http://blogcritics.org/ A sinister cabal of superior bloggers on music, books, film, popular culture, politics, and technology - updated continuously. en Copyright 2005-2007 by the authors Fri, 8 Jul 2005 21:13:47 EDT http://backend.userland.com/rss Blogcritics.org custom software http://blogcritics.org/ Phillip WinnSunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding. Administration0@blogcritics.org Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/07/08/211347.php HW SaxtonI live out in the desert. The beautiful Mojave desert to be exact, not too far from where it joins the Great Basin to the NE and the Amargosa Desert to the NW. Living in such a place affords one the luxury of easily escaping the rat race and finding unhindered and peaceful solitude, unending panoramas of vast nothingness, and some undeniably beautiful sunsets à la those that grace such cornball magazines as Arizona Highways (usually found at reception room of a dentist office). Living in the city necessitates these trips to the middle of nowhere once in a while, if not just to collect one's thoughts and, for lack of a better term, to just plain "Chill Out" sometimes. I like the Human Race as a whole (despite my own common sense telling me differently sometimes) and have no real problem with mankind at large. But sometimes, weellllllll, people just ain't no good. They can be real f**kin' a-holes. Period. Point blank. No BS and no other way to put it jack. Just plain ol' f'**king a-holes. And yes, that does include the narrator of this little tale before you right now, my friends....This was driven home the other day in a most crystal clear way.I was minding my own, sitting outside at a Starbucks (hey, it's close! and their coffee ain't too bad) reading (The Vodou Quantam Leap by Reginald Crosley, M.D.) and enjoying some iced espresso when a couple young kids of maybe 8 or 9 years of age approached me. They were looking to sell some candy (for an orginization that organizes children's sports leagues at local parks or something similar) when they asked me if I wanted some. I told them no but said, "Thanks, good luck, etc." and bought them an Italian soda to split. It was right about 105 degrees and they had been walking all day I'm guessing, so I figured it was something nice I could do for them. I remembered being in the same boat selling some kind of candy for Little League a few centuries ago.So, the little candy hustlers thanked me for the soda and went and sat down. When they were done they made the rounds of the outside tables, greeted with mostly, "No thanks, no money," and indifferent shrugs. They approached this woman a couple of tables over from me. She was heavily tanned, dressed casually but $$$, and looked like a rich suburbanite alcoholic. She was probably a trophy wife twenty years ago but now drank and took pills to fight the boredom of having money and nothing to do. When one of the kids approached her table she practically hissed at him: "Did I come bother you? Leave me alone. Don't you know how RUDE it is to interrupt someone? Don't you have ANY manners at all?" I'm thinking to myself "Jeezus, ease off, Toots, the kid's pushing maybe 8 years old." In all fairness, living with the desert heat where you can go weeks at a time with temps well over the century mark will leave the pysche in a constant state of irritation, and little things can set you off fairly easily. But this broad was just plain rude and snotty and making a production out of this. The kid eased away from here as one would back away from a poisonous reptile. Slowly, carefully, and keeping an eye on her indirectly lest she strike. The poor little dude's partner unknowingly approached the same table with his sales pitch. And THAT is when the sparks flew. She just tore into this kid almost at the top of her lungs as conversation in all directions ceased to a murmur. She told this kid to, "Go to tell your goddamned mother to buy your shit! I'm not bothering you, why in the hell can't you have any manners! Stop bothering me you brats! I'll call the fucking police if you don't get the hell outta here. Can't you you read what that fucking sign says ??? No Loitering! Etc." She just launched on these little goofs. I felt soooo bad for them. Needless to say they bailed, and quickly, I might add. I would have if I was their age. After I finished my coffee and calmed down, I passed by her table and stopped right in front of it fumbling with a cigarette. She flashed a flirty smile and thought I was probably going to ask her or someone in their party for a light, I think. Rather, I told her what completely out of line fucking bitch she was in no uncertain terms. Only I didn't say it as nice as that. Her jaw dropped to her ankles as I do not think she had ever been addressed like that. She was speechless. Dumbfounded. In a state of shock, even. I left her sitting there sputtering, trying to get a word out, but she couldn't. The folks who had witneesed the event from beginning to end were either indifferent or had these little smirks that said "I don't blame ya." Do people such as this think that because they have some higher degree of social standing and financial insulation that everyone else around them is a peon, a slave, someone who will eat shit and like it? And know to keep their mouth shut unless they want to get in trouble or fired? Whatever the case may be. Jeeeezus Christmas!!! Lord have mercy upon the unsuspecting Girl Scout foolish enough to knock upon her door. "Do I want to buy some cookies? Do you want to buy a ticket to the emergency room you little green bitch huh? Do ya, HUH?!!!?" These kids were obviously economically disadvantaged. Out walking the streets in triple digit heat trying to sell candy so they can get some decnt uniforms or better equipment or whatever it was that they needed badly enough to be out working in this heat. They could have been swimming at the public pool or playing video games under the A/C. Obviously, they were not bad kids. Well-spoken, polite, not pushy with their sales pitch. Decent little kids by all appearance. I could be wrong, but regardless, they were undeserving of the shitty behavior of the woman I'm talking about.I'm not naive nor am I overly idealistic. The world is full of people suffering from severe cases of full blown "Assholism." People that wrongly think that there are no consequences for their reprehensible behavior. In this so called "civilized" world of ours, I thought that we had at least come to a point that behavior such as was exhibited was socially incorrect and that it was an acknowledged fact amongst adults that you just do not act like that. Period. For the record here, I'm not particularly proud of what I did or what I said to this über-beeyotch. Then again, on the other hand, I'm not going to sit around and shed too many tears about it either. I realize that by jumping on her case they way I did, I more or less brought myself to her level, which is what has me a little peeved. But if that's where the battle must be fought, then so be it. Judging by the stupid, slack jawed, and utterly amazed look on her face when I walked away she will probably think twice before she throws another bitch fit in public. Which is all that matters to me as I won't be seeing her and her ilk anywhere else.Edited: bhw Culture32289@blogcritics.org Fri, 8 Jul 2005 21:13:47 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/06/17/124721.php HW SaxtonThe war in Iraq was brought home to me last night. Right out of the blue, right into a living room in suburban Las Vegas, Nevada. Brought home and dumped unceremoniously into my mind by a pair of perfectly-coiffed, over-botoxed talking heads grinning like lobotomized idiots as they struggle to keep up with their teleprompters.Yeah, I'm not a big fan of media flunkies especially those found on local levels the country over.I'd just gotten home from work. I had kicked off my shoes, poured a tall glass of iced tea, grabbed a handful of Ritz crackers and was beginning to melt into the couch. Seconds after I turned on the tube, I was jolted out of a state of semi-conscious after work funk as faces I knew and knew well began flashing across the TV screen at me. "What in the fuck did these guys do now?" I wondered to myself. Just exactly what sort of trouble did my friends get into that would make the 11:00 clock news? None as it turned out. Fortunately. I turned up the volume on the tube and just caught the ass end of the story, "... and a memorial service will be held on Sunday, June 19th 2005. His parents