"She used my head like a revolver...."

T. Rex: Planet Queen (remastered) and (acoustic)

Simon and Garfunkel - So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright

The Ether: Rue Des Jours

Ennio Morricone: Farewell To Cheyenne

Black on White Affair: A Bunch of Changes

Karin Krog and Archie Shepp - Steam

Fuzzy vibes for a Friday. I heard this on FMU this morning while I was sitting in the car for street cleaning and doing a crossword puzzle. Heady stuff. Recorded in Oslo on January 10, 1976 (a Saturday). Written by Archie Shepp.

Al Green: I'm A Ram

I'm partial to Reverend Al Green but Teenie's guitar riffs on this track are tight.

Saturday Night Special

Phil Wainman - Going, Going, Gone

Dana Gillespie - Andy Warhol

I never noticed the melody of the verses in this tune until I heard this version. The chorus here sounds a touch more like Heart than I would wish, but c'est la vie. Good for a rainy November Thor's-day.

Harry Nilsson: Without Her

Bad Cash Quartet - Amuse You

...and so we draw a close to Year Four of the Decade. As Year Five begins, my new direction is clear: mostly Swedish stuff from the late '90s that sounds kind of like Blink-182.

I hope everyone's cool with that.

Jerry Garcia - Eep Hour

Boat Club - Nowhere

Two dudes from Gothenburg with a yen to emulate Flesh + Blood-era Roxy. How can I resist this?

Available on Caught The Breeze.

Eggstone - The Dog

More from Eggstone. I feel like this one starts off inauspiciously, then gets ruling in a very '90s-anthem way on the chorus. Typically Eggstoneësque classy move with the surprise chord change into the bridge at 2:01.

Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich - Hold Tight!

Laetitia Sadier - Un Soir, Un Chien

Oops... this is from a newish album so I probably shouldn't be posting it. I'll leave it up for a day and then take the link down. In the meantime, all are strenuously encouraged to buy the album. It's a winner!

New Viva show (#98) in archives.

Thanks again to all who contributed to the 1997 project. I ended up using only a handful of the picks (in truth, I had 40 of 60 minutes programmed before I asked for help!), but I listened to all and enjoyed them immensely.

Considering an all-acapella playlist. You know, Prelude: "After the Goldrush", Bobby McFerrin, Guillaume de Machaut, selections from that Bjork album, etc. Is there enough good acapella material out there to warrant such an endeavor? Let me know if you have ideas...

Eggstone - Taramasalata

Huge thanks to Ely at Songblague for the tip on this slice of labyrinthine pop. I feel an Eggstone phase coming on...

photo courtesy of RVK Across the USA

Eric Clapton: Black Summer Rain

Deerhoof - Polly Bee

Getting pumped for the big show at Poisson Rouge tonight: Deerhoof. A band who continue to expand the rock idiom both harmonically and melodically (as opposed to merely texturally and rhythmically). Tickets still available!

Meanwhile, the 1997 project rolls along. Keep sending me your suggestions for a playlist of all songs from 1997, the last year when everything was shiny and the world was perfect. Deadline is this Friday.

Beck - Deadweight (edit)

I'm working on an all-1997 playlist for Viva Radio. This is one of the signature jams I remember from that gleaming year. Please write in with further suggestions for the playlist. Any organized sound created and/or distributed in 1997 qualifies. Deadline is this Friday 10/15!

P.S. Enjoy the authentic digi-rot at 0:43.

Lifter Puller - Nassau Coliseum

Grateful Dead - Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo

Recorded "live" at Chicago's historic Auditorium Theatre, Thursday, May 12, 1977. I'm officially adding this number to the "great codas" thread started here.

John Lennon: Oh My Love

The Jam: Wasteland

Gerry Mulligan: Prelude in E Minor

Brazil meets Poland. And here's Freddy Chopin's original, completed in a deserted Carthusian monastery on Majorca while "wrestling with cold, damp and malnutrition as well as an old Majorcan cottage piano."

