The Move - So You Want to be a Rock n Roll Star (live)

Double-fisting it with a bottle of East Dell merlot and a double-cupped, black, Tim Hortons coffee may sound cool… but just like a burnout wearing a D.A.R.E. t-shirt, it’s one of those cool things that… hell, is cool, but we can’t really talk about how cool it is cos then it loses some of its cool. In that same category also falls your love of ELO. Don’t deny it. But don’t admit it either. Cos if you did admit it then, yeah, it’s uncool. But if you deny it, then that’s worse… lucky for you, your non-admission of your love of ELO is ultra cool. Nice work.

You know what’s even cooler than that ELO shit? Loving the band that actually became ELO… so this brings us to The Move. With a few rotating members between 1967 and 1972, it’s kind of messed up trying to pin them to any particular sound… one song will sound like Alice Cooper banging the gong with Marc Bolan but then the next will sound like they’re tweaking Peter Tork’s psyche-pop nipple. This live version of The Byrds’ So You Want to be a Rock n Roll Star (thrown onto the ‘87 re-release of their fucking great Shazam long player) fits, for the most part, in the nippley region of Tork’s torso - though sometimes will spread to his nether regions… if you know what I’m talking about… his penis. In that it’s a raunchier, sweatier, ballsier version. And that is cool.

PS. I won’t even bother going into how cool it would be to be into one of the bands borne of ELO - Wizzard. Yeah that’s right, they spell it like they take a piss. Put that in yr pipe and smoke it, dipshit.

Kapow! Zoot! Brutal!

Yan Tregger- Wa ba da ba oh

In honour of the lyrics to Yan Tregger’s ‘Wa ba da ba oh’, please allow DDLD to present the first installment of Randomly Generated Google Translator Poetry. This string of meaningless characters was generated by running the “Lorem Ipsum” block of text through Google Translator 20 times or so using the wrong languages. Eventually, like so many Jackson Pollock exhibit visitors, Google begins to create meaning where there is none and via either synaptic misfire or iconic memory dumping, strings together syllables into quasi-sensible constructs which delight both nihilist and beatnik alike. Digital found art, people. Something from nothing, if you will!

Thats Parents / We fan the European Union identity.
Elite Pregnant Ultrasound data. Well plate, NEC Corporation.
Cathode Matisse. Duncan on the pillow.
Hong Kong Cultural Bánh, Commodore Di-East.
property exchange metrics drink.
Cyfnewid.

Roger Roger - Kek’tu Dis (Whatcha Say)

Delightfully wtf-worthy, ‘Kek’tu Dis’ involves a light bossa-ish shuffle accompanied by stuttering chopped up, indecipherable vocals. A great song to have an embarassingly public emotional breakdown / make a sandwich to!

The Zombies - Girl Help Me

There’s a game I like to play when I’m lying in bed with my number one girl and I call it “Dead Zombie” - that’s when I roll over on top of her, usually while she’s still sleeping, allow all my weight to fall on her as awkwardly as possible, and then basically just act dead, and zombie like. But cool dead, you know? She inevitably asks me “What the hell are you doing?” to which I reply “I’m a dead zombie. I can’t hear you.” This is usually followed by a cute little struggle and her saying “Get the fuck off me”, or something to that effect. I remind her that I’m a dead zombie and obviously she’s going to have to move me herself if she wants me off. Anyway, this game is a real hit as you might imagine and somehow reminded me of this Zombies tune that I figure I’d post for you today.

In 1968 The Zombies released what they feared may be their final album, the fuckupedly spelled Odessey and Oracle. The singles chosen from these recordings failed to chart as expected and the band had actually disbanded before the album was properly released. But then a third single was then released, “Time of the Season”, and would provide the band with a bit of a ‘dead cat bounce’ resulting in whispers of a reunion. Even though keyboardist Rod Argent and bass tickler Chris White were already steps ahead assembling a new band, which would eventually become “Argent”, it was during this time that Argent and White were persuaded to compile and release a final Zombies album “RIP” - consisting of older out-takes, demos as well as a few  newer recordings. This track “Girl Help Me” is one of those newer 1968 recordings, and as a result doesn’t include main Zombies vocalist Colin Blunstone (which can’t have bothered Blunstone a whole lot as he was busily playing his own version of the zombie game with girlfriend Caroline Munro). Hooooonk! Anyway, I don’t think this final Zombies album, “RIP”, ever saw the light of day — at least until its reissue years later — but then again neither do Zombies.

Jackie Lomax - Sour Milk Sea

One out of one anonymous commentors agree that surely it must be about time for a shout-out to Nicky Hopkins, and I must admit that I’m gleeful to comply to the request put forth in this pointed missive.

