Billy Thorpe and the Aztecs – Blue Day
Sandy Bull – Little Maggie (1963)
Joni Mitchell – Stormy Weather
Asteroid #4 – Empty Like A Little Child
Gregg Allman – Devil Got My Woman
Jorma Kaukonen – Blue Railroad Train
Steel Panther – Girl from Oklahoma
Sonic Youth – Drunken Butterfly
Frank Zappa – Call Any Vegetable
Baby Woodrose – Talkin’ Bout Love
Doc Watson & Merle Watson – Little Maggie
Al Petteway – Maggie’s Reel
Ivan Drever & Duncan Chisholm – Fiddle Reels: Maggie’s Pancakes / The Little Cascade
Morlocks – Sex Panther
Nirvana – You know youre right
Swans – 93 Ave. B Blues / Little Mouth
Bill Frisell – Twenty Years
Kodo – Bird Island
Oscar Peterson Trio – Daahoud
Munir Bashar – Taqsim Rast
Hank Williams – A Tramp On The Street
Doc & Merle Watson/Merle Watson – The Hobo
Charlie Byrd/Herb Ellis/Mundell Lowe – Billy Bean
Count Basie – Feedin’ the Bean
Coleman Hawkins – Bouncing with Bean
Puma Broadcasting Network – Station ID 2
Buffalo – Bean Stew
Jorma Kaukonen – Waiting for a Train
Wayne Hancock – Flatland Boogie
Charlie Hunter/Skerik/Stanton Moore – Boogaloo Boogie
Jack Dejohnette – Jamala
Gateway – Cinuçen
Swans – Inside Madeline
Morsel – Didj Drone
Ravi Shankar – Poornamadah
Kodo – Berimbau Jam
Naima K – Lelilanga
Nomad – Ahulakamine Hulan
The Jesus and Mary Chain – Facing Up To The Facts
Telstar Sound Drone – Drugs Help
Black Light White Light – The New Line
Mission of Burma – Secrets
Doctor Explosion – Aint Coming Home
Screaming Jets – FRC
Kat McSnatch – You Are a Cunt
Swans – You Fucking People Make Me Sick
The Gyuto Monks – Guhyasamaja Tantra. Chapter II
Sun of Man – Whispering Jackoff
Led Zeppelin – Good Times Bad Times
The Black Crowes – Black Moon Creeping
Vista Chino – Dargona Dragona
Vista Chino – Sweet Remain
Tony Iommi/Henry Rollins – Laughing Man in the Devil Mask
Slo Burn – Prizefighter
Clutch – A Shogun Named Marcus
Wayne Fontana and the MindBenders – Groovy Kind of Love
Amboy Dukes – Baby Please Dont Go
Ron Gallo – Young Lady, You’re Scaring Me
The Turtles – You, Baby
Herman’s Hermits – Mrs. Brown You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter
Spin Doctors – Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong
The Black Crowes – Remedy
The Bad Plus – Iron Man
Clutch – High-Caliber Consecrator
Deftones – Change (In the House of Flies)
Chingy – Right Thurr
Timezone LaFontaine – Crunks Not Dead ’04
RemixGodSuede – I Can’t Die Today, I Got Court Tomorrow
Billy Thorpe and the Aztecs – Momma (live on GTK)
Om – Addis
Black Angels – Paladin’s Last Stand
Fugazi – Returning the Screw
Fugazi – Foreman’s Dog
DJ Kay Slay – 60 Second Assassins
San Francisco Mouse – Slam the Jam
The Joy Formidable – Cradle
Mammoth Indigo – Flowers in the Basement
dEUS – Bad Timing
The Volcanics – Get a Move On
The Heavy – That Kind Of Man
Sena Ehrhardt – If Trouble Was Money
Cody Jasper – Locked Up (Homesick)
Jimmy Barnes/Joe Bonamassa – Lazy (Deep Purple)
Betty Blowtorch – Hell on Wheels
59 Times The Pain – Weakend Revolution
Sleater-Kinney – All Hands on the Bad One
Siouxsie and the Banshees – Helter Skelter (Beatles)
The Rebel Set – Falling Apart
Priests – Pink White House
Anders Osborne – Darkness At The Bottom
Joe Bonamassa – Oh Beautiful!
