Bill Boyd & His Cowboy Ramblers: New Steel Guitar Rag

Waylon Jennings - Abilene

If you happen to be stuck in traffic - or stuck in a rut - I can think of worse fates than having this to sing along to.

Junior Delahaye - Movie Show

I like a minor-key love song.

(dub)

Emmett posted this some five years ago and yet I've only recently discovered the below, from what I believe is Michael Lindsay-Hogg's film Neil Young in Berlin from 1982. But this is mesmerizing. Is that a clapping giant? Who cares. "Dinosaurs in the computer age...Dinosaurs, vegetable eaters."

new Viva show (#120) in the archive

The Cake - Baby That's Me

Written by Jack Nitzsche and Jackie DeShannon. And yes, it's just a hair's breadth away from Be My Baby. Is that going to be a problem?

Walter Wanderley Trio - It's A Lovely Day Today

Words and music by Irving Berlin, born Israel Baline on May 11, 1888, in Belarus. Irving was 62 years of age and living in New York City when he wrote this number, for a musical entitled Call Me Madam.

And yes, almost exactly five years to the day, this marks the triumphant return of Astrud Gilberto to these pages.

Engineered by Rudy Van Gelder.

Gerry Pond - The Sometime Girl

The Mamas & the Papas - Creeque Alley

If you have some time to while away, by all means go here. I was most interested to discover a tenuous link between the Mamas & the Papas and Duffy's Love Shack!

Duffy's...Love...Shhhhack!

Fiona Fullerton - The Me I Never Knew

Here's a song sung by Alice as the finale to a 1972 BBC production of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Music by John Barry, lyrics by Don Black.

Keeping it Anglophile. Keeping it twee.

Bela Fleck - Spain

Chick Corea gets the Bela Anton Leos Fleck treatment here. That's right - Bela Anton Leos. As in Bartok, Webern, Janacek. Even middle school bullies wouldn't know what to do with this.

Soft Rock - Uncle Albert / Admiral Halsey

An instrumental version, so you can sing along with the choruses, as Big B is wont to do, when he has a drop taken.

The Great Society - Love You Girl

Many thanks to the lads in MGMT for peeling this one off in their Late Night Tale. The melody keeps bringing me back to the "Smiling faces, I can see" part of As Tears Go By (also from '64/'65)... coincidence?

Written and sung by David Miner. Recorded October–December 1965, Golden State Recorders, San Francisco, California.

The Sopwith Camel - Fazon

One of my New Year's resolutions was to not post any more music with wah-chicka-wah-style funk rhythm guitar in it, but for soundscapes this pillowy, I make an exception.

General Strike - My Other Body

A set of humans made a series of decisions several years ago, and this was the result. Special thanks to Dan Hougland for the tip.

Harry Nilsson - Save the Last Dance for Me

Just some good lost weekend music.

Neil Diamond - Lady Oh

Off of 1976's Robbie Robertson-produced Beautiful Noise. This with Robbie Robertson on guitar, Bob James with the string and horn arrangements.

Hatsune Miku Orchestra - Nice Age

It's come to this.

Joe Dassin -
Le Jardin de Luxembourg
Salut les Amoureux

"Like many Russians, Olga adored Joe Dassin, especially the songs on his last album, with their resigned, lucid melancholy. Jed shivered, feeling an irrepresible crisis coming on, and when he remembered the words of "Hello Lovers" he began to cry."
--Michel Houllebecq

Improved Sound Limited -
Nine Feet Over the Tarmac
Suicide Road

With a tip of the hat to my brother, here are two songs by Improved Sound Limited from Wim Wenders' 1976 movie Kings of the Road. I haven't seen it, but based on these two tracks I'm going to tentatively say it's the best fucking movie ever made.

Elton John - Amoreena

OK, this is the third time I've posted this song, but it's that good. And we haven't heard this version from 11/17/70.

Note to self - live more like a lusty flower in '12.

Stephen Stills - Midnight in Paris

From 1976's not very good Illegal Stills, here's a track written by Donnie Dacus and Stills's wife at the time, Veronique Sanson. Listen as Stephen Stills sings in French. Wonder about the debt Woody Allen owes to this album. Midnight in Paris? And does Stephen Stills bear a little more than a passing resemblance to a certain Wilson brother? Just sayin'.

The Beach Boys - Little Bird

Dennis Wilson comin' at ya off of Friends. I feel like the string section should be given the sample treatment. Or maybe it has been? Whatever. I'd still probably prefer this version.

Bee Gees: I Close My Eyes

From the b-side of the Bee Gees' 1st.
Add it to the list of classics released in 1967.

Terry Melcher -
Beverly Hills
The Old Hand Jive

And speaking of Terry Melcher, here are two from Terry Melcher, an album Bud Scoppa in Rolling Stone described as "a disturbing, difficult album that reverberates like a cosmic sigh."

That's a bad thing?

