June 2006 – Page 2 – Lost In The Grooves

How Can The Killer Save Souls?

   Where: Sun Record Company,                       706 Union Avenue, Memphis, Tennessee
                                                When: October, 1957
                                                Why: recording “Great Balls Of Fire”
Who: Jerry Lee Lewis (pumping piano)
           Sam C. Phillips (producer extraordinaire)
           J. W. Brown (bass, Jerry Lee’s father-in-law)
           Billy Lee Riley (guitar)
           J. M. Van Eaton (drums)

Jerry Lee Lewis: H-E-L-L.
Sam C. Phillips: I don’t believe it.
J. W. Brown: Great Godamighty, great balls of fire!
Billy Lee Riley: THAT’S RIGHT!
JLL: That’s it, that’s it. That’s it!
SCP: I don’t believe it.
JLL: It says, it says MAKE MERRY with the joy of God, only! But when it comes to worldly music, rock ‘n’ roll –
BLR: ROCK IT OUT!
JLL: — anything like that, you have done brought yourself into the world, and you’re in the world, and you hadn’t come from out of the world, and you’re still a sinner. You’re a sinner – and unless you be saved — and borned again — and be made as a little child and walk before God — and be holy, and brother, I mean you got to be so pure! And no sin shall enter there: No sin! For it says, no sin! It don’t say just a little bit, it says, NO SIN SHALL ENTER THERE — brother, not one little bit! You got to walk and talk with God to go to Heaven. You’ve got to be so good.
BLR: Hallelujah!
SCP: All right.
BLR: You’re right.
SCP: Now look, Jerry. Religious conviction doesn’t mean anything resembling extremism. All right. You mean to tell me that you’re gonna take the Bible, that you’re gonna take God’s word, and that you’re gonna revolutionize the whole universe? Now listen! Jesus Christ was sent here by God Almighty.
JLL: Right.
SCP: Did He convict, did He save, all of the people in the world?
JLL: No, but he tried to.
SCP: He sure did. NOW, WAIT JUST A MINUTE. Jesus Christ came into this world. He tolerated man. He didn’t preach from one pulpit. He went around, and did good.
JLL: That’s right! He preached everywhere!
SCP: Everywhere!
JLL: He preached on land!
SCP: Everywhere! That’s right! That’s right!
JLL: He preached on the water!
SCP: That’s right, that’s exactly right! Now –
JLL: And then He done everything! He healed!
SCP: Now, now – here’s — here’s the difference —
JLL: Are you followin’ those that heal? Like Jesus Christ did?
SCP: What do you mean, I, I, what –
JLL: Well, it’s happening every day!
SCP: What do you mean?
JLL: The blind had eyes opened.
SCP: Jerry —
JLL: The lame are made to walk.
SCP: Jesus Christ —
JLL: The crippled are made to walk.
SCP: Jesus Christ, in my opinion, is just as real today —
J. M. Van Eaton: Let’s cut it.
SCP: — as He was when He came into this world.
JLL: Right, right, you’re so right you don’t know what you’re sayin’.
SCP: Now, then! I will say, I will say more so —
JMV: It’s very commercial…
BLR: Let’s cut it.
SCP: You see, you see –
JVE: We’ll cut it ourselves!
SCP: No, we’ll be with you in a minute.
JWB: It’ll sell. It’s very commercial.
SCP: But look. Now, listen. I’m tellin’ you outta my heart. And I have studied the Bible, a little bit –
JLL: Well, I have too.
SCP: And I have studied it through and through and through and through and Jerry, Jerry, when you, listen, when you think that you can’t, can’t do good, if you’re a rock ‘n’ roll exponent –
JLL: You can do good, Mr. Phillips, don’t get me wrong –
SCP: Now wait a minute, wait a minute, now when I say do good –
JLL: YOU CAN HAVE A KIND HEART!
SCP: I don’t mean, I don’t mean just –
JLL: You can help people!
SCP: YOU CAN SAVE SOULS!
JLL: No – NO! No, no!
SCP: Yes!
JLL: How can the, how can the Devil save souls? What are you talkin’ about?
SCP: Listen, listen –
JLL: Man, I got the Devil in me! If I didn’t have I’d be a Christian!
SCP: Well, you may have him –
JLL: JESUS! Heal this man! He cast the Devil out, the Devil says, Where can I go? He says, Can I go into this swine? He says, Yeah, go into him. Didn’t he go into him?
SCP: Jerry. The point I’m tryin’ to make is – if you believe what you’re sayin’ — you got no alternative whatsoever – out of – LISTEN! – out of –
JLL: Mr. Phillips! I don’t care, it ain’t what you believe, it’s what’s written in the Bible!
SCP: Well, wait a minute, what you believe —
JLL: It’s what’s there, Mr. Phillips.
SCP: No, no.
JLL: It ain’t what you believe, it’s just what I —
SCP: No, by gosh, if it’s not what you believe, then how do you interpret the Bible!
BLR: Man alive –
SCP: Huh? How do you interpret the Bible if it’s not what you believe?!!

