Jingling Jollies

I really just wanted to post this song because I’m having one of those revived love-affairs with both my headphones (crappy as they are) and my shuffle function on iTunes, and I happened to stumble on this most beautiful and most somber of Duke Ellington pieces - more flute than any man could bear. But since it’s the two-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, let’s make it in honor of New Orleans. The rolling, tribal tom-tom reminds me of Animal Collective and Panda Bear, only because that’s what I’ve been listening to and thinking about for the last two weeks. But just stop for a moment and put your head inside this arrangement. The flowing woodwinds, the punctuated muted brass, the climbing, climbing. It’s almost unspeakably beautiful. And, at the same time, if you listen sideways, it could just as easily have been the theme song to some 70s cop show.

"Bourbon Street Jingling Jollies" - the Duke Ellington Orchestra, from The New Orleans Suite

Hot Shruti

I tend to think that more bands should sound like the Raincoats, the Slits, early Velvet Underground, the Silver Apples, the United States of America, and Stereolab, so I was happy to hear the steady throb of Numbers. Their new record, Now You Are This, just came out on Kill Rock Stars. What makes the music sort of take physical shape as you listen is that the vocal harmonies seem to exist as if piped in from some other realm, a Platonic ideal of how sound actually is shape. Also, any band that rocks the shruti box - the contraption that Indian musicians use to simulate the swarming drones of the tambura or the harmonium to establish the subsuming reference pitch of a raga – is all right by me. And they also enter the pantheon of band names that are unsearchable by Google.

"Mind Hole" -Numbers

Sledge Hammer

We watched the film This is England last night on IFC OnDemand. It’s set in the early mid-80s in Britain, during the Faulkland War, and it’s about a young kid whose father has died in the conflict. He gets taken in by a bunch of semi-friendly skinheads, the ska-loving type, not the neo-Nazi brand. After getting his head shaved, scoring some boots, tight jeans and braces, the kid finally has a posse, complete with a sort of jovial father figure and a sometimes girlfriend. But things take a bad turn when one of the skinheads’ former associates gets out of prison spouting some nationalist racist garbage, splitting the ranks and taking the kid under his wing. In one of the film’s pivotal scenes, the racist skinhead makes an ultra-brief thaw in hostilities with a member of the other crew, a Jamaican, in order to justify hanging out with him and smoking his weed. As everyone gets thoroughly baked, Percy Sledge’s "At the Dark End of the Street" comes on the stereo, and one of the borderline racist punks, a chubby loser, has what seemed to be a Sledge-and-weed-induced teary-eyed emotional meltdown, driving his head into the stereo speaker and crying about the buttery beauty of the bass line. This seemed like a pretty reasonable response to me.

As we’ve said before, one of the Driftwood Singers goals for the 2007-2008 fiscal year, as established by the board of directors, is to further promote the greater glory and honor of Percy Sledge.

"It’s All Wrong But It’s Alright" - Percy Sledge

"That’s How Strong My Love Is" - Percy Sledge

Cleveland Field Report

Today, The Driftwood Singers would like to Present our newest recruit in the long, hard battle to destroy the productivity of the worker and subvert the capitalist system: Agent Eliot, our Very Special Cleveland Correspondent, broadcasting live from one of this site's favorite rock'n'roll towns. Actually, due to an editorial delay, this is breaking news from yesterday, but you're on Driftwood time now.



5 A.M.: Crack and scream! Quiet, then approaching sirens. We shake off Friday night's sake to stare out the window at flashing red lights. A car on the porch is worth two in the street and the whole block is awake for the rising of Cleveland's tropical sun. What do Saturday morning fire trucks and ambulances put me in the mood for?
Samba!

Não escutar o Lefty. Cleveland não está assim frio!

[Ed. note: According this site, that translates roughly to: "Do not listen to the Lefty. Cleveland is not like this cold."]


Milton Banana Trio - Barquinho Diferente


Wilson Simonal - Não Vem Que Não Tem

The G-9 Group - Senhora Madonna

Gal Costa - Barato Total

Postscript: It turns out that the SUV was driven by a drunk Cleveland police officer. She was passed out in the vehicle in the middle of the school yard. Someone tapped on her window and she panicked and floored it. To hit that house, she went right between a telephone pole and a large tree.

-- Agent Eliot

Trouble is Real

I’ve got some incurable contrarian streak. Every time the subject of Gram Parsons comes up, I’m inclined to spend a little of my energy deflating the cult of GP. It’s my problem. I can’t figure out why I’m so quick to do that. I mean I do love the Burritos and I love GP solo, and I love Sweetheart of the Rodeo, and I even love some of the International Submarine Band. But it seems like Gram worship is a little over the top. I may have picked this line of reasoning up from an interview I did with former Burrito and Byrd Chris Hillman, who plays in a sort of old time string duo these days. On the subject of Parsons, Hillman had developed a narrative about how GP had never really lived up to his promise and that he basically squandered his talents. Hillman, a zealous Christian these days, seemed genuinely sad, but in a (self) righteous judgmental kind of way. Still, just last night I was sitting around singing "The Streets of Baltimore." Here’s a free download from Amoeba Records (up through Aug. 23). It’s from a 1969 live recording of the Burritos at the Avalon Ballroom.

"Long Black Limousine" – Flying Burrito Brothers

Bury the Rag Deep in Your Face

Let us now praise the great Max Roach, who died today at the age of 83. Hang your head. Lower the flag. Put on armbands. Drape the crepe. This man was a giant. Better than most people.

These are just three examples or the mightiness.


“The Third Eye” - Max Roach (from Survivors)

“Decision” - Sonny Rollins, with Max Roach, Donald Byr, Wynton Kelly and Gene Ramey

“Un Poco Loco” - Bud Powell, with Max Roach and Curly Russell

That Summer Feeling

We're panting like hyenas here in the city, sweltering in the insufferable heat and getting the first inklings of end times, what with an actual tornado touching down in New York like the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man at the end of Ghost Busters. As Bill Murray tells the Mayor when the ghosts bust loose: "This city is headed for a disaster of biblical proportions...human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together - mass hysteria."

And so I'm already looking back now as if summer's over, kaput. I'm already wistful for the cooler, greener afternoons of July, the feel of toes in the grass, a guitar lightly plucked in the breeze, fellow Driftwood Singers on hand to enjoy a brotherly setting of open skies, cool creeks, whispering pines, sizzlin' BBQ, bottles of red wine and, yes, weathered old vinyl records of dubious distinction. This summer we dared to eat the peach and wear white flannel trousers on the beach -- rolled, of course. But now it's over. So to keep the feeling alive I turn to Mr. Jonathan Richman. It's hard to overstate how wonderfully pure, raw, joyful and simply present these songs are, all from 1983's Jonathan Sings! -- one of two must-owns by Richman, IMHO, the other being the self-titled Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers from 1977. Download them now and thank me later. They prove once and finally that all you need is a song and a wiggle in your hips to suck the marrow out of life. "That Summer Feeling" says everything I need to say: That summer feeling's gonna haunt you the rest of your life. "Not Yet Three," fitting for us recent parents among the Singers, is both terrifying and beautiful. I'm stronger than you, you're simply bigger than me...

