Not playing a cover almost destroyed Bo Diddley’s career.

Bo (sorry for the informality, but “Mr. Diddley” just sounds weird) was scheduled to perform on the Ed Sullivan show on the night of November 20, 1955.  This was when he was young in his career and had yet to release any albums.  Ed Sullivan could easily, easily make or break a performers career.  This was also a night when Sullivan was using his CBS show to help promote the Apollo Theatre and local “negro” music in Harlem.  This was revolutionary for the time.

The story goes that Sullivan’s producer over heard Bo and his band playing a version of the recent Tennessee Ernie Ford’s hit, “Sixteen Tons”, while they were warming up in the dressing room and asked Bo to play the popular hit instead of any of his normal songs.

Ed Sullivan expected this:

play#Bo+Diddley:Sixteen+Tons:2103469:m31491367

Well, Bo gets on stage and does this instead:

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(Sorry for the lack of a full “Sixteen Tons” and no video in-site for the Ed Sullivan show.)

Well, Sullivan later said that Bo was “one of the few colored boys to ever double-cross” him.

Bo Diddley survived and became famous for developing the Bo Diddley beat, a mesmerizing shuffle beat that, unfortunately for Bo, could not be trademarked or copyrighted.  It has been used in scores of songs.

Bo was hugely influential on early rock and roll and has been covered many times.

Here’s Paolo Nutini doing “You Can’t Judge a Book by It’s Cover” live in Madison in 2007.

Here’s the playlist for music selected by the DJ at the Fleur-de-Lys Club last night at The Lexington. Another great selection of new and established artists, if we don’t mind so saying ourselves!

1. ‘Myrkfaelni’ by Blindfold
2. ‘House by The Sea’ by Tim & Sam’s Tim & The Sam Band
3. ‘Caroline No’ by Brian Wilson (Superimposers remix)
4. ‘Summer Light’ by The Cave Singers
5. ‘The General Specific’ by Band of Horses
6. ‘Until Tomorrow Then’ by Ed Harcourt
7. ‘Where Horses Roam’ by Look, Stranger!
8. ‘Old Days’ by Treetop Flyers
9. ‘Toothpaste Kisses’ by The Maccabees
10. ‘Love Your Crooked Neighbour’ by Melodica Melody & Me
11. ‘Lesson Number 7’ by Clock Opera
12. ‘Home’ by Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros
13. ‘Zorbing’ by Stornoway
14. ‘Diamond Ring’ by Bo Diddley
15. ‘Fire Water’ by Django Django
16. ‘No Atmosphere’ by The Bees
17. ‘Airplanes’ by Local Natives
18. ‘Tobasco Sole’ by Voluntary Butler Scheme
19. ‘Insistor’ by Tapes ‘n’ Tapes
20. ‘Patterns’ by Band of Skulls
21. ‘Two Weeks of Hip Hop’ by Dead Prez v Grizzly Bear
22. ‘A New Name’ by !!!
23. ‘Beach Queen’ by Suckers
24. ‘Sleepyhead’ by Passion Pit (Run Toto Run remix)
25. ‘Rain Dance’ by The Very Best feat M.I.A.
26. ‘Teardrops’ by The XX

Undertones: “My perfect cousin”

Hüsker Dü: “Something i learn today”

Bo Diddley – “Hey, Bo Diddley” and “Bo Diddley”

Monks: “Complication”

The Fall: “I can hear the grass grow”(cover do The Move)

Consider the topic of love. Love figures into probably 80% of the Posts written and love is at the foundation 50% of the blogs themselves.

Brotherly love, sisterly love, love for family and love of country. Love stinks, love is everywhere, yet all you neeed is love and let me tell you ’bout a girl I love.
Love walks in and love walks out the door. I mean, let us seriously and lovingly consider a love that endures and a love that dares not speak it’s name, all for the love of god and love22,

love, its the sphere in  blogosphere.

Lets take a look, a long loving look, and if you will open your eyes and close your mind, then you will see what the Wakefield Doctrine has to offer you, and me and the person you love… but will never meet.

Love is… because it is clearly such an individual experience, so much so that nearly all of art and a whole bunch of science makes the subject of love a thing to be shared and cherished, feared and resented, a thing to live for and die for the lack of and the surfeit of… (you know…)
Damn! this thing called love has to be everything to everyone and still never be allowed to be understood.

The Wakefield Doctrine claims ‘gnosis by right of assumption’ and seein that that love is a wonderful thing, whatever we say here is as right as anything else that anyone else in the world might say.

(How the fuck can this be?) More the question, how can this love ‘thing’ be as non-rational, irrational, pan-rational, it can drive men to die and women to weep, yet there is no definition to contain it all. But you know and I know that if I never get another comment except for one, it will be here on this topic in this Post.

(…its ‘that old black magic has me in it’s spell’ and ‘let tell you about a thing called love, a crazy little thing called love.’

If there is any such a thing as ‘the supernatural’, we don’t have to look any further than the space that lies between ourselves and the world. Between these two there is nothing else and despite that, this is where love exists. You want to see love, feel it’s power then look no further than the outside of your face.  This is as if god and the devil got bored one day and realised if those new things, Man was going to get to pick between them, it might not be fair. So they agreed, lets make love and hate, fear and courage all the same. That’ll hold the little bastards. By doing this they decided that our thinking, our reflecting, our map, our doctrine, what we think we know about the world we live in, everything there is, is in the final darkness, something that know.

So it leaves us in the position where the sanest thing we can think is: ‘there is no distance between that which I think about and the object itself. That is non-rational. That is love.’