For the answer to these and so many other musical questions of the ages,
where can you turn but to Time-Life Music’s utterly essential new triple-disc Jerry Lee Lewis: A Half Century Of Hits, available wherever real rock ‘n’ roll is still sold.

It’s Gotta Have A Hooks

As I sit here still suffering from computer woes, I have to tell you about a great little CD I heard a few weeks ago by the young soul artist Ellis Hooks.

It’s called Godson of Soul and it came out on the Evidence label last year. I ran into it a few weeks ago during one of my frequent record store CD hunting expeditions and it quickly became one of my favorite CDs.

Hooks is a relatively young (late 20s) Southern born gentleman who has the uncanny ability to channel Sam Cooke and Al Green whenever he wants to. That’s right: he plays vintage soul of the highest order but does it in-the-now, baby. This ain’t old sessions from an unknown found and released – this is the freshy fresh done with the old school flava!

Old rock hand and (I am sure) friend of co-blogger Gary Pig Gold (yes, Gary – Intercourse is what I am talking about – the album, that is!) Jon Tiven and his wife Sally have produced all of Hooks’ albums including this one and done an excellent job of capturing the old Stax and Hi Records’ sounds. Tiven himself is worth a few columns and his soul tributes on Razor and Tie featuring Gary Pig (among many others) paying props to Don Covay and Arthur Alexander are delightful.

But Hooks is what I am writing about today. By the way, search out his other three records. Most are on Evidence but I believe his debut from 1993 is out only as an import. I have searched them out in the past few weeks and they are all equally great.

To see a new artist go after the old sound and be unashamed about it is refreshing and wonderful as hell. Artists like Hooks and Joss Stone are giving me faith in the music business again. A bonus with Hooks is he can write some hellacious lyrics and with his good looks and talents there is no reason he shouldn’t be able to put the puzzle together and hit it really, really big. I believe he just needs an “in” right now – to do some work or a duet with some established artist on a “big” album. He could do it on his own, but let’s face it – he’s fighting all of the scum in the music business.

If you are a fan of old soul like Green and Cooke and would like to hear what they did done on a contemporary level without all of the Michael McDonald/Taylor Hicks/Michael Bolton cheesiness, check out Ellis Hooks – you won’t be sorry.

The Music Nerd Knows……..

Rebecca and the Sunnybrook Farmers

There are many odd things about the sole release from Rebecca and the Sunnybrook Farmers. First of all, the album was recorded in one weekend. The band drove up to New York from their hometown of Pittsburgh, recorded the album, and went home. Secondly, the album’s label, Musicor Records, was primarily a country label. The only other hippie band on the label was the equally obscure Tingling Mothers Circus. Third, the bluegrass sounding band name; while hippies often DO have farms (especially indoor ones), the band name is hardly an indicator of the freakiness present on the album. And that’s just the beginning: there are two Ilenes in the band (although one is really Lauren Wood), no one is actually named Rebecca, there is a violin player, and the band is nearly eclectic to a fault. And yet, the album holds together under the weight of all this strangeness, managing to deliver a solid set of songs that are enthsuiastically and imaginatively played.

Side One is especially strong. “Two Blind Sisters” is a beautiful, baroque tearjerker, “Endless Trip” is a nice slice of West Coast pop, and “David and Sally” fairly represents the band’s kooky, old-world side. Side two veers away from pop, with only slightly less success. “Better Dead than Red” starts off innocuously enough in a reflective, soft-psych mode, only to explode into a barrage of gunfire sound effects, whistles, and cacophonous drumming.

If you can track down a copy, I highly recommended this album, especially the songs composed and sung by Lauren Wood, a gifted songwriter who still plays to this day.

