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| Tardigrade hosts Io'F© teenage beach party, yestiddy! |
Every Tuesday we'll be handing over the day's musical choice to a Tardigrade! If your knowledge of these cute n' cuddly creatures is as limited as your knowledge of anything else, here's a fun clip n' keep fact sheet to bring you up to speed!
- Came to Earth seventeen billion years ago thru Dimensional Portal!
- World's oldest living organism - older than oxygen!
- Lives in your eyelids, ass crack!
- Indestructible - can't kill something too small to see!
- Encyclopædic knowledge of popular music!
Today we ask resident Isle O' Foam© tardigrade Irma Kowznofski [one thousand eight hundred my ass - Ed.] to choose her Teen Beach Party album du jour o' th' day! Irma?
IK - Hi guys! Wassup, my dudes? I brung a passel o' albums ideal for teen clambake, weenie roast, hayride, pyjama party! These Motown Chartbusters, vols one thru six, are surefire dancefloor fillers!
Let's face it the original vinyl albums were so crammed with great stuff that they were a bit low-fi too. Essential stuff and bound to bring back some forgotten musical memories. I'll turn my disco ball on.
ReplyDeleteMotown was never intended for the bearded hi-fi sophisticate adjusting his RIAA curve before settling back with a glass of single malt at the exact stereo apex of his man cave, ready to have his audio experience ruined by an almost subliminal "artefact" or microsecond tape dropout. Motown was party music, always. Girls would dance around their handbags while clueless blerks looked on from the shadows, occasionally finding the courage to go up to the DJ to request some Keef Hartley Band.
DeleteSince I haven't been to a party since, ooh, can't remember, I only play Motown if I have something to do "around the house", like remembering why I came into the room, but it still has the power to make me feel fantastic and strangely excluded at the same time.
Oh look - a link!
Ha, I doubt there are many people who won't enjoy these albums, and brave is the man who asks for the Keef Hartley Band at a party.
DeleteAs for 'doing stuff around the house music', Motown is a good call, but poysonally I go for heavy rock, the dumber the better and very loud if my neighbor is at work - I'm a considerate kinda guy these days. Actually that is the only time I play heavy rock these days.
Many thanks for this collection - it fills a gap here, as I'm biased towards James Brown, Stax and Atlantic stuff in this very broad genre.
DeleteKeef Hartley...what a great album "Halfbreed" is!
Keef Hartley Band at a party . . . in '69 / '70 my friends and I were gifted a place in a local village where we held our 21st birthday parties (18th birthday parties had not yet been invented).
ReplyDeleteWe would meet in advance at Colin's house with a pile of records, some C90s and a democratic right to choose songs for the tape. We all liked music but I was the nerd and the others were normal.
So I nominated a particular track which was a favourite of mine and bound to lift the mood a notch or two and make us look groovy to the chicks. It was not a particularly popular choice but the tape rolled and as the last notes faded a chap I was not particularly fond of said "right, we need to get something upbeat on, quick".
Come the night, music wise things were zinging and the mood was partyish. Then, a pause, and Sabre Dance by Love Sculpture fills the air for four and a bit minutes. Seemed longer.
At that moment, Leavin' Trunk by The Keef Hartley Band would have been welcomed. We probably returned to Stax of Motown.
Cheers, Peanuts Molloy.
Round about that time, perhaps a year or so earlier, we were going through the hippies and skinheads thing.
DeleteBoth sides seemed to come together when it came to Stax and the like.
Perhaps it was Jimi and Otis both smashing it at Monterey...
Here's "Halfbreed" by the Keef Hartley Band - what Keef did next after he left Mayall. It has some great tracks, with "Sinnin' For You" my personal favourite. The great UK rock stalwart Miller Anderson is on vox and guitar.
Deletehttps://workupload.com/file/J8pfmwFUCxn
Hmmm...I didn't discover Love Sculpture until '77 or so when we began tracking down English import obscurities that managed to find their way to the Bay Area...but I can offer that Mr. Molloy's memory may be of the LP cut, which was 4:48 on the single, 11:18 on the album (as per Discogs, which is turning into a valuable resource...).
DeleteSabre Dance was originally recorded for a BBC radio show hosted by the late John Peel. It was quickly re-recorded for release.
DeletePre Sabre Dance, the band was a pretty average blues outfit. Of course, guitarist Dave Edmunds went on to a successful solo career and formed the great Rockpile.
Henry, who plays trumpet & violin on Halfbreed and played Woodstock with them, lives 5 doors down from us..
DeleteHenry Lowther is a legend - check out his discography here.
Deletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Lowther_(musician)
Wow that is an impressive cv.
DeleteFor some reason, Babs' comment (which I see in the Master Control Room) hasn't shown up here, so here it is:
ReplyDelete"...the soundstage is cluttered, with harsh highs and distorted lows crowding indistinct mids!" This pretty much sums up all of Motown's 60s recordings, no matter what the bitrate. In fact the higher the resolution, the more flaws are revealed. Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye would change that in the early 70s. Gordy Berry used to test listen a newly recorded songs on a car radio speaker in his office, and if it didn’t sound good on a car radio, he’d reject it, and have it remixed. “Even if you partayin' days are over, they'll remind you of all the times you failed to get off with the hot number in fuck me pumps and lower lip oscillating on the international oral sex frequency!” I’m guessing you didn’t dance. If you don’t dance at a party setting with Motown spinning, you don’t get to “go to the dance” (and yes, that’s a euphemism)."
The only dancing I did with any conviction was "idiot dancing" at gigs/festivals.
DeleteBrian Wilson used the car radio test too, I think.
Love Sculpture...from the vantage point of 1977...was odd. As you mention, their 1968 Blues Helping LP was British electric blues, and "average." Competent, good covers of American blues, but nothing exceptional that made them stand out from your Savoy Browns, Ten Years Afters, n' Fleetwood Macs. 1969's "Forms and Feelings" was an entirely different affair; three classical covers (if you had the version with "Mars;" otherwise two...a warp drive Chuck Berry cover, and some very good pop-rock (as the term is now...) with psychedelic overtones.
ReplyDeleteOddly enough...it was the Chuck Berry cover that pointed the way forward for Edmunds...leading to his cover of Smiley Lewis' 1955 R&B hit "I Hear You Knockin'".
On that song...in the middle break...Edmunds shouts out his heroes..."Fats Domino,""Smiley Lewis,""Chuck Berry,""Jimmy Smith," "Bob Dylan"....it was the "Jimmy Smith" that always baffled me. Who?
I am wron, which mkes snse. It's not "Jimmy Smith," it's "Huey Smith." Of interest: I can hear these records 1,000 times, and every time they sound different.
ReplyDeleteA number of years ago Motown remastered some of their hits. Stereo mixes, etc. Sonically they're a big improvement but I always go back to the original muddy mixes because that's what Motown sounded like, and the sound that brings it all back for me.
ReplyDelete