On The Flip-Side

Song Of The Week: Mimi & Richard Farina - Reno, Nevada

2012-02-01T10:38:00.000-08:00

Listen - Mimi and Richard Farina perform Reno, Nevada

I picked this single up years ago at a crappy Sacramento shopping mall based used record store of no particular name. I probably got it for $.50 or less. From day one I have loved every aspect of it. The incessant reverb-free guitar work that sounds like a Telecaster (to me), Mimi's humming, the barrel house piano and Richard's nasally vocals. I've never heard anything else by this husband/wife duo that I have liked. But damn, I do like Reno, Nevada. I believe it was recorded in 1965 and was published by the folk dominant label, Vanguard.

Enjoy.

Video Diary: The Beastie Boys - Sabotage

2012-01-30T11:57:00.001-08:00

Original Song Project - Morgan Young -- Nothing Left To Lose

2012-01-25T12:37:00.000-08:00

Listen - Morgan Young performs Nothing Left To Lose

A quiet whimper offered for your use about a dirty little town of stray dogs, lust and hate. I hope you enjoy.

Photograph (C) Morgan Young, 2011

Song of the Week: The Byrds -- Have You Seen Her Face?

2012-01-18T09:44:00.000-08:00

Listen - The Byrds perform Have You Seen Her Face?

The Byrds were probably America's best band in an era dominated by the British Invasion. Not just clones of the Beatles or the Rolling Stones, The Byrds blended American country and western, pop and folk to create a beautiful new sound. That sound most distinguished by the beautiful harmonies of four of the five members. By the time the band's fourth -- and best -- album was released, Younger Than Yesterday, Gene Clark (pictured above on the right and recipient of two Flip-Side posts in his post Byrds career. Those are Out On The Side and Polly) had departed the band for good. With that departure the Byrds were now missing their strongest singer and perhaps their strongest songwriter. Tensions between David Crosby and the rest of the band were bubbling over and creating particular tension between with band leader Roger McGuinn.

From that bubbling cauldron, bassist Chris Hillman emerged, perhaps unlikely so, as a major creative force. Co-composer of the album's #1 hit single, So You Want To Be A Rock-N-Roll Star, Hillman also wrote and sang lead on four other songs on the album: Thoughts And Words, Time Between, The Girl With No Name, and today's SOTW, Have You Seen Her Face.

And more than that (if that wasn't enough), Hillman changed the sound of The Byrds, not just with his flatter, more countrified voice, but with the musicians he brought in to support his songs. Chris Hillman called on country guitar wizard Clarence White to play leads on Hillman's songs, essentially ditching The Byrds trademark 12-string chimey Rickenbacker as the lead instrument. Now we had the twang of a Fender Telecaster. This was a total rebranding of the Byrds that would become permanent as David Crosby would soon leave the band and be replaced by another Chris Hillman friend, Gram Parsons (himself a recipient of a Flip-Side post for his beautiful solo-era song, A Song For You). Of course those two would quickly leave The Byrds, along with drummer Michael Clarke, and form their own group, The Flying Burrito Brothers.

Have You Seen Her Face was released as a single in the US and died a miserable death on the charts. In some respects, it marks the beginning of the end of The Byrds' chart success. That doesn't mean the song isn't great, just that the stuff they were soon to record wasn't as radio friendly as before.

I've always had a soft spot in my musical heart for Chris Hillman. Not only was his bass work for the Byrds tremendous, but as noted above, his song writing and singing grew into it's own. As co-founder, and anchor, of the Flying Burrito Brothers, Hillman proved to be the corner stone in the creation of country-rock.

Enjoy Have You Seen Her Face.

Song of the Week: Pete Townshend - Is It In My Head?

2012-01-11T13:07:00.000-08:00

Listen - Pete Townshend performs Is It In My Head?

Quadrophenia is one of the most highly praised albums of all time. It marks the end of an amazing run of four "must have albums" from The Who (preceded by Sell Out, Tommy, and Who's Next.) In 1972, as Pete began writing for Quadrophenia, Pete set out to rectify the wrongs he felt were beset upon him in his pursuit of the failed Lifehouse album, an aborted album that would become the critically acclaimed and high selling Who's Next. It seems everyone but Pete loved Who's Next. He couldn't let the failure of Lifehouse to fade and he was now set on creating another concept album. And he was also set on taking even more control of the band's direction, jettisoning extremely talented people like engineer Glynn Johns whom, Pete felt, hadn't shown enough support to Lifehouse and in fact forced him to put out the best songs from that session as Who's Next.

Pete retreated to his very advanced home studio on the island of Eel Pie and shut the world out. There he tried to expand on his groundbreaking use of electronics and crafted a thematic story of a downtrodden mod named Jimmy who, like Pete, seemed to be plagued by doubt and disappointment. When Pete emerged he had a comprehensive story and two hours of demos that sounded better than many other bands' completed songs. The Who had just completed their own recording studio and Pete brought the band in to put their stamp on his sophisticated demo recordings.

Until last month, when a Deluxe, remastered and expanded addition of Quadrophenia was released, most of those demos were only rumors. We got a few on the Scoop series, but not all of them. Well, here they are. To say they are well polished is an understatement. They are rock solid. Pete's drumming and bass work have improved from his demos in preparation for the Who's Next session and his voice is more confident too. His piano work is stellar and his guitar work is often more up front than in the final mixes for The Who.

Today we highlight the song Is It In My Head? On the final Quadrophenia version, Roger Daltrey sings with anger and aggression. And it is John Entwistle whose voice is mixed to the front on the chorus. But on this demo we get to hear Pete Townshend with his more vulnerable voice. It changes the posturing of the main protagonist from one who is confrontational and defiant to one who is unsure of even his own thoughts. Listening to all the demos, one is struck by how well thought out the songs were. One is also left with the sense of how much the band was a front for Pete Townshend's mind.

In the end, the recording and mixing of Quadrophenia was not what it should have been. The studio was not in shape for the recording (it actually flooded while they recorded and the control booth had to be stationed in a bus parked outside), the technology was not there for what Pete Townshend wanted to accomplish and the band was feeling like they were taking Pete's marching orders. In addition, producing and engineering the album was probably one job too many for Pete. At night Pete would take the tapes back to his home studio and bounce tracks (making a true remaster impossible) so as to allow him to over-dub more instruments. Likewise, John Entwistle would take tapes home to record his horn sessions at his studio. It's testament to the quality of the songs and the quality of the band that the album came out as good as it did.

And it's a testament to Pete's demos.

Song of the Week: The Music Machine - No Girl Gonna Cry

2012-01-02T13:48:00.000-08:00

Listen - The Music Machine perform No Girl Gonna Cry

Sean Bonniwell passed away two weeks ago after a battle with lung cancer. Sean Bonniwell is one of those guys who made great, inventive and forward thinking music. And like fellow Angelenos Arthur Lee and Emitt Rhodes, the quality of his music didn't necessarily translate into sales or fame. Sean Bonniwell did pen a certified hit for his group, The Music Machine. The song was the great Talk Talk (see vid below). But he, and the rest of the band put out really good quality music that regularly equaled or even surpassed the high standard of Talk Talk.

I never had the opportunity to meet Sean Bonniwell but I knew many people who did. The dark lyrics, black clothing (and one black glove) and gruff exterior apparently stood in contradiction to the nice and engaging personality that was the true character of Sean Bonniwell. I first became aware of the Music Machine in about 1984 when Rhino Records put out a retrospective of the band. I was immediately drawn to the music and the look. About the same time I came across Mike Stax's second issue of Ugly Things fanzine which featured an interview with Bonniwell. Stax's interview showed a man who loved crafting music and loved exploring new ideas both musically and lyrically. The scooping up of "everything Music Machine" was now my personal ambition.

Learning as many as the songs as I could figure out with my then limited ear was an obsession. Thankfully, the Ugly Things issue shown above even came with sheet music! These were not your run of the mill 1960s garage songs. These were well crafted tunes with introspective lyrics and difficult to learn music.

Our Song of the Week understandably celebrates the music of Sean Bonniwell. The song I chose is one that failed to find release during the lifetime of the the Music Machine. I did so to show how good they were. If a song this good didn't make the cut, then you know how good the other stuff is. The song is No Girl Gonna Cry and it first came into my playlist around 1986 or '87 when a German traveler some how talked his way into crashing on my living room floor while he worked on a fanzine. While in California he found his way to Sean Bonniwell and came back with a tape of unreleased songs, demos and alt. versions of Music Machine songs. I recall a stunning, live, in-studio version of The Eagle Never Hunts The Fly filled with different lyrics and the occasional mistake. It showed how strong the band was. The tape was a gift to this kid from an appreciative Sean Bonniwell. That German cat put out his fanzine, called Splendid, and in it he included a flexi-disc of two unreleased Music Machine songs. You are now listening to a digitization of one of those songs from that flexi-disc. The song did finally see a wider release in the late 90's, but I prefer you listen to that plastic flex version.

RIP Sean Bonniwell

Song of the Week: Doc Watson and Clarence Ashley - Tough Luck

2011-12-19T13:02:00.000-08:00

Listen to Doc Watson and Clarence Ashley playing Tough Luck

Warren Hellman died yesterday. If you've ever been lucky enough to attend a Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival out here in Flip-Side West territory, you've surely heard that name and possibly even sent a thought of gratitude to the skies just as another incredible moment of free music in Golden Gate Park passed over the crowd. From Greg Brown to Jorma Kaukonen, Steve Earle to Hazel Dickens, Jeff Tweedy to Dave Rawlins and Gillian Welch, I've been blown away countless times at the festival, and it was all brought to us courtesy of Mr. Hellman. I even carted my kids out to this last festival to catch John Prine on a very crowded Friday afternoon show. As always, awesome.

Several years ago I caught Doc Watson's performance on the main stage and became an immediate convert (ashamed to admit I had never listened to him before.) I went out and got a collection of earlier recordings of him and Clarence Ashley and just loved this Song of the Week, Tough Luck. It features Doc Watson on guitar and Clarence Ashley on banjo and vocals. I hope you enjoy, and thanks to Mr. Hellman!

If you went to one of these festivals I'd love to hear about your memorable experiences in the comments.

Song of the Week: Justin Townes Earle - Hard Livin'

2011-12-15T11:42:00.000-08:00

Listen - Justin Townes Earle performs Hard Livin'

At 28 years of age, Justin Townes Earle has already put out four albums, has the stage presence of the most confident artists and the baritone voice of a man who has lived many more years than he actually has. In fact, the stories of his life would indeed suggest he has added a few years to his frame.

Justin Townes Earle just won the Americana Music Award's song of the year for 2011 for his standout number, Harlem River Blues. We've already featured his live performance of this song on the David Letterman Show. That live performance substantiates everything I've already said about him.

Today's SoTW comes from JTE's second disc, The Good Life. The song is called Hard Livin' and it is a fun romp of a song. Deft acoustic guitar work, fiddle and a great melody propel this song along nicely.

Enjoy, and remember, we live for comments.

Video Diary: Dock Boggs - Country Blues

2011-12-09T07:37:00.001-08:00

Song of the Week: Howlin' Wolf (featuring Hubert Sumlin) - Smokestack Lightning

2011-12-05T10:08:00.001-08:00

Listen - Howlin' Wolf (featuring Hubert Sumlin) performs Smokestack Lightning.

Hubert Sumlin died yesterday. He was 80. I would like to think that most everyone knows and appreciates what he did for blues music, but that just isn't the case. Hubert Sumlin was the quiet, diminutive and happy-go-lucky sideman to blues giant, Howlin' Wolf.

Howlin' Wolf first started working with Hubert Sumlin when Sumlin was still a teen, and not terribly confident on guitar. Sumlin played second guitar to Willie Johnson. Where Willie Johnson was aggressive in his playing and his life and would musically go toe to toe with the massive Howlin' Wolf, Sumlin sat back and remained quiet.