French sunshine pop & continental bubblegum

I’m working on a new book for the french publisher, Les cahiers du rock-
So for the first time i think i’ll write about French bubblegum & sunshine pop-
I will write about US & UK bubblegum & sunshine pop too- Keep in mind that no such book was published in France on that topic, so i will be the first-
What i would like is your help for this book!! So if you can find me great info & tips i’ll send you copies of the book & put you on the credits-
I’m working on a comp too-
More news soon-
Please contact me:
d-luxe@wanadoo.fr

Get The Hinton

I sit here today on a friend’s computer a sad, broken man after the remnants of a thunderstorm totally fried mine this past Sunday. I have pretty much lost everything I have ever written, that is to say, the originals, how they were before all the evil editors I have worked with in the past tried to ruin them, destroy my thoughts and ideas. I still have the print copies, expurgated and diluted as they tend to be. It is not enough.

It is in times like this when I turn to some pretty deep music to try to erase the evil thoughts in my mind. The ones telling me to kill.

Once again I turn to Eddie Hinton.

The last, and really, only great white hope of deep soul music, Hinton wrote songs like Dan Penn, sang them like Otis Redding and played guitar like Steve Cropper. Only better. He spent a lot of time in the big recording studios in the deep South when the soul music boom of the late ’60’s/early ’70’s was at it’s peak. He played and wrote songs for artists like Percy Sledge, Johnny Taylor, Aretha Franklin, Sam and Dave, the Staple Singers and the list goes on and on. All this was just the start, though. It is where he shaped his sound and honed his craft.

All for one reason: to strike out on his own. He got his chance around 1977 or so. The original Capricorn label wanted an album from him and he was only too eager to deliver. He poured his heart and soul, his sweat and tears, everything he had into the album and it was released. And it was fucking great. Sadly, the label started experiencing legal woes around the same time and the album trickled out to almost no response whatsoever.

It broke him. Shattered his mind to the point he was a mere shell of himself. Another band followed and some recording time but soon he was homeless. A friend found him, luckily, and helped him regain a measure of himself and also helped him put out some records for Rounder Records’ subsidiary Bullseye. While decent, these albums are scattershot – his vocals worn and ragged and his songs mere sketches. His guitar playing remained genius, pouring out of what was left of his shattered soul.

He managed two albums before he found peace in 1995. What we have left are rare albums that are the hopy grail of soul music. I implore you to find anything with his name on it and study it. Inside those grooves are the soul of a man who could do anything before the music business ripped his life from him and left him a limp husk.

Keep an eye out for an exceptionally good 3 CD series of songwriting demos put out by Zane records of Austrailia. Google them and buy those CDs. Both works-in-progress and finished songs are featured and the CDs are riveting. Also find Hard Luck Guy which was released in 1997 on the revived Capricorn label. Twenty years after screwing him and two years after his death, the label released what may actually be his best album – comprised of what he was working on before his death, it is a bittersweet listen – he seemed to have located his genius and was on the verge of putting it all back together.

Listen to these albums before you sign that record deal. And anytime you just don’t feel good about what’s going on. They are classic cry in your beer albums from an artist who could have been a legend many times over. Part of me hopes you never get sad enough to appreciate them.

The Music Nerd Knows……

DVD Review; The Willowz – seeinsquares

I have had a DVD in my possession & the best of intentions of writing about it. You know how it is with life and laziness beating you down daily. Well, that is hardly a good excuse, so let’s just get on with it.

We all like music, right? I mean you don’t come here for updates on my 1 year old daughter’s newest, cutest trick. (Let me know if you want to hear about them, because I can provide stories in Technicolor detail). I love music. I have come to a point in my life where my favorite songs are made by some of my favorite people. That is living a rich life, friends. Sometimes the music is slicked up, shiny, major-label fare, but mostly it is folks doing what they love and throwing it out there into the world and seeing if anyone claps. Now, I am not one of those lo-fi DIY religious fundamentalist that can’t look past the spinning reel-to-reel machine to see the virtues of Pro-Tools and a good promoter, but there is something to be said for just getting stuff done without hemming & hawing over obstacles, monetary or otherwise.

I am in awe of prolific artists who are always 3 projects ahead of themselves, filled with so much creative energy that each work is thrown out there not so much for the awaiting masses, but because they must move on to the next thing or else he or she might explode from within. If you fly under the radar, it seems much easier to purge your creative inventory without hindrance. I have heard plenty of stories of records being held back for a "season" or a timed release or having to wait in the queue for a fellow label mate to have their moment to shine. It is frustrating and ultimately stifling for a work-horse artist to sit it out in the stable of label-limbo. So when you get your hands on evidence of a band cranking not only quantity, but quality you must take pause and tip your hat.

Admittedly, I had not heard of The Willowz until I got the DVD in my hands. Judging by their myspace page I am about 31,363 people behind. No matter…I can’t keep up with it all, man. What am I, Pitchfork? Any way, this is probably for the best because I had no idea what this band sounded like, looked like or even that they are from Anaheim. All I knew was that Michel Gondry directed one of the bands videos and used 2 songs in Eternal Sunshine for the Spotless Mind. That is a pretty good endorsement.