That Summer Feeling - Jonathan Richman

This Kind of Music - Jonathan Richman

Not Yet Three - Jonathan Richman

Turns out I bought a lot of bad records this summer -- why on earth I bought that Dr. Hook album I'll never know -- but it didn't matter. Among my finds was one of the best-named albums of all time, 1971's Volcanic Action of My Soul by Ray Charles. It's got some hideous orchestral accompaniment on it, but Ray's hustle and grit manage to power through and really actually improve "The Long and Winding Road," a song few need bother trying to cover but which Ray nails entirely. With "Wichita Lineman" he's less successful, though still pretty good, but the pedal steel solo alone is magnificent, a moment of weightless summer grace that floats above the heat like a shimmering dream, a long and winding road that travels back to a summer solace we can carry with us the rest our lives. Here's to summer...

The Long and Winding Road - Ray Charles

Wichita Lineman - Ray Charles

The Believers

This is Part Three of a three-part Bee Gees trilogy. Part One is here; Part Two is here.

A year before Maurice Gibb (above, far right) died in 2003 and forever ended the Bee Gees, the brothers Gibb did an hour-long sit-down interview with Larry King on CNN. In it, they made clear that even though conventional wisdom maintains that the Gees went fallow in the early 70s and reemerged in 1975 as a newly-minted disco act with Main Course ("Nights on Broadway," "Jive Talkin'"), THEY never believed they went fallow. Nor did they ever consider themselves disco. As Maurice's fraternal twin Robin tells King: "We had never even heard of the word disco until the media...[when] people started using the word disco, it was kind of alien to us. But what we were doing at the time, we were describing this progressive R&B blue-eyed soul."

Later, this exchange:

KING: What kept you going during the down period?

M. GIBB: I think our passionate writing. I think the songs have always kept
us up there.

KING: Is it called going dry? Do you feel like, "We're awful. They're not --
they're not into us?"

M. GIBB: No, we didn't go dry. I think the record company went dry.

B. GIBB: Yes.

M. GIBB: And a lot of people around us went dry on us. Not us.

R. GIBB: Oh, yeah. You go out of vogue.

M. GIBB: You go out of vogue, you see. If it's a new decade, you're out.

In other words, the idea that the Bee Gees made some "awful" albums was simply a mass delusion of taste. Alas, history is written by the victors. In 1974, the year before the BG's went "disco," the era-defining hits were "The Way We Were" by Barbra Streisand and "Bennie and the Jets" by Elton John. By the Bee Gee's estimation, of course, historical popularity is a charade -- or sha-rawd, as they sing it in "Charade," from the Bee Gee's 1974 effort (and so-called "transition" album) Mr. Natural. Consider these tunes possible evidence for a Driftwood Singers-meet-Howard Zinn historical revisionism of popular music, with the Bee Gees themselves as the (temporarily) oppressed underclass.

Charade - Bee Gees

Mr. Natural - Bee Gees

Of course, it's hard to avoid the undertow of history while it's happening. As Barry Gibb tells King, "it was the culture changing, not us or the music. The culture had been through the peace movement, and it was time to do something -- time to have some fun." But even when you win, you can't win. Despite its massive hits, Village Voice statesman Robert Christgau gave Main Course only a B+ because, as he wrote back then, "an unpleasant tension between feigned soulfulness and transparent insincerity still mars most of side two." But Robert! You were wrong! If he'd been listening with long enough antennae, he'd hear that side two happens to contain two of the best songs: 1) a stunning example of the Bee Gees immense adaptability, the piano-driven proto-alt-country number "Come On Over" (with Robin's ever-gorgeous limy vibrato on lead vocal) and 2), the weird, visionary pop wonder "Edge of the Universe," the melody of which was baldly re-purposed by XTC some 12 years later in "Grass" on the exquisite Skylarking (Christgau rating: A-). Visionary? Well, here are the lyrics, you be the judge:

Well, I'm ten feet tall,
but I'm only three feet wide.
And I live inside an ocean that flows
on the other side.

If I came back down tomorrow,
would it all be far too soon?
And it looks like it's gonna be a lovely afternoon.

Come On Over - Bee Gees

Edge of the Universe - Bee Gees

Grass - XTC

Extra!: Not to be missed is the Italian tribute band, the Tree Gees. You can hear their amazing likeness on MySpace.

A Musical Worm Contest

Since Mr. Poncho has offered some formidable candidates for "best first line [in a song] ever," I figured I can't let a good contest go unmet. Luckily for me, the hippie record clerk in Woodstock, New York, last month was charging $15 for shit like Santana but let Nick Lowe's Labour of Lust (1979) go for $4. Fool! And that's when I was blessed with these amazing couplets, which open the song:

I made an American squirm
And it felt so right
On screen was a musical worm
Deep, deep into the night

Given that these lines are hung on such a sensational pop hook, it's an absolute bullseye. And "American Squirm" has a bonus irony: The same year it was released, Lowe married country singer Carlene Carter, daughter of Carl Smith and June Carter Cash and step-daughter of Johnny Cash. He remained buddies with Johnny even after he divorced Carlene and Lowe eventually wrote the amazing "Beast in Me" for Cash for his American Recordings album.

I have no idea what a "musical worm" is. Anybody who can tell me will win a contest-within-the-contest and receive ... a CUSTOM-MADE DRIFTWOOD MIX CD! (That's right, a CD -- because I'm not losing $20 again!) Email us with the answer.

My final warning: If you don't own Pure Pop for Now People and Labour of Lust, whatever sorry assemblage you call a "record collection" is woefully inadequate (with the understanding that if you actually have a "record collection" you're screwed from the get-go, therefore you're just inadequately screwed).

American Squirm - Nick Lowe

And in case you think Lowe's all smart ass all the time, listen to this beautiful number that comes directly after "American Squirm."

You Make Me - Nick Lowe

Finally, if you missed these Pure Pop gems the first time I posted them, here again are two Lowe masterpieces.

Marie Provost - Nick Lowe

Tonight - Nick Lowe

Meaning Falls in Splinters From Our Lives

A while back I proposed a contest to ascertain the best first line ever from a song.
(At the time I championed Lou Reed’s “Wild Child," which begins "I was talking to Chuck in his Genghis Khan suit and his wizard’s hat.” – pretty tough to top, I know).
At the moment, I’d like to add Bob Welch’s “Sentimental Lady” to the competition. Consider the first line: “You are here and warm, but I could look away and you’d be gone.” He goes on: “‘Cause we live in a time when meaning falls in splinters from our lives. That’s why I’ve traveled far, ‘cause I come so together where you are.” Not only that. The capo-ed twelve-string ersatz harpsichord at the very beginning of the song could almost count as a non-verbal opening line. This is sound-word-wisdom.

As many know, an inferior version of “Sentimental Lady” appeared on the Fleetwood Mac album Bare Trees. Welch played in the Mac before Lindsay Buckingham and Stevie Nicks joined the crew, and, in fact, Buckinham, Mick Fleetwood and Christine McVie all play on Welch’s version of “Sentimental Lady.”

