Lindsey Buckingham at the Record Plant in Sausalito with producers Ken Caillat (left) and Richard Dashut, 1977
via Sound on Sound
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unknown MCs and DJs, Richmond Auditorium, CA (1984)
This is nuts: a live recording of a rap show at the Richmond Auditorium, in the SF Bay Area, one night in May 1984. The audience tape is presented here in all its primitive glory, with plenty of drop-outs in the PA system and audience jeers.
This is part one of three; grab the other two at WFMU’s Beware of the Blog, courtesy music collector Rob Wortman. The second part has a guy rapping in French over Chic’s ‘Good Times,’ a la Sugarhill Gang.
Keith Richards huddling under his Navajo blanket and snorting something out of a jar, while Gram Parsons spots something through his spyglass.
Taken at Joshua Tree in 1969, with Anita Pallenberg along for the ride as well. See the whole series at The Selvedge Yard.
photo by Michael Collins
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The United States of America — The Garden of Earthly Delights
from The United States of America (1968)
A psychedelic display of electronic music effects and all kinds of synthesizers, dreamed up by Joseph Byrd, a composer and ethnomusicologist at the UCLA New Music Workshop. Byrd hung in avant-garde circles with folks like Terry Riley and wanted to bring electronic sounds to rock music.
This cut has plenty of that, with crunchy electronic harpsichord and ray-gun screeching, and almost sounds like a rubric for the Stereolab sound. (Or maybe Broadcast, who drew influence from the U.S.A.)
It’s exciting music, but unfortunately the fun didn’t last long. Tensions between band members frequently boiled over, due in no small part to Joe Byrd, who was quite a control freak, according to some accounts. (He even got into a fistfight with electric violinist Gordon Marron backstage at a gig at the Fillmore East.)
And when three members of the band were busted for marijuana at a gig in Orange County, California, the experiment was over.
Oregon Bike Trails — High School Love
California boy Zach Yudin (aka Oregon Bike Trails) is nailing the Golden State Sound so hard it’s killing yer California boy. And his tambourine beats sound like a hazy reminiscence of that other California boy. I’m confused.
Sort it out with some free music at his Beachcamp.
The first album I ever owned was a Beach Boys 25th anniversary 5-cassette box set. I was probably about 9. I listened to those tapes until the magnetism wore to a thin little trickle. My first ever concert was the Beach Boys “Kokomo” tour. Needless to say, no matter what I do, the Beach Boys will be with me forever. So when I find music that puts that reverence on its heartsleeve, I’m sold. Especially the earlier ‘oldies’ stuff like “Help Me Rhonda” and “409”.
Enter Santa Monican songwriter Zach Yudin. This chill brah (the name of his blog, really!) is reviving those early beachy sounds with an authenticity I haven’t heard in a long while. I’m in love.
Pick this and other singles up free, here.
Also, thanks to one of my favorite video aficionados dinoprossi for diggin’ this one up (and putting together the sweet video).
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Ali Kahn — Invisible Monsters (2010)
So I was peeking in a few tents over at Bandcamp yesterday and came across Ali Kahn, a Brentwood beat machine who’s been pumping out these filthy, filthy jams. What is all that noise? I don’t wanna know, but I like it.
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Mark Spoelstra — Don’t Say It So Slow
from Mark Spoelstra Recorded at Club 47 (1963)
I just discovered that Smithsonian Folkways has for some time had their entire collection available digitally for purchase, a development that prove to be a significant drain on my bank account. There are a lot of magnificent albums to explore there.
This is one of them. Mark Spoelstra and his 12-string, recorded live in August 1963 at Cambridge, Massachusetts’ Club 47, on Mount Auburn St. He had written this song a few months earlier, as an indictment of those who believe war is wrong but never do anything about it. As he writes in the liner notes, Mark was just about to ship out west to perform service as a conscientious objector.
When I was eighteen years old, it was thoughts that my friends didn’t know how to talk about that made me want to write and sing songs about the way I see things, feel ‘em, hear ‘em, hate ‘em, love ‘em. My guitar and the open road seemed like the best way to do what I had to do. I think it was.
