IN THE MIX Billy Zoom Edition Vol. 1

IN THE MIX Billy Zoom Edition Vol. 1

In the 1986 documentary, X: The Unheard Music, Billy Zoom says he read a review of The Ramones that said "all their songs were too fast, to short, only had three chords, no guitar solos, & the lyrics were dumb, and those all sounded like real positive things to me."  He (rightly) credits The Ramones with starting punk rock, & his edition of IN THE MIX includes a number he recorded with the instrumental group The Ramonetures.

Unlike other members of the LA Punk Scene he'd been a professional musician for years before forming X with bassist John Doe.  Zoom had gigged with Gene Vincent, and Billy’s first recordings were rockabilly tracks for Rollin’ Rock—the last label to record Vincent.  

This comp starts with Zoom’s Bad Boy & Say When, his contributions to the soundtrack of the X-Rated Serena vehicle YOUNG, HOT ’N’ NASTY TEENAGE CRUISERS.  Crazy, Crazy Lovin’ is from an ART FEIN compilation of the best of L.A. Rockabilly, & Pinball Heaven was Zoom’s final single on Rollin’ Rock.

There are two tracks of Billy playing with The Alligators, an early 70's roots rock combo that recorded an early version of his Bad Boy entitled I'm A Bad Boy (But An Awfully Good Man) with lead singer Dollar Varden providing vocals.

In addition to playing with Vincent, Zoom also backed Etta James, Big Joe Turner, The Blasters, & Mike Ness who featured Billy on track 10, Dope Fiend Blues.  I found a later live show online—hoping to feature Billy’s jazzier side—but pulled Breathless from it--which is straight ahead rock & roll.  It’s rare that anyone can match Jerry Lee Lewis for sheer intensity, but X does.  The Way It Is the only track from their farewell album 2024’s Smoke & Fiction but it’s not because there aren’t plenty of good tracks to choose from.

Zoom said in one interview that Johnny Hit & Run Pauline is his favorite X song, so I included it.  

Another stand-out track is X's demo for Dave Alvin's song 4th Of July.  By the time it found its way onto one of their albums in 1987, Alvin had replaced Zoom, who reportedly left because he was frustrated by the band’s lack of commercial success.  

The Blasters' former guitarist was highly regarded in his own right, but stepping into Zoom's cowboy boots wasn’t easy. He told The LA Weekly: “I was amazed when I had to actually sit down and learn 32 songs in two weeks,” says Alvin. “How Billy Zoom put his parts together was amazing. For a three-piece band, his orchestration on guitar was really tremendous. They were almost mathematically perfect arrangements. Billy likes tinkering with machines and electronics, and in some ways, his guitar parts are put together like schematics. I'm more of a primitive. I lack that kind of technique, and Billy was very, very advanced. I learned a lot; my guitar playing improved a lot after I had to sit down and learn all of his parts. There's a part of me that's forever in his debt, from having my Billy Zoom guitar lessons.”

Some of my favorite X tracks round out the collection, along with something that I haven’t seen elsewhere on the web.  If memory serves, I acquired a 1988 audience tape of Billy playing in a Los Angeles bar that I digitally converted.  In the audience is the infamous Top Jimmy of Top Jimmy & The Rhythm Pigs whose shows were alcohol-fueled, and often ended in brawls.  Jimmy numbered Tom Waits & David Lee Roth among his friends, but the first friend he made upon moving to LA (straight out of reform school) was Billy Zoom.  It’s clear on the recordings that Billy has real affection for Top Jimmy, whose presence seems slightly disruptive.  He joins Zoom for one song (that isn’t included here) & just before Billy sings Only Make Believe (which is) he gently says: “Put the girl down, Jimmy.”

Have Guitar Will Travel - Smokey Hormel

How do we come up with all these musical posts you might ask.
Part of it is of course that we’re all nerds in a way and easily get excited by underrated/weird/obscure artists/groups.
But other times it can be just a small thing that brings back vague memories…
In this case it was a post by Sal Nunziato, about his ‘Songs of the Week’ in which he wrote: Ocean In Your Eyes- Smokey & Miho
(Never a fan of Cibo Matto, but Miho's collab with the great Smokey Hormel pushed a few buttons. Something about this track really gets to me in a good way.)

I didn’t even reply at there time, but somehow ‘Smokey Hormel’ triggered something, I knew that guy, he played with other artists, but whom?
And that started it all, before I knew I was going down a slippery digital slope looking for information on Smokey and found plenty…
In many ways Smokey resembles Marc Ribot, another very active session guitar player, at times they even played on the same artist albums, e.g. Tom Waits, but not on the same sessions.
Biggest difference perhaps is that Ribot released quite a few solo albums, whereas Smokey made only one: Smokey's Secret Family, which he describes as ‘a dynamic horn and percussion ensemble in an exploration of 1950's African dance music’!

