Brillig Blogger Buggered Blather

Never forget the shameless hypocrisy of JDV and DJT
"Rules for thee and not for me"

Last week, the posting of comments on Blogger was temporarily disabled.  This week it's the blog feed.  On the sidebar of most blogs (and at the bottom of Jonkyblog), there's usually a list of "My Fave Blogs" that is updated as new posts are published.  That feed has been frozen since September 8.

Meanwhile, we bloggers have no way of letting you know about our new posts until Blogger fixes this bug.  I imagine it's not too high on the list of Alphabet's business concerns (Cardiacs joke!)  Stinky's "SAY WHAT" post is stuck in this limbo.  Thankfully, readers have been visiting us to see if we have posted anything new, and we appreciate you.

Remember the days of blog aggregators like Hype Machine and elbo.ws?  If you've been around long enough, you might even remember "blog rings".  Blogs were grouped by similar interests and topics, and you could click an arrow to go from one blog to the next in your ring of choice.

Until a fix is implemented, what can we do as a workaround?  Maybe each of us music bloggers can "shout out" our colleagues' new posts.  Feel free to link to this roundup and add anyone I missed here.

First, I want to welcome back Moozler, who took a hiatus for job seeking and soul searching.  It's good to see him "fit and working again" (and sharing his wonderfully curated mixes). Nate Rabe (former proprietor of the C90 Lounge) recently paused in his travels to share a tribute mix of Dolly Parton songs at Missionaries, Mercenaries, and Misfits.

Also back with new posts after a lengthy absence are Pee-Pee Soaked Heckhole (with memories of the DC scene and the rise of Nation Of Ulysses), as well as George Glass at Groovy Library.  George used to share Halloween mixes starting in September; not sure he will continue that tradition, but right now he's got some "Rockin' Rollin' Doo-Wop and R&B" for us!  Tone And Wave also started sharing again, with lots of rare 2Tone and New Wave.

Nathan Nothin's readers know that this month is in fact DUBTEMBER, with a glorious daily feast of heavy riddims.  Today's post features Rhoda Dakar's covers album Version Girl (a personal favorite of mine). 

AJ also made a comeback with Themes From Great Cities, and he's been sharing some great compilation albums as well as music from the Cramps, Danse Society, Drab Majesty, and Faster Pussycat.  If you like metal and goth, don't miss Black Lodge Relics.  Custom comps of rarities from Venom, G&R, and Michael Monroe are on offer, as well as Joy Division, Manic Street Preachers, Placebo and (HALLOWEEN ALERT) -- an extensive collection of Elvira!  

Our friends draftervoi, Jobe, and the gang at Voodoo Wagon and Floppy Boot Stomp are busy as ever, with everything from Bow Wow Wow to Ted Nugent, The Outlaws and Steely Dan.  And don't forget the Adult Bookstore, Motel and Records.  I hear they've got liquor in the front, and poker in the back!

One Buck Guy has shared a thoughtful and heartfelt essay on September 11.  Ape Mummy reposted an unmissable collection at Primitive Offerings: Jon Savage's 50 Pre Punk Missing Links.  Angelo at Power Pop Angels shared a rare XTC EP, a tribute album to The Jam, and a great rockabilly LP from the 80's by The Zantees (Billy & Miriam's band before The A-Bones).

Doom & Gloom From The Tomb has Neil Young, Lou Reed, Richard Lloyd, "new" Antietam, Run On, and a collection of Stephen Malkmus performing David Berman songs.  Dubhed has a birthday salute to Moby, the return of Renegade Soundwave, and Khayem's enthusiastic review of the new Dexy's album. Diskobole has a feature on Ezra Furman, and maybe the artists Baby Bertha and Moxie are as new to you as they are to me. 

Paul at Albums That Should Exist has shared an excellent radio broadcast of a live Cassandra Wilson set, plus St. Vincent, Laura Nyro, Roberta Flack, Robyn Hitchcock, and a bounty of Beatles-related stuff.  Albums I Wish Existed has a massive set of rarities from Icecream Hands, plus Pink Floyd and UK.  My Vinyl Dreams has a Eurythmics bootleg and lots of EnVogue remixes.

