Genesis : Mama

Peter Gabriel left Genesis in 1975, leaving Phil Collins to captain the ship. As time went by, even with Phil embarking on a solo career in 1981 (not to mention Mike + the Mechanics stepping out in '85), he still managed to keep the band together, selling albums and getting them into the charts. They released their self-titled album in '83, right as MTV was really catching on.

"Mama" is an example of a style which I think Phil borrowed heavily from Peter's 1980 "melting face" album*. You can see Phil's first experiment with it in the intro to the classic "In the Air Tonight" in 1981. He followed it up by producing Frida's "I Know There's Something Going On" and then his own "I Don't Care Anymore" in 1982.  All of these songs are propelled by an incessant, heavy, electronic groove and layered with brooding moody synths, building slowly to a crescendo as the song progresses. The lyrical content is generally dark as well, further adding to the atmosphere.

"Mama" is no exception.  It starts slow and heavy, slowly building up as the band adds layers of sound to the beat, including Phil's own drumming, and his vocals become more and more ragged and insistent. The lyrics are all about 'pain', 'heat' and 'steam', which lend to the general creepiness, as do the weird little laughs and moans Phil drops in.  Of course, the fact that throughout the entire song the singer is begging someone named 'Mama' not to leave him, only further ups the Norman Bates feel.  Apparently, the song's about a young man's fixation with a prostitute.  News to me, but it's still plenty creepy without knowing that.

"Mama" can be found on Genesis' 1983 self-titled release.  This album has the distinction of being one of the first physical CDs I ever owned, along with Hot Rocks by The Rolling Stones and Abbey Road by The Beatles.  My dad bought them for me, along with a little CD boombox, as a going-off-to-college gift, except he liked Abbey Road so much, he kept it for himself.  It's okay, don't worry, I've since bought my own copy.

*Trivia: He made the melting face by taking a Polaroid snapshot of himself and smooshing the goop around inside it with an eraser before it developed. Try it at home kids!

[You can listen to Genesis' "Mama" by navigating to the post "Song097" and clicking or right-clicking on the title or the link.]

---

Red Hot Chili Peppers : Nobody Weird Like Me

Back before the Red Hot Chili Peppers lost their cojones under the bridge, they were a pretty fierce funk-punk alternative radio standard.  When Mother's Milk came out in 1989, it was still two years before Nirvana would shatter the Billboard charts (thanks to SoundScan) and bring hard rock back into vogue as a potential revenue stream.  At the time I was just discovering the college radio scene (having just gone to college and all) and was listening to Nothing's Shocking, Disintegration and Hunkpapa on heavy rotation.  (I didn't discover the Pixies until much later.)  Mother's Milk fell right into the mix.

"Nobody Weird Like Me" is a great example of the crosscutting of funk and punk the band was famous for.  It begins with a hyperactive funk bass line, hammered out by Flea in quadruple time.  It's quickly joined by jackhammer drums and a metal-ish rock riff.  The song careens along at full pace, highlighted by Anthony Kiedis' rock-rap vocals and intermittent vocoder exclamations, until it culminates in an explosion that peters out into a slow funk groove for the remaining minute or so of the song.  Blam.

"Nobody Weird Like Me" appears on the Red Hot Chili Pepper's 1989 release, Mother's Milk.

[You can listen to Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Nobody Weird Like Me" by navigating to the post "Song096" and clicking or right-clicking on the title or the link.]

---

Bubble Puppy : Hot Smoke & Sassafras

Heh. Bubble Puppy. Bubble Puppy hails from the great state of Texas, home to such rock legends as ZZ Top and The 13th Floor Elevators. In 1969 they committed "Hot Smoke & Sassafras" to vinyl and managed to score a Top 20 pop hit with it. They followed it up with an album that failed to go anywhere and promptly folded.

But, aside from the obvious appeal of the name of both band and song, the tune itself is pretty great. It lands pretty squarely in the hard psychedelic rock genre, somewhere between Yes and Jimi Hendrix. Or maybe Cream. There are nice hard blues-rock riffs with slightly aggressive rhythm change-ups, copious use of stereo panning and sweet sweet vocal harmonies.  There's even a nice little rocking breakdown in the middle and the lyrics are gloriously dopey. 