Buddy Guy – Baby Please Don’t Leave Me
Melvins – Lizzy
Bleached – Sleepwalking
Shack – 24 Hours
Peaches – Turn It On (Franz Ferdinand)
PBN – Station ID 2
Gnod – Paper Error
Jesu – Your Path to Divinity
Alestorm – Fucked With an Anchor
Flogging Molly – Queen Anne’s Revenge
OFF – Fuck People
Dozer – Drawing Dead
These Arms Are Snakes – Lead Beater
Before I Had Wings – No Redemption
OFF – Darkness
Sharkey Bonano – Has Anybody Here Seen My Kitty
Spacemen 3 – Come Down Easy
Spacemen 3 – Call the Doctor
Matthew Howard – Drone (a poem)
Matthew Howard – Transformations (live)
Cambrian Explosion – Innocuous Creatures
A Perfect Circle – Annihilation
Jimi Hendrix – Drone Blues
Esbjörn Svensson Trio – Elevation of Love
Debashish Bhattacharya – Maya
Subterranean Jazz – Blue Pearl
Ralph Towner – Drifting Petals
Northwoods Improvisers/Faruq Z. Bey – Fountain
Tinariwen (+IO:I) – Sastanàqqàm
Mark Lanegan – When It’s in You (original Methamphetamine Blues)
Mark Lanegan – Bombed
Jimi Hendrix – Belly Button Window
Roosevelt Sykes – Sunny Road
Munir Bashar – Taqsim Rast
Homayun Sakhi – Kataghani
Jimmy Wages – Miss Pearl
Sade – Pearls
John Coltrane – Black Pearls
Steve Reich – Electric Counterpoint
Datura – Mantra
I Solisti di Zagreb (Vivaldi) – Allegro (Concerto fur Streichorchester and Cembalo G Major)
Nirvana – Breed
Tune-up clip from Stooges documentary
Dope Life – Die Motherfucker Die
Snot – Snot
Nickelback – Follow You Home
Killing Joke – The Death and Resurrection Show
Phant – End of Daonnachta
Clouds Taste Satanic – Out of the Abyss
Megadeth – The Threat Is Real
Murder City Devils – Johnny Thunders
Dopethrone – Dry Hitter
Papa Roach – Dead Cell
Buffalo Fuzz – Hard Lovin Body
Sky Valley Mistress – She Is So
Graham Day and The Gaolers – Wanna Smoke
Mono Men – Wimp
Fu Manchu – Eatin’ Dust
The Bloody Honkies – I Don’t Care About Your Man
Sonic’s Rendezvous Band – Getting There (Is Half the Fun)
Black Label Society – Funeral Bell
Nashville Pussy – Go Motherfucker Go
Scarling – Band-Aid Covers the Bullet Hole
Hoodoo Gurus – Down on Me
Killing Joke – You’ll Never Get to Me
Wo Fat – Common Ground
Sumac – Hollow King
Sumac – The Radiance of Being
Om – Unitive Knowledge of the Godhead
Mammothwing – Chump Change
Jay and Silent Bob – Fat Man in an Overcoat
Jay and Silent Bob – Fuck Rap
Pailhead – Anthem
Solomon Burke – Maggie’s Farm (Bob Dylan)
Danny Gatton – Thirteen Women
Bitch & Animal – Angels Heard on High
Aphrodite’s Child – The Four Horsemen
Primal Scream – Slip Inside This House
Primal – The Hustle
Kokolo – Soul Power
Foo Fighters – My Poor Brain
Life Leone – Is This Love
Queens Of The Stone Age – Regular John
All Them Witches – Don’t Bring Me Coffee
The Bravery – Believe
Boomtown Rats – Mary of the 4th Form
The Eyes – I’m Rowed Out
Life Leone – An Education
Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Rich
Melvins – The Green Manalishi Parts 1 and 2
Primal – Lucky Soul
Space Siren – You’ve Tattooed My Brain All Away
Queens Of The Stone Age – You Can’t Quit Me Baby
