Will you sing (Kamasi Washington) (LP 279)

Various The Best of 2018 (CD - Mojo cover mount, 2018) ***

Genre: All over the shop - there's jazz, rock, power pop, indie rock, world, and more

Places I remember: Free with Mojo #302 

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Elvis Costello - Stripping Paper. Each time I heard this it got better and better!




Gear costume:  Kamasi Washington - Will You Sing

Active compensatory factors: I'm wary of best of year sampler collections. But I trust Mojo. So I went into this with pragmatic high hopes.

Some heavy hitters make an appearance: Elvis Costello is in good form on Stripping Paper; Ry Cooder; Cat Power, Christine and the Queens, and Kamasi Washington are on it in more ways than one. 

Everything Kamasi seems to do is massive and Will You Sing, positioned at track 8 is epic! A mountain of sound!

Overall the CD's like 15 tracks from my ipod shuffle and works somehow by throwing disparate sounds together. 

Where do they all belong? Not sure 2018 has been a stellar year musically but Will You Sing seems to represent the possibility of producing order from the chaotic world of 2018.

I'm gonna get some concrete mix and fill your back door up with bricks (Dr. Feelgood) #105, 106

Dr. Feelgood Roxette/ Keep It Out Of Sight (United Artists Records, K 6601, 1976)

Dr. Feelgood See You Later Alligator/ I Love You So You're Mine (Stiff, K 193, 1986)

Ten years separates these singles and it shows. While the live version of Roxette from Stupidity still blazes a trail, See You Later sounds like a pale imitation of the band.

The difference is personnel. The only original member on the '86 version is Lee Brilleaux. The band sound is completely different without Wilco Johnson's idiosyncratic guitar style. Gone is the original raw R'n'B sound!

I have a soft spot for the original band; I lived in Leigh-On-Sea and taught students from Canvey Island at King John School in Benfleet, and knowing the area helps.

Canvey is such a weird place - anyone coming from there (Wilco was born on Canvey Island and the band started life there) is going to be touched by the tough environment. It was a pretty dire place when I lived in Essex in the early 2000's so I can only imagine how rough it was in the early seventies.

Sadly Lee died at an early age from cancer and Wilco is on his way out - having refused treatment for his cancer. A great story about him appeared in Mojo recently.

Hidden gems: Keep It Out Of Sight is great - a gritty song from one of the studio albums (Down By The Jetty). All muscle guitar from Wilco and attitude from Lee. What a combination. It's the real deal - they mean it man!

I Love You blah blah is complete garbage. Hard to know why they thought this was a good idea - maybe they didn't care!

Anyway - forget that - remember them this way:

 

You made us feel like we could fly (Queen)

Radio Wozza is an amazing station. It mixes genres and decades into a wonderful eclectic mix of magical music moments. Mmmmmmmm. I love it.

Radio Wozza doesn't really exist as a broadcasting unit, of course, because I'm usually the only one who gets to hear it (if you're lucky enough to live with me you'll catch glimpses of it).

Radio Wozza beams out of the p-pod whenever I'm away from my collection. The play list comes from the 23,000 songs it holds (how amazing is that and there is still room on it for more).

Radio Wozza is the audio version of Mojo Magazine - a head spinning, psychedelic, gush of wonderful noise.

Jacky and I are currently staying on Waiheke Island with her dad. I'm away from my collection so I've set up the p-pod dock in the lounge so that I can listen to music while I read. All was going fine until Well by Captain Beefheart came on Radio Wozza.



Well did that cause a ruckus as both Jacky and Brian stopped their conversation and honed in on me - what the hell is that???

It's singing, I said.

That's not singing, said they.

Yes it is, said I.

This kind of intellectual riposte continued for some time but neither side gave ground. You can imagine their reaction when I said it was by Captain Beefheart. That just confirmed things for them (the name - they don't know who Captain Beefheart was)

For my money Captain Beefheart is a great great singer. Mmmm - maybe an acquired taste I admit but Well is one of his most accessible songs - certainly on Trout Mask Replica. You be the judge!

Should I close my eyes and prophesize? (My Morning Jacket)

Being laid up sick at home for two days means some therapeutic music choices need to be made. A sinus headache means Mastodon's The Hunter CD is naturally replaced by somewhat more soothing sounds.

