Memorial Day is a time of remembrance, reflection, and reunion with friends and families. For your festivities, here are some unrelated tunes, chosen at random and ordered by year of release.
[Previous Memorial Day posts are archived here.]
[Caveat: I don’t own the copyrights to any of the recordings. They are presented here for entertainment purposes only.]
Tear Drops, Soul Brothers Inc. (1967 Salem Records) 1960s northern soul group from Christiansburg, Virginia, with vocals by brothers Earl and Marshal Carter. A copy of this rare 45rpm can fetch as much as $5k. (Not to be confused with Soul Brothers Inc. from Houston, Texas, or S.B.I. / Soul Brothers Inc. Records.)
Moon Baby, Bo Diddley (1961) The amount of time to compose and record this song must have taken almost an hour. It was the last track on Side 1 of Bo Diddley is a Lover (reissue, ca. 1961). It also appears on retro compilations (like this one).
Belgian guitarist (and occasional one-woman band) Ghalia Volt grew up listening to her grandparents’ traditional Spanish music and flamenco songs, then moved onto punk, garage rock, psychobilly and roots rock. She began performing as a street busker in Europe and is now anchored in New Orleans.
“This is the sort of band that gets booked by unwary festival promoters as an early evening support only to discover they’ve stolen the show by 8 pm.”
Since their beginnings as a Copenhagen bar band, Thorbjørn Risager & The Black Tornado have been dubbed Denmark’s premier roots rockers. The septet has performed in Scandinavia, Europe, Canada, the US and Asia for the past twenty years.
Soledad Brothers were an American garage rock trio from Maumee, Ohio. Taking strong influence from blues rock and punk, the band produced four albums and were active from 1998 to 2006. They took their name from a trio of convicted members of the Black Panther Party, incarcerated at Soledad Prison in the early 1970s.
Panic walks amok: This week’s news feeds shifted to stories of dignitaries chowing down in China, a possible super El Niño, un-salmandering the gerrymandering, snorkeling near the USS Arizona, and the Rat Turd Virus. All in all it made for a slight respite, and Porch Time is scheduled for porchtime o’clock. See you then and there.
Pressure Drop, The Clash (1979) “Now when it drops on your dirty little head (oh yeah)
Where you gonna go?” In 1979, premier UK punk group The Clash covered The Maytals’ 1969 hit.
Monster Mike Welch Band: Mike Welch / guitar & vocals; Alex Schultz / guitar; Lorenzo Farrell / keyboard; Derrick “D’Mar” Martin / drums & faces. Welch has been performing and recording for over 30 years. The bluesman from Boston was only 13 when Dan Akroyd gave him the nickname.
Texas roots rocker Joe Ely kicked the Austin progressive country music industry loose in the 1970s. Besides his own solo work, he performed with many other headliners, including Bruce Springsteen, Uncle Tupelo, Los Super Seven, The Chieftains, James McMurtry, The Clash, Lyle Lovett, John Hiatt, and Guy Clark. After suffering from Lewy body dementia and Parkinson’s disease, Ely passed away at the age of 78 in December 2025 [obit].
Colin James‘ 1988 self-titled debut was the fastest-selling album in Canadian history. It won him his first of seven Juno Awards and an opening spot on tour with Keith Richards. So far he’s got seven Gold-certified albums in Canada, including four Platinum albums and two Double Platinum albums.
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Canadian singer and songwriter Amanda Marshall was 16 in 1988 when she met blind guitarist Jeff Healy; he was so impressed with her vocals he took her with him on tour. In 1993, Marshall’s self-titled debut album was released in 1995 went on to become one of only eighteen albums in Canadian history to achieve Diamond status, and achieved Gold or Platinum status in fifteen countries.
Enough to keep yer bones a-rockin’ and yer earballs a-poppin’ – at least until Porch Time. Tomorrow. On the porch. Be there or be L7.
[Caveat: I don’t own the copyrights to any of these recordings. They are presented here for entertainment purposes only. Images found scattered around the internets.]
Abandoned cars, Old Car City USA, White, Georgia. Photographer unknown.
Go Away Baby, The Baby Dolls (1960) “Hi I am an original Baby Doll who is flattered by the positive comments and that our records are being played and recognized by the many viewers of websites. Just a little history on us. The Baby Dolls were a young Black female group that consisted of two sisters. and 2-3 friends that got a record deal with Maske records. I learned that our records were being played on various websites a few months ago, and was surprised that anyone remembered us, but honored that they did.” – Rebecca Warren, via YouTube comments, 2014.
Formed in 2023, The Dirty Rotten Vipers is a New Orleans 12 piece gutter jazz street band busking at Royal & St Peter most afternoons.
Buck & Evans are a Welsh blues rock duo consisting of guitarist/songwriter Chris Buck and vocalist/keyboard player Sally Ann Evans. Their paths crossed in 2013 via overlapping connections with their managers and guitarist Slash of Guns N Roses (who referred to Buck as “a fu*king awesome guitar player“).
The Dirty Weather Blues Revue is an electric blues roots rock quartet from Bristol. After touring the UK and Europe they released their debut single in February of 2026. They don’t appear to have a website or recording label… yet.
Another assassination attempt foiled, the King of England had high tea in D.C., Iran is toast, the SCOTUS ruled against racist gerrymandering, and the marxists are doing their May Day hey hey ho ho performance art again. Flavorful news indeed, and we’ll mix in some quality Porch Time to top it off. See you tomorrow at the appropriately unscheduled hour.