AMX Mix- "Supersounds of '70"

Eek, I'm back! Back in Philly (was way west: Portland), and back up in this here blog.

I've been sitting on this "AMX mix" for a few weeks now, and I'll tell you what:
it really improves with age; the more you listen, the more you know- and the more you know the more you GROW.

Here is the zip file, loaded up with over 20 songs! Supersounds of '70 will blow your business and lay you low. This is one of my (well-received, nearly world-famous) AMX mixes, so it too is loosely inspired by a Quentin Tarantino soundtrack. This one comes from Reservoir Dogs. Remember how Stephen Wright was the voice of that radio disc jockey?



And how he played these odd fun bouncy little 'jems' (that is a 'gem' and a 'jam')? Yeah, you remember that 'Stuck in the Middle with You" song that you really, really believed was Bob Dylan.

That sort of jem.
(If you don't know who Stephen Wright is, then you won't remember him from this show:

which, not conincidentally, is like this mix: funny, charming, odd, and old.)

Download the zip SUPERSOUNDS of '70 my friend!

T R A C K :) L I S T I N G
Party Lights :) Cluadine Clark
Band of Gold :) freda payne
La La :) The Cobras
Mocking Bird :) Inez Fox
Sixty Minute Man :) the Dominoes
You came a long way from St. Louis :) DeeDee Sharp & Chubby Checker
Bloodshot Eyes :) George Symonette
Opium Tea :) Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
A Horse with no name :) America
Cross-Eyed Gal from the Ozarks :) Ferlin Husky
Bongo Bongo Bongo :) Preston Epps
Amazons and Coyotes :) the Dreamlovers
I'm Wearing the Britches :) The Carlisles
Happy Organ :) Dave 'Baby' Cortez
96 tears :) Aretha Franklin
Kind of a Drag :) Buckinghams
I Put a Spell On You :) Screamin' Jay Hawkins
Hats Off to Larry :) Del Shannon
Puddin n' Tain :) the Alleycats
Honky Tonkin :) Hank Williams
Got to see if I can't get Mommy (to come back home) :) Jerry Butler
Crimson and Clover :) Tommy James and the Shondells

Download the zip SUPERSOUNDS of '70 and set yourself free!

You'll get a fuller account of this mix soon (busy busyWORKbusy busy), but here are some lyrical themes:
A newlywed who isn't getting any
Mom won't let me party!
MOCK! (yeah), ING! (yeah)
Someone not quite being cool enough that you'd believe he was from Missouri, that epicenter of kewl
Alcohol abuse (eyes so bloodshot, that "you'd better close those eyes, before you bleed to death")
Narcotics in liquid form
A girl with a face like a Holstein cow
Congratulating the fellow who broke your lover's heart

You know, 'the issues of our day'. Oh, why "of '70", you ask? Because that is the year of my father's AMX, which is what got this grand project off the ground.

We got 'A Thing' going on...

Whoa, Okay, Hey, Yeah-
been busy celebrating Black History Month; too busy to bust out songs for you.
But here's one. Billy Paul sings that ol' chestnut "Mrs. Jones" (which you can stream way below). But here he asks the pressing question, "Am I Black Enough For You?". (I query myself the same, often: that's how I stay on top of it- and yeah, that's a download up there)




Download Billy Paul's "Am I Black Enough For You?".


Billy Paul will do some scat-style singing at times; you even catch a bit of that in "Mrs. Jones". "...meeeee,eeeee, me, me and miss-'n'misssssesss Joooonesss..." (listen to it- it's just like that!)
Now, I'll be honest, Billy- I find that shit a little annoying. BUT you avoid all annoying, all together, on "Am I Black Enough For You?", and I thank you for that.
Both these tracks, by the way, are on "360 Degrees of Billy Paul", which is the cover presented here. Dude's from Philly too:I got this album on Broad Street, at The Official Philadelphia International Records memorabilia and Album Selling Place, located here:



Digitally, it is located here.

Here's "Mrs. Jones", which is a serious cut in its own right.


Ah, Billy, that really hit the spot. I owe you one.


"You're welcome!"

Black History Month - "and Yet, Without Heirs, Memory is Meaningless"

It's time for Black History Month! I saw Angela Davis talk the other day, and it reminded me that this, the shortest month,+
is, in fact, dedicated to the history of Black Americans.
Now, I know little about strictly political American history, so most of what I know about Black Americans is musical history. It goes without saying that Black people have contributed their fair share to other aspects of this American life++;
but I have been very busy and so have heard, in the main, about musical contributions.

