Alien Themes From The 1970-80s

 

During the 70s a new kind of instrumentals were appearing here and there, but this time much more electronic, the main instrument being the synthesizer.
At first it seemed especially popular with soundtracks, but later shorter and at times pretty alien sounding instrumentals appeared as well, courtesy of New Wave groups/artists/producers.
The results are a 13-track electronic snapshot of those days, painstakingly scraped together from the edges of the Dark Side, a 2nd companion Volume to our Awesome Sounds. 

For your listening pleasure the line-up ranges from the well-known - Giorgio Moroder with another Bowie enhanced piece continuing the Cat People theme - to relatively unknown performers - Brian Briggs anyone?? - all delivering excellent instrumental performances.

Question: What is your favorite synthesizer instrumental track?

Punk and Post Punk Samples (Part 1)

I needed some good news after last week, and received two surprising and welcome announcements from the record label Tiny Global Productions. 

HAF FOUND KARL BURNS!  The Fall's drummer -- who couldn't be located by the author of a book about former Fall members -- has resurfaced as the newest member of House Of All (pictured at left).  Karl Burns will be one of three drummers on House Of All Souls, which will be released in February 2025.  Burns joins fellow Fall drummers Paul Hanley and Simon Wolstencroft in the expanded House Of All lineup, led by Martin Bramah (at center with arms outstretched; Karl Burns behind him with black T-shirt and hat). 

The other exciting news is that Tiny Global Productions will issue previously unreleased tracks from John McKay, former guitarist of Siouxsie & The Banshees.  McKay and drummer Kenny Morris walked away from the band in 1979 while on tour in Scotland.  I wrote about their departure (and subsequent musical activities) at AJ's blog (which is now called Themes From Dead Cities -- not to be confused with his OTHER blog, The Dimension Of Imagination).  

This is a lengthy introduction to today's post, a set of songs that sample punk and post-punk classics.  Khayem's post on Dubhed a year ago (which collects video footage of the Banshees with McKay and Morris) inspired a search for Siouxsie samples used in hip hop and electronic music.  A track recommended by Khayem closes out the set.  McKay's successor John McGeoch is featured on several tracks.  After some virtual crate digging at WhoSampled (and adding some songs that I already knew), I ended up with these 18 tracks.  The Fall is present here, as well as Marco Pirroni's band Rema-Rema. Listed below at right are the original songs (and artists) that were sampled.

Webb Wilder Jammin' At Hippie Jacks 2010. (Another Stinky Production)

Anyone with a passing familiarity with Webb Wilder knows The Webb Wilder Credo: “Work hard, rock hard, eat hard, sleep hard, grow big, wear glasses if you need 'em!”

He adopted the name/persona Webb Wilder from a character he played in the short film Webb Wilder Private Eye, and he went on to appear in Peter Bogdanovich’s 1993 feature film The Thing Called Love,  Blessed with a resonant, authoritative voice, he was also one of the first Satellite celebrity Radio DJ’s.

Wilder is one of those guys who has never put out a bad album, thirty-five years in, and who augments the songs he writes with great taste in covers.  He’s better than most at coming up with tasty album titles as well—like: Born To Be Wilder, Doo Dad, & Scattered, Smothered & Covered.  Not to mention naming backing bands: The Nashvegans, The Beatnecks, and The Drapes.

If this is your first exposure to “The Last Of The Full-Grown Men” I feel he dwells in the Bermuda Triangle formed in the area between Tom Petty, Dwight Yoakam, & Southern Culture On The Skids.

This is a set recorded at Hippie Jacks in 2010 that includes what I’d consider Webb’s best song Tough It Out, and wraps up with two staples of his live shows: The Flamin’ Groovies’ Slow Death and the Big Joe Williams classic Baby Please Don’t Go.  In the course of his live rendition of the latter, Webb inserts a story about asking Big Joe Williams what are your favorite songs you ever recorded?  Joe replied with Baby Please Don’t Go and Highway 49.  Webb asked: “Didn’t Howlin’ Wolf do Highway 49?  And Big Joe said: “He TRIED.”

Wilder’s stage patter, and his introductions to songs are as original, entertaining, and irreverent as the man himself.  Part of Wilder’s charm is his ability to utilize all of his talents in the course of a single show—even the solo set I saw. The big man from Mississippi powers through a performance by pulling out all his tricks from his tongue-in-cheek seriousness, his acting chops, expert pacing, reverence for the musicians that came before him, and his stellar playing and backing bands.

Regular visitors to Jokonky Blog know that trivia is “the wind beneath my stinks” and Webb Wilder shares his May 19 birthday with Joey Ramone, Pete Townshend, Dusty Hill, Phil Rudd, Grace Jones, & Shooter Jennings.  

To my knowledge, this live set is available no where else in album form—it’s another one of my Homemade Records—just like mama used to make!

Awesome Sounds From The 1970-80s

As The Police used to sing, I was ‘Born In The Fifties’ and grew up therefore with a lot of musical bagage from that period; Rock & Roll, Blues, and (much later!) Jazz.
Another genre that stood out were the great instrumentals, remember Johnny & The Hurricanes, The Shadows, The Ventures, Sandy Nelson, Link Wray, Bill Black’s Combo, The Surfaris, a.m.o.?
Most of these were short (2-3 minutes) and to the point, nothing fancy, just a short kick under one's ass!
The much longer progressive rock instrumental suites didn’t do much to me at the time, these just went on and on…
Imagine my surprise upon discovering during the late 70s & early 80s that my favorite kind of instrumentals were appearing here and there, but this time done by groups/artists who were more known for their vocal stuff…

Nine out of ten times these tracks were the odd ones out on an album or ‘hidden’ as a non-album B-side!
Here’s the first volume, most of them focused on the guitar workouts (+ some weirdo’s!) from days gone by, enjoy!