would like to thank all of his friends for their continuing support during this time of very great sadness ...."Cut to commercial. "Well, what the fu... Whose parents? What happened to who? Where? What in the hell is happening ? And WHY are my idiotic friends on the 11:00 clock news?"Flipping through the channels real quick I caught the beginning of the story that I'd just previously missed, airing on another local news broadcast. "And in Iraq today, blah blah blah blah blah ... a local soldier was killed when his vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb. Corporal Stanley Lapinski, 35, of Las Vegas will be laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors and..." I started to get this empty feeling in my body and I began to shake inside just a little bit ever so slightly. It was shock setting in, is what it was. I kept on running the news story through my head. "That cannot be right, must be some mistaken identity" or something. It's not true, I just saw him a few months back when he was home on leave.As I ran the scenario through my mind I felt as if I was just waking from a bad dream only to find out that I was still in yet another bad dream. I just kept on telling myself that my friend Stan was not blown to pieces in some filthy assed, godforsaken alley in fucking Baghdad. Nah, he didn't just lose his life at 35 years young, to some chickenshit cocksucking insurgent in an urban ghetto halfway across the planet.It didn't seem real. It still does not seem real. But there he is on the national news. Another number. Another casualty. Another day. His death just one of 7 or 8 others for the day (actually he was killed on the 11th, but it was not reported for a few days, pending notification of next of kin and all that.I went to bed not too long after I heard the news. I layed there for just about an hour, running it through my mind trying to shake this feeling of surreality that it gave me. I woke up the next morning to my phone ringing. It was my buddy Johnny H., asking if I'd heard the news about Stan. Any hopes of it just being a real bad dream out the window. A few minutes later I was off the phone and I turned on the news. Guess what the first story was ? "A local soldier was killed today in hostilities in Baghdad when his vehicle was targeted by an IED"... I just fucking lost it. I cried like a damned baby. I cried until I could not cry anymore. Period.You guys don't know him personally but you know him. He lives next door to you and works with you. You've probably ran into him at the corner bar and had a beer and shot a game of pool. Stan was a cool guy. Easy going, never had a bad word for anyone, liked by all who met him and a good point guard on the B-ball court. Just an all around cool guy.We were never super close but we were good friends nonetheless. We would run into each other at used record stores. We'd try to make the other guy jealous of our scores and finds, just friendly collector competition shit. We used to be part of the same DJ collective ("Blue Velvet Elvis") that would throw these crazy "Monday Night, Start The Week Off Right" parties, then laugh as we were suffering our fool asses off the next day at work. We dated a few of the same chicks and exchanged notes and stories on 'em and usually ended up having a good laugh all about them.Last time that I saw him was about five months ago. He had thought he was all done with his tour of duty but his unit was held over like so many others. I said goodbye to him with something along the lines of "Later Ram-Bo, don't wear out your machine gun" or something equally goofy like that. We shook hands and went our ways. I had no idea that I wouldn't see him again. No one ever does.So, Stanley, wherever you are, may your soul rest in peace. I'll miss ya man. Politics31176@blogcritics.org Fri, 17 Jun 2005 12:47:21 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/05/24/083621.php HW SaxtonPicking up where we left off, the 1950's.Let's first dispel with a few stereotypes: Happy Days the 50's was not. It wasn't all about poodle skirts and pony tails, D.A.s and leather jackets and hanging around the malt shop doing the jitterbug until it was time to go home and watch Howdy Doody. The 50's was also an era of bomb shelters, civil defense drills, cold war paranoia & witch hunts. Joseph McCarthy and his band of merry makers were on a quest to rid the U.S.A of evil commie bastards while the country was slowly and surely headed into another depression as the post WW2 prosperity faded and the baby boom tapered off. The pop charts were largely dominated by inoffensive pablum such as Perry Como and Rosemary Clooney, remnants of the big band era & Broadway show tunes. Juvenile delinquency was on the rise and the kids were just plain bored. And a strange new sound was cutting through the nighttime air. From the exotic locale of Ciudad Acuna, Mexico just across the border from Del Rio, TX., a radio station by the call letters of XERF had a 50,000 Watt transmitter that was playing a strange new sound. Obviously with the power that 50,000 watts provides this sound was heard from Texas to Alaska & across the better part of the U.S.From the less exotic locale of Nashville,Tenn. we had station WLAC blasting this new sound as well, covering just about anywhere and everywhere that XERF didn't reach. These stations gave many people what was to be their first taste of a burgeoning new sound called rock 'n' roll. A youth movement was growing and had found its soundtrack.This was the first generation of youth brought up in relative comfort with a bit of disposable income in their pockets and not much to dispose it on. They had found icons in Brando and Dean, who echoed their boredom and restlessness but were looking for something new to call their own. That this generation should glom on to those bastard sounds emanating from the tinny sounds of static filled old A/M radios is of no great surprise. It was a lifestyle within itself with its own code of dress, rules of conduct, dances and slang. Above and beyond whatever else it may have been, it was their's solely. The fact that parents and the establishment didn't like it or understand it was all that much to the better. More importantly, reaching beyond the fact that parents didn't dig it at all (which is always a good barometer of whether it's good or not, they more that they dislike it ... well, you know the story) was that it was directly addressed to the problems of teen-age America without condescension, patronizing attitudes or trivializing the trials & tribulations of adolesence. And you could dance to it. Preachers railed against it, the govt. local & national tried to ban it, parents hated it and segregationists saw it as coming of the apocalypse, the end of the world cloaked in jungle rhythms, honking saxophones and boogie woogie beats. To that end of it, r 'n' r music has done as much or more to break down barriers both visible and invisible, between the races as any laws enacted in the 50's did or could have even hoped for. I've read stories of performers crying out in tears of happiness seeing the ropes come down on segregated dance floors and black and white kids mixing it up together. An uncommon event in the 50's and one that still held the distinct possibilities of landing all those involved in jail or run out of town on a rail or worse. The mainstream success of R N R music gave a voice to the youth movement. With it came a sense of belonging, of something uniquely their own, something that addressed teenaged problems and frustrations for the first time in such a way that only another teenager could possibly understand and what was even better was that it was teens doing the talking. Ironically, one of the first great spokespersons for teen aged culture was Chuck Berry. It didn't matter that he was black, an ex-convict & pushing 30. With tunes like "School Days," "Too Much Monkey Business" & "Oh, Baby Doll," he had his finger firmly on the pulse of day to day teenage life from city to country, coast to coast, sea to shining sea. While it's true that many of this first generation of rockers had seen their own adolescence come and go long ago, there were others who were well aware of their highly unique iconic status and of being in the position to help teenagers to vent their anger, frustrations and increasing sense of alienation to a world that really could've given a shit less. One such individual was the late great rocker: Eddie Cochran.Born Ray Edward Cochrane (the "e" was later dropped from his stage name) on October 