Caution Children are one of the many bands that characterize Ithaca sound

Nestled in the foothills of the Finger Lakes, right in the heart of wine country, Ithaca is a community secluded from the rest of the world. There are no major interstates that cut an unsightly swath through its downtown; no passenger trains rumbling across the Cayuga Valley.  One could easily assume that if it wasn’t for Cornell University and Ithaca College, Ithaca would have just been another Podunk upstate burg at the edges of the Rust Belt.

Yet this small college city, just over a one-hour drive from Syracuse and a little under five from New York City, is home to one of the country’s most eclectic, powerful, and thriving music scenes.

After all, the ever-elusive “Ithaca Sound” was created here, a fusion of familiar and ethnic music styles, fundamental to the popularity and acceptance of Roots. Acclaimed reggae group John Brown’s Body considers Ithaca home, as do country singer Johnny Dowd and folk singers The Burns Sisters.  College-town venue The Nines has been hosting the Blue Monday jam session for over 29 years. And the local award-winning college radio station WICB carries such programming as “Home Brew,” a weekly show dedicated to local music, while graduates at the School of Music at nearby Ithaca College go on to play with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic.

“Whenever you have a college town like this, you have a naturally reoccurring base,” says Dan Smalls, a concert promoter who has been part of the Ithaca scene since his freshman year in 1989. “A scene is only as good as the musicians who lived here, and there were always great musicians here. If you continue to do cutting-edge music then you’re going to have a good scene.”

Putting a face to Ithaca’s intricate personality is difficult at best, simply because it has too many faces to represent its storied history:  the veteran blues artist, the bartender at one of the hottest venues on the Cornell hill, the bouncer who’s worked all across town, the respected Visitor’s Bureau promoter, the music writer turning the city inside out, and the students who, in just three years, have carved their place in the scene. Each of them has their own stories about the music and the people, the bands and the bars, and none of them can ignore the impact this scene has had on their own lives.

THE BLUESMAN

Music in Ithaca always changes. The scene flows in four-year waves, rising and ebbing with each incoming and outgoing college class. But there are still some elements of permanence here: take Pete Panek, for example – one of the few, rare constants in a city whose musicians often grow up and move out.

“We’re the old guards,” says the 58-year old guitarist and lead singer of his epynomous band, Pete Panek and the Blue Cats. “We’re constant, we’re here forever.”

A consummate bluesman, Panek can recite a who’s-who of blues legends he has shared the stage with: Buddy Guy, Junior Wells, Koko Taylor, Charles Musselwhite. He played with the legendary Bo Diddley as his backup band, twice.  Since moving to Ithaca in October 1982, he’s been jamming at The Nines in Collegetown each week — one of the longest-running open blues jams in America, he’s quick to point out.

“In its heyday in the mid-’80s, right after Robert Cray and Stevie Ray Vaughn came out, it was crazy,” he says. “One night 24 guitars showed up to jam.”

As a forum for students to meet and experiment, Ithaca is fertile ground: Panek estimates that 80% of the bands playing at Ithaca’s major venues are college students, as opposed to out-of-town bands.

Yet it’s retaining these acts that’s the major problem.

Panek acknowledges that bands in Ithaca frequently outgrow their small college-town status. Those that move to Boston or New York to take their chances are rarely heard from again—if they even stay together.

“It could be a case of big fish in a small pond,” he shrugs.

Once band members graduate after being popular for 3 or 4 years, there’s “almost like a scramble” for another band to fill the void. Other times, bands that find success in Ithaca usually stick around, sometimes for a few years, sometimes more.

“There’s always a lot of bands, but the ones that really make it to the top have been together for a while. It takes time to get tight.”

And what works in Ithaca may not always work elsewhere in the country, as Panek points out.

“To be honest with you, a lot of times the bands that are really popular locally for a while, don’t leave town for a reason. Because they’ll get their asses kicked.  Some of the bands are pretty good for Ithaca, but if they leave town they’ll get burnt to death. All of a sudden, they’re a little lightweight. It’s a problem.”

But with the talent from the music schools, Panek knows that Ithaca won’t come up short for new and diverse bands anytime soon, and especially now.

“The music is good, the bands are as good as ever, and getting better,” says Panek, keeping an eye on how the current school year is progressing. “It remains to be seen. This semester’s so young.”

THE BARTENDER

Talk to enough people in town about good venues for live music, and a few names will emerge from the riffraff: The Nines. Castaways. Felicia’s Atomic Lounge. The Shop.

Ask John Peterson his favorite venue, and he’ll surely tell you the Haunt Bar and Grille, which he owned until 1996.

Originally, Peterson had intended to stay in Ithaca only for one summer after graduating Cornell. He took up a bartender job at The Haunt in 1972, back when the venue featured one or two local bands covering the Allman Brothers every week. Peterson didn’t stand for it.

“I knew exactly what the college kids wanted,” says Peterson. “It was later in the 70s, between 1976 and 1977 that we started bringing live entertainment back. Strictly original bands. No bands that played covers. I wanted bands that played original music.”

More original bands started to filter in, playing original reggae and blues.  And eventually, Peterson became a partner and stayed in Ithaca to steer The Haunt towards becoming the institution it is now.

In those initial years Peterson took a trendsetting approach to booking, oftentimes bucking the trend on mainstream music. For him, working at The Haunt was a “labor of love.”

“Having a nightclub was just a cool thing and I was very enthused about bringing these bands in,” he said.  “I would promote them really hard, and as opposed to bringing in what people really wanted, I brought in bands I thought I could develop a market for.”

