JIMI HENDRIX NOEL REDDING & MITCH MITCHELL ON DRUMS THE JIMI HENDRIX EXPERIENCE GETTING THEIR FANS EXPERIENCED IN 1967

http://pedrofeliz3b.wordpress.com/2008/11/13/last-member-of-jimi-hendrix-experience-dead-at-62/

I first heard the Jimi Hendrix Experience on the playing field of my secondary school in Sheffield. I was 12, the year I discovered music. An older guy I admired handed me one of the earphones of his portable cassette player and asked me what I thought

I listened to the first few chords of Hey Joe, followed by Mitch Mitchell’s introductory roll and the conversational croon of Jimi’s voice and was immediately hooked. Nodding my head in approval, he fast forwarded the tape to the opening riff of Purple Haze. For a shy kid raised on a diet of Van Morrison and Stevie Wonder, it can only be described as a moment of clarity.

I listened to every song Jimi, Mitch and Chas ever recorded over the next year of my life, slowly collating their albums and bootlegs with the money I earned through my paper round. I learnt every fill and role, every break, every unexpected double pluck or hammer on from Jimi’s guitar, every inflex of his vocals. They are as much childhood memories as rhythms and melodies.

It was around this time I bought my first and only drum-kit. Within a few weeks of earnest and futile attempts at replication, I came to the realisation that Mitch Mitchell’s ability to fill a transitional gap between phrases with a flurry of snare and cymbal is a skill I will never possess, as is his ability to solo for most of a tune in a ¾ signature, or occupy large sections of track completely unaccompanied

Although it was maddening to learn he was entirely self-taught, as I was determined to be, it also added to the myth, raising Mitchell’s pedestal as a unique and visionary percussionist in a unique and visionary band.

Now I know more about music, have listened to Mitchell’s influences, understand the heritage of blues, blues-rock and jazz, and have a grasp of what terms like ‘fusion’ and ‘triplets’ mean. I appreciate he wasn’t infallible, and was prone to over-complicate. But this has not altered the way I feel about his drumming, as Mitch Mitchell served as the origin for my insatiable thirst for new sounds, new beats, new ways of making music.

You can hear the serendipity in Hey Joe, the harmony of free spirits. It is a meeting process that is, for me, as personal as it flamboyant, as humble as it is ego-driven. Mitch Mitchell redefined drumming, and I will always be thankful for being introduced to his beats from such a young and tender age.

On this day last year, the rock world lost one of its legendary performers when drummer Mitch Miller was found dead of natural causes in his room at the Benson Hotel in Portland, Oregon.  He was 61 years old.

Mitchell played in a number of groups including the Pretty Things, the Riot Squad, and Ramatam.  But he was most famous for his work with the Jimi Hendrix Experience. While with the Experience, Mitchell drew upon his jazz background and helped the band deviate from a traditional rock 4/4 beat and was essential in establishing their unique sound.

Here’s Mitchell and the Experience doing the (sort-of) instrumental track, “Third Stone from the Sun.”

Legendary blues performer Stevie Ray Vaughn regularly included “Stone” in his sets before his untimely death.

Here, SRV adds a bit of “Stone” on at the end of his version of another Mitchell track, “Little Wing.”

Jaco Pastorius was an influential jazz bassist whose struggles with bipolar disorder and alcoholism led to his untimely death at the age of 35 in 1987.

Here’s Jaco showing off his bass skills while a member of jazz fusion group, Weather Report, live in Germany in 1978.

(That’s a bass he’s doing all that with, folks!)

Grunge super-group, Mad Season, also performed a version live in 1995.

Finally, Brooklyn area bar band, the Marvin Barnes Time Machine, do their version.  (You’ll probably see more of these guys on this blog; they do a lot of tracks that I like and they do them really well.)

Heute gibt’s wegen Zeitmangel nur ein Kalendarium von mir.

Neil Young (Solokünstler, aber auch bekannt mit der Band Crazy Horse) wird heute 64 (!) Jahre alt. Meiner Meinung nach ist Mr. Young einer der größten Rock-Poeten des Jahrhunderts, nicht zu letzt wegen Lyrics wie die, von Out on the Weekend oder Needle and the Damage done. Herzlichen Glückwunsch und alles Gute für die nächsten 60 Jahre!

