30 December 2008

Kim Fowley's 523rd Dream

UPDATE: This post has been re-uploaded 08/09/2013.  Enjoy, NØ

Kim Fowley & Dyan Diamond
Kim is dreaming. It is Easy Rider era & Phil Spector has gone to cop cocaine from Wyatt & Billy. Kim breaks into Spector's mansion & steals Phil's platforms. Kim wants to follow in Wall-of-Sound Spector's footsteps & thinks that stealing his shoes will help. The Runaways show up dressed as the Keystone Kops & nearly spoil everything (again). Kim awakens, it's 3:30 in the morning, he stumbles to the phone & calls his friend Hugh. 'I have a new hustle,' sez Fowley.

'This time my girl-group won't even be all girls. The Clingers & The Runaways broke me of that. Fuck Spector.'


Venus & the Razorblades...'This is what the Runaways were supposed to be,' quips Fowley. 'The name connotes California Sunsets & all night rumbles.' What Kim could do once, he could do again. Unfortunately the Razorblades changed personnel more often than Kim changed underwear. At their live debut at the Bel Air Sands Hotel, the sound system blew up in the middle of Punk-a-rama (or Punk-o-rama, it's spelled both ways on the album). The rest would have been history.

from left: Cher, Kim Fowley, Steven T.
No press is bad press. V&tRB played the usual venues around LA & then broke up before going on tour or releasing an album. While Kim was moving out of his apartment in 1978, he was sorting through his tape library & came across the Razorblades material. He decided to edit & re-mix it to issue the posthumous album.

Kim Fowley - Svengali, Ring Leader & legend in his own mind
Steven T. - guitar & vocals
Dyan Diamond - guitar & vocals
Danielle Faye - bass & vocals
Vicki Razorblade - vocals
Nicky Beat - drums (ex-Germs, Mau-Maus, Cramps)
Roni Lee - guitar & vocals
Kyle Raven - drums (ex-Droogs)
Sal Maida - bass (ex-Roxy Music, Sparks)
Rene Bernard - drums (ex-The Swarm)

Venus & the Razorblades - Songs from the Sunshine Jungle, Visa Records IMP 7004, 1978.
decryption codes in comments

Side One -

Finer Things in Life
Big City
All Right You Guys (Alright You Guys on single)
Midnight
Punk-o-Rama (from record & liner...cover says Punk-a-Rama)

Side Two-

Workin' Girl
I Wanna Be Where the Boys Are
Dog Food
Wrong Kind of Guy
victim of My Backstreet Love




bonus:
Dyan Diamond - vocals, guitar, synth drums, & percussion
Craig Magee - lead guitar
Jerry Ackerman - bass
Joseph Fitzgerald - harp & keyboards
Randy Whepley - drums & percussion
Chris Darrow - mandolin, accordian, guitar, slide guitar & percussion
Dyan Diamond - In the Dark, MCA 3053, 1978.

Side 1:
Baby, What You Want Me to Do (written by Jerry Reed)
Western Ave. (Dyan Diamond, Kim Fowley)
Hot (D.D)
Teenage Radio Stars (D.D.)
Someone like Me (D.D.)
Back on the Strip (D.D.)

Side 2:
Mystery Dance (Elvis Costello)
Animal Girl (D.D. , Kim Fowley
Nervous (Chris [Ace] Spedding)
Your Neighborhood (D.D. , K.F.)
In the Dark (D.D.)
Gonna Rock Ourselves to Death (D.D. , K.F.)

Enjoy,

27 December 2008

Her Name is ODETTA

 UPDATE: This post was re-uploaded 09/01/2013. Enjoy, NØ.

A delayed post from earlier this month, no less poignant now...

On Dec. 2, the Queen of American folksingers, Odetta, died of heart failure just short of her 78th birthday.

Odetta Holmes was born in Birmingham, Ala., on Dec. 31, 1930, in the depths of the Depression. The music of that time & place...particularly prison songs & work songs recorded in the fields of the Deep South...shaped her life.

Her discography is an aural history, centuries deep, of abduction, enslavement, social & sexual abuse by the whites in power...& of the determination first to outlive the ignominy branded on the race, then to overcome it. She marched with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. & performed for President John F. Kennedy. The one thing that death denied her was the chance to sing at President Obama's inauguration.

