Besides my usual 50 credits, this month includes 15 additional ones eMusic gave me as "loyal mebmer." eMusic caught a lot of flack last year when it changed their its pricing structure, but to their credit they've given us loyal members similar bonuses two or three times. So, thanks.

* Varieties of Religious Experience: 1993-2003 by Arrington de Dionyso and the Old Time Relijun. While writing my recent review of The Movie Star Junkies' A Poison Tree, I started Googling around looking for rock bands that had covered William Blake poems. There I discovered "Tyger" by this band. I'll stand by my description that it sounds like Roy Orbison on angel dust.

That was interesting enough for me to download the whole album. This is a fun little distillation of lots of classic avant, primitive rock. I hear Beefheart. I hear Ubu. I hear some Thinking Fellers. And there's a definite No-Wave influence here. Whoever's playing that sax owes James Chance some royalties.

Old Time Relijun is a creature of K Records up in Olympia, Washington. So I'm probably hearing a little Twin Peaks mushroom madness in there too.

* Fuck Me Stupid by The Raunch Hands. Yes, Eric Davidson's We Never Learn still is inspiring me to catch up on some of superstars of Gunk Punk that I somehow overlooked in their glory days.

The Raunch Hands were a rootsy little outfit, playing hard-charging whacked out punk blues back in the '80s before many people were doing that.

This 1995 release was the Raunch Hand's last album for Crypt Records. They were getting close to breaking up, but the group sounds like they were having the time of their lives recording it.

My favorites here are "Baby Don't You Tear My Clothes," a hilarious rewrite of "Baby Let Me Follow You Down." "What's the Matter Now" is a soul workout with touches of crazed gospel energy. This might be what the Almighty Defenders were aiming at on their Punk gospel" album.

*The Ding-Dongs. (My comments on this and the next album might look hauntingly familiar to loyal readers. I wrote about these a few weeks ago in my Terrell's Tuneup column.)

Mark Sultan, aka BBQ, meets Bloodshot Bill for a rollicking half-hour of Canadian trash rockabilly. This is unabashed bashing fun. The sound is closer to what you’d hear on a Bloodshot Bill album than to King Khan & BBQ. It’s less scatological and more traditional rockabilly sounding.

My one complaint is that Sultan’s amazing voice isn’t at full force here. He does channel Buddy Holly on the tune “Worried Man.” and does a respectable job on the countryish “Until I Die.” But nowhere does his voice really soar.


* $ by Mark Sultan So if you want more Sultan, check out $, his latest solo album, which was released earlier this year. Not only will you hear more Sultan, you’ll get a greater diversity of sound.

Plus

* 10 Tracks from Red Hot Rockabilly (the ones I didn't already have) I was listening to an old episode of Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour the other day -- and came across a rockabilly song I hadn't noticed before: "Okie's in the Pokie" by Jimmy Patton. I had to have it! Doing a quick search on eMusic I found it on this collection of (mostly) obscurities. Also included here are Buck Owens' original version of "Hot Dog" (under the name "Corky Jones") and a bluesy shuffle called "Grits" by a wildcat named Harmonica Ray.

* The 64 remaining tracks from Hillbilly Classics. This collection has to be my eMusic find of the year. It's a 73-song collection of mostly obscure country tunes from the '40s and '50s and it costs only 12 credits. I picked up nine songs last month, so these 64 tracks only cost me three credits.

Several tunes on my latest podcast Hillbilly Pig Out -- "Give it To Me Daddy" by Hartman's Heartbreakers, "Nothin; Clickin' Chicken" by The Down Homers and "Who Puts the Cat Out When Papa's Out of Town" by Sam Nichols came from this collection. And I've been playing lots of it on The Santa Fe Opry in the past few weeks.

There are a few well-known artists here. There's pre-Nashville Sound Chet Atkins (doing "Boogie Man Boogie"), The Carter Family, Spade Cooley and Tennessee Ernie Ford. But for every Delmore Brothers or Grandpa Jones, there's five or six like Roy Hogsed or Smoky Wood & The Woodchips. This almost is a secret history of country music. Truly, this is the music Nashville would like you to forget.

