Muddy's Mojo Hinge Pins - A Five Guns West™ Story

Grand piano lid hinge pin, yesterday

It must have been 1980 [avers Five Guns West® - Ed.]. I was wintering in front of Lita Ford’s place on the island of Navarre between Pensacola and Fort Walton Beach FLA. An English friend of mine, Billy Putnam, husband of punk model Wendy Tiger [below left - Ed.], and I went up to see Iggy at the Agora Ballroom in Atlanta, GA. He no-showed and instead it was the Swimming Pool Qs with local punkers The Wankers headlining. Some of The Wankers become new wave band the Producers [I've known a couple of producers who were wankers - FT3].

Out of sheer boredom I drove the 5½ hours back up to Atlanta the following week, riding the draft behind semi trucks and doing 85 mph on average. I got there late at night and checked into an old hotel, it’s still there but the name eludes me. The Moulin Rouge strip club is still on the 1^st floor. The hotel is over a hundred years old, in impeccable shape, claw foot tubs. Black bellboys in velvet monkeys suits, elevator operators.
 
Turned out the Johnny Van Zandt Band was opening and closing for Muddy Waters at the Agora that night. I’d been a Muddy fan since I was eight years old.
 
I got up early that morning and to my surprise it was snowing out. It’d been nearly 80 degrees the weekend before.  It may have been April. I couldn’t get in my car through the doors and really had to try like hell to open the hatchback and then kick the drivers door open from the inside only to decide I didn’t want to drive with ice all over everything.

I went and got a huge coffee [left - Ed.] and stood out in front of the Agora. Kids had camped out all night in front of the Fox Theatre to get into some show but I can’t remember who the act was. Needless to say there were a lot of hallucinatory delights to be found in the crowd.
 
The Agora had a long entry way, very deep, almost like a tunnel. I was standing up in there and there was a red light on the street in front of the place but no cross street. A pick up truck with some really sketchy dudes in it were, I thought, giving me some hard stares and I thought they were going to give me some trouble. The light changed and they left.
 
Ten minutes later or so they were back, pulled up on the sidewalk, got out and were walking towards me. I clutched my stiletto but when they asked if I worked for the Agora and could they bring Muddy’s band piano in that door I replied “No, you got to come in the back.”

We got to the back door and the Agora team thought I was with Muddy’s band and the piano guys thought I worked the Agora. We hauled the piano up onstage … a grand piano mind you … and the guys left. The Agora workers were plying me with Heineken and pizza [left - Ed.] for a couple of hours when the sound guy asked me to remove the piano lid. I silently freaked the fuck out but had carpentry skills and removed the hinge pins and put them in my leather jacket pocket ... where they still reside to this day. Not my fault.
 
Johnny Van Zandt came out to play and I went and hung with Muddy and the band. Muddy played and some of the kids from the Fox Theatre came to my table and hung out. Johnny Van Zandt band played again after Muddy. Having driven all night and being wrecked out of my skull I “fell asleep” at my table. Whoever I was sitting with had moved everything around in my pockets, as a joke I guess, but everything was still there. Van Zandt was gone when I was awoken by wait staff telling me I had to go. I protested that I had the hinge pins for the piano and they had to be reinserted … I didn’t even know where the lid to the thing was. The bouncer was there by this point …. I wasn’t making a scene, I never do, I’m a pretty quiet guy but he didn’t believe me and made me leave. So, I have what I consider a mojo from my favorite blues musician.


Thanks to FGW™ for this fragrant nosegay of reminiscence!

 

West Of The Moon, East Of The Sun Dept.

We called them "The Incredibles" back then, and they were. Unique, too. No one, I think, was in their tree. They grew the tree themselves and then they climbed up into it and threw strange fruit down to us, and some was bitter and some was sweet, but it tasted like nothing else.

If ever there was a visual expression of what LSD did to your world, the first two Incredibles albums [above - Ed.] are it. From the Elektra art department to The Fool. The *eponymous* first album is full of swell tuneage, including a *problematic* instrumental. The songs are cranky, creaky, like music boxes made of twigs and wire. Is it folk music? We didn't think so, didn't care what you called it. It's timeless, elemental, poetic, heartfelt, lyrical, rural, and generates its own natural electricity.

