"Untitled, But Still Inspired" : THE WEEKEND MIX

Ace Of Spades- Eli "Paperboy" Reed
Bootie Cooler- Shuggie Otis
Hole In Your Soul- Joe South
Return To Sender- Roy Loney & The Phantom Movers
The Truth- P****e
Meet Me In The Morning (Alt. B Side)- Bob Dylan
Growin' Up- David Bowie
East East Rider- Julian Cope
Today- Hotlegs
Strangers- The Kinks
Believe- Dollar Store
Down River- Spooky Tooth
Ace Of Spades- Motorhead


Any questions?

Have a good weekend mix.

zip

T. Wrecks? Teenage Fauxclub? Smith Westerns

"Minimalist-inspired, vintage pop. For fans of The Zombies, Jimmy Buffet and Jackie Deshannon."

HAHAHAHAA!

Ahem...sorry. Phew. 

That is the "editorial review" you will find on the Amazon page for the Smith Westerns 2011 release "Dye It Blonde."

 Prior to an e-mail I received earlier this week from our friend "cmealha" containing the song below...



...I knew nothing about this band. But the song grabbed me immediately, so I went fishing.

As per usual with new bands, it's never going to be a homerun. In the case of the Smith Westerns, they seem to have the ability to write the hooks and melodies, and their Marc Bolan meets Teenage Fanclub production works half the time.

Here's another one-



Bottom line- I really enjoyed this record, stupid Amazon description notwithstanding.

The Smith Westerns have a new record on deck, "Soft Will," set for a June 25th release. "Dye It Blonde" is good enough to keep me interested in where they are headed. See what you think.




(h/t cmealha)

Bowie's Underrated Gem

"Diamond Dogs wasn't quite Ziggy era to me, although he looked like it image-wise. Bowie was trying to do a concept album based on Orwell's 1984, and some of the songs (like "We Are the Dead," "Sweet Thing" and "Candidate") were like nothing Bowie had done before. The song "1984" pointed in the direction of Young Americans. "Chant of the Ever Circling Skeletal Family"? Man, shit like that was brand new for Bowie."

--William Repsher

I've been thinking about that comment since William Repsher posted it on Monday. It's been almost 40 years since Bowie released "Diamond Dogs" and for almost 40 years I've listened and loved it. But at no time I had I ever thought of this record as "nothing Bowie had done before."

"Aladdin Sane" was my first experience. It was his newest release at the time and of course, I immediately went back and grabbed "Ziggy Stardust." Then, I just continued forward with "Pinups" and "Diamond Dogs." To my young and still impressionable ears, this quartet of LPs was similar in that, it was David Bowie. I loved each record, even if I wasn't experienced enough yet to decipher the differences or understand anything deeper than guitars and drums and vocals.


But our friend Repsher makes a good argument against the BBC for skipping this record in favor of "Young Americans" in the "Five Years" documentary posted earlier this week.  As I said in the comments of that post, the BBC's choice of 1974-1975 over 1973-1974 may have had something to do with Bowie's drastic transformation. The jump from Ziggy to Soulman seems more daredevil than the jump from Ziggy to Halloween Jack, his "Diamond Dogs" persona. But listening again to "Diamond Dogs," as I did again last night, I'm feeling like my defense is weak.

With the exception of the now legendary single "Rebel, Rebel," which was written a full year earlier and tacked on the LP last minute (if I'm not mistaken,) "DD" seems almost unclassifiable. There are the songs William pointed out in his comment, as well as the twisted, classic rock sound of the title track, the big, quasi-Phil Spector ballad "Rock 'N' Roll With Me," and the Broadway soul of "Big Brother," all distinct from each other and all a far cry from Bowie's output until this point. It's also the only record in Bowie's career where he is the sole guitarist and there is some truly fine guitar-playing across both sides of this record.

I find it intoxicating that a record I thought I knew so well, a record that can remain safely on a shelf for all eternity, can suddenly sound like something completely fresh. "Diamond Dogs" does indeed venture to places Bowie hadn't been before, and to some extent, hasn't ventured to since, and does so with much greater results, I think, than "Young Americans." 

For Those Without BBC 2...

A giant tip o' the hat to Morningline1 for tweeting this to me.

Don't know if it's good or bad. We will find out together.

Great stuff. Great talking heads, especially Carlos Alomar, Brian Eno, and an all too brief Earl Slick. Ava Cherry, on the other hand, sounds like she made everything up on the spot.

Does anyone know what happened to drummer Dennis Davis? Take a look and you'll see why I'm asking.

Fab film. Watch it.

Songs Of The Week 2.0: 5/18-5/24

Philadelphia Freedom- The Philadelphia Experiment
To Sir With Love- Al Green
Bootleg- Creedence Clearwater Revival
Like A Rolling Stone- Phil Flowers & The Flower Shop
Epistle To Dippy- The Dickies
Shine On Harvest Moon- Leon Redbone
Friday Night (Is Killing Me)- Bash & Pop

zip

Please check yesterday's post for "tomorrow's WM."

Have a good weekend.

Pick Of The Week

One of the items on my list for RSD was something called the "Cotillion Soul 45s-1968-1970" boxed set. This set was limited to 2,500 worldwide and was to include ten 7" singles, some of which hadn't seen the light of day since their initial release, featuring such artists as Otis Clay, Baby Washington, Walter Jackson and some lesser known but no less wonderful people like C & The Shells and The Blendells.

I searched high and low and came up empty, so empty that I couldn't even locate the set on eBay for a premium. Then a friend mentioned to me that it may have been either delayed or cancelled altogether, info gleaned from a chatroom on one of the RSD blogs.

My relentless and occasionally obsessive searches finally found the damn thing. It did indeed come out and I managed to snag one of the three remaining copies on Amazon. (The other two have since been sold, as well.)

I mention this now because sets like this, or more to the point, obscure soul compilations, are often hit or miss. Like "unreleased tracks," or "b-sides" added to a deluxe edition of a CD, you soon realize why most of the tracks were unreleased in the first place. But not here. Of the 20 tracks, only the Moses Smith single failed to thrill me, leaving 18 tracks that absolutely killed me.

There are songs written by Dan Penn, Bobby Womack, and Eddie Hinton. The cover of Chip Taylor's "Anyway That You Want Me" by Walter Jackson is a personal fave. This is one of the most solid sets of soul music to come along in some time.

Here's the tracklist. (You may need to enlarge it a bit.)

For you vinyl collectors and fans of soul music, I cannot stress just how wonderful this box is. Beautifully packaged and great...GREAT sound on the singles, it even comes with a code to download the whole set.

There are still some sets available on eBay, though not many and not cheaply. But seeing as how this is becoming increasingly more difficult to obtain, I'm thinking of doing something I've never done on a Friday....so stay tuned and pay attention. There will be little to no fanfare for tomorrow's WM.