Leben und Tod liegen nah beieinander. Deshalb an dieser Stelle auch einen Todesfall. Heute vor einem Jahr verstarb der britische Rock- und Jazz-Schlagzeuger John “Mitch” Mitchell. Mitchell war zuerst Kinderschauspieler, wurde aber erst als Schlagzeuger für Jimi Hendrix bekannt und war das letzte lebende Mitglied der legendären Band Jimi Hendrix Experience. Mit ihm hat die Welt einen begnadeten Musiker verloren.

Eure Blutsschwester.

Probably not anything new to some people, particularly older cats, but we find this quite extraordinary: one-time English supergroup The Dirty Mac, consisting of John Lennon, Eric Clapton, Keith Richards and Mitch Mitchell (of the Jimi Hendrix Experience) that Lennon put together for The Rolling Stones’ TV special, The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus, which has a fascinating history in its own right.

Seeing Lennon and Jagger banter amiably before the group dives into the Lennon-penned “Yer Blues” is a bit like seeing De Niro and Pacino on screen together for the first time. Clapton and Richards then performing alongside Lennon (with Richards on bass) only ramps up the surreal (and awesome) factor.

- Gyro

Riffling through your big sister’s (or big brother’s) records, you often came to the conclusion that maybe he or she was cooler than you.  Maybe not a lot cooler, maybe just a little.  And you usually came to this conclusion by realizing that your elder sibling listened to music made by people you never heard of.  So today we focus on Ramatam, the 1972 self-titled debut album of a band that had big aspirations.

Ramtatam has been described as a “poor man’s Blind Faith,” and I suppose that’s appropriate – the band included guitarist/vocalist Mike Pinera, best known for writing and singing “Ride Captain Ride” with the group Blues Image.  He served some time as a member of Iron Butterfly before forming Ramatam.  The band’s drummer was Mitch Mitchell, formerly of the Jimi Hendrix Experience and the focus of the five-piece group was April Lawton, a chick who was hyped at the time as a guitarist as good as Hendrix himself.

So this group had a lot to live up to – Tom Dowd (Allman Brothers Band, Derek and the Dominos) produced the album but its combination of hard rock and jazz rhythms with totally incongruous horns kind of made it sound like a mess.  “Heart Song,” written by Pinera with Les Sampson (also a drummer, he played with the Experience’s Noel Redding), takes the group into Traffic territory, while the harder rockin’ “Ask Brother Ask” sounds like Rare Earth or Jethro Tull with a sax instead of flute.  Lawton does some nice shreddin’ lead guitar on “Ask,” and she contributes three songs co-written with Ramatam keyboardist Tom Sullivan.  Probably the best of these is “Changing Days,” which sounds like a Crosby, Stills and Nash throwaway.

Then there’s “Wayso,” writing credited to the entire band, which sounds uncannily like Blood, Sweat and Tears invited Chicago’s Terry Kath to sit in but everyone got drunk so they threw away the tape.  The band released another album without Mitchell and Pinera, presumably because they had a two-LP deal with Atlantic Records.  April Lawton never did make it to the exalted ranks of guitarists like Clapton, Page or Hendrix – she played in some bands but left music to become a painter and graphic designer.  She died in 2006.  Mitchell was inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with the Experience and died in 2008.  Pinera played with the band New Cactus and toured as Alice Cooper’s guitarist in the 1980s and played on a number of Cooper’s albums, including last year’s Along Came A Spider.

MP3: “Heart Song”

MP3: “Ask Brother Ask”

MP3: “Changing Days”

MP3: “Wayso”

Mike Pinera’s home page

Jimi Hendrix  fu un grande fan di Bob Dylan ed infatti la composizione di molti testi delle sue canzoni lo dimostrano.

Ripropongo la versione di All around the Watchtower suonata durante il famoso concerto tenustosi sull’Isola di Wright dal 26 al 31 agosto 1970. Un pubblico enorme, decisamente superiore alle aspettative, sicuramente tra le 600.000 e le 700.000 presenze, anche se c’è chi parla di oltre 800.000.

Una versione decisamente rilasssata, questa, eseguita nelle prime ore del 31 agosto, con la sua Band of Gypsys, e cioè Mitch Mitchell alla batteria e Billy Cox al basso.

Nel 1970 Jimi Hendrix aveva ormai abbandonato il suo modo estroso di suonare la chitarra, dietro la schiena o con i denti, e suonava sempre più spesso il Blues. Per questo il pubblico dell’Isola di Wight rimase deluso e lo fischiò.

