This Saturday! The Flakes return to El Rio With Sacramento's Th' Losin Streaks. Glad to see these guys both rocking again.
Speaking of good to see ya again. SF psych dears Gris Gris are fooling no one with their "last shows" and "broken up"-isms anymore and will be playing next Friday the 6th at The Great American Music Hall. That combo of band and venue is likely to be synergy of the best kind and shouldn't be missed.
Today another B-Day wish saluting George "Buddy" Guy. The legendary guitarist turns 73 years old today.
Buddy guy was born in Lettsworth Louisiana in 1936. He learned guitar the same way many other poor black musicians did in his day by nailing a string to the wall of the shotgun shack he grew up in. At 17 his father bought him a real guitar. In 1957, at 21 he moved to Chicago, also in the same way that many other southern black musicians did throughout the 40's and 50's in search of work and to escape the haunted past (not to mention present) of the south.
There is not enough that can be said about Buddy's talent, innovation, performing, and influence that he has had over blues and rock & roll. He has been called the bridge between the two forms and rightly so. Buddy was at the forefront of the new Chicago blues movement of the late 50's and early 60's, where wild and loud single note guitar playing was fast replacing the harmonica and slide guitar as the main emotive instrument fronting the blues at the time. While it was B.B. King and T-Bone Walker who wrote the book on this style, players like Otis Rush, Magic Sam and Buddy himself were expanding it. Buddy Guy's playing though, was wild and imaginative playing with furious speed as well as dynamic tenderness that set the standard for ALL guitarists to come. Not everyone was impressed at first and the legend has it that his label boss Leonard Chess called his playing "noise" and demanded he turn his amplifier down on studio sessions for them but later apologizing in embarrassment and crediting guy with foresight after the blues rock boom of the late 60's and bands like Cream and the Jimi Hendrix Experience were enjoying massive success. Still Guy's records are packed with fiery playing and ecstatic singing and his live performances were fast becoming legendary and influencing. Jimi Hendrix, in fact, was an early pupil and would sometimes cancel his own shows if he knew Buddy was around to catch him in the small clubs that he was electrifying. Guy would walk into the crowd mid-show, play one handed, flirt with women up close and do it all in stride. Never missing a beat. Tricks that he has said he learned from Guitar Slim whom he would follow around in Louisiana as a young man.
Buddy's career was not perfect and for a while he suffered the same fate as many other bluesman like him in the 60's and 70's, ironically struggling in a time when rock guitarists like Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton and many more who owe a debt to Guy's style, flourished. Unlike many other peer artists of his sort he did in fact enjoy a rather fruitful resergence in the 80's and 90's when, ironically again, blues music was at it's most homoginized and polished state. But with glowing praise from Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughn and others', attention was once again brought to him which revealed not only that he certainly hadn't gone anywhere but that he had only improved with time.
I've seen Buddy 3 times now all in this decade and they have been highlights of my showgoing career. He's still going at 73 and showing no signs of slowing. I had a cassette tape recording of the video below when I was 17 and I was blown away several times daily by it. I'm also delighted to see it here on youtube because it may be my favorite performance by him, which is rare for me to decide on for any artist. Also I should point out that it is from a 1970 movie entitled "The Chicago Blues" and shows (though not in this clip, unfourtunately) and enchanted and bewildered Jimi Hendrix in the Crowd of this tiny club where class, most certainly, was in session.
Today Mick Jagger turns 66 years old. Let's take a minute now to talk about the O.G. MJ and just what it is that makes this guy who he is.