Yesterday was definitely more of a Simon and Garfunkel melancholy mood experience (the previous post) but today I felt marginally better. I tried some Return To Forever but that was too jarring. I found that some Wishbone Ash was okay in the afternoon, along with Fleet Foxes, Bon Iver, Laura Marling and Feist.

But My Morning Jacket was right on the money all day long. The album is called Circuital. My knowledge of the band is very limited (I bought the CD after a glowing Mojo review).

The band appear to be big on group dynamics - the inner sleeve book is big on group rehearsal/recording long shots.

The music is eclectic and Fleet Foxy original (does that make sense?).

What I do know is that this wonderful album got me through a snotty mucus filled day!

A lifetime is so short, a new one can't be bought (The Beatles)

The latest Mojo Magazine had a 'How to buy' guide on Simon and Garfunkel.

In the top 10 the readers had picked three S&G duo albums and the other seven were all Paul Simon solo albums. No solo Garfunkel which is understandable. He is a superb singer and harmony man but his solo albums stink as a rule.

I was pleased to see Hearts and Bones in the mix at number 9. It's a superb Carrie Fisher break up album. Simon tackles the subject in a self deprecating way which makes it all the more endearing. I read Carrie's blog from time to time and, she's great and all, but, whooah - she would be hard work.

I had no arguments with the number one vote - Bridge Over Troubled Water. A sublime collection.

But where oh where was There Goes Rhymin' Simon????? The best album of 1974 according to Mr Grammy. Nowhere to be seen. So Beautiful Or So What is rated better. So is Surprise.

This is a travesty, a mockery. A mockery of a travesty.

Here then is my little plug for one of the best albums of all time and the criminally insanely great 'American Tune'.

Expert texpert

My last post hinted at a long history of reading about music. I think it started with a great NZ music paper from the 1970s - 'Groove'. I have clippings from the time - Black Sabbath, Led Zep, Beach Boys, Beatles, Jethro Tull, Deep Purple, Uriah Heep (sadly yes - I had a thing for the Heep - Very 'Eavy/Very 'Umble and Demons and Wizards were early acquisitions). During the 70's I also collected the UK's 'Sounds' weekly. Lots of great articles and posters - Pink Floyd, Yes, and others were diligently clipped and put into scrapbooks. The 80s were a bit barren - the occasional 'Rolling Stone', 'Circus' and 'Crawdaddy' but there wasn't any weekly or monthly that I actually collected. It was more a case of whatever was on the cover drew my attention. This was until I went into a bookshop in St Lukes in the mid 1990s and saw 'Mojo' magazine The first cover I saw was of Howling Wolf. Um...eh??? Howling Wolf!!!!! This was a monthly that captured my heart and I've collected every copy since. I am the demographic - guys in their late 40s, early 50s who collected 'Sounds' and 'Groove' in their teenage years. And yes it is mainly guys. Go into Real Groovy and count the ratio of grey haired men to women of any age. Particularly if you just concentrate on the vinyl bins.

The latest Mojo had that feature on Ry Cooder I mentioned in the previous post. My top five Cooder albums:
5 Chicken Skin Music - Ry does Tex Mex and it's brill.
4 Boomer's Story - Another fantastic collection of songs. Stand outs - 'Dark end of the street' and 'Rally 'round the flag'.
3 The Border - 'Across the borderline' is one of Ry's best - it appears on at least 2 different albums with different lead singers. This one with Freddy Fender (yes that Freddy Fender) is sublime.
2 Into The Purple Valley - Every song is great and where else will you hear 'FDR in Trinidad'?
1 Showtime - one of the greatest live albums ever - deduct a point for the first song being a studio recording (even tho 'School is out' is a great song).

Looking at the showtime cover I realise that I particularly love vinyl covers that have no title attached of the artist or album title. Showtime has Ry on stage in what looks like a club setting with a weak spotlight on him. He's smiling (make no mistake - this is feelgood music - even when he's playing depression era songs like 'How can a poor man stand such times and live' and 'Dark end of the street'). A poster stuck to the wall is the only hint this is Ry's album and even then Flaco Jiminez's name is equally readable.