Everybody's Number One To Someone explores the history of the British Independent Charts (which started in 1981).   We have now reached the summer of 1988, and blogger 23 Daves always has insightful observations to share about the recording industry, the music press, and the artists and trends that came and went.

Vibes just celebrated its second anniversary.  The Vibes crew shares classic rock (The Doors, Genesis, Clapton, Love, Dylan) world music (Salif Keita, Takashi Hirayasu, The Paragons) and punk (Ramones): a bit of everything!   

TwilightZone has been posting almost every day for the past 20 years (with the exception of RYP's annual beach vacation).  Incredible!  Vinyl Villain is also celebrating its 20th birthday.  Fluxblog (the O.G. of mp3 blogs) has been at it since 2002, and recently featured the long-awaited collaboration between Erykah Badu and The Alchemist.

SAY WHAT? Vol. 1 Utter Nonsense! "Ah! böwakawa poussé, poussé"

SAY WHAT? Vol. 1 Utter Nonsense!

Jonky’s new SAY WHAT? series concerns itself with “non-lexical vocables” or in layman’s terms; complete nonsense.

At the dawn of rock & roll, if you had a “hep” phrase that the kids were using that had the "squares” scratching their heads, or even a bunch of random syllables that sounded good strung together, & stirred in a wild sax solo, you were in business.  Bill Haley & The Comets built an entire career on that formula with songs like Crazy Man Crazy, & Hot Dog, Buddy Buddy.  

The most famous early example might be Little Richard’s Tutti Frutti with its refrain of "A-wop-bop-a-loo-mop-a-lop-bam-boom!"  It came about from Richard vocalizing a drum fill he wanted to open the song.  In 2007, an eclectic panel of recording artists ranked it at No. 1 on MOJO Magazine’s ”Top 100 Records That Changed The World" & hailed the recording as "the sound of the birth of rock & roll". 

The original lyrics were a paean to anal sex with lyrics like; “Tutti Fruitti, good booty.  If it’s tight, it’s alright.  If it’’s greasy, it makes it easy” which were replaced with the nonsensical Tuttu Frutti, Aw Rooty” (which was itself slang for “all right”).

Non-lexical vocables may include word salads of disconnected lyrics that lack coherent meaning, or can rely on amphigory—with verses that SEEM to have meaning, but are meaningless.  Even scat singing can land a song in the category.  A cappella & Doo-Wop music was rife with it, & even became the subject of the song Who Put The Bomp (In The Bomp, Bomp, Bomp, Bomp, Bomp).

Such devices have been touched on in my comps; SHA LA LA & NA NA NA but utilizing those old standbys doesn’t guarantee a track a place in the SAY WHAT?! series.  Neither does yodeling, onomatopoeic references, rigmarole, folderol, or pig latin.

All that gobbledegook is meaningless unless the compilation rocks enough to pull the listener in, & keeps their hips swinging & their lips singing along throughout.  That was my goal, & I hope you find it as Super­cali­fragilistic­expiali­docious as I do!

Some stand out examples include Volume 3’s Prisencolinensinainciusol by Italy’s Adriano Celentano, which is made up of nonsense lyrics that Celentano wrote to sound like English to people who don’t understand English.  Or Volume 2’s Shimmy, Shimmy Ko-Ko-Bop by Little Anthony & The Imperials.  

Here on Volume One you get Eep Opp Ork Ah Ah by Violent Femmes—which (despite being a children’s song) seems a natural progression from Tutti Frutti.  Music intended for children is of course FULL of non-lexical vocables, as evidenced by Mahna Mahna by The Muppets, or Witch Doctor by The Chipmunks with its “Walla walla bing bang” refrain.  

Worth mentioning is John Lennon’s #9 Dream.  John dreamed "Ah! böwakawa poussé, poussé" and inserted it in this wonderful hallucination set to music.  

