How to play the didgeridoo.
How to play the drums.
How to play piano.
How to sing a Christmas Song.
Now all that’s left is to figure out how to get you back here tomorrow. Have a great weekend.
Category: Saturday Matinee
Saturday Matinee – Imelda May, Jimmy & The Rackets; Ron Levy & Ronnie Earl; J. Geils, Duke Robillard & Gerry Beaudoin
Imelda May is way cool. That’s her version of Buddy Holly’s “Looking For Love” which was also covered by The Stray Cats. It was never covered by Andy Tielman as far as I know, but here on The Saturday Matinee, one vid and three links just don’t make the nut.
Yep. That’s Jimmy & The Rackets as if I had to tell you, but now I’m torn between two more vids to post. I’ll resolve the dilemma by posting them both, back-to-back, because each of them made me smile for different reasons. Have a great weekend folks, and we’ll see you back here tomorrow.
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Saturday Matinee – Current Events, Helicopter Synch, Happy Shining, Big Splash and BB, SRV & EJ
15 Seconds.
Helicopter/Camera Synch. [via]
Happy Shining.
Big Splash.
BB King, Stevie Ray Vaughan & Etta James at the Ebony Showcase Theatre Los Angeles, 15 April 1987, with The Wicked Wilson Pickett‘s “Midnight Hour.” (Check out the amazing background of Nick Stewart, founder of the EST linked above.)
Great way to wrap up this edition of The Saturday Matinee. Have a great weekend folks, see you back here tomorrow.
Saturday Matinee – Alfred, Iggy, Tom, Billy & the Beat Farmers
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.
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.
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.
Saturday Matinee – Stag Party, Bottle Ninja & The Neville Bros.
Don’t disturb deer, and don’t mess with a stag during rutting season. [via]
“He really, really, really hates plastic bottles.” [via]
The Neville Brothers with “Brother John / Iko Iko” 1995, Stuttgart.
According to Wikipedia:
The song “Iko Iko” was written in 1953 in New Orleans by James “Sugar Boy” Crawford about two competing Mardi Gras Tribes/Krewes. “Jock-a-mo” was the original version of the song “Iko Iko” recorded by The Dixie Cups in 1965. Their version came about by accident. They were in a New York City studio for a recording session when they began an impromptu version of “Iko Iko,” accompanied only by drumsticks on studio ashtrays.
[Listen to it on the Utoobage here. Lyrics are in the notes.]
Other trivia: Crawford formed a band which local DJ Doctor Daddy-O named “The Chapaka Shawee” – Creole for “We Aren’t Raccoons.”
Fun Facts to Know and Tell. Have a great weekend, folks.
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.
Saturday Matinee – Those Engines Are Entirely Awesome + Train Kept A-Rollin’
Train engines. Awesome. I mean really awesome. REALLY AWESOME.
Okay, I don’t like posting videos that aren’t videos, but Johnny Burnette‘s version from 1956 is worth it.
Yardbirds‘ version from 1968 is cool.
Aerosmith‘s version from 1974 is embarrassing in retrovision.
Tiny Bradshaw‘s original from 1951 is still the best, and it just dawned on me that we’ve posted about this song before.
And with that we’re out of here. Have a great weekend, folks, and be back here for more fun tomorrow.
Saturday Matinee redux – Manual Silo Demolition, Kenny Wayne Shepherd & Joe Cocker
I was distracted yesterday by stuff in meatworld, so this Edition of The Saturday Matinee is a tad late. I promise that it’ll happen again.
This is a jawdropper. They wanted to demolish a masonry silo, yet save the roof “for the kids.” Rather than using explosives, they used sledgehammers. Watch the whole thing for the commentary, or jump to about 09:00 for the awesome.
[Short cutesy version found here.]
Kenny Wayne Shepherd, with some interesting sidemen. Soylent Green has the scoop. [Caution – some of his posts are NSFK & NSFW, which is unfortunate IMO. He’s got good stuff otherwise.]
Joe Cocker‘s cover of the Lovin’ Spoonful‘s 1966 hit “Summer In The City” is a good ‘un, and fitting, too. It’s so hot here the dog melted.
To our fans (especially the one that runs all night in the bedroom): Please don’t burn up your motor and quit on us until the temperatures cool off a bit. As for the rest of you, see you back here tomorrow.
Tacky Raccoons 