Listen with headphones for the way the noodle-verging (slide?) guitar swells and the airy backing vocal “oohs” create this weird gauzy effect, both ethereal and yet so brittle and glassy, and basically coked-out, that the whole mix sounds like it might shatter into sharp fragments if you tapped on it. It’s like elaborate spun sugar icing in some ridiculous rococo cake. And yet, the drums have that pillowy mid-70s sound, as if someone was thwacking you in the gut in slow motion with one of those cushioned inter-personal therapy batons.

When I first posted about Bob Welch in the early days of Driftwoodshedding, I said that I had an elaborate scheme of indie rock vs. soft rock equivalences. The idea was that certain indie rockers are basically just the 21st century avatars of specific soft rock or hippie forebears. Precursors. Bob Welch’s strained reedy singing always reminds me of Wayne Coyne from the Flaming Lips. But the production (listen to “Lose Your Heard”) – particularly the groping attempts at proto-techno rock futurism, with excessive fake strings, stiffly metronomic drumming, robotic guitar chunking – bring to mind the Kraftwerk vs. Sasquatch sounds of Neil Young’s Trans. Maybe a touch of Eliminator-era ZZ Top.




And then there’s the tricky matter of Bob Welch’s album covers. If, as Lefty proposes, the Bee Gees represent a post-sexual, post-racial, post-genre utopian vision of the future, Welch - with his cigars, pleated white pants, unhealthy hair, and entirely phony imagined sex appeal - is sort of a cultural death star. He’s demonic, trying to lure us toward some nightmare version of a present that is already hellish. Notice the licking flames. Be very careful.

“Sentimental Lady” - Bob Welch

“Lose Your Heart” - Bob Welch

IT CAME FROM PORTLAND!

On his MySpace page, Portland musical mutant Karl Blau ends his latest diary entry this way:

Steve and Clyde and I watched this UNIVERSE special on the science channel last night that said the sun is so loud that it's like having stadium speakers blasting on every square foot of the surface of the sun. peace.

That pretty much sums up the cosmic plane this indie-ot savant is working on and we're all blessed for it. Blau washed up on our shore when we discovered he was the mysterious singer behind the magnificent (and perhaps definitive) version of Tom T. Hall's "That's How I Got to Memphis." Like Driftwood fave Little Wings -- with whom he's recorded -- Blau is never more than a few soft, leafy steps from the cosmic forest, enshrouded with majestic fern leaves and darkening down a path to a kelp-covered beach and a moonlit cove. If a musical sensibility could be made to contain that image, Blau's does -- and how! As Mr. Poncho and I learned on our recent retreat to The Driftwood Jam-o-tron -- a musical teleportation device built from a Toyota stereo system and fueled by a popular cash crop (hint: not ethanol) -- Karl Blau has the power to summon Northeastern Native American seal spirits. He's basically the musical equivalent of Swamp Thing. Or better yet: Kelp Thing. A close relative of Hemp Thing, too.

On the earthly plane, Blau's just a flat-out visionary for starting a monthly subscription service in which he sends you new CD's and LP's he's concocted in whatever moss-covered lab he calls home. This is from his bio on the K Records website.

About 2 years ago I started an "album-a-month club" called KELP! monthly. KELP! is a documentary label tracing my musical path, an avenue for my over-active creative side. People who enjoy the mystery subscribe up to a year and start receiving my records which have included--but will not be limited to--full length albums of mine and artists I'm producing, field recordings, compilations of artists and ambient art records.

Here's the tune that launched the Jam-o-tron into a stalactite-encrusted exploration of animated Alaskan cave drawings and a psychic dance with a vine-covered entity we'll just call Mr. Greenstone.

Dark, Magic Sea - Karl Blau

He also performs as "Kelp!", inventing beautiful amalgamations of Sun Ra, early ska and Lee Scratch Perry.

The Dance of the Reed Pipes - Kelp!

International Call - Kelp!

Beam Me Up, Barry

As is our yearly custom, Dewey Dell and I are spending a month unplugged from city life, taking stock in the woods and contemplating what exactly we mean by The Good Life. Again and again this summer, we come back to a vision presented by the brothers Gibb and everything the Bee Gees stand for: An unrepentant love of hair and silky fabrics, falsetto harmonies radiating love and brotherhood set to an insistent hi-hat and wah-wah pedal, built on diamond-cut pop melodies. It's something we can each strive for in our best moments: a complete and total abandonment of the tired axies of white/black and male/female, a reaching out for a futuristic, Star Trek-ian post-religious humanism where no one blinks when you decide to combine beards with satin and sing in registers normally reserved for women and choirboys. It's a freer vision of human life, one free of sexism, misogyny, racism or fascism.

Take a gander at Robin Gibb in this video, bedecked head to toe in skin-tight flesh-colored clothes and a gold medallion. Only a completely free and self-actualized man can wear that outfit. Look at his face while he sings his part of "Nights on Broadway" and see if you can detect an ounce of false pretense, shame, ironic detachment or gauche theatrical indulgence. You won't find it. Fact is, at the time of this taping, 1975, Robin is actually married with small children. He's just a man hanging out with his brothers making unbelievable pop music and singing his heart out. Watching Barry and Maurice, there's nothing here that smacks of overweening pride or the shallow exhibitionism of disco. In fact, there's still a reticence about them, a leftover shyness from their foppish 60's days...



Four years later, on the Spirits Have Flown tour, the reticence has been utterly annihilated and the performance of "Nights on Broadway" has been polished to a laser-like intensity, urged on by a gazillion fans desiring to rip the knickers off their bodies. And who can blame them? Robin's hair is now that of a Greek god; Barry is a white-panted Zeus; Maurice rules a netherworld where shirt buttons don't exist. The overall sex appeal has reached its liberated apex, a quantum splitting of the pop-disco atom into a nuclear radiance -- pure l-o-v-e. Plus, observe this unexpected side-effect: They rock harder than they've ever rocked before. I've said it before and I'll say it again: late 70s Bee Gees is the sine qua non of all Bee Gees-ism. And Bee Gees-ism is just a fancy way of saying: There's a better way to Bee. Beam me up, Barry...



Noted: Barry Gibb has a blog and he writes of events in short poetic verse. But of course he does. He also has some samples of his comedy stylings in a selection of short home movies. Lastly, you can actually take a virtual tour of his personal studio in Miami set to the beautiful strains of "Too Much Heaven."

Joy Division : Summer Hits

The first heat wave has passed through Brooklyn. Summer is here. And Glenn Fry (no link necessary) is singing in my head, “The Heat is On.” And boy is it ever, especially when I’m in transit from home to work, where in Manhattan with its reflecting glass towers might mean getting zapped by the sun’s rays into a puddle sack of flesh. I move cautiously, trying to preserve my energy, trying not sweat to death. So for relief and calm guidance, I listen to cool music, which brings me to Joy Division, a late 70s post punk, gothic rock band. Their lead singer, Ian Curtis, sings with a droll apathy, a style akin to Peter Murphy from the Bauhaus, or a sedated version of Fred Schneider from the B52’s. Its essence is: I’m alive, I’m dead, I’m singing. Curtis sings on the straight and narrow and it’s cool. Dead cool.

