mind power: it is what it is

Continuing on the solid roll which began in earnest with 1972’s “Get On The Good Foot“, “The Payback” was Brown’s critically acclaimed response to director Larry Cohen’s decision to drop it as the soundtrack to his blaxploitation cash in, “Hell Up in Harlem“. On the grounds that it just wasn’t “James Brown enough”. Every inch

burn in hell in white flame, motherf@cker

“BITCH” “GO PLAY WITH YOUR BITCHES” “WE KNOW ALL ABOUT YOU NOW DONT [sic] WE? ITS [sic] NOT ALL ABOUT YOU YOU KNOW” “carry on with your threats to anyone/everyone. we all know who you are” “ib are you really LOST? cause i thought you werent LOST. you mustnt [sic] put yourself down. get this

needles, pins. more needles

tales from the ripped, y’hear ? “The word punk goes back to the 1960’s… I remember getting copies of NME in the summer of ’75 and they were calling AC/DC, the Bay City Rollers and Eddie and the Hot Rods punk rock. I remember seeing a big article on Eddie and the Hot Rods saying,

julie’s been working for the DWP

First there is a weekend strorm in a teacup concerning allegations that fat boy, Brown physically hauled junior staff out of their seats in a blind rage. Then, Chancellor, Alistair Dowling confides to Sky News that “the forces of hell were unleashed“ from No. 10 when he first forecast the worst economic downturn in sixty

bleecker and drookit

I had no real idea who dunnit, but I came across it while ‘shopping’ for spoils from Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl“. This is not it. From Wiki: “[Eric] Drooker grew up in Manhattan’s Stuyvesant Town, relatively close to the Lower East Side, which was then a working-class immigrant neighborhood with a tradition of left-wing political activism.

from sad syd to sid sack

not so much a scoop as a sunday afternoon dip. The more tremulous amongst us will recall the laudanum tinctured scribblings of frock coated raconteur, Nick Kent.For a sustained period in the 1970’s, Kent was Lester Bangs’ very English counterpart; waxing lyrical on the pages of the New Musical Express with a necromancer’s eye for

some kind of hollocaust [reduxe]

A deceptive lull from the raging tempest of Amon Düül’s abrasive 1969 debut; which on the whole is a splendid regurgitation of everything which made the Velvet Underground bad, dangerous and hard to get along with. Reheated over the coals of a collective opt-out which was, in truth, every father’s worst fear. Without exaggeration, the

izzy wizzy, let’s get busy

I may well have heard this modal reworking of the Rodgers & Hammerstein classic first performed not by John Coltrane but by Harry Corbett and friends. With puppets. The son of a Yorkshire coal miner, Corbett’s early ambition to pursue a career as a musician was thwarted by deafness in one ear. I wonder how

zippo magic for eskimos and UFO’s

columbia 45: DB8214more paisley pattern than you can shake a staff at A perfect 45. Peerless, and nearly 45 years since its original release, still wholly inimitable. Involving all the studio trickery that producer, Norman Smith could muster in the early summer of 1967, the real magic of “See Emily Play” is in the song

colour as our keyboard

detail from “farbstudie quadrate” by wassily kandinsky, oil on canvas. Take #3,  Recorded 14th July 1970, Abbey Road Studios. Syd Barrett: guitar, vocals;David Gilmour: bass; drums.Richard Wright: organ, piano, harmonium. Engineered by Peter Brown.Produced by David Gilmour and Richard Wright.Because life is duller without a little Syd.  ▼ SYD BARRETT: DOMINOES from “Barrett” LP (EMI

excerpts from the ghost train

i You might recall sly stooping, a littlefrozen rancour on the turnstile.A ladybird caught in the cornerof my mouth, pubic hairsbetween my teeth. Snowballs. Slipping in front of a House of Cards. ii And then there was the barker belching, tempting good grace.The taint of cockles andwhelks, snails on the puckered lipof a lurid painted

the dub that would not die

#LPIR 0001.“an i far an i… a toot’ far a tooth…”Resurrected. From the excellent Trojan 2007 remasters, originally mentioned here; issued on the twin CD, “Ape-Ology“. To what extent Scratch utilized the engineering skills of Osbourne Ruddock or Jammy on this is subject to dub-ate. King Tubby would revisit Super Ape on “A Noisy Place”

the flywheel gathers impetus on the down time

My amiable and anonymous contact from Oreaganomics e-mailed me out the blue late last week to tip me off to this burnt offering by G.O.A.T., Garden on a Trampoline, a project fronted by James Eric:“James has been actively recording since the year 2000, but started writing songs after a near-death experience left him with only

february 14th, sunday, roller girl

The rain was just beginning to hiss when I stole out my front door this morning. Leaving my wife in bed with her mouth fastened on the pillow; a tidy pocket of drool collecting in the corner of our marital bed.Before I was even half way there I had to stop. Sheltering in a doorway

heavy sarsaparilla

…any allusion to crème brûlée is entirely coincidental. If you are diligent in keeping an ear close to the tracks, you will probably be familiar with Milwaukee’s Creme Soda. Their sole release, 1975’s “Tricky Zingers” has gathered a fair bit of attention; more so the proto-punk babble of the 45 it spawned, “(I’m) Chewing Gum“,

le prugne elettriche #0532

Reprise 0532.Mere mention of the legendary 1972 compilation, “Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era” – a double LP featuring the Barbarians’ “Moulty“, among a plethora of assorted lysergic and garage distillations – is sufficient to prompt the reversed guitar intro to this Annette Tucker and Nancie Mantz penned 45 to begin percolating in

plucky beggar

If Jil is Lucky, I am too. Fortunate that this overture was not rudely swallowed in the ocean of spam promising Ugandan tax free dollars and counterfeit pills to graft on an erection. Jil, it appears, is a twenty-four-year-old itinerant “wanderer”. Living in Paris for now, quite possibly flying by night at Harlem’s All Saints

beat the devil’s tattoo

The new album from L.A.’s Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, “Beat the Devil’s Tattoo“, is rolling out now in chop shops here and in their native USA, with Raveonette Leah Shapiro continuing to ‘temporarily’ sport the rocker patch formerly inked like a rod on one-percenter, Nick Jago’s back. Riding in formation over the full tilt engine

off the hook

bev davis and barbarians, toronto, 1965.“This photo was taken at the Ford Hotel in Toronto. The 2 clean cut young men were in a band called The Barbarians. The impossibly young woman is me. Geoffrey Morris, me and Bruce Benson… I just noticed the phone off the hook.” A re-up of a post from July

a shoe box. strings. a rollerskate

Engineered by David Howard Baker, Apostolic Recording Studios, New York City.▼ SONNY SHARROCK: BLIND WILLY from “Black Woman” LP (Vortex) 1969 (US)