fange's tune of the day

[pcqgod]

Bobby 'Blue' Bland - 36-22-36



RIP Mr. Bland.
Ah, that voice, smooth blue velvet with just a hint of wear n' tear from a life fully lived.
I love the fabulous uptown feel of this one, those big brassy horns mixed with the jazzy piano licks, seamlessly arranged by the brilliant but under-appreciated Joe Scott.
Don Robey made sure he got plenty of credit though, that's for sure. In fact, apparently he wrote or co-wrote EVERY original song on Here's The Man!!!, including the classic 'Turn On Your Love Light', the soft-hearted son of a gun. A man who knew the score and how to write it, most certainly.

Thanks, that was cool. Except for the bluesy beat, it kind of had a Latin Jazz sound to it, didn't it?

[fange]

Yes! The horn arrangements really capture that '40s and '50s big band and Latin jazz sound, which is a lot of where Joe Scott had come from musically. He really was the secret weapon on a lot of Bland's biggest and best Duke records - he played trumpet as well as several other horns, wrote a load of Bobby's greatest tunes, and as a producer and arranger for Duke he was willing to push the boundaries of the traditional blues forms whenever he had the chance.

[fange]

Prince - Fury



Say what you want about the little purple one's weirdness or lifestyle choices, but fucking hell he knows how to write, play and produce some cracking music. Everything you hear on 'Fury' was done and played by him, a very welcome throwback to this early days when he was doing the same thing. I've got nothing against the Revolution or NPG - far from it on some of those fantastic records he made with them. But like Stevie Wonder or Shuggie O, there's something very remarkable and pure about someone who is good enough to do it ALL themselves doing just that, and then totally nailing it as well.

Something like 'Black Sweat' is ok in its way, but if all of 3121 was this kind of Ne(-y)o urban R&B i woulda felt a bit cheated. 'Fury' gives you everything you could want from Prince, in the 21st century or any time - the hooks, the vocal arrangements, the dancefloor moves with the pop-nous, that magnificent guitar sound that burns white-hot somewhere between Hendrix and Santana.
He might not always tap into it as much he used to, but he's still got it.

[fange]

AC/DC - Riff Raff



I could listen to Angus and Malcolm play their guitars all day fucking long. In fact, i have - many many times, and i'll do it again too, because there are simply not that many rock and roll guitarists who have ever sounded better together than the Youngs: different approaches and tones that are a perfect union when blended.
Have a listen to 'Riff Raff' above, and in particular the... er, riff from :45 onwards. As Rudd comes in on the drums you seem to get this sense of speeding up, not so much from a tempo shift, but that hammered riff which BEGS repetiton - your brain wants to hear it again, expects to hear it again, and so it races ahead to hear it again and God help you if you're in your fucking car and your foot starts unconsciously pressing down on the accelerator too and you smack into the car which has just braked suddenly in front of you just as Bon screams in his best man-with-balls-caught-in-zip voice 'Riff Raaaff!".

[fange]

Lonnie Mack - Wham



Ah, the sound of that Memphis man, Lonnie Mack. He doesn't seem to get mentioned as often in conversations that include names like Eddy, Wray and Burton, but he damn well should, and 'Wham' would be one of the first exhibits why, after maybe 'Memphis'.
But it's not just all about amazing technique, otherwise i'd have a heap of Joe Satriani cds rather than none at all. It's about a voice, and with Lonnie i get a special and beautiful mix of blues, R&B and country, and one that is defiantly pleased about 'em being all mixed up in each other. It's an in-your-face sound but one that doesn't beat its virtuosity over your head, rather it's much happier just plugging itself into your hips and feet and getting them moving and having a good time. And that never gets old or wears out its welcome with me.

[fange]

Billy 'Sugar Billy' Garner - Your Wasting My Time



Proofreading and correct grammar be damned.

Strangely, it's Joss Stone i have to thank for introducing me to Sugar Billy, after reading an interview somewhere where she was talking about the Sugar Billy tune 'Super Duper Love (Are You Digging On Me)' link and why she covered it. I loved it - the original - and went looking for more, and though there isn't a whole heap Garner made some very fine funky 70s soul that gets regular plays round here and when i'm mixing for others. 'Your Wasting My Time' has some mad organ and wah-wah mix that's right up my alley.

[never/ever]

Like fhat last one a lot!

[trans-chigley express]

Lonnie Mack - Wham

I thought for one horrible moment that this was a song called Lonnie Mack by Wham.

[fange]

I'm not ready to share my secret Wham love with BCB yet.

[fange]

Guitar Wolf - Invader Ace



Can they play their instruments very well?
No.
Do their songs prompt me to think deep thoughts about the universe and my place in it?
No.
Do they capture everything that is right and good about rock and roll in our post-everything world?
Fuck yeah.

Guitar Wolf playing at the Akasaka Blitz in early-'99 is one of the greatest concert experiences of my life - the noise, the sweat, the pure feeling from the crowd was simply electrifying. Never have i heard a singer yell the words 'Rock and Roll!!' more often than Seiji, but it always made me smile.

[fange]

Ian Hunter - Who Do You Love



Apart from having one of the most fabulous rockstar looks ever, one of the things i love most about Hunter and his music is that he brought the piano to the forefront of rock and roll again, a place where - despite the sneers of some late-70s punk purists - it MORE than belongs if done right. Little Richard, Jerry Lee and host of others taught us that - but it seems that apart from a couple of sturdy champions like The Jim Jones Revue, the sonic delights to be had from rocking combos boasting both piano and guitars are sadly becoming harder and harder to find. Coldplay fans need not apply.