So as I dodge the sun’s rays while walking to work, I like to listen to Joy Division’s second and final album — Closer. This album spits and taps with moribund sheen, a cool and sweltering line between life and death, where I find myself on every upbeat wanting to live. Thus, a good, I’m baking on the streets, I should listen to this while walking to work, sort of jam.

There are three songs that I like to listen to on the final stretch of my walk. The song, “A Means to an End,” has a straight four four beat, where Stephen Morris, the drummer, sticks the high hat and snare with a hissing spit tap, a gut rock beat, while Curtis sings his way up to the chorus, “I put my trust in you. In you,” and it’s like that, a cold jab love; it keeps my feet moving, a straight four four. Then Peter Hook, who usually plays bass, plays guitar on “Atrocity Exhibition,” and plays like he’s scrubbing the strings with a pipe; it’s a screwy sound, a perfect reflection of the sweltering day. And all the while Curtis is chanting, “This is the Way, Step Inside.” Indeed it is, for I’m getting closer, closer to work. And then the final song plays, a processional song, “The Eternal,” where the synthesizer sprays the air like a garden tap sprinkler and shivers its way to the end sounding like a summer’s eve forested with cicadas. Back in the sun’s rays, I take my final steps before opening the work doors, and listen to Curtis as he sings, “Try to cry out in the heat of the moment, possessed by a fury that burns from inside.” And I nod my head, thinking, yeah, that sounds about right. I grab the hot steel knob of the work door and pull, silently stepping inside. It’s cool. Real cool.

A Means to an End

Atrocity Exhibition

The Eternal

BONUS SONG (An F-Yeah song):
No Love Lost

Fat-Smearing Sounds

Listen. I’m not trying to scare you away or blow your mind by getting all ethnographic. Our newest ether-amigo, E. Blanco, put in a special request for this one. We bonded over these Ainu chants years ago, when two young men could reasonably do such things. I was transfixed by Ainu chants on some Smithsonian collection and then found this record Japan: Ainu Songs on the Musics and Musicians of the World series on the Unesco Collection. The heavy stick-on fog-heat begs for some mystic musical corrective, and these shamanic butter-churning, grain-pounding beats and the accompanying back-and-forth seesaw sing-alongs from snowy lands do the trick. The Ainu, as you may know, are an ethnic group who live on the Japanese island of Hokkaido, the northernmost island of Japan. (I once went to Hokkaido for the Snow Festival in Sapporo, but we didn't catch anything like this. Just drank some nifty cans of sake that had their own built-in heating mechanism.) They’re sometimes called the "mystery race" by researchers because of the unclear ethnic/cultural origins of the Ainu. Some speculate the Ainu are related to Mongols. Some of these Joseph Bueys-worthy bear-fat-smearing tunes remind of those breathing songs/games that the Inuit rock out on occasion (ever say Fast Runner?). In fact, this seems like something that Bjork and Matthew Barney should be thoroughly into.

“Upopo” - Chants of the Ainu

“Iyute-upopo” - Chants of the Ainu

“Rimse” - Chants of the Ainu

Sufi Beats

The music on this record has cracked my mind open, again and again. I had a cassette of it in my car for one entire summer, and parts of these rhythms are encoded into my muscle memory, even if I don’t exactly understand what’s happening. With the hypnotic click-clacking sound of the rim-shots, these beats remind me some of funky desert insects rubbing their legs together, of coded communication, encrypted alien transmissions. And then, in a flash, it turns into the percussive equivalent of a Bach fugue, with phrases getting tossed around, from drum to drum, staggered, inverted, at double time, in dense woven patterns, everything bunched together in an incomprehensible knot in places, and then opening up with bits and snippets of silence turning into vast stretches before those bass drums explode in a thundering roll.

I scored this album on a whim, I think, mostly inspired by the disarming stylishness of Boubacar Diagne on the cover. The big smile, the knit cap, the hefty medallions, the shades, the flowing boubou. And those drums! They look like old out-of-commissioned boats you might see at a dock somewhere with the rope/rigging and the skin/sails. Diagne (pronounced djah-een) leads this ensemble of Senegalese Sufi drummers. They call this tabala Wolof – I’m thinking "tabala" is the word for the drum, and Wolof is the ethnic group. Sufism is very popular in Senegal. Many popular Senegalese musicians, particularly Cheikh Lo, are devotees of Sufi mystics. There’s a lot in common with Senegalese sabar drumming. Like with sabar, the tabala Wolof players play using a stick in the right hand and they strike, mute and slap the drum head with their left hands. (The title of this track, "Bak," is the name for these inventive, extended drum-call/breaks that sabar drummers tag on to the start of their rhythms.) With the stick they can get a sharp attack on the muted or open skin, or they use it to make a clicking rim-shot by hitting the drum’s side or edge. The technique is similar to that used by Brazilian samba drummers, particularly of the lead repenique.. As in other parts of West Africa, in Senegal Afro-Cuban music was hugely popular in the 50s, 60s and 70s. And so you’ll often hear hints of the Cuban clave (also known to Americans as the Bo Diddley beat) on some songs. But there’s another, equally funky "clave" that you’ll hear a lot in Wolof music. It goes something like (four) AND/ ONE, TWO, THREE (four)AND/ONE, TWO, THREE - and you’ll hear it sometimes here. One other thing to listen for is the way the rhythms can shift from 4/4 to 6/8, with a kind of underlying 16th-note pulse changing, on cue, to an underlying triplet pulse.

This is on the excellent Village Pulse label, which was started by a couple guys from the Pacific Northwest who went to Senegal to study sabar drumming and then realized there were loads of incredible musicians who’d never been recorded. So they made a few trips - to Gambia, Senegal and Guinea-Bisau - with digital recorders and mics and basically started their own label. Pretty much everything they’ve released has been first-rate. Unfortunately they’ve not released anything in several years.

"Bak" - Boubacar Diagne - from Tabala Wolof, Sufi Drumming of Senegal

"Drugs Have Done Good Things"

This video drifted into my web-o-scope earlier today and reminded me of the old Bill Hicks routine about rock and drugs: "If you don't believe drugs have done good things for us, then go home and burn all your records, all your tapes, and all your CDs. Because every one of those artists who have made brilliant music and enhanced your lives? RrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrEAL fucking high on drugs. The Beatles were so fucking high they let Ringo sing a few songs." With that in mind, I submit into evidence the following, with the caveat that the chances that your own drug use will result in this kind of deep-fried melted-brain brilliance are very low. It's actually a cautionary tale considering Richard Manuel's fabled addiction to Grand Marnier, but the sheer soul survivalism of a dude who spent one too many nights on the road to wisdom (paved as it is with excess) is pretty impressive.

