When Fridays creep up on you (and this one most certainly has), it’s always a pleasant, and calming recess to loop the soothing earworm, Don’t Worry, Be Happy. It’s all I can do right now to maintain what ember of sanity dimly shimmers along the crescent alcove of the raging fire that sits in front of me. It’s a mad, salivating dash to Thanksgiving, kids, and I’ll gleefully accept defeat if, and when the needle rounds its last, vibrant groove. Don’t Worry, Be Happy.
Tag Archives: record collecting
Country Sunshine
(Listening to Death’s Spiritual | Mental | Physical while typing… but who cares, right?)
It’s Thursday evening… time to enjoy this Country Sunshine, complete with the confused, and somewhat befuddled look of master Croce impersonator, Jerry Reed (row one, column two… also below).
Presented by Goodyear and released by RCA Special Products, the long and unrelenting days of laborious fieldwork almost make themselves worth the back-breaking efforts when at the end of each sundown is a mason jar full of bootlegged moonshine and this, 1980 10-track comp ripe with shade-searching Country Sunshine.
Neglecting Responsibility
Neglect for a proper AM photograph yields little in the ways of a PM post! About all I can offer is this bit of advice: Listen to the music that moves you, and get the things you know need doing, done as soon as humanly possibly. The everyday nuances will fill the gaps of dead air. What makes up your live air is entirely up to you. Happy listening.
Super Deals on Super Tuesday
Super Tuesday means super savings at the polls! For one day only, exercise your obligation as a red or blue blooded citizen (if you live in the states and all your papers are in order, or professionally forged), and take advantage of all the fantastic, and money saving Super Tuesday deals!
Can you hold a nifty marker chained to a table? Then voting Jerry Brown out of office is easier than you could have ever imagined! Fan or not, Dead Kennedy’s make for great “pump-me-up-to-vote” music (“I am Governor Jerry Brown. My aura smiles and never frowns. Soon I will be president…” – Jello Biafra), but whatever your political position may be, you don’t get that slice of American Pie unless you get out there and vote. (Free stickers while supplies last.)
Jump Up
Spice up your mundane Monday with a splash of enthusiasm with Mr. Harry Belafonte and his 1961 smash hit, Jump Up Calypso. The follow-up to 1956’s straight-shooting Calypso, Jump Up is a hurricane in all kinds of weather. Aside from offering both Angelina AND Jump in the Line, Jump Up Calypso was the unofficial soundtrack to the 1988 Tim Burton comedy, Beetlejuice. Listen to this, then watch that, and count how many times this album pops up. I count five, but I haven’t seen the film in a few years.
Monday’s don’t have to be banal. Sprinkle in a dash of Calypso, and your feet will feel as light as Caribbean air.
Also, if you’re in the states, don’t forget to vote tomorrow!
Live Suck
I’ve seen them live, and, in fact, they don’t suck. In general, perhaps, but for all the tomfoolery and blatant side poking they flamboyantly indulge themselves with, NOFX is a solid outfit, and a wholesomely prominent collective, “across the board.”
Do they rustle the feathers of social abnormality? Well, of course, and damn well they should! No effects are a necessity, no matter how it’s spelled.
Dr. Johnny Fever vs. Tim Hardin
One wonders if Dr. Johnny Fever ever favored Mr. Hardin, and if the Cincinnati crowd ever embraced the heavyhearted songwriter quite like I have. There are a few notches on the Tim Hardin belt that I bet ol’ J. Fever would have enjoyed spinning, and somewhere, in the deep, orange and brown decorated closet of my imagination, a groove or two from Mr. Hardin may very well have found its way onto Mr. Fever’s plate, and was offered for all the Cincinnati area to enjoy.
If Tim Hardin lives, he’s certainly on the air in Cincinnati. Cincinnati, WKRP.
Happy Halloween, Kiddos!
Enjoy something sinister this evening from the master of suspense, and if you’re in the digital reading mood, have a gander at last year’s gruesome gravy!
M vs. S
It’s without hesitation that one, diehard fan such as I am, need the mono, and faux-stereo versions of This is Tim Hardin digitized for convenient listenability. Sure, this picture was taken some weeks ago, yet, the day’s end sneaks-the-hell up on those busy-beat-lovers, none-the-merry-less.
Red With Envy
Early Beatles… yay! Let’s ignore the crowning musical achievement of this band’s later, experimental work, and revel in the simplicities of cookie-cutter pop. OR, as if there was an alternative, let’s ignore 1962-1966 altogether, and skip directly to 1967-1970. Please, and thank you.
Sincerely, Associate Professor, T.P. Groove.
Snuggling Man
In 1966, Tim Hardin released his first studio album, Tim Hardin 1, and on this radiant release was not a reason to wonder, but instead a Reason to Believe, that Tim Hardin was, in fact, a timeless (and ultimately reckless) force, begging to be messed with.
The album’s third track, Smugglin’ Man, paints a greasy, underhanded picture of a deceitful man, THE man, able and willing to supply illegal substances to, among others, the Indians, the Arabs, and the Jews. This man of opportunity is, of course, Tim himself, or “Timmie” as the song goes. Be it guns, whiskey, gin or blatantly put, “anything illegal,” Tim was your late night go-to guy. Yes, Smugglin’ Man is a hell-of-a rockin’ R&B ditty, sung by a demon with an angel’s voice.
Cut to 1970’s compilation album, Tim Hardin.
Capitalizing on Tim’s breakout success of the late 60s, Tim Hardin (the album, not the man) was yet another repackaged, “Best of,” whose 9 (of 10) tracks made up the bulk of his first two albums (Tim Hardin 1 and Tim Hardin 2, naturally). I’m a completist sucker, so I had to have Tim Hardin, even though I’d already owned these songs two, and some even three times over.