Those acts included the likes of Stevie Ray Vaughn, who Peterson paid $250 for in 1981 — the same Stevie Ray Vaughn who went on to record Texas Flood and cement his reputation as one of the most acclaimed guitarists of this generation.

“I used to let the bands stay at my house back then,” recalls Peterson, “and Stevie was leaving kind of late after the act. He planned to stay in their van, but he stayed at my place for four to five nights. With his guitar.”

After being in town for so long, someone like Peterson starts to notice trends. Jam bands are on their way out, he says, a sentiment he shares with Panek. Heavy metal struggles to find a thriving audience. Soul and funk are currently crowd-pleasers, as well as African-inspired roots music mixed with good ol’ rock ‘n’ roll.

“The thing that makes me happy about Ithaca now is that it’s known as a town that really supports alternative ethnic music,” Peterson said. “People in Ithaca have a broad taste of music. It’s that kind of community… there’s a definite vibe in Ithaca that makes creative type people stick around that will help keep the scene alive.”

THE BOUNCER

Tim Mavros may be a self-proclaimed metalhead, but his job takes him all across town and across all different genres of music. He’s a bouncer who’s worked almost every major club in Ithaca and tossed drunks and underage kids out of most of them, but he is a man who enjoys the crowd too much to be confrontational.

Working directly with the shows also means that he’s seen the scene change from time to time and knows which venues he enjoys working with (Dark Star Orchestra are among the most entertaining of the “hippie shows”) and which ones may give him trouble (the nascent hip-hop scene isn’t his cup of tea). He enjoys the crowd, he enjoys the glimpses of the show he catches from the door, and he clearly enjoys his job.

He’s also felt the sting of the economic recession, which threatens to pull the carpet out from under the entire scene.

“The prices of everything went up,” he explains. “New York State wants to raise the liquor taxes. So you’re forcing the venues to up their prices, and it deters them from buying what they would usually buy.”

Venue owners rely on college students’ billion-dollar-strong disposable income to survive and thrive. When the recession hit, club owners were worried that their crowds would disappear, and reacted by reducing shows during the slow weekday stretches. But mercifully, the crowds haven’t disappeared altogether, the talent hasn’t vanished like the money has, and musicians are simply requesting more free gigs.

And the love-hate relationship between the permanent residents of Ithaca and the rowdy students on the Hill makes for an interesting dynamic.

“Townies don’t like the students,” explains Mavros, “but they know they bring the jobs. Even mine.”

THE PROMOTER

Fortunately for Bruce Stoff, this summer’s tourism season shook off the worst effects of the recession. A 10-year Ithaca resident, Stoff is the communications manager of the Ithaca/Tompkins County Convention and Visitor’s Bureau. His job entails drawing visitors to hike along Ithaca’s famous gorges, tour the wineries on the nation’s first wine trail, kayak down Cayuga Lake, go swimming at Buttermilk Falls, and do some shopping in the newly refurbished downtown Ithaca Commons.

And, while they’re in town, maybe catch a show or two.

“We just love the local music scene here, it’s fun. And we love getting all the national acts coming through,” says Stoff. “But from a tourism perspective, from the visitor’s bureau we just like to spread the word that people can come here and catch a good show.”

Stoff has been involved with the annual GrassRoots Festival for years — the “festival of music and dance,” featuring performers like Donna the Buffalo, has become a staple for folk fans across the country. And it’s one of the many promotions Stoff has worked on during his tenure here.

“We did a CD of local Ithaca music,” explains Stoff, “featuring some of the bands that are popular here. And we inserted it into 12-packs of Ithaca beer that were sold throughout the Northeast. And that was cool, just putting local music out with beer and letting people know there’s a fun music scene here.”

Additional projects target nearby metropolitan areas such as Philadelphia, whose NPR station is working with Stoff to bring Lyle Lovett to town for an interview on the program “World Café.”

And the Chamber of Commerce does what it can to help out small and new businesses, says Stoff. Finding sources of funding for clubs, with their razor-thin profit margins, can be difficult, but when they become successful these businesses are a boon to tourism. That’s why local nightclub Felicia’s Atomic Lounge was recently picked by the Chamber as the Best New Business of the Year.

“You don’t expect a chamber to pick a bar or a club as the Best Business of the Year,” says Stoff. “That’s how they try to bring attention to it.”

Seventy to 80 percent of the 750,000 visitors to Ithaca are in town primarily for the waterfalls and the downtown attractions. And after that, the remaining tourists are evenly split between the restaurants, the water sports, and the wine. To them, the music scene almost feels like an afterthought—a testament to Ithaca’s relative isolation on the national stage.

“It’s a little hard to get on the national radar like that,” says Stoff. “But there’s a really strong contingent of national performers who live here, especially with the roots scene.”

It’s a challenge for Stoff, who acknowledges that while student musicians develop their talents in Ithaca, they make their professional impacts in major cities like New York.

“The biggest stumbling block is, how do you keep the talent here long enough to really develop a name for the location? As soon as they start getting really good and popular, they move on to where they can get big shows and media attention.”

THE JOURNALIST

Or perhaps there are those in town who wouldn’t want Ithaca to become huge and corporatized, like the faceless record conglomerates in Los Angeles. Jim Catalano has been covering the scene since 1992, when he wrote a weekly music column entitled “Soundoff” for the Ithaca Journal. Despite being laid off in June 2009, he plans to continue covering music.

Being a music journalist means that he caught a lot of shows, including Dread Zeppelin, Soul Asylum, Buddy Guy and Jeff Buckley. When he first moved to town The Haunt was located downtown instead of by the waterfront, Castaways was a metal bar called Max’s, and locals could earn a good living not only by playing clubs but also fraternities, hotels, and college dorms. The scene ebbs and flows, he says, “but that’s mainly due to the types of venues in town and the local promoters, rather than the musicians themselves.”

