Friday, December 18, 2020

Kreemé's Music For Men! Dept. - Hampton Grease Band

Kreemé auditioning Music To Eat in the IoF Conversation Pit Of Sound™ (artist's impression)


Kreemé [19 my ass - Ed.] has been maintaining a low profile here on th' Isle O'Foam©, but she's been hard at work prepping our swell new FoamFeaturette™, Music For Men, which is dedicated to the type music no broad's going to give ear time, mainly because they have more sense.

Music To Eat is probably the most famous obscure album ever recorded. There's reels of screed about it, mostly reiterating the worst-selling album stories, but it's still hard to find in any form, even as free giveaways, and there's a reason for that. Very few people have listened to it all the way through, and all of them are guys. It makes Trout Mask Replica sound like a greatest show tune hits collection. The problem lies not in the "difficult" compositions - we can all deal with those - but the vocals, which try hard to be confrontational, challenging accepted ideas of what singing is and can be. They play the humor card, too, which is even less convincing. Yet there are still some guys - and they are always guys - digging this stuff, and good luck to them. I'm with Kreemé on this one. Over to you, gal!

"I'm, like ... ew?"

22 comments:

  1. Where on earth did you find this??????

    There was a DJ named Citizen Kafka who was on WBAI-FM (non-commercial, listener-supported radio) here in Manhattan. Citizen Kafka used to play "Music To Eat"

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    1. There's a good piece about it on (I think) the Aquarium Drunkard blog, but they don't give it away for nuthin' like what we do.

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  2. Hampton Grease Band/Shaggs double bill anyone?

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    1. The Hampies (as fans call them) could at least play their instruments. And Jonder sez Bruce could actually sing, too. I'll take his word for it.

      The Shaggs. Yikes.

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  3. I'm one of those guys. The late Bruce Hampton was a young man when this album was recorded. In later decades, he was one of the best white blues shouters that I've had the pleasure to hear. I used to go to the 99 cent shows at the Little Five Points Pub to drink Stroh's and listen to Bruce, Oteil, Jeff Sipe, Jimmy Herring, Dr. Dan, and Count M'Butu.

    I'm not a jam band aficionado. I've heard a lot of foolishness come out of Bruce Hampton's mouth, and a lot of noodling from his various bands. But I've also heard him sing the hell out of "Compared To What", "Ain't Nothing You Can Do", "Yield Not To Temptation", "Turn On Your Love Light", and "I'm So Glad". He is sorely missed.

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    1. Forgot to give thanks for the Grease, Farq. And forgot to mention that Music To Eat featured Glenn Phillips, a guitarist's guitarist.

      https://aquariumdrunkard.com/2020/12/08/lost-live-grease-recovering-the-hampton-grease-band/

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  4. Saw Col Bruce (Ret) about five years ago in Columbus GA. Pure entertainment, pure engagement, pure fun. A truly unique individual. And what a way to go out.

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  5. I am certain that we at BRLA's Leisure Landing Records on Chimes Street were not the only ones who used The Shaggs to clear the story out at closing time, but the venerable Wheelie Bloodtongue of the Shit Dogs one promised at of the infamous Carlotta Street parties they were gonna cover that whole album. It woulda been effin' epic. The Shitdogs were the shit.

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  6. Leisure Landing on Chimes - a name I have not heard in a very long time.........

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    1. One glorious summer I worked at Leisure Landing and Acme Books on Chimes while working as a bouncer at one of Danny Kertacy and Glenn Bynum's places (Cats? It wasn't The Kingfish anymore...can't remember, so I musta been there) and had a Sunday morning 12-6A radio show on WRKF... probably the busiest, most fun summer of my life.

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    2. Do you remember the guy who had the late night set (think it started at 10pm) on WBRH who played great, classic, jazz? Older guy, and would have been in the early 80s.

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    3. I do...a name? IDEK. One of my younger brothers did sports and had an afternoon show on there; lemme ask him.

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    4. Nope--and he happily reminded me he is 9 years younger, so we are olds. There was an old guy who had a jazz show on WRKF called Alan Edelman, I think, he had the most amazing collection of reel-to-reel tapes. The program director--Constance Navratil--hated him almost as much as she hated me, but not quite. Anyway, sorry no help.

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  7. Eh. Actually. This doesn't sound all that bad to me. Now, I saw U2 supporting Talking Heads back in 1982ish, and they were both much worse than this. TH had Adrian fucking Belew playing the most shite guitarisations I've ever heard, over everything, without giving us a break, and U2 were just unrelentingly horrible and unfeasibly smug, way beyond my understanding. I'd gone to see Boots For Dancing, seeing as you ask, who were chums and utterly brilliant that night and every time I saw them.

    But, I appear to have digressed. Thanks for the HGB album. Well worth putting new batteries in my NHS hearing aids for. Looking forward to the rest of the Man Music series.

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  8. music to eat is in my top ten faves list/ supposed to be a bootleg live thing or two out there

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  9. Boys, Men, digressors, stressers, obsessers, post-traumatic guessers, take note:

    The Beach Boys "1970" ...

    Yet another one of those direct digital download albyums prepared to allow the group to maintain their copyright on older material.

    Gentlemen, start your search engines...

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  10. Kreemés' Music For Men, FoamFeaturette™ was a bit too much for me this week. Please keep her away from the Principal Edwards Magic Theatre section at th' Isle O'Foam©, and maybe spare us Glenn Phillips - Lost at Sea, until maybe February? Sorry I've had a bad week, but always interested to hear challenging music. If Kreemé likes this sort of stuff, can I recommend The Freakzone on BBC Radio 6, Sunday nights 8pm uk time.

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    1. Kreemé is, like, tewdally un-liking this-type music. Ew! Her favorite band is Andy Gibb.

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  11. It's late. I've had a few. You guys fuckin' crack me up. Thanks. Happy holidays and merrie melodies.

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  12. I'm one of those guys too! Having this on (dubbed) cassette gave me a little hip cred among my imaginary group of "rock-snob" peers when this was re-discovered back in the 90s!

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