The Jam — To Be Someone (Didn’t We Have A Nice Time)
from All Mod Cons (1978)
One of my favorite songs by The Jam, with some terrific rhythm changes. They really rip it up on this track…
Urban Dance — Alienlover
from Ceramic Dance (1986)
This…is the FUTURE. Well ok actually, it’s 1986—incredible Japanese techno-pop that sounds like it could have come out yesterday. What is up with those crazy guitar loops? Amazing stuff, really.
Urban Dance is headed by Shinobu Narita, who handles electronics, guitar and vocals. And as many trailblazing projects are, this EP was produced with help from Haruomi Hosono.
Read more here, in Japanese. WaxMask has the follow-up album to this EP.
My Friend Wallis — Better Things to Do (2012)
Some things get better with age. Forests, for example. They’re not called “Old Growth” for nothing, kid. Time has also been treating My Friend Wallis.. aka Crystal Dorval.. extremely well. Here’s she’s back with a dreamy jam and a beautifully shot video to match—all around the perfect antidote to purge those woods of any BlairWitchian evil and darkness!
Met Crystal Dorval when she was playing bass for Mac DeMarco on tour in the summer of ‘10 and after exchanging emails, instantly fell in love with her dreamy lo-fi sound. Hers is as fresh as a forest fern… Gawd, so jelly of all these North West bands that get to shoot videos like this in their backyards.
“Shot on the fly” by PalaisNouveau. Single will be on a 7” split available from Student Loan Records on February 25th. You can check out more on Crystal’s Bndcmp.
Grandparents — Fumes
from Fumes EP (2012)
Sprawling psychedelic sounds… spooky harmonies and clattering drums… from Portland’s Grandparents. Git over to bandcamp for more jams like this.
Hat tip to This Music Doesn’t Suck on this one.
Dustin Wong — Diagonally Talking Echo
from Dreams Say, View, Create, Shadow Leads (2012)
Dustin Wong’s music has always conjured up colors in my mind… the staccato guitar loops seem almost like a pointillist painting in sound. Here that color is visualized by Dustin himself, in the video for ‘Diagonally Talking Echo,’ a track from his new solo record, Dreams Say, View, Create, Shadow Leads, out Feb 21st on Thrill Jockey. (Get ready—he screams…)
Also on the Dreams theme, he wants your collaboration on the project “Say Your Dream, Create a Sound”:
Tell Dustin about a significant dream by recording a description of the dream to his Soundcloud page. Dustin will create and original piece of music inspired by each dream and incorporating your description, and post a selection of these recordings to his Soundcloud page beginning on Monday, February 20.
Catch him this Sat 1/21 at 285 Kent in Williamsburg with Akron/Family; Fri 2/3 at Glasslands; or Sat 2/4 at Wesleyan University.
Francisco y Madero — Poolpartyndo
from acapulco en la azotea EP (2011)
Carlos Pesina has yet another great project to keep track of, in addition to his work as Pepepe and Los Amparito. His newest collaboration, with San Francisco’s Jess Sylvester on guitar, is Francisco y Madero.
Their EP Acapulco en la azotea is a beachy escape, launched, like a resort wear collection, just in time for your daydreams of the tropics.
previously on yerdarlingdaily // bandcamp
via odiolosjueves (Pesina’s tumblr)
Kazuhiko Katoh — Jiraiya
from Super Gas (1971)
Someday soon I’ll have to change the name of this blog to ‘yer darling japan.’ It’s an unending obsession of mine. Until then, here’s a beautiful raga-like dirge for harmonium and guitar, by folk singer Kazuhiko Katoh. It’s his second solo outing, and the first after the breakup of his former group, the Folk Crusaders.
Two years ago, Katoh hung himself in a hotel room in Karuizawa, Nagano prefecture, at the age of 62, after telling one friend “I have nothing left that I want to do.”
David Axelrod — The Auction
from The Auction (1972)
The name David Axelrod may bring to mind Obama’s strategic adviser. Now meet the other David Axelrod—prolific jazz and funk producer/composer.