Anyway, here’s a ‘brief’ overview of what he has been up to:
1980s Radio Ranch Straight Shooters, The Blasters, Lester Butler
1990s John Doe, Beck, Tom Waits
2000s Miho Hatori, Forro In the Dark, Johnny Cash, Smokey's Secret Family (playing  Brazilian-, Caribbean-, and African-styled surf music), Smokey's Roundup (playing western swing), Norah Jones, Neil Diamond + various soundtracks

And that’s really the tip of the iceberg as he has also recorded or performed with Adele, Lee Allen, R. L. Burnside, Jim Carroll, Rosanne Cash, Cibo Matto, Bo Diddley, John Doe, Dixie Chicks, Erasmo Carlos, Steve Earle, Los Fabulosos Cadillacs, Allen Ginsberg, Josh Groban, Marianne Faithfull, Joe Houston, Wanda Jackson, Mick Jagger, David Johansen, K. D. Lang, Al Kooper, Bettye Lavette, Sean Lennon, Chris Martin, The Manhattan Transfer, Patsy Montana, Jennifer Nettles, Beth Orton, Kid Rock, Timothy B Schmit, Joe Strummer, Justin Timberlake, Rufus Wainwright, Yebba and Yo La Tengo…

I’ve made a 3 CD compilation which gives a pretty decent impression of his guitar style.
It starts with a live track by The Blasters and ends with Bettye Lavette!

 

More info (interviews, etc.) can be found here.

Redd Kross Songbook

 

Redd Kross and Melvins are currently krossing the US on tour through September and October.  The two bands (which share drummer Dale Crover and bassist Steven McDonald) just completed a two month UK/EU summer tour. 

These two tours follow last year's release of The Redd Album (the band's self-titled double LP on In The Redd Records), the Redd Kross memoir Now You're One Of Us (which is now available as an ebook), and the documentary film Born Innocent: The Redd Kross Story (which is now available to stream at home). 

This blog has featured a Redd Kross jukebox, plus Tween Baes From Tostardo (a companion to Teen Babes from Monsanto) and a two disc set of Redd Kross b-sides and rarities.  

Today we have a Redd Kross Songbook --  over 30 cover versions of songs originally written and performed by Redd Kross.  But wait, there's also an additional 40+ versions of the six songs from their 1981 debut EP.  

ELSEWHERE ON THE WEB:  

A free Bandcamp download of a Redd Kross concert recorded during their 2024 US tour (which includes all of the songs from the 1981 EP, plus their klassic versions of "Deuce" and "Crazy Horses").

The Gotobeds (who have covered the entire Red Cross EP) recently released a great new album called Masterclass.  

It's OK (the band led by former RK lead guitarist Robert Hecker) has a new album called Product Of California, with Roy McDonald (Muffs, Redd Kross) on drums.  

RK's current lead guitarist Jason Shapiro used to be in the band Celebrity Skin, and you can hear their music at the Black Lodge Relics blog! If you ask nicely, Black Lodge Relics might repost the Lovedolls movies and their soundtracks.  And speaking of soundtracks, another former Redd Kross member (Brian Reitzell) is now a famous film and TV soundtrack composer!

IN THE MIX Nicolette Larson Edition Vol. 2 - Rhumba Girl

IN THE MIX Nicolette Larson Edition Vol. 2 - Rhumba Girl

While accounts vary, Nicolette Larson claims she picked up a cassette off the floor of Neil Young’s truck, stuck it in the cassette player, and Lotta Love came on.  She told Jimmy McDonough in the Young biography Shakey, “I said, ‘Neil, that’s a really good song.’ He said, ‘You want it? It’s yours.’”

The song was included on her 1978 debut which luckily landed on shelves the same day as Young’s Comes A Time—which her vocals were all over.  It also contained Young’s version of Lotta Love.  

Young told Rolling Stone, “She told me, ‘I’m the best one. I can follow you anywhere you want to go. No one can follow you better than I can.’ And she could.”  Nowhere is this more evident than in the duo’s version of Ian & Sylvia’s Four Strong Winds, which became a favorite of mine putting together this tribute.

Larson’s debut included Little Feat’s keyboardist Bill Payne and guitarist Paul Barrere, as well as The Doobie Brothers’ Michael McDonald.  Her good friends Linda Ronstadt and Valerie Carter were happy to supply backing vocals.

Producer Ted Templeman was struggling to find an arrangement for Nicolette’s version of Lotta Love, and the sessions were almost finished.  He got the answer when he happened to hear Ace’s How Long on the radio.  He told Rolling Stone, “I stole that whole chord change, to put an intro.”