The second album isn't such a giant step as it looks. Clive Palmer is on the hippie Journey To The East (no internet, GPS or Rough Guides), and it's a tad more experimental - sitar rubs shoulders with blues piano, and song structures start to get weird - but it's still purely Incredible, melodies snaking through tinkly jungles of instrumentation. There's nothing twee about the Incredibles. This isn't Donovan music for pixies. Sharp minds are at work.

The avenues opened up by 5000 Spirits led to The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter [left - ED.], possibly their masterpiece (although some give that honor to the *sprawling* double album Wee Tam And The Big Huge, released, incredibly, the same year). The Incredibles story is a long one, and their influence is underplayed and unexpected (Led Zeppelin were big fans), but these three albums are enough, if you're unfamiliar, to get the journey started, right here, right now.

As another lucid dreamer said, the road goes on and on;

Still 'round the corner there may wait
A new road or secret gate;
And though I oft have passed them by,
A day will come at last when I
Shall take the hidden paths that run
West of the Moon, East of the Sun

Go here for swell *content* on Clive Palmer and COB, and here for the Strangelies.

WTAF?? Dept. (Too Late Update Edition)

When the Beach Boys released Fifteen Big Ones in 1976, it was a bold move. It was an album full of covers of 1950s and 1960s rock and roll classics, taking the band away from their traditional sound of sunny harmonies and surf rock. Despite being panned by many critics, this album is now seen as an unconventional masterpiece that paved the way for the Beach Boys to explore different sounds and genres.

The lead single, "Rock and Roll Music", was a hard rock cover of the Chuck Berry classic. Brian Wilson's vocals are strong and empowering, and the song has an energy and intensity that few other Beach Boys albums possess. Another track, "It's OK", is a heartfelt and optimistic ballad about growing up that captures the essence of the band's harmonies and pop-rock sensibilities.

The album also includes covers of songs by Chuck Berry, Little Richard, and Dion and the Belmonts, showing the band's appreciation for classic rock and roll and their commitment to exploring new sounds and genres. The Beach Boys' skillful arrangement of these songs allows them to remain faithful to the original compositions, while still bringing their own unique energy and style to the mix.

Overall, Fifteen Big Ones is an album that deserves more recognition than it has received. It is a bold and daring exploration of different genres and sounds, and it showcases the Beach Boys' talent and creativity. It is an album that should be celebrated for its unconventionality and its commitment to exploring and pushing boundaries. As Lester Bangs wrote, “In its own way, Fifteen Big Ones is an achievement that should not be overlooked, and it's a real pleasure to give it its due.”

Great Cecils Of Rock, Pop n' Roll Dept. - McCartney

Extensive research [a moment of confused thought - Ed.] has revealed just one Cecil in the Pantheon of Pop - Cecil McCartney. Whether he was related to the more famous McCartney [Mike McGear - Ed.] is a subject of passionate debate among the Professors of Pop. Cecil [pronounced Cecil, not "Cecil" - Ed.] was mostly an artist-type guy, paintin' pitchers for such show-biz swells as RSRCH PSE ED [blow it out yer ass - Ed.]. He found time between daubin' canvas to cut this here long-playin' LP rekkid, mystically yclept Om, which sported an unappetising image of the artist battling melanoma. Maybe it was the cover that stiffed the album, maybe it was not calling himself something hipper than Cecil [Irving, for example? - Ed.], or maybe because it was shit, but it's certainly found its [nice apostrophysin' - Ed.] home on th' Isle O' Foam©!

Art-type paintings by Cecil are sparsely represented on the internet. Here's the only one I found [left - Ed.] after extensive research. I am frankly amazed that the artiste was able to make any kind of living at all. Born into money?

Here's the groovy album liner, which publishes his manifesto for a better world, but not musician credits. Anyway, this is a collectible collectible you'll be proud to add to your collection! Even if, like je, you bail after a cursory listen, keeping these mp3 files in mint condition for a return on your investment!