3, 1938 in Albert Lea, Minnesota, the Cochrane family originally hailed from Oklahoma. While still in his early teens the family made a brief foray back to Okla. City before following the dusty footsteps of thousands of Okies before them out to the sunny climes of SoCal, eventually landing in Bell Gardens, CA., a suburb of Los Angeles. In an interesting bit of trivia, the house of Eddie's grandmother where the family stayed in Okla.City sat on the exact spot of the Edward P. Murrah Federal Building! Eddie cut his first single: "Two Blue Singin'Stars" b/w "Mr. Fiddle" in 1955 for the EKKO label out of Chicago as a duet with the C&W singer Hank Cochran (no relation) as The Cochran Brothers. Two more singles for the Ekko label followed but went nowhere, although at least one of the tunes out of these sessions has since gone on to be a Rockabilly classic, " Tired & Sleepy." His first really big break came with his appearance in the classic 1956 film The Girl Can't Help It, in which he performed "Twenty Flight Rock" and met Gene Vincent (also in the film and with whom he struck up a lifelong friendship, although it was short lived as Eddie died just 4 years later en route to Heathrow Airport on Jan. 8, 1960, after he had just finished up a highly successful UK tour with Gene).A completely underrated guitarist, Eddie was just at home with jazz and swing as he was with country flat picking, blues and rock 'n' roll. He was a very highly in demand session player appearing on hundreds of sides other than his own and was one of the first rock guitar players to experiment in the studio with multi-tracking and overdubs. Many of his greatest sides are delivered with a relaxed and deceptively simple approach which endears him to neophyte rockers to this very day.The accessibility of Eddie's guitar work, the straight ahead drive with which he delivered it and his slyly observant takes on the teenage condition imbued his best work with a proto punk sensibility that has found its way into the ouevre of the Sex Pistols (who covered his "C'Mon Everybody" & "Something Else"), The NY Dolls, The Heartbreakers ("Get Off The Phone" starts with a stolen Cochran riff), The Ramones ("Suzy Is A Headbanger" may well be the best EC song he never wrote), The Who (their slamming take on "Summertime Blues" shows them at their punked-out best on the Live At Leeds LP), The Stones, Flamin' Groovies, Blue Cheer and many others. The three chords and a prayer approach to his best songs coupled with minimal production (there weren't even drums on "C'Mon Everybody!" it was Jerry Capehart (long time sidekick of Eddie's) beating on a taped up cardboard box), angst-ridden lyrics -- "I'd like to help ya son, but you're too young to vote..." -- the frustrations of working your ass off to afford a car so some snotty babe who won't give you the time of day hopefully might and trying to blow off a little steam on a friday night after grinding out the school work all week without getting busted by your folks: "Well, we'll really have a party but we gotta leave a guard outside, if my folks come home I'm afraid they gonna have my hide." All of these elements and the timelessness of his art all serve to lay down a virtual blueprint for the shape of punk to come.After all, it's only a short step stylistically and ideologically from the frustration and understated rage inherent in his tune "Summertime Blues" to that of The Seeds' "Pushin' Too Hard" and The Stooges' "No Fun." Eddie lived fast, he died young, left a good looking corpse and a helped pioneer a musical genre that despite various transformations and mutations has shown no signs of going away anytime soon. Music29710@blogcritics.org Tue, 24 May 2005 08:36:21 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/05/24/081946.php HW SaxtonThe inspiration for this brief bitter tirade was inspired by a quick glimpse at the new reality show featuring Britney Spears and Mr. Spears. I didn't think, in all honesty, that "Reality TV" could possibly get any worse. After a few minutes of listening to/watching & gaping in slack jawed wonder that culminated in my holding back a severe bout of the dry heaves, I was proven wrong. Boy oh boy, was I ever proven WRONG. I couldn't believe my own eyes as these morons made with dispensing words of wiz-dumb for other morons, who in all likelihood think this pair of none-too-bright lovebirds have something intelligent to say.This was Junior High Philosophy 101. I've never thought Brit was bright. I know for a fact now that she is as deep as a soap dish in all matters philosophical. I don't think that Hubby's ever going to accused of fomenting any intellectual revolution either. He did seem to be smarter than your average paving brick but not quite as bright as a small appliance bulb. It was all I could do not to pull a pistol and do an Elvis number on the old Panasonic.Day in, day out, video after video, song after song, insipid special after special about some star's car, house, plastic surgery, making of their new record, trend after trend nauseating trend, we get bombarded from every angle by your local friendly neighborhood media outlet about that latest greatest thing that we just can't live without. And if you can seemingly live without it, the self-same friendly neighborhood entertainment propaganda pusher will try to make you ponder why you would want to and if your life is really worth living without it. The mediocre pablum that is shoved down your throats like geese being prepped for foie gras is the entertainment you want and the entertainment you get. And boy, do you get it in more ways than one (in some ways that require KY or other forms of lubrication). Just can't get enough Britney Spears??? Well, the record companies ring a bell, and here comes the great unwashed in a Pavlovian frenzy buying up the likes of Jessica Simpson, Hillary Duff, and whoever else has-been nominated flavor of the week, just to be sure that you get the message that this week's untalented femme singers are what's happening Baby! - although the real message being spelled out is that you are a battalion of credit-card-waving dumb asses who have been made increasingly name conscious by incredibly wealthy & powerful MEGA $$$ promotional machines that point their greasy talons at who and what they want you to buy and laugh all the way to the bank as you do your impression of a lemming with a Mastercard.After catching approximately .17 seconds of the new Britney Spears "reality" TV show, "Chaotic," (now that's a George Carlin worthy oxymoron: Reality? TV?) the importance of live and organic, do it yourself, entertainment struck me like a ton of cinder blocks. Corporations and record companies buy critics and columnists by greasing palms and stroking egos (as well likely stroking and greasing other parts of the anatomy as well). Polls are spun and industry awards are nothing more than a popularity contest rigged by block voting. Any real "Critics" have been rendered ineffectual by the never ending flow of teeny bop-oriented magazines that have as much bearing on a performer's actual success and/or fate as magazines such as "The Watchtower" have on my chances of entering into heaven or hell.Brainwashed, browbeaten, and bribed from every direction by hype and overkill, the masses just bend over and grease up every time the big green weenie of the consumerism machine calls, and yet, and yet, people STILL miss the point. These so-called "artistes" are nothing more than a creation of an industry and its own media machine that many of these so called "Gangsta's" (LOL) and "Rock 'N Roll Rebels" are supposedly bucking against. Because they're SO unestablishment. About 99.7 % of all the "entertainment" out there is nothing more than pre-fab trash, and any relationship between artistic abilities, true talent, and commercial success is shaky at best, if not downright non-existent. Plainly put: Consumers are gettin' f**ked, but they sure ain't gettin' kissed.Is there a remedy to all of this? Can we be saved from the unforgiving & brain deadening rays emanating from our small screened savior? What is the answer? The answer is simple really: Live entertainment. Make your own music, start a band, get together with friends and jam. Write poetry, stories, blog, pick up some cheap 8mm movie camera and make cool home movies or videos. Get together with like minded artistically inclined friends and stage a happening. Get out in the world. Relate, create, & communicate. Do something, anything. Bored people are boring people. You don't need that much