It really is the perfect pairing of singer and song, and Larson was suddenly in demand on TV shows from The Midnight Special to Evening At The Improv.

Larson performed at The Roxy in Los Angeles in 1978.  Her label recorded the show, and released it as a promo only item.  Listening to it now, I’m amazed that it didn’t see an official release, and feel it might have changed her fortunes if it had.  There are two tracks from it on Volume 2, as well as her aforementioned appearance on Evening At The Improv.

Her subsequent Warner Bros. releases didn’t sell like her first and, like Ronstadt, Larson appeared in musicals for couple of years, most notably Jesus Christ Superstar, with David Cassidy. 

Larson had always avoided doctors, but she wasn’t feeling well, and finally overcame her fears.  Within a week of going to the doctor, she had passed.  The complications of liver damage, & a serious ulcer lead to Nicolette having a seizure, and slipping into a coma.  She was only 45 years old.

On IN THE MIX Nicolette Larson Edition Vol. 2 there are tracks featuring Valerie Carter, Lauren Wood, & Larson, and of course Neil Young and Larson.  There’s a duet with Steve Goodman, and she joins in on the darkest song ever recorded by (her former boyfriend) Weird Al Yankovic; Good Old Days.

Nicolette backed Jimmy Buffett to great effect on his cover of James Taylor’s Mexico.  She also helped out Linda Ronstadt on her cover of I Can’t Let Go, & Rita Coolidge’s cover of One More Heartache.  That’s also her on The Doobie Brothers’ Minute By Minute.

Several of her own releases are here, You Send Me, Back In My Arms Again, & the follow-up single to Lotta Love—Rhumba Girl—which was a hit in Canada.

If you can stand a little more name dropping there are also tracks by Billy Joe Shaver, Jesse Winchester, & Hoyt Axton.

I got most of this information from an excellent NICOLETTE LARSON article in Rolling Stone Magazine by ANGIE MATOCCIO (courtesy of Mike Larson).  No link supplied because of their paywall.

Johnny G - G-Force 1, 2, & 3

Once again Richard came up with a candidate worthy enough to appear here! Enjoy his write-up here:

John Gotting is just a member in a One-Man Band.  Much more I could not find of the persona behind Johnny G.  It was one of those albums that were given away, or sold for one guilder, a pound. For a double album.  And I bought one double album (G-Beat) for one guilder and got the other one (Water into Wine) for free.  In 1985, that means only a year after Sand Dance Ska was released.  I searched and found Sharp/Natural cheap too.

Was nobody interested into this? I listened to these albums a lot. And i love them to bits.  Mid eighties I have seen him live at the local youth centre where he was a yearly guest. Performing for a dedicated full house. I must have some fan-club memorabilia somewhere.

Johnny G is a Jonder miracle. He played with Geraint Watkins, Brett Marvin, The Rumour, Ed Hollis and Steve Lillywhite, he has a fan club song made for him, makes Original reupholstered songs, has great Original songs, sings la-la-la songs, has triple-titles and is the originator of a brand new style of music The Hipswing, The G-Beat or as I want to call it Pub-Reggae. Oh and he has a wonderful sense of rhythm, just listen.

In 1972 he made his first EP before disappearing only to come-back with a handful of singles and the LP Sharp/Natural.  After that he managed to persuade his label (beggar's banquet) to release a second album G-Beat, but with a free extra bonus  album. Well that did not work, commercially. How he got the label to do it a second time with his third album Water Into Wine one can only guess.

Eventually he and his label parted ways. In 1984 he released what would be his purest musical output, Sand Dance Ska. By now he was a regular One-Man-Band touring The UK and Western Europe with occasional assisting musicians.  His original way of interpreting covers and mixing them with outstanding original songs made him a welcome pub-musician.

After Sand Dance Ska he made an album with John Spencer - Out With A Bang , with whom he had worked in 1978 on Spencer's Louts album that was called The Last LP. It was 1994 when a double cd was released one cd live and one best-of cd.  You can find a Utube channel here, including Glastonbury performances.

About the music I can be short. It is clean, accurate, pristine and a lot more jubilations. There are quite a few versions of Blue Suede Shoes with different names. Wella Wella Wella, Blue Blue, Leave Me Alone and Blue Suede Shoes. Music is taken from many sources:

*Sharp/Natural
*G-Beat (+ G-Beat 2 bonus elpee)
*Water Into Wine (+ Pure Beaujolais bonus elpee)
*Sand dance Ska
*Moments (1972 EP)
*John Spencer's Louts - The Last LP
*John Spencer/John Gotting - Out With A Bang
*John Gotting - A Month Of Sundays/The Best Of Johnny G (2CD)

He also has great wit about him. There is a song called Call me Bwana/The Educated Monkey, and you can write a philosophical treatise about it, that's how clever it is. In short, it is a song using British supremacy as a mocking point developing it in a comment on UK 1976 depression overlayed with a nod towards first generation skinheads using reggae as identification pattern (we're treated worse than them blacks, in our own country) while reverse engineering Monty Python's what have they done for us sketch (which was two years after the fact), into a 2 part 4 minute song with the punchline Everybody's Somebody's Orang-Utan (and there are no Orang-Utans in Jamaica). The sleeve image is blackface - as controversial then as it is now.

