Je feuilletais ce matin le volume 1 du crucial bouquin édité par Re-Search "Incredible Strange Music" .
Ce livre a ouvert les portes sur ces disques des années 50 dont personne ne voulait jusqu'à ce que des gens reconnus comme Jello Biaffra exhibent leur collection et leur gout pour les pochettes exotiques et leur contenu extra-terrestre. Ca m'a donné envie de démarrer la journée avec quelques bizarreries des 50's et plus particulièrement 2 singles que j'adore.
Le premier d'entre eux est le fameux "Sound of worms" de Tony Burello. Professeur de piano dans les annés 50, Anthony Tamburello de son vrai nom a écrit avec son ami Tom Murray (un publiciste renommé - ils ont eu des gros papiers dans Life magazine) un paquet de chansons barrées qu'il a notamment fait interpreter par Lucia Pamela, un femme de 68 ans convaincue que les extra-terrestres vivaient parmi nous. Et dans ce répertoire extraordinaire figurait cet hymne au son des vers de terre. Edité originellement sur un rarissime 78 tours, ce morceau a été dieu merci rendu a nouveau disponible sur un 45 tours en vinyle rouge sorti chez Sol aux USA dans les années 90. Travail de studio mega cheap pour un résultat époustouflant. Ecoutez plutôt :
L'autre morceau de la journée, "Mechanical man", est signé Terry Randazzo officiant sous le pseudo de Bent Bolt and the Nuts. Sorti sur MGM en 1966 (je crois), il a eu droit à plusieurs honneurs puisqu' il fut notamment classé 17eme par Kenny Everett dans son top des plus mauvais disques du monde ! Il n'en est bien sur rien puisque ce disque est un petit chef d'oeuvre d'humour space age. Randazzo, décédé en 2003, a composé plus de 800 oeuvres interpretées par Frank Sinatra ou Dionne Warwick. Ce morceau fait l'objet d'une performance remarquable car Randazzo essaie de chanter comme si sa voix passait dans une sorte de Vocoder...Il a du charger en nicotine avant de pouvoir l'interpreter ! "Mechanical Man" été adapté en français par le canadien Jacques Desrosiers sous le titre de....vous vous en doutiez...."L'homme mécanique". Bienvenue au 20eme siècle.
Been a long time since i didn't feed this blog. It's all about music. Why ? Coz I've been in the so-called music business for more than 15 years. And it seems like a thousand years. Also because I've loved music for ages. When i was a kid, in 1972, my elder brother offered me a copy of "Dark Side of the moon". I can't figure out why i wanted this album. But it was my first Lp. Was absolutely fascinated by the cover. And the band. And the music. Then, during the Summer holidays at the mountainside with my parents, this long haired guy, dressed in yellow and purple, older than me, was playing fucking great records in his room next to ours. I had to talk to him and find out who this music was from. Deep Purple it was. And for some reason, he was selling his records. I asked for money to my parents and the day after, my collection had dropped from 1 Lp to 6. "In rock", "Burn", "Shades", "Who do we think we are" and "Machine Head" are still part of my life 36 years later. Some months later, my brother's boss came for dinner with his wife and his son. This bloke was a genius. I was into chemistry. And he was too. He also listened to rock'n'roll and sold me his copy of Led Zep IV. wow. 7 records in my ever growing collection. "Highway Star", "Black Dog", "Money". ..We all know this. Once you have heard such classics, you have to hear more.
When I started as a vendor in a record store in Paris back in 1988, vinyl was going through a serious crisis (the cd was the new hype format) and we used to sell these cut outs bought from US and Canadian retailers. Anyone for a sealed canadian pressing of the second La Mano Negra lp for 10 francs or for a dubious Beatles picture disc unearthing the legendary decca sessions ? These were selling like hot cakes.
Anyway, this is where I learned. We could LISTEN to records all day long. This very store i'm talking about is long gone now. But I'll always remenber the sunday afternoon when someone played "The Sidewinder" by Lee Morgan. Dug this so much that i left with a copy in my bag. Was kinda proud and fascinated...because it was my first jazz album. And still one of my faves.
I've been working in recording studios, spent time with artists, travelled with them around the world. have even met and worked with some "big" names (well at least, big names for me - anyone for Terry Callier ? or John Hanlon ? John who ? Yes, the guy who engineered Dennis Wilson "Pacific Ocean blue" and produced many Neil Young lp's. Or Richard Hewson ? Richard who ? A charming english musician who did a few interesting sessions with....Phil Spector (he wrote and conducted the strings arrangements on the Let it be album - no less), Paul Mc Cartney, Supertramp, James Taylor (he wriote the string arrangements again on JT's first lp on Apple) amongst others...