The Willowz released a record last year called "Talk in Circles" that apparently was a hit, making it onto Rolling Stone’s best 50 albums of 2005 list. Ok, that is cool, I don’t get Rolling Stone any more, well I do, but they still show up at my parents house in Birmingham, Alabama and I can’t make them stop (for perspective I haven’t lived there since the first Clinton Administration, so that is a whole other story). Recorded in the bassist’s brother’s garage, the record is a sprawling, 20-tracked opus that jumps around genres with ease, but always remains energized and focused. A regular band would be pleased, maybe move onto to make a few video promos for the singles. They are on the smaller, but notable label Sympathy for the Record Industry, so I suspect the money hose is not drenching these kids. Oh yeah, they are all barely drinking age. Trust me, I did my research – all of this is old news, especially if you are from Orange County – I am not.

Well, you can’t stop art. The band has, somehow, managed to wrangle some of the video art-worlds hottest directors and on a thread of a budget, released a companion DVD to "Talking in Circles" called, cleverly, "seeinginsquares." Yes, all 20 tracks get 20 videos…and if I’m lyin, I’m dyin, not a single one is filler. The smart move was getting a different director/directing team for each cut and giving them, I don’t know, $100 to make a video (well not really, but it wasn’t much). The results are some of the best examples of low budget visual trickery you will find.

The first track, “Ulcer Soul” is a prime example of the “how-they-do-that” treatment. Director Ace Norton (who I think is like 12 or something…maybe early 20s) delivers the band in what appears to be their natural habitat, a practice space in some split-level in the suburbs, playing the song while suspended in air, like the pause button is stuck…I can’t even begin to explain it, think time lapse times 100. I read in the additional materials on the DVD (thankfully all directors have a bio and a bit of info about their respective projects) that the band had to jump in the air some 200 times to create the effect. Work-ethic? Yes, it seems so.

That is what I loved most about the DVD as a whole; the band seemed to really take an active part in creating the magic. Watching almost 2 hours of videos featuring the same band can be daunting, and often exhausting. I mean you really have to love a band to sit through every minute and I bet you a dollar you hit the skip button at least once. I have to say I didn’t do it; I sat down and watched the entire DVD without touching the remote. It was almost, and I swear I mean this as the highest of compliments, like watching an extended episode of the Monkees. The Willowz are such a unique looking band, that you will never mistake them for any other out there: Richie, the guitarist/singer/what appears to be ring-leader, is going to get the leading role in the future bio-pic about J Mascis, Alex is preparing for his role as the next fair-skinned baddie in Lethal Weapon 5 and Jessica, well she is the prom queen of 1972 that all the A/V club geeks wanted to date. They are all funny and charismatic alone and tear it up as a collective band. And again, none of them are any where near 25 years of age.

I could go into all of the infamous dirt on these guys, but why bother…you can read plenty of that stuff with a simple google search. Get the DVD and enjoy.

John Cale, Hackamore Brick… and the LITG reissues keep on coming

Just pulling your sleeve to a couple of Lost in the Grooves-featured albums newly available on shiny silver disk.

Most prominently, John Cale’s eleganza classic Paris 1919 gets the expando reissue treatment with alternate arrangements and one outtake.

And a bootleg of the late-Velvetsy Hackamore Brick album is floating around, available from most of the usual specialty mail order sources.

Okie Musique Concrete

I’ve just received my latest Care Package from ol’ pal Mark Weber, via the Zerx Records & Press faux-conglomerate deep down there in the 87108 zip code.

Yes, wittily stuffed inside his very latest chapbook split alongside jazz poet Gerald Locklin were the latest two installments of Mark’s greatest of so many inventions: Volumes 21 and 22 of the rightfully Zerx-famous albuZERXque compact compilations.

The ear truly boggles …particularly at the abundant sharp Dylan retreads spread across Number 22.

“Some people call these things samplers akin to them embroidery and needlework delicacies those dear 19th Century maidens stitched together,” Mark writes. “Just like that.” Yet they, like all 50-and-counting Zerx CD’s, are in fact limited editions of usually a hundred or so, each of which come in hand-printed linocut cardboard sleeves, “rather than computer-generated jewel case art.” It goes without saying, though I will anyways, that all us happily Lost in the Grooves can greatly appreciate this endearingly analog approach to the graphic end of business, no?