Sugar Rush

Having grown tired of whatever feeble algorithm is at work in the shuffle function in my Windows Media Player at work, I’ve taken to reconfiguring my playlist either by songlength or alphabetically by title. Listening to a whole hour’s worth off 3:14-long songs gives you insight into the wisdom and shortcomings of the classic popsong format. But that too has its limitations. But organizing a playlist alphabetically by song titles yields some interesting results. Just yesterday I was cruising through the "S’s and I got to a set of songs with "Sugar" in the title. I was rocking Tommy James and the Shondell’s "Sugar on Sunday" and Jerry Garcia’s "Sugaree" and somewhere in there I came across a semi-forgotten gem by Half Japanese called "Sugarcane." (All Music Guide says they were "quite possibly the most amateurish rock band to make a record since the Shaggs" – that’s what I call praise.)

I’ll leave it to you to ponder what it might mean to be "deep down in the sugarcane." This song reminded me of a Charles D’Ambrosio story, with some grifters wandering around the midwest. Something’s definitely wrong here, but, as Captain Beefheart says, "at the same time it’s right."

"Sugarcane" - Half Japanese

My Heretical Bee Gees Judgment

As I was listening to Feist's version of the Bee Gee's disco hit "Love You Inside Out," I had to marvel at the exquisite production quality, how beautifully it fulfills the mandates of late 70s laser-carved disco polish. It's funky, sleek and breezy, a kind of hologram of depth (listen here). It inspired me to revisit the late 70s Gees, the stuff you're not supposed to like as much as Odessa. It's when I got inside the headphones for the second side of Spirits Have Flown, the 1979 LP, that I finally arrived at a ghastly and heretical judgment: Late 70s Bee Gees is actually better than late 60s Bee Bees!

The song "Too Much Heaven" (which I had to hear once a day for about a month) was the gateway drug. But the acutely-arranged, super-tight, deep dish R&B of "Stop (Think Again)" single-handedly shifted my consciousness. The center of gravity here is Dennis Byron's drumming, which is amazingly supple and spacious. The song has the most soulful fugel horn I've ever heard. The David Letterman sax solo is respectably curt and the cascading harmonies come in like diamonds + MDMA + Pellegrino on ice. Barry's searching helium croon is basically an Australian outsider artist's rendition of Al Green. At one point, you nearly get confused about which is the saxophone and which is Gibb.

Gibb really absorbed Philly soul and the whole Thom Bell production sound down to the atomic level. The minimalist drum'n'bass, the sneaky now-you-see'em-now-you-don't guitar riffs, the overall arid audio tableau where every instrument seems to have a velvet shadow stretching across a mystical sunburst desert at dusk, the aura of an 8 ball gliding gracefully for the corner pocket. The falsetto soul singing and airtight choruses are fully in the Philly soul tradition, descended from the great Bell-produced Delfonics (listen to "Break Your Promise" below and see what I mean).

The whole "disco" hex isn't fair. When you eliminate the filters of Saturday Night Fever and every wedding you've ever danced to "Stayin' Alive" at, when you get inside the headphones and listen close, you realize the hooks here are as good if not better than the 60s stuff, but also more sophisticated and actually closer to the white R&B dream that Barry Gibb was always trying to achieve. Compare the tempos and arrangements to the mid-70s Al Green records, they're very similar. Black radio stations played the 70s Bee Gees hits, which says something. Gibb was advanced, too: "I'm Satisfied" has a brittle hip-hop beat in it that R. Kelly could lift without anyone the wiser. I love that Gibb sings it as "makin' my love to you." It's his love he's making to you. Which brings me to my final observation: Barry Gibb's satin'n'gold oversexed apeman look doesn't hurt the equation, you know?

Love You Inside Out - Feist

Stop (Think Again) - Bee Gees

Too Much Heaven - Bee Gees

I'm Satisfied - Bee Gees

Break Your Promise - The Delfonics

What Travel Does

JP and Bernice and I just got back the other day from a week in Ireland. Still all messed up from the time switchyness. Our first trip to the Emerald Isle and our first travel abroad with a toddler. It was restive and beautiful and it made us want to travel more and eat more and make more money and basically be Irish, which is what travel is for. But, god, those damn Euros. It’s like an alternate, worser universe of commerce and finance. Just basically imagine everything being twice as expensive, and you get the idea. I learned a few things: you (I) can’t trust your (my) map-reading skills; always order the black pudding (blood sausage); always take more pictures than you think you want; the weather is frighteningly changeable; water-repellent isn’t the same as water-proof; and a week away from the Internet is good.

So I was basically away from music, too, though I did hear the tail end of a Joanna Newsom tune on the radio, after which the announcer described the harpist/singer as sounding “slightly deranged,” which seemed about right. If you’ve never been to Ireland, I’ll say that some of the many things to love about the place are the lovely people – they’re all so Irish -- and everything they say is pretty much better than the equivalent of what we’d say. For instance, instead of asking if a cup of coffee is “for here or to go?” – the person behind the counter will say something like “take-way, yeah?,” or if the waitress is bringing you a pint to your table, instead of asking “Would anyone else like a drink?” she might say “Just the one then?” See, better. And there’s the greyish rainy breezy weather, which is better than the full-on East Coast humidor. We actually saw people wearing parkas in Galway, which seemed only a tad excessive. Other highlights: righteous fish and chips and curry fries (McDonaugh’s), first-rate playgrounds for the toddler, and the mix of Neolithic, Celtic and early Christian ruins/archeology was pretty spectacular. We got to see incredible dolmens, wedge tombs, circular forts, ritual wells, beehive huts, cairns, etc. The endless networks of stone walls are amazing in themselves.

Though Galway is actually known as a music town, we didn’t get to hear any live music, in fact, though we did almost see a famous boudrain-maker’s studio in Roundstone, we got there shortly after it closed. Without any iPod or stereo or anything, I found myself singing this Richard Thompson song over and over again. It was sort of musical shorthand for the general rocky, windblown, hardscrabble British Isles vibe (don’t get mad). I know it’s way too Legend of Roan Inish for some people, but it’s really beautiful.



A guy named Joel turned me on to this. He was a neighbor one year in Asheville, NC. He was maybe 10 years older than me and my housemates, much more of a grown-up. and he took bemused interest in us when we moved in, calling us “the bohemians.” He had a show on public radio, and he’d come over sometimes to chat music. He gave me a painting that I still have. The painting had a great story behind it. Joel said that he’d gotten it from his uncle. Joel’s uncle evidently had a secretary who had a thing for her boss. She painted this soft-porn paint-by-numbers topless lady out in the woods, with her hands in her hair and her eyes shut in a kind of rapturous look, and called it a self-portrait. Well, Joel’s aunt didn’t like Joel’s uncle having this painting around. So Joel’s uncle gave it to his nephew, Joel. I was touched by the story (plus I like old paint-by-numbers pieces), and Joel gave it to me. The painting has come to be known as "The Nurse Lady" in our house, because that's what Bernice calls it, since it's an image featuring breasts. Though I’d been into Fairport Convention, Joel is also the one who got me into solo Richard Thompson, turning me onto Pour Down Like Silver, and Henry the Human Fly.