When Willie Johnson parted ways with Howlin' Wolf, Hubert Sumlin was moved to first chair. His style had not taken shape and Howlin' Wolf pushed him hard, perhaps too hard. In a wonderful Howlin' Wolf documentary film, Sumlin recounts how Wolf would badger and bully him to be better. As they worked on an important recording, Howlin' Wolf grew impatient at what he felt was Sumlin's lack of originality. As he often did, Wolf sent Sumlin packing. As Sumlin packed up his gear and began to leave the studio, Howlin' Wolf yelled after him something along the lines of "put your guitar pick away. Learn how to play with your fingers and come back with something that will stand out. If you don't trust yourself to play something great then how I can trust you to play something great? You can come back tomorrow and have one more try at it. If I don't like what you have, then I will let (studio musician and Wolf's second guitarist on the session) Buddy Guy take it over." With that, Sumlin recounted, the wallflower that was Hubert Sumlin went home, cried and began on the task Howlin' Wolf had given him: A finger picking guitar riff that would compliment the song. The next morning, fingers raw from a sleepless night of playing his new riff, Hubert Sumlin came back to Chess Studios where Wolf and his band, including Buddy Guy were ready to record. Wolf tersely told Sumlin he better impress and that he only had one chance to do so. Hubert Sumlin sat down and began to play his finger-picking riff in the key of E. After a few seconds Howlin' Wolf interrupted Sumlin's audition and turned to producer Leonard Chess and said, "you ready to record?". With that the band took off on Howlin' Wolf's biographical song, Smokestack Lightning. The guitar riff was unique and catchy and fit perfectly with the song and Wolf's pain stricken tale. The guitar riff would soon be pilfered by Dale Hawkin's own teenage guitarist, James Burton, to create the iconic Suzie Q. Bands like The Yardbirds, Manfred Mann, Creedence Clearwater Revival and a host of others would also mine the guitar riff with great success.

The relationship between Hubert Sumlin and Howlin' Wolf was very similar to father and son. As detailed in James Segrest's book, Moanin at Midnight: The Life and Times of Howlin' Wolf, the two did not always get along, but they always respected each other, looked out for each other and, in the end, were always inseparable. An illustrative tale from the book stands out. While touring thru the South shortly after Wolf had "made it", Howlin' Wolf drove the tour bus late one night to a spot not on the route. Wolf was quiet and tense and the whole band had fallen asleep in the back. Sumlin, sensing something was up, sat with his mentor in the front row and said nothing. Wolf stopped the bus in front of a run-down house and walked tentatively to the front door before eventually knocking on the door. An elderly woman came to the door and and the powerful Howlin' Wolf began to shake and said "Mama, it's me, Chester. How ya doing?". His mother had rejected him years before for a violent incident that happened when a teenage Chester Burnett, now The Wolf, had laid out a man he found on his mother's property. She told him to leave and he had not seen her in the 30 or so years since. That incident, by the way, is the major theme of the song, Smokestack Lightnin' as it is in another of his songs, Back Door Man. Howlin' Wolf handed the elderly lady a $100 bill, a fortune in the mid-50's. The mother ripped up the money and threw the pieces on the ground proclaiming she wouldn't take money earned by singing the devil's music. With that she turned and went back into the house. The mighty Wolf fell to his knees and wept. Hubert stepped out of the car and walked his friend to the passenger seat and then took over the driving duties. Sumlin only said, "I'm sorry Wolf" and the two never spoke of the incident again. And the rest of the band never woke and never knew of the moment of vulnerability.

Another interesting tale, this time from Robert Gordon's book, Can't Be Satisfied: The Life and Times of Muddy Waters, is when, in one of the common instances of Sumlin and Wolf parting ways, Sumlin quickly got snatched up by arch-rival Muddy Waters. Wolf had more than able musicians filling in, but they weren't Hubert. One night Howlin' Wolf burst into a club on Maxwell street and pushed his way to front and center of the stage and began heckling Muddy Waters for stealing his guitarist. Muddy could give as good as Wolf and began taunting Wolf. After a few rounds, Howlin' Wolf pointed to Sumlin and said something along the lines of "get off that damn stage with these fools, you're my guitarist." At this point the band stopped playing and one of Waters' musicians pulled out a gun (the two books talk incessantly about how many guns and knives were stored in blues musicians' guitar cases). Wolf moved onto the stage and headed right at the man pointing a gun at him and said something akin to "you better put that away before I pull it out of your hands." With that Muddy Waters signaled to the sideman to stand down and Howlin' Wolf unplugged Hubert's amp and walked off. Hubert packed up his guitar and followed Howlin' Wolf out of the club.

Hubert Sumlin remained Howlin' Wolf's sideman until Wolf died in 1976. Hubert's unique, bouncing and warbling guitar riffs often spoke in retort to Wolf's guttural howls. Any musician knows how important Hubert was to Wolf. Wolf knew it and he would stand up to defend it.

I got a chance to see Hubert Sumlin perform when he was but a spry 75 years old. His skills had diminished, that's for sure. Guitarist GE Smith performed with him and brilliantly would fill a missing part as soon as Sumlin would stumble. But still, at 75, he was a better guitarist with far more style than the vast majority of the strat-n-a-hat SRV clones that fill every blues jam around the globe. I got to shake his hand and see him smile and hear him play. How damn cool is that?

Enjoy this great live performance of Howlin' Wolf with Willie Dixon, Sunnyland Slim, Clifton James and, of course, Hubert Sumlin off on the right of our screen. Dig that crazy guitar work.

Thank you Hubert Sumlin!

Video Diary: David Bowie - Space Oddity (1st version)

2011-12-03T09:01:00.001-08:00

Song of the Week: The Velvet Underground - Sweet Jane (alternate version)

2011-11-28T09:42:00.001-08:00

Listen - The Velvet Underground perform Sweet Jane (alternate version)

Many years ago a friend and bandmate of mine, who occasionally haunts this board under the name Coyote, asked me a simple question. "Are you a fan of The Velvet Underground?" "Well, yeah, of course I am", came the answer. Then he started talking about Rhino Records' reissue and expansion of the final Velvet Underground album, Loaded. Other than the two college radio friendly songs, Rock & Roll and Sweet Jane, I really did not know that album. On his suggestion I ran out and bought the double disc. I have to say, it is one of the best purchases I have ever made and can tell you that of the 4 records the Velvet Underground ever made, Loaded is without question my favorite. And, to be honest, it is the expanded version that makes it so great. The demos, discarded tracks, and alternate takes put the final selected tracks into perspective and make this album irresistible.

It is one of those demo or alternate takes that we focus on today. It is the song with the chord progression that could do no wrong, Sweet Jane. The version I was familiar with appeared on the 1970 vinyl release of Loaded. That version was short, succinct and upbeat. Then when I got the expanded addition of Loaded, called Fully Loaded, I noticed immediately that that version now had a bridge included in it that I had never heard before. Blow my fricken' mind. "Heavenly wine and roses seem to whisper to her, yeah, when she smiles." How did that get cut out of the original release?

The lyrics to the song have always mesmerized me.

Some people, they like to go out dancing, And other peoples, they have to work, just watch me now!
And there's even some evil mothers, well they're gonna tell you that everything is just dirt.
You know that women never really faint, and the villains always blink their eyes, woo!
And that, you know, children are the only ones who blush and that life is just to die.
And everyone who ever had a heart. They wouldn't turn around and break it.
And anyone who ever played a part, oh wouldn't turn around and hate it.

But then there is the slower demo version. It's missing that super-cool, but pasted on trippy intro. It still has that bridge in it and it builds to a beautifully sloppy crescendo in the end. The lyrics are slightly different -- our "protest kids" reference is gone for example. Drummer Maureen "Mo" Tucker wails away in, um, well, we'll call it "harmony". This demo version is probably not as good as the final, full-length version, but it is awfully cool.

The Cowboy Junkies did a version of Sweet Jane, and included the bridge, in 1988. It is truly sublime and one of the best covers I have ever heard of any song. Below is a video of them doing their super slow version with rearranged lyrics that track more closely to a 3rd, live version of Sweet Jane that the Velvet Underground did in 1969.

Video Diary: Renato Carosone - Tu Vuo' Fa' L'Americano

2011-11-21T06:49:00.001-08:00

Busker Days: Jesse Morris "True Red Blood"

2011-11-17T11:00:00.000-08:00

Listen to Jesse Morris performing True Red Blood

News reached me this morning that Jesse Morris passed on earlier this month. Seeing him regularly down in the BART station several years ago got me doing this whole Busker blog to begin with. This is the last recording I did of him, an original composition entitled True Red Blood. I hope you enjoy.

An article about him can be read here.

The first Jesse post can be seen here and the second one here.

The lyrics to True Red Blood can be seen in the comments section. They're really good.

Video Diary: The Raconteurs - Carolina Drama

2011-11-15T12:10:00.001-08:00

Brilliant. The lyrics are about as good as they can get. The performance about as good as it gets.

Song of the Week: Louis Prima - Jump, Jive An' Wail

2011-11-09T14:28:00.000-08:00

Listen - Louis Prima performs Jump, Jive, An' Wail

Our Song of the Week probably isn't new to anyone who knows their music. The song is Jump, Jive, An' Wail. It was written and recorded by veteran New Orleans band leader, Louis Prima. It is just flat out one of the all time great songs ever recorded. A perfect song. So perfect, it was always hard for me to imagine anyone actually writing it. My reasoning has been that it must "just have been" because it was too great to be written by an actual person. But it was. And that person is the aforementioned Louis Prima.

Mr. Prima grew up in the storied New Orleans neighborhood called Storyville. There he learned his art at the feet of his fellow Storyville local, Louis Armstrong. (click here to listen to Dave Alvin perform Armstrong's Perdido Street Blues). Sometime around '34, Louis Prima began fronting his own jazz bands and making a name for himself in the competitive world of New Orleans jazz. Prima's larger than life personality, solid trumpet playing and gregarious vocals would form a new, hyped up form of jazz that would become known alternately as Jump Blues and Swing, a direct ancestor, many would argue, to Rock-N-Roll.

By the time Louis Prima wrote and recorded his original composition, Jump, Jive, An' Wail in the Spring of '56, Rock-N-Roll had already taken a foothold in Memphis (see previous two videos). Jump, Jive, An' Wail was a huge crossover hit for Prima where his number struck a responsive chord with Rock-n-Roll crazed white teenagers, the pop music fans of Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra and be-bop Jazz fans alike.

Papa's in the ice box looking for a can of ale/Momma's in the backyard learning how to jive and wail. You gotta jump and jivin', and then you wail away.

Prima calls out "Willy the Wailer" and a rollin' piano, subdued for most of the song, deftly propels the song along with a rapid rag. One more verse and a beautiful call and response with the dueling horn section takes the song to a crazed finale. Just a damn perfect song.

P.S. See our Los Straitjackets post to hear a surf version of Louis Prima's original composition -- made famous by Benny Goodman and Gene Krupa-- Sing, Sing, Sing.

P.S.S. Brian Setzer scored a hit with his version of Jump, Jive, An' Wail back in the Swing craze of the early 90's. Don't believe me? Look below.

Video Diary: Elvis Presley - Hound Dog

2011-11-08T13:23:00.001-08:00

Video Diary: Elvis Presley - Baby, Let's Play House

2011-11-07T12:33:00.001-08:00

Song of the Week: The Violent Femmes - Gimme The Car

2011-11-02T13:44:00.000-07:00

Listen - The Violent Femmes perform Gimme The Car

I was listening to the archive of Flip-Side posts the other day and really honed in on some of the busker posts Jack Hayden has been putting up recently. The Human Condition and the three posts featuring The Brough Brothers really grabbed my attention the most. That led me to think of my favorite buskers/turn pro band. I am of course talking about the Violent Femmes who, while busking on the streets of their native Milwaukee, were discovered by The Pretenders' Chrissy Hynde and were soon swooped into micro-stardom.

We've already written about The Violent Femmes and their brilliant but unsettling homage to insanity in rural America, Country Death Song. But today, we spin the flip-side of their debut single which dates back to 1983. The song is Gimme The Car and it is just as unsettling as Country Death Song, but with a different disturbing theme. A theme of teenage angst and sexual frustration. A boy being driven by rage and hormones but unable to explain his base feelings. Moral values are thrown out the window when our frustrated protagonist is driven by personal pain and a driving urge.

The ominous lyrics in Gimme The Car remind us of a more cynical play on kid frustration as illustrated in this song of pubescent (pre-pubescent?) need to break free.

Song of the Week: Big Bill Broonzy - Looking For My Baby

2011-10-25T08:57:00.000-07:00

Listen - Big Bill Broonzy performs Looking For My Baby

Big Bill Broonzy was born in the late 1800s in Mississippi. He started recording in 1928 and didn't stop until his death (which usually stops most recordings by an artist) thirty years later. Big Bill Broonzy recorded such staples as I'm Gonna Move To The Outskirts of Town, CC Rider and, of course, his most famous song, Key To The Highway, but somehow he is not considered a luminary like Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf or Robert Johnson. It's not for lack of musicianship as his guitar skills were magnificent.