New Viva show (#97) in the archives.

In these metal ways, in these metal days

Brian Eno: No One Receiving

I bet if you ingested J.J. Cale's Crazy Mama and chased it with Spiritualized's All of My Tears you'd wake up the next morning still feeling pretty good.

TONIGHT

DJ Emmett comes alive at Heathers, 506 East 13th Street between A & B, 9 pm-close.

Image courtesy of haw-lin.

drawing by Greg Condon


Rick Danko: Shake It
Rick Danko: Sip the Wine

I just wanna make it up ... don't wanna fake it
I just wanna shake it up ... shake it shake it shake it

When will Rick Danko's first solo album get the repackaging it so sorely deserves? Replete with rare photos, outtakes, and just general Dankalia. I mean, come on already.

New Viva show (#96) in the archives.

Weather Report: Waterfall

The players:

Joe Zawinul – Electric and acoustic piano
Wayne Shorter – Soprano saxophone
Miroslav Vitous – Electric and acoustic bass
Alphonse Mouzon – Drums, voice
Airto Moreira – Percussion

Japan: Quiet Life

I enjoy how on Wikipedia the reference under Japan's entry stating that they influenced Duran Duran is cited as "[dubious - discuss]". Maybe someone can do a mash up of Quiet Life with Rio.

Miles Davis Quintet - Orbits

Rodger Collins - You Sexy Sugar Plum (But I Like It)

Some Northern Synth for your Saturday Night.

Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band: Ship of Fools

Fuck it. It's Friday. And besides, you know you liked Bob Seger just as much as I did at some point.

Virna Lindt - Pillow Talk

More vaguely twee Europop for this Wednesday.

Will Powers - Adventures In Success (at 45)

"Success is peace of mind, which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to do your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming." --John Wooden R.I.P. 1910-2010

Joe Henderson: If You're Not Part of the Solution, You're Part of the Problem

Let's get this week started right. Recorded live at The Lighthouse Cafe, Hermosa Beach, CA, September 1970.

The players:

Bass - Ron McClure
Congas - Tony Waters
Drums - Lenny White
Electric Piano - George Cables
Tenor Saxophone - Joe Henderson
Trumpet, Flugelhorn - Woody Shaw

drawing by thijshere's flickr

Bobby Womack: I'm in Love

Siouxsie & the Banshees - Kiss Them For Me

Alternate TV: Love Lies Limp

brief band bio

James Brown: The Popcorn

Recorded after a show at the Dallas Memorial Auditorium in 1968. Released as a single in May '69 charting at #11 R&B.

Ozark Mountain Daredevils - Spaceship Orion

...one of those nights before a little trip when you stay up late packing and getting your affairs in order so you can relax on the trip, and then when all the affairs are satisfactorily in order and it's finally time for bed you listen to that one OMD track to bear you aloft to dreamland...

Neil Young: Violent Side


Here comes the night
Here comes the anger


You can say that again!

Serge Gainsbourg & Françoise Hardy - L'amour en Privé

May your Friday be as cinematic as this.

The Staple Singers: God Bless the Children

This plays over the final few minutes of Hal Ashby's The Landlord, one of the greatest gentrification themed movies out there - are there others? - and one containing the following gem of an outburst, from a son to his mother -

"I'm 29 years old and I have run away from home! Now doesn't that strike you as being a little bit sick?!"

The Slickers - Johnny Too Bad

Sheridan DuPre XVII was talking about this tune, as he'd heard the Taj Mahal version in a mix of Greg's but scandalously didn't know the OG. So, here you go. Lovingly ripped from my dad's copy of the LP.

. . . "walking down the road with a pistol in your waist, Johnny you're too bad . . ." warn the Slickers, and they should know: when the lawyer was getting copyright clearance on that tune, one of the writers was underground. The other was in death row.

--from the sleeve notes