In the wake of the still unfolding “ACORN and the Hooker” scandal, the U.S. Senate voted 83-7 on Monday for an amendment to block any federal housing grants from going to ACORN. And, if that wasn’t surprising enough, today the U.S. House of Representatives hopped on the bandwagon and also passed legislation to deny ACORN federal funding.

ACORN’s Federal Funding Further Threatened By House Vote

It was another bad day for ACORN, the community organizing group. The House voted Thursday to yank the group’s federal funding, following a similar Senate vote earlier this week.

The legislation passed 345 to 75 as a rider on completely unrelated legislation that would have the federal government displace private lenders from the student-loan industry.

The bill which passed Thursday was a reaction to the latest ACORN scandal. Undercover videos of ACORN employees advising a conservative filmmaker and his friend who posed as a pimp and prostitute on ways to break the law have placed the group on the defensive.

See also:
House Votes to Strip ACORN of Federal Funding
House Votes to Ban Federal Funds for Acorn
House Roll Call: How They Voted on ACORN Defunding
House votes to de-fund ACORN
House and Senate take action against ACORN
GOP seizes on ACORN funding
GOP finally topples ACORN

Even some states were either launching investigations into ACORN or moving to cut off their funding, including California, Georgia, Louisiana, Minnesota, and New York. The pressure is building nationwide and the list may grow.

Of course, at the federal level, removing ACORN from the government teat isn’t a done deal yet. The House and Senate legislation still have to be reconciled (will it cut off all federal ACORN funding or hust some of it?) and then Obama has to sign it. In any case, a special shout out has to go out to James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles the two amatuer videographers who, with a little help from Andrew Breitbart and Fox News, have done more to finally expose the rampant corruption and fraud at ACORN to a nationwide audience than other conservative activists have been able to accomplish in decades of opposing ACORN.

One final tidbit that should be noted is that since the first ACORN hooker video surfaced, polititians with any sense of moral decency have been scrambling to dissacotiate themselves with ACORN and move as far away from the organization as possible. Except that is, for seven Senators and 75 members of the House who, coincidentally, are all Democrats. Gee, they must all have a soft spot in their hearts for child prostitution, money laundering, and tax evasion.

For no particular reason, I’d like to dedicate this song to ACORN and their enablers in Congress.

/ACORN deserves to go away for good, keep the pressure on and don’t let up, tally ho!

A inscrição acima foi pichada por um fã de Eric Clapton em uma estação de metrô de Islington. Os anos 60 estavam na metade, Clapton estava apenas começando. Mas a frase fez sentido para muita gente e se espalhou pelos muros de Londres.

E ainda havia muito por vir. O guitarrista formou o Cream, que assinou clássicos como “Sunshine of you love” e “White Room”, tocou com Derek and the Dominos um riff inesquecível e arrepiante em “Layla” (eleito essa semana o segundo melhor riff da história do rock em enquete do jornal The Sun), e seguiu uma carreira solo recheada de ótimas canções, de “Cocaine” a “Wonderful Tonight”.

Isso tudo, e muito mais. Clapton participou de diversos projetos ao longo de sua carreira, sobretudo na inquietude da década de 60, alternando-se entre o blues e o rock. E, a cada trabalho, a frase ressoa no final: “Clapton is God”.

Para este CINCO,  escolhemos alguns projetos que, por pouco tempo, tiveram a bênção da guitarra de Clapton.

1) The Yardbirds
Clapton começou sua carreira no Yardbirds, com apenas 18 anos, e ajudou a fazer da banda um dos ícones da Invasão Britânica. Mas a fixação do jovem guitarrista pelo blues fez com que ele desaprovasse o rumo “pop” que o grupo começou a tomar após certo tempo. Ele deixou o Yardbirds em 1965 e partiu em busca de novos projetos. Foi substituído por Jeff Beck.

OBS: Em 1966, o Yardbirds ganhou um novo integrante, Jimmy Page. Mas o resto da banda foi aos poucos se desfazendo e, no final de 1968, Page era o único que queria continuar. Para concluir a agenda de shows da banda, ele teve que recrutar outros músicos. Encontrou esses: Robert Plant, John Paul Jones e John Bonham. Eram os New Yardbirds. O nome logo mudaria. E o resto a gente conhece.