My favorite style of music, rockabilly relied heavily on nonsense lyrics in the absolutely classic songs included on Volume One; Bip Bop Boom, Ooby Dooby, & Hasil Adkins’ demented She Said, which pops up on a subsequent volume covered by The Cramps!

So if you dig Will-O-Wil-O Wops, & Shama Lama Ding Dongs, don’t be a Rooty-Toot-Galoot!  Dive right in!  The Hum Diddley Dee Doo is fine!

Marti Jones' Jukebox

 

In my post last week I asked our readers, "Who you wish would make another record?"  One of my own answers was Cassandra Wilson.  Sadly, this immensely talented singer of jazz and blues (and more) died this week at age 70.  Several collections of Cassandra Wilson's music are still available at this blog.  One of the greatest voices I ever had the pleasure to hear in concert.

A reader who goes by JPB In DC mentioned Marti Jones as a singer who hasn't made a record in a long while.  That got me listening again to her albums.  

Marti started her recording career with the short-lived Akron band Color Me Gone, but she is best known in the music world as a solo artist and as the wife and collaborator of Don Dixon.

Dixon produced each of Marti's solo albums, and they got married after the third one (1988's Used Guitars).  They have written wonderful songs together, but I think Marti excels as an interpreter of other writers' compositions.  She has a fabulous voice, and an ear for a great tune.  Dixon creates brilliant arrangements to showcase Marti's vocals.  He is also a terrific duet partner, his gruff voice like the Beast to his wife's Beauty.

Angelo at Power Pop Criminals recently nominated Lisa Mychols as The Queen Of Power Pop. I wouldn't start an argument with an expert like Angelo, but I think Marti deserves a seat at that royal table.  

Fun factoid: Color Me Gone's 1984 EP was coproduced by fellow Akronite Liam Sternberg. Marti sang the demo for a song that Liam wrote called "Walk Like An Egyptian".  Marti later recorded another Liam Sternberg song called "Crusher".

Marti currently focuses on painting.  Her last album, You're Not The Bossa Me, was released in 2014.  Her frustration with the business of music might be summed up in a verse from "Put Me On Top" (an Aimee Mann song that Marti covered):  "I should be riding on a float in a hit parade, instead of standing on a curb behind a barricade."

IT'S ABOUT TIME! Vol. 2 - Songs about seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, & years!

IT'S ABOUT TIME! Vol. 2 

In the latest installment of IT'S ABOUT TIME, we've got all kinds of time.

CHERRY TESS starts us off with Fifteen Seconds, THE CHERRY VALANCE & THE CINELLI BROTHERS concern themselves more with minutes... as BROOK BENTON says; It's Just A Matter Of Time.  

Time is a luxury STEVE FORBERT doesn't think he has, & THE MIGHTY MIGHTY BOSSTONES' Days Are Numbered.  THE NOMADS are Five Minutes Ahead Of My/Their Time.

THE J. GEILS BAND is living On Borrowed Time, the king of the honky-tonks; GARY STEWART borrows The King Of Rock & Roll's One Night, & the always wonderful JEAN SHEPARD assures us that she'll make the time, if you've got the money. 

MOON MULLICAN has Seven Nights To Rock, THE GRASSROOTS always get around to rocking Sooner Or Later, while THE SHANGRI-LAS prefer to rock Right Now, & Not Later.

The title of the anthology came from the final track, the theme to the '60s time-traveling sitcom; IT'S ABOUT TIME, but it could just as easily have come from THE PANDORAS' track of the same name.

What are you waiting for?  As THE SPECIALS remind us It's Later Than You Think.  Don't you think it's about time you downloaded Volume 2?

Women Sing Westerberg

Here’s a comp that does what it says on the tin.  Longtime Mat fans may remember that after the breakup, Paul Westerberg announced that he would be doing some collaborations with other artists.  

In the early 1990’s, he cowrote songs with the Goo Goo Dolls, Joan Jett, and Johnette Napolitano (for her Pretty & Twisted album).  The latter two songs can be heard here, along with covers of The Replacements and songs from Paul’s solo career.  