And here's the great man's publicity photo [left - Ed.] Vegetarian, song writer, "pop" singer, etc. No one I think is in his tree.

Post made possible thru' privileged access to th' Lupine Assassin Collection

Macro-Data Refinement Dept.

 

Choose one

For Girls! Dept. - The Velvet Underground

The rough n' rowdy world of "rock, pop n' roll" can seem a scary place for the "fairer sex", and it is with the "little ladies" in mind that we present this latest offering in our popular series of long-playing record albums tailored to the delicate tastes of "the gals" [seen yesterday, below left - Ed.] - bless 'em!

The "Undies" - as their "fans" call the lads - were a swingin' beat combo on the Pismo Beach teen dance circuit when spotted by iconic "Pop" Artist Peter Max®, who designed the iconic "pickle" cover for their iconic first album. Soon they were "shooting smack" with the best of them, and, under iconic lead singer Reed Richards, making iconic "Metal Rock" albums which forced us to re-examine our outmoded notions of the societal significance of "music", which sold in their thousands [mostly review copies - Ed.]!

But relax, girls! There's nothing to make you uncomfortable in this swell disc! It's the ideal accompaniment to pyjama sleepovers, sorority house hayrides, or just listening alone in your bedroom, dreaming of that "special fellow"!

Other swell albums in this chromosome-specific series include scented nosegays of melody from Captain Beefheart, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, and King Crimson - ask your dealer, or beat this here link in the chest with your tiny fists!

"You Can Call Me Al" Dept. - Di Meola

Irwin Klepowski [left, eyeglasses] demonstrates early Dime-Ola©, Chicago, 1941

IoF© Official Shrimp Boat Hostess™ Babs recently posted The Rite Of Strings [left - Ed.] in a comment, which I only this morning gets around to flappin' th' lugs at (after stomping her bloated flacs down to 192), and gee! is it ever swell! Something of a surprise - all acoustic, with a vibe not unlike McLaughlin's gorgeous My Goal's Beyond. It's gone straight into my Aural Essentials Collection®, along with some cotton buds and a pair of (zircon-encrusted) tweezers. So here it is again, for them of youse bums what missed it or think, like je, that flac files are responsible for climate change.

Elegant Gypsy [right - no, just kidding, left - Ed.] is a gateway drug for his more rock-adjacent work, and one that I've never gotten beyond. Return To Forever leaves me cold (shuddering with it, in fact) and Chick Corea - the Richard Clayderman of jazz - gives me the creepies. "I had to maneuver through a lot of Scientology crap that was thrown at me from those guys," Al grins ruefully.

Di Meola (the name comes from his father's Dime-Ola© Jukebox Corp. "It's more musical than Klepowski", he grins) is someone I admire rather than get into, and maybe a little more jukebox and a little less conservatoire [Fr. - greenhouse - Ed.] might have made his work a little more toothsome.

This post made comestible thru our sponsor Miscavige Missing Persons Bureau "Making People Missing Is Our Mission"

Forgotten Skills Dept. - Rocking Out

Th' Skynyrd rocking out Free Bird in '77

Just as scrimshaw and penmanship skill sets have fallen into disuse, so has Rocking Out. How did The Youth Of Yesteryear manifest this forgotten art? Visible signs included lowering the head to shake their long hair, and adopting poses concomitant with playing the electric guitar - a phenomenon known as "air guitar". The head could be thrown back during an air guitar solo, the features expressing painful ecstasy. The act of Rocking Out was frequently performed by a peer group of young males, mostly at live concerts. The solitary Rock Out was an established feature at "keggers" [parties involving beer - Ed.], usually followed by falling into a swimming pool, or off a roof, or asleep.

Always, Rocking Out was an instinctive response to loud music of a certain type. Even at extreme volume, James Taylor was unlikely to result in the phenomenon. Arguably, Lynyrd Skynyrd's Free Bird stands as the finest exemplar of music certain to induce Rocking Out. It has been known to reanimate coma victims and librarians, such is its awesomeness. Even in the throes of senility, I find it impossible to ignore its urgent imperative, leaping arthritically from my La-Z-Boy© to essay a few ill-remembered shapes. Proust had his madeleine, I have this. So I win, and fuck him.