2) John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers
Na banda de John Mayall, Clapton encontrou espaço para o blues  puro. Os poucos meses que ficou com o grupo foram suficientes para a gravação de um dos álbuns mais importante do blues britânico e lhe renderam o famoso grafiti “Clapton is God”. Em meados de 1966, o guitarrista deixa o grupo e forma o Cream, banda que lhe traria fama internacional.

3) The Dirty Mac
O ano era 1968. O sonho ainda estava vivo. E o Dirty Mac era uma das maiores provas disso. Afinal, nada mais parecido com um sonho do que uma banda formada por John Lennon, Eric Clapton, Keith Richards (no contrabaixo) e Mitch Mitchell. Eles se reuniram apenas uma vez, para uma jam session em um especial de TV dos Rollings Stones que nunca foi ao ar.

4) Blind Faith
O Cream encerrou suas atividades em 1968, mas Clapton e o baterista Ginger Baker não ficaram separados por muito tempo. Junto com Steve Winwood, com quem Clapton já havia trabalhado no Powerhouse, e Ric Grech, formaram o Blind Faith. O projeto durou menos de um ano, mas rendeu ótimas músicas e um disco muito bem sucedido.

5) Plastic Ono Band
O projeto foi criado por John Lennon e Yoko Ono e o mote era “YOU are the Plastic Ono Band”.  Clapton fez parte da banda por dois shows. Um deles está no álbum Live Peace in Toronto 1969, com rocks dos anos 50 e a inédita “Cold Turkey”. Clapton ainda tocou com Delaney and Bonnie and Friends e Derek and the Dominos antes de se lançar solo já em 1970.

Mitch Mitchell, English drummer (The Jimi Hendrix Experience) (d.2008 )

Agrupación formada por John Lennon (The Beatles), Keith Richards (Rolling Stones), Eric Clapton(Cream) y Mitch Mitchell (The Jimi Hendrix Experience), para el especial Rolling Stones Circus.

The Maui Hotel & Lodging Association raised more than $266,000 this weekend in its 31^st Annual Visitor Industry Charity Walk.  More than 1,200 walkers gathered at the War Memorial Soccer Field for the Saturday event.

The top individual fundraiser was Mitch Mitchell who raised $10,375 on behalf of Hale Makua.  The Royal Lahaina Resort brought in the most funds overall with a $25,242 contribution.  Oceanic Time Warner Cable raised $3,000, the most for a business.  And Hale Makua was $300 shy of $30,000, earning the most for a non-profit.  The funds raised on Maui, stay in Maui County and will benefit multiple island charities.

The bulk of the participants included visitor industry workers, non-profit agencies and business representatives.

“Our ability to provide for Maui’s non-profits – especially during these tough economic times – is a direct reflection of the integrity & philanthropic conviction of the fine businesses in the visitor industry,” said Carol Reimann, Executive Director of the Maui Hotel & Lodging Association.

She went on to say, “Maui has always done it in grand style – our island continues to raise more funds per capital than any other island in Hawaii.”

The Visitor Industry Charity Walk is a statewide event that takes place simultaneously on Maui, Oahu, Kauai and the Big Island. This year the Maui Hotel & Lodging Association also hosted a walk on Molokai.

The Charity Walk is one of Hawaii’s largest single-day fundraiser with thousands of walkers raising over $1million annually to benefit charity.  Mark your calendar for next year’s Visitor Industry Charity Walk – May 15, 2010.

(Posted by Wendy OSHER © 2009)

Because it’s fucking shit!

NOTE: The following is a complete work of fiction, save a stray fact.

“[A]t the conclusion of the last verse, it is as if the song bizarrely begins at last, as if the myth began again.”

—British scholar Christopher Ricks
on “All Along the Watchtower”

“All of this has happened before, and it will all happen again.”

Robert Zimmerman had heard the music all his life. Little fragments, half-remembered, from a lullaby his mother Betty used to sing at bedtime. The original lyrics escaped him, something about jokers and thieves. One line, however, remained crystal clear: “There must be some way out of here.” Something in that sentiment alternately frightened and intrigued him, even as child.