One of the last things Paul has released (a decade ago) was another collaboration:  The I Don’t Cares was his duo with Juliana Hatfield, and their version of “Born For Me” is here as well.

There were three versions of “It’s A Wonderful Lie” to choose from.  Mary Lou Lord and Christina Martin have recorded it. I chose the version by Puss N Boots, the trio of Sasha Dobson, Norah Jones and Catherine Popper.  

Two versions of “Swingin Party” are included, because the covers seemed different enough in style and mood.  “Androgynous” has also been covered a number of times.  I didn’t quite have room enough for the version by Miley Cyrus, Joan Jett and Laura Jane Grace.

It has been almost a decade since new songs appeared on Soundcloud and Bandcamp.  I wonder what Paul has been doing. Does he sing around the house?  Pick up the guitar, or plink at the piano?  Has he retired from playing and writing music?  Or does he have a dry wood garage full of unreleased material – enough to rival Prince’s archives at Paisley Park?  

He’s old enough now for Medicare.  Maybe he earned enough from the reunion tour, the reissues, and the royalties that he doesn’t have to "whore his past" anymore.  There's a theory that Paul agreed to the comeback tour in order to pay for his recent divorce and raise funds for Slim Dunlap's medical care.  Slim and Paul's ex-wife Laurie Lindeen both died in 2024.  Paul may have socked enough away to fund his own retirement.

So is he done with music? Will he have any involvement with the upcoming Mats biopic?  Who knows?  Not me.  Who cares?  Not many.  And do any of us deserve the answers?  Not likely.  But we can still grab our favorite lampshades and enjoy the swingin' sounds of Wimmen Singin' Westerberg.

We could do a lot worse.

BEST OF LEN BARRY Solo & with THE DOVELLS, The Electric Indian, ISIS, & Slick!

THE BEST OF LEN BARRY

LEN BARRY grew up in a black neighborhood in Philly, & got slapped with the “blue-eyed soul” label early on.  He originally had aspirations to play professional basketball.  During his military service he sang with the U.S. Coast Guard band which nudged his bow toward music.    

He showed signs of greatness right out of the gate.  Barry’s debut on wax was as the lead vocalist of The Boss-Tones on their 1958 single Mope-Itty Mope.  Fame came with his next group THE DOVELLS pronounced (like Homer Simpson says “DOH!”) The DOH-vells.  

In an interview I watched, Len says they needed a B-Side for a song they'd just recorded.  Someone in the studio had been talking about a new dance that kids were doing over in Bristol PA; “The Stomp”.  Barry shared that they clipped the hook in BRISTOL STOMP from a song by The Students’ Every Day Of The Week: Listen here.

The Bristol Stomp: Len Barry with The Dovells.

With THE DOVELLS he made the above appearance in the black & white film; Don’t Knock The Twist, & toured the U.K. with The Motown Revue--even though the closest he’d come to being on Motown was dating one of THE MARVELETTES.  According to Len, it was during the early days of the label, & owner Berry Gordy wanted to stack the show.  

With the revue, he performed at The London Palladium, & The Royal Albert Hall.  He was no stranger to big stages, but in The States, he played mostly black theaters; The Apollo in Harlem, The Howard Theatre in Washington D.C., The Fox in Detroit & The Uptown back home in Philly--because people who had only heard The Dovells always assumed they were black.  

Years later, Barry was still a major singing star in The United Kingdom.  From Soulstrutter:  Revered on the Northern Soul scene for his blue-eyed soul for '1-2-3' (#3 UK 1965), 'Like A Baby' (#10 UK 1966), 'You Baby', 'It's A Crying, Shame', 'The Moving Finger Writes',  'I Struck It Rich'. I would say that he was one of the most played Blue-eyed soul artists on the scene.

(https://soulstrutter.blogspot.com/2020/12/len-barry-rip-12061942-05112020.html)

With The Dovells, Barry also toured with SAM COOKE, SMOKEY ROBINSON, MARVIN GAYE, & JAMES BROWN.They covered two songs by his idol; FRANKIE LYMON, who later became a close friend.  They also backed CHUBBY CHECKER on Let’s Twist Again, which they later recorded themselves.   