Sean Wheeler & Xander Schloss – Good Pussy
Jay Reatard – In the Dark
Fugazi – Ex-Spectator
Pothead – Deliverance
Robert Walter – Circle Limit
Life Leone – Lonely Teacher
Refused – Rather Be Dead
Refused – Circle Pit
Deftones – Lotion
Silent Servant – Speed and Violence
Architectural – Peacetime
Sound Out – Gotta Be Acid (original mix)
PBN Station ID 7
Primal – Got A Hold On Me
Queens of the Stone Age – Walkin’ on the Sidewalks
Primes – Bodies
Life Leone – Trust Me
Wo Fat – Sleep of the Black Lotus
No Mad – Mental Revolution
Marcus Lazarus – What You Got (Is What I Need)
Beck – Debra
Stoned Jesus – I’m the Mountain
NARLA – Lie To You
Ben Reaves – Trains (Porcupine Tree cover)
Days of the New – Shelf in the Room
Black Angels – Bloodhounds on My Trail
Stone Temple Pilots – Down
Head Control System – Kiss from a Rose (Seal cover)
Steve Rothery – The Ghosts of Pripyat
Stone Roses – Begging You
Black Light White Light – Higher Than Low
Boomtown Rats – Mary of the 4th Form (single version)
Mono Men – You’re Gonna Miss Me (13th Floor Elevators cover)
Bikini Beach – Emily
Flatliners – Cry Cry Cry (Johnny Cash cover)
Hoodoo Gurus – Down on Me
Bikini Kill – Rebel Girl
Not Ur Girlfrenz – I Will Follow (U2 cover)
Wooden Shjips – Back to Land
Electric Eye – 6 a.m.
Panic Room – Satellite
Radiohead – Everything in Its Right Place
Melody Gardot – Love Me Like a River Does
Bravery – The Ocean
Jane’s Addiction – Then She Did
Sonic Youth – Small Flowers Crack Concrete
Rescues – My Heart with You
Depeche Mode – Stripped (10-inch remix)
Astrud Gilberto – Fly Me to the Moon
The Mamas & the Papas – Dream a Little Dream of Me
Bert Jansch – Alice’s Wonderland
Trio Marsicano – Machine Gun (Hendrix)
Powderfinger – My Happiness
World Saxophone Quartet – Freedom (Hendrix)
Shawn Lane – Peace in Mississippi (Hendrix)
Jimi Hendrix – Lullaby for the Summer
Emmylou Harris – May This Be Love (Hendrix)
Terje Rypdal – Into The Wilderness
Sonny Hines – Has Anybody Seen My Kitty
Tchavolo Schmitt – It Had to Be You
Flogging Molly – Devil’s Dance Floor
Chuck Carbo and The Soul Finders – Can I Be Your Squeeze
Toadies – Sweetness
Sr La Muerte – The Power
Skull Defekts – A Message from the Skull Defekts
Shihad – FVEY
Molior Superum – Försummad
Bug vs Earth – City of Fallen Angels
Terje Rypdal – Out of This World (Sinfonietta)
Schooner Fare – The Mary L. McKay
Sabrina Carpenter – Why
Linton Kwesi Johnson – Two Sounds of Silence
Delerium – Silence (with Sarah McLachlan)
Valentine Six – Silencer
Flogging Molly – A Prayer for Me in Silence
Béla Fleck – Prelude to Silence
Prasanna – Culture of Silence
Charlie Haden, Liberation Music Orchestra – Silence
Prasanna – Nasika Blues
Bill Dutcher – Echoing Pathways
Charles Lloyd – Nataraj
Trio Nine – Fragments of Multiplying Images
Robert Silverman – Scherzo: Allegro energico
Linton Kwesi Johnson – Reality Poem
Avik Deirmenjian read by Silva Uzbashian – Armenian Poem 1
Philippa Fallon – Tomorrow Is a Drag (from High School Confidential, 1958)
Savages – Shut Up
Sonic Youth – Small Flowers Crack Concrete