* "Navajo" and "Wild Texas" by Los Peyotes. These are the two tracks I didn't already have on the Psychotic Reaction EP by South America's Los Peyotes. "Navajo" is an instrumental "surf" rocker in the tradition of "Apache," except it's got a flamenco (!) finale. "Wild Texas" is a cool fuzz 'n' Farfisa rocker Los Peyotes do so well. The band has a new album called Garaje o Muerte coming out at the end of the month.

* "Ducken" by Hasil Adkins from 1950s Rock 'n' Roll and Rockabilly Rare Masters. Here's another cool bargain collection from eMusic -- 56 tracks for 12 credit. I had only one credit left, so I made a "down payment." I hope the rest of it's as fun as this Hasil track. He does a pretty good impersonation of a police siren here.

I love the older stuff, so my favourites are gonna be 'Down Home Girl' and 'Off The Hook'...

Right now it's "Shine A Light" but it changes a lot. My three favorite Stones albums are Beggars' Banquet, Exile on Main St. and Let it Bleed, so depending on which one is my favorite at the moment my favorite song is either "Stray Cat Blues" (first Stones song I really loved back when I was 16), "Shine A Light" or their cover of "Love in Vain."

wow.... you do know your Stones!!!! Isabella Gloria Rodriquez said:

alright alright let's see.. their "money" TOTALLY beats out the beatles' version.. then there's leave me alone, off the hook, most of 'between the buttons' especially let's spend the night together & connection, 19th nervous breakdown, UNDER MY THUMB!!, sad day, you better move on, you got the silver [both versions], can't you hear me knocking, monkey man, the early version of tumbling dice called good time women.. and how bout the rice krispies song? ah! haha i'm sure there are more but i'll leave it at that (:

Can only agree...even the Stones were along with the Beatles and the doors my entry gate into the 60s they always were to light for me...but Paint it Black and especially 2000 light years from home are still today great songs...but they should have stopped after Angie. FREDDI said:

Oh yes,strange album that (I guess you mean"Their Satanic Majesties Request") for the Stones,not everybody liked it.
For me it's not one of their best,but not so bad. 2000 light years from home,Citadel,2000 man the best songs.

ratoonie said:

does anyone remeber ...cidadel..off of "Her magetrys Secret Request"....??????

Best cover of a Stones song

alright alright let's see.. their "money" TOTALLY beats out the beatles' version.. then there's leave me alone, off the hook, most of 'between the buttons' especially let's spend the night together & connection, 19th nervous breakdown, UNDER MY THUMB!!, sad day, you better move on, you got the silver [both versions], can't you hear me knocking, monkey man, the early version of tumbling dice called good time women.. and how bout the rice krispies song? ah! haha i'm sure there are more but i'll leave it at that (:

If you are interested in playing our tunes in your shows, The Infoiatis (from Modena/Bologna) brand new demo Deep Jungle Safari is available for free download until September 30th at: http://www.theinfoiatis.com/demodownload.php. The title track was already played in the podcast show "Way Past Cool #15".

You're from Macedonia, so the swine out there might or might not be too bothered by uploading as they are in other countries. In Germany uploading can lead to a shit load of trouble; and I'm talking about 1400 euro fines.

Go for it! We need more!

