Monks - Hamburg Recordings

Simply Monks .... Not even "The Monks." Lost and recently found recordings from fifty years ago. Only five songs but what great tunes they are!!! 1960's, garage rock. the music you might expect as the soundtrack to a movie about teenage punks terrorizing pretty boy surfer dudes. That's what it sounds like to my ears. And one of the cooler looking album covers. It just makes my entire collection look that much more hipster.

Always keeping my eyes and ears open for new (and older) sounds and possibilities. One thing leads to another ..... I ordered it on vinyl a month ago from Third Man Records after happening upon one of the songs on their website, after seeing a feature of the record company on CBS This Morning. It feels like I've been waiting several months since, for its official release. There's always something exciting about seeing new music in your mailbox.

Scandalize My Name

Listening to history on this Memorial Day. Powerful, booming and passionate bass voice singing old spirituals, folk music and protest songs from a past century.

I found this three record box set, several years ago in a local cramped, stuffy used bookstore ..... climb up a rickety spiral staircase in a dimly lit, dusty corner of the store. The sort of sounds that I just can't imagine listening to on compact disc.

Paul Robeson was an actor, college football player, activist and singer who was blacklisted in the 1950's during the McCarthy era.

Sunday Morning Listening to Bert Jansch

The older I get the more I appreciate recordings from half a century ago. It's historical documentation!!

From 1966 and on vinyl. Covering traditional English folk tunes with incredible acoustic guitar playing by Jansch and John Renbourn. The only additional thing that could be asked for ..... liner notes explaining the origins of these songs.

And following up with more Bert Jansch on vinyl ..... His 1971 "Rosemary Lane" record!!! Found this many years ago in a used record store in Portland with a $2.00 sticker on it. A knowledgable person would be crazy to pass that up.

Buried In Vinyl

This could be me at various points in my life. I've had spaces that closely resemble this. I mean, you try to keep things neat and organized but it's just not always possible. One thing will lead to another and soon you have blissful clutter.

But to this day .... and thousands of records, tapes and discs into a lifetime of collecting, I still know where almost everything is located. occasionally you can spend a day (or week) searching for an Elvis Costello vinyl record that you eventually realize you probably sold in your Mother's garage sale in 1988 but for the most part I know where things are.

I just wish that I could recall what was the exact record that initially hooked me into this lifestyle choice.

Just One More Late Night Radio Playlist ..... Yeah Right!

Really. really late, Thursday night, or if you prefer, really, really early Friday morning OPB Radio playlist. Because that's always been the best hours to listen to the radio. Sometimes you wish that your local record store was open at 3:00am. It's just too bad (and sad) that an aging wannabe hipster person eventually needs to get some sleep ....

• The Builders and The Butchers - Black Dresses .... A local band!! Heard of them and I have one of their records. (I think).
• Loch Lomond - Made of Ink
• Run On Sentence - Run To You .... Ever wonder where new bands get their names? I do. Was there just a instant where they all looked at each other and said: "That's it!!" Heck for all I know this band may have been around for fifteen years.
• Young Fathers - 27 ..... I was thinking that this was The Shins for the first sixty seconds of the song. Then I glanced at the online playlist.
• Animal Collective - Derek
• The Ponys - Deathbed
• Sufjan Stevens - Come On Feel the Illinoise .... I prefer him with his banjo. There's no detectable banjo on this one.
• Murder By Death - I Shot An Arrow
• Asgeir - Unbound .... It's like they set the drum machine and keyboards to make various five to ten second segments of random combinations of notes and sounds and then stirred it all up with a kitchen counter mixer and added the vocals. Different but interesting.
• Black Joe Lewis and The Honeybears - Sexual Tension

Late Night Indie Radio Playlist

Late Sunday night, OPB Radio playlist. Remembering late evenings long ago, listening to 1960's radio, while everyone else slept. This could be a short playlist because these days, I just can't hang in there at odd hours like I could in the 60's. ....

• Midlake - Head Home
• Madness - That Close
• Goldfrapp - Anymore .... This sure isn't the music of my youth. But for tonight anyway, that's perfectly OK.
• The Ghost Ease - Gemini Rise
• Say Hi - Elouise .... A band that I have in my collection!! Though not this song. A different sound. Is it possible that there's two groups named Say Hi?
• BrakesBrakesBrakes - Hey Hey .... The 'British Invasion' band.
• Cloud Nothings - Internal World .... "I'm not the one who's always right."
• Stephen Malkmus and The Jicks - Baltimore .... The title of their album, Real Emotional Trash, cause for a chuckle.
• Frightened Rabbit - Good Arms vs. Bad Arms

Zevon Live Again!!

Found in the record store filed under used vinyl recent arrivals. The question must be asked: Who would part with a Zevon recording?

I've been hooked since hearing those first piano notes of Frank and Jesse James as he opened a show for Jackson Browne in 1976. Unknown to me at the time, I went out the very next day and bought his self titled album. This bootleg recording of a radio broadcast brings back memories of that night forty years ago. For a nostalgic Zevon fan, very bittersweet since those days of youth and Warren Zevon are long gone. Though still wanting to keep the music alive!!

New Releases

Listening to new albums by a couple old favorites: "In Between" by The Feelies and "Notes of Blue" by Son Volt. It's always a heightened period of discovery when one of my favorites releases a set of new music. As in the pre-internet days, I try to keep the new sounds a mystery going into the first listen. It feels more like a highly anticipated big occasion that way. A feeling that I had begun to miss in recent years with postings of early songs releases and album samples that are so common these days.

Best of 2016

My choices for the best new releases from 2016 ......

• Anders Osborne - Flower Box
• Avishai Cohen - Into the Silence
• Hiss Golden Messenger - Heart Like a Levee
• Tony Joe White - Rain Crow
• Richmond Fontaine - You Can't Go Back If There's Nothing To Go Back To
• Tim Buckley - Lady, Give Me Your Key: The Unissued 1967 Solo Acoustic Sessions
• The Subdudes - 4 On The Floor
• The Jayhawks - Paging Mr. Proust
• Grant-Lee Phillips - The Narrows
• Gillian Welch - Boots No. 1
• Pink Floyd - The Early Years 1967-1972

And my album of the year judging from the one that's received the most listening time here at home, in my car or on the media player at work ....  and that I often find myself singing along to (like they could use my assistance on the harmony vocals) would be The Jayhawks new record. A very close second place to Heart Like a Levee by Hiss Golden Messenger. On any given day, it might be my number one.

More Soul

It's kinda funny .... I came across an article/review online about this record, listened to some song samples and decided that I needed to seek it out. A couple days later I walked into an antiques shop and there it was, in vinyl format, at the front of the Jazz bins. Like it knew that I had come looking.

The recording is from 1960. A septet that sounds even larger at times. An introduction to an old classic jewel

"A" Playlist

The A's have it!!! Songs beginning with the letter, A. In alphabetical order direct from my iPod.

• Damien Jurado - Abilene
• Dave Alvin - Abilene
• Jackson Browne - About My Imagination .... So many great songs written in the previous century. His best song from the current century.
• The Tragically Hip - About This Map
• The National - About Today
• Pierce Pettis - Absalom, Absalom
• The Subdudes - Absolutely
• Richard Shindell - Abuelita
• The Band - Acadian Driftwood .... Also can be found on any of the Desert Island Disc lists that I've dreamed up.
• Warren Zevon - Accidently Like a Martyr .... "We made mad love, shadow love, random love and abandoned love." One of my favorite lines.
• Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - Accused of Love

Mayflies

Recently came across a few songs by Benjamin Francis Leftwich. Now he has a new album and another batch of songs to discover.