John Lee Hooker – 4 Vee Jay singles

Trip out on this, or as my very old and close brother Alex, with his almost indistinct Spanish/Mexican accent, used to say, “tripottaniss”, my 300th post.  In one of my recent comments I pointed out that if you look at my first 10 posts and compare the to my last ten, I humbly submit I’ve come a long way (not necessarily qualitatively, but what the hell).  In the beginning I was doing 4 posts a week and now it’s 4 posts a month.  There’s a lot more deliberate effort that goes into each post now, sort of like the difference between being a raging alcoholic, drinking non-stop only to pass out, and the connoisseur
or maybe, the social drinker who savors each sip.  It’s been tough sometimes staying focused because as everyone knows life gets in the way of living, but for the most part it’s been a blast.  There’s about 7 guys that are regulars around here and I am so grateful for that (them).  I’m not really sure what keeps you guys coming back except that maybe you’re just supporting your pal.   Even if the words are uninteresting, the music is varied enough to have been at least likable for everyone at one time or another, and if nothing else should shows my love for music in general, in it’s many shapes and forms.  I used to upload files to external storage sites like Mediafire and Megaupload, so that a person could easily get the chance to do some listening, but as with any site of this kind, there are hoards of those who are just out to add to their hard drive and probably possess very little music outside of the virtual realm.  The Deadhorse “Horsecore” LP was the number one post in which interest was shown, with 685 downloads (8 comments, two of which were mine), and the Butthole Surfers “PCP EP” is in a distant second with 171 downloads.  I don’t know which of the direct links are the most popular, I haven’t figured out how to do that yet.  Anyway…thanx to everyone who has given me some feedback here, you have made this place that much better.

Remember the early cell phones (dudes thought they were cool when they had one of those)?  My cell phone for several months now has been a piece of shit, with a battery that lasts 5 minutes of talking after a full charge (and I’m too cheap to buy a new battery and am just waiting for the free phone you get when you renew your contract).  If I wanted to use it for any length of time I had to have it plugged into the charger, stuck standing four feet from a electric socket.  Took me back to the days before cordless phones (how did we do it?).  Stopping at the pay phone if you needed to get a hold of someone while you were out and about.  Amazing how tied to technology I have become.  I don’t think I’ll do well with the apocalypse (where would I get smokes, too), but you know I’ll survive because this is NoWhere Kansas.

On a side note, U.S. slips to historic low in global corruption index, go figure in a country where we’re conned into gluttony. Beats living in Somalia though.

I know that most of the guys who stop in here aren’t too keen on the reggae scene, but just wanted to pass on that my favorite, long time crackhead, often arrested, reggae, lover’s rock, vocalist passed away from lung cancer on the 25th of this month.  The guy was prolific at releasing records and I think had about as many arrests as he did LPs (not that being arrested is something to aspire to or is cool in any way, but the fact is that you just got caught).  I’ve been to several reggae shows, but for some reason when I think of that genre I think of those white “hippy” girls in Arcata circa 1990, with the waspafarian dread locks, the Little House on the Prairie dress over the corduroy pants and the pathetic puppy with an old piece of rope for a leash.   Anyway in  memory of Mr. Isaacs, one of his all time hits, and rightly so (play it for the one you love, ha, ha, my wife can’t stand reggae).
Gregory Isaacs – Night Nurse
Gregory Isaacs – Night Nurse (Live at Reggae Sunsplash 1983)

What’s there to say about John Lee Hooker, I suppose other than I thought he would be perfect for my 300th post (don’t you just love arbitrary numbers).  Did a blues thing with this post about a year ago and gave up a damn good comp if I do say so myself.  All those were other people’s rips and stuff I wrangled from youtube, so this time ’round you get stuff off my shelf.  Some of my favorite stuff out of all the records I have despite the fact that they don’t have perty sleeves and are seriously used (you can’t miss the Rice Crispy-ness of these things with their snap-crackle-pop).  Listening to these tunes as I type, and the first thing that comes to mind is that whatever you have on your mp3 player or hard drive, it will remain completely incomplete if you don’t put these tunes on there.  Damn, pick yourself up one of these 45’s for less than $10 bucks (some of the rarer ones, that are apparently rare for a reason that is beyond me, pressing numbers maybe, go for a boatload).  Without this man and others like him, most of the shit I’ve posted around here wouldn’t exist.  I’ve got several more but I thought it would be kinda neat (because I’m that neat-o kinda guy) to do a Vee Jay thing.  These were recorded between 1960 and 1965, so the man was already a seasoned veteran of his craft.  Not sure where to start with these eight tunes I’ve got for you, they all stand alone, some hits that you must’ve heard and then some others maybe not.  Tupelo is just him and his guitar along with his foot tapping along to the song, so that might be where to start, but I’m listening to Flowers on the Hour with it’s trippy warbled sound (I have two copies of that record and they’re both that way), so…

Vee Jay 366
Dusty Road
Tupelo (Backwater Blues)

Vee Jay 379
I’m Mad Again
I’m Going Upstairs

Vee Jay 438
Boom Boom
Drug Store Woman

Vee Jay 708
Flowers on the Hour
It Serves Me Right

 

Frottage – Kevyn Dymond’s Living Room tape

No matter how hard I try to look cool, nobody looks THAT cool when they’re smoking.  If you’ve seen Ichi the Killer from 2001 you know the Japanese have a knack for making some pretty sick flicks.

Not much going on boys, just trying to see the “bigger picture” in everything I do.  It’s a struggle, you know what I mean?

One of the CDs I picked up from Goodwill for $1.49 (minus another 10% for my discount card was the White Stripes, “White Blood Cells”.  They were pretty big a couple of years back weren’t they?  For that price though I thought I’d give them a spin.  Not bad for a two piece powering out the popular music.  Kind of a punk rock Robert Plant voice, if that’s possible.  Hands down the best track on the album…
The White Stripes – Expecting
Let me know what you think, curious.