Sorry if I made light of your question, but honestly, no one other than an entertainment lawyer should offer legal advice with anything related to copyright. This is an issue that we've struggled with and debated for years here on the GPPN but it hasn't prevented any of us from playing whatever the hell we want on our podcasts. And it's also why we spend a lot of time and effort encouraging bands and labels to upload their music to the Podsafe Music Network at MusicAlley.com. The bottom line is you're on your own. You run the risk of getting busted or "caught" for redistributing music that you don't have the "right" to redistribute. It's a pretty small risk, obviously, since we're all in the same boat and, as far as I know, no one has ever been busted for copyright violation for playing a song on a podcast. That said, I *have* heard that PROs (Performance Rights Organizations like ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, etc.) will go after podcasters as well as Web radio stations for artist royalties if they find out your show has played a song from one of their artists. It's all a big gamble... just like uploading copyrighted videos to YouTube. You may or may not get busted... it's anyone's guess. Good luck.

actually, my other band, The Generals , was on the early cable TV show, "NEW WAVE THEATER"
remember that show!? well, it was played on that late night stoners program, "NIGHTFLIGHT" on USA !

our records are still out there , like on ebay or whatever....it's always a trip to see our sensitive man/queen of the night 7" of interest! wwe wwere just loaded with wonder and crawling around in the art of doing some creations .

Yes! That's the tune and I have NO fuckin' clue as to who it is! And no one seems to know either! God damn I would love to just find out so I can hunt down the song/group. Who would'a thought that a song in an MGM movie would be so impossible to track down?? Any why no mention at all in the end credits, or on the Internet anywhere?? Were the producers ashamed of the song or something? Perhaps a misunderstanding with the group or rights holder of the song? They just kept that song a secret and a total mystery, and it happens to be a killer song...go figure. Gah!

Its gonna be a TEENAGE RIOT!

Hey! Do the log, and the Shuffle!

I like Black Flag a lot. My favorite album is probably My War. But I like weird music a lot.

My main guitar is an Epiphone SG built in South Korea. I got it in high school, when the SG was my dream guitar (they look so cool, and I love the tone -- in high school especially I was big time into stoner/doom metal). I want to get another guitar at some point, I'm thinking about a telecaster -- but that's sort of off in the future as I don't have an excess of cash right now. I usually use Fender Bullets for strings.

My amp is a Kustom Quad 65 DFX, which is alright. It's got a really good sound for a solid state amp, and isn't too huge convenient for me to schlep around to practices and shows. Onboard effects actually don't suck (I only use the reverb and echo, though it has a bunch more).

For effects pedals I keep it pretty simple; a crybaby wah and a Big Muff Pi. At some point I want to get a reverb pedal, but for now the reverb effect on my amp is god enough.

I only started playing garage rock recently but when I was in metal bands I got made fun of for "trying to sound like I was from the sixties," which I took as a compliment.

I currently use a Vox overdrive pedal (the one with two overdrives so i can have a crunchy sound for general playing and a more distorted sound for solos) through a Marshal JCM600 valve combo. I really love that amp... I got it back in '96 and have had to fix it a couple of times (recently changing the valves) but it sounds great. It does weight a ton although it's not too big. I recently got a small Laney Cub10 to play at home and record. It sounds really great for such a small amp... I also use an analog delay from Carl Martin for the more psychedelic parts...

Right now I've got a very thin SV470 Ibanez guitar that was my first decent electric guitar and has an amazing neck 8thin and fast) but have recently gotten an old Grestch Corvette which I think will be great for the sound of the band (still don't have it with me though...)

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
September 3, 2010

Elusive rock ’n’ roll poet William Blake might be considered something of a one-hit wonder.

  

True, folks like Bob Dylan, Jim Morrison, and Patti Smith owe Blake an obvious debt, and Van Morrison actually name-checked Blake and his band The Eternals in “You Don’t Pull No Punches But You Don’t Push the River” on Veedon Fleece. Folkie Greg Brown did a whole album of Blake tunes in the 1980s called Songs of Innocence and Experience, and an Olympia, Washington, band called Arrington de Dionyso and the Old Time Relijun did a version of Blake’s “Tyger” that sounds like Roy Orbison on angel dust. 

But Blake’s only work to get much mileage in the rock universe is his poem “Jerusalem,” best known for its treatment by 1970s prog-rock commissars Emerson, Lake & Palmer, who recorded it on their album Brain Salad Surgery. The Mekons recorded it too, though I prefer the trash-rock version by The Fall from the late ’80s.