Today's loaddown is a swell pairing of their impossibly awesome first album from '73 - arguably Peak Rocking Out - and The Complete Muscle Shoals Album [finally released in '98 - Ed.], which includes an early Bird.

FoamFacts™: A bolt of lightning is visible in the sky above Ed King's head on the first album cover, unnoticed until the sleeve was printed. Ed was a member of The Strawberry Alarm Clock (FFA©- Ed.].

Seek medical advice before Rocking Out. Have a paramedic present, or use a "Dead Man's Switch" device to summon help.

Something Sunday Dept. - Vintage Tom

Tom Rush has been FFA©, and extensively, but this one slipped us by. If any youse bums is in the way of being desirous of his other swell rekkids, take a hinge here first, and let me know. The links provided by the 4/5G© I may not be able to up-re.

What I Know is a class act, vintage Rush from 2009 - yesterday. The handsome old devil gets Emmylou Harris, Nanci Griffith and Bonnie Bramlett to shiver their tonsils and the glow is warm as a rich red wine. Major dude.

Sweet Jesus This Is So Goddamn Lush My Mind Just Did A Money Shot Dept.

Ugly mofos wear bad threads, cut swell album!

Run, don't walk, to your friendly neighborhood record shoppe and give the counter jockey whatever he demands for this swell recording! Do not haggle, carp, or prevaricate. Ignore the shit sleeve on account which you can look at this one [above - Ed.] instead. 

The loaddown is @ a Greta Thunberg approved 192, and if you're not rolling around on the floor in a warm soup of your own goo by the end of the first track - or even a few seconds in - you may wish to consider that perhaps music is not for you. This doesn't make you a bad person. Maybe you could try quilting?

Kneels For Nobody, Stands For Decibels Dept.

In 1972, a sixteen year-old Peter Holsapple formed Rittenhouse Square with Mitch Easter and Chris Stamey (both - just - old enough to buy beer) and cut this here long-playing EP rekkid with producer Bobby Locke on drums. Locke disappears from view, but Holsapple and Stamey go on to alter rock n' roll history - and punctuation use - as the dB's, while Mitch Easter becomes Mitch Easter, key figure in the teentastic Winston-Salem Sound.

So this is where everything that matters starts, with a bunch of kids in snazzy shirts falling over each other with enthusiasm and enough riffs n' spliffs to get them through the session. Dual guitars! Handclaps! Does it get any better than this? Maybe, but not much. Turn it up!

"She means more to me than my Gibson Les Paul, because all she wants to do is ball."

Springsteen's "Rastaman Vibration" Album Prepped For Summer Drop!

Following the success of his album of soul covers (over a thousand albums shipped in New Jersey alone), rock icon Bruce Springsteen will be releasing a companion collection of roots reggae covers, Rastaman Vibration, in July. "The Boss" granted False Memory Foam© this exclusive interview:

FMF Heyyy! Looking buff n' tuff, The Boss!

BS My voice is kick ass!

FMF So - tell th' Four Or Five Guys© about the new album!

BS Yeah, well, it's something I've been wanting to do for the longest time, and when I spoke to my producer Ron [Aniello - Ed.] about it and he just kind of flipped! He was like, let's do this, people! It's a project whose time has come, it feels right. My voice is kick ass!

FMF People are going to be like, wo-ah! A roots reggae album from The Boss?

BS It's going to surprise a lot of people, but I've always been into reggae, everybody who played the bars in New Jersey back then has reggae in their DNA, it's like they called Asbury Park "Little Jamaica" for a reason! [laughs] So yeah, Ron [Aniello - Ed.] and me rolled up our shirtsleeves and each came up with a list of songs we wanted to cover, we did a lot of research, YouTube, Google ... the internet ...

FMF What songs made the cut?