It returned some 20 years later, after the world had come to know and embrace him as Bob Dylan. He was a worldwide music icon by then, much to his surprise and amusement. Camera crews followed his amble, and sometimes he deliberately led them into walls. Writers too. They scribbled his every breath as sermons from the mount. He was so beloved that not even an infamous decision to “go electric” at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival was enough to cloud his mystique. It was equally true now, as he lived in self-imposed isolation from the fans and journalists who continued to hound him nonetheless. He was holed up in his Woodstock, New York, sanctuary, recovering from a motorcycle accident, or so the press dutifully reported. It wasn’t as bad as all that. What had really put him out of commission was that he’d heard those words again.

There must be some way out of here.

Over the last few months he’d been trying to piece the song together from memory. His mother wanted to help but was stuck for real details, aside from the revelation that she’d picked it up from her father. She supposed it was something akin to an oral family tradition, the lyrics elastic and adaptable, but the story remained the same. As far as she knew, it was the equivalent of a church hymn or a spiritual that traveled on the wind.

“I picked up as many reference books as I could find, really,” Dylan told Rolling Stone in 1969, “everything from tall tales of the Old West to medieval legends to even the Bible. So I went way back looking for it. [laughs] I couldn’t find anything. The closest I came was the Book of Isaiah, though it didn’t literally match the visions I had, which were crazy to begin with.”

Pressed for details, an already uncomfortable Dylan, in the words of interviewer Ben Fong Torres, “turned bone-white and began turning over words in his hands, as if carefully checking for holes.”

The thing is, the phrase and the story are older than even the Bible. If you think about it, it expresses a feeling that’s as old as we are, you know, humanity. The Book of Isaiah is about the fall of Babylon, the violent transfer of old-world thinking to a collective understanding of God as God of everybody, and if you’re not hip to that, so long. ‘There must be some way out of here’ — how do we get from there to here? How do we get to a better place? It’s an eternal question. I saw a few similarities between Isaiah and this image I’ve always had of travelers, these explorers from without and beyond, looking for a new home, so when I wrote ‘All Along the Watchtower’ I deliberately infused it with Biblical allusions calculated to mislead; otherwise, I couldn’t explain it. It was too weird, man, like science-fiction!

With “Watchtower” finally on the page, Dylan began assembling material for his first acoustic foray since Bringing It All Back Home in 1965, as well as his first new album, period, in 18 months. Inspired by his recent research, the song cycle revolved around folk legends and Biblical figures, which, the artist later admitted, “were like the template for all that folk-hero stuff, really.” There were music-biz allegories in the form of “The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest,” the scammed and scammer, respectively. A Latin theologian materializes in “I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine.” Eli, the high priest of Shiloh, dispatches a “Wicked Messenger.” The memory of 18th century radical Thomas Paine haunts “As I Went Out One Morning.”

Perhaps most important is a figure long familiar in the contemporary imagination, Texas gunslinger John Wesley Hardin, a slippery outlaw who cast a long, romantic shadow over the evolving American West. It was Hardin’s name, augmented with a “g,” that would grace the LP issued in the twilight of 1967. Lillian Roxon later reflected on its reception in her seminal Rock Encyclopedia:

JOHN WESLEY HARDING gives some clues as to what happened in Woodstock, reflecting its (and perhaps Dylan’s) rustic calm. . . . The acid generation is somewhat disappointed . . . but there are plenty more who welcome the new tranquility.

That tranquility, Dylan later admitted, was due in part to his religious conversion and to the relief he felt at finally setting his childhood vision to rest. “I got it out of my system in ‘Watchtower,’ ” he explained to Kurt Loder in 1984. “I still experience it every now and then, but it no longer feels like my burden alone. It was like I’d done what I was, perhaps, ‘programmed’ — to use the modern vernacular — to do from the beginning: ‘This is the message. Do with it what you will.’

“And,” he chuckled, “almost immediately, someone did.”

If the so-called “acid generation” was less than enthusiastic about John Wesley Harding’s apparent step back, one of its top representatives heard plenty of promise in its bounty. Jimi Hendrix had gotten his hands on Harding and brought it to London’s Olympic Studios in January 1968, where he was recording songs for what would become the last Experience album, Electric Ladyland.

“Jimi was knocked out by ‘Watchtower,’ absolutely floored,” recalled former manager Chas Chandler in 1988. “He kept saying, ‘Listen to the words, the words.’ The line that really sold him was ‘Plowmen dig my earth.’ It was a pun to him. You could take it quite literally or hear the word ‘dig’ as ‘love.’ He thought that otherworldly beings landed here eons ago and approved our planet as suitable for their purpose. ‘What purpose is that, Jimi?’ ‘To live, man. Do their thing. Make life possible.’ I’d ask if they were aliens. ‘Are aliens among us, Jimi? Little green men?’ [laughs] Really taking the piss. But he’d shake his head and laugh like I didn’t get it.”