Today, Catalano believes the scene is poised for another upswing. With talented and dedicated promoters who understand the scene well, and two newly refurbished venues set to open, “I think it will continue to be bright,” says Catalano.

He believes underground shows like Popcorn Youth, the Ithaca Underground, and Cornell University’s Fanclub Collective are shaping the contemporary scene today. Local bands such as the Sim Redmond Band, J-san & the Analogue Sons, and John Brown’s Body are also putting out new music that, no matter how large or small the crowd is, will manage to draw an audience.

And mercifully for his career, Catalano always finds something to write about.

“I’ve had people ask me how I could possibly write a weekly music column for 17 years,” he saoid. “I usually tell them that between the strong local scene, the number of cool national touring acts that visit, and the variety of regional concerts in the summer, when it’s easier to travel, there’s almost always something worthwhile to write about.”

THE YOUNG BLOOD

Worthwhile new acts, in fact, lie no further than Ithaca’s South Hill, home to the music-intensive Ithaca College and dozens of young student acts.

The six beard-toting, flannel-wearing members of Caution Children spent their junior year in a house on South Hill, drinking Utica Club, recording demo tracks for Myspace and playing gigs on and off campus when they had the time.  Though they’ve since moved into separate houses, they’ve still become something of a fixture on the college scene — so much so, in fact, that they seem to open, headline or otherwise involve themselves in every show that IC puts on.

But for keyboardist and IC senior Aaron Terkel, at least, Caution Children are more a band from Ithaca than a band from Ithaca College.  It’s an atmosphere that he and other college acts say is very hospitable to young bands, largely because the local scene itself is so vibrant.

“There’s a lot of music in this town,” Terkel said by e-mail.  “It has been said that there are more musicians (or at least, musically inclined people) per capita in Ithaca than anywhere else in upstate NY… Local music will always be present and be a big driving force behind what keeps people going in this town.”

Caution Children originally formed in 2007, after an open mic night at IC’s Campus Center.  The band began as a kind of free-spirited collective, sitting on a rainbow parachute and jamming out on toy instruments.  As they began practicing more regularly and playing actual songs, they gained a small following and a reputation for spirited, often riotous, live shows, complete with the token parachute and the “pistols in the sky” hand gesture that have become something of a calling card.

Last year, they opened for The Pains of Being Pure at Heart at Cornell University.  This month, they’ll play an IC homecoming event.  And over the upcoming winter break, the band intends to record their debut album with Sixteen Sixteen, an artist label and collective started by frontman Steve Burton’s high school friend Chris Ploss and home to fellow IC acts Radio the Ape, Kites in Space and Dandy Little Lions.

But Caution Children are a part of the four-year cycle that Pete Panek and other scene vets cite as critical to Ithaca’s music scene: most of the band’s six are not native to Central New York, and though they groan — literally — at the mention of post-graduation plans, it doesn’t seem that they’re likely to stay in the area.  Few college bands do, said CJ Knowles, a 2008 IC grad and the former frontman of now-defunct folk-pop act the Tundra Toes.

“College bands are in a lot of ways flashes in the pan doomed to fizzle out once everyone graduates,” he wrote in an e-mail interview. “But each one definitely leaves behind some influence, particularly on the administration’s support for college music and the local venues’ ideas of its worth.”

Knowles said that Jack Bauer and Stanley and the Livingstons were critical in paving the way for his band, while Tundra Toes went on to clear the way for Caution Children.  There’s a lot of crossover between the three bands: Caution Children’s saxophonist, Reece Lazarus, used to play with Tundra Toes, while Knowles once played with Stanley and the Livingstons.

Caution Children also share their bassist, Mike Grippi, with Dandy Little Lions, a noise-driven electro act that went on hiatus when keyboardist Jake Forney and drummer Nick Carr graduated last spring.  Forney has since relocated to Brooklyn, while Carr lives in Rhode Island.  There’s no word on if or when the Dandy Little Lions will return.

But that isn’t the case for every college band playing Castaways and The Nines these days.  Nick Bullock, Jason Pratt and Devon Reehl met in the IC dorms in 2000 — nearly 10 years and two line-up changes later, Revision remains a staple of the funk/jazz scene.

Keyboardist Jonathan Petronzio said that it’s a scene on the brink — a fact that explains why Revisions, at least, have never left.

“I’ve often wondered why and how Ithaca isn’t viewed as the Nashville of the Northeast,” he said.  “I compare Ithaca’s music to the likeness of a Carnival quarter machine where all of the quarters are lined up teetering on the edge, and ready to fall at any time… We only need one band to break.”

When all is said and done, the future of the Ithaca music scene appears as strong as ever, in spite of the recent recession, changes to the scene and changes to the industry overall.  The trendsetters of contemporary music are still here, coming and going every four years: these kids know what they want and they are ready to reshape this weird and beautiful town in their own ever-changing image.

“So do what you want, don’t follow trends, make your own trends,” Panek advised newcomers to Ithaca’s music scene.  “And then let them follow you, wherever that may be.”

– story by Blake Rong and Caitlin Dewey
– additional reporting by Donata Lockett and Jamie Miles

Mistress Lyn at your service with a few songs to scare the hell out of you, some that are just plain silly and all of which celebrate Halloween. Welcome to the dark side.