Lot's of people won't admit to liking Mick. Some genuinely don't. I've heard a few people say that they didn't even like the Rolling Stones because of Mick. Which makes me think; Does anyone out there like the Rolling Stones BECAUSE of Mick? Aside from teenage girls in 1965 I'm not sure that the appeal of the Rolling Stones is due to old MJ. The coolness of the Stones -to me- has always laid in Keith who's riff-making and general disposition has spawned about 5 million imitators to date. There's Charlie and Bill too who, together, might as well both be seen next to the word "square" in the dictionary. Brian Jones certainly had an appeal but if you look at any footage of him with the Stones he always sorta looks like he wishes he were somewhere else. If a statue could play guitar you'd have Mick Taylor. And then along came Ron Wood who finally injected some needed liveliness and personality into that second guitar job.
And so we have Mick. I won't get into how these guys are old as dirt and still rocking because I'm mostly indifferent about that topic. It should be said now that his songwriting and singing are outstanding. He could make "row row row your boat" controversial if he wanted to. But he's also about the fruitiest loop to ever prance around in front of a band. Making it hard for all men out there to not wince when watching the stones live sometimes. But then again he seemed to be doing it just for the ladies anyhow (or was he?). Of course he also had imitators. Not sure what the New York Dolls would have done without him. What Mick does for me is make me laugh. His posturing, his turns of certain phrases (Angie, pronounced: Aiyngehh), and last but not least, his outfits. he truly is an anomaly. A guy could go on about how he seriously HATES Mick Jagger and everything about him but yet in the same breath say that the Rolling Stones are his favorite band. Now that's no easy feat is it?
Here are some of my favorite Mick moments in no particular order, followed by a video that just about says everything I have here and more. 1. His vocal in "Monkey Man" 2. All of his singing on "Beggars Banquet" he turned much more soulful and embraced a sort of country-ish style around this point 3. A moment in the 40 licks documentary when either Mick or Keith is describing how their live show had changed from the early days and that they had to do more performance-wise to entertain the crowd. The shot goes from Mick just kind of standing there doing a little James Brown dancing in the sixties, to him in a football jersey and tights in a full on sprint across a massive stage in the 80's. 4. The video for "Angie" 5. Any video from the 70's or 80's
And of course there's much more that makes me love and laugh about this man. His band changed my life after all and I'm thankful everyday for The Rolling Stones.
You may have heard Muddy Waters. You may have heard Howlin Wolf. I hope you've heard of Bo Diddley and there's no reason for you to be on this page if you haven't heard Chuck Berry. But Willie Dixon was the man behind them in their formative years. Be it songwriting, bass playing, producing or just generally coaching these superstars into the hardened professionals that they became. Dixon was a jack of all trades employed mostly by Chess records out of Chicago to do all the things that Co-owners and brothers Leonard and Phil Chess couldn't do. Which basically meant everything that didn't involve paper (aside from songwriting that is). He was A&R man, scouting out local talent at shit-house jukes on the South Side of Chicago. He was a songwriter, so empathetic that often he wrote songs from the point of view of and matching the personality of many blues men and women and often supplying the artist with their signature smash tunes. Muddy's "Hoochie Coochie Man", Wolf's "300 Pounds of Joy", Diddley's "You Can't Judge a Book By It's Cover" and many, many more. He was also a producer an arranger and a bass player. He famously rearanged Chuck Berry's "Maybeline" which bordered on a country and western tune and revved it up with a slapping, driving bass line putting the engine in the song, so to speak and essentially driving Berry to the top of the R&B charts and superstardom. What "I Am The Blues" co-written with former LA Times critic Don Snowden gives the reader though, is the too often told tale of a man overworked and underpaid. Though literate and often more educated than his black peers around him, Dixon was the unfourtunate victim of being sheltered from publishing knowledge and the general ways of the music business at the top by his boss Leonard Chess. As a result, financial circumstances led him to keep quiet about it all in order to keep his job which he no doubt loved and preferred to other means of survival in 40's and 50's Chicago. Dixon pulls no punches here on the topic of Chess and his business techniques offering up tales of his Boss pulling money out of pocket to show what a good guy he was but then taking so much on the back end that by the time Chess had to close it's doors they were worth millions. A millionaire is something Dixon sadly never became. What this book tells us though is the story of a good natured, nurturing, patient and humble man whose poetry moved millions and whose legacy will no doubt be carried on through his songs that are now in the highest tier of blues standards.