This will likely not be the last appearance of Nicky Hopkins on DD:LD, and for all we know may not be the first - his jangly 88-middle-fingers piano stylings were in absurdly high demand in 1960’s and Nicky played on countless seminal recordings during this period. Unfortunately for Nicky, what could have been a fruitful career of touring and panty moistening was hamstrung by his poor health - Nicky suffered from Crohn’s Disease, a pretty nasty affliction which; well - probably best to leave this to the professionals. Quoth perennial brain extension Wikipedia:

Crohn’s disease (also known as granulomatous colitis and regional enteritis) is an inflammatory disease of the intestines that may affect any part of the gastrointestinal tract from anus to mouth, causing a wide variety of symptoms. It primarily causes abdominal pain, diarrhea (which may be bloody), vomiting, or weight loss,^[1][2][3] but may also cause complications outside of the gastrointestinal tract such as skin rashes, arthritis and inflammation of the eye.^[1]

Yikes. Anyhow, this relegated Nicky to the life of a studio musician, but he sure made his dent in more than the porcelain. Nicky played on many a track, including The Beatles’ ‘Revolution’, which cemented a relationship that allowed the song you hopefully just hit play on to feature his delightful ivory tickling.

There’s an interesting story behind this song to boot - penned by George Harrison, ‘Sour Milk Sea’ was ostenibly an outtake from the White Album sessions, and ended up being released as a vehicle for singer Jackie Lomax on the Beatles’ own Apple label. Even more interesting is that 75% of The Beatles play on this very song - Paul on Bass, George (and some dude named Eric Clapton) on guitar and Ringo on lead ugly. Just kiddin. Drums. Hell of a gem that really never got the recognition it deserved - not unlike one Nicky Hopkins. As the first verse of ‘Sour Milk Sea’ puts it, neither Nicky Hopkins nor Jackie Lomax ‘[got] the breaks like some of us do’ - but they sure put together a pretty pleasant eargasm for your soundholes on this number.

Nicky Hopkins, brought to you courtesy of Jock McNevis.

Kalyanji Anandji - Dharmatma Theme Music

Sitting here with a belly full of vindaloo, and the news that our man Arjun will be coming up for a special visit from NYC, what better time than now to drop this theme music from the 1975 Hindi film Dharmatma. The soundtrack was composed by Kalyanji Anandji, whose name comes from first names of the two Gujarati brothers that made up the duo, Kalyanji Virji Shah and Anandji Virji Shah. These dudes would essentially compete in the same musical arena, as well as partake in the odd dust-up (blow), as house favourite(s) Shankar Jaikishan. As young men the two brothers would learn music from a teacher who could not afford to pay their fathers bills - by which I mean, free lessons… which is pretty sweet. In the end that would prove to be a fair trade; as seemed to be the way they rolled in the Bollywood scene back in the day, Kalyanji Anandji would work as musicians on more than 400 films - which is about as full as my stomach is right now on a scale of 1 to 100. Nighty night.

Placebo - Humpty Dumpty

Fronted by Belgian jazzercisist Marc Moulin, 70’s jazz/rock outfit Placebo are not to be confused with 90’s cross-dressing alternative lifestyle/rock outfit Placebo. There’s a certain humour in a band of white dudes so unabashedly blaxploitatin’ naming themselves Placebo, but I guess ‘The Offwhites’ was a bit too traditional and ‘The Safer, Gentler Soul Option’ too descriptive, though it would have been a great name for a 60’s UK Garage act.

‘Humpty Dumpty’ comes from Placebo’s 1971 debut, ‘Ball of Eyes’. The track features some really tricky ‘on the one’ beat and basswork and some pretty sweet Rhodes’n. Samplesmiths amongst us will recognize the hook in this song as one that’s been lifted dozens of times by the likes of AiM, Dilla, Pete Rock, and wordsmiths amongst us will giggle as they notice that with very little effort, the word ‘Belgian’ can be recalibrated into ‘Belgina’, a delightful term I’d like to put forth as a way of describing one’s exploits while backpacking in Europe. Correct usage: ‘I got off the train and was neck deep in Belgina instantly’. You’re welcome.

Pretty sweet nah-fro, Marc.

Philamore Lincoln - The North Wind Blew South

This wont be the first time we here at DD:LD muse about ‘whores’ on our pages, and it certainly wont be the last. The simple fact of the matter is that we love them, and by association anything that reminds us of them. Back in the day musicians certainly had whore like qualities wouldn’t you say? Both backstage and in the studio. It seems to me they got around a lot more in those days than they do now.

