 18.  Gene McDaniels - There Was A (Tall Oak Tree)

The Man Who Mix No.1 July 2012

I Was Carried On A Silver Platter...And Then Dumped Into The Garbage

Tribute songs are a much maligned and marginalised genre within popular music. In the 1950’s and early 1960’s they were an integral part of the charts and whenever a great musician or popular film star passed into heaven (E.G. Hank Williams, Buddy Holly, Elvis, Eddie Cochran), you would soon hear a hastily recorded single rushed out into record shops to make some quick cash and buy into the general mourning and grief of the fans.

Name any great dead artist and somewhere someone has written a song about them. I have a good number of these songs in my collection and when I decided to add my own ‘tribute’ to the tribute song I became a bit confused because I realised tribute songs especially the more modern rock version come in many different styles and interpretations and often the song will offer the title of an artist or person  and yet the song really has nothing to do with that individual at all. So I tried to find a happy medium and went for three different tracks that only loosely form a tributes triangle and yet may explain in some strange way why they make great choices and need to be heard again.

I have never ever been a fan of the music of Wham or George Michael but  I have always been aware of their status and popularity although George’s old partner Andrew Ridgley probably never thought that he would have a song recorded with his name in the title. Following on and completely out of left field I give you Vic Godard’s noisy trash tribute to Johnny Thunders the ex New York Dolls and Heartbreaker who was an rabid drug user and whose death in 1991 has led to conjecture and rumour ever since and probably added to his already semi-legendary status within the confines of American Rock & Roll history. Finally I have left you with another wonderful song written by Tom Russell a writer who could if he was so inclined turn almost any historical or major cultural event into a song that would be worth listening to. His track is the story of Robert Cletus “Bobby” Driscoll, mostly known as a child actor in Hollywood in the 1940’s who fell from grace and spent periods in jail for using narcotic’s and died virtually penniless in the East Village, New York City in 1968.

Enjoy

Black Box Recorder - Andrew Ridgely

Vic Godard & The Subway Sect - Johnny Thunders

Tom Russell - Farewell Never Never Land

Marks of weakness, marks of woe

Well it’s getting very close know…
So what is getting close very know you may scream ? well the bloody Olympic games in London I shall reply.
So with this eye-catching subject now grabbing your attention I thought I would pay my own little tribute to the city of my birth plus add a few views of my own surrounding it all. I love London, not the touristy parts, the expensive parts or the parts where thousands of people head into every day to sell their souls for a large salary and to support the growth of evil corporate capitalists, no I like the obscure parts, the old historical parts, the parts that make London the great city it still is hidden from the general masses as they don’t want to look for it or even try to understand it. I have no problem with the Olympics as an event but have great reservations regarding this legacy it is supposed to leave behind and also why we have to indulge and involve giant corporations sponsoring everything from the tickets, the food and building massive new shopping complexes. Most of these monolithic giants are not even British run and have already invaded so much of our modern society already as to be the most invasive presence this country has ever seen. Now we have kids (children !!) going to high school proms in stretch limousines, wearing clothing produced in Asian sweat shops stuffing their faces with processed American style food portions. We can’t even offer the general public a British beer to drink when they watch the Olympic events as the corporate brewing giant Carlsberg has seen to that and will then charge around £7.00 a pint to drink something akin to one’s own urine, no I shall take that back, I have never tasted my own urine but I have tasted theirs and I’m sure mine is better.
Now before I head off into music land once again which is my main purpose with this blog let me recommend this site as my alternative offering to all the Olympic games festivities. http://www.derelictlondon.com/

Today I have picked three tracks all with a London connection of sorts, one is about a lovely river that flows through South-West London near the old Young’s Brewery in Wandsworth, another is written by Walthamstow alumni Nick Saloman (aka Bevis Frond) and sung by an ex-busker from Salem and then finally a murder song from the great Mr Nicholas Drain Lowe born in Walton-On-Thames.
Enjoy

Danny and The Champions Of The World - Wandle Swan

Mary Lou Lord - Cold Kilburn Rain

Nick Lowe - Basing Street

Me Gotta Go Now

I was going to post this new piece with a personal rant about capitalism and how it has corrupted nearly every part of modern society and I was going to match this theme with three songs including Todd Snider’s ‘New York Banker’ from his latest album ‘Agnostic Hymns & Stoner Fables’. This led me to listening extensively to some more tracks by Todd, a great, great songwriter who always hits the mark with his acerbic lyrics and extensive subject matter which is obviously based on his wry observations of modern America and so of course I came across his song ‘The Ballad Of The Kingsmen’ from his 2004 album, East Nashville Skyline and all of a sudden a totally new theme emerged.

Both Todd and the Kingsmen originate from Portland, Oregon and although Todd wasn’t born until 1966 the Kingsmen had already reached #2 in the Billboard charts three years earlier with their mighty garage rock rendition of Richard Berry’s ‘Louie Louie’. Now I have heard a lot a lot of music over the years but hearing any version of Louie Louie just brightens my day and makes everything seem a little better for those two minutes or so. There have been whole albums released and books written on the subject of Louie Louie but who really cares as it’s just a classic song and if it fails to move you then sorry but you obviously don’t have any rock & roll in your soul!

Following my Portland trail even further this then led me on to my third track from Don & The Goodtimes. Yet another band hailing from the North West Coast of America. Don is actually Don Gallucci and he was an original member of the Kingsmen back in the early sixties, now this longer version is a absolute stunner it sounds to me like three songs melted into one and is on my best ever list if I ever decided to make one.
Enjoy

Todd Snider - The Ballad Of The Kingsmen

The Kingsmen - Louie Louie

Don And The Goodtimes - Louie Louie

Manners Pianos & Mouth Organs

Buried deep in the suburbs of West London you might come across The Bitter Springs, reincarnated from a previous existence as The Last Party this band has been releasing a singular type of very English music since 1985. They have cultivated a close alliance with that old punker Vic Godard, but they have been mostly ignored over the years by the music industry and the music press. I of course have a different view and feel they have produced a strong body of what I term very modern English music in this period and in Simon Rivers they have a chronicler of all that's often wrong with modern day life. The band themselves seem to pay a multitude of instruments and create different sounding songs to accompany Simon's great lyrics. For me it was a difficult choice picking any tracks to emphasise my point but I have chosen these three and I hope they point the way to a day when perhaps this band will be recognised for how good they really are.

The Bitter Springs - Gary Glitter Fan Convention

The Bitter Springs - Thee Idiots Computing

The Bitter Springs - Benny Hills Wardrobe The Bitter Springs - Even Now

My Return From The Wilderness

 I have been away from from the Blogsphere for around 3 years since I shut down Spunky Onions and The Novelty Rock Emporium. I suppose I could have commenced posting on them both again but I wanted a fresh start. I'm still on Tumblr and will probably continue there for a while longer but I wanted a forum where listeners/viewers/browsers had access to download the music if they wanted and obviously if the artist does not request me to remove the track. I will only post music I like and appreciate and sounds that I think need a wider audience, something outside mainstream itunes music. So I begin with an old favourite of mine singing about a Saturday afternoon wrestling hero from the 1970's.

The Bevis Frond - Johnny Kwango