Celebrate Four Decades of Panther Mania!

Stinky and I exchanged gifts online this year (social distancing, y'know). I sent him some pearls from Pearl Harbour. He made Tav Falco’s Panther Burns Live In Vegas 40th Anniversary Show, and we're sharing it here as Stink Week continues!

It was a perfect gift for several reasons. Tav and his Unapproachable Panther Burns were part of the Rough Trade singles story, and Tav Falco's Jukebox (aka Songs The Panther Burns Taught Us) was one of the first series shared on this blog.

Coincidentally, I recently snagged a copy of Midnight In Memphis (the 10th Anniversary hometown performance of Tav Falco's Panther Burns) at the Bompstore, where Triple X releases are on sale for a mere 5 bucks apiece!

Anyhoodles, here's the 40 Years Of Falco celebration in Vegas, live from last year's Cabaret Of Daggers tour! Tav is a consummate performer, a true gentleman, and a Renaissance man: a scholar of Memphis history and music, as well as an accomplished writer photographer, filmmaker, and tango dancer. He made a Christmas record too!

The Little Red Rough Trade Songbook

 Tav Falco photo by Deck Reeks

Here's a twist: Rough Trade releases of cover songs. "Lola" by The Raincoats might be the best-known example. Or maybe it's the Slits' version of "Man Next Door", or Stiff Little Fingers' transposition of "Johnny Was" from Trenchtown to Belfast. 

There are proto-punk classics here from the Velvets, Stooges, Seeds, Troggs, Stones, and Roxy Music; as performed by Cabaret Voltaire, Dr. Mix & The Remix, Shockabilly, and Spizzenergi.

Two songs were written by Mayo Thompson, who was a key figure for Rough Trade from 1979 to 1982. Mayo produced records for The Raincoats, SLF, Scritti, and others. He played guitar for Pere Ubu. And he led a new lineup of The Red Crayola (with fellow RT artists Gina Birch, Lora Logic, Epic Soundtracks, and Allen Ravenstine).

So it's fitting that Galaxie 500 performs The Red Crayola's "Victory Garden" and Mayo himself sings "Horses" (from his 1970 album Corky's Debt To His Father) with Pere Ubu. Galaxie 500 also covers "Final Day" by Young Marble Giants. Weekend (with Alison Statton from YMG) plays her former bandmate Stuart Moxham's song "Carnival Headache". 

Rough Trade released Sandie Shaw's version of "Hand In Glove". And then there's the cover that was allegedly the "last straw" for Johnny Marr: "Work Is A Four-Letter Word". Perhaps he had a few choice four-letter words for Moz before leaving The Smiths. I don't know too much about these things.

Rough Trade was able to release new music from Robert Wyatt because Wyatt's major label contract did not prohibit him from recording other artists' songs. Thanks to this loophole we have Wyatt's breathtaking versions of "Biko" and "At Last I Am Free" (as well as the rest of the singles compiled on Nothing Can Stop Us, and the 1984 EP Work In Progress).

Last Of The Songs the Panther Burns Taught Us

It's almost a shame to separate these songs by genre, because part of the appeal of Panther Burns records is that Tav Falco's aesthetic includes music from around the world and throughout the 20th Century.

The first album alone included samba, country and rockabilly songs, and blues ranging from W.C. Handy to R.L. Burnside.  I can't forget Leadbelly's Bourgeois Blues (which Tav Falco first performed on a Memphis stage while destroying a guitar with a chainsaw).  

On my favorite Panther Burns album, The World We Knew, Tav Falco applies his unique vocal stylings to the title track (made famous by Frank Sinatra). He sings off key and off the beat on Pass The Hatchet and She's A Bad Motorcycle.  The mercurial Alex Chilton sounds like the happiest man alive shouting along with Do The Robot.  It's impossible to listen and be unaffected by Tav Falco's enthusiasm and his eclectic musical vision.