BS Well, the title song had to be in there, it's iconic. We both came up with Don't Worry, Be Happy - Ron [Aniello - Ed.] gets a great whistle sound out of the synth for that one! Do You Really Want To Hurt Me, that's a deep cut, but it's good to get it some exposure. Can't Help Falling In Love - I channel The King for that one! Ron [Aniello - Ed.] was in tears, crying, we were both crying. He says, it's like Elvis has come back into the building. That's the biggest damn compliment I ever got. I'm real proud of that one [turns away, blinking].

FMF Wow! There's some surprising choices in there!

BS Wait 'til you hear De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da. And there's Never Gonna Give You Up, which I always heard as reggae, it's got that reggae beat, one-and-two, and-one ...

FMF And you assembled a group of crack Jamaican musicians.

BS Yeah. Getting the feel authentic was, well, Ron [Aniello - Ed.] nailed it. He plays everything. He did the cover art, too [above - Ed.]. I mean, I art directed it, he did the ... art. He went to Jamaica on vacation one time, and all the rastas recognised him as a soul brother. He has this instinctive feel, that I have, you can't learn it, mon! So in the end, we went with what we had, because it couldn't be improved. Or cheaper, although that was never a consideration. My voice is kick ass!

FMF You'll be touring the album? You had some trouble with ticketing, fans weren't too happy last time.

BS Uh huh, I listen to them, and I'm grateful for their suggestions. Well, most of them. We're changing the system. Tickets will be sold direct from my office, online, and there'll be a flat fee, just two thousand bucks a seat, so nobody gets ripped off.

FMF Every seat, two thousand bucks?

BS [nods] That's how it's gonna be. Across the board, no exceptions. Unless you want the VIP package. You get a view of the stage, and a complimentary bottle of water in the parking lot, there'll be like an area roped off, and Ron [Aniello - Ed.] will be signing programs. That's, uh, [coughs into fist] ten grand. Worth every cent!

FMF How's the voice?

This post made possible by a surprise rainstorm keeping me inside.

Cathedrals Of Sound Dept. - Tintern Abbey

Cover artwork © IoF Department Of Art Dept.

"Yebbut what exactly is psychedelic music, Farq?" is a question I get axed regliar down at the Psychedelic Psoup Kitchen on the cheesy side of th' IoF©, where cheap internet grifters and nogood bums jostle greedily at the steaming urns of our world famous Blotter Borscht™. "Glad you axed, oldtimer!" I chuckle indulgently. "Why, if ever there was a single 45rpm rekkid that distilled the very essence of psychedelia, it would be Beeside/Vacuum Cleaner by the Tintern Abbeys."

In spite of a vigorous press campaign and off-the-shelf artwork from hippie heavyweight Michael English [left - Ed.], the band never delivered the album they seemed to promise, and finished up doing cruise ship cabaret as - incredibly - "The Hit Parade Hamsters", dressing in hamster costumes and playing medleys of UK chart toppers such as Ob La Di, Tie A Yellow Ribbon, Mouldy Old Dough, and their rousing showstopper version of Ken Dodd's Happiness. It was far from the Psychedelic Experience, but the band has no regrets. "Are you kidding?" laughs lead singer Nigel Choppers, "We was paid for getting pissed out our fucking minds and shaggin' sweaty housewives from Chelmsford! Timothy Leary? Fuck off!"

The single has been the high point [oh very good - Ed.] of virtually every comp of UK psychedelia, and their scant later recordings scavenged for various hopeful releases, including the mis-titled Complete Recordings, which buries wobbly acetates of the single in a double cd of outtakes, unfinished and demo tracks.

Everything I have is in the loaddown, and it's a ragbag. Curate yer own collection - the task is beyond me.

This post sponsored by Poultry Pal™- "keepin' your hen happy since 1997!" - Crotchrot, AK.

Best Of The Beatles Dept. - Who's A Pretty Boy, Then?

Pete Best was sacked from the Beatles for being prettier than Paul McCartney. Tough break. "We needed a gonk for a drummer," laughs Sir McCartney today. "Remember gonks? They were like these toy gnomes what the kids had. Big nose. Ringo passed the audition soon as he came through the door. He was homelier than Better Homes & Gardens! We all applauded, actually. Anyway, what mattered was I was officially the prettiest Beatle, as stated in my contract. And still am incidentally. I mean, I won't say a word against Pete, but he'd be the first to admit he hasn't aged at all well. That chin? The old hooter? He's a gonk! [winks to camera] Still not getting in the band, Pete!"

