RIP - Maralie Dawn Whitney

Apparently it’s Cassette Store Day. Another niche commodity that’s enjoyed a resurgence of late and I have to admit that I have a soft spot for the format. Whatever becomes of it, I really hope that it doesn’t turn into the evil shakedown that Record Store Day has become. Looking at the website, I was immediately turned off by what I saw but you shouldn't let my predudices spoil your enjoyment.

I’m fairly sure that the chains won’t be partaking in this and finding an outlet might be outside the remit of the fuckwits that buy for ebay activity. Let’s keep everything crossed on that score. And no one is seriously suggesting that tape is better than vinyl here. I see all kinds of annoyance but I figure this as more of a quaint harking back to the past. Albeit a type of landfill.

A mix tape was always a much more romantic proposition than a mix CD. It was certainly more time-consuming as a pastime because of all the pausing and changing the record. Laterly, such tapes were possibly compiled from CD and vinyl with sound levels going all over the place. All part of the fun and the effort. Then there was the insert, with scribbles and hand-lettered titling.

Of course there was the typewritten version too. It was all very creative. Then these dull shiny discs came along and kind of ruined everything but that was nothing compared to what the interweb and mp3’s did to music. They devalued it together to end up where we are now. Where artists aren’t compensated for their work and if it’s not that then “collectors” scarf up and resell to folks that might not have a store in their town. I’m getting away from the point here though so cut along to wherever and check out this tape phenomenon while there are still machines around.

I have several players and thousands of tapes that will probably end up in a big skip in coming years. The ignorance of future generations almost guarantees that.

Dig this tomorrow night...

 

Mañana sábado día 7 de septiembre les tenemos preparado un programón cargado de locuras y maravillas a 78rpm para celebrar la Sexta Temporada de Melodías Pizarras Novelty vaquerito, blues blanco, western swing, mazurca antillana, calypso, cubanos, swing, hillbilly, old time… ya saben, géneros y artistas que sólo suenan en Melodías Pizarras, y en su formato original !! Aquí una pequeña muestra de los 30 temones que les sonarán a gloria bendita:

“Old McDonald Had A Farm”. The Kidoodlers (VOCALION, 1938)

“A New Salty Dog”. Allen Brothers (BLUEBIRD, 1930)
“Ragtime Cowboy Joe. Girls Of The Golden West (VOCALION, 1938)

“Does My Baby Love Me?”. Jimme Revard and his Oklahoma Playboys (BLUEBIRD, 1937)

“Alimony Blues”. Al Dexter and his Troopers (VOCALION, 1941) 

"The Pants That My Pappy Gave To Me". Hoosier Hot Shots (VOCALION, 1939)

“Bravo, Bravo!”. Alphonso y sy Orq. Típica Antillana  (ODEÓN, 1949)

“Movin’ The Boogie”. Pete Johnson and Albert Ammons (VICTOR, 1941)

“I Feel So Good”. Big Bill Broonzy (COLUMBIA, 1941)

“You Upset Me, Baby”. B.B. “Blues Boy” King (RPM, 1954)

“Taint What You Do”. Jimmie Lunceford Orq. (VOCALION, 1939)

“Jump. Jack, Jump”. Andy Kirk and his Clouds Of Joy (BRUNSWICK, 1938)

“The Caissons Go Rolling Along”. Jenks Tex Carman (CAPITOL, 1953)

“Old Grey Mare”. Elmo Newcomer “The Pipe Creek Kid” (CROMART, 1939)

"One, Two, Three, Four". Criterion Quartet con Ferera y Franchini (VOCALION, 1923)

“Honky Tonk Blues”. The Lonesome Pine Fiddlers (RCA VICTOR, 1953)

….

No se lo pueden perder!!!

Salud y pizarra!!!

http://blog.rtve.es/melodiaspizarras/

Well I did pretty good this week for posting here... and it's Friday. Another week closer to Laura Cantrell's OK shows and The Nomads / The Dahlmanns / The Hip Priests and The Outbursts down in the London. The weather is back to normal and I shall not be venturing far. So maybe there'll be more action here... and then again.