Yet another peice of Humboldt puzzle, thanx to Little Jimmy Forbes.  If anybody’s following along I haven’t been chronological, but place this between Dorf and Crutch, with Grimace and Knothead (coming soon) in between.  Here’s James’ take on the band, “Frottage was Dorf plus Nick Reynolds on Guitar 2 and Marten on Vocals.  We played for a year, 88/89, until Wickman turned 18 & moved to santa rosa.  Nigel and I started Knothead and Marty & Nick started Grimace.  Wickman played with Nuisance down there.  This was the beginning of the exodus to Sonoma county by Hum people.”  This is just good old fashioned sloppy hardcore, blended on high with some serious metal, at it’s very best, and of course done in that special Humboldt way.  Kind of neat too because you get some Dorf tunes with a different twist and some stuff that would later be played by Grimace.  If you’ve ever lived in Humboldt you should know who Kevyn Dymond is, Zappa in a wheelchair is what I always thought, posted his bands Barking Dogma and Drilling For Mom (and soon I’ll post another of his bands called Watts Bald Head).   I wish I would have had the chance to record with him, the master of the DIY cassette.  Favorite tune on this one is The Time Has Come, with lines like, “…the time has come to waste your time…”  What else is there to say except, listen to this fucker, and know that if you never lived in Humboldt County California, YOUR LIFE IS INCOMPLETE.

intro
the time has come
dr jeckyl and mr christian scientist
box
christmas seasoning
groovie mark
nrc
and so forth
march of the slug
the bong that would not die
heavy metal muscle shirt
sad but true
nebraska raisin rice
the end

On the Humboldt tip, any of you heads know if Blue Max Pizza is still there in Arcata (or for that matter what ever happened to Scott that was the manager when I worked there in the late 80’s).  Red Baron in Eureka?

Trio – Da Da Da 7″

You know some (most?) institutions are easy targets, especially something like Christianity, or really any religion for that matter.  Historically they’re all fucked.  Probably the easiest place to find hypocrisy, is in a belief system, but I’ve found that the problem isn’t in the text (even though there are problems there too), it’s the fucking followers.  The ones that claim to be the most devout are the worst.  What’s so odd about that is that every text I’ve ever read deals mostly with introspection as the root, and yet, you have all these extroverted assholes, trying to tell you what’s up.  So anyway, the thing about criticizing these kind of institutions though is that it’s a little cliche.  We should always be critical of those who have power over us, but sometimes it’s just too easy.  Take Columbus Day, for example, was actually thinking about it yesterday.  I’m sorry but if you support this holiday, you need to do some homework or maybe consider what you consider right (or maybe your just an idiot).  Read something like this article, one of a million I found by doing a search. Columbus Day is another easy target for ridicule, in fact it’s almost hard to believe that such a self righteous nation like our own still celebrates it.  It’s silly to even discuss his “discovery” because obviously there were people living throughout the “Americas” long, long before Europeans made genocidal contact, but that’s really an old argument.  Not too long ago I watched this History Channel thing about all kinds of other characters from all kinds of different cultures who “discovered” it before Columbus.  I don’t know why I watched because, there again, how did these idiots discover a place that was already inhabited.  I got to thinking about it yesterday though, and despite how ridiculous the discussion is and the fact that justice would not be served if there wasn’t a hell, just to house Columbus, what a HUGE event it was.  I’m not too bright, but I can’t think of more significant event in recorded human history.  I don’t know…if anyone’s paying attention, can you think of something else that has had that kind of impact?

Another question…anybody into the The Vaselines – Rory Rides Me Raw?

Been sitting on this post for a while now and even though I have plans to post several more Humboldt bands, I thought this would be good to break it up a bit (and to maybe show that there really is no rhyme or reason around here). Trio seemed like something worth posting, seeing as how a couple of weeks (months?) ago I was really grooving on them and trying to track down more of their music besides this 7″ I have.  As the Wiki article says, “By far, the band is most noted for the song “Da da da, ich lieb dich nicht du liebst mich nicht aha aha aha” (usually simply “Da Da Da”) which was a hit in 30 countries worldwide.”  I have to admit, as played out as that song has been over the last 3 decades, with commercials and all kinds of idiots covering it, in 1982, when I first heard it, I thought it was a great tune.  Fuck it, it still is.  What this post is about though is the B side of this French version. Tell me that’s not a bad ass, punk fucking rock tune. That’s it,

Da Da Da

Ja Ja Wo Gehts Lank Peter Pank Schonen Dank

 

As I said, I was kind of in a Trio groove a little while back, so I found a couple of other pieces of wax they did for download. Then I went to Youtube (or maybe it was the other way around), and found all kinds of random stuff, but most importantly, for our purposes, I “discovered” this one live show broken up into tracks from this guy (gal?) Huppelplopp1848.  So in wannabee pirate fashion, I promptly used the JDownloader to rip that incredible set into mp3s.  The true punk rocker may call me a kook but these guys fucking rock.  I have no idea what they’re saying, it really could be anything, but I’ve always been into the exotic sound of music sung in something besides (speak) English (or die).  He sings some of the stuff in English and it’s better than the English spoken by many of my neighbors.  I don’t know…dig or don’t, but know that you are a dick if you don’t have the same musical taste as me.

Bommerlunder

Da da da

Du, ich wär so gern bei dir

Energie

Halt mich fest, ich werd verrückt

Ja ja wo geht’s lank Peter Pank schönen Dank

Los Paul

Oder doch

Sunday Need Love monday be alone

Broken Hearts For You And Me

Ja Ja Ja