This last batch is a potluck of songs that can't be pigeonholed as blues, rockabilly, or R & B. It is the collection most representative of the Panther Burns' wide range of influences, in that French garage rockers The Dum Dum Boys sit alongside the jazz of Jimmy Witherspoon and the Merseybeat of The Honeycombs. Tav is equally conversant with Texas swing, Hill Country fife and drum, and Argentinian tango.

Perhaps the most significant figures here are Ray Charles (who erased the artificial boundaries between country and blues music), and Memphis musicians Sid Selvidge and Jim Dickinson (who were instrumental in Alex Chilton's solo career, and whose group Mudboy And The Neutrons was a predecessor to the blues-based performance art of the Panther Burns). 

Tav Falco's R&B Jukebox (Vol. 3 of 4)

It is said that James Luther Dickinson rescued tapes of Sir Mack Rice demos from a dumpster behind Stax Records. Had he not done so, the classic Tina The Go-Go Queen might only be known to the world in its disco version.  I could only find a two minute fragment of the Mack Rice demo.  The Panther Burns recorded three of Rice's songs:  Tina, Do The Robot, and Money Talks.

Among his many talents, Tav Falco is a filmmaker and film historian.  He is surely familiar with Bruce Conner's short film "Breakaway" (which you can watch here unless it's been taken down again).  Dennis Hopper and Dean Stockwell held the lights as a young and lovely Toni Basil danced to her 1966 single of the same name.

Breakaway is a terrific Motown style tune written by Ed Cobb (composer of Tainted Love, Dirty Water, and Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White). It's interesting that Toni Basil and Ed Cobb both had hits in the New Wave era: Basil with Mickey and Cobb with Soft Cell's version of Tainted Love. The Panther Burns covered Breakaway on their excellent 2015 album, Command Performance.  

More Songs About Rockets, Trains, and Motorcycles

Tav Falco And The Panther Burns will swing through the Southeast in May 2018, with shows in Little Rock, New Orleans, Memphis, Atlanta, Asheville, Richmond, and Philadelphia. 

There is a new book of photographs ("This Could Go On Forever: On The Road With Tav Falco & Panther Burns" by Gina Lee) as well as Mr. Falco's own psychogeographic history of Memphis, "Ghosts Behind The Sun: Splendor, Enigma, and Death".  And he made a Christmas record!

Visit tavfalco.com for tour dates and to learn about all his multimedia activities.  The man turned 70 two years ago, but I can tell you from eyewitness experience during his Whistleblower tour that he can still tango.  

Songs The Panther Burns Taught Us (Vol. 1 of 4)

You are undoubtedly familiar with the essential series Songs The Cramps Taught Us. (I dare not doubt it, dear reader.)  You may also know that someone did the Lord's work of compiling Songs The Fall Taught Us. But what of the estimable Tav Falco and his Unapproachable Panther Burns? Many are the songs I first encountered on their records, and last year I took it upon myself to track down all the originals.

Since 1979, Signore Gustavo Falco has celebrated the music of Memphis, North Mississippi and all points south of the Mason-Dixon line. You may have seen an excerpt of an early Panther Burns' TV appearance in the Big Star documentary; in the unedited clip, Tav politely and eloquently explains to his hostile hostess that the "real musicians" of Memphis had become "invisible" and that a new kind of music was necessary to bring them back to the eyes and ears of the public.  

I think Tav has accomplished this. He was an early champion of R.L. Burnside, Cordell Jackson, Jessie Mae Hemphill, Charlie Feathers, and others. He was there during the recording of Like Flies On Sherbert, when Alex Chilton reinvented himself by abandoning Anglophilia for the sounds of his native city (which inspired the Beatles, Kinks, and Stones). What I wouldn't give to have been a human fly on the wall when Chilton brought The Cramps to Memphis. Imagine Lux, Ivy, Tav, Alex, and Jim Dickinson spinning their favorite records for each other!