Right now however, there is travel-agenting to be done!

Coming soon on Last Summer Records...

Dark earlier, light later... the autumnal nature of the past week or two signals that it ought to be time for hibernation. I had to drag myself out an hour early yesterday morning and it was hard. Not to get up but to get out. I hate the commute too, an ever escalating haemorrhaging of time that I’ll never get back. In recent times this has been exacerbated by traffic lights at bridgework (not of the dental variety) for a local white elephant that’s currently under construction. An abject waste of time, money and everything else that goes with the territory.

And the reason for the time slip was that it is once again time for the six monthly dental check up. These half yearly events come around very quickly. Too fucking quickly for my liking.

But I shouldn’t whine. Monday morning brought the news that one of my brother’s closest friends passed away late Sunday night. Just a matter of weeks after the guy was told he wouldn’t make it until Christmas. Hell, he barely scraped into September. I’m not entirely sure how a person can process a situation or information like that. Maybe I would have asked him that when we were travelling to the Del Lords show in Newcastle. He was really looking forward to that, Couldn’t the supposed higher powers have cut the guy a break to at least have gotten there?

Evidently not.  Anyway he’ll be with us very much in spirit on October 26^th doon the big toon. My thoughts are with his friends and family at this cruel time. You never know what’s ‘round that next corner so don’t let valuable time slip away (like I’m inclined to do).

I went to donate blood tonight. I had to convince them it was a full 24 hours since I’d been at the dentist or they weren’t gonna take it. Rules, regulations, health, safety. It’s all about covering your arse. Or blaming someone else. Take your pick.

It was kind of, sort of my intention to start September with an intent to update this daily where possible again. I have nothing prepared so we'll see what becomes of this notion. Last eek at this time I was in MRC basking I the sunshine and excellent company. Today, I'm in the bunker looking out on a decidedly autumnal day expecting the rain to pish down at any second. Most likely when I go out the front door.

There's a bunch of stuff that I guess I want to write about but I don't know if that will actually translate into wordage. One thing I'm not going to do is continue with a slew of RIPs. Of course if something significant should occur (and I hope to hell it doesn't) then of course I'll have to bend that but let's hope that these are few and far between. The other thing I'm a little aware of is that "the blog" has had it's day. Not just this one, pretty much all of them.

As have websites that don't "sell" stuff in general. I don't find that I have the time to trawl anymore. Not that I'm really doing anything else of great importance but the web bores the heck out of me. As for viewing stuff on mobile devices, don't "eben" get me started on that shitstorm. However, this portal exists and there enough visitors here to suggest that I should at least make an effort. I don't like this laptop as much as I did the fixed PC that I used to have. I'd much rather be anywhere else but where I'm stuck but there are flecks of light out there on the horizon.

As I sit here contemplating, Mr D'uff just flagged this up...



And  as I set sail last Friday, some wonderful new ACC music dropped in so as you can see, sonically - things are going OK.

I can't get the widget thing to appear so click here to go to the Soundcloud page where other wonders from Sausalito also appear.

 

Still shell-shocked after an all too short roll in the Moss Rock City thunder. Got back V late last night and the fog outside replicated that which is in my heid today. Two Dahlmanns sets over the course of Saturday in the shadow of the old paper mill that was an employment staple forever until the interweb made their product obsolete. However, don’t get me stated about that. Look at the company logo. Isn’t that great?

 

So the kids were suitably enjoyed by the attendees. The festival itself wasn’t exactly run with military precision but it got there. Missed Black Debbath but heard their almighty racket from town as we wandered toward the site. This was the first time I heard the D’s do “I Know You Want Me Back Again”, a song that will be a 45 sometime sooner rather than later I hope. Written by the hit factory that made “Solna” the solid treat that it is.

 

Quite a late finish on Sunday morning because some smartarse (me) took a wrong turn on the road back to base. I’m glad I did though because wandering in the maze on a clear night was quite a peaceful exercise. It must be great to stay in that location tucked up on the hill yonder.