“Jimi talked about space travel a lot,” Experience bassist Noel Redding chuckled in 1995. “You could say it was an obsession. He would tell me that we were descended from space travelers. He said they were the original gods and they lived here on Earth after their home planet was destroyed. That curious ‘…And The Gods Made Love’ mess which opened our record was supposed to be about the birth of modern man. It was the sound, Jimi said, of a ‘descending spacecraft.’ ”

Jimi himself elaborated for the BBC in April 1969:

Q: On the new album you’ve recorded Bob Dylan’s “All Along the Watchtower”—

A: Yeah.

Q: –and it’s really quite amazing, but not like Dylan’s song at all. What attracted you to it?

A: Well, I think Bob’s the greatest poet of all time, and “Watchtower” is probably the best song he’s written yet. He’ll write more, I’m not sayin’ he’s finished, but I mean that’s about as groovy as words get. And it’s a message anyone can dig, especially right now. We gotta find a way out of Vietnam, we gotta find a way out of the ghetto, we gotta find a way out of our own minds. I dug what the cat was sayin’ and I felt it was something that needed to be, y’know, uh, AMPLIFIED. [laughs]

Q: How do you feel about the song’s Biblical quality?

A: It’s a good story. [laughs] But I’m not really thinking about the religious aspect when I sing it or play it. I’m more into spirituality, which is different from religion; whatever gets you off, if that’s an authentic response for you, that’s cool. Church isn’t my thing — really, it’s just another institution, like school, with rules and, uh, dress codes, and it’s not really all that tolerant of anyone of a different mind, whatever your intention. Anyway, when I heard the song for the first time, it spoke to me as a, uh, a, uh, the origin of the human race as I see it, which is hard to explain unless you’re hip to an alternate vibe.

Q: Which is?

A: That we started here, but we’re originally from somewhere else.

Q: You mean other planets.

A: Yes, other planets. Dead ones, vanquished ones, tall ones, skinny ones. [laughs] See, some of those planets up there are just ghosts, y’know, abandoned neighborhoods we used to call Earth. We left when conditions got hairy, or when it couldn’t sustain us no more, or when someone swooped in and kicked our ass. So we’re all a mix of different surviving species; this is just our current form.

Q: Wait a minute: you’re saying we’re aliens?

A: No. See, that word is a human construct. We use it to describe what we refuse to understand. It’s a derogatory word, really. “That’s foreign.” “That’s weird.” “That’s alien.” Right? We’re not aliens. There are no aliens. Just wanderers and nomads looking for a place to crash.

Q: But if this happened, according to you, at the beginning of our history, how did they get here in the first place? How was space travel even possible? We’ve only developed it ourselves within the last decade or so.

A: See, you’re confusing “ancient” with “primitive.” Where these cats came from, technology caused the problems in the first place. They had the best of intentions, but they couldn’t be trusted with the promise of infinite possibility. It eventually got away from them. So when they came here, they gave up everything they had, to keep history from repeating itself. Of course, that was a long, long, long, long, long, long, long time ago. Once the original settlers died off and were forgotten, progress was inevitable.

Q: Sounds like Earth was almost a vacation destination.

A: Yeah, man. Like a big Holiday Inn. [laughs] But it’s only a matter of time before we gotta split this world and go find us another. It’s like — remember Peter Pan? The Disney one? “All of this has happened before, and it will all happen again.” Like I said, we fuck up when we think of “All Along the Watchtower” as an ancient parable, like “Whew, glad that’s in the past.” It’s a warning for all times.

As it turned out, Jimi left for good long before the human race did. He died on September 18, 1970, in London at the age of 27. Discussing the tragic loss 30 years later, former Experience drummer Mitch Mitchell, who continued to back the legendary guitarist after their band’s 1969 dissolution, mused, “It was sad for us all. Unbelievable, really. One moment he was here, the next he wasn’t. For a young man of such extraordinary talent to leave so soon when he still had so much to offer was devastating.