This percussion-heavy spoken word groover appears on Axelrod’s 1972 slavery concept album The Auction. If you like this, make sure you check out Lincoln Chase, who operates on a similar plane…
Thanks to Know Your Conjurer for posting this gem. Get yer audio there…
Les Paul — Lady of Spain (1952)
I’ve no doubt many have tried, but no one can make a guitar sound like Les Paul. It’s almost a “look at me” sort of fantasy tour through guitar effects. And this was in, oh, 1952.
Gene Clark — For A Spanish Guitar
from White Light (1971)
My interest in The Byrds is generally limited to the period in which Gram Parsons worked for the band. It was just a brief stint, enough time to record the masterpiece Sweetheart of the Rodeo, before Gram’s demands grew untenable for the group (higher salary, renaming the group ‘Gram Parsons and The Byrds,’ threats to Roger McGuinn’s leadership). Less than a year after joining, Gram struck out on his own.
At any rate, suffice to say I’d neglected the solo output of the original, founding members of the Byrds. That’s where this Gene Clark album comes in. An on-again, off-again founding member of the group, this album is the result of a period he spent living on the northern California coast with his wife and children, nestled in the hills of Mendocino, and the songs capture that ‘loner sound’ few guitarists do well. Songs that sound like they’re sung for the wind, for you, and no one else.
This track is the standout on the album, mournful though it sounds. Dylan supposedly said once that it’s a tune he’d have been proud to write. But he didn’t. Gene Clark did.
Stonewall Jackson — I Washed My Hands In Muddy Water
from Trouble and Me (1965)
This Country Sunday, a prison song from Stonewall Jackson, the hardcore honky tonker. (Not the Confederate general—though he’s named after him) The slinky guitar and garage organ in this tune are fantastic…
Ian & Sylvia — You Were on My Mind
from Northern Journey (1964)
A boy from Victoria, BC, dreams of being a rodeo rider. He rides, gets hurt, learns guitar. Starts a band and moves to Toronto, where he performs in coffee shops and folk clubs. Meets girl from Ontario and starts a band with her. They move to New York City in 1962, and Albert Grossman signs them. They perform at the Newport Folk Festival in 1963, and marry a year later.
And that’s about where we are in time with this song, a Sylvia-penned number. Listen to that gorgeous autoharp. I really need to get my hands on one of those beauties. Record Fiend says her use of autoharp in this song was probably a significant contributor to the instrument’s resurgence during the 60s folk movement. Also worth checking out the We Five cover of this, significantly under the influence of the San Francisco sound.
Several years back, a CBC poll voted the Ian & Sylvia track ‘Four Strong Winds’ to be greatest Canadian song of all time. I was previously unaware that the tune was not borne of Neil Young’s pen. (It’s the closer to his 1978 album Comes a Time) Then again, Neil is Canadian. I think that’s why I was so convinced he wrote it. American songwriters don’t write “Think I’ll go out to Alberta/weather’s good there in the fall…”
Hat tip to i12bent — highly recommended tumblr if you’re a fan of biographies.
Takeshi Terauchi & The Bunnys — One Fine Day (Madame Butterfly)
from Let’s Go Classics (1967)
Behold the majestic harmonies of Giacomo Puccini, as interpreted by a Japanese surf-rock guitarist bedecked in breeches and a wig—Takeshi Terauchi. That’s him to the left of the conductor, with the beautiful white Mosrite guitar.
By no coincidence, The Ventures played a set of custom Mosrites, which you can hear on their 1963 album The Ventures In Space. Terauchi was supposedly struck by The Ventures tour of Japan in 1962, and began surfing electric currents himself with prodigious use of his whammy bar.
Here’s Maria Callas doing the operatic version of ‘One Fine Day’ (Un Bel Di’ Vedremo).
Pat Martino — Baiyina
from Baiyina (The Clear Evidence) (1968)
Night music.