 

A low gear day and we had a Svele party at Casa Andreassen. A Svele is a big pancake, double the thickness of a crumpet and about the same circumference. Tasty gear. A wee wander afterwards to say au revoir to my dance partner and a quick pit stop at the beach completed the trip that is hopefully my last to Torp. Much as I love the ferry journey, it’s a pain in  the arse for Andre to schlep me there and back.

 

There is good news. Ryan-err are starting to fly from Edinburgh to the much closer Rygge on November 6^th. That will make such trips considerably easier from both sides. Not that the citizens there need fear constant bombardment by me, I hope some of them will come out this way to the daftest wee country in the world before things go completely skew wiff.

 

The fog outside is gone. Things are getting autumnal but the gridlock in my napper continues abated. The next jaunt is to The Pipeline for The Nomads/Dahlmanns London bash with The Hip Priests and The Outbursts. Approximately a month away. And once again, Madrid not long after. I'm kind of seizing the moment here...

When I saw Rich Nesin’s note about Allen Lanier this morning I had to do a double take. Been keeping the RIP’s in check lately but this one resonates. Blue Öyster Cult made a big impression on a 15 year old me and opened the door to pretty much everything. They were punk rock at the time before the term was corporate-ised. Often lumped with the metal albatross, the band was closer to something like the MC5 but the songs were really something else. The concept of “stun guitar” was an exciting prospect and it all made some kind of sense when they claimed “we’re pain, we’re steel, a plot of knives...”. It still does. Listen to any of these early records and they stand up to the test of time far more than anything by The Clash. Actually the best album those guys made were with BÖC’s producers. Go figure.

 

And of course those same producers were responsible for something by the name of The Dictators Go Girl Crazy. Indeed HDM mentioned today that Lanier played some keyboards on there, presumably he was Alan Glover? Don’t think I was ever aware of that.

RIP - Allen Lanier

 

Just lately it hasn’t been too easy to get away from myself. After a bit of gallivanting I crashed back to earth and find myself wondering WTF is going on. Attempts at getting out of the house on weekends have met with mixed results. Even to the cinema. Although that had a positive blip last night because I dragged my hiney out to see Beyond Midnight. I’ve always liked Julie Delpy and even bumped into her once in Edinburgh with her parents when “Two Days in Paris” was at the EIFF. The follow up to that wasn’t good but I don’t really blame that on her. It seemed mean spirited and that’s something I don’t think she is. She was back up to her usual standard here.

 

Anyway, it’s good and a worthy catch up in the cycle of this Linklater trilogy. Could there be another instalment? Who knows the way things go in these franchised times but if I’m still around then I’ll give it a whirl. Probably.

 

One of these days I might even get around to writing about music again. I’ve become a fan of silence. And even quiet. This often manifests as boredom however and has a habit of keelhauling any semblance of sleep. Pass out sometime around 8, wake in a stupor around 11 and then only feel like sleeping when it’s time to get up. Maybe I’m stuck on Madrid time but unfortunately the distractions which exist there aren’t available here.

 

The Del Lords shows in Newcastle (October 26^th) and London (November 11^th) have been announced so those look like the bookends to the euro-trip. There’s a festival in Spain on November 2^nd where they’ll share a bill with The Dictators NYC. It’s a bit of a pickle...

 

The latter part of the ’13 looks like being hectic. The Nomads/Dahlmanns/Hip Priests and another combo in London on October 5^th is something of an opening salvo. Ms Laura Cantrell is in Glasgow the night before we head down there. All show details here. It’s good to have her back and I’m just waiting on the nod as to when the “No Way There From Here” album will be released. I’m guessing maybe the Monday before that but I’ll confirm that in due course. “Can’t Wait”? Me neither.

 

There's something fucked with the font size on this blogger thing. Maybe it'll sort itself out, maybe it won't. I can't figure out how to correct it and it's stupid crap like this that makes me want to walk away from ever being on a computer ever again. Also, depending on the browser you're viewing it on, maybe through a bloody phone or a "tablet" then it could look even worse. If you do then don't fret - there are bigger fish to fry. Truly.

RIP - Mick Farren

RIP - Faye Hunter