My top 5 album covers without title look like this:

5 Wings - Wild Life - Paul in the water with his best innocent pose. Band perched on a tree branch - great picture.
4 Led Zeppelin - Houses of the Holy - wow - I still remember the thrill of buying this in Sydney. The cover is better than the music inside!
3 The Beatles - Hey Jude - a collection of singles for the US market in 1970 was one of my Christmas presents in 1970. The cover is taken from the last publicity shots taken of the fabs - at John's place - Tittenhurst. They look terrific!
2 John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band and Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band - the one with Yoko and John under a tree at Tittenhurst. A fantastic picture - restful and at peace - nothing like the music inside. The Yoko picture reverses the position of the two under the tree.
1 Beatles - Abbey Road - an iconic portrait that needs no words.

Finally - sad news about Phil Spector. I like his mix of Let it Be (rather than Macca's naked attempt) and he deserves credit for the awesome simple sound he got on John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band. He's always been weird I guess and the various stories over the years don't paint him as a rational genius I'm afraid. On the news clips he looks like he hasn't got a clue what's going on! Very sad.

Music is love

So we (Jacky me and Samantha) were sitting in our favourite lunch place - Lush in New Plymouth's centre city - and Samantha was asking about my blogging for family/friends and why I didn't put more music posts on it and I said because a lot of wozza's place people don't read that stuff so I was limiting that from now on and Jacky (God bless her) said, "Why don't you just do a music blog and..." (I had drifted off into a distant realm). I think I said in a dreamy far away voice, "Of course - a blog just for my rants on music. But where do I start". Samantha helpfully suggested I start from the beginning!

The beginning - The beginning for me is watching the Ed Sullivan Show on New Zealand TV in maybe 1965 or 1966 (whenever NZBC got around to showing it. I was about 8 or 9) and wozza's place readers will know what effect that had on me. No surprise then that this blog is named after Lennon's walrus sound. The hooks were sharp and deep!

Since then it's been a life of collecting, reading about music, watching music, visiting music stores. I'll tackle each of those four areas in this blog in a very selfish indulgent way. Sounds like you? Welcome aboard!

I don't think the good people at Mojo magazine will ever contact me for my - All back to mine - questions so here they are by way of introduction to my musical adventures:

WARREN PURDY (Love Warren Peace)

What music are you currently grooving to?
I'm constantly buying and listening to music - right now as I type I'm listening to Interpol's 'Our Love to Admire'. I like it and Bon Iver's 'For Emily' albums a lot. I read a recent Mojo feature on Ry Cooder so I dug out my vinyl collection (which stops at 'Get Rhythm' and 'The Border' soundtrack).

Also liking the Greg Johnson collection 'The Best Yet' and I'm in a Dream Theater/Porcupine Tree frame of mind of late. I also have a pile of new purchases to work through - Feeder, The Supremes, Travis, Van Morrison, and Gnarls Barkley among them (the pile at present is pictured).


What, if push came to shove, is your all-time favourite album?
In all my various best of lists two albums have always vied for best ever - The Beatles white album (really called 'the Beatles'), and John Lennon's 1970 solo album - 'John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band'. The shock of the invention and honesty in each makes them my favs by some distance.

What was the first record you ever bought? And where did you buy it?
I've an unreliable memory on this. I've always thought it was The Hollies single 'Hey Willie' that I bought from the record bar in 246 (a large mall in Queen St, Auckland). However this was in 1971 and I'd already got some albums before that for Christmas 1970 The Beatles 'Hey Jude' - from a record shop in Otahuhu and I also had a clutch of albums including a best of The Cowsills, a Monkees album and a Hollies album around this same time.

Which musician, other than yourself, have you ever wanted to be?
The Mojo questions are often given to musicians of course and I'm not one. However for a while there after seeing Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee in concert (I was about 10 feet away at Nambassa) I bought a blues harp and wailled along with Sonny - desperate to be as cool as he was.

What do you sing in the shower?
Tonight was a bath and it was Oye Como Va (Tito Puente was playing in the next room).

What is your favourite Saturday night song?
I twitch around and air guitar immediately to Deep Purple's 'Made in Japan' album and 'Highway Star' in particular.

And your Sunday morning record?
I keep going back to the well with Van Morrison - anything really by Van gets me in that mood. And The Durutti Column - his guitar sound always reminds me Sunday morning sleep ins at Lorna Street, New Plymouth.