Sonic Youth – Tremens
Trio Nine – Cezanne
Boris – Interference Demon / The Evil One Which Sobs (live)
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club – Weapon of Choice (UK Version)
The Donnas – All Messed Up
King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard – I’m in Your Mind (medley) (Live on KEXP)
Unlabeled Bagpipes and Drums Track
Russian Circles – Deficit
10000 Russos – Stakonovets
Marvin the Martian and Bugs Bunny – Space Modulator
Sonic Youth – Hyperstation
Apathy and OC – The Broadcast
Bonehawk – Nomad
Graham Day and The Gaolers – Wanna Smoke
Flogging Molly – The Light of a Fading Star
Flyying Colours – It’s Tomorrow Now
Joy – Misunderstood
Captain Crimson – Ghost Town
Robert Walter – Dump Track
Sonora Ritual – Ryff Ryder
Unida – Delta Alba Plex
Chapstik – Black Opium Fermata
Alice in Chains – Sickman
Alice in Chains – Pretty Done
Graham Day and the Gaolers – Glad I’m Not Young
Soundgarden – Boot Camp
Danzig – Trouble (Elvis Presley)
Paul Wall – Sittin’ Sidewayz
Chingy – Right Thurr
Eric B and Rakim – Don’t Sweat The Technique
Control Machete – Comprendes Mendes
Snoop Dogg – Gzs and Hustlas
PBN Station ID 4
Pile – Special Snowflakes EP
Jorma Kaukonen – Red River Blues
Wayne Hancock – Tulsa
Doc & Merle Watson/Merle Watson – Coal Miner’s Blues
Dolly Parton – Muleskinner Blues
Hank Williams – The Blues Come Around
Bill Frisell – Blues Dream
Rahsaan Roland Kirk – Blues for Alice [Master Take]
Milt Jackson – Blues at Twilight
Kokolo-Soul Power
PBN Station ID 3
KK & Alisha Chinai – Touch Me (Dhoom 2 Soundtrack)
Daler Mehndi – Tunak Tunak Tun
BunHeaD – Touch Me Crazy
Das Racist – Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell
Arsenal & John Garcia: Diggin’ a Hole
Hank Williams: There’s No Room in My Heart for the Blues
Styx: Prelude/Suite Madame Blue
Soundgarden: Black Saturday
Tinariwen: Assuf D Alwa
Bireli Lagrene: Un Certain Je Ne Sais Quoi
Wayne Hancock: Railroad Blues
Doc & Merle Watson: Slidin’ Delta
Doc Watson: The Train That Carried My Girl From Town
Debashish Bhattacharya: Amrit Anand
Warhorse: Red Sea
Stonerror: The Wolf
Stonerror: Tomorrow Never Knows (live Beatles cover)
Slo Burn: Prizefighter
Mad City Rockers & John Garcia: Stronger
Narla: Invisible Whole
Breeders: Invisible Man
Henry Rollins: Invisible Woman Blues
Screaming Trees: Invisible Lantern
Soundgarden: Nothing to Say
Soundgarden: Boot Camp
Soundgarden: Fourth of July
These three audio collages are comprised of song samples chopped up, layered, and re-arranged using only the free software Audacity. They were inspired by an old friend who made mix tapes in the 1980s (and more recently, mix CDs) by stringing together only the most awesome few seconds of each of 99 songs.
My versions of that idea are relentless assaults of drum fills, guitar riffs, screams, beats, memorable lines, and other madness arranged in a way that might only make sense to me but which you might also find kind of groovy.
Click the titles to listen to the mp3 files. Download them if you like.
