Saturday Matinee – Litter Bottle Beetles, Alvin Lee, Terry Bean, Keith Richards & James Cotton

Australian Bottle Beetles [via].

That’s Ten Years After‘s version of the blues standard first recorded by Sonny Boy Williamson. RIP Alvin Lee.

Terry “Harmonica” Bean playing Sonny Boy Williamson’s “Bring It on Home” at the 2012 MS Blues Marathon Expo in Jackson, MS.

From the OMG Dept: Keith Richards and James Cotton performing “Little Red Rooster” during rehearsals for the Hubert Sumlin Benefit concert 2012.

And that’ll do it for another edition of The Saturday Matinee. Have a great weekend.

Introducing The Beatles – COLLECT ‘EM ALL

I spotted an article about the resurgence of the popularity of vinyl records recently. The Missus and I were discussing dumping our collection of LP records (actually, only the Missus was) and I remembered that I had some albums that might be of value to someone. The first one that came to mind was this:

IntroducingtheBeatles

I knew a little bit about the history of Introducing The Beatles. It was their first release in the US. Capitol Records and others had turned them down, but VeeJay Records took the plunge and released it in 1964. Quite the collector’s item for an audiophile, but what might it’s value be?

Copies list on Ebay with a surprisingly large spread for such a well-known rarity: $25-$900. Certainly the condition of the disc and album cover affects the value, but it’s still an odd price range.

Ebay Introducing The Beatles

So I went to fetch my copy of “Introducing…” and I found TWO – one a bit worse for wear, and the other in good shape. There were noticeable differences. The Copy A songs on the disc don’t match the album cover list, but those on Copy B do, and there is an obvious disparity in printing quality of the cover faces. Both copies have the “stereophonic” banner.

Front Covers

That’s my Copy A on the left with my Copy B on the other left. It’s a single photo of the two copies, side-by-side, cropped for posting.

Back Covers

Here are the reverse sides of the covers. Copy A is matte finish and faded; Copy B is glossy.

Introducing The Beatles V2 V1 Comparison

Here’s a detail with the bottom of the banners aligned. Both images were scanned and cropped with the same software. Obvious differences are obvious, and they’re even more obvious when one looks closer:

Introducing The Beatles Details

Kinda suspicious, eh? By now I was curious, and I found an article entitled “Collector’s Corner – ‘Introducing The Beatles’ (the world’s most counterfeited album)” penned by a guy who calls himself Happy Nat. The guy knows his stuff, and described the history of the album. There were two basic versions printed due to a dispute between VeeJay Records and Capitol records over recording rights.  I determined that my Copy A was Version 2, while my Copy B was Version 1. I also noted that the stereo versions are the rarest, and a genuine copy may be worth thousands, depending on other minor variations.

I was convinced that my Copy A was a counterfeit, but what about Copy B? I was drooling, so I emailed both Happy Nat and Gary Hein. Continue reading “Introducing The Beatles – COLLECT ‘EM ALL”

Saturday Matinee – The Steve Gibbons Band, Scott Bradlee’s Postmodern Jukebox & The Carolina Chocolate Drops

The Steve Gibbons Band was cool. Anyone who could take a relatively obscure Chuck Berry song about a *ahem* novelty shop bust and get a minor hit in the 1970s was okay by me. I’d have never heard of Gibbons had I not been the 17th caller and won some albums.

Grampa Style. Scott Bradlee’s  Postmodern Jukebox cover of Macklemore‘s “Thrift Shop” is fkkn awesome. NSFK/NSFW warning on the link. [h/t to Bunkarina].

“Corn Bread and Butterbeans” by the Carolina Chocolate Drops. Why haven’t I heard of them before?

I dunno, Babs, but I do know this. It’s time to post The Saturday Matinee and be done with it. Have a great weekend, folks.

Saturday Matinee – Iguana Love, Mantis Love, Don Shaffer & Elizabeth Cotten

Henry Lizardlover, born March 27, 1954 as Henry Schifberg, is a herpetoculturist, writer, and photographer who has lived with as many as 60 lizards in his home.

Iguana love [via].

Mantis love [via].

Don Shaffer was the inspiration behind Radar O’Reilly, a character in the popular novel, movie and TV series “M*A*S*H.” It disturbs me how Hollywood co-opts and distorts the true contributions of people of merit and presents them as caricatures, as they did with Shaffer, Joe Rochefort, Adrian Cronauer, and many others.

Elizabeth Cotten had an interesting self-taught finger picking style that’s difficult to play – unless it’s played left handed on a right-handed guitar (and yes, her last name is spelled “Cotten”).

90 years old, she was still pickin’.

Playing guitar was tough enough for a lefty like me. I was never proficient on guitar or bass, and could never hold a pick; however, I knew some fakes enough to fool some folks. Learning on a re-strung guitar is probably a worse handicap for a southpaw than just flipping it over and keeping the standard tuning. That way, if there’s a guitar handy, you just pick it up and blow the right-handers away (like Jimi Hendrix did).

Wish I’d figured it out way back when. Coulda, shoulda, woulda, all on the Saturday Matinee. Have a great weekend, folks.

Scientific Hot Links

You Got Snakes

Sexy People.