If you have seen the film DiG! Or have known about The Brian Jonestown Massacre before then you know what kind of maniacal circus that band has been over the years and that also they are probably one of - if not the best - independent rock and roll bands of the 90's. Chrurning out great albums on dental floss budgets and at ridiculous paces despite massive bouts of drug addiction and all around personality problems that threatened to de-rail the band for good on more than a few occasions.
And if you've seen the film, you may have noticed a dainty young lady at one point playing and singing alongside Anton Newcombe named Miranda Lee Richards. Well, this Miranda has gone on to become a great singer songwriter in her own right and I should probably be ashamed that I even had to put that assossiation together for this story because she's well capable of being recognized aside from all of that.
But here's what's really out there to me. This morning I got a phone message from Miranda (whom I've never spoken to or known before) saying that she needs a guitar player for her show at Cafe DuNord TOMORROW! I finally pieced together the peices and found out that someone had put in a recommendation for me. So, I'm doing the show even though I'm crippled at the moment and I'm nothing but thrilled to back this wonderful singer up. She'll be playing Monday July 20th at Cafe DuNord as part of the Mission Creek Music Festival and she's a very nice person with great songs to boot.
Monday, July 20th - Miranda Lee Richards Emily Jane White Helene Renaut Chloe Makes Music
Cafe du Nord 2170 Market St. San francisco 8:00pm $10-12
This is great news for me and the Franciscans. Not so great for the Oaklanders who have housed this fest for the past 2 years at The Stork Club. The Line-ups are fucking Carazy! with one night alone housing The Oh Sees, Dan Melchoir, Gris Gris, The Fresh and Only's and more. Wipe yer mouth cause it's not till October but wipe your calendar too!
Pat Johnson is a friend of mine and a band mate. He is also a former member of Dave Gleason's Wasted Days, San Francisco's own country rock heroes that are sadly no longer with us. That of course is not all he is. He's been around playing in bands for many years here and throughout the US and the rest of the world. Not only is he a great songwriter/guitar player/bartender and drinking partner but he is also one of the funniest people I know. This is a conversation that took place one afternoon at The Attic here in SF while Pat was bartending and I was drinking everything he put in front of me. Which was the ritual every Wednesday happy hour where I first got to know him.
Not sure how we got to talking about this but we did and I just can't go on without sharing this little slice of a funny memory that I won't soon forget.
Stu: Hey Pat, what was the name of Bread's second record?
Pat: (with a general look of who the fuck cares on his face) I don't know man, (long pause as he walks away and back) "Crumbs"?
Stu: Ha ha ha. Then their third one must have been... "dough"
Pat: No man, it was "Toast"
Stu: Ha ha. Well which one had "Guitar Man" on it?
Pat: Who gives a shit? But I can see all the Spanish record reviews of it now.
This is Mississippi Fred McDowell. He is possibly one of the greatest slide players/singers ever to emerge from the delta. He inspired countless white boys abroad and at home and The Rolling Stones paid homage with their version of "You Gotta Move" on their seminal album Sticky Fingers. Once quoted as saying "I don't play no rock & roll" he was a true Mississippi blues man.Not much to say that the video and music can't, so enjoy.
Check out Ding Dong and Blog in my Other people, places and things over there to the right. She's like the indie counterpoint to what I do and also a great drummer, band mate, soul DJ (um, my Chuck Berry in Memphis back, please?) photographer (see photo above of disappointed guy) and former Absolute Kosher intern so she can give you the 411 on things like that where as I'm not as "Hip" as she insists. Which should be obvious in the fact that I just used "the 411" seriously...