We opened the show with THE GRAVEYARD BY MOONLIGHT, a spine-chilling instrumental piece from one of the most commercial goth bands out there, Cradle of Filth. Then it was a track that can either be seen as very creepy or extremely silly (or both): HOUSE OF 1,000 CORPSES, from Rob Zombie’s album The Sinister Urge. Named after Ed Wood’s 1961 film of the same name, Rob used the track as the opening credits for his own horror flick, made in 2003, also called HOUSE OF 1,000 CORPSES. Check out the trailer for the film which looks like my favourite kind of horror film – very dark and extremely camp.

We caught our breath with Talking Heads’ deceptively funky PSYCHO KILLER, with lyrics that get into the head of a serial murderer. And then it was The Specials with GHOST TRAIN. More a political statement than anything, but still very creepy.

Nox Arcana’s BRIDES TO DARKNESS is from their Transylvania album and is the band’s tribute to the most famous and influential of all vampire novels, Bram Stoker’s Dracula. 

Screamin Jay Hawkins is absolutely hilarious when he splutters out  I PUT A SPELL ON YOU. Recorded in 1956, Hawkins has been reported as saying that he was so drunk when he recorded the song, that he can’t remember doing so. I believe him. Then it was a more controlled Bo Diddley with BO MEETS THE MONSTER, followed by Jazz singer, Herb Jeffries with THE DEVIL IS A WOMAN. Jeffries sang for many years with Duke Ellingon and this track, which was recorded in 1953, is on that crazy list of songs that was banned by the BBC. Go Figure. 

We couldn’t leave out MONSTER MASH by Boris Pickett and the Cryptkickers, now could we? But the need for real Goth was overwhelming and who better than Concrete Blonde with BLOODLETTING (THE VAMPIRE SONG) from their Still in Hollywood album. Excellent.

There’s lots of spooky music associated with the Blues: Howlin’ Wolf warned us about all the EVIL that’s goin’ on out there and Blind Willie Johnson condenses all of human misery into a wordless, incomprehensible moan in DARK WAS THE NIGHT, COLD WAS THE GROUND. It was up to Otis Spann to elevate our mood with IT MUST HAVE BEEN THE DEVIL followed by the equally rockin’ Leon Redbone with THE WITCH QUEEN OF NEW ORLEANS.

I resisted the urge to play Michael Jackson’s THRILLER because I think we’ve all heard a lot of it lately. But there’s one of his that doesn’t get as much airplay and that’s GHOSTS. As usual, he knew how to make a great video:

More silly than sinister is David Bowie’s SCARY MONSTERS AND SUPER CREEPS and The Who’s BORIS THE SPIDER. I reckon only the Cure know how to frighten the bejezzes out of us when it comes to spiders though. Take a look at LULLABY. Haunting and beautifully dark.

Only Nick Cave can possibly surpass The Cure’s Robert Smith when it comes to Goth. Here’s Nick and the Bad Seeds performing THE CARNY from the album Your Funeral…My Trial, originally released in 1986, and recently remastered and re-released as a CD/DVD set. The clip was filmed for Live and Loud on MTV on 18 May 1997 after Cave had been nominated for the best 1996 male artist and refused the honor (see his letter to MTV on www.nick-cave.com).

I love Tom Waits album Rain Dogs and the track, SINGAPORE, from that album is a fitting song for this show, with its sinister warning to those setting sail for unknown places. Can’t wait to see Terry Gilliam’s latest film, THE IMAGINARIUM OF DR. PARNASSUS, starring the late Heath Ledger and featuring Toms Waits as, (what else?),  the Devil. Check out the trailer:

Perfect follow up to that was Robert Palmer’s CASTING A SPELL from his Heavy Nova album of 1988. And to close the show, a beautifully benign tune, after all those scary songs, Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band’s take on the Frankenstein myth: LOOK OUT THERE’S A MONSTER COMING. 

I’m happy to say that Theme Park will be back for another season on BayFM so next Tuesday wlll be our first anniversary and it’s also the day that Australia’s biggest horse race takes place: the Melbourne Cup. Like last year there will be a sweep, lots of prizes and we’ll cross to Flemington for the big race. And the music? I’ve decided that as last year’s was HORSES, this year it will be LUCK. Wishing you all good fortune.

Here’s this week’s playlist:

The Graveyard By Moonlight – Cradle of Filth 

House of 1000 Corpses – Rob Zombie 

Psycho Killer – Talking Heads

Ghost Town – The Specials 

Brides to Darkness – Nox Arcana 

I Put A Spell On You – Screamin’ Jay Hawkins 

Bo Meets the Monster – Bo Diddley 

The Devil Is A Woman – Herb Jeffries 

Monster Mash- Bobby (Boris) Pickett And The Crypt-Kickers

Bloodletting (The Vampire Song) – Concrete Blonde 

Evil – Howlin’ Wolf  

Little Red Riding Hood – Sam the Sham 

Plan 9 From Outer Space – Movie Clip

Ghosts – Michael Jackson 

Dark Was The Night, Cold Was The Ground – Blind Willie Johnson The Blues – A Musical 

It Must Have Been The Devil – Otis Spann 

The Witch Queen of New Orleans – Leon Redbone 

Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) – David Bowie 

Boris the Spider – The Who 

Lullaby – The Cure 

Jeepers Creepers – Siouxie and the Banshees

The Carny – Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds 

Abbott and Costello Meet the Wolfman – Movie Clip

Hells Bells – ACDC 

Singapore – Tom Waits 

Casting A Spell – Robert Palmer 

Look Out, There’s A Monster Coming – Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band 

Next Week: LUCK (Suggestions always very welcome!)

Listen to Lyn McCarthy at the Theme Park on BayFM, Tuesdays 2-4pm, Sydney time.  