A session (or studio) musician is a performer who is available for hire for live engagements or studio sessions, as opposed to musicians that are permanent members of a band or ensemble. Used in a sentence, “The Smashing Pumpkins are still, unfortunately, trying to make music led by member Billy Corgan and a revolving door of session musicians.”

During the 1960’s and 70’s one of the most in-demand studio musicians was session guitarist Big Jim Sullivan (Dave Berry, Donovan, The Small Faces, Tom Jones, The Walker Brothers, and of course our boy Serge Gainsbourg), but when Big Jim wasn’t available producers would often call on Little Jim… that is, Mr. Jimmy Page. But Page is hardly a session afterthought, having dropped licks on tracks for The Who, The Kinks, Marianne Faithful and Van Morrison & Them to name a few. Little Jim also wormed his way into the pants of this fairly obscure recording “The North Wind Blew South” by Philamore Lincoln.

Lincoln’s sole album, also titled The North Wind Blew South, snuck out in 1970 on Epic Records. His biggest hit was a tune called “Temma Harbour”, but in the spirit of this post that song was whored out and made popular by Mary Hopkins. Lincoln would soon after make his move to the other side of the glass, becoming a record producer.

Piero Piccioni - Endless Love

Not enduring, not abiding, not sustaining, but endless. It sounds almost like a threat more than a promise, if you ask me. Less a quilt pulled up to your chin than it is a plastic bag pulled over your head.

One might say of Piero Piccioni that he was the Italian Henry Manicini, were it not for the fact that Henry Manicini is the Italian Henry Mancini, despite being born in Cleveland’s Little Italy. Let me try that again. Piero Piccioni is the not-Little Italian Henry Manicini. Piero began his career as a lawyer playing music on the side, and went on to become one of Italy’s most prolific soundtrack composers, with by varying accounts, 200 to 300 scores to his credit, including this gem, from the soundtrack to ‘Colpo Rovente’, Endless Love. Or as I like to call it, Fleeting Pheremone-induced Insanity. Now if you’ll excuse me I have some frowning to do.

Not sure I would take this man’s advice on affairs on the heart. Endless Love? More like Endless Lunch amirite?!?

Joe Meek - I Hear A New World

This here is the title track for Joe Meek’s fantacular album I Hear A New World. Basically, Joe Meek assembled a group he christened The Blue Men for this recording, insisting that they dress in silver space suits and paint themselves blue. He communicated his ideas for the album through recordings of himself humming the tunes and playing out the rhythms by tapping a spoon on a plate. Unfortuneatly [shitty spelling or piss-poor pun? You decide. -Ed], Joe was completely tone deaf and blessed with absolutely no music ability to speak of. The incongruity of moronically tuneless humming and randomly spoon-smacked plates has made these tapes legendary.

The basic ingredients for the recording of the album were a Hawaiian guitar (a highly off the wall instrument for a country band at the time), The Blue Men rhythm section and a deliberately out of tune piano. Meek fleshed out the songs with treatments of the sounds of bubbles blown through drinking straws, his presumably unused toilet flushing backwards and electrical circuits shorted together. Nerds have never ruled so hard.

Super Eagles - Love’s A Real Thing

I know DD:LD isn’t designed to be my diary, but you should know this about me: I am deathly afraid of eagles. Their cold eyes, with their machine-like unfeeling precision, their callous disregard for the cuteness of field mice, their baldness, I’m allergic to feathers, Donovan McNabb, there’s a whole laundry list of reasons eagles are terrifying and the thought of SUPER eagles strikes enough fear in me to loosen my bowels alarmingly. Just posting this song by Gambia’s Super Eagles represents the facing down of a demon that has tortured me for much of my adult life. The discovery that this band is actually made up of humans helped me overcome my fears ever so slightly, though sufficient empirical evidence that they are not in fact giant (super) eagles dressed in the skins of humans they handily dispatched with their beaks and talons has, as of press time, yet to be produced.

Suspicious as I may be of their true origins, I’m led to believe that The Super Eagles were somewhat beholden to the tastes of tourists and dignitaries passing through Gambia in late 1960’s, as they made up most of the only paying audiences for non-tradional music at the time. However, with a donation from a kind benefactor, Gambian diamond dealer Solo Darboe, who thanks to a lack of imagination on my part I envision to be a black Han Solo type with a cool vest and ill-fitting gunbelt, they were suddenly freed up to write their own songs and tour. The Super Eagles were among the first modern Gambian bands to tour Europe. Despite this accomplishment, their influence didn’t spread far from West Africa, where they are considered legends.