Even if you know a little something about Link Wray, chances are, you've never heard of this record. Recorded in the early seventies in a converted shack on Wray's property in Maryland, "Link Wray" is a little baffling in more ways than one. For starters there is no "Rumble" here or any variation thereof. It appears that at the dawn of the 70's the reverb and surf soaked buzz-saw guitar attack that he is famous for seems to have been behind him. What we have here is a down-home, countrified, rock-gospel masterpiece. Right off there's this guy who begins to sing on the opening track " La De Da" sounding like some old baptist screamer who's been sermonizing frenzied churchgoers for decades with a rough, smokey and ecstatic charm. Suddenly you realize, it's the man himself. So naturally, the most surprising thing here is that not only is Link Wray not tearing out the fuzzy runs on his guitar that had been his bread and butter for 15 years prior, but that he is singing! And singing above and beyond all expectations considering that in his heyday doctors told him he would never sing again due to TB and a lost lung back in the 50's. The music is loose and the chicken shack vibe is enduring in a way that many other bands attempted and failed at that time. Songs like "Juke Box Mama" and "God Out West" (where a familiar guitar tone reappears) are foot stomping blues hollers mixed in with breezy ballads like "Take Me Home Jesus" where he declares "I've been in the city for a while / But my souls still countrified / and I can't wait to get back home again". This record sounds like Link's homecoming from the rattle and noise of the city and his previous work and back to the shack where something some doctor told him long ago means absolutely nothing to him. And so he sang.
Buy it if you see it. Good on it's own it also is combined with two other records that make up a sort of shack recording trilogy which is equally as good.
Today I dish out some local luv for a band that won my heart over at first listen. Do you remember when you first heard a fuzz pedal explode from a speaker and your heart jumped up and and nearly choked you as the song you were hearing had instantly blew up with ecstatic energy? Maybe it was Jimi. Maybe it was Nirvana? San Francisco's Stirling Says bring that Dino Jr.-ish nostalgia to the table in a massively fuzzed out poppy way that will be irresistible to anyone who remembers anything from indie, punk and "Alternative" music from 89 it0 96. There's nothing heavy here though, in a serious way. This music is lighthearted and truly loveable although one subject matter tackled on their new release "Balboa" on the track "Tatiana" warns "You mess with the tiger / you get the claws!" referring to the 2007 Christmas day tiger mauling that saw the death of both the victim and Tatiana, the tiger and pointing out that when taunting a caged wild animal, there may be obvious consequences. Other tunes like "Migration of Fin", "Sausalito" and "Tweezin" hark back to the days when fuzz ruled the airwaves via bands like Pavement, Smashing Pumpkins and the like. Make no mistake though. This music is as new and relevant as anything out there now and with any luck, some 13-16 year old out there will get that choked up fuzzy feeling I once got at that age via the Big Muff. www.myspace.com/stirlingsays
You may have heard Muddy Waters. You may have heard Howlin Wolf. I hope you've heard of Bo Diddley and there's no reason for you to be on this page if you haven't heard Chuck Berry. But Willie Dixon was the man behind them in their formative years. Be it songwriting, bass playing, producing or just generally coaching these superstars into the hardened professionals that they became. Dixon was a jack of all trades employed mostly by Chess records out of Chicago to do all the things that Co-owners and brothers Leonard and Phil Chess couldn't do. Which basically meant everything that didn't involve paper (aside from songwriting that is). He was A&R man, scouting out local talent at shit-house jukes on the South Side of Chicago. He was a songwriter, so empathetic that often he wrote songs from the point of view of and matching the personality of many blues men and women and often supplying the artist with their signature smash tunes. Muddy's "Hoochie Coochie Man", Wolf's "300 Pounds of Joy", Diddley's "You Can't Judge a Book By It's Cover" and many, many more. He was also a producer an arranger and a bass player. He famously rearanged Chuck Berry's "Maybeline" which bordered on a country and western tune and revved it up with a slapping, driving bass line putting the engine in the song, so to speak and essentially driving Berry to the top of the R&B charts and superstardom.