We listen today to his 1941 recording of his original song, Looking For My Baby. Cool guitar refrains and menacing lyrics mark this warbly recording for Okeh Records. Enjoy.

Video Diary: The Jayhawks - Two Hearts

2011-10-24T20:24:00.000-07:00

The Jayhawks perform Two Hearts live.

Video Diary: Luther Dickinson - Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning

2011-10-24T20:13:00.000-07:00

Another standout from the Americana Music Festival. Luther Dickinson of the North Mississippi Allstars performs Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning.

Video Diary: Sierra Hull - Chasin' Skies

2011-10-21T07:21:00.000-07:00

Signed to a recording deal at 11 and performed at the Ryman at age 12 (or something like that). Now 18, Sierra Hull is a master of the mando. Sadly this video doesn't showcase her excellent voice, but I love her mandolin work on this. We saw her perform at the stalwart Station Inn, a place as diminutive as the headliner at the show.

Video Diary: Jessica Lea Mayfield - Kiss Me Again

2011-10-19T10:19:00.000-07:00

More from Nashville's Americana Music Fest. Jessica Lea Mayfield performs Kiss Me Again. We loved the languid music, the sleepy eyed singer and the low-fi guitar that reminded us of the better works of bands like TV Personalities, Syd Barret and some Neko Case work. We were lucky enough to catch Jessica performing at the very excellent Mercy Lounge.

Video Diary: Justin Townes Earle - Harlem River Blues

2011-10-18T12:35:00.001-07:00

This Flipster is just back from Nashville, TN where we took in three nights of the Americana Music Fest. Seven clubs in three days. Not bad. We're going to post a few vids from our favorite performers. We'll start today with Justin Townes Earle whom we saw perform at the legendary Ryman Auditorium. The lanky baritone really caught us off guard. We've heard him, even liked him, but his performance was so confident and so powerful that we sat dumbfounded. His voice never hit an off-note as I couldn't quite believe that such a powerful voice was actually coming from such a skinny guy.

Here is Justin Townes Earle performing his song Americana Music Fest Song of the Year, Harlem River Blues.

Original Song Project: Morgan Young - This Song For Sale

2011-10-12T09:42:00.000-07:00

Listen - Morgan Young performs This Song For Sale

As I mowed the lawn one day while listening to my iPod, I was struck by commonality of lyrical themes in much of the music to which I was listening. Particularly in the older country songs by Mel Tillis, Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson. That got me thinking about the world of professional song writers (to point, not performers, just the composers) and their inevitable approach to music not as a passion play, perhaps not even as an art, but most definitely as a commodity to be traded.

The spew of that thought is this song, This Song for Sale. It was one of those spontaneous compositions that took me less than 10 minutes to write. I didn't do much with it for over a year and finally rediscovered it myself. Upon rediscovering it in my dusty memory, I decided I actually liked it. A quick recording of the song and here I am sharing it with you.

I hope you like.

Busker Days: Brough Brothers "Michigan Wind"

2011-10-05T21:59:00.000-07:00

Listen to The Brough Brothers play Michigan Wind.

Just like any other part of my life the music I listen to is always changing. The same is true with my busker experience - no more Jessie 'Cash', haven't seen Gospel Earl in too long and, dang, where's The Human Condition? It could be the result of my new patterns, coming into work later as a result of the new kindergarten schedule, and thus leaving a little later too. I don't know. I have seen a few old faces from time to time, including Eric of my original post that I had to take down due to his personal concerns. Don't get me wrong I do see plenty of new stuff around. Just last week I saw a trio electrified and rockin' it on Market, the highlight being the drummer's bass drum comprising of an old hardshell suitcase with a kick drum attached. I also recorded TT Fingers on Market recently doing Elmore James. He's missing a hand and several fingers on the other hand and playing a homemade lap steel. Stick around for that one later.

For now, it's the Brough Brothers doing a song written by guitarist, harpist and vocalist Brian called Michigan Wind. Yes, this is Flip-Side favorites Zack Brough and Brian Byrnes (minus the other member of the Brough Brothers, Zack's brother Josh) - you can listen to previous busker posts featuring these guys here and here. Enjoy!

Song of the Week: The Standells - "Medication"

2011-10-04T08:59:00.000-07:00

Listen - The Standells perform Medication

We're building off our last post. The same label, the same producer, the same year and probably the same studio (and maybe even musicians) as our Chocolate Watchband post just below.

Most people know The Standells for their out of the garage hit, Dirty Water. That song, written by producer Ed Cobb, has led most people to believe the band is from Boston. Cobb was, but not the Standells. The members of The Standells all hail from LA and even had a long history in the film scene in LA. One of them was even a Mousekateer. Like the San Jose based Chocolate Watchband, The Standells were a real band and had been kicking around the LA scene in one form or another since the late 50's.

When Mouskateer escapee, Dick Dodd, left the surf combo, The Bel-Aires (known for their regional hit, Mr. Moto), the band began to take a more modern shape. Dodd took over singing duties and the band, like all others around them, became hugely influenced by the British Invasion. The band released a few forgettable singles on Liberty Records and VeeJay Records. They even performed a number on the TV show, The Munsters. Here is where Ed Cobb enters the picture. Cobb was looking for a group to market on his Tower Records label and The Standells fit the suit. They immediately hit it big with Cobb's homage to his hometown of Boston, Dirty Water. An inconsistent album of the same name followed. The first song off of that album is our SoTW.

The song is Medication, and, to tie it back into our last post, The Chocolate Watchband also did a version of the song. It's a beautifully produced, well restrained song that keeps our fingers snapping every time.

Video Diary: The Beach Boys - "God Only Knows"

2011-09-22T10:18:00.001-07:00

Song of the Week: The Chocolate Watchband - "Are You Gonna Be There?

2011-09-19T09:09:00.001-07:00

Listen - The Chocolate Watchband perform Are You Gonna Be There?

One of the giants of garage rock this week. The Chocolate Watchband hailed from San Jose, CA and recorded for producer Ed Cobb between '66 and '68. The recordings don't always feature all of the band as Cobb had a penchant for bringing in studio musicians. He even went so far as to record instrumentals with not a single member of the band in it (think Expo 2000) and even vocal songs with a different singer (think Let's Go, Let's Go, Let's Go!).

Are You Gonna Be There? was written for the band and was the third, and last, single under their name (they had done another as The Hogs). The Flip-Side of Are You Gonna Be There? is the excellent quasi-instrumental, No Way Out. That song gets an Ed Cobb credit for composer despite credible claims by the band that they were really the composers of the song. The pairing of the two strong songs, the quality of the production and the quality of singer David Aguilar's voice make this one of the most desired singles out there.

Video Diary: Brett Detar - "Empty House On Famous Hill

2011-09-15T10:28:00.000-07:00

Song of the Week: The Brigands - Would I Still Be Her Big Man?

2011-09-12T11:38:00.000-07:00

Listen - The Brigands perform Would I Still Be Her Big Man?

I've always loved this song. And, I've always had a suspicion that this band is not really a band. Quite frankly, the song is too well structured to be your typical 60's garage band kicking out one lonely single after the lads pooled all their money together to go down to the big city to record that song that makes everybody get up and dance. And a major label like Epic? And, the Resnick brothers? Didn't they write Yummy, Yummy, that god-awful bubble gum pop song? All the circumstantial evidence points to "studio" band. Add to that the fact that nobody has ever come up with a band flier or a story of playing with the Brigands at the Battle of the Bands at some high school in Yonkers and it is pretty clear that the Brigands were but only a Tin Pan Alley creation.

But that shouldn't stop us from giving Would I Still Be Her Big Man? a big wet kiss. Mwuaa! Released in 1966 (of course!) on Epic Records (think Remains, Kaleidoscope and Yardbirds), Would I Still Be Her Big Man? details the double life and troubled mind of our hero who finds himself sweating from 9-5 in a factory during the day and dressing in top-notch suits at night just to give the girl he loves the things she wants. But if she finds out that he is just a hard working blue collar chump, then what? Like us, our protagonist is only left to wonder:

Ahh, baby likes to eat in fancy restaurants. Well she's always had the things she wants. I'm afraid she'll say goodbye when she finds out I'm just a poor guy. I wonder, I wonder, would I still be her big man?

Dude. Man up! If this she-devil doesn't love you for your cool guitar-riff that repeats throughout the song, then you need to dump her. Not only is that guitar riff nicely fuzzed, you have great tambourine work and a bitchin' little key change to keep us snapping our fingers and shuffling our feet. You are a 7" record, nicely rounded, on a great label. You need to realize that you are loved. If this gold-digger doesn't love you for that and that alone, then someone else will. And that person will still treasure you 45 years later. They may even covet you on eBay. And maybe -- just maybe -- someday they will write about you on their way cool music blog.

FLIP-SIDE BREAKING NEWS UPDATE: We have just learned the identity of the muse for this song. It turns out the boys wrote their song about a very specific woman. It is with sadness that we report that "baby" did discover our hero working at the factory, sweating and wearing greasy working clothes. She promptly left our Brigand holding the payment note on the car he couldn't afford. She married shortly after. We at Flip-Side hold an exclusive on her wedding photo. Behold our muse and her next big man.

Song of the Week: "Tell Me How", Buddy Holly and the Crickets

2011-09-07T10:20:00.000-07:00

Listen - Buddy Holly and the Crickets perform Tell Me How

Seventy five years ago today, Charles Holly Hardin was born. We know him better, of course, as Buddy Holly. The singer, guitarist, songwriter died at the stunningly young age of 22. In that glimmer of time the bespectacled young man from the dusty ranch town of Lubbock, Texas, wrote and recorded one of the most impressive libraries of music of any composer, regardless of age.

Try as I may, my words would of course fail to honor the man appropriately, so I will let his music stand on its own merits. Here is his own composition from 1957, Tell Me How. He wrote and recorded this at the age of 20.

Happy Birthday, Buddy.

Song of the Week: "Shake It Baby", Sunnyland Slim

2011-08-30T09:01:00.001-07:00

Listen - Sunnyland Slim performs Shake It Baby!

Sometimes one runs across a record so darn weird that they just need to stop and say "what the hell were they thinking?" This is one of those. The first time I ran across this 78rpm record I was digging on the very low-fi recording for the first 45 seconds of the song. It has a good little rumba beat and a nasty, fuzzed out vocals from a mic that seems to have been buried under the sheets with Sunnyland Slim who sounds as if he recorded his vocals after a very long night. Then, right around 45 seconds, a woman's voice pops in. But unlike Sunnyland's voice, her voice is recorded with a mic that captures the woman's voice crystal clear. The voice is one Anna Lee। Then, very quickly, one realizes what she, and Sunnyland, are singing. Or should I say, negotiating.

I'm shaking it, daddy. Like this daddy? Is this what you want, daddy? Mama's shaking it. Mama's trying to please you this morning, daddy. Want this diamond ring, daddy. How am I doing? Is this the way you want it?

WTF?! And that is only the beginning. Anna Lee continues her call-girl and response with Sunnyland as they negotiate the required duties for the promised Cadillac. This song feels like a little peek behind the scenes of those late night clubs on Maxwell Street in Chicago in the early 50's. Booze, broads, blues, knives and guns.

Enjoy.

Song of the Week: "I Wish You Would", Billy Boy Arnold

2011-08-23T10:29:00.000-07:00

Listen - Billy Boy Arnold performs I Wish You Would

"Early in the morning, about the break of day." Most know that opening line from The Yardbirds' stellar debut single from 1964, I Wish You Would. But nine years before Eric Clapton's heavily fuzzed Telecaster spit out the two note riff, Billy Boy Arnold recorded his original for Vee Jay Records in Chicago. Billy Boy Arnold had served as Bo Diddley's harp man on the Chess Recording of Diddley Daddy and took the spirit of that song to create his own debut single. It's a gem. Hope you like it.

Below is a nice vid from 1964 of The Yardbirds, with Eric Clapton, performing the same number. This live version tracks much closer to the original than did the Epic Records release.