Sir (then just "Paul") McCartney knew his signature Puppy Pout™ was no match for Pete's broody magnetism

Exactly seventy-three years later to the day Pete got his revenge by finagling a bunch of out-of-work musicians (this is Liverpool, remember), and a drummer, to steal some gear and make an album with his name on it that surprised the nine people who bought it by being unaccountably swell. Yes, it's beetly. Peppersome, even. And yes, Pete's input was limited to tea urn and takeaway curry duties. He doesn't sing, or play the drums much, and his songwriting input is sketchy at best [oh very good - Ed.]. But do we care? Nope. Because it's a good album.

Cover notes: Using the head shot Sir McCartney bitchily ripped out of the group photo used for the Anthology cover [left - Ed.] was a good idea - for a back cover.  But it makes for a butt-ugly front cover, so I done did a replacement [above - Ed.] in an appropriately colorful Pop Art style. You don't care.

This post funded in part by Calm Down! The Liverpool City Council Domestic Violence Initiative

It's A Happening Thing! Dept.

One of the great Food Bands, the Peanut Butter Conspiracy was also the perfect distillation of Left Coast positivism, like Jefferson Airplane without the anger issues. Fronted by Sandy Robison [AF-F™ - Ed.], they made a couple of groovy, groovy albums for Columbia in '67 (when else?) before losing the plot for a third on the walk-ins welcome Challenge label, founded by singing cowboy Gene Autry. Still, this was in '69, when it was a struggle for hippie bands to wake up from the Aquarian Dream. The Airplane flunked the end of the decade, too. PBC recorded enough other material to make comps essential, so today's Loaddown O' Largesse® is probably as comprehensive as you'll find, and all at the Goldilocks bitrate that Jesus ripped the Ten Commandments at. Quit whining and eat yer PBJ.

FoamFacts™

Item! A South African showband stole their name in the seventies and recorded a shit album that used to get passed off as a PBC album until the internets made us all experts in everything. Item! Gene Autry was the first artist to sell a million copies of a single, with "That Silver-Haired Daddy Of Mine".

This post autoclaved with tech assist from Acme Veeblefetzer Corp.

Kula Than Kool-Aid™ Dept. - The 1st Congregational Church Of Eternal Hugs And Free Love

The word swastika means, essentially, it is good, and in Eastern cultures the symbol has been revered for over two thousand years. Any collector of Kipling firsts will have a line of them decorating his bookshelf. Then, of course, the Nazis appropriated it and all bets were off. Crispian Mills, driving force of Kula Shaker, was misguided at best when he thought he could reverse the ill-feeling the symbol generated in the West and restore its original benign significance. But that's the worst you can say of him. The best is that he's fronted a startlingly good and unapologetically rock guitar band since 1995. That's over a decade, if my calculations are correct.

Dudes!

Mills has been given a good kicking in the music press for coming from a posh family, as if this made him a dilettante incapable of making what is generally (and mistakenly) thought of as blue-collar music. Kids from well-off families can afford the gear and may have the confidence financial security brings, but from then on it's a democracy, and Mills discovered the negative aspects of a fortunate birth outweighed the positive. He must have wished his name was Kev, and his family broken up in poverty. Nothing middle-class rock writers love more than the story of how rock music frees the brave young rebel from humble beginnings, especially if he gets to - tragically - die young. Mills has the misfortune to still be alive and healthy (on a vegetarian diet, I imagine), never a popular career move, and still making music that has no relevance for the Neckbeard n' Nancy collectives, and is all the better for it.

Kula Shaker's latest (some say best) album snuck out in the summer of '22, bypassing me and the Elderly Lesbians entirely. Album O' Th' Eon.

Today's post manifested on this earthly plane thru sponsorship from Chuck Castaneda's Chakra Shack™, Tuber Falls, IA.

Wake Up! It's The Twentieth Century! Dept.