Jack Nitzsche!

hi there - long time no talk.

who? that's right...jack nitzsche. what made me think of him was this weekend i was at the goodwill near my house and i found or i thought i found one of the few christmas records i'd ever want to own, the phil spector christmas record. well, what i thought was a super rare record turned out to be the wrong record in the most pristine of sleeves. well, enough about that squirrel disappointment and onto the man, jack. he was spector's right hand man and he also played with those guys the rolling stones, fucked around with captain beefheart and just seemed to be all over the place in the sixties and seventies. hell, he is still around and just last year, that bastard quentin tarantino used one of his songs "the last race" in his "deathproof" movie. god, i LOVE that song but how i first came to know it was from the AIP movie, "village of the giants". i can still recall watching this insane movie on channel five in southern california as a kid and thanks to you tube, you can see one of the most absurd scenes with the nitzsche song! here you go and all i can say is WAIL, WAIL!!!

you too billy idol

i love you tube. and why not - any time i think of something i always wanted to see, you tube has it. my pal jim is always sending me stuff like the collins kids, some cat playing the piano or maybe the incredible chris gaffney playing somewhere - anywhere like here on cable access tv. there is so much stuff on youtube i am never without amazement on what one might find...and i am only speaking to the music part of youtube!

this morning i somehow stumbled on this guy in hamilton, ontario (that's canada for us americans) dancing in public places to songs i really dig a lot like the electric eels "agitated" or the mummies "stronger than dirt" - check this out

i don't really think this will be much funnier in the next couple viewings but i found it highly entertaining for the get-go!

foxy!

you got to hand it to sub pop - always coming up with a band that just makes one go "wow". fleet foxes fall into this category and i fought it as i thought they were pretty good. i was wrong. now i keep listening to them and find them getting better with every listen. and now you can download a pretty damn good version of the fleet foxies with wilco doing the dylan chestnut, "i shall be released" right here. hit that link and find a genius stroke on the part of wilco asking people to kindly VOTE this year and i am going to pull no punches, VOTE FOR AN OBAMA-BIDEN TICKET! haven't we all had enough of this shameful campaign senator john mcshame and his running mate sarah "abstinence does not work in my family" palin. don't think twice friends...

and if you want to hear this in action live, here you go - WILCO and FLEET FOXES doing what the BAND made famous and doing it right!

da mystery of chessboxin'

what? music can create a variety of emotions however when it can create many emotions all at once, magic happens. although that situation can happy with many varieties of music (hello fela!) i recently was listing to the wu tang clan and felt sincerity (method man, u-god, raekwon), crazy scary emotions (ol' dirty bastard, gza's beats) and joy from the entire song structure. check out this awesome video of "protect yr neck" a classic if ever there was one.

a mix-up a variety of different new yorkers, wu-tang is like no other group...so many personalities, so much varied talent along with tons of crazy ideas, you have one of the most diverse groups ever. just check out their debut here and get on it son.

what's good?

everybody had/has musical mentors. i believe there are a small percentage of people who are born with distinct taste and i can only think of one guy when i was growing up as a teenager who just had his finger on everything cool and right on yet he told me he had some guidance also. i had two early ones when i was probably sixteen telling me what is really the stuff and one was a guy named joe hudson. don't know where joe is today but he knew what seemed like everything good - movies and a caustic sense of humor were what i actually liked most about him however he would drive me to zed records in long beach and along with some mix tapes being played on the drive, i got an education. one of the first punk shows i went to was the weirdos , the plugz, the suburban lawns and i believe the penatrators at baces hall in hollywood. it took my 16 year old head completely off and to this day, i thank you joe hudson. if i recall correctly, joe's favorite band was the screamers however they were history in mid-1979 and his next favorite was the weirdos. i can't hear "we got the neutron bomb" without thinking of that great show and joe - a true musical mentor and the guy never played a note on any instrument but he could honk his horn on his car like nobody else.

pink floyd

i really wanted to write about pink floyd but i am instead going to write about wilco. i think they have a lot in common yet i will not explain why i think that. wilco. hmmm, wilco. i know a lot of music pals of mine would scoff at them but that seems like such an easy route to take. consider this, they are not misunderstood nor underappreciated, i think a lot of folks simply take great songwriting for granted. jeff tweedy and company are not from the south (and ditto for john fogerty and neil young) yet he writes with the prose of a great southern storyteller like faulkner or o'connor. although it is well over a year old, i think the latest offering from wilco "sky blue sky" is a god damn classic. here's a video for the title track - enjoy.

good george!!

i love george jones. i can't see why anybody would not...he writes his own stuff, sings like a champ, drinks and womanizes - this guy just rules. and i love it the most when he duets - and god knows he's sang with EVERYONE! let's see, merle, willie, loretta, tammy, elvis costello, and you can find a shit load more right here on this link! now click on the above video to check out george in action - ALONE...a living legend this guy!

is it a crisis or just a boring change?

chatting recently at lake washington - er, in lake washington, i was asked what my favorite song from the 9t's is. i answered quickly and said "cannonball" by the breeders. i love that song - but that was a knee jerk reaction after all, i was swimming. you know what, it still just might be along side "juice (know the ledge)" by eric b. and rakim yet another contender for top spot would be "gold soundz" by pavement. easily one of the finer records from this same decade, pavement's "crooked rain, crooked rain" simply gets better with every listen. what the hell are they singing about? who cares - it all makes me laugh as they seem to use the words as an instrument more than having some meaning (yay!). i think you need to download this album NOW! it kinda rules.

man vs. bear

it wasn't too long ago someone in their mid 40's (my age) was telling me how awful kids have it today with such shitty music. asking what he meant by that i got the answer i feared, britney spears, american idols and it proved something to me, this guy is so out of touch. by saying music is better when we grew up is just simply an oversight to what great music is out there. case in point, here is the video for grizzly bear doing "knife". this song and the entire album "yellow house" is phenomenal not to mention a shitload of other bands that are great right now like mika miko the black lips, shark! shark! - more on all these bands later. but for now, enjoy grizzly bear. this video is pretty damn good too.

placemats

i told myself i would write about the first thing that popped up on my iTunes and i am not going to lie, the first thing was manu chau who i love but i wanted some rock and/or roll. next up i got it, the replacements. and i decided to put this picture of them as young weirdos coz' it cannot be said enough how great they were. but don't get me wrong, i like the placemats until the very end - er, demise. i can recall the many times i saw them in the mid-8t's with lots of laughs and lots of insanity in the form of mr. bob stinson. i saw him play naked, i saw him falling off the stage - both at al's bar. at one of those very same al's shows, i recall a friend walking up to him and say in a twisted sister way "I WANNA ROCK" and stinson says "i want a cookie" as if he knew he had that silly statement in the chamber ready to be released. maybe you had to be there but i say that guy was a drunken maniac guitar genius. all in all, the replacements get big ups by everybody and well deserved. many say that 'let it be' is their finest hour and i could not agree - this record is just perfect. enjoy it right about - - here!