“But, in retrospect, I think he might have realized his time among us was short, so he said musically everything that was necessary. Electric Ladyland was his grand statement and, really, quite an epitaph. The title was a reference to a recurring dream he had, of a planet inhabited by a race of people, half-human, half-machine. ‘Good and evil lay side by side while electric love penetrates the sky.’ Absolute poetry. And he believed it was a real place. Who knows? Maybe it was. You never knew with Jimi. He never quite seemed entirely of this world, right? It’s like he said: ‘If I don’t meet you no more in this world, I’ll meet you in the next one/Don’t be late.’ And you know what? I’ve a feeling he’s there.”

Arnelis pasiskundė, jog aš dingau. Dingau, nes užsiiminėjau pažinčių užkariavimu. O jei rimčiau, buvo šiek tiek reikalų, todėl neradau laiko ką nors čia papostinti. Dabar jo šiek tiek yra, todėl iškart pradedu nuo to, jog vakar žiūrėjau Jimi Hendrix 1969 metų koncertą Woodstock’e. Po velnių, jis yra nesveikas. Tiksliau, buvo nesveikas. Bet tai, ką Hendrix’as padarė, išlaiko jį tarp gyvų. I mean it. Būtinai iš kur nors paraukit tą koncertą, pažiūrėkit. Kaip jis tą gitarą valdo. Fuck, man. Tikrai kažkas pretty fuckin’ neįtikėtino. Tėvukas sakė, kad man gali atsibosti tie gitarų soliakai, aš iš pradžių to išsigandau, bet paskui, nuo pat pirmos dainos, taip įsiliejau į muziką, lyg pats gročiau vietoj Jimi. Tos jo veido išraiškos and stuff. Oh man! Beje, Mitch Mitchell yra nesveikas barabačius. Tesiilsi jis ramybėje taip pat.

Pažiūrėjęs Hendrix’ą, varėm žiūrėti Žalgirio kovų Eurolygoje. Oh, damn, tiksliai… juk ten ne Žalgiris žaidė, o Olympiacos su AJ Milano. Kaip aš čia vėl susimaišiau, nesuprantu. Anyway, geros rungtynės buvo, man patiko. Tas Hall, ar kaip jis ten, gerai pasiautėjo. Bet šiek tiek pritrūko Armanio vyrukams. Palaikiau juos, nes Oly baisiai krito mano akyse, po visų tų bylų su Macijausku. O, va, Sienos MDP tai gerai pavarė. Namie jie išvis žaidžia belekaip. Manau, kad jie gali tikrai toli nueiti. Juos turbūt ir palaikysiu kitame etape. Palaikykite ir jūs, Kaukėnas su broliu nusipelnė tapti Eurolygos čempionais. Tikrai. Kas su tuo nesutinka, tas čiulpia pimpą!

Yeah.

Cherry Brakewells

Cherry Pies with a Toxic Twist

If poncey new-age Fat Duck chef Heston Blumenthal was cooking up a tray of Cherry Brakewells his list of ingredients would probably include snails (because all his recipes do) and a slug of Tennessee sour-mash to intoxicate the mind, a generous fistful of gunpowder to spice things up a bit – and a large scoop of dry ice (to coooool it down some). Oh, and some fire. Yes, he would garnish the tray with a thick slice of fire.

This band is stickier and sweeter than the largest pot of Windsor Farms Shop Royal Jelly. These girls put the glory bee back into the honey-pot and then shake it up a little. After their gig on Thursday they are the buzz of the city.

What I adored about the girls when I saw ‘em is that their brand of melting hot guitar funk and red hot blues is so abundantly rich in vulgar tones and texture that you feel almost overwhelmed, drowned even, by the experience. The contrast between the sweet soulful high notes of singer/songwriter Shay and the dark growling thunderclouds provided by leggy bassist Monique and the ‘runway model’ drummer Chi was a blissful storm. It was an experience much like running towards the edge of a stark cliff knowing that, far far below, where the jagged rocks meet the sea, you will plunge into the ice cool waters of salvation. It was like being stung, and then devoured, by a fire serpent. Desperation and repentance all rolled into one. A beautiful agony. How to die.

The Cherry Brakewells cite their influences as based firmly in the Sixties and Seventies. Hendrix. Cream. Zep. That kind of thing. But there is more to this band than all that Seventies vibe. This is no SuperFly Baadasssss band. They may have big hair, big smiles and big confidence, and the roots of their music may lay in the past, but these girls look towards the future with confidence and pride. The songs may have serious blues foundations but are laced with touches of modernity. I could recognise influences ranging from Wyclef, Kelis and late M.I.A. right through to some more expected sounds like ZZ Top, Kravitz and Skunk Anansie.