Also streaming on http://www.bayfm.org

Tragically also on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/maccalyn

Words by WMSE DJ Andy Turner of Zero Hour

Ahhhhh, Halloween, such a lovely celebration of all that is goofy and trashy. Devilish and scary, too? Sometimes.  Boozy? Yes, please. But for me, the season is most of all an excuse to play a lot of fun, twisted songs, many of which were recorded decades ago. Below I have listed a few of my favorites.

I host WMSE’s Zero Hour on Tuesday nights/Wednesday mornings from midnight to 3 a.m. Music from independent labels is the focus of the show, and I think I make a reasonable attempt at spanning the genres, with a nod toward spastic. For this week’s pledge drive show, I’m planning on going all-Halloween, so you can hear many of these songs and other demented ditties if you tune in – and why not pledge while you’re there?

“Haunted House,” Johnny Fuller: Recorded by many over the years, including Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs, Hasil Adkins and most recently John Fogerty, Fuller’s original for Specialty Records is the grooviest.

“The Witch,” The Sonics or “She’s My Witch,” Kip Tyler & The Flips:  Depending on whether you want to burn fast or slow, you win either way.

“I Was a Teenage Werewolf,” The Cramps:  Raise a glass of the good stuff to lead singer Lux Interior, who passed away February 4th.

“Halloween,” The Dream Syndicate: Your chance to trick-or-treat in the Paisley Underground. Bring your own jangle.

“Gonna Raise Hell,” Cheap Trick:  Used to hell-raising perfection in the Freaks & Geeks Halloween episode, a seasonal favorite in my household.

“Rockin’ in the Graveyard,” Jackie Morningstar: Issued by the Mobile, Alabama, indie label Sandy Records in April 1959. More fun than a bucket of candy corn.

“Night of the Sadist,” Larry & The Blue Notes:  Also available as “Night of the Phantom” if Sadist is gonna keep you up at night.

“Bo Meets the Monster,” Bo Diddley:  When you want to give the very best, give Bo.

“Morgus the Magnificent,” Morgus & The Ghouls:  Dr. John’s 1959 tribute to a New Orleans monster movie TV host.

“Trick or Treat,” Otis Redding:  The Big O is going for Halloween as the man wise to your little games, honey.

For additional audio and visual Halloween pleasures, check out WFMU’s Rock and Soul Ichiban with daily Halloween downloads and Seven Corpse Dinner, an excellently evil compilation compiled by Rex, host of the vintage R&B and rockabilly show Fool’s Paradise.  There’s also The Devil’s Music, Monster Movie Music, Spread the Good Word, Jukeboxmafia, and an archive post from last year from the Hound (an always worthy web destination) that’s chock full of Halloween-inspired madness.

Zero Hour with Andy airs on 91.7 FM, WMSE every Wednesday from 12 a.m. – 3 p.m. Check out past shows in the WMSE archives.

Yesterday we mentioned Mental Floss and their series of videos that explored the classic “Bo Diddley Beat“.  While we totally appreciate the selections (yes, even the George Michael song), and anything Bo Diddley, we gotta point out that they sorta missed the boat on making mention of basically anything The Gories ever did, which is a shame.  The Detroit band somehow took said guitar and drum beat originated by “The Originator”, and did something totally unique, and amazing with it.   So we figured we would add to the cause with this live Diddley-esque version of “Thunderbird ESQ”.

Also on the Diddley front, I finally got to the end of the latest issue of Granta only to find Ben Ratliff’s wonderful essay “Domp-Domp”, all about, you guessed it, Bo Diddley.  Upon Googling to read more of Ratliff’s stuff, I soon realized that Mr. Ratliff was also the man responsible for the Diddley obituary in the NY Times last year.   This all points to me beginning to like Ratliff more and more.

Oh, and Mr. Ratliff’s “letters” to Alex Ross are a pretty priceless read, but sadly they don’t discuss Bo Diddley.

Hey, it’s cold outside! You need some warm basslines to heat you up. Here’s a short  vinyl mix I did a while ago, focused on the similarities between Fusion Jazz and Hip Hop Instrumentals. You dig Hip Hop and Jazz as we do, don’t you?

45 King (right) with Lakim Shabazz and MaceoParker

Similarly to my previous mix, I tried to put together a sequence of smooth tunes that sound good together (at least to me), and tried to create an atmosphere out of it. The Lowest Common Denominator is having a warm and deep bassline, somehow Lowend-Theory-sounding, you know what i mean, we all love that sound.

You got some Fusion Jazz originals represented by virtuosos like Stanley Clarke (who provides a really cool intro if you ask me), Miroslav Vitous and german band Passport, some 90’s Hip Hop classic instrumentals, a classic UBB tune by Bo Diddley (really nasty drums), an underrated track from Funkadalic followed by a great sampling of the same by none other than the 45 King.

Then you got some Barry White, a couple of crazy jazzy beats from the Wild Style soundtrack, a Tribe Called Quest break I took from a bootleg vinyl I bought in Paris many years ago (that’s when I discovered breaks albums…crazy), and the solemn El Michaels Affair banger “Glaciers Of Ice” to close the mix. Hope you enjoy it as I did making it. Peace.