This was back in like 1990, and I’d just gotten my first CD player, and I was slowly amassing a collection. I think I bought that sort of hair-metal late-era Bad Brains record “Quickness” at the time, which I’ve regrettably since gotten rid of. I also went through an awful lot of trouble to by “Voice of Chunk” by the Lounge Lizards. Jon Lurie had split with his record label and he was marketing the thing my mail-order or something. And I had to send off for the record, which was the last Lounge Lizards record with Marc Ribot. I got way into the title track, and Joel ended up using it as the theme music for his radio show. That was my second-hand brush with public radio something or other. I always loved Ribot’s solo, the drum groove, and the layering of the horns. You hear this sometimes as between-story music on NPR.


“The Poor Ditching Boy” - Richard Thompson


“Voice of Chunk” - The Lounge Lizards

Bear Songs

Ever tussle with alcohol? Well for those who have here's a couple of songs, "Here I am" and "Back in Blue," from the upcoming release by Lucinda Black Bear – Bear Songs, featuring singer/songwriter Christian Gibbs. These are two hefty songs, which serve as the album’s finale. "Here I am" broods with slow jangling guitar, hope blown harmonica, and alluring lyricism. The song stomps triumphant in the end and then sinks into the dark, deep waters of the final cut, "Back in Blue." Check it out:

Here I am

Back in Blue

Lucinda Black Bear is based in Brooklyn, NY.
For more info, click: L.B.B.

There's Too Many Poets, There's Too Many Songs, No Voice Can Erase the Wrongs

If for some miraculous reason you're a religious reader of this blog, you know we've long touted the wonders of the shamefully obscure folk-pop master Bill Fox, of Cleveland, Ohio. I've been coy about this until now, out of misguided humility, but here goes nothing: my Bruce Banner alter-ego (i.e., my actual identity when I'm not a hulking green blogger) has written a long essay about my quest to find out what happened to Fox after he dropped off the musical map a decade ago. It's in the current issue of THE BELIEVER magazine, which is published by the highly reputable McSweeney's Publishing, LLC, begun by a certain literary fellow named Dave Eggers. The article is entitled "Transit Byzantium," after Fox's 1998 album on spinArt. Here's the editor's copy in the magazine:

Why is Bill Fox — one of America’s greatest contemporary songwriters — working in self-imposed exile as a telemarketer in Cleveland?

The leader of power pop act The Mice in the late 1980s, Fox recorded two solo albums in the 1990s, which happen to be two of the best recorded in that particular decade and maybe any decade. Hear for yourself:

Over and Away She Goes - Bill Fox

Song of a Drunken Nightingale - Bill Fox

Please run swiftly to your local independent bookstore and purchase the June/July issue of THE BELIEVER magazine. It comes with a CD of music which has on it a Bill Fox song called "My Baby Crying," which is beautiful.

Swaddler's Delight

There’s a new member of the Driftwood clan. In honor of Dewey Dell and Lefty’s brand new little baby, here’s some driftable infant music. Along with Colleen, Bach, Eno and Woody Guthrie, these were some of the jams that made JP’s and my first weeks home with baby Bernice such a cocoon of sleepy sonic pleasure. These tracks come from the first of Raymond Scott’s three-disc Soothing Sounds for Baby series. These recordings were made in 1963, with the approval and marketing muscle of the Gesell Institute of Child Development. The idea was that parents could nurse, change, bathe, swaddle, rock and otherwise take care of their babies with these edifying percolating rings in the background. Not exactly Baby Mozart, more like Baby Kraftwerk.

“Sleepy Time” - Raymond Scott


“Music Box” - Raymond Scott

Ephemeral Tardo

Islaja
Ulual Yyy
Fonal Finland

I put this disc on and thought the lead singer, Merja Kokkenon, might be retarded. That's a good thing, a real good thing. In fact, it's so good that I killed the lights in my room and lit a candle and watched the flame while Islaja continued to wheel out the melodies of ephemeral tardo. Islaja is music for the third eye, and it works that shit like bees to the pistil. My pineal gland felt duly stroked by end way of Islaja Ulual Yyy and I hope yours will too.

Kutsukaa Sydanta
Pysahtyneet Planeetat
Pete P.

Lee Bob's Haunted Motley Crue Melody

MySpace is the best thing to happen to a music nerd in a whole lotta years. Despite whatever reservations I have about Rupert Murdoch's plans for world domination, I'm constantly amazed by the talent just floating willy-nilly around the "friend" empire. Case in point: Lee Bob Watson, the bass player for California indie band Jackpot, who you may remember from that Jason Lytle compilation, Under the Radio. Lee Bob recently asked to be my friend on MySpace, so I clicked over, gave a listen to his songs and was very, totally, really, completely impressed! What especially struck me was "To Juliette," from Lee Bob's 2004 album Punk Sinatra (BUY HERE). For a while, I couldn't figure out why it hit home so squarely. The lyrics -- a loser musician in love with an upstanding gal and bitterly in need of a hit to prove his worthiness (very Springsteen) -- are self-effacing and melancholy, but that's not really it. It's this strangely haunting and familiar melody...

But of course!

Lee Bob appears to have lifted it unscathed from the 80s power ballad "Home Sweet Home" by Motley Crue. The song is a classic, of course, but who actually wants to hear the original again given all we know about Vince's manslaughtering and the misadventures of the drummer's wang? In quoting Crue, Lee Bob has added a poignant meta-riff to his lyrical bitterness about the hit-making industrial-complex that once gave all the power and glory to idiots like Motley Crue. Juliette needs to understand this, so Lee Bob's making the (quite poignant and beautiful) case. Marry him, Juliette! Do it for love! You know, like in The Wedding Singer. Give it a listen and then visit and befriend Lee Bob, he's a special cat.

"To Juliette" - Lee Bob Watson & the Santa Cruz Gospel Choir

"Home Sweet Home" - Motley Crue

(Go to our MySpace site to hear Lee Bob's Phil Spector-ated "Let the Hate In," the current soundtrack to the Driftwood space.)

Oversight

At the most recent meeting of the Driftwood Singers Oversight Committee, an ad hoc hearing was held on the subject of Gerry Rafferty. The committee members found that, though Rafferty’s band Stealers Wheel was indeed represented in an early Driftwood post, that did not in fact constitute a proper good faith fact-finding effort on the part of the board. Furthermore, statutes require that an immediate remedy to the omission be made within 72 hours of the next business day. Residents have until the next public hearing to amend or comment on the committee’s report.

* While it was not accepted as evidence of wrong-doing, the fact that the board has already found time to arrive at ruling on such artists as Bob Welch, Billy Joel, Melanie, Buffy St. Marie, Carl Sandburg, Journey, Al Jareau, B.W. Stevenson, Gordon Lightfoot. Jerry Jeff Walker, and dozens more, the members of the oversight committee acknowledged that this could create the appearance of prejudice toward the aggrieved parties.

* What’s more, the oversight committee unanimously agreed that Rafferty’s Scottishness granted him the right to immediate redress. The presence of McCartney-worthy milk-fattened bass-lines and syrupy harmonies on “The Long Way Round” do not constitute grounds for dismissal. Neither did the subsequent mega-success of songs like “Baker Street,” even with its sax stylings, nor the troubling depressed AM reggae-isms of “Right Down the Line” serve as grounds for delay. It was agreed that Rafferty’s association with the comedian Billy Connolly will not be entered into the official record.

