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