Al Hazan - Just Another Broken Heart

Get ready to hit play again and again on this one from Al Hazan. Some things to know about the man, from his website: "In addition to his music career, Al has been a licensed real estate broker since 1954, worked as a professional photographer, is a proud veteran of the U.S. Army, and now specializes in treating crime victims as a Doctor of Psychology." And, relevantly: "Dr Hazan earned his PhD in Psychology in 1987 after writing his dissertation on the Seven Developmental Stages of a Romantic Love Relationship."

And yes, that is Terry Melcher you hear.

Chris Robison - I'm Gonna Stay With My Baby Tonight

Special thanks to Wombletunes for this one.

Eddie Hooper & Storm - Pass It On (Part 1)

Although I already recommended purchasing an mp3 of this, I have to post it now--slightly slowed, à la Tako in this mix--for New Year's inspirational purposes.

Can't wait to hear part 2.

2011: The Year In Review

Igor Stravinsky - Otche Nash
Brenda Lee - The Crying Game
Zoo - Hard Times, Good Times
Tuesday - Sewing Machine
France Gall - Les Petits Ballons
Nancy Sinatra - Sugar Me
England's Glory - Bright Lights
Helen Banks - Do You Know
Sensational Nightingales - My Sisters And Brothers
Sadistic Mika Band - Hi Jack (I'm Just Dying)
El Tigre - Figure
Chris Spedding - Video Life
Ilitch - Peripherikredcommando
Step Lang - Airborn
Radar - Una Splendida Emicrania
Miharu Koshi - Parallélisme
Electric Light Orchestra - Letter From Spain
Haruomi Hosono - Sports Men

I wanted to do a little compendium of some of my top finds of 2011, the songs that really made "life work leaving" (to quote a cryptic James Joyce). I also needed a reasonable excuse to post this picture of my boy.

Best wishes to everyone for a happy 2012...

Marie Moor - Illusions

Since no one has offered to send me their copy of this record yet, I'm posting a sweet youtube rip of it for now. (Thanks to the folks at clipconverter.cc for the good times.) Words and music by Friedrich Hollaender. Here's a clip of Marlene Dietrich singing the O.G.

In this crazy paradise, you are in love with pain.

Pop the champagne.

Je Demain - L'Hiver Au Bord De La Mer

Special thanks to TV Disko for the tip on this one. Lordy, we haven't posted any hibernian French synth-pop this frothy since Mikado. Read an interview (in French) with Je Demain here. Have a spacious New Year.

Roy Panton - Endless Memory

Subway Sect: Ambition

Oak Cliff String Band: Dallas Rag

song history "an old-timey howdy-do"

Tom Zé - Defect 2: Curiosidade

Does anyone have a copy of this record they want to give me?

The Seldom Scene: Doing My Time
and a more popular cover Baby Blue;
Live at the Cellar Door

Duran Duran - Save A Prayer (after disco rough edit)

Cooley-Munson: Sightly Sue

Nice bit of history on this stellar track here. Thanks to KnowPhase for introducing me to Sue.

The Twistin' Kings: Xmas Twist

This tune comes courtesy of a pal in Memphis.

Igor Stravinsky - Otche Nash

Neo-renaissance moves from Igor on this setting of the Slavonic "Our Father." Composed in 1926 and recorded by the Tallis Scholars at Charterhouse Chapel, Godalming, Surrey, England, in 1982.

bonus beats

A bit of goth for the Yuletide.

Bauhaus: Dark Entries

Virgin Prunes - Sandpaper Lullabye

X: Come Back to Me

Lone Star - She Said, She Said

Dear Santa,

For Christmas this year, I would like an eight-and-a-half minute, totally overblown prog-boogie cover of one of my favorite Beatles songs, by an obscure Welsh hard rock outfit; one that busts into some rad Free-esque moments, e.g. at the 2:50 mark. Thanks in advance!

Love,
Emmett

new Viva show (#118) in the archive

Wizzard - See My Baby Jive

From an era when 3-minute pop songs were sometimes 5 minutes long (c.f. Tyrannosaurus Rex, "Hot Love", which clocks in at 4:23, and of which this is a lineal descendant). I'm mainly posting this for the melisma at 1:04.

Miller - Baby I Got News For You

Marvin Gaye: Star-Spangled Banner

Marvin singing the national anthem at the 1983 NBA all-star game.

This one goes out to NBA legend Earl Monroe on his 67th birthday. And here's Woody Allen on "the Pearl" in 1977:

It’s amazing, because the audience’s “high” originates inside Monroe and seems to emerge over his exterior. He creates a sense of danger in the arena and yet has enough wit in his style to bring off funny ideas when he wants to. He has, as an athlete-performer, what few actors possess. Marlon Brando is one such actor. The audience never knows what will happen next and the potential for a sudden great thrill is always present. If we think of an actor like George C. Scott, for instance, we feel he is consistently first rate, but he cannot move a crowd the way Brando does. There is something indescribable in Brando that pins an audience on the edge of its seats at all times. Perhaps because we sense a possible peak experience at any given moment, and when it occurs, the performance transcends mere acting and soars into the sublime. On a basketball court, Monroe does this to spectators.

Read the whole thing here

Le Orme - Ad Gloriam