Last year I sent copy of the Meteor Mags: Omnibus Edition to a band whose albums I listened to approximately one million times while writing the story Voyage of the Calico Tigress. Mags and her crew, including space monkeys and telepathic octopuses, do an impromptu performance of one of Snail’s songs. In return, I received a note saying, “This is the coolest thing ever,” which made me smile. I’m glad the guys got a kick out of it.
Here are some other albums which have been in heavy rotation in the secret writing laboratory—albums where once they start playing, I don’t ever want them to end.
Unida: El Coyote.
If the Internet is to be believed, Unida’s final album was never released by their record label, but was eventually made available directly to fans at concerts. It is often found on the web with different titles, but I like El Coyote. Singer John Garcia, formerly of the legendary Kyuss, is Mags’ favorite vocalist, and references to his various projects pepper her stories like buckshot.
Hell Camino: Hell Camino.
I almost always listen to this album back-to-back with its follow-up,Orange Lily, because I love the sound that much. If memory serves correctly, I first heard Hell Camino last year on one of my two favorite Internet radio stations: Desert Sessions Radio. At night (in Arizona time), the station tends to play 60s and 70s rock, but they rarely spin a tune that was already played to death by traditional “classic rock” stations. During the day, the station is thunderously heavy, raining down a constant onslaught of modern bands who trace their family trees back to Black Sabbath. [UPDATE: The Desert Sessions Radio streaming URL seems to have changed recently. Find them online at http://www.jango.com/stations/282639559/tunein]
Bullet: The Entrance to Hell.
Bullet changed their name to “Hard Stuff” because another Bullet already existed. You can find the Hard Stuff albums on YouTube, but I’m partial to this odd reissue under the original name. Maybe because the first time I heard it, my mind was blown by hearing a song from the incredible compilation series Nuggets in a random YouTube recommendation. Nuggets rocked my world with so many garage/psychedelic/heavy bands from the UK and Australia that I am still reeling from the impact years later.
Wo Fat: Noche del Chupacabra.
Wo Fat convinced me that C minor is the heaviest key of all time. They are the reason I got a baritone electric guitar to tune to Drop C. My favorite songs on this album are Common Ground and Descent into the Maelstrom, the latter of which shares a title with a totally different yet amazingly ass-kicking song by Australia’s Radio Birdman. You really can’t go wrong with any Wo Fat album. Psychedelonaut slays with tunes like Analog Man, and The Black Code is a masterpiece withHurt at Gone and Sleepof the Black Lotus, a title I believe to be inspired by my favorite Conan story Queen of the Black Coast, about a female pirate.
Orange Goblin: Time Travelling Blues.
I never heard an album I didn’t like from Orange Goblin, but this is the one that stays in heavy rotation. From the rumbling drum riff that opens to album to the closing song that shares the album’s title, it’s such a hefty slab of rock and roll that I usually listen to it twice in a row. The title song’s declaration “We own the sky” has become a recurring motif in Mags’ stories, and her band covers it in their concert in Blind Alley Blues.
Black Angels: Passover.
I attended a Black Angels concert last October in downtown Phoenix, and the music was so simultaneously heavy and beautiful. These cats annihilate me. The band hails from Austin, Texas, but I first heard them courtesy of the Europeans who run my other favorite Internet radio station, GRRR Radio. GRRR Radio’s streaming URL is: http://pstnet5.shoutcastnet.com:50390 This album doesn’t have what is perhaps my favorite Black Angels song, Currency, but it’s damned amazing all the way through. Black Grease and Bloodhounds on My Trail are my faves on this one.
My father died two years ago today, after a long bout with cancer that spread from his spleen to eventually his brain and his whole body. Dad and I did not agree on most things, and my teens were times of conflict, to put it mildly. But in my twenties, we were able to put most of that behind us and just hang out.
Dad never understood my love for playing guitar until I was in my thirties. Then one day, he started sending me emails asking about mandolins—and I’m an easy target for anyone and everyone who has questions about music theory and stringed instruments. I don’t know exactly what turned him on to the mandolin, but soon he got into guitar. Our relationship reached a turning point after he got his first guitar and told me, “Now I get why you were into this.”