In other business, the committee voted to continue funding for the “Transformative Change” initiative through the next fiscal year. And Joan Shearing was given permission to display her watercolors in the atrium of the meeting room.


“The Long Way Round” - Gerry Rafferty

Memphis in June

Memphis in June - Nina Simone

Midnight Special

The high-water overalls, newsboy caps, Mockney-isms, faux miner chic and artful facial scruff are all just icing on top of the peculiar mash-up of working-class mannerisms, Queen-like operatic put-ons, ska hat-tips, and Pogue-worthy Celtic pub sing-alongs of Dexy’s Midnight Runners. Kevin Rowland somehow channeled Freddie Mercury while presaging the heaving sighs and theatricality of Robert Smith, Jeff Buckley, Rufus Wainwright and countless others and still keeping everything soulful and horn-heavy. This is from the record that featured the big hit “Come On, Aileen.”


“Plan B” - Dexy’s Midnight Runners

Embarrassment of Riches

I always had a soft spot in my heart for Charlie Rich after I learned about his infamous envelope-burning incident, when in a fog of booze and indignation he torched the envelope announcing John Denver’s win for Entertainer of the Year at the 1975 Country Music Awards. Rich was a silver fox, a late convert to countrypolitanism, and a maker of mega hits like “Most Beautiful Girl” and “Behind Closed Doors,” but before that he had a different thing going. Something moved me the other day when I was at Mystery Train in Amherst. They had this in the cheap-o stacks, and it seemed promising. Plus I’d heard a good, weird rock-n’honky-tonk jam of Charlie Rich’s on the Dylan radio show. I think this was originally recorded while Rich was on Sun Records in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s, and you can hear the Elvis-isms, but with a darker, heavier edge.

“I’ve Lost My Heart to You” - Charlie Rich

How You Drifted Here

It was the wiseman Mr. Poncho who first observed the strange and circuitous routes by which readers happen upon The Driftwood Singers Present. If you've recently sought, by way of Google or Yahoo, useful information on "Robin Thicke's bass player," or wanted to know "is Freddy Fender gay" or more generally about "singers during the hippies" (a particular speciality of this site), you may have stumbled headlong into our small, seedy crevice of the webosphere, finding Mr. Poncho, Lefty and the gang hanging 'round the campfire talking about Melanie's vibrato. For that, we're grateful and not a little dumbfounded. That's why we've added -- and will continue to add to -- a new sidebar tool called "How You Drifted Here," highlighting the various byways that have lead unsuspecting travelers into our clutches. The sum total, we believe, will offer a profile of what this site stands for, its overall gestalt in the electronic collective consciousness. The routes of all ye Drifters to our Driftwood Singing makes us what we are today. So far, it's a dubious portrait indeed. And for that we thank you: Thanks for drifting our way.

A little theme music for exploring our new Drift tool:

One Day - Anne Murray

Transcendently Delusional Rock Bombast

Why is it that Ohio seems to breed greatness? Lots of presidents were born there, including the immense William Howard Taft. The first ambulance service was established in Cincinnati. Cleveland had America's first traffic light. More importantly, an Ohioan invented the pop-top can. And, Akron is the rubber capital of the world. You get the picture – massive, massive achievements. Ohio, like Florida and Texas, is a kind of cultural/geographical vortex. Things survive there after they’ve vanished elsewhere. And it’s got so many damn cities. Plus it has that strange confluence of flat mid-western rust-beltisms and in-grown Appalachian-style coal-miner funkiness. In music, all I need to say is that Guided By Voices, Devo and Bill Fox are all from the Buckeye State.

Here’s another piece of work from Ohio. This is J.D. Blackfoot from the 1970 psychedelic-rock opus The Ultimate Prophecy, re-issued this month with loads of bonus tracks on Fallout Records. J.D. Blackfoot was born Benjamin Franklin Van Dervort (seems like a pretty good stage name to me), but rockers, as you know, like to empathize with the Native American (see Headstone Circus), and combine that with some bar-boogie and psychoactive dissipation, pop mysticism, and sometimes you get wonderful blends of transcendently delusional rock bombast. The title track is complete Spinal Tap – think Stonehenge, with a touch of epic Tennysonian Iron Maiden jams, one can also hear hints of Mollusk-era Ween, and a dash of Grand Funk Railroad, which is somehow both sodden and a leavening agent ... Mountain? Jethro Tull? (I’m quite the salesman). Listen for the heroic beat-incontinent drumming.

We’re told that shortly after the release of this record and the singles that followed, Blackfoot had a vision "in which he witnessed the Battle of Little Bighorn (1876), prompting him to become increasingly interested in the plight of native Americans. He has devoted much of his creative energy to them since."

"The Ultimate Prophecy" - J.D. Blackfoot

"Every Day - Every Night" - J.D. Blackfoot

"Save This World Today" - J.D. Blackfoot

Black and White Lifestyles

That's the title of an old Richard Pryor routine I love, featured on That Nigger's Crazy, the Grammy Award-winning (!!) standup album of 1974. It's a cheap hook but I need a reason to rope together Elmore James and Gene Pitney today and it'll serve. Continuing in the theme of amazing crap I picked up for a quarter from the by-now legendary Dude On the Next Block Over Who Was Selling His Entire Record Collection For Some Fucking Reason, I bring you this knockout track from The Legend of Elmore James, a 1970 compilation from Kent Records. It's a raw, bombastic, shabbily-recorded, flat-out savage jam called "Hand in Hand" from a Canton, Mississippi night club show in 1954. And guess who's pounding on the piano? Ike Turner.

Hand in Hand - Elmore James

Now for the whiteness. So cheap! But the fey, lily-white minor chord grandiosity of Gene Pitney is just a different sort of greatness. Shinier penny loafers. As R. Pryor says, "White folks fuck quiet, too. I seen you all in the movies." This is the sound of an epically self-involved sap enabled by expensive, big league production values. Early attempts at Wilson's teenage symphony to God. From Pitney's Big Sixteen, a compilation issued in 1964 by the Musicor label. A big, fat hat tip to Mr. Poncho, who gave this to me for my birthday.

Half Heaven, Half Heartache - Gene Pitney

And why not:

Black and White Lifestyles - Richard Pryor

A Square Deal

We're all collectors -- or, rather, collections, aggregate holdings, a bunch of stuff held together by some energy. Basic quantum physics, particle and/or wave. We are each of us a nexus where ideas, phrases, emotions, expressions, sentences, paragraphs, geographies, books, records, memories and events meet up in a will-to-live we recognize as an identity -- in my case a lumbering hunk of flesh known in electronic circles as Lefty. When I die, that which was collected will disaggregate, the things I owned being the only trace of my rough collective manifestation. Hence and therefore, I buy an album from the guy on the next block over -- a double album, The Name of the Band is Talking Heads 1977-1979 ("I've got it on CD," says the spectacled dude selling his entire collection of records) -- and what was once a chunk of his ID is now a hunk of mine. For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you, says W. Whitman. It is, as the big sticker on the cover says, a "square deal."