Tracklist:

Stanley Clarke – Life Suite Part 1 [Atlantic, 1974]

Nas – The World Is Yours (Tip mix) – Instr. [Columbia, 1994]

Omniscence – Amazin – Instr. [UGC 2001]

Bo Diddley – Hit Or Miss [Street Beat]

Passport – Homunculus [Atlantic, 1974]

Wild Style OST – Gangbusters [Beyongolia, 1998]

Funkadelic – A Joyful Process [Westbound, 1971]

45 King – We Got The Funk [Tuff City, 1988]

Funk Master – You Can…. [Promo]

Black Moon – I Got Cha Opin – Instr. [Wreck, 1994]

Lords Of The Underground – Funky Child – Instr. [Pendulum, 1992]

Black Moon – Reality (Killing Every…) – Instr. [Wreck, 1994]

Wild Style OST – Jungle Beat – Gangbusters [Beyongolia, 1998]

Miroslav Vitous – Infinite Search [Atlantic, 1974]

Beats From A Tribe [Bootleg]

El Michaels Affair – Glaciers Of Ice [Truth & Soul, 2006]

Listen on the player above or download on Zshare:

Warm bass mix!

Some guy at NYU “intends to turn all 6,438 sentences of the great Herman Melville (Moby-Dick)opus into Japanese Emoji, rather picturesque emoticons that are on most handsets in Japan.”

Lit.

• Lit Drift talks about Neil Gaiman’s Twitter fiction contest.

• Melville House named best small press of the year!

• Maud Newton talks R. Crumb and Chick tract’s.

• Featherproof Books has an iPhone app. (thanks The Scowl)

• The Millions gives us a comedic translation of The Road.

• L Magazine talks to writer Kevin Canty.

• L.A. bookstores and Twitter

Music

• The Bo Diddley beat is explored.
  

• Sufjan Stevens talks to Death and Taxes

• Kanye West can’t be killed.

• This Cold Cave song rules on so many levels

• Deckfight give us their take on the decades best albums.

Food

• Felicia Sullivan gives us an apple pie recipe that we want to make.

So you want to know how to tell which of the three types of personality you actually are? …well, telling you sort of depends on what type of personality you are…

(To borrow from a 12 Step saying, ‘only you can decide whether you are a clark, scott or roger’.  Now that I hear that, let me just add: ‘ This statement is true only if you are a clark.’)

The basis of the Wakefield Doctrine is that the characteristics that comprise all the three personality types are inherent in each and everyone of us;  male/female, black/white , chinese/jewish, old/young. Everyone one of us. So, if you think you are a clark and a scott and a roger, then you are absolutely correct. (Thanks to Jason, over at Project: Enlightenment,  for the feedback/critique pointing this out).

All of the characteristics of clarks, scotts and rogers will seem appropriate for you at one time or another. More telling, they will seem familiar. If you read this blog you will understand this, but you want to know immediately, for certain, right now, ‘Which am I’? 

There is only one way that is not only effective but quick enough for you impatient readers, and that  is by the process of elimination. (yeah, scott, he said elimination. huh. huh)  Lets just get you to look around and understand which of the three you are not. (Then maybe you can continue to read this blog and come to an actual understanding of the whole thing. At least those of you who are clarks will, all of the attention-deficient scotts and most of the tell-me-more-about-myself rogers will be long gone.)

Fine, you want to know which you are? A clark, or a scott or a roger? Do ya?

Look around you. Who do you love? (Apologies to Elias McDaniel) Of the people you work with, who do you feel is your friend? One of them (the exciting one, the one you enjoy getting to laugh) that is your scott, the other ones are all rogers. (There will only be one scott). The person you now remember that you forgot is a clark.

Like you.

All right, you parents out there. Your spouse is reliable to a fault. At the same time they can be difficult and they seem to take a lot of the day to day ‘trials and tribulations’ very personally. He/She is a roger. You are a clark. Your first born is a scott.

Pretty simple, isn’t it?

Now for those of you who want to believe there must be so much more to this Wakefield Doctrine, you rogers, well what the f*ck are you wasting your time on the Post for? There are pages and pages of information here. Read it! Most of it is about you!

Scott? Movies inside!

(Bonus hints!  If you can’t imagine wanting to, let alone actually watching the same movie more than once, you are a scott. If you think that civil war re-enacting would be an interesting and fun hobby, you are so rogerian. If you can seriously entertain the notion that you might be better off being someone/anyone else, hello clark.)

Alright. Back to your lives. You want more, leave a reply. Try not to notice when your boss seems to be talking behind your back, even though being your boss should mean that is not necessary. No roger there, just keep moving along. This Wakefield Doctrine stuff is kind of interesting, but it got nothin on your system of INHR/colour/zodiacial interpretation, clark.

Born Otha Ellas Bates (yang lebih dikenal sebagai Ellas McDaniel), 28 Desember 1928, McComb, Mississippi, AS. Setelah mulai karier nya sebagai sebuah petinju, dimana dia menerima nama panggilan “Bo Diddley”, penyanyi ini bekerja di klub blues Chicago dengan lagu-lagu bernuansa Louis Jordan, John Lee Hooker dan Muddy Waters. Di/dalam akhir 1954, dia bergabung dengan Billy Boy Arnold dan demo lagu yang sempat direkam adalah “I’m A Man” and “Bo Diddley”. Direkam kembali di Chess studio dengan beberapa personel lainnya yakni Otis Spann (piano), Lester Davenport (harmonika), Frank Kirkland (drum) dan Jerome Green (maracas), dan pernah menjadi hits R&B pada tahun 1955. Diddley juga membuat gitar khusus dengan bentuk segi empat dan banyak merek dagang yang menirunya. Kemudian diddley digelari sebagai legendaris R&B.

Galeri Foto

Sumber

This isn’t new news, consider it Friends of the Program Classic, but as it is making the rounds again it is definitely worth a look back. Epic early 90’s fashion, epic soundtrack, epic acting, and epic cameos by some sports legends, most notably Kirk Gibson’s mustache. I’m pretty sure it was nominated for an Oscar when it was released.