Song of the Week: "I've Gotta Way With Girls", The Chesterfield Kings

2011-08-17T11:02:00.001-07:00

Listen - The Chesterfield Kings perform I've Gotta Way With Girls

I admit, I am always a little shocked when I put this single on my turntable and it still plays. That's because when I first picked it up in 1984, I played this thing about 69 times a day and I was sure I was going to wear the grooves out. But it still works!

The band is none other than The Chesterfield Kings, whom hailed from the music mecca of America, Rochester, New York. The quintet all met at the legendary House of Guitars (best music store I have ever visited) sometime around the year 1979. They all loved 60's garage, had access to some of the best instruments from the 60's, and the singer, Greg Prevost, was, and still is, a very impressive record collector who helped the band flesh out their set-list. The band started off with a bevy of covers, but, over time, they weaved in more and more of their own compositions.

Our SoTW, I've Gotta Way With Girls, is an original composition from the band and is the Flip-Side of an equally good original song, She Told Me Lies, which utilizes the all important Hand Saw as an instrument. Back in '84 I was more enamored with the Vox Organ heavy A-Side to the point that my mommy told me I might go blind if I spun it as hard as I liked to do in those younger days. But these days, it's the Flip-Side that grabs my attention and turns my palms all black and hairy. And specifically Richard Cona's awesome guitar work that, unlike most garage band revivalists, shows great restraint in tone and attack. I just love me that classic Rickenbacker sound.

Enjoy.

Song of the Week: "Make Your Coffee", K.C. Douglas

2011-08-08T17:53:00.000-07:00

Listen to K.C. Douglas perform Make Your Coffee.

I was driving around in California's central valley some ten years ago listening to a KDVS blues show when a hard chargin' two chord song came on that stopped me in my tracks. I didn't get the name of the artist but I recognized some of the lyrics and was able to track it down. The song was K.C. Douglas's rendition of Tommy Johnson's Catfish Blues. I went out and picked up Arhoolie's 1998 release, K.C. Douglas - Mercury Blues.

It turns out K.C. Douglas, born in rural Mississippi in 1913, had relocated in 1945 to the San Francisco Bay Area to work in the naval shipyards, probably the yards in Richmond where he lived for awhile. Having earned his blues chops in Mississippi, including alongside the likes of Tommy Johnson, he continued playing after settling into his new locality. So it would only make sense that he would come under the radar of Chris Strachwitz, the founder of Arhoolie Records. The album, all of which was recorded by Strachwitz on a portable recorder between 1960 and 1974, is about half electric with backup band, such as on Catfish Blues and his now familiar Mercury Blues, with the rest acoustic, just K.C. and guitar. Not surprisingly (if you know me), I gravitated to the acoustic set, and in particular to the mellow fingerstyle blues of today's song of the week, Make Your Coffee, a previously unreleased track. Hope you enjoy!

Busker Days: Richard Brandenburg "This Love We've Been Living Through"

2011-08-02T22:46:00.000-07:00

Listen to Richard Brandenburg's This Love We've Been Living Through.

A couple weeks ago I surfaced to some new sounds around North Berkeley BART. That's the beauty of busker music - it is not tacked down to any particular place or time and you never know what you're gonna hear. And sometimes the tempo, melodies and words conspire to make a stressed out world-weary working stiff pause and think about things and look around a bit. This conspiratorial trio - tempo, melody, words - as found in old-time country music always seems to do the trick, hand delivering a heaping of heartache on the sweetest plate of music around.

Local singer songwriter Richard Brandenburg follows in this tradition with his composition This Love We've Been Living Through. Enjoy!

Song of the Week: "The Man You'll Be Looking For", The Tages

2011-07-29T10:59:00.000-07:00

Gosh darn it. I'm sorry for missing our regular Monday installment of Song of the Week. And I'm almost as sorry to tell you that I don't have much time to get to it today. I am posting a lovely song, but no pithy comments. Boo Hoo.

So, our SOTW this week comes from Stockholm, Sweden. Sometime around 1966, these cats who called themselves The Tages recorded a groovy bass heavy song called The Man You'll Be Looking For. Anyone who knows me knows that I love me the sound of an aggressive bass. Mmmmm! And this one has a bottom so big that it would make Sir Mix-A-Lot fall in love.

Also linked is a wonderful little radio interview with some unga Svenska flicka who gushes over her love of the song, saying, and I quote: "de gummistövlar göra mina bröstvårtor rött". I couldn't agree with her more.

So, please have an enjoyable listen to The Tages' Man You'll Be Looking For and then click on the Swedish radio interview on the left. Or do it in the opposite fashion. I don't care.

Yorgada torgada bungada!

Song of the Week: "Chicago", The Phantom Brothers

2011-07-27T10:28:00.001-07:00

Listen - The Phantom Brothers perform Chicago

Nope, that's not the forefather of the Ramones in the front of the picture. It's the singer for The Phantom Brothers, a Hamburg Germany area band from the mid-60's. Here they perform their "hit", ba-ba-ba-ba...Chicago.

Song of the Week: "Cry In The Night", Q65

2011-07-26T07:42:00.000-07:00

Listen - Q65 perform Cry In The Night

What we have here is a prime example of why we call this blog, On The Flip-Side. This song is the flip-side of the Q65's second single. But unlike most singles, whose flip-side we praise, this one actually had a great A-Side too. The A-side is called The Life I Live. But today we celebrate, what else, the flip-side, which is the raver, Cry In The Night. Q65 hailed from Holland and gained a hard earned reputation as a rough and tumble band willing to fight it out on stage and off. We wrote about them before when we featured their quirky song, I Got Nightmares. If you want to know more about them, check out that article which can be found...here. Until then, enjoy day 2 of our look at mainland Europe garage bands from the 60s.

Song of the Week: "Back Home", Cuby + The Blizzards

2011-07-25T11:43:00.000-07:00

Listen - Cuby + The Blizzards perform Back Home

We'll take a look at mainland Europe garage bands all this week. Here is our all time favorite song out of Holland. It is the original composition, Back Home, by Cuby + The Blizzards who make a second showing on these pages (the first was their earlier single, Your Body, Not Your Soul).

I said a ton about the band in the previous post so I'll stay quiet here other than to say that Eelco Gelling's guitar work on this song is inspirational.

Song of the Week: "Mr. Pharmacist", The Other Half

2011-07-18T07:00:00.000-07:00

Listen - The Other Half perform Mr. Pharmacist

Los Angeles 1966. I would have loved to been there at that time. Love, Byrds, Doors, Chocolate Watchband, Standells, Sons of Adam all playing the strip. Add to that, The Other Half. Here they are doing their original, Mr. Pharmacist. Jeff Nolan, the singer, wrote the song, Randy Holden doing the great guitar work.

Song of the Week: "Satisfaction Guaranteed", The Mourning Reign

2011-07-17T08:00:00.000-07:00

1966 is the single greatest year for rock-n-roll ever. 1956 was good too, but no 1966. 1977 was also a critical year, but falls far short of what went down across the globe in 1966.

Let's back up a bit. A few short years prior to '66, rock-n-roll in America was desperately treading water. The record stores had been flooded with a tsunami of over-polished crooners with faux pompadours and plaid dinner jackets who were being sold to America's precious daughters as a safe alternative to true originals like Chuck Berry. Elvis was no longer a ground breaking, dangerous rocker, he was a well quaffed sell-out actor. Gene Vincent himself had sunk to crooning and Buddy Holly and Eddie Cochran were the earliest victims of rock-n-roll's toll. True, faint flickers of life could occasionally be glimpsed on the horizon. In Los Angeles Dick Dale was not very quietly creating an entirely new genre of rock-n-roll starting in '61. But it hadn't reverberated yet. In Texas, for a few brief years, starting in '62, Bobby Fuller tried to keep the Holly spirit alive. And in 1963 in Portland, Oregon, the Kingsmen recorded the single most important rock-n-roll record ever, Louie, Louie. But the record was immediately banned across the country and the Hoover-led FBI launched an investigation of obscenity and effectively put out the flame before it could spread too far...in this country. Then The Beatles appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show and the tsunami of schlock was itself washed out by the British Invasion, which, thankfully, restored rock-n-roll to its birthplace. Those who couldn't make the football team (and some who could) went to Sears Roebuck and bought themselves a new Silvertone Guitar and declared war on the neighborhood barber. The frustrated radio station engineer implemented dreams of becoming the next George Martin and started moonlighting as a record producer. Club owners and a host of other entrepreneurs eager to make a dollar on the biggest craze since the hula-hoop formed what would pass as local "record labels". Of course, none of these people knew what they were doing so the revolution was delayed a few months. In the meantime, flying in the slipstream of the Beatles, more aggressive Brit bands -- bands hugely influenced by Louie, Louie -- like the Yardbirds, the Rolling Stones, The Who and the Kinks found an audience in the US. And then, very early in '66, the perfect storm hit. That band in San Jose had put in enough practices in dad's garage that they were now winning the battle of the bands contest. Grandma quietly slipped Dave $150 to cut a record and follow his passion. The owner of Rock-n-Rollerskate, the bestest teen night spot in all of San Jose, was ready to put some bucks down to record that band and maybe make some more money at the concession stand by selling a local record. And Ed, the frustrated audio engineer, had his recording studio all set up in the back of the local appliance store, It's A Wash. The time was now. No editors. No suits. No record company A&R men to say who could and could not record. This was the moment. And all across the world -- in America, Australia, Holland, Sweden and countless other places -- like a brood of cicadas, the now long haired rockers crawled out of the garages adorned in chelsea boots, three button jackets, paisley vests and dark wrap around sun glasses to make their first record. Within a year the record company executives would reassert their control and descend on towns like San Jose, California, Amsterdam, Sidney, and Stockholm and swoop up the bands deemed valuable and crush the bands that showed no utility. But in that one brief moment of 1966 -- wedged between the chaos of innocence and the unassailable rule of record companies -- millions of bands recorded their song. Some awful. Some brilliant.

Today's SoTW, like last week's installment, is one of those brilliant songs from '66. It's by the stunningly obscure San Jose, California quintet, The Mourning Reign. The song, with a clear play to the Rolling Stones, is called Satisfaction Guaranteed. A snarly guitar riff is spurted out with an unrelenting attack. The singer, some bloke named Beau (Bo) Maggie, does his best Mick Jagger swagger: "As you wander around, you find your imagination standing upside down in the mouth of hallucination. You are dissatisfied with the other guys you tried. Now don't you think it's time for a change, because, you know, Satisfaction Guaranteed!" Cue the double guitar lead that no respectable music exec. would have allowed. "Listen boys, you can't be playing over each other like that. It's just noise. Nobody will buy this record if you do that." Thank goodness their was no record exec. at the mighty Link Records in San Jose.

Unlike their San Jose brethren, The Chocolate Watchband, The Count Five and the Syndicate of Sound, the Mourning Reign wouldn't get the chance to make an album. They only recorded one other single and then disappeared into nowhere. Perhaps it was into that "invisible door" or that "hole in the floor" the singer is so desperate for us to know about.

Song of the Week: "Hey Little Bird", The Barbarians

2011-07-15T12:14:00.001-07:00

Listen - The Barbarians perform Hey Little Bird

From Cape Cod, Massachusetts, come The Barbarians. They are probably best known for their two later songs, Are You A Boy Or Are You A Girl and the novelty song, Moulty, an auto-biography of their one-armed drummer (waaaaay before Def Lepperd thought it would be cool to have a one-armed drummer!). But this is their first, excellent foray into record making. The song is Hey Little Bird and it dates to 1964. The boys cut it for Joy Records. And it was a massive flop. But believe it or not, the boys actually performed the song live on TV. It's not as good as the record, but cool to see. The clip is below.

Song of the Week: "No Friend of Mine", The Sparkles

2011-07-14T09:22:00.000-07:00

Listen - The Sparkles perform No Friend of Mine

Lubbock is, of course, home to one of the all time greats, Buddy Holly. But the west-Texas town produced another great band that actually started playing the same time as Holly and his Crickets, The Sparkles.

The Sparkles changed line-ups a bazillion times. It was the 1967 line-up that drove to the same Clovis, New Mexico studio that Buddy Holly recorded his stuff at to record their original song (written by their manager), No Friend of Mine. The song was released on the eclectic Hickory Records label. No Friend of Mine is one crazy, snarly song with classic "don't dare me" styled lyrics. Many of which are, shall we say, hard to decipher. But whatever they are, they are telling the listener that they are not going to stand around and pull their hair out, because, woman, you ain't no friend of theirs.

