Saturday Matinee – The Big Lie, Bad Manners, Reel Big Fish & The Skatalites

The Big Lie (1951). Yeah, it was propaganda, but it was also true. I went to school with a guy whose family escaped from communist Hungary in a hot air balloon. You can laugh, say that “It can’t happen here,” but it IS happening here.

Bad Manners – one of my favorite Brit Ska bands.

Reel Big Fish. They were kinda awesome.

No one could out-ska the Skatalites.

1]Freedom Sound
2]Man In The Street
3]Guns Of Navarone
4]El Pussycat
5]James Bond Theme
6]Sugar, Sugar
7]Nice Time
8]Simmer Down / Turn Your Lamp Down Low
9]Rockfort Rock (El Cumbanchero)
10]Latin Goes Ska
11]Phoenix City
12]Freedom Sound – Reprise

Have a great weekend, folks. See you back here tomorrow.

Saturday Matinee – Hound Dog Taylor, Little Walter, Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee, The Allman Brothers Band with Eric Clapton

Hound Dog Taylor & The Houserockers Live. From the Utoobage comments: “He had six fingers on his left hand.”

Little Walter’s Jump, 1967. From here:
Little Walter‘s harp is accompanied by Hound Dog Taylor (guitar), Dillard Crume (bass), and Odie Payne (drums), at the 1967 “American Folk Blues Festival” in Germany just months before his death.”

Who else was at that venue? Bukka White, Skip James, Koko Taylor, Son House and Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee. All blues greats, without a doubt. So let’s go with this:

Yeah, Eric Clapton ripped off “Key To The Highway,” but he also paid many cool tributes, including this version with The Allman Brothers Band.

Have a great weekend, folks. Be back here tomorrow for more you know what.

Saturday Matinee – Rail Bicycling, Eliese LeGrow Bo Diddley & Dick Dale

Rail bicycling looks like fun out in the open, but it would spook the hell out of me on the bridges. One rogue gust of wind blows you away, one mis-timed tunnel and you go splat. Nice vid with nice music.

Elise LeGrow took Bo Diddley’s classic and made it nasty.

Bo Diddley was a national treasure who got ripped off big time by the recording industry, partly due to his own ignorance of copyright law. The vid is from about 2008.

We lost another Great One this past week.

R.I.P. Richard Anthony Monsour aka Dick Dale (1937- 2019).

Have a great weekend, folks. See you back here in 24 or more.

Saturday Matinee – St. Patrick’s Day Eve Edition: Irish Wedding at 5AM, The O’Reillys & The Paddyhats, & The Rumjacks

Pretty good rendition of “The Rattlin’ Bog.” It’s a tough song to sing, but I’m partial to the version sung by The Fenians. Saw them sing it live more than once, and Terry Casey never stumbled.

The O’Reillys & The Paddyhats jam it with “Barrels of Whiskey.”

The Rumjacks‘ “An Irish Pub Song” is “a piss take at the explosion of Irish Pubs in Australia and the bastardisation of a culture.
From the lyrics posted on the Utoobage:

There’s a county map to go on the wall,
A hurling stick & a shinty ball,
The bric, the brac, the craic & all,
Lets call it an Irish pub.

Caffreys, Harp, Kilkenny on tap,
The Guinness pie & that cabbage crap,
The ideal wannabee Paddy trap,
We’ll call it an Irish pub.

You get the idea. On the other hand, my favorite Irish rebel song was a broadside set to music: Nell Flaherty’s Drake. It’s got some of the best snarky curses I’ve ever read. Here’s The Clancy Brothers’ version.

This is kinda fun, too. Good story intro:
The Night I Punched Russell Crowe.”

Have a great weekend, folks. We’ll be donning some green tomorrow.

Saturday Matinee – New York Subway A Capella, Russian Chicago Cover & Ice Weasels

Apologies for losing the original link. These guys are great.

These Russians do Chicago better than Chicago.

Then there’s this insanity. Ain’t no fear of thin ice.

Have a great weekend, folks. See you back here after the apocalypse.

Saturday Matinee – Archie Bell & The Drells

I love this sound.
One hot riff makes it. I used to dance like that, too.

Do the stroll ’70s style. That’s some hilarious stuff.

Yeah, I heard the original today, and it made me smile.
1:40 “Lemme put this hamburger down.”

Have a great weekend, folks. Rock on wit yo bad sefs.

Saturday Matinee – Gene Chandler, Earth Angels & Samantha Fish with John Long

Gene Chandler was still doing retro doo-wop in the early ’60s. Then there’s these guys whose cover was kinda embarrassing, but good at the same time.

Yeah, that stuff is stuff, but this stuff is better.

Sam Fish cranks it, and that hoser on her right [Jonathan Long] could barely keep up. Love it.

Have a great weekend, folks. See you back here tomorrow for more fun.

Saturday Matinee – Stan Coster, Slim Dusty & Ali Mills

Stan Coster sings “The Wobbly Boot.”

Slim Dusty sings “The Three Rivers Hotel.”

Ali Mills sings Waltjim Bat Matilda (better known as Waltzing Matilda, written by her great uncle Val McGuinness).

[All vids courtesy Digger Phil.]

Saturday Matinee – Vulfpeck, Lettuce Funk & Curtis Mayfield

Vulfpeck has a cool funk/jazz groove, reminds me of Weather Report, except these guys make ridiculous “I’m About To Pop A Nut” faces while they jam.

Lettuce [aka Lettuce Funk] combines retro funk with retro future funk, and it works.

Jump to 5:08 for the Kansas Joe & Memphis Minnie / Led Zeppelin funk mashup. (I hear some of Zappa’s “I Am The Slime” in there, too.) Lettuce even had the cojones to cover Curtis Mayfield, and they did him right.

Poor video quality, but the audio is good. Here’s Curtis Mayfield’s original “Move On Up” (with German subtitles).

Have a great weekend, folks, and Move On Up wit yo bad sef. See you back here tomorrow.

Saturday Matinee – Steel Shredder, Egg Cracker, Android 207, Tom Waits & Pink Floyd

Not sure why, but this kind of stuff fascinates me.

Egg-breaking machine complete with egg-breaking porn soundtrack found here.

I ran across Paul Whittington‘s Android 207 a coupla years ago. Seems to fit.

Tom Waits‘ self-accompanied masterpiece “Clang Boom Steam” also seems appropriate.

From the Utoobage description: “The iconic video was created by Gerald Scarfe initially as a backdrop film for when the band [Pink Floyd] played the track on its 1977 In the Flesh tour.”
From the Utoobage comments: “Imagine having to wait 40 years to watch your favorite band’s official videoclip.”

Have a great weekend, folks, and don’t forget that astronomy is gonna happen tomorrow night.