Thankfully we'll always have our Mott and Hunter records to fall back on. While Hunter's self-titled LP is not really my personal fave, the chemistry he had with Mick Ronson on record seems pretty clear to me, making it a real shame that their mid-70s dalliance was so fleeting. That ball-tightening Ronson Gibson sound, coupled with Hunter's wonderful piano and vocals are a fantastic match on something like 'WDYL', and the band ride the line between charging rock and roll, funky R&B and glam rock just right, even prompting The Pointer Sisters to later cover the tune if memory serves, though i don't think the song ever really hit the charts in a big way. Ah well

[fange]

The Robins - Riot In Cell Block #9



Knocks me out every time i hear it, and i've played it pretty damn regularly since my teens. I mean, how hot and visceral does it sound, and for 1954 too! No wonder they banned it in heaps of places; as if the Leiber/Stoller prison riot lyrics weren't enough, Richard Berry's aggressively slurred lead vocal sounds as lascivious as a corner pimp, and the group's gleefully gang-like "There's a riiiiiot goin' on" chorus would have had the Doris Day Fan Club girls soiling her panties. Add to that a killer R&B sound with some gorgeously raucous sax breaks by Gil Bernal and you have a stone-cold classic in every way.

[The Modernist]

What was it with Leiber and Stoller and prisons?

[fange]

Who else could capture the realities of life in a high-security U.S. penitentiary than a couple of middle-class Jewish guys from New York?

[pcqgod]

Guitar Wolf - Invader Ace



Can they play their instruments very well?
No.
Do their songs prompt me to think deep thoughts about the universe and my place in it?
No.
Do they capture everything that is right and good about rock and roll in our post-everything world?
Fuck yeah.

Guitar Wolf playing at the Akasaka Blitz in early-'99 is one of the greatest concert experiences of my life - the noise, the sweat, the pure feeling from the crowd was simply electrifying. Never have i heard a singer yell the words 'Rock and Roll!!' more often than Seiji, but it always made me smile.

Guitar Wolf! Haven't listened to them in a while.

[fange]

The Sensational Guitars of Dan & Dale - Robin's Theme



The recent re-release of the original '60's "Batman" TV series got me not only thinking about how much i loved that ridiculous show as i was growing up - oh man, Julie Newmar was a recurring star in some of my most fevered 13-year-old dreams - but about this unusual little record from '66 which was released as an attempt to cash-in on the popularity of the show, and had nothing offically to do with the TV series.



The cash-in is as old as recorded music itself, but generally the players are your nameless studio-types. How Tifton Records got people as seemingly disparate as The Blues Project and Sun Ra and members of his Arkestra together on this kind of project originally seems a question for the ages, but Tom Wilson being the producer is probably the key here as Wilson had worked with both groups before.
The record itself is largely a fun set of poppy, R&B based instrumentals with Batman-themed titles attached, a simple groovy record that is very enjoyable without being a 'lost classic' or something: although, the released 7" single 'Robin's Theme' comes pretty close for me, mainly because of the way the manic unknown vocalist's over-the-top shrieking mixes with the brilliant guitar contributions from Kalb and Katz, which hit my R&B-meets-garage punk sweet-spot perfectly.

[fange]

Supernaut - I Like It Both Ways



As is often the case, i woke up this morning with no recollection of what i may have dreamed last night, but as i drifted slowly back into consciousness the guitar riff and chorus to this tune - Supernaut's one and only Top 10 Aussie hit if memory serves - was fading up inside my head. A little worrying, possibly, but that's another therapy session.

Australia in the '70s was a strange and often frightening place, a humongous country still feeling a sizable cultural cringe from its British colonial days, as well as being the U.S.'s slightly weird but ever-so-helpful friend in the South Pacific. For me, so much of what made Australia what it was can be summed up by my first memory of this song, being played at deafening levels as it floated out of the open windows of a yellow and black XB Falcon coupe in the carpark of the Springvale Safeway in late-'77. As my mum and i walked past the drivers door, shopping bags in hand, i got a look at the driver: a young Vietnamese guy with his mirrored shades pushed up on his head, lit smoke hanging from his lips, who was carefully ignoring the stream of irrate-sounding Vietnamese coming from the young lady in the passenger seat. As i trudged past a few metres from his window, it's possible that my childishly-open staring sparked the guy into action, or he may have just had enough of the earbashing, which the blasting Supernaut did little to drown out; either way, he suddenly gunned the engine, leant out the window towards me, yelled 'Fuck off, you little prick!', and burned off a metre of rubber as he took off for the Balmoral Ave exit.

[Charlie O.]

That Dan & Dale Batman album is way fun. A friend of mine had the 45 from it in the early '90s, and we dug that; it was wild to find out who was behind it years later!

Then again, it wasn't the only Batman/Sun Ra connection...

[fange]

Yes! That's on the Sun Ra 'The Singles' set; man, what a unique cat he was.

[fange]

Joy Division - Dead Souls



Such a beautiful racket, full of aggression and venom yet still hooky (sorry) as hell. I love that there's a ton of ambition in the songwriting too, a sense of confidence in stretching out the song beyond the a three-minute punk pummeling, adding loud/quiet textures, and believing what they were doing was worth doing and saying.