Side note, Pittsburgh's king of snarl, The Swamp Rats, actually covered this song and released it as a single the same year. It's also a great version.

Song of the Week: "Going All The Way", The Squires

2011-07-13T06:33:00.000-07:00

Listen - The Squires perform Going All The Way

The jangly guitar, the lonely bird chirp of the far off organ, the lyrics that exude cockiness, the blazingly fast guitar lead that takes up nearly 1/4 of the entire song. The singer's scream that leads us into said guitar solo. It is perfect. Perfect, perfect, perfect.

The Squires were a bunch of high school buddies out of Bristol, Connecticut. In the fall of '66 they loaded into the van and drove to New York to record a few songs. One of them was this gem, Going All the Way, from drummer and singer, Michael Bouyea. Thomas Flannigan was holding the Fender Jazzmaster guitar, John Folick owned a cheap bass that looks to me to be a Kay; and Kurt Robinson from nearby Torrington, played a mean Farfisa organ. The band would later add a drummer and move Bouyea to the front, but that guy isn't on this recording.

The song got picked up by the Capitol subsidiary, Atco Records. However, unlike our last two songs, we can't even say that this song was a regional hit. Atco did not promote it and the number of pressings of the record is rumored to be 2500 or less.

Song of the Week: "Bad Girl", Zakary Thaks

2011-07-12T12:34:00.000-07:00

Listen - Zakary Thaks performs Bad Girl.

I probably looked like Linda Blair from the Exorcist the first time I heard this some 25+ years ago. It is simply an amazing song with a killer Kinks-inspired riff, great guitar lead and perhaps my favorite key change in the history of music.

The band is Corpus Christi's own Zakary Thaks and the song is their original composition, Bad Girl. Again, even beginner garage record collectors know this song inside and out, but we wanted to take a moment and say thank you for all the joy it has given us.

Zakary Thaks were just pimply faced kids. Singer Chris Gerniottis was only 15 when they recorded this. His voice is powerful and soulful far beyond his years. Rounding out the rest of the band were Pete Stinston on guitar, Rex Gregory on bass, John Lopez kicking out the sharp lead work and Stan Moore pounding out that beat that is so sweet at the key change.

Bad Girl was a regional hit and the song got picked up by Mercury Records for slightly wider distribution. Zakary Thaks put out a whole gaggle of good music but nothing quite as good as this one.

Dig it baby.

Song of the Week: "The Last Time Around", The Del-Vetts

2011-07-11T20:06:00.001-07:00

Listen - The Del-Vetts perform The Last Time Around

I'm going through my record collection this week and I'm digging on all the nuggets of 60s garage punk. Anybody who knows their garage rock knows these songs inside and out. But I want to pause and express my love for the garage punk songs from the 60s that first blew my mind. All this week we are going to post another nugget for you to chew on.

Today we look at a Chicago based band on the legendary Dunwich Label, The Del-Vetts. The Del Vetts were Jim Lauer on vocals and lead guitar, Lester Goldboss (awesomest name) on guitar, Bob Good on Bass, and Paul Wade on drums. Their second single was an original composed by their friend, Dennis Dahlquist who penned a kick ass Yardbirds inspired song called The Last Time Around. Production is perfect as is Lauer's vocal delivery and Better Man Than I inspired guitar lead. Jeff Beck would have been proud. Special shout out to the bass work of Bob Good whose work on this song truly inspired me to learn every note of what he did with his fast running fingers.

While Last Time Around was a solid regional hit, the follow-up, I Call My Baby STP, which came with a nice pic sleeve and an STP Oil sticker, was a flop. It turns out that was the last time around for the Del-Vetts who went from one bad name to another as they inexplicably changed their name to the lame-ass Pride and Joy. They released a couple of singles that are worth seeking out, and then flamed out, as they all seem to do. Jim Lauer allegedly went the way of Roky Erickson and Syd Barrett. Play it loud and enjoy.

Busker Days: Bryan MacPherson, "OFD"

2011-06-29T21:18:00.000-07:00

Listen to Bryan MacPherson playing OFD

Do you recall those times in your youth when you were finally done with your town? Or perhaps you feel that way now. Your hometown was all that was holding you back, and finally the time comes and you leave. After some time that feeling subsides and for some people you begin to look a bit at your history. Maybe it was a bit rough out in the world, or maybe it was you realized how full a picture you and your friends had created in your youth. Some time passes and you just might take some pride in your hometown. After all, it made you what you are.

This week's busker recording speaks to this. OFD, Originally From Dorchester. Here's Bryan MacPherson doing OFD outside Montgomery BART a couple weeks ago.

Bryan plays locally and can be seen at the Uptown in Oakland on the 29th. He's working on his second CD. And his myspace page for your listening pleasure.

Song of the Week: "Police On My Back", The Clash

2011-06-27T11:32:00.000-07:00

Listen - The Clash perform Police On My Back

Few groups are in my fave list more than The Clash. In fact, we love them so much, we have written about them no less than three times already. The first time we featured Safe European Home. Then we compared their cover of Brand New Cadillac to the original. Then we talked about the brilliant Spanish Bombs from the perfect album, London Calling. Wowza. That said, I'm not a huge fan of their 1980 triple album, Sandanista! In general, I think the bulk of the 36 tracks The Clash laid out for this album feel unfinished and, at times, trying too hard to encompass too many musical styles. It lacks focus and edge.

But one of my favorite Clash songs is on this album. And it's not even written by members of the Clash. It's a cover of a song written by Eddy Grant -- who would go on to have a massive hit in the US in the mid-80s. But this is a Grant song from when he was a member of The Equals, a ground breaking multi-racial band that mixed British Psychedelia with Reggae during a brief run in the late 60s. The song is Police On My Back and The Clash's version is sung by Mick Jones and promotes the "British Siren" guitar riff, inherent to the original version, to the front and center of the revved up Clash cover. It's a fast-paced romp that gives The Clash version an urgency that the original doesn't quite have.

As a bonus, here is a You Tube link to the Equals original. Let us know what you think by commenting below.

Song of The Week: "Friend Is A Four Letter Word," Cake

2011-06-22T10:59:00.000-07:00

Listen - Cake performs Friend is a Four Letter Word

I once read somewhere that there are two types of people in this world. People who get Cake, and people who don't get Cake. I think that is pretty damn true. Count me as one who gets Cake. I absolutely love the stripped down approach the band takes to their music. Raw, reverb-free guitar and vocals that are spoken as much as sung. Trumpet, surprisingly funky drum work, deft bass work and tasteful keyboard all add up to an eclectic mix. To me, they are like a Wes Anderson film. Let's say...The Life Aquatic of Steve Zissou. Not for everyone, but quite rewarding for those whose humor and tastes happen to match up with the art nicely.

The Sacramento band broke nationally with their excellent 1996 album, Fashion Nugget. That nearly flawless album featured the excellent break-out hit, The Distance. It was the song that got them out of the KDVS play rotation and onto MTV. Right after that song, comes a very different song on the album: Friend Is A Four Letter Word. It's our SoTW. The song was written by singer John McCrea. What grabs me most about this song are the spartan lyrics. Quite frankly, they never fail to get my attention with their twist of word play and restraint. it says so much with so little.

To me, coming from you.
Friend is a four letter word.
End is the only part of the word, that I heard.
Call me morbid, or absurd,
But to me, coming from you
Friend is a four letter word.

There isn't much more. But one doesn't need more. I think it speaks volumes on it's own. Former guitarist Greg Brown (who, incidentally, wrote The Distance) plays extremely tasteful guitar work with a tone that quickly identifies the band as Cake. It's a tone born from a 1960s Guild Starfire III (think The Kinks) run thru a distortion pedal run through a 1960s Sears Silvertone amp. It's a great, distinctive sound, and Brown gets all the props in the world from me for going a very different direction from most other guitarists. Vincent di Fiore's trumpet work adds a wonderful latin tone to the song.

On a side note, someone once informed me that Cake opened for my band, The Lionhearted. It was back in 1991 at a house party for a cool gal named Michelle Piniera. I honestly do not remember that. I was even told by someone else that Greg Brown paid special attention to the use of our Silvertone Aristocrat guitar and Vox amps. Again, I don't recall this and have only the vaguest memory of the show at all. If anyone on this blog recalls this or can confirm it, please do so.

Otherwise, enjoy.

Song of the week: "Chicago Breakdown", Doctor Ross

2011-06-10T09:57:00.001-07:00

Listen - Doctor Ross performs Chicago Breakdown

Dr. Ross originally hailed from Tunica, Mississippi and made many of his earliest recordings at the fabled Sun Records Studio in Memphis, TN with producer Sam Phillips. Today's SoTW, is the flip-side of Ross' second record (the first was for Chicago's Chess Records) and was recorded on October 3rd, 1952. Dr. Ross was known as the one man band as he often played guitar, harmonica, kick drum and sang all by his lonesome. This recording happens to have a guest musician, Reuben Martin, on washboard.

Doctor Isaiah Ross remains largely unknown, even to casual blues fans. Why? Well, his brand of blues was rough and droning and he lacked the sophistication that a Muddy Waters or Robert Johnson brought to the genre. Add to that the fact that Dr. Ross took a job in 1954 with GM in Flint, Michigan, which, in a huge understatement, is no music mecca. On top of that, Doctor Ross recorded for multiple labels and, like John Lee Hooker, to whom comparisons are obvious, recorded under multiple names and re-recorded his more popular songs multiple times. That all adds up to a hard to pin down musician and hard to break into a larger audience market.

Today's song is the Chicago Breakdown. While it is the flip-side of the single, it is the better known side. The droning open chord riff is complimented by Ross' guttural harmonica work that weaves seamlessly with Ross' hollerin' vocals. I think I would pass out if I was going between singing and blowing a harmonica like he does. Ross gives a little history of himself in the song and he sings it with quite a thick southern accent, y'all.

Below is a vid of him doing his one-man band thing in Germany circa 1965.

Video Diary: Kopecky Family Band on NPR

2011-06-07T09:29:00.001-07:00

Song of the week: "Cherry Bomb!", The Runaways

2011-06-02T15:13:00.000-07:00

Listen - The Runaways perform Cherry Bomb!

This group and song are sooooo different than last week's SoTW. Where the last song was a nice cheese and olive plate with some prosciutto and a chardonnay, this one is more corn dog and a Coke. The song is the enduring, highly entertaining, and lyrically perfect, Cherry Bomb. The band is The Runways, perhaps best known for spawning Joan Jett, Lita Ford and Cherie Curry. Cherry Bomb, an ominous song to mommy and daddy about how your teenage girls are about to run amok and throw your values out the window, was written by Joan Jett and producer, self-promoter extraordinaire, Kim Fowley.

In the song Cherie Curry expounds about her girls gone wild attitude:

Hey street boy, what's your style?
Your dead end dreams don't make you smile
I'll give you something to live for
Have you and grab you until you're sore

Hell daddy, hello mom
I'm your ch-ch-ch-ch-cherry bomb
Hello world, I'm your wild girld
I'm your ch-ch-ch-ch-cherry bomb!

Perfect, perfect, perfect! These gals were definitely out to scare some people and titillate others. And this song must have been dead on target when it was released in early 1976.

Just this past year, a movie about The Runaways, aptly titled, The Runaways, was released. It stars Dakota Fanning as Curry and Kristen Stewart as Joan Jett. (trailer below). It's an okay movie with very solid performances. Kim Fowley is portrayed by Michael Shannon, who tries to get to that creepy space that seems to be Kim Fowley. I had the opportunity to meet Fowley twice. Once at a party in San Francisco and then a few years later at a show for the Tell-Tale-Hearts in Los Angeles. The first meeting was very unsettling. The second one...I stayed away from him as much as I could. After the show, a friend of mine told me stories about Fowley and The Runaways that sounded all too familiar to my first meeting with the foul mouthed producer who made lots of promises at high costs.

Play it loud.

Song of the week: "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright", Bob Dylan

2011-05-24T16:51:00.000-07:00

Listen - Bob Dylan performs Don't Think Twice, It's Alright (demo version)

Happy 70th birthday to Bob Dylan. Here he performs a demo version of Don't Think Twice, It's Alright, recorded in October of 1962.