A SQUARE DEAL: This album was returned to the manufacturer with its seal broken, although no flaws were found during a routine inspection. It is offered for sale at a substantial savings, and is not returnable. Manufacturer's suggested list price: $2

Squarer still! I got it for 25 cents. Thank you, Mr. Aging Hipster Who Lives On the Next Block Over and Already Has This Album on CD and Has Had Some Recent Deep Realization That He No Longer Needs to Be Hauling Around 500 Pounds of Vinyl to Feel Good About Himself Anymore. How very Buddhist!

Sucker.

Serious Izod funk, recorded live at Northern Studio, Maynard, Massachusetts, November 17, 1977.

A Clean Break - Talking Heads

You Got Lucky

...because I got lucky. Last Saturday afternoon, the aging hipster on the next block over was selling a bunch of first rate vinyl, lots of early 80s punk and New Wave. Some Brit guy was cockblocking me on the fresh stacks, but he missed this legandary Stiff Records compilation from 1978, Stiffs Live. Only 25 cents! It features the genius Nick Lowe (founder and in-house producer at Stiff), Wreckless Eric and Ian Drury & the Blockheads, among others. But what's truly righteous -- and why today is your lucky day -- is the live Elvis Costello: the Burt Bacharach and Hal David cover "I Just Don't Know What to Do With Myself," and "Miracle Man," from My Aim Is True. Recorded during the label's 1977 group tour, these are gems. Listen.

I Just Don't Know What to Do With Myself - Elvis Costello

Miracle Man - Elvis Costello

[Photo caption: That's Nick in the foreground, Elvis over his left shoulder in the back. The photo is reversed on my copy.]

Important Electric Finger Music

Imagine the scene. 1969. The cigar-chomping record executive at Capitol Records barks an order at young Jimmy the copy boy. "I need you to draw up some fancy words for the jacket copy of the Joe South LP, Don't It Make You Want to Go Home?" "Right away, sir!" yelps Jimmy, his voice cracking. He takes the freshly-cut vinyl and places it on the turntable. His eyes widen. Jimmy begins to sweat and nash his teeth. He did really well with the Gerry & the Pacemakers copy, but this! He resharpens his pencil again and again. What IS this? Is it country soul or just soulful country? It's gospelly and hip but it's not quite hipster gospel. It sounds like Roy Orbison and Fat Elvis ate peyote together in the desert and formed a single man wearing a Renaissance tunic and then Andrew Lloyd Weber showed up with some lost sheet music for Jesus Christ Superstar. Nearly at wit's end, Jimmy observes from his eighth-story window two hippies prancing down the street with moony grins on their faces, marveling at the sky as if they were born just minutes ago. And then, during side B, track 4, a song called "A Million Miles Away," it happens. Jimmy's pencil, almost on its own, begins to move. He has a vision. Yes! I've got it! That's it! (Wait a minute, did Carl the AOR guy put something in his Coca-Cola?)

"You probably know as much about Joe South as you know about Teddy Roosevelt, Billie Holiday or John Lennon. Or you should. But in case you don't, he's a very heavy talent; original, articulate, influential, important. Joe believes that today, popular music is much more than entertainment. More, even, than a mirror of our times. It has become steadily more important, until now it is probably the most profound and significant means of communication between people. The ideas it contains and communicates are the dominant force in the development of tomorrow. In fact popular music is making history. Literally. This is his viewpoint. What he does about it is write, arrange, produce and perform original material, not only brilliantly -- but more important -- with absolute honesty. His sound is down-home, Deep South, gospelly, hip; with a touch of Dylanesque, off-center, on-target, mind-blowing storytelling to the lyrics. He picks a series of exposed nerve endings and puts an electric finger on them, crisply and firmly like a man composing a simple melody on the piano. He makes you feel, think and blink. He is what he is; an Atlanta boy, 26-years-old, now and for real. Which is what makes this man great. If you don't yet know Joe South -- it's time. If you do -- you don't need anyone to tell you."

Scene II. The next morning:

Cigar-chomping record executive: By gum, Jimmy, you've done it. The kids are going to eat this shit up! I'm giving you a raise!

Jimmy: Gee! Thank you, sir! Thank you!

Clock Up on the Wall - Joe South

Children - Joe South

Listen closely to the psychedelic montage "A Million Miles Away." It includes a recording of an actual phone call Joe South makes trying to reach Richard Nixon at the White House. When he finally gets patched through to an aide, Joe tells him: "I'd like, if possible, to get a message to the President. Um, Joe South from Atlanta, Georgia. I don't want to be any bother or anything. I just want to speak for the hip community of Atlanta. We appreciate any and all the efforts that the President is putting forth at this time for peace in the world and thank you very much."

A Million Miles Away - Joe South

[Ed. Note: Bloggy rumors of Joe South's recent demise are karmically counteracted at Shot of Rhythm blog, where some early JS material is posted.]

Circus Maximus: All in Favor, Say "Aye"

We had a quarterly meeting of the Driftwood Singers Board of Directors, held this past weekend in bucolic Pound Ridge, NY. Meats were grilled, vinyl was spun, whiskey was sipped, CDs ripped, futures pondered, guitars strummed, pasts reconsidered, handrolls smoked. In short, we communed with the sky, big time.

Among the findings, the board re-affirmed its commitment to spreading and amplifying the genius of Percy Sledge, and the board voted to table discussion on issues concerning Poco and the Average White Band. A draft resolution concerning Joe South and Bread was sent to a sub-committee hearing. When the meeting was adjourned, a Driftwood Singers caucus met to further discuss the matter of Headstone Circus.

The board members present felt that Headstone Circus, a little-known DC-based psychedelic country-rock group from the late 60s whose music is about to be re-issued on Normal Records, deserves the respect of all those who cherish gnarly Native American-inflected psychedelic blues-rock. It was unanimously agreed that, according to article IV, subsection C, of the Driftwood Charter, any band that can conjure CSNY and the Eagles, with weird tinges of Blue Cheer and the Marshall Tucker Band, deserves the full support of the board. Furthermore, any band whose foundation myth involves ingesting LSD in an old cemetery in which the "tombstones appeared to be melting and taking on animal shapes" is immediately eligible for special DSP grants and wavers of all application fees.

Ken Burgess announced that the Driftwood Singers’ Career Day events are still on schedule for August.

Because of time constraints the board adjourned.

"I’m Going Down" - Headstone Circus

"Summers Gone" - Headstone Circus

Mali, the Final Frontier

The indie hipsters have colonized West Africa. First came the Sublime Frequencies compilation Bush Taxi Mali, which offered a needed DIY antidote to the footnote-heavy pieties of ethnomusicological releases. Now comes this, some deep raspy gourd-lute buzzing and thumping from Mali, distributed by Drag City. You can feel the mud cloth and the gris-gris action. It’s swinging, gnarly and raw. I love the way the whole groove pivots on the muted strings.


from Bougouni Yaalali