Odetta never started out to be a folk singer. She was operatically trained. She earned a music degree from Los Angeles City College. Her debut performance was in Finian's Rainbow, but while on the road with the show, she met a group of folkies in San Francisco. Their interest in traditional songs took her back to her own youth & the songs that had helped form her being.

Miss Rosa Parks was once asked which songs meant the most to her. She replied, “All of the songs Odetta sings.”

Bob Dylan said in a 1978 interview, “The first thing that turned me on to folk singing was Odetta.” He said he heard something “vital & personal”. He added, “I learned all the songs on her first record", songs like “Muleskinner Blues,” & “ ’Buked & Scorned.”

You can hear them here. Featuring Odetta on guitar & vocals, Bill Lee on bass.


Odetta - The Best of..., Everest / Tradition Records TR 2052, 1967.
decryption code in comments

Side One -

Muleskinner Blues
If I Had a Ribbon Bow
Shame & Scandal
'Buked & Scorned
Joshua
He's Got the Whole World in His Hands

Side Two -

Glory, Glory
Lowlands
The Fox
Lass of the Low Countree
Devilish Mary
Take this Hammer


This is some mighty great musick, & if songs like "Devilish Mary" or "Take this Hammer" don't get you dancing, well, then you're dead, Jim.

Respect,





Odetta at Newport.

12 December 2008

Betty Paige R.I.P. baby!

Some music to listen to while you think about Betty.
Danger Girl

09 December 2008

Pablo Picasso's Never Been Called an Asshole (not by me)


UPDATE: This post was
re-uploaded 09/19/2013.
Enjoy, NØ







During a recent exchange concerning "Pablo Picasso" by Jonathan Richman, I had said I liked John Cale's version of said song. I found out not everyone is familiar with it, or the album it comes from, so...here 'tis.


John Cale - Guts, Antilles AN-7063, 1977.
decryption code in comments

Guitars - John Cale, Chris Spedding, & Phil Manzanera
Bass - John Cale, Pat Donaldson, Archie Leggatt, & Trevor Burton
Drums - Timmi Donald, Phil Collins, Fred Smith, Raymond Duffy, & Keith Smart
Keyboards - John Cale
Saxophone - Andy Mackay
Synthesizer - Brian Eno & John Wood
Percussion - John Cale & Tony Carr
Vocals - John Cale
Backing Vocals - Geoff Muldaur, Alan Courtney, Liza Strike, & Barry St. John

Side One -

Guts
Mary Lou
Helen of Troy
Pablo Picasso
Leaving it All up to You

Side Two -

Fear is a Man's Best Friend
Gun
Dirtyass Rock 'N' Roll
Heartbreak Hotel

Enjoy,

Maybe take away their guns?

Copied without permission from 7 Dec. 2008 Sacramento Bee...

Group seeks to keep police officers alive
Danger is from their own guns, research sez...

"Far more police officers killed themselves with a firearm last year than were gunned down by criminals...research indicates that as many as 150 police officers killed themselves last year, usually with their service weapon.

During that time...55 officers were shot to death by criminals.
So far this year...about 80 police suicides nationwide. Another 20% may go unreported because many police agencies still view suicide as a disgrace.
'The facts are covered up, the families are shunned.' "
by David Richie

Cop Shoot Cop - Get Gone (unreleased-unmixed from final recording session)

Feeling safe now, are you?

06 December 2008

Deleted without Warning


I have become the latest victim of the Anti-Freedom Forces.
One of my file servers deleted my account without warning.
Since I was too stoopid to back-up everything, some is lost forever.
The rest I have pulled the links for now, & will re-upload the files elsewhere.

Both Earhole Stuffer II & Son of Earhole Stuffer II, Link Cromwell's Crazy Like a Fox from the Lenny Kaye post, a live Nick Cave show, The Fuzztones, Misfits/Rocket from the Crypt split, ROTR, & Scratch Bongowax are gone for good.

Nasal Sex, Nash the Slash, Renaldo & the Loaf, Pig Bag, Birdsongs of the Mesozoic, John Sinclair, & The Detonators/Econochrist split will have to await re-up & their links are dead for now.

If anyone notices any more dead links or suspicious activities, please let me know.