Song of the week: "It's The Nighttime", Josh Rouse

2011-05-19T15:10:00.000-07:00

Listen - Josh Rouse performs It's The Nighttime

Sometimes we just dig songs because we just like the way they sound. That's the case with our SoTW, I t's The Nighttime, by singer and songwriter, Josh Rouse. We flipsters first learned about the native Nebraskan when Rouse opened for another act in Washington, DC. It was this song's chunk-a-chunk-a acoustic guitar and pedal steel that caught our attention and led us to the virtual record store to check out his work. Six years later, it is still this song that makes us smile with remarkable frequency.

It's The Nighttime was co-written by Josh Rouse and Daniel Tashian. When we saw the latter name, our musicologist spidey-senses went into overload. A little investigation proved our spidey hunch correct, Daniel Tashian is the son of Barry Tashian, the singer and leader of one of America's best garage bands and original Nugget poster-boys, Boston's The Remains. Cool.

That tidbit aside, we hope you listen to this song a few times. It may not grab you at first, but, if you are anything like us, we think you'll be humming this in your sleep before too long.

Enjoy.

Song of the Week: "Kid's Allright", Bettie Serveert

2011-05-10T08:20:00.000-07:00

Listen - Bettie Serveert performs Kid's Allright

The amount of information I know about this early 90's band whom hailed from the Netherlands, could fill a thimble. I know the band name, Bettie Serveert, translates, roughly, as "Service to Bettie" and was taken from the auto biography of Dutch tennis player, Bettie Stove.

I love the rag tag production and the perfectly quirky arrangement of their song (our SoTW), Kid's Allright. Carol Van Dijk's vocals are buried and fuzzed, and the guitars come out of nowhere. These cats and their DIY production remind me of Television Personalities, whom we wrote about back in October of 2009.

Enjoy Bettie Serveert.

Video Diary: Booker T. Jones on NPR

2011-05-02T10:33:00.001-07:00

Song of the Week: "Gotta Get Some", The Bold

2011-04-25T08:32:00.000-07:00

Listen - The Bold perform Gotta Get Some

"Gotta get some. Yeah baby!" The year is 1966. The town is Springfield, Massachusetts. Four college kids living in nearby Amherst stride into a studio and spew onto wax their love of college girls, sexual voyeurism, and the need to let it erupt. The song is the very boldly titled Gotta Get Some and the band call themselves, what else, The Bold. A pretty cool and different sounding name in their day. The bold result of this trip to Springfield is one of the best garage rock songs to ever come out of the holy grail year of 1966. Snarly vocals, fuzzed out guitar and an incessant 4/4 rhythm back up some of the best sexual gratification lyrics you will ever hear.

"Gotta get some. (Yeah baby).

Sitting in class, waiting for time to pass
I'm eyeing some girl and getting mad at the world
When I'm out for the day, I meet some nice thing on the way
I said "if you're free come along with me"

(When I get too close and the feeling comes over me)
Gotta Get Some!

On the beach when it's just out of reach
All the girls gather round, you know they're digging my sound
Holding hands in the sand, getting wet, getting tan
I'm so ready to go my mind's gonna blow

(When I get too close and the feeling comes over me)
I Gotta Get Some!

In the night when the feeling is right
And the band is playing you know they are out of sight
I'm dancing with my girl and we're both uptight
you know it can't be wrong the way she turns me on.

(When I get too close and the feeling comes over me)
I Gotta Have My!

After hours when we're hanging around
digging sounds, and crowded pathways, said somebody's tired
well it's too late for home, I know I ought to phone
what can anybody say when you're feeling this way?

(When I get too close and the feeling comes over me)
I Gotta Get Some!

Yeah baby, yeah.

Yeah, I gotta get some!
WoWWWWW"

Song of the Week: "Louie, Louie", The Sonics

2011-04-18T10:03:00.000-07:00

Listen - The Sonics perform Louie, Louie

We love putting out rare, forgotten or hard to find music and letting you hear it. It's what we do. But today's SoTW may not fit into that category we've built for ourselves. In fact, the song, Louie, Louie, may be the most recognized rock song ever recorded. Ever. And anybody who has ever listened to more than two garage records or dared look into the history of punk rock will surely know about the Pacific Northwest Garage Gods that are The Sonics. But damn it, we are just loving The Sonics 1965 recording of the Pacific Northwest originated song Louie, Louie. So we need to give it some love.

The Sonics -- Gerry Roslie, Andy Parypa, Larry Parypa, Rob Lind and Bob Bennet -- recorded Louie, Louie in 1965 at Wiley/Griffith Studios up in Seattle with producer Kearney Barton manning the controls. The song was recorded live with two tracks. One for the drums and one for the rest of the band. The Sonics change the song from it's familiar I-IV-V(minor) arrangement and instead give it a major chord I-III-IV arrangement. The change takes the bop out of the song and replaces it with a good old crunch. Gerry Roslie rips the vocals as hard as Larry Parypa rips the unrelenting barre chord progression on guitar. The result is truly a mind melt. Particularly when put into the context of 1965.

The song was released as the Flip-Side to the band's stellar composition, Cinderella and would prove to be their last for Etiquette Records.

Song of the Week: "Forever's No Time At All", Pete Townshend and Billy Nicholls

2011-04-12T14:13:00.000-07:00

Listen - Pete Townshend and Billy Nicholls perform Forever's No Time At All

Here today is a song from Pete Townshend that is not very much from Pete Townshend. The song is Forever's No Time At All and it appeared on Townshend's debut solo album, Who Came First. The album was released on Track Records in 1972 and consisted largely of material that The Who songwriter had leftover from his work on the 1971 mega record, Who's Next. But this song isn't one of those. In fact, it wasn't written by Townshend. Nor does Pete sing on it. The songwriter and singer is Billy Nicholls, a friend of Pete's who served as the staff songwriter for Immediate Records.

Pete Townshend recorded and produced Nicholls at Townshend's home studio -- where Pete recorded the entirety of Who Came First. True, Pete plays most of the instruments on the song. But, in the end, this is a Billy Nicholls song. We hope you enjoy it.

Video Diary: Faces, "Around the Plynth / Gasoline Alley"

2011-04-07T09:57:00.000-07:00

Video Diary: Squeeze, "Tempted"

2011-04-06T09:41:00.000-07:00

Ahhh, 80's hair and 80's dancing and 80's production....well, you get the picture. Despite the time capsule issue, I still love this nice pop and soul song from London.

Song of the Week: "Always See Your Face", Love

2011-03-30T16:09:00.000-07:00

I find myself in Hollywood this week. And as I drove down Santa Monica Boulevard, passing the legendary Troubador, on the MP3 player comes Arthur Lee and Love performing A House Is Not A Motel. Behind only the Beach Boys, Love, to me epitomized California rock in the 60s. The beauty and the tragedy of it all.

Then as I turned onto Hollywood Boulevard and headed East towards Vine, past La Cienga Boulevard. There it was. A doughnut shop. Thee doughnut shop? Two members of the band, Johnny Echols and Ken Forssi would be arrested for robbing local doughnut shops which led to the break up of the original band shortly after the recording of their seminal work, Forever Changes. Arthur Lee would form a new Love, but it was never really Love. It was more Arthur Lee and a handful of musicians that would work under the name Love. Because of that wrap, the work after Forever Changes is too often ignored. True, it is much more spotty than previous work. But much of it deserves more praise. And that's why we are here today.

Lee's next Love album was recorded in '69 and was tagged with the self aware monicker, Four Sail. It's a spotty album that shows a lot of heavy-guitar, acid rock influence from San Francisco bands like Big Brother and the Holding Company and Jefferson Airplane, but it has some real nice gems. The last song on that album is our SoTW today. The song is the mellow Always See Your Face. Arthur Lee, just 24 at the time of the recording of the closing number of his fourth album, was showing signs of the pain and reflection that would sum up his career so sadly.

Won't somebody please, help me with my memory
Can't somebody see, yeah, what this world has done to me.

Dang, I really love Arthur Lee's voice. And that tasty little guitar solo is sweet as could be.

Song of the Week: "Ramblin' Man", Hank Williams

2011-03-18T19:17:00.003-07:00

Listen - Hank Williams performs Ramblin' Man

Hmmmm. So much that can be said about the human hit machine that was Hank Williams. But I'll just say this, Hank Williams was 29 when he died of a heart attack. 29. He was 26 when he wrote and recorded today's SoTW, Ramblin' Man. The song has since been covered by his grandson, Hank Williams III.

Song of the Week: "The Devil's Gotta Earn", Brett Detar

2011-03-10T10:52:00.000-08:00

Listen - Brett Detar performs The Devil's Gotta Earn

The landscape and dynamics of the music industry are changing faster than Lindsay Lohan's rap sheet. Records used to come with inner-sleeves that warned that "taping records is killing the music industry." Then vinyl gave way to Compact Discs which promised portability, high audio quality, and the ability to outlast a cockroach in a nuclear holocaust. But not long after that invention, people figured out how to easily digitize and duplicate CD's. Then came the digital download and the rise of Napster and iTunes. Music direct to your computer. No need to buy the whole album. No need to have the artwork or the higher quality audio of the CD. Heck, you don't even need to pay for it if you don't want. What's a poor record label to do? Most dropped the artist that couldn't move 1 million units in the first week of release. (See the documentary on Wilco, I Am Trying To Break Your Heart for a compelling look of a band without a label.) So, if that happens, then what's the artist to do?

Bands like Wilco and Radiohead embraced the winds of change, others like Metallica swung wildly at the wind that blew against them, and in so doing, appeared as greedy luddites. Non-established artists just looked for some footing in the hurricane. That brings us to today's SoTW artist, Brett Detar. Until November, I, like most of you, had never heard of him. But there was a little advertisement on Facebook that said something along the lines of "if you like the Dave Rawlings Machine you'll like Brett Detar. Download his album for free." Free. In this day and age, that is about what people will pay for music. Sad to say. I downloaded the album and gave up my email address in return. Clearly Mr. Detar had set his sail to tack with today's record economy, not against it. The reality is most people would not buy his record, Bird In The Tangle, because they would never run across it in a record bin. Never hear it playing in a record store, never hear it on the pre-programmed radio stations. You have to know what you want in iTunes, you don't just run across it. Mr. Detar, it would appear, had given up on making money on the album, and instead felt content to build a following for live shows and future albums. In this writer's estimation, a good gamble. Particularly when the product is as good as Brett Detar's.

Our song is the second song off of Brett Detar's free album, Bird In The Tangle. The song is the stomping and rollicking The Devil's Gotta Earn. It would seem an apropos title to describe the music industry and the way in which the song came to be featured here, which, ironically tries to promote good music, while offering it free to listeners.

The entirety of Brett Detar's album can still be downloaded for free from his site, www.brettdetar.com. We hope you will hear this song and follow through and give the whole album, not just one song, a chance. We think it is more than worth the price of the record, free. And keep an eye out for him on the road, I know us Rocky Mountain Flipsters will be watching our email announcements.

Video Diary: Townes Van Zandt "Waiting Around To Die"

2011-03-07T10:35:00.000-08:00

Happy 67th Townes Van Zandt.

Video Diary: Mod Mash Up

2011-03-04T09:57:00.001-08:00

Song of the Week: "I've Been Wrong So Long," Bobby Bland

2011-02-28T11:41:00.000-08:00

Listen - Bobby Bland performs I've Been Wrong So Long

In my younger years I ran across a reprint of a Davey Jones and the Mannish Boys single. The A-Side was a decent enough song called I Pity The Fool. It grabbed my attention if for no other reason than mod kingpin, Davey Jones, would go on to fame as David Bowie, and, secondly, the song's title was the catch phrase of the criminally underrated actor, Mr T. Not long later I would find myself sifting through dusty record bins in Albany, California when I ran across the same song on a bitching looking orangey and purple label. The song was now being performed by the marketing disaster of a name, Bobby Bland. I figured it was worth the dollar being requested of me and I put it in my stack. Long story short, Bland's original kicked the butt of little Davey Jones' version of I Pity The Fool like Mr. T would kick the butts of evil South American strongmen every week on TV. I said to myself, "I pity the fool who tries to cover a Bobby Bland song, fool."

That introduction to Bobby "Blue" Bland set me to gathering his records whenever I ran across them. Soon enough I was picking up Turn On Your Love Light, which astute record collectors will recognize as a song from Them's second album. Then Stormy Monday Blues, while not the best version I had ever heard, it was clearly the version from which Them learned the staple song. Then I picked up Cry, Cry, Cry, a beautiful and nicely restrained song that showcased Bland's powerful and soulful voice as good as any song I had hear him do. But the flip-side, ahh, that flip-side, was a real head-scratcher. It was one of those songs that made me just stop and listen. It sounded so different.