All I could say was, “It’s pretty awesome, isn’t it?”
By then, we were separated by great geographical distance. But when I would visit, Dad stocked the refrigerator with beer and tuned up his growing collection of guitars, and we would play together for hours. I would show him a few techniques and answer his theory questions, and we played from charts he had for country and worship music he liked.
By the time I got into my forties, Dad’s arthritis made it increasingly difficult for him to play. But he still loved buying guitars, and trading them in later for other models, and getting on Internet forums to discuss gear, and trying new types of strings. He often performed at his church, accompanying his impressively deep bass voice with his ever-growing arsenal of acoustic guitars.
It was a massive about-face from his discouraging attitude toward my love of something which, for twenty years, had basically defined my entire life: playing the guitar. He eventually told me why he was so antagonistic toward my interest, and the reason is probably too personal to blog about. The important point is this: he eventually changed his tune.
Perhaps my fondest memories of Dad are the ones we created over a 12-pack of beer and 12 vibrating strings, jamming in unison. He never got to the level he wanted to with the instrument, but he kept trying and learning and improving. At the age of 44, I can tell you that journey never ends. One day, you pick up the axe, and something changes inside you. You’re never the same afterwards.
Long live the glorious island republic of Scandinavia. They make some awesome music there. What’s that you say? You can’t find it on a map? Then try this one.
I started to get a clue about what a Scandinavia is right about the time I first heard Hoven Droven’s tune SlentBjenn. Taking the energy of a rock band, adding fiddle and saxophone, and drawing on folk material, Hoven Droven lays down some seriously heavy grooves with beautiful melodies.
Below, you will see scans of their album Groove, which you can score on Amazon, and the first Nordic Roots sampler that features one of their tunes. If you want to get totally Scandinavian, Nordic Roots put out a second and third sampler of awesome bands from the region.
In 1962, Art Blakey recorded The African Beat not with his quintessentially swinging Jazz Messengers but a percussion ensemble. Yusef Lateef, who also recorded modern jazz albums using Asian and African ideas, joins the ensemble. The result is a sumptuously rhythmic album that often gets overlooked, perhaps due to its defiance of easy categorization.
Nat Hentoff’s liner notes give a brief but enlightening explanation of the music’s sources and the musicians’ cultural backgrounds. I recommend The African Beat for fans of jazz, percussion, “world” music, and African music. Fans of jazz/rock fusions and prog rock might also like this album, if they want to expand their listening into some other types of musical fusion.
Making art quickly makes chaos out of your walls. Things get hung at random and, over the course of a year, lose all sense of order. Closing out 2015 required a bit of wall patching, cleaning, painting, and re-hanging.
Yesterday saw the arrival of the proof copy of a music album I’ll be publishing this month. The CD looks and sounds great, but I found the volume to be too low compared to most of today’s music. I plan to return to my master files, crank the volume a bit, and resubmit the audio before making an official release. The artwork, which I designed using scans of an acrylic painting and an ink drawing, came out really nice. I’m excited to get this album and one more music album published before the new semester begins.
I don’t do the tree thing in December, but the art studio desperately needed some suitable greenery. Here in the desert, we get ordinary house flies all year long, even in the winter. Otherwise the weather is so nice you can open windows and doors and let the cat come and go as she pleases and enjoy the sunlight and play guitar on the porch and… then the flies. It doesn’t take but a couple in the house to drive me mad. But, when life gives you flies, grow Venus flytraps.
Nothing says seasonal festivity like a carnivorous plant. I ordered this one on eBay from “Joe’s Carnivorous Plants”. She just ate her first fly yesterday. I was so proud. The leaves are thin enough that when the sun shines on them you can see the pesky little fly trapped in there.
That should keep the freshly cleaned and organized sketch room from devolving into pestilence and infestation for another year! Go, little flytrap!