All of this is very well, nice and good, but the (long-winded) message at heart, here, is that there is a hilarious oversight printed on this comp’s front cover. Instead of a rum-runnin’ man with a deviant mind for smugglin’, is instead a jaunty fellow with the habit for snuggling. As it’s printed, Snuggling Man paints a much different, and more family friendly picture than the gin-smugglin’, whiskey-sellin’ scar on the pale face of morality.
So, if you’re familiar with the song, here’s a little gift, smuggled, and snuggled, from me, to you…
I’m an old time snugglin’ man and I know just what to do
I’m an old time snugglin’ man and I know just what to do
I sell guns to the Arabs,
I sell dynamite to the Jews
– Lyrics by Tim Hardin, snuggler extraordinaire.
Jackie Wilson Said
It’s all too often that I find myself, in my latest years, listening to clumps of artists. From their vibrant beginnings, to their (almost) predictable conclusions, my listening preferences, as of late, have seen a steady crash of repeated listens by a single artist or group. A few months ago, it was Minutemen. As of last week, it was Tim Hardin (and I doubt that pool ever really dries up), before that was The Kinks, Hot Snakes, RFTC, Richard “Groove” Holmes, Jim Croce, and now, once again, it’s Van “The Man” Morrison. Jackie Wilson Said, everything was going to be a-okay.
Goodbye, Jack Bruce
May your legacy eclipse the minds of generations to come, and, will forever the word Cream be synonymous with your name.
Goodbye, Jack Bruce.
XXX
The debut album by Jane’s Addiction didn’t set the streets of Los Angeles on fire quite like 1988’s Nothing Shocking, or 1990’s Ritual de lo habitual. That is certainly not to say this (slightly doctored) live album doesn’t hit the needlepoint highs that the band is globally known and rewound for.
Jane’s Addiction, XXX, or Triple-X (whichever you prefer), is a great start, but barely measures up again the bands (only) first two albums. The rest (2003’s Strays and 2011’s The Great Escape Artist) is financial fodder.
14 Sides of Commercial Jazz
This 7-disc classic Jazz comp by The Smithsonian Collection is a beast to tackle. Heavy on the Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington, these 14 sides offer a grand overview of the weighty sphere known as Jazz, but with the scope of a bullet-pointed-casual-observer only seeking out the top 40 hits.
As I understand it, and I’m sure I’m wholeheartedly incorrect, Jazz is an organic entity that exists only as a deviation from the norm, until it became it. Like the Blues, Jazz is my most distant musical relative, but that doesn’t make The Smithsonian Collection of Classic Jazz that much less enjoyable.
Great Hits of the Great Bands
File this mistake under, “adolescent oversight.” This is as much an edition for collectors as the New Edition is a rival for most influential band of the 80s. You see, in 1997, big band music was big; at least it was where I grew up. It was a nostalgic glimpse into a well thought-out hoax, perfect to rival the Macarena and Aqua’s Barbie Girl. Commercial radio was sick-to-your-stomach-painful in the late 90s, and my overexcitement for something… ANYTHING different proved to be the better of me.
I had, in my faded understanding, neglected to grasp the fact that Great Hits of the Great Bands wasn’t a proper, cohesive release. I’d recently contemplated offering it up to the corner thrift if it weren’t for the sentimental value it (lethargically) held, but instead, I’ll keep it show the very simple, yet painful fact that very, very little has changed in the past 17 years.
Nine, from Phase Three, to Phase Four
Because the only way to stop a Tim Hardin train from derailing is a head-on collision with a low-hanging bridge of fate (and that can mean whatever the hell you want it to mean). My latest obsession is now in its third phase of its (six-part) metamorphosis, the phase I call, “The Later Works of Tim that Didn’t Sell Very Well, and That are Generally Difficult to Find.”
The next phase, phase four, is “Formal Completion of Tim’s Studio Albums,” which will kick into gear as soon as my 1970 copy of Suite for Susan Moore and Damion arrives at my doorstep (likely within seven days). The later albums, I’ve come to find, offer much more sentimentality than Tim’s earlier efforts, but still maintain that biting cleverness and songwriting craftsmanship that demand constant and continuous play.
I’m in a Tim Hardin-sized coma, and I hope I never open my eyes again.
The Backside to British Blues
Partially because I was too busy to snap a pic this morning, and partially because the importance of this “happened-upon” comp LP is the newest in my collection, I’ll milk the blues from this dry cow, and complete the front/back circle and, once again, suggest its esteemed seeking out.
If an endorsement by Jimmy Page isn’t enough… an endorsement by Jimmy Page should be damn well enough.
Beg Bri Blu
Cover distracted, ditsiness aside, The Beginning British Blues is a hint of British Blues history the laypeople (especially including myself) may not have otherwise been hip to. Bridging the Eric Clapton gap between The Yardbirds and Cream, the momentary glimpse of Clapton’s collaboration with John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers seems to be the bulk of the focus here. With back sleeve write-up by Jimmy Page (together with Miles Road, a duet with Mr. Clapton), The Beginning British Blues is a hidden treasure of historical significance, something this guy here just discovered he needed to possess.
VHS or Futon
This soft wave disco outing by the Louisville duo, VHS or Beta, will have to wait for a formal introduction until an unforeseeable time in the not-so-near future when I can get my bearings straight and offer a little more than a slum’s whisper towards a meandering, half-baked observation. It’s time for bed kids. The weekend is coming.
The Prudent Groove 