As an interesting but completely tangential sidebar, the Nigerian national football team is also affectionally nicknamed ‘The Super Eagles’, a terrifying monikker that has surely helped them achieve the staggering accomplishment of qualifying to compete in the World Cup not ten, not five, but three times since, oh.. 1930. GO EAGLES!

Dave Berry - The Crying Game

That’s right, “The Crying Game”. I would imagine this song was ruined for many of us by that Boy George… err, dude. Truth be told I found he had a way of ruining a lot of things. I can’t fucking stand chameleons and their fancy skin. My dream of professional tumbling and acrobatic gymnastics is out the proverbial window. I’ve basically stopped wearing make-up, and he flat out ruined androgyny for everyone! But whatever. I feel enough time has passed, 17 years is a long time, and I think we should re-explore the original ‘Crying Game. Life is about forgiveness™.

This track was originally released in 1964 by British pop star and teen idol Dave Berry. Berry didn’t garner much attention in the US but was something of a star in the UK during the mid 60’s — his biggest hit being the Ray Davies penned “This Strange Effect” (which The Kinks never properly recorded by the way, but can be found on their BBC Sessions discs). Berry’s version of The Crying Game features backing musicians Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones, as well as a sweet lead part played by session cat Big Jim Sullivan. So sit back, enjoy, and take comfort in knowing this song wont reveal itself as a transgender-transwoman thingy at the end.. OR WILL IT?

The Action - Brain

As musicians, The Action were overlooked as seriously criminal badasses, but it took a strong hand and a sympathetic ear to see past their roughscrabble past and hear the song they were meant to sing. They met as teenagers at a juvenile detention center, where under the leadership of their counselor, they gained self-esteem and how to put aside their differences by playing football toget..shit. That’s the plot to 2006’s “Grid Iron Gang”. In truth their story isn’t so different though, by which I mean they were brought together by The Rock.

The Action are reportedly one of Phil Collins’ favorite bands (look it up, dick - it’s true), and how you feel about that obviously depends entirely on how you feel about Phil Collins (alternate porn name: Phil N. Colons). For interfunsies, I figured we could make this like a Choose Your Own Adventure novel! If you air drum in cableknit sweaters and/or own a VHS copy of the feature film ‘Buster’, press Alt-F4 now. If you’re still here, do nothing. To do nothing, do nothing.

‘Brain’, recorded somewhere between 1967 and 1968, was unreleased until 2002 - despite being plucked from (and deposited right back into, really) obscurity by none less than famed 5th Beatle Mixmaster Mike George Martin, demos for The Action’s only album were rejected by EMI (maybe because Phil Collins liked them?), and that basically was the end of The Action. What really grabs me about this album (“Rolled Gold”) and this song in particular is that it lacks the sneering moroseness a lot of the music of their peers had at the time - there’s an earnest, soulful quality to the music and it’s nice and dirty. But, listen without prejudice, dear reader. Choose Your Own Adventure. If you don’t want to hear The Action’s ‘Brain’, simply pour a glass of cold water into the little vents on your computer. They’re water holes and the internet is thirsty! Otherwise, do nothing.

The Birds - Say Those Magic Words

The Birds were a seriously badass, yet criminally overlooked, band from the UK during the mid 1960’s. They were comprised of a very young Ronnie Wood on guitar and harmonica, Tony Munroe on more guitar, Kim Gardner on bass, Ali McKenzie on vocals and Pete McDaniel on drums. In their time they released only four singles and couldn’t have recorded more than fourteen songs total. Too few, too few.

Their first single “You’re On My Mind” was written by Wood and came out on Decca in November of 1964, backed with a version of Ellas McDaniel’s — better known to most as Bo Diddley — “You Don’t Love Me (You Don’t Care)”. Their next two singles were a couple of Motown numbers, Eddie Holland’s “Leaving Here” and William Stevenson’s “No Good Without You Baby” but The Birds transformed them both into powerful garage tunes with that inimitable Birds sound. The flips of these were of course great too, both written by Wood.

What you’re hearing now is The Birds fourth and final single, “Say Those Magic Words”, which was released on Reaction in 1966 under the name The Birds Birds, cute huh? This was at the suggestion of their manager Robert Stigwood following a failed legal battle over the band name, which came after the hippie USA version of The Byrds toured through England a year earlier.

While The (real) Birds did record a few more things, nothing else was ever properly released and by 1967 it was all over. Kim Gardner and Ron Wood would go on to join The Creation in ‘68, but after that no one really knows what ever became of little Ronnie Wood.