However, a new version of an old Blake poem (written in 1794) recently emerged. A Poison Tree, the new album by Movie Star Junkies, features a Blake poem as the title cut. “I was angry with my friend:/I told my wrath, my wrath did end./I was angry with my foe:/I told it not, my wrath did grow.” Spoiler alert: The “wrath” grows into a tree, and by the end of the poem, “In the morning glad I see/My foe outstretched beneath the tree.”

That Blake is a heck of a writer. Too bad he’s never made any albums of his own. But I bet if he did, he’d sound a lot like The Movie Star Junkies. They’re a well-read bunch. Their previous (and first) album was a whale of a record called Melville, which featured songs about shipwrecks and crazy obsessions.

The Blake tune is pretty indicative of the rest of this album. Images of murder, torture, and betrayal color the lyrics. “How many nights I got to wait before you put me on a stake?” is the first line of “Leyenda Negra.” Then there’s “Almost a God,” which ends with a religious observation: I admire the devil/For finishes everything.”

And there’s another song about a tree, “The Walnut Tree,” a minor-key romp that sounds like Gogol Bordello paying tribute to Johnny Cash’s chunka-chunka beat. It’s a song of doomed love. My favorite foreboding line: “We danced in a field with ravens and crows.”

The basic MSJ sound is dark but melodic — spaghetti-Western guitars over (a real) Farfisa organ and drums that evoke a marching band. The band proudly cites The Birthday Party as an influence, and you can hear echoes of early Nick Cave in there. The last song, a seven-minute epic called “All Winter Long,” ends in a dense instrumental with fuzzy guitar licks that bring back memories of The Electric Prunes.

The album is barely more than 30 minutes long. But it’s intense enough by the time it’s over that a listener feels like he’s been through a journey.

Also recommended:

*Two-Headed Demon by Urban Junior. Voodoo Rhythm is fond of the one-man-band concept. They’ve red albums by John Schooley and Bob Logg III (both Americans), French wonder King Automatic, and label head Rev. Beat-Man’s masked alter ego Lightning Beat-Man.

And now comes Urban Junior, who, even by Voodoo Rhythm standards, will amaze you with how much noise one man can produce. 

But unlike most of those others listed, Urban Junior doesn’t seem to be following in the footsteps of the late West Virginia madman Hasil Adkins, who created a distinctive one-man country/blues bash sound. Instead, UJ describes his sound as “Swiss-spankin-electro-trash-garage-boogie-disco-blues-punk” and lists The Beastie Boys as an influence. 

He fears not the synthesizer. But don’t get the notion that his sound is slick or glitzy. He uses his synth as an assault weapon. 

The title cut sounds like invading Huns in a disco massacre. “With the Idiots” is a little more rootsy, at least in the opening moments before the decibels rise. It has what sounds like a theremin solo.

UJ shows his true perversity in the last song, “We Love Urban Junior,” in which a couple of little girls — well, at least they sound like little girls — literally sing his praises, complimenting both his music and his manly physique.

New here :) This is actually the first thing I post... But I thought I'd share this since I think it's exactly what you're looking for. There's a Drum plugin called BFD (well, now it's actually BFD2 but I have the old version)

They've recorded all sort of drum kits (modern and vintage) and organized them in a nice plugin you can access trhough midi. And for each volume number they've made different recordings, so if you hit soft or strong you'll hear the difference.

I've been using if for all my home recordings and I'm very happy with how it sounds. I'm using it with Logic Audio, but it should work with most Audio editing programs...

-George

Rest In Peace.He was a great player.

So Apple bought Lala and then discontinued it, and what did they replace it with? They added a music-oriented social network to iTunes called Ping (in iTunes 10). And from what I can tell, it's lame as hell (although I have yet to dig very deep). Anyone else checked this out yet?

http://www.apple.com/itunes/ping/

Bring back Lala, dammit!

Here's a tentative schedule: http://blogs.pitch.com/wayward/2010/08/last_day_to_rsvp_for_scion_gar.php