Saturday Matinee – Shirley Bassey, Goldfinger, Nena & Nina Hagen with Don Rickles & Merv Griffin

Dame Shirley Bassey‘s classic “Theme to Goldfinger” as captured on film in 1965. I didn’t know she was Welsh until today.

Goldfinger‘s cover of Nena’s “99 Luftballons” is pretty good.

Nena‘s “Rette Mich” (Save Me) is from the same album as 99 Luftballons.

I’m embarrassed to admit that I once confused Nena (Gabriele Kerner of Hagen, West Germany) with  Nina Hagen (Catherine Hagen of East Berlin, East Germany). Never again.

Have a great weekend, folks. More is yet to come.

Saturday Matinee – Clanadonia, Mickey Hart / Planet Drum & Joe Bonamassa with Tina Guo

How ’bout something primal? Nothing better than Scottish tribal drums and bagpipes. Clanadonia is what it is, and it’s loud. “The Last of the Glaswegians” is going to be stuck in my head for days.

Mickey Hart & Planet Drum perform “Fire On The Mountain” (24 July 1999, Rome, New York).

Amazing speed cellist Tina Guo jams it with Joe Bonamassa on “Woke Up Dreaming” at Carnegie Hall (June 2017?). Takes them a bit to get in synch, then it soars. Guo’s take on Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir” is fun, too.

Have a great weekend folks.

Pah-Rumpah Pum Pum.

[Found here.]

Saturday Matinee – Wind Chimes, Samantha Fish & The Bo Keys

I found this both oddly fascinating and mildly disturbing. It’s an a/v collage from 2013 somewhere near Lake Erie, yet it’s also kind of an appropriate soundtrack for the damage caused by Hurricane Harvey, and for those survivors who haven’t yet fully realized what they’ve lost.

What happens once the news crews are gone? What happens once the reality sets in that you survived the ordeal, but you’ve lost everything? Our prayers are with you.


Now about those looters and scammers…

For a long time, this was THE signature song of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, and in some ways his 1956 hit was a blues parody. In January of 2014, Samantha Fish picked it up and jammed it right down our throats with no apologies. Killer version.

Loved this proto-funk theme, and I love the Bo-Keys for rocking the retro soul grooves that I grew up with.

Have a great Labor Day Weekend, folks, and we’ll be back tomorrow with more stuff than your imagination can even tolerate. Or not.

Saturday Matinee – About Hurricane Harvey

In case you’re living in a closet, there’s some nasty weather going on down south with a killer hurricane underway.

Led Zeppelin unapologetically ripped off Memphis Minnie and Kansas Joe for one of their greatest hits.

On the other hand, this blues jam was an original.

So what’s next? Maybe a Rainy Night In Georgia.

To my friends down in Texas and Louisiana, keep safe.

Saturday Matinee – African Raccoons, Toni Tee and Liquid Wisdom & The Specials

Raccoons stirrin’ up sh*t.

Toni Tee & Liquid Wisdom on a bus. They play a cool variety of music (reggae, rock, funk, soul, hiphop, punkadelic) but it’s tough to find a vid with decent a/v on the Utoobage. [h/t Bunkessa – yeah she scored two hits this week; this one and the one above.]

Can’t fight corruption with con tricks;
They use the law to commit crime.
And I dread, dread to think what the future will bring,
When we’re living in gangster time.

The Specials performed their 1979 hit “Gangsters” (with Lily Allen) at the Glastonbury Festival 2007. (The music was lifted from Prince Buster‘s 1964 ska hit “Al Capone.” Have a listen.)

Have a great weekend, folks, and let’s see what happens tomorrow.

Saturday Matinee – Summertime Blues (1958 to Whatever).

From the UToobage description:

“Though Eddie Cochran was only twenty-one when he died, he left a lasting mark as a rock and roll pioneer. Cochran zeroed in on teenage angst and desire with such classics as ‘C’mon Everybody,’ ‘Something Else,’ ‘Twenty Flight Rock‘ and ‘Summertime Blues.’ A flashy stage dresser with a tough-sounding voice, Cochran epitomized the sound and the stance of the Fifties rebel rocker.”

Lotta covers of that kickass song.

1962 The Beach Boys. A 14 and a 16 year old contributed to this recording.

1962 Johnny Chester

Ten years later, Blue Cheer broke ground in 1968 with a heavy metal version of Eddie Cochran’s “Summertime Blues,” released ten years earlier. [This guy was on the SanFran scene in 1968.]

I heard that version when I was in 6th grade, and tried to decide if I liked it or not. Took me several years before I understood what they were doing, and I decided that I liked the original better. Hell, the name of the band was a brand of LSD named after a laundry detergent.

1975 The Who – According to Wiki they’d been playing Summertime Blues since 1967 so this version is out of chronological order.

1970 T. Rex

1975 Olivia Newton-John
1978 The Rolling Stones

1982 Joan Jett.  Hear The Ramones influence?

1987 Alvin & The Chipmunks
1992 Little River Band
2004 Rush
2009 The Black Keys

Cheech Marin, The Prophets, Levon Helm, Guitar Wolf, The Flying Lizards, Bobby Vee, The Crickets, Buck Owens, James Taylor, The Ventures, Dick Dale, Robert Gordon with Link Wray, Skid Row, Johnny Hallyday, Brian Setzer, MC5, Alex Chilton, and Marty Wilde have also covered the song.

Y’all can find the the other killer ccvers  on your own. Have a great weekend and we’ll see you back here tomorrow.

Saturday Matinee – Earl Barton & Lisa Gaye, The Wolfgangs & The Reverend Horton Heat.

If you lived in that time period, you’d have done the exact same thing. Not me. Dig, man, I wouldn’t have been caught dead dancing plaid.

I don’t know anything about The Wolfgangs except that they rock and may or may not use illegal substances.

Very few bands can cover a classic Johnny Cash song like Folsom Prison Blues, but the Reverend Horton Heat did just that, and even cranked it up a notch.

Rock on, my friends. More stuff coming down the pipe.

1975 Geeks n’ Coors

Possibly the original Geek Squad, Rice University, 1975, but I’m more interested in that LP vinyl album on display because it was apparently important to them. I think it says “Symphony No. 1” in the title and maybe Andre Previn.

Holy crap. The hints were all over the place. Those dudes were music nerds, not computer geeks, and kudos to the guy on the left with the washing machine hose bugle.

Finally, I can sleep.

[Top image found here.]

Saturday Matinee – Portlandia Gutter Punks, Music From Hell & Joe Bonamassa Rips It

Heh. I’ve seen posers like this in Santa Monica and elsewhere in Southern California.

Dang [via].

Reminds me of Tom Waits’ “Conundrum” that he described as the sound of “a jail door closing behind you” and says it looks “kind of like a Chinese torture device.”

So many uncredited influences crammed into one awesome jam.

Have a great weekend, folks, and I promise we’ll never post the real names of your dogs and cats without permission.