Lead guitar is provided by the multi-talented Anna Calvi (she told me she has been playing with the Cherries for around six months now – she has her own very successful band and a host of other projects.) Anna tended to place herself behind (and to the side of) the sensuous and sumptuous trappings of the ‘power trio’ but that didn’t alter the fact that her input was as invigorating and ingenious as it was essential. Her style of blues playing has a cool sharpness to it and the sounds that she weaves from her effervescent frets fizz with electricity and energy.

The Cherry Brakewells put on a slinky super-sexy show with plenty of guts and gristle. Soulful highs and fuzzy lows create drama and add smoky depth to their theatre of sound.

Watch these beautiful girls growing up … they are gonna go all the way!

© Neil_Mach
Feb 2009

Link:

www.myspace.com/cherrybrakewells

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Live&Direct #6

(Jimi Hendrix Experience – Like A Rolling Stone Live)

Today’s cut features one of the best known and most talked about Cats in recorded musical history…Johnny Allen, (Jimi), Hendrix about whom much has been written and said. No need for themusicologist to bore you with facts and details about his life and times so I’m just going to lay his version of Bob Dylan’s famous song, (about Edie Sedgwick i do believe?), on you. Recorded live at Monterey in 1967. In a word…magic.

“Once upon a time you dressed so fine,
Threw the bums a dime in your prime, didnt you?,
People call, say, beware doll, youre bound to fall,
You thought they all were kiddin you,
You used to haha laugh about,
Everybody that was hangin out,
Look atcha, but now you dont talk so loud,
Now you dont seem so proud,
‘Bout having to be scrounging yeah your last meal,

How does it feel,
Oh how does it feel baby,
To be on your own,
??????????????????
Look atcha a complete unknown,
Like a rolling stone?,

Gone to the finest school all right, hahah miss lonely,
But you know you only used to get juiced in it,
Nobody here to taught you how to live out the streets,
And now you just gonna have to get used to it,
You say you never you never compromise,
With the mystery tramp, but now you got to realize,
He’s not selling any alibis,
As you stare into the vacuum of his eyes,
And he says hey baby would you like ta to make a deal?

How does it feel baby,
How does it feel,
To be on your own,
No direction home,
A complete unknown,
Look atcha like a rolling stone,

Princess on the steeple and all the pretty people,
They all laugh and drinkin, thinkin that they huh got it made yeah
Exchanging all precious gifts and things but ah,
But you’d better take your diamond ring, I think you’d better,
you better pawn it babe,
Yes I know I missed a verse, don’t worry,

You used to be so amused,
At napoleon in rags and the sweet talk that he used,
Go to him now, he calls you, you cant refuse,
When you aint got nothing, you got nothing to lose,
Youre invisible now, you got no secrets to conceal,

How does it feel,
Oh how does it feel baby,
To be on your own,
With no direction home,
A complete unknown,
Look at ya like a rolling stone”.

by Casey Dolan

The Mitch Mitchell family has issued the following message in response to the universal outpouring of grief by fans of the drummer following his death last November:

Mitch’s death has been the most devastating blow to all of us.  We miss him so much, and of course life will never be the same without him.  The only comfort to us has been the wonderful warmth and love from friends, and all the fans who took the time to contact Experience Hendrix and express their feelings. We thank all of you.   Mitch would have been so touched.

We were asked some time ago to put down the names of charities Mitch supported for people who felt they wanted to send flowers or do something in his name.  So I have listed two below, one a local lifeboat station and the other a very good animal charity.  People can have a look at their websites to see if they too, would like to support them.  

Although both charities can use support, we feel it is important to add from our point of view, your kind thoughts, a kind action done with Mitch in mind or a little prayer is every bit as valuable to us.

     Thank you all -
     The Mitchell Family

International Animal Rescue
Lime House
Regency Close, Uckfield
TN22 1DS
www.internationalanimalrescue.org
 
Royal National Lifeboat Institution
West Quay Road
Poole, Dorset
BH15 1HZ
www.rnli.org.uk

A fan website — http://www.mitchmitchell.de/ – contains some of the best and rarest photos of Mitchell I have seen. Worth going to.

The Dirty Macs – Yer Blues