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.

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.

Saturday Matinee – Bert The Turtle, Time for Sushi & Jaco Pastorious

Bert The Turtle showed children how to survive a nuclear attack – assuming they’re far enough away from Ground Zero to have time to react. The film was shown in schools from 1952 into the 1990s.

David Lewandowski‘s “Time for Sushi” (2017) is pure disturbed weirdness. (His 2013 vid “Late For Meeting” is a classic.)

The late Jaco Pastorius was one of the greatest jazz-funk fretless bass players in modern times, IMO. [Video h/t TITH]

Have a great weekend, folks. We’ll do something just as fun tomorrow.

Saturday Matinee – Turbulence, Laurie Anderson, MiniMall & The We Five

This Is Your Captain speaking. We’re experiencing some minor turbulence and we ask that you stop screaming.” Wild rides were ridden on at the Birmingham Airport 23 February 2017 [via].

Okay, there’s a link to some surreal 1980s Laurie Anderson stuff above, so let’s go to 2010 live for fun.

Anderson was the Ken Nordine of the 80s (without the baritone voice).

MiniMall has a bit of a retro vibe and consists of:
Merced Stratton — composer, ukulele, vocals
Maral Ohan — composer, vocals
Allegra Rosenberg — composer, bass
Wynne Males — trumpet, vocals
Brennan Doyle — drums

[Merced & Wynne ate sandwiches on our rock-n-roll patio recently because Bunkessa knows them. They were all like harmonizing and musical and stuff.]

The “We Five” had this awesome hit in 1965, a cover of Ian & Sylvia‘s song “You Were On My Mind.”

Sylvia Fricker supposedly wrote it in a bathtub in Greenwich Village in 1962. Yeah it’s lip-synched, but it’s still fun as hell. One of these days I need to find out who the lead guitar on the left is because he rocks.

Have a great weekend, folks. Be back here tomorrow for more of you-know-what.

Saturday Matinee – Roy Clark with Buck Trent, The Bros. Landreth & The Reverend Peyton

Roy Clark played a hayseed on the long-running show HeeHaw. He had some serious chops on both guitar and banjo, and Buck Trent was no slouch either. Ignore the title of the vid and the mugging and be amazed.

The Bros. Landreth cranked some serous swamp rock with “Runaway Train” recorded 9 February 2015. Every country band should have a song about a runaway train in my opinion.

“We researched these dangerous Hollywood-style stunts and my best friend Jim Connor volunteered to let me set him on fire inside my house.”Rev. Peyton.

Have a great weekend folks, and make sure that you eat or drink at least one thing that someone says is bad for you.

Saturday Matinee – Retro TV, James Gang & Peter Tosh

I remember some of those shows, and some of them were great.

I remember those guys, and some of their songs were great.

I remember this guy, and he was great.

Very few people could play Chuck Berry and out-do him on one of his own songs, but the late Peter Tosh pulled it off. Anyone ever hear Berry play reggae? Tosh is probably the reason.

Have a great holiday weekend, folks, and remember what it’s all about.  More coming up tomorrow.

Saturday Matinee – Wrestling Women, Listing Ships & Keith Ferguson

Women’s wrestling c.1950 features Ramona Isabella & Ethel Johnson vs. Babs Wingo and Marva Scott [via].

“Waiter, there’s a table in my soup.” -YouTube Commenter

It’s a compilation. Dates, locations and ships are not indicated, but that’s some serious listing. I’d have been hiding in my cabin and praying that the Dramamine didn’t wear off [via].

How about some retro rock?

This one dates from the mid to late 80’s during a resurgence of roots rock / rockabilly spearheaded by The Stray Cats. This was the heyday of The Fabulous Thunderbirds, and Keith Ferguson was their left-handed bassman before he left to form his own band The Tail Gators (yeah, I have some of their vinyl). Ferguson died in 1997 at the age of 50 from liver failure according to Wiki.

Big Guitars From Texas didn’t hit my radar, but there they are, live at Dixie’s Bar and Bus Stop in Austin TX, and featuring Evan Johns, Don Leady, Denny Freeman, Frankie Camaro, Keith Ferguson and Mike Buck, Circa 1985-86.

Have a great weekend folks, and we’ll be back here tomorrow for more awesome.

 

Saturday Matinee – Mavis Staples, The Staple Singers, Les Paul & Billy Gibbons, and Cutty Flam

Nice groove with a great message from Mavis Staples.
[h/t windbag].

The Staple Singers, a family gospel/soul group had a number of hits in the 60’s and 70’s, and “I’ll Take You There” was my favorite due to the killer bass line.

Les Paul met up with Billy Gibbons in 1999. Interesting banter, interesting jam.

Bunkarina caught wind of a SoCal band that she thought I should check out. I did, and you should, too.

Cutty Flam is a 1-woman-2-man retro rockabilly R&B band from the San Fernando Valley. Reminds me of a combination of Richie Valens, The Paladins, Ruben & The Jets (with a sprinkling of The B-52s) and I like it.

Have a great weekend, folks. More stuff is on the way.

Saturday Matinee – The Harrington Brothers, Roscoe Holcomb & Fleadh Finale Ennis

Spot on current events mockery from years ago by The Harrington Brothers.

Roscoe Holcomb sang about past troubles.

More evidence that “Anthropogenic Climate Change is caused by white people” and no one else. There’s an incredible amount of stupid flying around these days.

I honestly hope you’ve been properly inoculated and are relatively immune from this caustic brand of blatant racism.

 

Saturday Matinee – St. Paul & The Broken Bones, Booker T. & The M.G.’s, & The Knitts

Wow. I haven’t heard stuff like this since the Blues Brothers promoted it. Okay I have, but not as far as you know.

St. Paul & The Broken Bones does retro soul / R&B, with a sound that is pure Stax/Volt from the Big O days. They’re from Birmingham, not Memphis, and I’d post a direct link to their website, but it froze up my computer twice (you’ve been warned).

Let’s continue our stroll down Soul Street, shall we?

Booker T. & The M.G.’s were about as close to the center of the Soul Circuit as anyone. (Members of San Francisco’s CCR were in the wings during this performance taking notes).

Okay, let’s jam the gears. How many influences can you cover in one song?

Bunkessa volunteers at a local radio station occasionally, and The Knitts showed up to play live in-studio. The band is getting a following, have some tours lined up (and they know she has a Class B license).

Have a great weekend, folks. See you back here tomorrow for more fun stuff.