Len left the band & let them keep the name THE DOVELLS, and went solo under his stage name LEN BARRY.  His first single Lip Sync, was a bunch of tongue twisters (passed off as a song) which failed to find an audience.His second single was the frankly classic 1, 2, 3 co-written by Barry himself.  It sold 4 million copies—which lead to an album by the same name.     

By the mid-70’s, he had tired of the road, but continued to write songs, & to produce other acts.He wrote an entire album of songs for Damon Harris’ group IMPACT right after Harris left The Temptations.  He produced fellow Philadelphian (and one-time label mate) Bobby Rydell, Lola Falana, Major Harris, Blue Magic, ISIS, & Sylvester, as well.    

Alongside Tommy Sellers, he came up with one of the first disco records Keem-O-Sabe which featured a young Daryl Hall, & Gamble-Huff studio players who later rose to fame as MFSB (Mother, Father, Sister, Brother).  Sister Sledge is mentioned in some articles, & left out of others, but the point is he always had a hand in writing & recording music.

While his writing & singing was every bit as good as many of his contemporaries, Len’s stagecraft wasn’t quite on a par with his influences.  But that didn’t keep him from appearing on all the hot teen-centric TV shows, like; Bandstand, Shindig, & Hullaballo surrounded by professional dancers.

It can’t be overstated how difficult it was at this point in history to know how to “play to a camera”.  Recording a hit was just the first step—but then you had to learn what to do with your hands while you sang in front of an audience (check the clip above).

Nowadays, performers often have their first performance digitally preserved.  The first affordable video cameras were 20 years away, & performers in the early '60s had to learn what worked by trial & error.  They had to have a feel for it.  Artists might appear in a movie, & only got to watch their performance months later.  It had to be difficult to develop a sense of what you looked like onstage--or wanted to look like--& to get comfortable in front of a camera.  Most labels were run by businessmen focused on selling records, and lacking Motown’s crew of dance instructors (& clothing designers) dancing in front of a full-length mirror was your only tool.  Even acts that were know to be powerhouses live, like Gene Vincent, often seemed uncomfortable, awkward, & slightly off of their game on camera.  It was a different time.   

Len Barry left an amazing body of work, & several of my favorite songs.  He wasn't restricted to one style of music either, as this collection illustrates.  For more info, check out The Philadelphia Inquirer's nice tribute: Len Barry's Obituary

The Reinvention Of The Guitar (according to Simon Reynolds)

Simon Reynolds has published a new book called Still In A Dream: Shoegaze, Slackers And The Reinvention of Rock, 1984-1994.  Mr. Reynolds (author of books about glam, techno, post-punk, and hip hop) recently participated in the feature "Bakers Dozen" at The Quietus website, where musicians and other creatives share their thoughts about 13 records that influenced them.  

Bakers Dozen is one of my favorite online features, and it has been the source of some great music recommendations.  This particular Bakers Dozen is titled "The Reinvention Of The Guitar in 13 Albums", although some of Reynolds' choices are compilation tracks, EP's, and (in one case) a Youtube video of a live Bo Diddley performance from the 1980's.

I decided to assemble a mix from "The Reinvention Of The Guitar" (without realizing that the author had already created a Youtube playlist of his selections).  

In my defense, his playlist includes three dozen songs, whereas mine is just 13.  He shortened the Bo Diddley video that begins his Baker's Dozen, and I shortened one of the lengthy guitar pieces from the reissue of Allan Bryant's 1977 album Space Guitars.  

Here's a cool thing about Simon Reynolds (who once wrote that he will never stop blogging):  he creates a blog to organize his thoughts, links, and overflow material as he works on a new book.  You can go back to the first month of his blog for Still In A Dream to get an idea of how the ideas for the book were conceived, and how they evolved.  His comments on his Bakers Dozen choices are also worth reading.

ELSEWHERE ON THE BLOG:  three sets of instrumentals with some fiendishly inventive guitar work -- compiled by me, Richard, and readers like you!