Yep, I enjoyed working for a label, listening to hours and hours of new music everyday. I owe so much to M.T., my previous boss (and probably my one and only, ever). How can you consider not working for someone who tells you during your first professionnal meeting that Burt Bacharach, Lennon/Mc Cartney and Brian Wilson are his ultimate music icons ? He spent so much energy for the love of this bloody thing called music. Yours forever, bro. .
Today is 2010, i'm still chasing vinyls. My collection has grown much bigger. I don't work for any record company anymore. I've even left Paris for Rouen, a city i don't give a fuck about. I hate what the music business is today. I hate people who steal music on the web because it's free. They don't f**** realize that writing songs is a job, that recording music is a job...and that all the people involved in the process have to pay their rent too. And i hate politics more and more everyday. Don't f***** tell me about the blokes who write the new rules of music consumption. Records are dead ? Mp3 is all we need ? Oh yeah.
Life is a bitch at the moment. And the only way to escape is music. I think i could get rid of 80% of my records. and probably keep the 300 lp's and 7's that make my world go round. Why bothering with The Pleasers, the Dave Clark 5 (although i love their name) or Herman's Hermits when The Music Machine, The Sonics and The Jam have written history.
As a conclusion, I can't really see the point of me writing about all of this. Oh yes, i have found my sickness, i must find a cure.
M66
The song title refers to a promise by the US government (and you know how those almost always go--they are one of the three big liars, aren't they). The full lyrics to the original song as sung by Cash appear here, along with a wasted(?) Cash singing it with Pete Seeger. But the version I love is the one I posted here, rewritten by Cash to refer to the love between him and June Carter; it can be found on the second disc (my favorite) from the stellar Unearthed box set. That Cash chose to rework this song shows extreme moxie and sincerity. I am sincere when I say that this song always reminds me of how happy I am to be married to my wife Kathy.
And some days, when I'm not being suckered in by blondes singing teenage hooks, I feel like "So What."
"'I'm just a person, a human being.'
No you're not, you're a part of the machine!
You're a part our machine because we want you to be.
We've got you now and you'll never be free.
We can even have your body after you're dead."
Crass was supposedly able to live up to their posturing. They rightfully skewered all of us--left, right, center, anarchist, authoritarian, religious, violent, punk, yuppie--for our hypocrisy. I think too many people misinterpreted "do they owe us a living? Of course they fucking do!" Depends on the meaning you attach to "a living": Unless Crass was trying to be ironic, "a living" can only mean in the sense of live and let live. There's no other way that it works without involving the violence they decried.
The Sundays had that great quality of timelessness, with songs sung perfectly by Harriet Wheeler:
Burl Veneer's blog entry on A Certain Ratio reminded me of The Perfect Zebras, for some reason I can't fathom or recall; I don't think they sound a lot alike. The Perfect Zebras put out two slick but cool albums (Mixing With Wildlife and Zebra) starting in 1983; "Fascination" was a bit of a hit in parts of Europe. I had picked up Mixing With Wildlife due to its being produced by ex-XTC member Barry Andrews. I long gave up the vinyl, but both albums are available for download at their MySpace page.
Geno still looks very happy in this video for the 2003 album The Return of the G.
And sometimes it takes a few tries to succeed... Fingerprintz put out three albums, all distinctly different, from 1978 through 1981. "Wet Job" is indicative of the rest of the dark, non-commercial songs on their first album, The Very Dab.
I didn't know much about T. Rex, other than having heard "Bang a Gong," until I started listening to the Bongos. The Bongos 1982 album Drums Along the Hudson is one of the best albums start-to-finish from the new wave era. Richard Barone had a great knack for hooky little guitar tunes, sharp and full of goofy lyrics. The last track is "Mambo Sun" (or at least it was the last track until the CD came out with a couple "bonus tracks," later a de rigueur element in the CD era, to the point where it just never felt like much of a bonus... maybe if we just add a couple hundred seconds of dead silence first, hmm?). Sounding just a bit different than the rest of the album, I quickly noted it was a T. Rex tune! Here's a sexier version, if that's possible, of the original:
Here's a recent live version from the Bongos, from an REM tribute concert (wha?? What's the world come to? What next, a DMB tribute concert?) Hey--I didn't even know the Bongos were still about! Barone did some pretty good solo stuff for a while--Cool Blue Halo is top notch--but it's nice to see him singing back with the Bongos again.
My Groups
-
We♥Music Updated: 3 hours ago
-
Nine Inch Nails Updated: Oct 9, 2009
Neighborhood
Explore friends, family, friends & family, or entire neighborhood.