The song is I've Been Wrong So Long and it is our SoTW. The cool opening guitar riff made me run to my bass and try to figure it out. But as soon as I got the bass in my hands, the song went into a very unpredictable direction. Suddenly I found myself listening to a German style polka or march. WTF just happened? Then, as I struggled to learn that, the song moved into a powerful soul ballad. Holy crow that was cool! I just love it when a song comes so far out of left field that the listener is hit with a sonic fist to the ear. That's what this song does for me.

Cry, Cry, Cry b/w I've Been Wrong So Long was recorded in Chicago on August 3, 1960 and was released on Duke Records #327.

I hope you enjoy.

Video Diary: Clarence Ashley "The Cuckoo"

2011-02-26T07:23:00.001-08:00

Video Diary: Buck Owens "Act Naturally"

2011-02-25T16:37:00.000-08:00

Busker Days: The Baron Vines, "Sierra Girl"

2011-02-16T21:49:00.000-08:00

Listen to The Baron Vines play Sierra Girl.

Today's recording was made a couple mornings ago at the Montgomery BART station. It was my third attempt at getting a good recording of the Baron Vines, a quartet that includes Zack on vocals and standup bass, Brian on vocals (he's on harmony on this one), guitar and harmonica, Zack's brother on banjo and Phil on drums. Zack and Brian can be heard on a previous post playing Hard Times here. I've yet to see Zack's brother but I've heard several of his compositions, including Hard Times and this weeks song, Sierra Girl. Enjoy!

Sierra Girl

I was born outside of Salt Lake City in the year of '17

Just another blue-eyed son in the Mormon family tree

And my old man drank moonshine whiskey when my mama went out to pray

And God bless all my brothers and sisters but I had to go away

Heading out in the morning

Heading out in the pouring rain

As the train rolls by the Truckee River

I'm looking for my Sierra girl

So I set out to west Nevada, to my grandpa's cattle ranch

Spent my days riding fences, gave my cowboy life a chance

Then I shipped out in the 2nd war, fighting in the Guadalcanal

Lord knows I had some real hard times, but I won't talk about it anyhow

I spent some time out in Reno, oh to drink away my pain

I lost everything I own in a five card poker game

And headed for Californ-i-a, lookin' to settle down

Riding in the Sierra wind, pull into Truckee town

Song of The Week: "Just Out of Reach", The Zombies

2011-02-14T09:45:00.000-08:00

Listen - The Zombies perform Just Out of Reach

It's real hard to beat The Zombies. Song for song, they may have been the highest quality band to come out of The British Invasion. But sometimes quality isn't recognized. In a world where people gobble up Budweiser and McDonalds, the Zombies were too often selling fine wine and steaks.

In between their two excellent albums, Begin Here and Odyssey and Oracle, The five lads from St. Albans, England, ran off a streak of singles that are of the highest quality. Unfortunately, each one did as poorly as the next on the charts. Particularly in the UK where the band was, well, just ignored. Amazingly they only charted one song, their debut, She's Not There, in the UK Top 40. What the heck!? In the US they had a bit more success and influenced American acts like the Enfields, The Left Banke, and Phil and the Frantics. But in a world where Paul was the "cute one" and Mick was the "bad boy" and Eric was the "gutiar god", the nerdy looking, minor key loving Zombies, bespectacled and wearing suits, were quickly out of date and tagged as the kind of band only girls liked. But pick up any Zombies single -- any of them -- and you will pick a class-A gem. Organ and piano player, Rod Argent, gets most of the accolades for the songwriting. Well deserved too. Chris White, the bassist, was no slouch either and really grew quickly as a songwriter in their brief career. But today we look at a rare Colin Blunstone penned song.

Just Out of Reach was written by Colin for the Otto Preminger film, Bunny Lake Is Missing. It's one of three songs the Zombies contributed to the soundtrack. The song was then released in the UK as the Flip-Side to Chris White's excellent composition, Remember You. Months later, the US pressing (on Parrot Records) would promote Just Out of Reach to the A-side. In our opinion, it is the right decision.

Just Out of Reach is not only a rare Colin Blunstone composition, but it is a rare (albeit less rare) rocker. Blunstone's voice is as good as it has ever been. He has a nice rasp to it that sounds as if he was fighting a phlegmy cold. Then there is the great organ break with Rod at the fore. That last half of that lead is just magnificent. Chris White and Rod Argent lend their superlative harmonies as a call and response and as a nice ooh-ooh-ooh here and there.

Enjoy.

Video Diary: The Zombies "This Old Heart of Mine"

2011-02-11T15:33:00.000-08:00

The Zombies on French TV, live. Dig that Schlitz sweatshirt Colin Blunstone is sporting. It says "Breakfast of Champions". My goodness, that man has a hell of a fine voice. Two vids here, both live. This Old Heart of Mine and Gotta Get Ahold of Myself

Song Of The Week: "Tattoo", The Who

2011-02-03T19:32:00.000-08:00

Listen - The Who perform Tattoo.

Me and my brother were talking to each other

'Bout what makes a man a man
Was it brain or brawn, or the month you were born,
We just couldn't understand

Our old man didn't like our appearance
He said that only women wear long hair

So me and my brother borrowed money from Mother
We knew what we had to do
We went downstairs, past the barber and gymnasium
And got our arms tattooed

Welcome to my life, tattoo
I'm a man now, thanks to you
I expect I'll regret you
But the skin graft man won't get you
You'll be there when I die
Tattoo

My dad beat me 'cause mine said "Mother"
But my mother naturally liked it and beat my brother
'Cause his tattoo was of a lady in the nude
And my mother thought that was extremely rude

Welcome to my life, tattoo
We've a long time together, me and you
I expect I'll regret you
But the skin graft man won't get you
You'll be there when I die
Tattoo

Now I'm older, I'm tattooed all over
My wife is tattooed too
A rooty-toot-toot, A rooty-tooty-toot-toot
Rooty-toot-toot tattoo too
To you

Busker Days: Craig Ventresco "Margie Medley"

2011-01-28T08:45:00.000-08:00

Listen to Craig Ventresco play Margie Medley.

A few days ago on my way home I noticed a new (to me) person with an interesting acoustic guitar setting up at Montgomery BART. It was enough to make me linger a bit. He started right in with some well-rounded, well-articulated ragtime song, and with rag being one of my true joys, I knew I had to stick around.

Craig Ventresco for the last five or so years has been playing at an SF restaurant, I gather with at least one other musician. This night that gig ended and he decided to try his hand with the commuters. Here we have what he calls the Margie Medley, comprised of two popular songs from the early '20s, Margie and Singin' The Blues. Both tunes were written in part by J. Russel Robinson and Con Conrad. In 1919, Robinson, a ragtime pianist and composer, would join the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, a seminal jazz group that recorded these tunes for the first time - also in medley form - in 1920 for the Victor label. Margie would prove to be a hit and in time become a standard that was covered by many including the cornetist Bix Biederbecke in 1927 and, later, John Coltrane. Craig is playing a custom made Fraulini guitar.

Listen to Craig Ventresco play Margie Medley.

Video Diary: The Louvin Bros. "I Can't Keep You In Love With Me"

2011-01-27T19:00:00.000-08:00

Charlie Louvin died yesterday. Great voice, great songwriter.

The Song Still Remains the Same: the unauthorized etymology of Led Zeppelin songs -- Since I've Been Loving You

2011-01-18T08:27:00.001-08:00

Listen - Moby Grape performs Never and Led Zeppelin performs Since I've Been Loving You

Here it is, the much anticipated third installment of The Song STILL Remains the Same: the unauthorized etymology of Led Zeppelin songs. In our first installment, exactly a year ago, we looked at how Jimmy Page put Jake Holmes' song, Dazed and Confused, in Page's own jacket pocket and strolled on to the bank. (Take a look at that post for an over-arching introduction to the series). In our second installment, posted in February of 2010, we looked at how the lads not only took a Muddy Waters tune, but how they emulated the vocals and production style of their countrymen, The Small Faces, to create Zep's mega hit, Whole Lotta Love. Today we look at one of my personal favorite Led Zep tunes, Since I've Been Loving You.

Since I've Been Loving You appeared on Led Zeppelin's third album, the aptly titled, Led Zeppelin III. The song was recorded June of 1970 in London, England. Musically, Since I've Been Loving You owes a bit to The Yardbirds' New York City Blues, which Jimmy Page learned from Yardbirds' lead guitarist, Jeff Beck. In fact, the opening riff is exactly the same. Further, guitar riff connections can be drawn to B.B. King's version of Five Long Years and Albert King's Blues Power. Now, that said, I think there needs to be an asterisk here. I don't think that pulling a guitar riff in an opening of a song, or in a lead, qualifies as flat-out plagiarism. I see it more as a tip of the hat, a reference or, at most, "nicking a riff". Unlike in Dazed and Confused, where Page just flat out stole the entire song structure, Since I've Been Loving You incorporates a standard song structure and uses riffs from King, King and Beck to get his song going. "So", you ask, "why the hell are we exploring this song's etymology then?" Good question. Because it is interesting to do so, is my answer.

The lyrics of Since I've Been Lovin' You are taken almost word for word from an excellent, and fairly rare, Moby Grape song called Never. The San Francisco quintet released Never on a 1968 EP for Columbia records called Grape Jam. It's a blues number, much as is Since I've Been Loving You, but with a bit more of a jazz tone than Page's more aggressive blues. In the Moby Grape number, songwriter, Bob Mosley sings:

Working from 11 to 7 every night/ought to make life a drag, yeah, and I know that ain't right. Thinking about those bad times, I wish you really knew how happy I would be if I were living with you.

Just months later, Robert Plant would later sing in the Page/Plant/Jones composition:

Working from 7 to 11 every night/it really makes life a drag, I don't think that is right. I've really, really been the best of fools, I did what I could. Cause I love you baby, how I love you darling, how I love you baby/But since I've been loving you, I'm about to lose my worried mind.

It would seem that Robert Plant had a much shorter work night than did his American contemporaries. In Zep's version, Plant only has to work 4 hours compared to Moby Grape's more typical 8 hour work day (or in this case, work night). Doesn't seem such a drag, Mr. Plant. There's more as far as nicked lines go, but you can listen for yourself. And more than just the lyrics, it's the melody of the lines as well.

So what? I'm not trying to throw Led Zep under the bus here as I did with Dazed and Confused and Whole Lotta Love. In fact, I have read Robert Plant talk about how his lines were an homage to a group he greatly admired. I think that is fair enough and I prefer to file this under the, "hey, isn't that interesting" category.

I hope you also think it is interesting and I hope that you will comment on this post or all of the Zep etymology posts. You can leave comments below.

As a bonus, here is Albert King performing Blues Power.

Video Diary: Lightning Hopkins performs "Baby Please Don't Go"

2011-01-14T15:16:00.000-08:00

Song of the Week: "Another Day, Another Dollar", Wynn Stewart

2011-01-10T09:59:00.000-08:00

Listen - Wynn Stewart & The West Coast Playboys performs Another Day, Another Dollar

So, you've seen that Volkswagen Jetta commercial playing on endless cycle and now you've had that song they use to pimp their car, Another Day, Another Dollar, playing in your head on repeat for about 3 weeks now. But who does that song?

The answer is Wynn Stewart & The West Coast Playboys. Wynn Stewart hailed from Los Angeles where he began playing both kinds of music, Country and Western at Edison Park High School. Many years on the circuit running the triangle of LA --> Bakersfield --> Las Vegas led to many line up changes, many label changes and eventually the opening of his own club, The Nashville Nevada in Las Vegas where Wynn Stewart and the West Coast Playboys held a 6-night a week residency playing honky tonk.

Stewart never hit it big but he did put out some nice records and even was able to give a young Merle Haggard a start in the music biz as The West Coast Playboys' one-time bassist. In 1962, Wynn Stewart & The West Coast Playboys released Another Day, Another Dollar on the Challenge label. The song made it to #27 on the C&W charts and features the fine guitar work of Roy Nichols. Enjoy.