Watch the video after the jump and we’ll sit back and take your calls:

Day Dreaming

Show #1, in case you missed it… First couple songs got cut off (still working out the kinks).

Playlist:

1. Soul Vaccination – Tower of Power
2. The Bottle – Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson
3. Wait For Me – Roger Damawuzan
4. (Not Just) Knee Deep (Part 1) – Funkadelic
5. Hercules – Aaron Neville
6. Mustang Sally – Wilson Pickett
7. Fairchild – Willy West
8. Funky Drummer (Bonus Beat reprise) – James Brown
9. But On The Other Hand Baby – Ray Charles
10. Day Dreaming – Aretha Franklin
11. You Send Me – Otis Redding
12. It’s Alright – The Impressions
13. Nothin’ Can Change This Love (Unreleased Version) – Sam Cooke
14. Hey, Hey (What Are You Going To Do?) (Fast Version) – Bo Diddley
15. The Jaunt – Poets Of Rhythm
16. Fight Against Drug Abuse (Public Service Announcement) – James Brown
17. Sir Nose d’Voidoffunk [Pay Attention - B3M] – Parliament
18. Soul Vaccination (reprise) – Tower of Power

Luci Novoa despues de unas merecidas vacaciones vuelve a poner banda sonora a Doublecloth.* Luci Novoa after a few fully deserved holidays it puts sound-track again to Doublecloth.

Bo Diddley “Bo diddley” (1955) [As always, click on the title of the song to see the video]

Em 1963, o hit I Want to Hold Your Hand, dos Beatles, ocupou a primeira colocação nas paradas de sucesso nos Estados Unidos , abrindo espaço pra que em 1964, uma enxurrada de bandas inglesas divulgasse seu trabalho ao público yankee. Foi a assim chamada British Invasion, evento importante na história do Rock’n'Roll.

Dentre esses artistas, estava um bando de rapazes que tocava Mod Rock, cantando com voz rasgada e uma certa pegada de soul, tão comum em bandas britânicas da época, justamente as músicas deste primeiro disco, contendo covers como Beautiful Delilah e Too Much Monkey Business, de Chuck Berry e Cadillac do grande mestre Bo Diddley, além do hit que deslanchou o The Kinks, You Really Got Me.

Não á toa, que The Kinks está presente na trilha sonora de filmes ambientados nos anos 60, como um dos clássicos de filmes de gangster, dirigido e atuado por Robert de Niro, Desafio no Bronx, e Quadrophenia, produzido pelo The Who, sendo esse exatamente conhecido por retratar a frustrações de um jovem, tendo como plano de fundo e causador de crises existenciais, os conflitos tribais entre os Mods e os Rockers.

Tracklist:

1. Beautiful Delilah
2. So Mystifying
3. Just Can’t Go to Sleep
4. Long Tall Shorty
5. I Took My Baby Home
6. I’m a Lover Not a Fighter
7. You Really Got Me
8. Cadillac
9. Bald Headed Woman
10. Revenge
11. Too Much Monkey Business
12. I’ve Been Driving On Bald Mountain
13. Stop Your Sobbing
14. Got Love If You Want It

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Esta es la segunda parte de las Top 10 canciones que todo mod que se precie consideraría un himno, en la que se incluyen temas del mod revival y el grupo mod patrio por excelencia: Los Elegantes (pese a Pánico Speed).

6. Manfred Mann – “5, 4, 3, 2, 1”

Pioneros de la nueva ola londinense de R&B, Manfred Mann provenían del trad jazz y ese toque purista les hizo diferentes. Su tercer single “5, 4, 3 2, 1” llegó al número 5 de las Islas Británicas cuando fue elegida la sintonía del clásico show televisivo mod; “Ready, Steady, Go”, presentado por Cathy McGowan, The Mod Queen.

7. The Yardbirds – “I’m A Man”

Los Yardbirds siempre serán recordados como la banda seminal de tres de los mejores guitarristas de la historia: Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck y Jimmy Page. “I’m A Man” fue escrita por Bo Diddley en el 55, pero la fama le llegó 10 años después con el cover de los ingleses.

8. The Jam – “A Town Called Malice”

Y ya llegamos a la segunda época mod, a caballo entre los 70 y los 80, que fue, sobre todo, fruto de la casualidad: al coincidir el estreno de “Quadrophenia” y el incipiente mod revival en las Islas encabezados por The Jam. En pleno apogeo del punk, Weller resucita clásicos de los 60 a golpe de Rickenbacker, impecablemente vestido con chaqueta de tres botones y pantalones sta-prest.

Es difícil escoger una de las canciones del Modfather como himno definitivo: En “A Town Called Malice” combina el sonido Motown con riffs rockeros; “Beginners” se basa en la novela homónima de Colin McGuinness en la que se describe el estilo de vida de los primeros mod faces.

9. Secret Affair – “Time For Action”

Su primer concierto fue en el 79 teloneando a los Jam. Glory Boys era como el líder de la banda, Ian Page, llamaba a sus fans, al igual que los 100 Faces seguidores de The Who, aunque “Time For Action” fue su alegato mod definitivo.

10. Los Elegantes – “Este es mi tiempo”

En su primera etapa estuvieron influenciaos por el R&B, el sonido de los 60 y el mod revival de los 70 y 80, pero fueron definitivamente adoptados por los mods españoles con su segundo single por canciones como “Me debo marchar” y “Este es mi tiempo”. Pero, por mor del tacaño Youtube, tengo que linkar “La Calle del Ritmo”.

PD: Para Rafa, el “Mod Face” del Almazán (1984-1987).