Category: Retro & Vintage

First Grade 1963

Who’s that good lookin’ kid in Row C Column 1? He liked the good lookin’ girl at C8. Her name was Karla. That same year my family moved to a different school district.

I still remember some of the kids in that picture, even though I don’t remember their names.  A9 was funny. A5, B7 & D3 were trouble makers. C1, D1, and a couple of others got detentions the first day of school for having too much fun. True. We had a blast and thought we were being rewarded.

My mom was pissed because nobody called from the school to tell her that Bunky had been detained. She thought I’d drowned in the creek.

Several years later I recognized Karla sitting next to me in Literature Class. She’d transferred into my High School in our senior year, and was a jaw-dropping knockout. I could barely stutter out my name, but she said she remembered me. She said C3 grew up to be a complete rumpswab.

Any of you recobanize your photo?

Saturday Matinee – Alfred, Iggy, Tom, Billy & the Beat Farmers

1926 Hitchcock debut [via].

Posted this one before, but it’s one of my favorites, featuring Iggy Pop & Tom Waits.

Very pretty song by Billy Paul about adultery. I doubt he would have gotten a hit singing about Mr. Jones, but we’re not gonna go there. Mr. Jones was pissed enough.

The Beat Farmers are still around, and we’re going to be around for a while as well. Have a great weekend, see you tomorrow.

Sledge

1956 Pobeda Sledge (Russia)

[Found here.]

Saturday Matinee – Operation Ivy Mike, Zippo Tricks & Ohio Players

1 November was the 60th Anniversary of the first thermonuclear blast known as Operation Ivy Mike – 10 megatons set off on Eniwitok Atoll.
[h/t Soylent Green]

Papa Strutts was on the flagship USS Estes, and said that although they were miles away,  the shock wave blew out all the light bulbs on the ship. He’s an official member of  The Glow In The Dark Society.

Zippo tricks were a necessary evil growing up, at least they used to be a million years ago when we’d flip the cap on the downstroke and flick the wheel coming up, on our jeans. A quick 1-2 flourish. Zippos rock.

And that’s about as silly a performance of pure funk that I’ve ever seen. The Ohio Players, introduced by Helen “I Am Woman” Reddy in 1975.

That’s about all I can take for tonight. Have a great weekend, folks.

Earache My Eye

Bududuh, Bududuh, Bump-Buh-Duh.

[Found here.]

Saturday Matinee – Gainsbourg & Cassal, Robert Gordon, Papa Charlie Jackson & Gnarlemagne

Serge Gainsbourg singing “Chez Les Ye-Ye.” Serge is Pee Wee Herman on sopors. He rocked, but not as much as Pierre Cassel whose shoes became glued to the floor during the video. Cassel’s son is a rapper named “Rockin’ Squat.” Go figger.

Now there’s some Red Hot Rockin’ Squat by Robert Gordon with Link Wray in 1978. That’s a cover of a 1958 hit by Billy Lee Riley, titled simply “Red Hot.” The song can be traced to the work of Robert Johnson.

Personally, I think Robert Johnson was/is overrated, and his fame is due to his recordings covered by British rockers of the early 60s.

Yeah I know, Blasphemy. Johnson got picked, while others, like Papa Charlie Jackson were overlooked. I’m not an authority on musical anthropology, so take it for what it’s worth.

Jackson’s “Airy Man” showed up on a Yazoo Records album that the Missus gave me years ago. The chords were unusual, and the liner notes said this:

“Airy Man Blues,” a work in the key of D, illustrates Jackson’s most complex blues picking in the uptempo idiom at which he and very few other bluesmen excelled.  Two fingers play melody and harmonies with support from a thumb  which is quite steady within several different patterns. Often he executes complex or seemingly impromptu runs on three or more strings.  The basic chord changes are:

D, D, G7, D;
G, D, E, A/A7;
D,  D, G7, D;
G7, D, E/A7, D.
In the break he changes to
B, B7, E, E7, A, A7 D/D minor, D.

Despite the length of these phrases and the comedy of his lyrics, the song is well within the basic blues idiom, lacking in all essential ragtime qualities except speed.

So I looked for a live vid of Papa Charlie Jackson, but instead found a cool tribute by “Gnarlemagne.” It works.

With that we’re out. Have a great weekend, folks and be back here tomorrow for more inane entertainment.

We’re Voting For Obama Because He Says Mitt Romney Wants To Eat Our Grand Children

That’s not a photoshop. That’s an awesome Halloween costume.

[Found here.]

Saturday Matinee – Frans de Waal’s Capuchins, Russian Monkeys, Ska and The Specials

The Capuchin Monkey experiment is classic. Full video here, and it’s worth watching. Frans de Waal‘s  joke about OWS is wrong, but the rest is good IMO.

Good God are these guys scary monkeys. One errant gust of wind at that height would blow ’em away. [via]

The Specials only had one album, but it put Ska back on the map for pop music. The late Amy Winehouse did a horrible cover of the song.

Let’s see. How do we wrap this up on a positive note? Got it.

The Specials Live in Glastonbury 2009. With that we’re out of here. Be back here for Real Gangster Time tomorrow for more inane fun.

[Update: Joanne C corrected me in the comments below. The Specials recorded several albums.]

Push Car

I want one. [Found here.]

Saturday Matinee – Country Blues Edition, With Furry Lewis, Belton Sutherland, and Taj Mahal Hosts A Documentary

“If you want to go to heaven when you D.I.E.,
Put on your collar and a T.I.E.
If you wanna scare a rabbit out an L.O.G.,
Just make a little sound like a D.O.G.”

That’s Furry Lewis playing slide on “Kassie Jones,” a song he recorded in 1927. The video is from 1968. A few years later Joni Mitchell met with him and recorded “Furry Sings The Blues” in tribute.

Lewis despised Mitchell’s song and demanded she pay him royalties. “She shouldn’t have used my name in no way, shape, form or faction without consultin’ me ’bout it first. The woman came over here and I treated her right, just like I does everybody that comes over. She wanted to hear ’bout the old days, said it was for her own personal self, and I told it to her like it was, gave her straight oil from the can.”

Belton Sutherland was a Mississipi Delta bluesman. There is no Wiki article for him and little other information about him on the internest. There’s no entry for him in Lawrence Cohn’s “Nothing But The Blues” either. Sutherland was filmed in 1978 by Alan Lomax at Maxwell’s Farm, near Canton Mississippi.

A story about Lomax’ film “American Patchwork” includes one mention:

“…Lomax rounded up folks even he hadn’t heard of, like Mississippi bluesman Belton Sutherland–a master musician who appeared during Lomax’s session with another singer and asked to ‘try’ the guitar.”

That’s a great documentary about Country Blues, hosted by the great Henry Saint Clair Fredericks.

For those of you who find the rough roots of The Blues too tough to listen to, here’s a a WTF moment for a cat instead.

Have a great weekend folks, and we’ll be back tomorrow with more odd funnies.