Busker Days: Nick Stillman "Cumberland Gap"

2011-01-07T12:55:00.000-08:00

Listen: Nick Stillman - Cumberland Gap

How you all doin' ? Here's some fine fiddle work by one Nick Stillman. I came across Nick a couple times last month at Montgomery Bart. I had to stop and listen each time. Turns out he plays fiddle with AxeL EepH, a trio playing in the SF Bluegrass & Old-Time Festival, coming just around the corner in February. But for now, let's give a listen to Nick playing Cumberland Gap.

Some Nick related sites:

http://www.myspace.com/nstillman

http://sites.google.com/site/axeleeph/

Some of you might recall a previous post featuring Emily Bonn on the banjo. Well, she'll be playing with her Vivants at the same festival venue and night as AxeL EepH, on February 14: http://www.sfbluegrass.org/11fest/show.17.html

See you there!

Song of the Week: "Skinny Woman" R.L. Burnside

2011-01-03T12:14:00.000-08:00

Listen - R.L. Burnside performs Skinny Woman

Walk into almost any blues jam in America, Europe or Australia and you almost assuredly will be hit with a tidal wave of guitar players with a Fender Stratocaster, a fedora, a Marshall amp, a ton of overdrive and a grimacing face that punctuates every overdrawn, noodling note they play. I like to call these guys the Strat-in-a-Hat players. They treat the other musicians, even the singers, with a sense that they only perform a utilitarian necessity to deliver their long Stevie Ray Vaughan influenced guitar solos that overwhelm everything and everyone.

But that is not what the blues always was. Nor what it should be. The art of the subtle has been lost in the electronic age. Today's Song of the Week comes from Coldwater, Mississippi in the late 60s. It's the first recording of a farmhand as he sits in his living room playing, alone, by himself, unaccompanied, without anyone else, on a cheap Kay acoustic guitar tuned to an open G. The song is Skinny Woman and it is just one of the 14 recordings compiled on the now out of print, First Recordings album.

R.L. Burnside would grab some notoriety late in life when bands like The North Mississippi Allstars and the Black Keys started covering his work and his more modern recordings, such as It's Bad You Know, got action on shows like The Sopranos. (read our May 10, 2009 article on this song here).

But this is R.L. Burnside at his rawest, and best. The influence of his neighbor, Mississippi Fred McDowell is quite evident. Enjoy. And seek out the First Recordings album on Fat Possum Records if you can.

Song of the Week: "I Don't Need No Doctor", Ray Charles

2010-12-27T12:33:00.000-08:00

Listen - Ray Charles performs I Don't Need No Doctor

We don't need to explain who Ray Charles is. We don't need to create a schematic to prove his importance on the American and European music landscape. We don't need to give you a backstory to make you more interested in his output. We don't need to because he is simply, one of, if not thee most respected and beloved musicians in the last 100 years. That's all Ray Charles is.

Today's SoTW, I Don't Need No Doctor, is from 1966. A commercial flop that only reached #72, the song often gets left off of compilations. But with the strong back beat and the great Raelettes kicking it harder than a sexually frustrated mule, the song is one of Ray's better numbers. Enjoy.

Song of the Week: "Sleigh Ride", The Ventures

2010-12-24T07:34:00.000-08:00

Listen - The Ventures perform Sleigh Ride

Merry Christmas!

Song of the Week: "I'm Gonna Dress In Black", Them

2010-12-13T08:22:00.000-08:00

Listen - Them perform I'm Gonna Dress In Black.

Ahhh, it's Them. I must say, it has been a while since I had Them on the turntable. Too long. So how sweet it was when, just the other week, I pulled out some of my US label Parrot Records-stamped Them 45's, a few O'Dell's IPA beers, and had a grand old time playing records at ear splitting volumes.

Understandably, Them is often recognized for only two things: 1) being the first band of the 5'4" musical giant that is Van Morrison, and; 2) being the originators of the garage band standard, Gloria, a Van Morrison penned flip-side to the stellar cover of Baby Please Don't Go. But Them were much more than that. The Belfast boys put out two excellent records and a healthy amount of solid 45's. Them albums sounded different than most of their "British Invasion" brethren. Certainly part of it is their Irish homeland influence, but most of it can be traced to the multi-instrumental ability of their frontman and predominant song composer, Van Morrison. He brought Irish folk, American folk, American Jazz, American blues and rock-n-roll influences, and mixed them all together in a wonderful little stew. Only Manfred Mann albums had as much diversity as did the two albums by Them.

Today's SoTW comes from Them's first album, the excellent 1965 release, The Angry Young Them. The song seems to be neither a cover nor an original, but rather a song brought to the group. Perhaps by sometime Them producer and songwriter, Bert Berns. (See an old post on a bitching Garnett Mimms song he produced, As Long As I Have You). The song for the week is I'm Gonna Dress In Black. Thematically and musically, it has a certain feel similar to The House of the Rising Son as performed by The Animals. The organ dominant song features some of the most unexpected chord progressions, mixing up minor and major chords nicely, you're likely to hear out of song from this era. Van Morrison is, as always, exceptional on the song. You can really feel the Ray Charles influence in his performance. But it is really the organist who shines on this. Who that organist is, we just can't say. You see, Them was really a revolving cast of musicians with only bassist Alan Henderson and Van Morrison remaining constant. Additionally, it is very evident that studio musicians were employed generously on Them recordings. Question me on that? Just watch a live performance of Them and you'll hear a great difference in ability from stage to record. Whomever the musicians were, the song is killer.

Enjoy, today's SoTW, I'm Gonna Dress In Black. And enjoy the two vids below. The first is a live performance of the Bert Berns produced/composed Here Comes the Night, the latter a lip-synch version of Van Morrison's composition, Gloria.

Video Diary: The Troggs "I Can't Control Myself"

2010-12-10T12:56:00.000-08:00

Song of the Week: "Polly", Dillard and Clark Expedition

2010-12-07T11:25:00.000-08:00

Listen - The Dillard and Clark Expedition perform Polly.

We present to you today a beautiful song that we have previously been reluctant to post on this site. We were hesitant because the song is so nuanced and so mellow, that we have feared the click-happy listener won't take the time to get it. But bollocks to the click happy world. This is a great song that you need to hear!

The song is Polly by the Dillard And Clark Expedition, a proto-alt country band that featured the former Byrds frontman, Gene Clark. We think so much of his work that he is only the third artist to get a repeat posting. [In fact, for a detailed history of Gene Clark, we strongly encourage you to read the article from two years ago about his song, Out On The Side, which can be accessed by clicking here.]

Polly is from the Dillard And Clark Expedition's second, and final, album, Through The Morning, Through The Night. It's one of the two songs from the 1969 album, along with the stellar title track, that was later covered by the Robert Plant, Alison Krauss collaboration album entitled Raising Sand. An excellent album produced by T-Bone Burnett, whom we suspect of bringing the songs to the table. With all due respect to the Plant/Krauss cover of this rare gem, I much prefer the Gene Clark version. Where Plant's performance is dark and brooding and heightens the sense of a stalker as our protagonist, Clark sings the song with a sense of loss and sadness that speaks nicely to a protagonist filled with the lament of "what could have been?".

If the wild bird could speak, he'd tell of places you have been
He's been in my dreams and he knows all the ways of the wind.
Polly come home again. Spread your wings to the wind.
I felt much of the pain as it begins.

The violin work of Byron Berline adds to that sense of sadness of loss and matches the acoustic guitar arpeggios at 1:22 and again at the end of the song, ever so nicely. We hope you take time to sit back and listen to this one without obstruction.

Song of the Week: "I Got Nightmares", Q65

2010-11-29T08:50:00.001-08:00

Listen - Q65 performs I Got Nightmares

Here at On The Flip-Side we've sung the praises of 60s Dutch Beat, also known as Nederbiet. We've hit on the most musically talented of the bunch, Cuby + The Blizards, and we've hit on the most popular of the scene, The Outsiders. But we haven't touched on the coolest of that scene. But today is the day.

Q65 was formed in the Hague in 1965 and started releasing odd and stunningly cool singles on Decca Records beginning in 1966. In that same year they released their first album, Revolution. It's a very intriguing album that mixes great original compositions (some of which demonstrate a real unique approach to composing) and very respectable covers of American blues and soul songs such as Spoonful and Get Out Of My Life Woman. But as is always the case with the European bands, the originals are where one gets value for the price of admission. It is there that the English as a second language lyrics get most amusing, and the deft guitar work of Joop Roelofs and Frank Nuyens are at their best.

One of the many super cool, head scratching originals the boys put together is I Got Nightmares. The tom-tom, maraca heavy song features a simple, but compelling guitar riff with beautifully out-of-nowhere stops and the totally unexpected giggling and yawning. What is up with that?! Vocalist Willem Beiler sings in his trademark speaking style with some curious lyrics sung in English. Not all of which I can make out through the thick accent. Okay, most of it I can't understand.

Enjoy Q65 performing their original composition from '66, I Got Nightmares.

Original Song Project: "Ride That Stingray", Morgan Young

2010-11-19T15:04:00.001-08:00

Listen - Morgan Young performs Ride That Stingray!

Here is a song I wrote about a friend's tale of running away from home when he was a young lad. I've embellished with some of my own memories and a little reminiscing about the feel of 13 pounds of steel thunder between the legs and the smell of freedom that is the open road.

I, of course, am talking about the moment we all got our first Schwinn Stingray, cruised the neighborhood with the other ruffians and tried desperately to shake our Born To Be Mild reality.

I'm using a 1967 Gibson EB2D bass, a Gibson J200 acoustic, a Fender Tele and big steaming pile of false rockabilly bravado. Some photos for this post came from the blog, The Selvedge Yard.

I hope you enjoy.

Song of the Week: "High & Lonesome" Jimmy Reed

2010-11-16T08:11:00.000-08:00

Listen - Jimmy Reed performs High & Lonesome

Jimmy Reed originally hailed from Mississippi, and after a stint in the US Navy during WWII, found himself, like so many other Mississippi men of a certain age and socio-economic status, migrating north to look for work. Reed landed in Gary, Indiana where he cut his teeth in clubs and on radio shows playing with the likes of John Brim, Elmore James, and Eddie Taylor. Like each of those men, Reed failed to satisfactorily impress Chess Records executive Lejzor Czyz (now renamed Leonard Chess).

Chess Records' loss was Vee Jay Records' gain as Jimmy Reed took his catchy, stripped down approach to writing and performing the blues and strung together certifiable hit after certifiable hit that would become industry standards once the Brit invasion hit. Songs like Big Boss Man, Baby What You Want Me To Do, Bright Lights Big City, Ain't That Loving You Baby and Honest I Do would become the bedrock of the song list for bands from both sides of the pond, like The Animals, The Rolling Stones, The Pretty Things, The Shadows of Knight, Link Wray and countless other bands looking to find that nexus of danceable, catchy and gritty. In short, Jimmy Reed defined that nexus perhaps better than any of his contemporaries.

Today we listen to Jimmy Reed's first recording ever. Before the hits started rolling in, before he got a contract with Vee Jay Records, and before alcoholism would turn the tap of hits off. The song is High & Lonesome and it was recorded in Chicago in 1953 for Chance Records. It's primal and the number of measures varies with his whim. And it is damn good.

Enjoy.

Busker Days: "Misty", Lili Dubois

2010-11-11T13:15:00.000-08:00

Listen: Lili Dubois plays Misty

The busker vibe has changed lately here at Montgomery and N. Berkeley BART stations. Haven't seen some of the reliables lately, such as Earl the gospel singer or The Human Condition, the blue grassy americana band. At Montgomery station one guy on a classical guitar plays at the pedestrian tunnel most days, and that's all it takes, one guy getting there early and staking the territory. Needless to say, I've tossed him a buck or two. I did see Marko Harps recently and of course Jesse has been around some lately. Last week I saw Brian, the guitarist of Zack and Brian, playing with Nate Harris, the bassist of The Human Condition, together with a fiddle player, all doing a nice acoustic set. This morning I had the good pleasure to meet and record an older fellow named John Cunningham playing some jazz and blues on the clarinet. That was the first clarinet I've seen about. I guess it's just pretty unpredictable.

A week ago Tuesday I came out of the N. Berkeley station to the seductive sounds of a bluesy steel guitar. The sounds were mellow, if a little choppy. I was waiting for a ride that never showed and the music set the scene. I recognized the player from farmer's markets and asked her, Lili Dubois, if I could record one of the instrumental songs she was playing, an Erroll Garner standard. Listen to her take on Erroll Garner's Misty. Enjoy.