Rats & Star (ラッツ&スター, Rattsu ando Sutā), formerly called Chanels, was a Japanese pop group that specialized in R&B & soul music… in blackface. Good stuff otherwise. {Had to update the vid. Original was sent to the YouTube gulag.]
Joanie Sommers‘ 1962 hit “Johnny Get Angry” was a complaint about a wimpy boyfriend who wouldn’t stand up for himself, let alone her (and includes a kazoo chorus for some bizarre reason).
Maryann Lents hails from Tallinn, Estonia and nails American rockabilly. She mixes up band members depending on venue. Not sure if it’s “Maryann” or “Mariann” since it appears both ways on the FB pages (and yeah, she’s jamming chords).
BTW, that’s “poke sallet” for you city slickers. Poke is poisonous, and I remember it being called “hillbilly acid.” Young pokeweed is edible when cooked, but no U.S. food organization endorses the consumption of pokeweed regardless of how it is prepared, and the berries can kill you. It’s a lanky odd-looking weed with purple stems, grows to +6 feet.
“Sallet” is of French origin and refers to a mess of greens (including spinach, mustard greens, etc.) cooked until tender.
I have that record somewhere. I think it’s called “Roundabout.”
Oh wait.
YES, they did some some cool stuff to listen to while sitting in the dark at 2:30AM staring at a lava lamp and watching rotating light cylinder projections on the walls of your dorm bedroom and suddenly realizing that all your friends had gone to bed. C’mon admit it. They sang like musically talented prepubescent girls. Relayer was their last decent album IMO, but none of their stuff was roadtrip music.
New Orleans band The Iguanas (Rod Hodges on guitar & accordion, Joe Cabral on sax & guitar, Rene Coman on bass, Doug Garrison on drums, and Eric Lucero on trumpet) live at Cafe Nine, New Haven, Connecticut on Oct. 19th, 2008. Nice vibe.
The missus and I saw them live. Billy would climb up on his upright bass, the drummer would leap over his drum set and hammer on the strings. Great show.
Glad to see The Paladins are still around. Saw them live – they were the warm up band for The Fabulous Thunderbirds at the now-defunct Golden Bear. Bass player was killer, looked like he was biting an invisible tennis ball while slapping.
“The center of an aspirin tablet is the exact same size as the center of a beach ball.” – Master Archer Byron Ferguson.
[Found here. Not sure what the target distance is, but it’s still impressive.]
The Mavericks (Raúl Malo / vocals, guitar; Paul Deakin / drums; Jerry Dale McFadden / keyboards, vocals; Eddie Perez / guitar) crank out some big band boogie woogie in Austin, 2004. It’s a cover of Merle Haggard‘s classic 1966 country hit “The Bottle Let Me Down.”
“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.
Tacky Raccoons 