Posts tagged badass

Gregory Isaacs - Front Door

Earlier this year, reggae legend and possessor of the best nickname ever, Gregory “The Cool Ruler” Isaacs passed away, and it’s only now that I can write about it without tearing up, and definitely not that I just didn’t get around to posting one of his many amazing songs. Throughout his multi-decade career, Gregory Isaacs dropped more gems than a jeweler with Parkinson’s. In true DD:LD fashion though, he wasn’t just a prolific and relatively unsung reggae hero, he was also a world-class badass, possessing both well-documented ‘struggles’ with cocaine and crack, and a penchant for illegal firearms, which all told netted him a toothless mouth and 27 arrests, and contributed to his early passing at 49 this October. Don’t take this the wrong way, Jamaica, but to be a notable drug user in Kingston is like being the smelliest guy in Brooklyn. It’s an award nobody wants, but is impressive nonetheless. Jamaica is often portrayed as a sort of seemingly idyllic paradise with an inescapable, menacing undercurrent of violence where illicit substances are ubiquitous. That’s because it is. It rules there, you should check it out.

‘Front Door’, from 1981’s ‘More Gregory’ is Gregory’s take on the musical monomyth of the unpleasant breakup. It’s a story close to my heart; packing everything you own into a shopping bag and moving out of your old lady’s house because your relationship sucks, and maybe settling for the next thing that crosses your path rather than being lonely. Now that’s what I call romance! So much of what made the music of Gregory Isaacs notable is here on display in this classic - almost uncomfortably lascivious moaning, a dozy, dawdling backbeat, awesome little synthy burbles, and the dulcet tones of the Lonely Lover, Mr. Gregory Isaacs.

I’m not trying to suggest that I’m more fabulous than you (I am, check out this scarf!), but I’ve been to Jamaica a few times and one thing that always strikes me is the ratio of their creative output to their size. They’re to music what Sweden is to cellphones. There are dozens of bonafide international stars that call this relatively tiny island home, and just driving down the road you’ll see sign after sign for small events featuring talent like John Holt, Marcia Griffiths, etc. It was at one of these small shows that I was lucky enough to see Gregory Isaacs in 2009. I couldn’t feel my face at the time but he really kicked my lilly-white ass. True story: I was sitting having lunch in Negril the next day and Gregory Isaacs walked in with the largest Jamaican I have ever seen and sat down. I nearly shit my pants, but that was really more a factor of my diet at the time. I was excited too, though.

Gregory Isaacs, The Amish Statesman of Reggae

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.

OFS Unlimited - Mister Kidneys

‘Mister Kidneys’ is an interesting song in that it belongs to a small shard faction of 70’s funk concerned with third-person descriptions of badass motherfuckers (e.g. ‘Theme from Shaft’, ‘Superfly’, ‘The Mack’). ‘Mister Kidneys’ tells the tale of a ‘son of a gun’ who goes by the name of, well, Mister Kidneys, and you should watch out for him because he is going to eff your girlfriend, and presumably based on his nickname, give her a urinary tract infection. When they were handing out badass nicknames, Mister Kidneys got the uh, shaft, y’all. I would think that someone whose superpower is how easily they can fuck your woman would have a nickname more representative of that - something like Will Hung. Johnny Dick. Gash Stabberson. I dunno.

You can basically hear the tape rotting on the song, and I can only assume it’s because this funk number is so ripe and plain old stankin’, and it’s not hard to imagine the VU meters redlining through this whole recording. Either this song was recorded by an idiot savant or just an idiot, because shit isn’t supposed to sound like this. And I mean this in a good way.

OFS Unlimited have a very small catalog of recorded works - from what I can find their only release was this 45 (b/w ‘Mystic’) on the Columbus, OH Prix label, an obscure funk/soul label who never even made it big in Columbus, let alone state or country-wide.

Check out the dude on the stairs!

Leadbelly - Jean Harlow

SUPER-RAD MEGA-FACTUAL UPDATE: Leadbelly’s family want you to know that even though some people say Leadbelly did all this stuff, maybe he didn’t do all this stuff, and maybe he did the complete opposite of everything you read here, and furthermore that time is a human construct and up might be down. Season accordingly. Also, Maryland and Louisiana aren’t the same place.

Ah, actor week. We had some giggles, didn’t we, interfriends? We laughed, we cried, we coughed politely. But believe me when I tell you that we here at the High Council of Deadly Deathitude saved the best for goddamned last.

Fuckin’ Leadbelly.

Of all the people we’ve written about, Leadbelly is the roughest, toughest, baddassiest motherfucker of the bunch. Keith Moon’s hotel room trashing, John Bonham punching a female journalist in the face because he didn’t like the reviews she wrote, Skip Spence trying to murder his drummer with a fireaxe, Chuck Manson, these pansies are big girl’s blouses compared to Leadbelly, career criminal and, on the side, legend of folk music. By the age of 15, Leadbelly was making a stir in the red-light district near Shreveport, LA, and soon found himself established, living in a house next door to his parents with his (according to the 1910 census, anyway) 15 year-old bride. After siring two children, he skipped town to find his fortune as a guitar player, but instead of finding his fortune, he [pulitzer moment] un-found his mis-reverse-fortune [/pulitzer moment] and found himself working on the chain gang after being busted for packin’ a pistol. But, because this story rules, he made a daring escape from the chain gang. Unfortunately, he was locked up again, after killing a relative in a dispute over a woman. So… back to jail for 7 years (1918 - 1925), during which time he nearly kills another inmate during a knife fight and earns a gruesome scar on his neck. Ultimately, Leadbely wins his release from prison by charming the Governor of Texas and winning over the guards through good behaviour and performing. Aaaaaand back in jail he goes in 1930 for attempted murder (of a white man, no less) in another knife fight, but it’s here that his career truly begins to take flight. While in prison, Leadbelly is happened upon by John and Alan Lomax, a father-and-son team of musicologists, and were it not for this chance encounter, it is highly likely none of us would have ever heard much more from Leadbelly, but the odds are good he would have killed a few more dudes. Luckily for us, and for Leadbelly, the Lomaxes are won over by his songs about devil women, booze and despair, and ultimately not only go on to record dozens and dozens of his songs from within the prison, but also successfully petition for his release from prison. John, the senior Lomax, becomes Leadbelly’s champion and manager, and Life magazine and many newsreels are quick to pick up on the story of the (actual Life magazine article title) Bad Nigger [turned] Good Minstrel. The relationship ultimately sours, Leadbelly sues Lomax, wins, aaaaaaand hey guess fucking what, ends up back in jail in 1939 for assault (yep, knife fight) and is bailed out by Lomax’s son Alan, and really from there never quite takes off, gains some minor notoriety, but sadly doesn’t live to see himself become the legend of folk he remains today. Anyhow, that was a lot of words, but in summary, Leadbelly was fucking tough and this song is about actress Jean Harlow.

Leadbelly could probably fucking kill you with this accordian, but by all means keep smirking, pal.