The Spotnicks’ “The Rocket Man” (1962). Pre-Devo awesome [via].
The Specials‘ “Ghost Town.” Too much fighting on the dance floor.
Ms. Wireways (?) a Jamaican radio DJ in Southern California in the ’80s, said this was the best reggae song ever. Bad Manners’ “Sampson & Delilah” fits the bill, even though the vid sucks donkeys. Close your eyes and listen instead – it is a pretty song.
Buddy Guy is one of the last original bluesmen. Here he is, backed up by G.E. Smith who is no slouch either.
That’s it for this edition. Have a great weekend, folks, and we’ll see you back here tomorrow.
Talking Heads‘ classic “Swamp” performed at the London Wembley Arena 1982. It was released the following year, creeped me out, and I became a TH fan.
Ry Cooder‘s swamp-rock cover of Elvis’ “All Shook Up” may have been posted here before but so what – it’s awesome and it fits the theme of this post.
“Now, Amos Moses was a Cajun. He live by hissef in da swamp.”
This is the best cover of Jerry Reed‘s “Amos Moses” I’ve ever heard. The Sensational Alex Harvey Band took it and made it nasty. (This 1976 video is from the German TV show Pop Scop.)
Jerry Williams Jr. aka Swamp Dogg at the North Sea Jazz Festival in Rotterdam 10 June 2010. “Synthetic World” has a very cool 60s R&B groove.
That’ll do for this edition of The Saturday Matinee. Have a great shopping spree, folks.
Yesterday was the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy by a communist named Lee Harvey Oswald. I was very young, but I remember understanding that something terrible had happened.
JFK was indisputably the last conservative democrat to hold the Office of the Presidency, and the loss still echoes.
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On a lighter note, in 1963 one of my prized possessions was a transistor radio that I listened to constantly, and I wasted a large number of batteries by falling asleep with the radio on my pillow.
Here are three favorites.
The Chantays performed Pipeline live on The Lawrence Welk Show in 1963. According to the liner notes on their album, the oldest member of the band from Santa Ana California was 17 when they invented surf-rock.
This was the also the age of the “girl groups.” Before lil’ Bunk was in the double digits of age he liked girls, just couldn’t admit it to his buddies, and was secretly in love with Ronnie Spector, Skeeter Davis, Barbara Lewis and The Chiffons, but not Leslie Gore – what a whiner.
Blackberry Smoke Live with Billy Gibbons, Ft. Lauderdale Florida, 30 November 2011. Great swamp rock blues, and Blackberry Smoke is NOT country pop. [h/t Russ via email.]
Country pop annoys me for many reasons. It’s predictable, prepackaged, over engineered and mass-produced; the rhymes are stretched, and it has no soul. But Southern Rock kicks. Here’s The Allman Brothers ‘ “Whipping Post” from September 1970 as interpreted by Frank Zappa and band (here’s why) circa 1984.
And with that we’re out for the weekend. Have a great one, folks.
“Baby Please Don’t Go.” Big Joe Williams was the first to record it in 1935, and it’s been covered by many bands since, both in blues and rock. Here’s Williams’ solo version, live, on 9-string guitar. We may have posted this one before, but so what. We probably posted the next one as well.
Muddy Waters‘ live version of the same song, featuring James Cotton on harmonica, in Chicago 22 November 1981. It’s a classic performance, then some friends showed up to make it awesome.That’s a wrap for this edition of The Saturday Matinee.
Have a great weekend, folks, and don’t forget VETERANS DAY. EVER.
Here are two short, rarely seen film clips featuring the Marx Brothers. The first clip is a promo film Groucho, Chico, Harpo and Zeppo did in support of their movie “Monkey Business”. The other clip features Groucho and Carole Landis entertaining some marines during WWII.
Yeah, I hear ya. You want some kickass rockabilly about right now, right? Let’s tear it up.
Billy Burnette was born into a Rock-N-Roll Family and his band is entirely awesome. Have at it.
And have a great weekend, folks. Be back here tomorrow for more fun,
Tom Waits was indicted [sic] into The Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame in 2011, and Neil Young introduced him. Great intro, great clips, great quotes. Someone said that Waits doesn’t sing the same song the same way twice.
“I think what I try to do is write adventure songs and Halloween Music.” –Tom Waits
That last quote cracks me up, because back when we still had trick-or-treaters coming around, we’d do up the front entry and blast Mickey Hart’s “Planet Drum” and Wait’s “Bone Machine” to the neighborhood. Great Halloween music.
Loud, piercing and sharp… a whistle is hard to ignore. But whistling languages are in danger of dying out. But residents of Kusköy on the Black Sea coast still communicate by whistling.An ee sounds higher than an ah. Consonants are distinguished by changes in pitch over different intervals of time. Eskimos communicate with whistles; so do indigenous people in the Amazon, and in Europe shepherds keep boredom at bay and communicate by whistling to each other. But the world’s 70 whistling languages are slowly becoming extinct. Kusköy in Turkey is defending the tradition.
I’m not sure if Harpo was self-taught, but I know that some items in his Wikipedia entry are contradicted by Groucho’s Autobiography. The story I recall (that means “I seem to remember but I’m too lazy to research it”): there was a dispute with a theater owner where the brothers were perfoming. Harpo was pissed, said he hoped the place burned down. It did, and Harpo vowed never to speak on stage again. I don’t know if it’s true, but I recall (again, that means “I seem to remember but I’m too lazy to research it”) that’s what Groucho claimed.
Awesome Retro Cover of Miley Cyrus’ “We Can’t Stop,” and it beats the hell out of the original. Post Modern Jukebox is amazing, and that song is dedicated to Calo who’s having some tough times. Get well, Suki.
