I feel like singing (Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks) (LP 66)

Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks Where's the Money? (Vinyl - ABC Blue Thumb, 1971) ***

Genre: Country

Places I remember: Amoeba Records, Haight Street, San Francisco. Cost me $1.99! Yeah baby!

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Is this my happy home?




Gear costume: By Hook or By Crook.




Active compensatory factors: This is good timey, funky folkie music that blends all sorts of genres - bluegrass, country, folk, swing and pop.

It is often smiley face funny as well.

Especially on this, a live album. Dan's dry stage announcements remind me a little of the laconic Neil Young delivery at his early solo concerts.

It was perfect that I got this on our first visit to San Francisco - Haight St. - Amoeba Records. 

Good times and good rockin' tonite are guaranteed.  

Where do they all belong? Hard to characterise Dan Hicks but for me he slots in right along side other wonderful fringe weirdos like Commander Cody. Chuck in some Asleep at the Wheel country licks for good measure.

Love is like a roll of tape, It's real good for making two things one (Flight Of The Conchords)

Music is love and so music flowed all around us during Samantha and Jesse's wedding last week.

I made a couple of suggestions for the ceremony that they liked and used: All You Need Is Love (the Fabs) for walking down the aisle and Gonna Fly Now (Bill Conti) for leaving. Both worked a treat. Love IS all you need and, like Rocky, the ONLY way is to be positive and fly!

As well as that, the importance of the right music was central to the after party as well. Jesse and Fanfa used the Sello Tape (Flight Of The Conchord) song for their first dance and Fanfa and I danced to I Saw Her Standing There to get the party started.

Brilliant!

Amoeba Records, 1855 Haight St.

Being me I couldn't let a trip to SF go by without visits to record shops. One in particular drew me back time and again: Amoeba Records on Haight St.

WOW! What a record store. I picked up stuff I didn't know existed (a Jellyfish live album) and stuff I'd been after for years - Hot Tuna's Yellow Fever and Lenny White's Venusian Summer.

In all I came back with a pile of CDs and records that I am slowly digesting.

As I'm doing so I'm noticing how many are actually San Franciscan bands: Dan Hicks and his Hot Licks, Hot Tuna, Jefferson Starship - Jefferson's Tree of Liberty (a Paul Kantner project from 2008 that passed me by at the time), Jellyfish, and neXus ROCK.

neXus ROCK? Who they? http://www.nexusrock.com/#!band/cadp has details and songs.

neXus ROCK are a (very young) San Franciscan band who we (Jacky, Jade and moi) watched outside the Hard Rock Cafe down on the docks area. They rocked up a storm delivering  a hybrid 2013 sound. They were giving away a free CD with three tracks on it. Avocado is the pick of the bunch with a sunny west coast sound fused to a Fishbone style beat. I like it!

Jade and I voted for them in the Hard Rock Cafe best young bands competition, results out next week apparently. They should do well.