The Party Of The Wealthy.

Canada’s House of Common addresses a potential threat to civilization [via].

This song was a hit on pop radio in the early 1960s, and it’s enough to make you wanna puke. [Wiki: The song was composed by Ghanaian musician Guy Warren in 1956 under the original title “An African’s Prayer (Eyi Wala Dong)”.]

The New Dimensions in Testimony program is pretty awesome. More here.

“‘I now have work for 20 years,’ he exclaimed joyfully.” Disturbing true story here.

Classic list of everything blamed on Anthropogenic Global Warming Climate Change: The Warmlist.

ICYMI Department: The Institute for Centrifugal Reasearch: Gravity Is A Mistake. Must see video [via].

Searching for Twitter followers with the promise of absolutely no content, no following and no retweets.

Top image found here, caption inspired by this:

Saturday Matinee – Goats, Martha’s Birthday Party, ICR Documentary, Doc Watson & Friends

Goats. [via]

Martha’s Birthday Party. This is by the same guy behind The Perry Bible Fellowship.

Fascinating short documentary from the Institute of Centrifugal Reasearch [via].

“Bury Me Beneath the Willow” performed live at MerleFest 2002 by Doc Watson, Sara Watkins, Chris Thile, Sean Watkins & Byron House. The song is an old traditional that likely originated in the 1800s. From The Mudcat Cafe, commenter “Stewie” posted this:

Meade’s earliest printed citation for this is Sandburg’s ‘American Songbag’ (1927), the same year as the Carter Family’s recording and 4 years after the first recording by Henry Whitter in 1923. Other recordings earlier than the Carters were: Ernest Thompson (1924), George Reneau (1925), Kelly Harrell (1926), Ernest Stoneman (1926), Burnett & Rutherford (1926) and Holland Puckett (1927). [Info from Meade et alia ‘Country Music Sources’ p 197.]

Very cool. You can hear the Carter Family’s version here.

That’s a wrap for this Saturday Matinee, and have a great weekend.

Fat Tuesday – Heureux Mardi Gras!

Mardi Gras: Treme Jazz Band

New Orleans’ Treme Brass Band kicks it.

“Treme Brass Band parade down Frenchman Street, New Orleans, during the Satchmo Fest 2011 Club Strutt.”

[Top image found here. More Mardi Gras here and here.]

Saturday Matinee – Маричка, Lucero, Dave Alvin & The Guilty Ones

“Blaxploitation style soviet funk! Фрагмент из музыкального фильма Софии Ротару – Песня всегда с нами 1975 года.”
Hit teh goggle translate. [via]

Lucero‘s “I Want Your Love.” Ben Nichols & Company rocks at the Memphis  Sun Studios in 2012. Jump to 1:10 for the good stuff. There’s a lot of influences in that song, something for everybody, and it reminded me of The Blasters.

Dave Alvin & The Guilty Ones “Harlan County Line” is pure badass grinding blues, and it’s just what’s needed to wrap up this episode of The Saturday Matinee.

Have a great weekend, folks and don’t sweat the weather. We’re working on it.

Saturday Matinee – Spoondog, New Orleans Zombie Report, “The Creation” & Joe Bonamassa

Spoondog is a dog with a spoon [via].

Since tomorrow is the SuperBowl, here’s how one New Orleans reporter trolled an inebriated videobomber.

“The Creation.” Awesome hand drawn animation by Thomas Meyer-Hermann & Film Bilder. ” (Comment on the Utoobage sums it up: “It’s cyriak but drawn.”)

Joe Bonamassa‘s  “Just Got Paid” at the 2009 North Sea Jazz Festival. So much groove crammed into one jam, and it’d take me too long to post all of the obvious influences. “Wheedlie-wheedlie-spoo” guitar solos turn me off because they sound silly and self-indulgent, but this ‘un is a good ‘un.

Have a great weekend folks, and I hope your team wins.

Saturday Matinee – Pete Candoli & Red Nichols & Al Hirt; Scott Biram, B.B. Chung King and Leon Redbone

Red Nichols, Pete Candoli & Al Hirt playing “Hot Lips.”
If that video wasn’t so entirely bitchin’ we’d never have posted it – Every decent link on the U-Toobage we found had “embedding disabled.” Some anusbrain copyright jerks don’t understand the concept of free advertisement. Let’s move on.

Scott Biram is a one-man ass-kickin’ rock machine.

“Mumbo Jumbo” by B.B. Chung King & The Screaming Buddaheads 2007. The Tail Gators did a song by the same name in 1988.

Here’s some fun etymology: In Japanese American slang, a “Buddahead” used to mean a Japanese American from Hawaii (h/t Osprey 1) and “Mumbo Jumbo” (Mandingo, West African in origin) was a bugbear who appeared at night to resolve marital disputes. Mumbo Jumbo was not nice. He’d beat the crap out of wives who disobeyed their husbands.

Let’s lighten it up a bit. Here’s Leon Redbone, one of the few folks I can think of (besides you, of course) who is welcome at my doorstep any time.

That’s it for this episode of The Saturday Matinee. Have a great weekend and be back tomorrow for more nonsensical oddities.