+Angela Davis told us that it used to be called 'Negro History Week', then 'Black History Week', now 'BHM'. Just saying: both points (name, and duration) are relevant.

++Not the radio show "This American Life"; I'd wager Black people have done very little to contribute to that show. Call it a hunch.

The Young Folks - Jackson 5


Okay, you all were way into so-called "HOPE" recently: this song's for you. It basically is exactly how Obama got elected. (If you missed the details of that, don't worry- this song sums it up in just under 3 hummable minutes.)
It's the Jackson 5 doing what everyone else did during the 70's/late 60's: they got political. This track's all about not letting The Man tell you what to do anymore: they're "marching with signs" even! That line gave me pause at first; watch:

"We're marching with signs
We're standing in lines, yeah, yeah
Protesting your rights
...
to turn out the lights, in our lives"

Oh -I see- your protesting the way they mess up your lives! You aren't protesting RIGHTS as such. Cos, that's a really radical political position. Even more radical when you consider that Michael is only 12 or so when he sings this...
He's fifty now, by the by: talk about your history!



The quote from the title is from Nietzsche, okay, so please excuse the seeming pessimism. I'm not pessimistic that Americans won't/don't have 'heirs'; that is, have a legacy ahead of them. Am I optimistic, then?
That's my little secret!: Blogs aren't suited to talking about yourself, obviously!
(That's why Michael Jackson doesn't have one- he's on Twitter)

AMX To The Max - Still Ill

The other day, I told you of a plan I had: make a mixtape inspired by some of Quentin Tarantino's movies.

Download ZIP file: 'Still Ill' mixtape

I got this idea because my Dad recently got a really rare muscle car (an AMX), which is talked about in Quentin's "DEATHPROOF". That was the impetus- just random inspiration; it's not like I am some QT fanboy, or that I am so very dearly devoted to his soundtracks. I don't even own one anymore...
There is a pretty distinctive sound to each of his films' musical accompaniment, though, so I figured this idea had the necessary specificity to generate a mix. (Mixes that are just 'songs that I like/that I thought you might like' are not worth my time to produce; I could just put my ITunes on shuffle for that, right?).
All taste requires discrimination; discrimination by definition is specific:
("I like all kinds of music" is general, and shows its speaker to lack taste entirely; or at least to be a "mollycoddle with shaky legs")
there you have it.


My directorial debut is "AMX : Still Ill." ( <--- clicky makey downloady)
Obviously, based off of the RZA-fashioned "Kill Bill" soundtracks.



TRACKLISTING:
#1 Il Ritorno Di Ringo /// Ennio Morricone
4th Chamber /// GZA
#3 Champion Sound /// Jaylib
Poison Dart /// The Bug ft. Warrior Queen
#5 Backyard Betty /// Spank Rock
Bullet /// Ellen Allien
#7 Don't Smile, It's Post-Modern /// Ghislain Poirier
Hide Ya Face (ft El-P and Ghostface Killah) /// Prefuse 73
#9 Wanderlove /// Claudine
Nagasaki Nights /// ...unknown artist...
#11 Slow Grind Italian (interlude) /// The RZA (as Bobby Digital)
Mantis (ft Masta Killa & Tekitha) /// The RZA (Bobby Digital)
#13 Bila El Mambo /// Hell's Gate Band
Heart It Races /// Architecture In Helsinki
#15 Still Got It 4 Cheap /// Clinton Sparks f/Clipse & Pharrell
Bells /// Vitalic
#17 I Lost My Shit in Tel Aviv (live) /// Apparat
1980 /// Pierre Rapsat

(" /// "?: 'oh, that? those are SWORD SLICES !')
"AMX : Still Ill"

Here's a track from the mix; listen to it while you download said mix...

Ennio Morricone is a must for this. This guy composed all those Western movie themes that you know: A Few Dollars More, GoodBadUgly, etc.

"Choose the ball, or the sword": GZA's Wu-Tang Kung-Fu thang. Starts out with a kungfu flick sample: precisely why QT picked a Wu to head the soundtrack project.

You know Wu will be all over this mix; but there's room for other rappers too:
We get J Dilla rapping on a Madlib production. Later, we get the Clipse, SpankRock, El-P -aka El Producto- (with Ghostface), and from the Caribbean, Warrior Queen.