talent. It's helpful but not a necessity.Know three chords? You can start a band. Many of my favorite songs only have one or two. "Boogie Chillun" by John Lee Hooker only has three friggin' NOTES fer chrissakes! Live music is my favorite form of live entertainment. And one of the most easily accessible. Even the smallest town is likely to have a venue for live music. If not, create a venue. If you don't like what's being played, talk to the owner/operator & ask him about your hosting an Open Mic night. There are weekend warrior musician types that can play rings around a lot of "professional" musicians, and they might just live right down the street from you. Combine your open Mic night with a screening of some amateur films, poetry reading, chainsaw juggling, or any combination of these & other ideas. Just get off your lazy, Cheeto eating, soda pop guzzling and channel surfing ass is what I'm saying. Even if you don't play, paint, write, or by chance juggle chainsaws, then at least go out and support those people who do.At the very least, it will get you out of your house for a while. If you should choose to participate in some form of artistic endeavor then it's all for the better. With that said, get out and support live entertainment (turn off the TV and PC for a few hours, it won't hurt that bad) by living, breathing (well the breathing part is pretty much a given) entertainers. Go out & enjoy music. Music made by rastas, rednecks, divas, dirtheads, jazzbos, punkers, bluesmen, juke joint heroes and everyone else. You can find it in bars, in bowling alleys, in the park, out in the streets, on the patio, in the garage or down in the alley.Live. In person. Live. In the flesh. Live! Live!! Live!!! Loud, sweaty, and up in your face. All of its warts showing & no holds barred. Glorious in its imperfection. Attitude up the ---, non-lip-synched. No fakin', just a whole lotta shakin'. Entertainment does not need to be digitally sterilized & Dolby enhanced or re-mastered in 5.1 sound and then run through a state-of-the-art 1000 Watt surround sound system for maximum enjoyment. So, lace up your shoes and head on out. Show some backbone and go check out some artists free of the confines of the studio, feeding off of all the energy of the crowd, stretching out instrumentally, fresh, spontaneous and most importantly live and in person. Just remember: This offer is not available on TV.In closing, I'd like to thank you all for reading this. I'd like to but.... Culture29915@blogcritics.org Tue, 24 May 2005 08:19:46 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/05/24/080325.php HW SaxtonThere are many great guitar players in the Blues Genre. Some well known, some underrated (Son Seals, Jimmy Dawkins), some overrated (Buddy Guy, B.B. King) and others (Bee Houston, Left Hand Frank, Guitar Gable) who are nothing more than footnotes to even the most dedicated collectors of blues obscurities.Then there are the guitar players guitarists. The mention of whose name starts even the most self assured and technically advanced musician to speak of in reverent of tones. Lownan Pauling, leader and guitarist of The Five Royales is one of these gentlemen. He is the only guitar player that I have ever heard the not-exactly-humble Ike Turner rave about. Mr. Steve Cropper, an acknowledged but still highly underrated guitarist (he has to be seen live to fully appreciate his mastery of the six string beast) also name checks Lowman, as does J.C Fogerty, no slouch himself. Others in this vein are Wayne Bennett, Billy Butler, Jimmy Nolen, Mickey Baker, Roy Gaines & Wild Jimmy Spruill (whose stingin'solo on the Wilbert Harrison 1959 smash hit "Kansas City" is one the best known and most copied blues solos ever recorded) whose main contributions to music are hidden behind the artists whose recordings they've graced. The hugely diverse and competitive Chicago blues scene is filled with guitarists such as this. Guys who can walk into a club and whoever may happen to be on bandstand at the time will usually defer to and just hand the gig over to them. This is called "headhunting." This practice and form of friendly and sometimes not-so-friendly competition goes on to this very day. It also makes for some great unexpected shows and jam sessions. Last summer I saw the legendary, in Chi Town, blues guitarist Johnny Dollar do this to an unsuspecting white blues band at a small corner bar on the West Side of Chicago just off Roosevelt Rd.This band had somehow managed to book a gig at an all black blues club and it was not playing too well with the crowd of regulars. This band wasn't that awful and probably would've gone over fine at a more gentrified bar full of college kids, but to a crowd that lives the blues daily and were raised on Howling Wolf, Magic Sam and Billy Boy Arnold they just came across as, well, weak & watered down.Long story short: Johnny sat in, then he had some friends who conveniently just happened to play bass and drums take over the bands gear and they proceeded to rock the house for the next couple hours, much to the crowd's delight and the visiting band as well I suspect, who got taken to school that night which they will never forget, I'm sure. Johnny was gracious enough to invite the band leader up on stage with him to play a couple instrumental tunes ("San-Ho-Zay," "Chitlins Con Carne") seeing as how J.D. was using one of his guitars and his bands gear as well. LOL!Anyway, Earl Hooker was the Headhunter king in Chicago while he was alive and gigging. He could and would, play damn near anything in his sets from straight up Hillbilly to tasteful Jazz tunes. But his main forte was the blues. The blues, the whole blues and nothin' but the blues. And at this he could not be beat. Born Earl Zebedee Hooker in Clarksdale, Miss. in 1930 (an exact date unknown, I came across 5! different days of birth in 1930 and so decided to skip it) Earl was in case you're wondering, a first cousin to John Lee Hooker. Any similarities between the two beyond that are pure coincidence. EH moved with his family to Chicago during the great exodus out of the Miss. Delta during the depression. As many blues singers have noted though, they had no idea the country was even IN a depression until they left the delta. That's how bad things were down there!Being raised on Blues, Earl learned directly from seeing and hearing such first generation Chicago greats as Tampa Red, Big Bill Broonzy & Robert Nighthawk whose fluid, smooth and complex slide playing took Earl by storm, having an enormous influence on him. Earls mastery of the slide guitar was such that he was asked by Muddy Waters himself to play slide on Muddy's " You Shook Me," a tune later mangled by Led Zeppelin on their first LP. This was really quite the compliment as Muddy was one of the best slide guitar players EVER when he felt like it, though Muddy played less and less guitar as his fame and popularity rose from the early 50's into the 60's. Returning back down south in the early 50's Earl worked with Ike Turner's Kings Of Rhythm Band abd cut some sides for Sun Records. One such side being an over the top take on "Steel Guitar Rag" showing Earl's affinity for country and western to great effect. With his appropriately named "Roadmasters" band, Earl nicknamed "Zeb" by his friends, spent the better part of the decade constantly touring only recording sporadically for many one off singles of his own. The early part of the 60's saw Earl back in Chicago for the time being cutting his own chiefly instrumental singles such as an ethereal take on Joe Liggins 1952 R&B hit "Tanya" (an exotic sounding cut in the vein of "Harlem Nocturne") and "Blue Guitar," "Universal Rock," and others. This busy point in his life also found him gigging with & doing studio work with Jr. Wells, Muddy Waters, A.C. Reed & blues chanteuse Lillian Offitt. Unfortunately, Earl had contracted tuberculosis at early age and this sidelined him several times as he was building up momentum in his professional carrer and personal life. As is so often the case with bluesmen, Earl's long due recognition eluded him until late in his career. He cut a couple of outstanding LP's for the Arhoolie label, an excellent one for Blue Thumb with Ike Turner and his band backing him and an LP for ABC which is my personal favorite of his 60's sides. The ABC album shows off his complete mastery of the wah-wah pedal. The wah is a device not often used by blues players but which in Earl's hands and combined with his slidework was used to devastaing effect: so much so that it is said Jimi Hendrix, a big fan of Earl's, was completely blown away and he and Earl cross-influenced each other on its use. The large part of E.H's recorded solo output was instrumental as he was self-admittedly not much of a vocalist. He was happy to use vocalists with his own bands and some of tastiest work can be found as sideman backing other blues singers and players.Earl Hooker passed from this world in April of 1970 after almost 3 decades on the road, worn down from constant touring, drinking & the ravages of tuberculosis. Although he may be physically removed from this realm, his influence lives on the likes of Johnny Winter, Ronnie Earl and the recording of "Boot Hill" by Stevie Ray Vaughn. His Arhoolie recordings, which contain some fine sides, are easy to be had, and his various recordings for Sun, King, and Chief Records have been on various re-releases under different titles for several years now on CD as well as vinyl for you die hards. Essential listening for any and all fans of the blues and you rockers could likely and happily pick up some tips here as well. Music30038@blogcritics.org Tue, 24 May 2005 08:03:25 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/05/18/154553.php HW SaxtonThe story Of Malaco Records isn't much different than that of any other of the many independent R&B labels (Stax/Volt, Fame, Minit/Instant, etc) that sprang up in the early part of the 1960's.It was started by a pair of friends (Tommy Couch, Wolf Stephenson) as an outlet for putting out music they loved. Ran on a shoestring budget. Made ends meet recording commercials/jingles,leased out master recordings. Booked bands and promoted concerts mainly on the Deep South Fraternity circuit (a very lucrative source of income for many Blues/R&B performers). Rented out studio time for custom projects. In 1967 this Jackson, Mississippi based label using mainly local based musicians and writers, began producing master recordings and leasing them out to major labels thereby guaranteeing a much larger degree of distribution, a common practice for fledgling labels. A series of 45's and LP's were released on various labels including ABC, Bang, Mercury and Capitol where they scored a major hit with North Mississippi blues legend Fred Mc Dowell's LP "I Don't Play No R N R."As revenue from recorded releases was minimal at best,they struggled on doing the best they could with what they had. Lady Luck lifted her skirts for them in the spring of 1970 in the guise of Wardell Quezerque (pronounced: Ka-Zur-Key) an established New Orleans producer who had formerly worked with artists like Professor Longhair, Fats Domino, Earl King and Robert "Barefootin" Parker, et al.Struggling financially and with little to lose, Malaco struck a deal with Quezerque wherein he supplied them with artists in return for studio time and use of their session musicians. This proved to be an instant sucess for all parties involved. Two monster R&B hits came out of these early sessions. King Floyd's reggae tinged soul hit "Groove Me" (#1 R&B, #6 Pop) and Jean Knight's "Mr. Big Stuff" (#1 R&B, #2 Pop). Trying to place these tunes with Stax and Atlantic proved to be unsuccessful, so they were released on a Malaco owned subsidiary named "Chimneyville"). King Floyd scored another big hit in 1971 with "Baby Let Me Kiss You" also on the Chimneyville imprint. Bactracking a little here, following the major successes of "Mr Big Stuff" and "Groove Me" (covered by The Blues Brothers ), Stax/Volt and Atlantic records respectively picked up these discs for distribution on their own labels. Malaco was well on its way with a couple of hits under its belt and the musicians that served as the in house band being sought out for a back-up band by artists as diverse as Rufus Thomas and Paul Simon, who featured them on a few tracks on the highly successful 1973 LP "There Goes Rhymin'Simon." Malaco also released its first recorded foray into the Gospel field with The Golden Nuggets take on the tune "Gospel Train." This was only a harbinger of many more successes in the field of spiritual based music that were to come for them.Due in part to changing tastes, the advent of Disco and just plain fickleness of the record buying public, Malaco was in a slump by 1974. Rejection notices from labels with whom they had tried to place product were stacking up as were the bills from the day to day operations. With next to no operating capital left, they took a long shot that paid off and finally and firmly established Malaco as an independent force to reckoned with.This coup came in the form of an ethereal, sweet soul ballad by Dorothy Moore called "Misty Blue." The combination of Dorothy's sexy voice, swirling strings and metronomic, low key drums seduced the public. It was a world wide hit reaching #2 R&B and #3 Pop in the US and # 5 in the UK charts. This effectively also launched Ms. Moore's career as she went on to have thirteen more chart hits and five Grammy nominations between the release of "Misty Blue" in 1975 and 1980.The success of "Gospel Train " was paying off as well. Malaco signed up many top name and top notch artists including The Soul Stirrers (amongst whose alumni were Sam Cooke), The Sensational Nightingales, The Angelic Gospel singers and more). Mr Frank Williams of The Southernaires took over the A&R and day to day operations of their Gospel division until his eventual death in '93. What helped to make Malaco unique was that the large part of their continued success was due to the fact that while several of their hits did crossover to be largely successful with white buying audiences they still continued to pump out music that was by and large considered commercial suicide in the 1970's & 1980's: gospel, traditional sounding 60's styled R&B and Blues, genres that most labels would not have touched with a 10 feet pole at that point in time.But the astute businessman they were, they knew that continued small successes would pay off better than a mega hit or two. Slowly they carved their niche amongst what is considered the "Chittlin Circuit" (a series of small clubs, taverns, gynasiums and even converted barns in small to mid sized cities that other larger perfomers generally eschewed after some larger degree of success) and the larger black neighborhoods of the South, North, Mid-West and Eastern Seaboard states as well as in the ghettos of large western cities such as L.A, Oakland, Seattle and Denver. As their success enjoyed continued growth grew they signed on artists from the now defunct Stax label like Eddie Floyd and highly underrated soul singers such as Chicago's McKinley Mitchell. In the"If you can't beat 'em, Join 'em Dept.) they even took a stab the disco market such as recording the disco hit "Ring My Bell" by Anita Ward which sold a phenomenal 10 Million+ copies.By this point in time with a built in audience for their music, Malaco had reached a level of indepedence that allowed then to do what they wanted to do. In this case it was producing music by and large for their base audience. To Wit: Black Music for Black People. Although Blues was supposedly "dead" the release of Z.Z. Hill's "Down Home Blues" was released in 1980 and sold a tidy 500,000+ copies. Not bad for a "dead genre." Not only was it a staple on the Southern Blues markets, it has lived on to become a de riguer set piece of many working blues and bar bands, both black and white alike. Malaco has many artists on it's roster that while being barely known outside of the "Chittlin" Circuit" are stars in their own right, continuing to play to packed houses everywhere they go. Names such as Denise LaSalle, Artie "Blues Boy" White, Poonanny, Benny Latimore, Little Milton, Johnny Taylor, Z.Z. Hill, Shirley Brown, Bobby Rush & Marvin Sease amongst others. Bonafide R & B legends Bobby Bland & Tyrone Davis were added to Malaco roster in the 1990's. Mr. Tyrone Davis sadly passed last year and can be read about in a heartfelt homage by Eric Olsen. While many of these artists have passed in recent years the magic lives on in their recordings on the Malaco label and others.Currently running on late night TV are advertisements for a pair of compact discs that feature some of Malaco's better selections called "Juke Joint Saturday Night" & "Down Home Blues." Also, if you're at all interested there is a set of highlights spanning Malaco's history from inception to the present that is called "The Last Soul Company". T.L.S.C is available in truncated form as a two disc set and long form (recommended by the author) in a 6 disc set that covers the many fine "Blues, Soul, Funk, Gospel and R&B" sides that Malaco has put forth since its inception back in 1967. Music29647@blogcritics.org Wed, 18 May 2005 15:45:53 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/05/18/143354.php HW SaxtonA long time ago, back before The Ramones could count to 4, before the Black Flag so proudly waved, before The Clash had enough rope, before X marked the spot and before the Sex Pistols backfired punk was knocking at the door. Now in 2005 "Punk" is just another genre in your local music emporium. A product to be bought and sold at the local mall. Even the most suburbanized suburbanite can now take a trip to their local mall and come out two hours later as an Insta-Punk. Just add beer, a little attitude and voila: Dude yer a punk. Just walk the mall, any mall, anywhere U.S.A from Maine to Mississippi, Alaska to Arizona, Nevada to New York and you too can be Punk Rock and I mean it maaaaan. Stop by Hot Topic pick up some creepers, a pair of Docs or some Chuck Taylors, drop into the local hipster hair emporium "Hair 'Tis" or whatever, get pierced, tattoed, pick up some black clothes and a handful of CD's and there ya have it. You are a punk rocker, congratulations.Well anyway you have the outward trappings of some such a thing. You are an individual, different than everbody else, into something new and hip, not just another jerk in oversized clothes & a backwards baseball cap (speaking of which no one should be allowed to wear but catchers) no, you are walking and talking statement on the vitrues of non-conformity just like the other 7 or 8 million of the non-conformists out there. Punk Rock, shmunk rock. There was a time that I thought it was new, interesting and cutting edge. Well it was new and interesting for a couple of years. But like any other pop culture movement in crashed and burned within a few years of inception in regards to momentum but it did leave behind it an interesting recorded history.I used to be young once, I think, and loved Punk Rock. I was raised on it, and I was in on what I saw at the time as ground zero. I saw the NY Dolls make their splash, The final death rattle of Raw Power era Stooges, The Stones go from being a parent's nightmare to a band your parents might listen to and a bunch of limeys from across the pond taunt, tease, terrorize and try the patience of any and all who came into contact with them, fans included. Of course, this didn't last long and by the early 80's elements of metal, pop and art rock were coming into the mix diluting Punk in its purest form.In fact for me personally speaking I declared Punk Rock oficially dead after I'd seen the Dead Kennedys play in Hollywood with T.S.O.L., The Cheifs & I forget who all else ca. 1981 and there probably a couple hundred of San Fernando Valley headbangers holding up their lighters as they shouted encore, while the rest of the crowd was pelting the stage with beer cups,sneakers,flyers and any & all many of flying projectile. They did encore and Jello had a good chuckle at the hair farmers and the lighters. But these are just the long winded reminisces of a event close to 25 years ago. Sheesh I'm getting old. Well, anyway for a brief point in time, Punk was something that was fun and interesting, different, unique and driven by intelligent,like minded but not too like minded people who were looking for something that you could call your own for the time being, something that would remedy the doldrums of late 1970's F/M radio. Misfits, artists, musicians, anti-musicians, poets, rejects, drug addicts, gay people. In general, marginalized people, angry people, people looking for kindred spirits in dive bars and anywhere else you could pull of a gig or two before you got booted by the owners.Or as the case may be literally booted by the cops upside your head or square in the ass. I narrowly escaped arrest after a punk show in East Hollywood at The Polish American Hall at which The Weirdos, Screamers, Mau Maus, Vicious Circle, The Speed Queens and some other bands the names of which escape me at the present played and which L.A.P.D raided for improper permit, so they claimed.A handful of L.A.'s finest walked into the hall, saw a couple dozen kids doing the alligator and pogoing declared it a riot and charged off into the crowd swinging truncheons & flashlights while people were sent off screaming, running and just scattering to anywhere and everywhere there wasn't a cop coming from. By a miracle of sorts, my friends and I escaped and spent the next couple of hours hiding behind a dumpster in a completely horrible gang & drug infested Mexican neighborhood praying that the helicopters and /or rollers didn't see us. We could not go back to get our car and with our leathers, boots and gear we were just asking for it should the police see us. By comparison, the local gang bangers we ran into were mellow. OK, back on course here. Let see where we were. Bitching, moaning about what a silly commodity Punk Rock has become, a little autobiography, an old man punk rock story and blah blah blah. Anyway even when Punk was "new" it was not new. Just another step up the ladder towards modernity. Just as the bands of today draw upon the 70's and 80's for inspirations, the groups of the 70's drew upon the garage and art damaged psych outs of the 60's and the high energy sounds of 50's R & B, Rockabilly, Blues for theirs. The 1950's is where Punk in earnest started in my book. Out of the boredom and fading prosperity of post WW2 Stepford America came the juvenile deliquent and the first real youth movement. As with any movement there has to be a soundtrack and Perry Como and Patti Page just were not cutting it. Kids were looking for something to call their own. Hot rods, fashion, slang above all: Music.The amalgamation of Hillbilly, Blues and R&B which came to be known as Rock N Rool gave birth to the likes of Elvis, Chuck Berry, Little Richard. They were new & unique to the ears and disliked by the older generation.Part 2 is here. Music29670@blogcritics.org Wed, 18 May 2005 14:33:54 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/05/10/014600.php HW SaxtonI'm not sure why I would write this. I haven't intentionally listened to any Berry Chucked guitar riffage of late. Truth be told I don't plan on it either. I do own a good part of his recorded output but it's sitting in storage with a lot of LP's that I'm too lazy to e bay. The way I figure it is kinda like this, since his influence is ubiquitous in so much of the music I like from Buck Owens to AC/DC, I do not need to listen to him anymore. I can just soak it up second hand in the sounds of his disciples, which is about 90% of everyone who has ever picked up on the electric guitar since 1955. If they weren't directly under Chucks spell, they were surely influenced by somebody or some group that was. You can't get around it. Chuck didn't invent R 'N' R by any stretch of the imagination. I've got records from the late 1930's (Guitar Boogie - Mississippi Jook Band) that are just as rock 'n' roll to me as were "Rocket 88" or any other post WW2/ pre 1955 stompdown that helped lay the foundations for Chuck, Bo, Little Richard, et al. to build and expound upon.He certainly helped to make R N R a household word though and he brought the Guitar to the forefront of this new burgeoning movement, neatly displacing the saxophone & piano as the main instruments of band leaders coast to coast, sea to shining sea. The energy of his early records is still incredibly raw and wild and you have to wonder what country boys like Elvis and Buddy Holly must have thought upon hearing Chuck for the first time.Likely they were in a beat up old car roaring down some dirt road in the sticks and that slash & burn guitar coming through a tinny A/M radio, cracked speaker and all, must've been what seemed like the beginning of a teenage armageddon. Finally someone who spoke to them exclusively and addressed teen age troubles, trials & tribulations, without condescending to them.It didn't matter that he was pushing 30, black & had done time in prison, Chuck Berry was THE voice of teenaged America in the 1950's. Enough on CB. His accolades have been written better elsewhere and his praise sung with stronger voice than this writer can muster.So, here's a list of a few tunes that've been influenced by Charles Edward Berry to varying degrees, for better or worse, for you to contemplate,scratch your head at and just plain wonder why in the name of Jeezus, I'd post such an inane list. These are in no particular order or meant to convey a "Top Ten" list by any means. I just wrote 'em out as they came to mind while digging through and on a few LP's. Before we get into this too deeply, here is prime example of the C.B. influence on one of Rock's all time classic songs: "Louie, Louie."Richard Berry (no relation) was inspired to write "Louie" after repeated listenings to a Chuck B. tune called "Havana Moon." Set to a slinky calypso beat, "Havana Moon" tells the tale of a sailor sitting, waiting and drinking rum, hoping in vain for his lady love's ship to come in. Any similarity between the original "Louie, Louie" (which is also set to a calypso beat for those of you who have never heard the original tune) and "Havana Moon" is purely intentional. That out of the way, let's get moving.Damn the torpedoes and pardon the typo's friends, here goes nothing:1) The Blasters - "Marie, Marie" Dave Alvin in an interview some years back, talked about basing the name of the title character here in this pumping Cajun tinged rocker on little Marie in the Chuck Berry tune "Memphis". When The Blasters wanted to release this as a single they were told by their label (Slash) that it wasn't commercially viable. Well, they were wrong. The U.K. rockabilly artist Shakin'Stevens covered it and went on to sell over 3 Million copies of the song worldwide. This song is a rocker for sure. Not only did Dave namecheck Marie out of "Memphis" but this also has a steady drive to it not unlike "Promised Land" or other early/ mid 60's rockers in the Berry oeuvre.2)Dave Edmunds - "Get Out Of Denver" This a Bob Seger song originally but this is the version that gets me rocking. It can be found neatly tucked away on the early Edmunds LP "Get It." Dave is not shy about his Berry influence and he's covered many great Berry tunes (Let It Rock, Promised Land, Dear Dad, et al.) to great effect. He leaves no Berry riff left unturned here as he pummels this one but good for a couple of minutes. The guitar licks are pure-dee Berry and the speed rapping narrative about getting chased and harrassed by state troopers while barreling down the highway just minding his own business work to keep this firmly in the tradition of C.B. Tunes such as "Maybelline," "No Money Down," "Jaguar & The Thuderbird." 3) Creedence Clearwater Revival - "It Came Out Of The Sky" Another tune where the C.B. influence is stronger lyrically and stylistically as opposed to musically. It's not that chunka chunka rhythm and that simple but deadly backbeat that could kill at a hundred paces that bring the Chuckster to mind here. They are all there in copius amounts. Once again, it's the narrative and lyrics here that draw the strongest parallels to Berrys work. Chuck's lyrics had an intrinsic "everyman" approach that made them so damned accessible to his listeners and fans alike.In as far as great American songwriters go, I'd put C.B. up there with Hoagy Carmichael, Woody Guthrie, Harold Arlen, Gershwin, Hank Williams, Willie Dixon, Iggy Pop and a half a handful of others (JC Fogerty included) that are a mean hand at turning a phrase. Aussie swamp blues/noise rockers "The Scientists" also do a great cover of this that retains the Chuck B. riffs while oozing along over a wall of fuzzed out guitars and feedback. 4) AC/DC - "Rocker" Speaking of Aussies, these guys were never known for their complexity & their musical virtuousity.So, it only makes sense that the Berry influence would make itself heard in their music. Angus mangles, mauls and overhauls a handful of C.B riffs here in one of my favorite AC/DC tunes. When I saw these these guys in concert years ago they dedicated this one to Chuckie B. So I've gotta give them credit for having good taste and keeping Chuck's name alive even if it was for a crowd of 20,000+ stoned out headbangers. 5) Rolling Stones - "Star Star" (AKA "Starfucker") One of the few high points on the otherwise dismal "Goat's Head Soup" LP. To be brief and to the point (it had to happen sooner or later) without Chuck Berry we probably wouldn't have The Stones. The Stones have covered at least an albums worth of Berry songs, still pull out unrecorded Berry tunes live (last time I saw them they did "Sweet Little 16") and have worked his riffs into so many of their "originals" that I just could not imagine one without the other. If you are in the for some Berry and don't have any of discs or LP's, then the Stones are the next best thing. Some even argue better and I personally will admit to digging their version of "Little Queenie" over Chucks but not as much as I like the Jerry Lee Lewis version of the aforementioned. When Jerry sings "...and she's too cute to be a minute over 17" it brings new depth to the word "Lewd" but in a good way, of course.6) Ray Sharpe - "Monkeys Uncle" Digging into my 45's, I pulled this one out. It's the B-side of the often covered R & B classic "Linda Lu" on Jamie Records. Although, for some reason the other copy of this 45 I have has "Red Sails In The Sunset" on the B side. My guess is that they threw "Red Sails..." on the flip to make DJ's focus on the A side of the 45. Mr. Ray Sharpe was an R & B rocker from Fort Worth,TX. who was mining a similar sound and approach to music as was Chuck. He was black cat that had a very pronounced fondness for C & W/ Hillbilly music and he worked it into his music alongside of Blues,R & B and Rock n Roll. If I didn't know better I'd swear Chuck had written this one. Ray is still around and pops up every once in awhile at shows such as the "Ponderosa Stomp" down in New Orleans and at summer blues fests across the country. He puts on a great show to this day and as he's getting along in years,should you ever get a chance to catch his act, then by all means do. 7) Eddie Clearwater - "Hillbilly Blues" Another 45 and another bluesman gone on the sound of Berry chucked riffs and rhythms. This one is on the small "Atomic" label out of Chicago and is the label that Eddie "The Chief" Clearwater started cutting music on at the onset of his career back in the late 1950's. Very few black bluesmen have acknowledged the influence of Chuck the way that Eddie has. Eddie incorporated not only Chuck's guitar style and songs into his repertoire but also the "Duck Walk" Chuck was so famous for (and that he stole from Carl Hogan, Louis Jordan's guitarist). "Hillbilly Blues" is a jumping C & W inflected rocker a la "Thirty Days" & "Maybelline."If you're so inclined Eddie did an ass rocking CD not long ago with Nashville nuts "Los Straitjackets" you may just want to pick up. He and Straitjackets guitarist Jerry Angel unleash a barrage of Berry licks on several tracks that'll have you up and jumping in no time flat.8) Dave Edmunds/Nick Lowe - "I Knew The Bride" Both Edmunds and Lowe have recorded this LP's of their own and it was a staple of their collaborative band "Rockpile" in their live shows. This a bouncy catchy pop type tune and it is not unlike a sped up take on Chuck's "You Never Can Tell" (used in the twist contest scene in "Pulp Fiction." The Louisiana Swamp Pop king Johnny Allan even did a great Cajun styled take on this that surpasses even Dave Edmunds and Nick Lowe's respective takes of this tune. 9) Bo Diddley - "Hey Good Lookin'" Chuck wrote this one for Bo and it is the title of Bo's 1965 LP of the same name on Checker Records. Since Chuck wrote this one, I'm stretching the concept a bit here I'll admit. It's just such a great song though and since these guys have been friendly competitors for years I've always found it odd that Chuck would've given this up. It's a rocker and it's just as good as the best of Chuck's early 60's sides such as "Nadine, It Wasn't Me, No Particular Place To Go," etc. This one is not easy to find. It's on a couple of out of print CD collections and the LP can be found but it'll lighten your wallet anywhere from $50-75 approximately, at most used record stores.Should you be lucky enough to find it in the first place that is.10) Johnny Thunders - "Too Much Junkie Business" Bo D. and Chuck become entangled once again."TMJB" is a thinly veiled revamp of the main riff to "Pills" a Bo Diddley tune covered on the 1st N.Y. Dolls album. The title of this tune is, of course, a play on words of Chuck's "Too Much Monkey Business" and is full of Johnny Thunders crash and burn Chuck Berry on Meth riffage. It's an extremely hi-energy tune that's got Johnny and Walter Lure on a serious Berry bender, bouncing sloppy assed Berry cum Keith Richards meets Wayne Kramer licks all over the place.With Johnny doing this tune and his being a disciple of Keith's and of Chuck's, this is a case of the 3rd generation chickens coming home to roost.This plants Chuck and his cherry red ES-335 Gibson right in the middle of ground zero once again. After inspiring rockers of all stripes in the second half of the 50's, providing inspiration for the British Intrusion, fuel for zit faced, hormonally challenged teen age garage bands of the 60's (Shadows Of Knight, MC5, Standells, etc.) and moving into the Punk Rock explosion of the 70's (The Germs, Dolls, Bowie, Heartbreakers, Tom Petty, T.Rex and so many others), the ubiquitous Chuck Berry is still being recycled and covered well into the new millenium with no signs of it letting up. Maybe the bands playing his riffs these days don't even realize it in some cases since, they are picking up on it through bands that were influenced by bands that were influenced by bands that have been directly inspired by the Maestro himself. As long as there is R N R still being played, Chuck's music will never die.Viva Viva Rock N Roll. Music29259@blogcritics.org Tue, 10 May 2005 01:46:00 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/04/30/234724.php HW SaxtonOn a sad note, I'm here to report that the "Only One-Man Band That Matters," the inimitable Hasil (pronounced Hazel) Adkins was found dead in his home in Boone County, W.VA on April 27, 2005. The death was not deemed suspicious.Hasil Adkins,for those of you unfamiliar with him, was the chicken walking, head chopping, polka dotted hot rod driving wildman who has been steadily cranking out (non-stop for almost 5 decades) his own undeniably unique brand of Hillbilly Rock N Roll since Eisenhower was in the Oval Office. For you Rockabilly fans who are unfamiliar with "The Haze" you just might be better served digging on your Charlie Feathers, Warren Smith, Johnny Burnette Rock N Roll Trio and Carl Perkins records. As great as all of the aforementioned Hillbilly hepcats are, Hasil Adkins is in a commodity meat filled world all his own.If you like your Rockabilly achingly pure and served with enough demonic drive to scare the drawers off of Big Daddy Satan himself, well then, look no further. And abandon hope all ye that enter in the world of Hasil Adkins. Eschewing minor musical informalities such as singing on key or tuning up his guitar, Hasil delivers the goods with just a little less subtlety than a ball peen hammer upside your skull. Rock N Roll with the emphasis on RAW, Hillbilly Blues in the key of X, Max Cady meets Billy Lee Riley on a PCP bender. In fact, it is said that Robert De Niro kept a tape of Hasil Adkins music with him on the set of the re-make of "Cape Fear" to help him pysch-out for his role as Max. Brought to the attention of the musical world at large through "The Cramps" cover version of his monster non-hit "She Said" and the tireless efforts of the good folks at Norton Records, Hasil's style has remained virtually unchanged through the years. Think of him as the audio equivalent of one of those WW2 Japanese soldiers who are found every so often hiding in the Malaysian jungle not knowing the war is over.His lobe pumelling, skull slicing odes to fast cars, decapitation, hot pants, hotter babes and eating peanut butter on the moon are not for the faint of heart. His world is not all insane R n R though. The Haze had a beautiful pure country voice that could flip flop from the extreme end of the wildest, shack shakin', tear it up, Rock N Roll to delivering a C & W ballad that'll make you shed a tear or two in your beer. He was just as at home opening shows for P.I.L (John Lydon is a fan of his) as he was crooning Hank Williams tunes in some backwoods beer joint for a handful of his friends and neighbors. Admittedly, the music of Hasil Adkins is an acquired taste and one that likely won't hold much appeal to RAB purists.Author Nick Tosches may have put it best when he said this: "Like the Bible and toilet paper, the music of Hasil Adkins belongs in every household and none is a home without it." Music28869@blogcritics.org Sat, 30 Apr 2005 23:47:24 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/09/13/082114.php HW SaxtonGiven only a perfunctory glance it might seem somewhat difficult to find any sort of musical similarity between American Blues and Jamaican Dancehall music. Yet the common threads are many and they resonate loudly & deeply.Looking beyond the base facts that both are derived from West African influences and share cross influences the similarities become obvious. Several parallels I've found to be interesting, follow:1) Both Dancehall and Blues are very personal music serving as sounding boards for personal experiences of musician and listener alike. The frustrations and joys of love,dire economic circumstance, the violence of ghetto life, incarceration, etc. are all reflected in both. Both help serve as an avenue of escape from all of these grim realities and offer at least some form of temporary hope, superficial as it may be. Both are equally comprised of pessimism & optimism, frustration and rage, love and joy and are concerned primarily with matters that affect both audience and artist on a direct level. Truly they are both musics by, for and of the proletariat massive. 2) Violence. As many blues singers were once considered outlaws so are many of todays Dancehall DJ's. Truth be told many are outlaws and in both styles this only serves to heighten their mystique. Blues singers such as Leadbelly & Son House were both convicted murderers; Leadbelly being jailed more than once for this offense. Chicago blues great Taildragger was convicted of, and spent 17 months down for the self defense shooting of another ChiTown bluesman Boston Blackie back in '93. Many bluesman such as Little Walter and Sonny Boy Williamson # 1 have died premature deaths attributed to street violence.Comparably,on the Reggae side of things, the early 90's saw the DJ Supercat gun down fellow DJ Nitty Gritty in supposed self defense. Ninjaman was jailed for a year stateside for weapons charges. This didn't hurt Ninjaman's popularity at all, it actually enhanced it. Many Reggae artists such as the late great Peter Tosh have also met with senseless & violent ends. Sad realities reflected in the lyrics and lives of both bluesmen and of dancehall performers. 3) As was the case with many blues artists, many dancehall DJ's also cannot read or write. This, at least in part, contributes to the emotional honesty of both styles as feeling and message pass directly from performer to audience connecting on a visceral level rather than the cerebral. There are no subjects in either form of music that are considered off-limits or taboo. From the most commonplace day to day events to the utterly bizarre, nothing is beyond comment: politics, sexual boasting, matters of the heart, pop culture and beyond are all open to satire, to ridicule and to praise. To sum it up with more eloquence than I can even begin to muster: "Humani nila me alienium puto". Which means:" Nothing human is alien to me". Damn, but those Romans had a way with words, eh?4) Blues has always been looked down upon for the most part by the Black middle classes as being crude, repetitive, vulgar. The Devil's music if you please. Such is the case with Dancehall music and the Jamaican middle class who prefer Soca to the DeeJay sounds and look upon dancehall as primitive, obscene and belonging to the lower classes. Neither of these musical forms has to this day, gained much respectability beyond their target audience of the working class. So called 'good' people tend to eschew these musical forms no matter how popular they may be - at least in public anyway.5) Both Dancehall and Blues are primarily male dominated musical forms. There are exceptions of course and the females of either genre hold their own quite nicely, even one upping the men in many cases. Memphis Minnie was a guitarist par excellence and many bluesmen would gladly defer to her talents rather than try to best her in a cutting contest. The same can be said about Lady Saw, who'll match any of the DJ's in today's dancehall scene in energy, freestyle rhyming, slackness and sheer abandon.6) Last but not least. Both musics are primarily dance musics, meant to move your ass and make you want to fill your glass. Hypnotic, droning and full of boundless energy, the sonorous qualities of both are at once uplifting and reflective of their environments. I think that anybody with a bit of taste and a little heart and soul can make similar connections to these musics beyond those I have noted here. Music19742@blogcritics.org Mon, 13 Sep 2004 08:21:14 EDT