Meanwhile, whilst not trawling NM as if on behalf of some bizarro world Smithsonian Institute, and/or heading up his very own self-styled “prettified country band” The Bubbadinos (“Tenuousness, trepidation, drought, locust, musica antigua, cant & want, pock-marked chrome, lapsed backyard hallucinations, clippity-clop cowboys & indians, flat tires, cloven-hoofed, low odds, dice, subdural hematoma, jailhouse coffee, bellybutton lint” is how their most-aptly-titled The Band Only A Mother Could Love album has actually been described, I kid you knot), Mark can as well be seen curating his esteemed collection of modern age jazz photos over there at UCLA, can quite simultaneously be heard hosting Weber’s Weekly Worldwide Radioshow straight outta KUNM 89.9 Albuquerque, and somehow still finds some time to tell us all about it at the inimitable ZerxPressBlogSpot.

Head straight there immediately, won’t you all, to sample for yourselves some of the many munificent Zerx Leisure Products: “Roots Music from the Deep Southwest of the Mind,” “Home of The Bubbadinos and other world / class musicians and poets who happen to live in New Mexico or would like to or visited some time or ‘nuther.”

“Over 50 Records and Still Going Wrong !”

The Outraged Husbands

And to what pleasure do we owe this 25 cent treasure found all seven inches of in a Powell Street furniture store, hmm? With its’ aquamarine logo that relays label name Psi Records, a trident jutting out betwixt the two words. The label address is 1747 W. 3rd Ave., Vancouver, B.C. The printed phone number of 732-3761, when called, knew no knowledge of this record, catalog number 101. Year unknown. The group was The Outraged Husbands. The song “Zeus Creation” is the sounds of a group of men boisterously chanting along with marching band style orchestration, “We are the men of the nation, we like the ladies in their place, so we say down with the women’s liberation and up with Zeus Creation! We like the girls who wear bikinis, cool chicks are never ever cold…”
What follows next is an endless litany of household chore commands and how, after all that, the women must “look like a doll” when they get home. The song signs off with, “Men! Wonderful men! Sensational men!” And applause. It all clocks in at one minute and fifty four seconds. Flip the record over and it’s the exact same thing. Was this song a tongue-in-cheek response to Women’s Lib or was it a satire on the misogynist response to Women’s Lib? This record seems too out and out ridiculous to be made as a fear based reaction to equality. Still, who or what was this mysterious Zeus Creation?
One large question remains: who made this record?

A Little Street Team Work

As I sit here ready to start a day full of article deadlines and some magazine consulting work, I have decided to ruminate on the next few blogs and who I will write about. A little pre-publication “street team” work if you will – you know, do some advance work and get you, the audience, ready for some prime obscure musician/recording writing.

In the next week or so I will be writing about several of my all time soul and jazz faves including soul great Don Covay (any of his albums are good, but there is one obscure blues-based CD he recorded under a group name alias I will be specifically talking about), Memphis soul titan Eddie Hinton (this guy was a genius who could do it all – write songs, play blistering guitar, sing like Otis Redding, and, sadly, have a mental breakdown so severe it cost him his career), organist and hero of mine Jimmy Smith, James Brown’s right hand man and funk-king in his own right Bobby Byrd, the original Do Right Man and brilliant songwriter Dan Penn, and maybe Polk Salad Annie’s best friend Tony Joe White as well.

As you can see, I am on a major soul and jazz kick lately. Over the past year or so I have really become quite bored with rock music. While I am an intense power pop and psyche-rock fan and may decide to do some writing about The Spongetones, Dungen, Willie Wisely, Jellyfish and others of that ilk, by and large most rock is leaving me cold. I am sure it’s just a phase. For a long while, and even continuing to this day, I was up to my earholes in great alt.country music as I embraced my inner banjo-loving redneck. While the feeling isn’t as strong, I still get exciting when bands like the Bottlerockets release new albums (which they just did, the album Zoysia on Bloodshot Records) and make tour stops around the Southeast.

There is so much great obscure music
out there, some of it released by major bands and just forgotten about. For example, did you know both The Tokens and The Four Seasons each released great, obscure, forgotten psyche-rock albums that rank right up there with Sgt. Pepper and Pet Sounds? Bet you didn’t. Very little recent music makes me smile – but the underground stuff, whether it be vintage or new, is simply great to discover and I am hoping I can bring you to some new stuff that makes you travel down a whole different musical avenue.

Well, that’s it for today. Hopefully you know at least a few of these names, or maybe it’s even better if you don’t. Do a little homework this weekend and check some of them out. Their all great – I wouldn’t tell you about them if they weren’t!

The Music Nerd knows…….