The Merseys — Sorrow (1966)
Their first big hit after the Merseybeats became the Merseys, ‘Sorrow’ is actually a cover of a track by Indiana rockers The McCoys. Continuing the cover chain, David Bowie recorded the track for his 1973 album Pin Ups (one of my favorite Bowie albums ever, despite the fact it’s all covers)
Look at those mop-tops…
Roxy Music — Amazona
from Stranded (1973)
Been on a major Bryan Ferry/Roxy Music binge the last few days, a revisiting partly inspired by the season finale of Noel Fielding’s Luxury Comedy, and the “Battle of the Br(y/i)ans.” (Ferry and Eno!)
How cool is this riff?
Marble Sheep — Melted Moon
from Marble Sheep & The Run-Down Sun’s Children (1990)
“HIGH ENERGY PSYCHEDELIC NOISE PUNK EXPERIENCE”
Just made my pledge to my darling WFMU… stoked to hear Scott McDowell’s premium of Japanese freak-out psych!
KEEP FREEFORM ALIVE!
wfmu:
“Ritualistic wooly psych from Japan. My own personal Tokyo Flashback compilation.”
from Scott McDowell’s Red-Hot Iron Ball: Japanese free-psych and ritual music from the Long Rally vaults. Swallow it. [WFMU 2012 Marathon Premium]
The Long Rally airs Fridays 9am-12noon | Pledge to WFMU in the name of Scott M!
Marianne Faithfull — Broken English
from Broken English (1979)
A friend just turned me on to this album…pure splendor.
Robert Palmer — Sneakin’ Sally Through The Alley (Allen Toussaint)
from Sneakin’ Sally Through The Alley (1974)
This album cover is just outlandish, in the best possible way. And holy shit is the band on fire.
Lowell George, Allen Toussaint and The Meters can be heard on this funky classic…
(via artofthesong)
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.
Street Gnar — Without Blue
from Poking The World With A Stick (2011)
Lovely lo-fi beercan rock from Case Mahan, a Brooklyn transplant from Lexington, Kentucky.
Check out his stuff for free at bandcamp… or IN PERSON! At Williamburg’s Bruar Falls this Sat 10/22 for a CMJ showcase. Set time 3pm.
His photoblog is also worth a gander.
Kenneth Higney — Night Rider
from Attic Demonstration (1976)
I like to imagine this is what Kurt Vile would sound like if he were an untrained New Jersey truck driver, shouting out no discernible melody, backed by musicians who are extraordinarily adept at playing out of sync with each other.
But that’s the domain of Kenneth Higney, not Kurt Vile. Higney recorded this series of one-take demos in September 1976 and pressed 500 copies on vinyl. His plan was to distribute the album to fellow musicians, encouraging them to cover his tunes. As far as I know no one took him up on the offer, which isn’t all that hard to believe, though the record itself became a cult classic, a distillation of one man’s melancholy and despair. Some years ago, Higney himself re-released the album for all to hear.
Work Drugs — Ice Wharf (2011)
This easy-listening bassline reminds me of my high school job at a local market, where I’d spend summer days holed up in the coldbox stocking milk and beer, listening to Fleetwood Mac and the Eagles piped in softly over the supermarket’s tinny sound system. Take a peek into an icebox of your own, over at the Work Drugs SoundCloud.
Our friends from Work Drugs sent us their latest track Ice Wharf, “something to keep you cool on a hot summer day.” The song is available for FREE through their SoundCloud, or go to their BandCamp for the extended single with exclusive live tracks and remixes.
Cheryl Dilcher — Deep Down Inside
from Butterfly (1973)
A long-haired girl with a 12-string from Allentown, Pennsylvania, Cheryl got her start gigging at college campuses in the Lehigh Valley. Before long she followed the city lights and ended up in the 60s folk scene in Greenwich Village, performing a weekly gig at the Back Fence (which is still there on Bleecker!)
This album, as the cover may indicate, came out much later, when the 70s were in full swing. I can’t help but see through the twinkling pianos and big-rock chorus on this, to a melancholy shell of a dream… to whatever it was that Cheryl envisioned when she moved to the big city, before the folkies grew up and moved upstate, and the flower children all wilted away. And here she was, left all alone recording these soft rock tracks, soon to fade forever into obscurity.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. @ Mercury Lounge
Lucked out and got a last minute ticket…these guys are great live!
They play the Rock Shop in Park Slope tomorrow night.
Edwyn Collins — Losing Sleep
from Losing Sleep (2011)
Edwyn Collins, whom you may know (and love) as the frontman of Orange Juice suffered a series of strokes and brain hemorrhages in 2005. The bleeding in his brain nearly killed him, leaving him unable to talk or walk, let alone sing or play guitar. Yet things seem to be looking up. He’s been touring again, including a recent stop in Brooklyn, which I sadly missed, and has a new album out. And it’s quite good.
Collins still can’t play guitar, though he’s aided here by a fine roster of players like Johnny Marr. And though his vocals have aged a bit, they’re not half bad for a middle-aged man. But this album is more than a story of human resilience, of a singer delivered from near death to regain some fraction of his musical abilities. Because what shines through on every song are the same unquenchable melodies he’s famous for—this is actually music you want to listen to. And the fact that he was able to build these anthems by simply singing the melodies is even more remarkable.
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.
Charles Albright — I’m on Drugs
Look at that pile of heads! Behold the blaring vocals! And the noise! It’s only a minute and fifteen seconds! YES.
WFMU’s still hollering for dollars, and every day over at the blog they’ve been posting mp3s from each DJs thank-you-for-pledging mix cd. Liz Berg is one of my favorites, and this headbanging track comes from her premium, aptly titled “Bratty”:
When the world turns against you, mouth off with these unruly, sophomoric, tantrum-fueled tunes fit for throwing a conniption.