For the next two years I will be in the Southwest working with American Indians. I will be well into two or three months of welfare work before this record is released. I will not be performing and, most likely, not recording. There just won’t be any time.
The welfare work I will be doing will be in lieu of entering the armed forces. Friend after friend has asked me, “Well, why didn’t you just get out on ‘psyche’ or something?” It rather indicates that since I’m a folksinger, it wouldn’t be hard to convince anybody that I’m therefore nuts. And I don’t feel that I’m getting out of anything. I feel I’m getting into something.
Mark Spoelstra
He never made it to the reservation — instead he wound up working on a community development project in Fresno, California until 1965. Afterward he drifted down to Hollywood to perform for a spell, before moving to Northern California, where he became a minister and recorded two gospel albums. According to Wikipedia he also drove a tour bus in Yosemite for some period of time in the 80s. A life well lived, I’d say.
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Craft Spells - After the Moment
Just the kind of poppy 80s beats you need to get through the winter. Definitely channeling Dominant Legs here with the 4-track guitars and looped drum beats. And they’re from Stockton? Awesome.
Tasty new single coming out January 18.
(Via P4k)
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Wynn Stewart — Wrong Company (1960)
from California Country: The Best of the Challenge Masters
A nice little duet Wynn recorded with Jan Howard, for Gene Autry’s short-lived Challenge Records.
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Wynn Stewart — It’s Such A Pretty World Today (1967)
It’s Country Sunday again on yer darling daily! And thank god cause I’ve been itching to post this. Here’s Wynn Stewart, one of the originators of the Bakersfield sound, backed by Buck Owens’ band the Buckaroos, including Don Rich on guitar and Tom Brumley on pedal steel.
There’s a lot to love about this video — Wynn Stewart getting almost teary eyed while he sings, Don Rich’s amazing silver sparkle Telecaster, or Tom Brumley’s little smirks of satisfaction as he nails the pedal steel lines.
Oh yeah, and the outfits…I’m speechless.
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Jan & Lorraine — Break Out the Wine
from Gypsy People (1969)
I think this is about as close as psychedelic folk ever got to a slaying wall of sound. The bass is out of control on this track. Turn it up.
Jan with guitar, Lorraine with autoharp, via Film, zene, pszichedelia
Jan Hendin and Ellen Lorraine LeFevre formed their short-lived duo in Detroit in the late 60s. They recorded this album in London (using Ginger Baker’s guitar on some tracks!) and then split before much happened — Lorraine wanted out.
Jan ended up in a religious cult in California and took her own life in 1992. As for Lorraine, she now performs and gives guitar lessons at Butler’s Coffee in Palmdale, California, under the name Elayna.
Most accounts you read of Jan & Lorraine call the duo “mysterious” — but the Hungarian blog Film, zene, pszichedelia has done much to dispel the mystery with this terrific interview with Elayna (Lorraine). If you like this track, Time Has Told Me has more.
Ad for a 4-track (Stereo-Pak) of the album, Aug 2, 1969 issue of Billboard.
Cliff Crofford & Billy Mize — Waterloo (1959)
A little dash of the unbeatable Bakersfield Sound, for this rainy Sunday. Folks, THIS is harmony. These two have it down pat, and they keep it up through two key changes. I wish the quality was a little better…but it was 50 years ago…on a TV signal beaming out of Bakersfield, California on KERO-TV.
The program is The Cousin Herb Trading Post Show, started by Billy “Billy the Kid” Mize, Bill Woods and Herbert “Cousin Herb” Henson. Henson, a country musician himself, died of a heart attack in the show’s tenth year on the air in 1963, at the age of 38.
The show’s guests are like a who’s who of country music: Patsy Cline, Merle Haggard, Buck Owens and Jean Shepard were among the stars appearing on the program. Cliff Crofford, though not as well known as the rest, has a nice little nugget about the time he toured with Johnny Cash:
Do you have any stories to share about the time you were on tour with Johnny Cash?
Cliff- None that I would repeat. Seriously though, one night when we were on tour in Nebraska John came out with his gun into the the hallway of this little motel we were staying in and starting shooting blanks just to scare us all. He was always pulling all kinds of pranks because he and the rest of us would get so bored from riding in cars six hours a day as we traveled from town to town to perform.