P.S. Most of the tracks are rips from different sources and are all not my vinyl rips.  G-Beat 2 and Water Into Wine (Pure Beaujolais) and John Spencer's Louts are my own vinyl rips.  A Month of Sundays/ The Best of Johnny G is my own cd-rip.  No tracks are taken from Passport To Paradise for the simple reason that I do not have it in any form. (Please help).

Many thanks Richard! 

I started digging a bit as well but unfortunately it seems that Johnny is no longer active musically. Trying to find photos of him performing live in the 1980s online also got me nowhere, only 2 pics of him playing at the 2019 Ealing Blues Festival... Considering how popular he was back in the days this seems odd to say the least!

I did discover perhaps his latest recordings on Soundcloud from 2018 with a blues harmonica player called Koko Harp...

Punks Got Soul... Again!

 

Richard has been a friend of the blog for awhile now, and has provided a number of terrific guest contributions. After my last Punks Got Soul post, Richard made some excellent suggestions -- more than enough for a third volume.  So here it is!

Like the first two sets, this one includes some bands that aren't really punk (strictly speaking).  There's more from the Mod Revival (The Rage, The Chords, Dexys), more pub rock, some New Wave and some post-punk.  And once again, there are some girl group songs and others that might not (strictly speaking) be considered soul music.  But there are definitely some soul classics here as well as some O.G. punks like the Ramones, Drones, Leyton Buzzards and DOA.

Richard has also sent in a massive number of Triple Song Titles from all over the world, and it's been a few months since the last time they were shared with the faithful among you who enjoy them.  Today we've got Mas Mas Mas (mostly Spanish titles from Latin America, Europe, and the Afro-Cuban diaspora).  This music is outside my area of musical expertise, though I enjoy it.  I apologize for any mistakes or misattributions.  

Next is Surprise Surprise Surprise, which is just good ol' red-blooded meat & potatoes rock & roll, from names you know -- and some that may surprise you.  The third of today's Triple Song Title comps is called Fire Fire Fire, and it contains 20 scorchers with the same title, from various decades and genres.  Some of the blame (or praise) for today's post goes to Richard. He's like a fourth Beatle around here!

IN THE MIX Nicolette Larson Edition Vol. 1 - Lotta Love

IN THE MIX Nicolette Larson Edition Vol. 1 contains a lot of Neil Young.  Young photographer/archivist Joel Bernstein said: “With the possible exception of (Crazy Horse guitarist) Danny Whitten, Nicolette sang better with Neil than anyone.  Nicolette and Danny absolutely were the two best singers with Neil who really understood his singing, his soulfulness, and what to get across.”

And, of course, Neil wrote her #8 hit Lotta Love, which was everywhere in 1978.

But she really elevated the role of backup singer and managed to supply exactly what was needed in songs by Emmylou Harris, Guy Clark, Commander Cody, Jesse Winchester, Andrew Gold, The Georgia Satellites, Gary Stewart, Weird Al Yankovic, & Linda Ronstadt who was also her roommate and roller skating partner.  In fact, Larson bought Ronstadt the roller skates she wore on the cover of her Living in The USA album.

Nicolette’s also the only female to sing on a Van Halen track.  She was a collaborator at heart, and co-wrote songs with Hoyt Axton among others.  When the pop hits dried up, she recorded country music in Nashville, and had a hit duet with Steve Wariner that’s included here.

She moved from Missouri to California to be a singer, and David Nichtern, who wrote Midnight At The Oasis, hired her to sing in his band.  She eventually married his steel guitar player Hank DeVito, & the best man was fledgling songwriter Rodney Crowell.  Hank was hired as a member of Emmylou Harris’ Hot Band, which lead to Larson’s duet with Emmylou on Hello Stranger.

Emmylou introduced Larson to Linda Ronstadt, and Ronstadt recommended her to Neil Young.  In fact, Young asked three different people to suggest a background singer, and all three of them recommended Larson.  She wound up having an affair with him, and her husband wrote Queen Of Hearts about it.  She didn't seem to have "a type" having dated; De Vito, Young, Andrew Gold, Cameron Crowe, & Weird Al Yankovic.

I’ll share some more of her history when I post Volume 2.  I really enjoyed my deep dive into Nicolette’s music, and I hope you do, too.