"AMX : Still Ill"
Most of the rap beats employed here lean to the tech-y side ("Glitch-Hop"?). That was the sound of Kill Bill, so that's our sound here.
What that means is that the hip-hop turns naturally and smoothly over into the smart techno of Berliner Ellen Allien and her label-mate Apparat. This isn't daffy club beat or euro(trash)pop -- closer to the Knife, okay? -- so nuh be afeared, even if you are 'not that kind of girl'.
Vitalic & Apparat supply us with sounds that absolutely must play when The Bride is riding on her all-yellow motorcycle through Tokyo, sword slung over one shoulder; faceless in her helmet. She's on her grind: her only love is the game of revenge (she'll win).
"AMX : Still Ill"

Also, we need some of the more strictly computerized beats, not only to keep this from being purely " mixtape-hustlin' ", but to ensure that it sounds like a movie soundtrack. To work with the arc of drama, we have to use some songs which build and intensity and then destroy it. Hiphop can have tension, but it doesn't often 'climax' : it doesn't resolve that tension.



"AMX : Still Ill"
There are mellow moments in Kill Bill, especially in the second volume. So, there is a passage around the middle of the mix when we move to some tropical climes and pop open a ginger beer. Steel drums, and an international feel. Kill Bill involved some serious jetsetting, and after REVENGE gets had, calm settles over the film.
After the international/downtime slice, though, The Clipse set us back on our feet, and the blades start swinging again:



(...it's still not too late to download "AMX : Still Ill", you know...)

Jet-Fret Life (the Battle of Midway) - First Portion

You know about my travel-troubles already. Flew to airports 6 times- went nowhere (fast), and it took two days.
The net effect of my traveling and time was, effectively, this:



No control, no certainty of where I'd be moved next: I felt like a puppet!



Don't be scared of the above: it's not more recent Lee Perry; it is from before his brain was crushed up like apple sauce by too many drugs. Back when it was merely drug-fueled and still runnin' smooth. So it's not all WayFuzzDubMush, but just way pleasant, sunny day, grin-music. Like Modern Lovers, sort of, some of it. But of course, ol' reggae stylee.

(Oh, obviously I mean it's like Modern Lovers in feel, not really in sound. Jonathon Richman will do Calypso songs sometimes, but that is a different Caribbean beast altogether, innit?)

Dead-Metal (Turbonegro and Betty Page)

Betty Page died the other day. (These things do happen.)



The above song, retrospective of her passing, must be considered a loving, rather moving tribute.

Download TURBONEGRO's "(I Fucked) Betty Page"

Turbonegro are a sorta punk, sorta metal band. I just got into them recently, but supposedly they have 8 albums. (That's more than you.) This is how the lead singer typically performs:

(With that physique, you might be forgiven for being surprised that he didn't die BEFORE Betty Page...)
They are somewhat daffy, but it stays fun and doesn't get old. Partly because, musically, they are way rad. But even the lyrics, which are where the tomfoolery enters into it, rarely are straight-up stupid.
Turbonegro are daffy in that they talk about sex and coke and erections (independent of sex- see below) and "ROK und ROLL" and ask questions like "Do you do you Dig Destruction?" (to which they answer "Latino lovers often do" ???). They obviously aren't taking it all so very seriously, but they aren't in it just to joke either. So when, in "I Got Erection", they say:

"Every time I walk down the street - Erection -
When I think of blood I think of love - Erection -
When I set a house on fire - Erection -
When I dig a hole in the ground - Erection -
When I hear that death punk sound- Erection"

they are probably mostly joking. But when they say that 'Turbonegro Hate The Kids' (you know, 'the kids'), I get the feeling that they mean it.



They played at Madison Square Garden a little while ago, which is a slightly odd venue for them. And, slightly related: when uploading "(I Fucked) Betty Page" (click to download), A pop-up ad informed me that The Hold Steady (who I don't know about, but am sure that they are "The Kids" and very dumb and bad and all that) and their tour are sponsored by Duracell. they are sponsored by the Pink Rabbit!



This is why we all need bands like TURBONEGRO, by the way.
Well, one more for the road- and I promise, you all will like this song; it has homoeroticism, international travel, the bars of "New York, New York" (they call it that because they are from Norway, by the way).

If I have to Walk, I'm a get There just the Same - Wilbert Harrison goes to Kansas City

It's been a while, hasn't it. Chomping at the bit again, I'm sure. Here's a 'your new favorite song' to hold you over until I drop some serious mixes *plop* right in your lap.



There are about 5 in post-production right now (all in the "AMX" series which I mentioned); a long-finished mix called "Pretty Pretty Songs" that even a grizzled homeless guy would like; and a more recently accomplished mix in a series called "SHOWER JAMZ!" (yes, it must be in all caps- you'll grasp the enormity of it all, which requires decisive use of graphic effects, in not too long).

But for now, a little ditty by Wilbert Harrison: