video – Tacky Raccoons

Saturday Matinee – Ren Gill, Mocca Garden & Laid Back Country Picker

Ren Gill is a Welsh musician / performance artist who tells heavy (and often dark) stories in his songs and videos.

I was about to categorize him as merely a talented multi-media character actor until I read his horrific story in the Daily Mail. In 2009 he woke up severely ill with what he described as the worst hangover he’d ever had, but it didn’t go away. After years of misdiagnoses that included physical and psychological treatments, specialists eventually identified the culprit as chronic Lyme Disease in 2016.

Mocca Garden is a ska / reggae band from Thailand. Can’t find much about them, but this (translated) page explains what to wear to their shows.

Laid Back Country Picker (LBCP) is guitar slinger LB, Honey Bun on drums, and that’s about all anybody really needs to know.
[h/t Gorehound]

Have a great weekend folks and we’ll deal with the balloons tomorrow.

Saturday Matinee – Glenn Marshall / Fractal Forest, The Ramones, The Brothers Comatose & Sue Foley

AI meets Mandelbrot, and the results are beautiful, serene – and distubing. Computer artistry by Glenn Marshall, based upon a 3D Appolonian fractal animation by Inigo Quilez.

Here’s a palette cleanser. The Ramones.

The Brothers Comatose crank out denim trenchcoat bluegrass.

Think premium leaded Fabulous Thunderbirds with SRV. Sue Foley is an amazing blues rocker out of Austin, Texas.

Got a lot going on these days, and even more to worry about if I really wanted to bother, so maybe I’ll just have fun instead. See you tomorrow.

Saturday Matinee – Postmodern Jukebox, MONSTER TAI-RIKU, and Victor Wainwright & The WildRoots

Postmodern Jukebox did a good ‘un with this U2 cover in soul / R&B style featuring Rogelio Douglas, Jr. (2019). No comment on the, um, harmonica solo.

Excellent Buddy Guy cover by MONSTER TAI-RIKU (and that is how to play blues harp). Formed in 2012 and comprised of young session musicians, the band took a leave of absence in March of 2020.

Currently recording as Victor Wainwright & The Train, it’s Dr. John meets Roomful of Blues.
“Victor Wainwright, winner of this year’s Pine Top Perkins Piano Player Award at the BMA’s, is a force to be reckoned with on a piano. He IS honky-tonk and boogie, with a dose of rolling thunder. Wainwright’s playing is simply beautiful madness.” -American Blues Scene

Got some free time to mess around this week, and gonna mess around tomorrow too. See you when you get here.

Saturday Matinee – Cyriak Harris, Hubert Sumlin & Sunnyland Slim, and Scott H. Biram

Cyriak Harris strikes again with a music video for the band Light.
[via Ms. Cellanea].

Hubert Sumlin & Sunnyland Slim (with Willie Dixon on bass & Clifton James on drums) from The Stars of the 1964 American Folk Blues Festival, a German television program. Sonny Boy Williamson II did the introduction.

Scott H. Biram is a one-man ass-kickin’ rock machine. (Reposted from about ten years ago).

I’m yawning, gotta go, see you back here tomorrow.

Saturday Matinee – Raoul Servais, Doo Rag, Flat Duo Jets & Raskahuele

Harpya, by Belgian animator and filmmaker Raoul Servais, is based upon C.L. Moore’s 1933 creepy short story Shambleau.

Music video for the song Trudge by Tucson, Arizona duo Doo Rag, shot on 35mm film. Pure roots blues industrial punk is kinda hard on the earballs, but I like it.

Flat Duo Jets performed a cover of Benny Joy’s Wild Wild Lover on Letterman in 1990, with backup by Paul Schaefer’s Late Night band. Don’t know how I missed these psychobillies. Dexter Romweber was/is an animal.
[h/t Gord S for both Doo Rag & FDJ.]

L.A.’s Raskahuele is tight My Spanish is too slow to translate, but sometimes I don’t need to know the words.

Have a great weekend, see you back here tomorrow, at least for a while.

Saturday Matinee – Vi Hart, Otros Aires, The Head Cat & Gunhild Carling

Vi Hart has put together some amazing videos over the years – her series Doodling in Math Class is excellent. [h/t Memo Of The Air]

Argentine tango in black and white.
Otros Aires is “a 21 Century Audiovisual ElectroTango project created, produced and directed by the Argentinean musician, architect & video artist Miguel Di Genova. It was made between Barcelona and Buenos Aires ports in 2003.“

Meanest cover of Dale Hawkins‘ Susie-Q I’ve ever heard.
The Head Cat, live at The Key Club, West Hollywood, California, May 6th, 2010, consisted of Slim Jim Phantom (Stray Cats) Lemmy Kilmister (Motörhead) & Danny B. Harvey (Rockats). Lemmy died in 2015 at the age of 70 and was replaced by David Vincent (Morbid Angel).

Gunhild Carling is amazing. Someone told her the bag pipes are a musical instrument so she played them.

Happy New Year to all, and let’s hope the insanity abates in 2023.

Saturday Matinee – Terry Gilliam, Oliver’s Boogie, Booker T. & The MG’s, and someone named Fran Martin

“In 1968, while learning his trade and working in London as an animator, Terry Gilliam somewhat accidentally created a short film, the project would later take on the working title of The Christmas Card.”

THIS KID.

With only a week until Christmas, Booker T. & The MG’s Time Is Tight seems fitting. Have a great weekend. I’m gonna sleep in before things get too busy.

Oh, and just one more thing because it’s awesome.

Saturday Matinee – The Avalanches, Otava Yo, The Ape Man, & Abby The Spoon Lady w/ Chris Rodrigues

Fun and surreal, The Avalanches are kinda like a sedated Devo on speed.

The 11th video by Otava Yo. Timonia is a folk song from the Kurskaya district, and filmed in the village of Kuznetsovo, Republic of Mari El, Russia, over the summer of 2020. Captions are helpful, sort of. Nice scenery.

Filmed in 1971 by a 10 year old boy, an ape man terrorizes the neighborhood. [Caution: Disturbing images and graphic violence.]

Pure Appalachia. Abby The Spoon Lady and Chris Rodrigues, busking on Wall Street, ca. 2014.

Yeah, these are kind of surreal for a Saturday Matinee, but it all seems to make sense given recent events. Have a great weekend and we’ll meet up tomorrow for therapy.

Saturday Matinee – Sam Butera & The Witnesses, Ry Cooder, and Miles Davis w/ Robben Ford & Bob Berg

Sam Butera & The Witnesses (1964).

Written by Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman, Elvis scored a hit in 1961 with Little Sister in 1961, but Ry Cooder‘s 1982 version is my favorite.

New Blues, Miles Davis w/ Robben Ford & Bob Berg (1986).
Don’t be fooled -it starts out slow then sneaks up behind you and kicks you in the head. Ford steps in at about 3:00.

Have a great weekend, see you back here tomorrow and we’ll talk it over.

Saturday Matinee – Swamp Dogg, Tamio Okuda w/ Super Chikan Johnson, and Ronnie Earl & The Broadcasters

Seems like Swamp Dogg has been around forever; he’s 90 and still recording: “Every time I listen to some new music that everybody thinks is the greatest thing since hot biscuits, it’s full of Auto-Tune.” He decided to give it a go, and used it to give “a sense of emotional detachment” on his album Love, Loss and Auto-Tune (2022).