In order to obtain this fantastic freebie instrumental download please let us know your favorite instrumental.
 

Gatecrashing by Jona

In the late 1970’s I used to frequent a 2nd hand record stand on the Hilversum market every Saturday and the guy who ran it introduced me to a lot of good artists and groups.

One of those turned out to be a musician I had completely forgotten about: Jona Lewie…

I went home with 2 Stiff Records 7 inches; Stop The Cavalry and Big Shot - Momentarily, and played both a hell of a lot! Of course, it didn’t take long to score afterwards a copy of his big hit You’ll Always Find Me In The Kitchen At Parties…

Joan only recorded 2 albums for Stiff: On The Other Hand There's A Fist (1978) and Heart Skips Beat (1982), which I both dutifully purchased, excellent songs I thought. Unfortunately for Jona there were no more hits and that was the end of his career at Stiff.

Visiting record shops in various towns I did however manage to find more of his work, incl. his first album Gatecrasher on Sonet which was a 11 track collection of singles, some released under his own name, others as Terry Dactyl And The Dinosaurs With Jona Lewie. Then I discovered why I was vaguely familiar with his name, in 1977 he’d scored a minor hit with Come Away (a cover of Roberto Leaĺ’s Bate O Pe) and even appeared on Dutch television!

Another 45 I found was Cherry Ring with a non-album B-side: After We Swun, a very quirky blues track, utterly bonkers but brilliant!

Both Stiff albums and compilations of those tracks are still rereleased, especially Find Me In The Kitchen (used for a commercial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCtLrVihFhQ ) and Stop The Cavalry (which has become a Christmas standard, despite that holiday being mentioned only once!).

Gatecrasher was never released on CD which was a shame to say the least…

BUT in 2020 Grapefruit Records released a 6 CD box set:

Brett Marvin & The Thunderbolts – The Sonet Anthology of which Jona was a member as well and the last CD consisted of the entire Terry Dactyl And The Dinosaurs With Jona Lewie output! It even included that wacky B-side…

This made it possible to come up with an extended Gatecrasher collection for your listening pleasure!

 

Question: What's your favorite Jona Lewie (if any!) song?

Last (for now!) In A Series Of Firsts

First up is Let It Rock—a Dave Edmunds track with backing by Brinsley Schwarz. It’s the first track to see release with Dave playing with his longtime partner Nick Lowe.

Before they backed Bob Dylan, The Band backed Ronnie Hawkins as The Hawks—as they were billed on this excellent cover of Forty Days. Mark Knopfler’s first recording outfit wasn’t Dire Straits, but Brewer’s Droop who supply Roller Coaster.

In the halcyon days of 1967 J.J. Cale cut his very first version of After Midnight. A big hit for one of my favorites; Delbert McClinton, Given It Up For Your Love was first recorded by Jerry Williams. Many musos consider Rocket '88' to be the 1st Rock & Roll Song—which was recorded by Ike Turner’s cousin; Jackie Brenston With His Delta Cats (which included Ike among their number).

It’s been said that The Who are the world’s greatest cover band because when Pete Townshend lays down a demo, it’s completely fleshed out, as this first recorded attempt at Call Me Lightning illustrates.

The next three tracks are the original versions of songs covered by Elvis. Tiger Man (King Of The Jungle) by Memphis DJ & recording artist Rufus Thomas. Fever by Otis Blackwell (who also supplied The King with All Shook Up) and the first recorded version of Too Much by Bernard Hardison.

Demos are automatic firsts, & One Inch Rock is an acoustic demo by Marc Bolan before his success with T-Rex. While everyone’s heard MANDY a million times, comparatively few have heard Barry Manilow’s previously unreleased original “first take”. The version of Hello It's Me on Volume 3 is from The Nazz’s 1967 Audition Tape.

As Gregg Allman shares during this 1982 Letterman appearance the FIRST song he wrote & KEPT was Melissa. Thoughts Of You was an early demo by Sixpence None The Richer. The Shirelles’ Will You Love Me Tomorrow marked the first time a black female vocal group hit the #1 slot.

Dream Baby is an early recording by Cher under her FIRST moniker: Cherilyn. Rockabilly pioneer Barbara Pitman recorded this demo version of her best-known song; I'm Getting Better All The Time. Fans of Link Wray know that he became an instrumentalist because he lost a lung to tuberculosis during The Korean War—but not before he recorded the vocal track: If This Is Wrong.

Nick Lowe pops up again with his ‘78 Top Of The Pops appearance (I Love The Sound Of Breaking Glass) which was his “first date” with future wife Carlene Carter. Future Blondie bassist Gary Valentine’s band The Know delivers I Like Girls.

Although it was a hit for Animotion, Obsession was first recorded by the duo who wrote it; Michael Des Barres & Holly Knight. The Doors’ Moonlight Drive in its earliest demo form has its own charm.

Known for his time with Hawkwind & Motörhead, Lemmy's FIRST Band was The Rockin' Vickers whose I Don't Need Your Kind was produced by the legendary Shel Talmy.

This live recording of Cocksucker is by Sniper—Joey Ramone's 1st band when he was known as Jeff Starship. Also in the band was future Blondie guitarist Frank Infante. And bringing it all home is a 1975 demo of their classic; Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue by The Ramones!