I first learned of Bubble Puppy while reading the rock bible, Rock and the Pop Narcotic, by Joe Carducci.  In it, Joe tries to breakdown what makes rock rock and why that is different than pop.  I once got into a debate over whether Van Morrison was "classic rock". If you know the answer (and it's not "yes"*) or consider yourself a true die-hard rock music fan, you must read this book.

You can find "Hot Smoke & Sassafras" on Bubble Puppy's 1969 release, A Gathering of Promises. It really is a great little song and it's sad it hasn't seen more play.

* This fellow was trying to tell me that "Brown-Eyed Girl" was classic rock.  Van Morrison is classic and has some amazing tunes, but he doesn't rock, pretty much ever, unless you are talking about his stint with the awesome Them, in which case, he did fucking rock. 

[You can listen to Bubble Puppy's "Hot Smoke & Sassafras" by navigating to the post "Song095" and clicking or right-clicking on the title or the link.]

---

Uminski : Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger

Philippe Uminski is a French artist who I don't know much about.  There's nothing in Wikipedia to help me out and precious little on his last.fm page.  But that's okay.  We're really here to talk about his cover of Daft Punk's "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger".

Considering that the awesomeness of the original lies primarily in its jazzed up funk based on Edwin Birdsong's killer riff and use of vocodered vocals as the main instrument, this rock cover should fail.  It has no funk, and there's nothing jazzy about it, instead opting for a straight-ahead four-on-the-floor hard rock riff straight out of a 60's garage, with power chords that would make Pete Townshend weep with joy.  There's clearly no synthed-up vocals, or synths of any kind.  Instead the lyrics are shouted with a ferocity and intensity that turns them into a punk rock call to arms.  Plus there's those background "Wooooooo!" vocals that can't help but make you smile.  At the halfway point, there's a bit of a reprieve with a little Deliverance sample and a tasty funk intermission, but then it's right back into the fray, non-stop to the very end.

It really shouldn't work, but it really does.  This awesome cover can be found on Uminski's 2005 release, Sain & Sauf.  I have no idea where you could buy it from.

[You can listen to Uminski's cover of Daft Punk's "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger" by navigating to the post "Song093" and clicking or right-clicking on the title or the link.]

---

Team9 / The Beatles : Eleanor Rigby

Here's another rock on rock mash.  Once again someone has taken a Beatles original and mashed it against another tune with an edge, showing how hard the Beatles could have rocked had they really, really wanted to ("Helter Skelter" not withstanding).

Team9 careens Paul's dour classic "Eleanor Rigby" off Queens of the Stone Age's hard rocker "In My Head", almost totally stripping out the dainty double string quartet that anchored the song before, keeping only a touch, and replacing it with rock riffs and a little keyboard that somehow match the song perfectly.  The vocals are even processed in a way that sounds a lot like Josh's trademark stoner rock murmur.  Unfortunately, I have more pictures than words for this one, as there isn't much more to say about it than I've already said for previous mashes.  But it's nice to hear the Beatles really rock out.

You can't buy the mash anywhere, but you can pick up the original "Eleanor Rigby" on the Beatles' 1966 Revolver and the original "In My Head" on Queens of the Stone Age's 2005 release, Lullabies to Paralyze.

[You can listen to Team9's mash of the Beatles' "Eleanor Rigby" by navigating to the post "Song088" and clicking or right-clicking on the title or the link.]

---

Party Ben / Radiohead : Reckoner

I'm not a big Radiohead fan, so I'm not real familiar with this tune.  I am a big Timbaland fan, although he's kind of played out lately, but I'm not familiar with the instrumental (Justin Timberlake's "My Love") used here either.  In any case, like many good mashups, I think this is a fortuitous juxtaposition by someone with a good ear.

The Radiohead tune is typical long-winded keening from Thom Yorke.  The original has him moaning over a pretty standard rock four-by-four beat.  Party Ben has taken the ultra-funky backing track from Justin's song and layered Thom's vocals over it and the result is, in my opinion, a drastic improvement.  The song moves from pedestrian to symphonic, with the lyrics soaring over the syrupy-thick electronic backdrop.  And the catcalls and beatboxing sprinkled liberally throughout, serve to destroy the cloying pretentiousness that normally permeates a Radiohead track.  Plus, they're just awesome.

You can't purchase the mash, but Radiohead's original is available on their 2008 release, In Rainbows, and Justin Timberlake's "My Love" is available on his 2006 release, FutureSex/LoveSounds, which also houses his smash hit "SexyBack".

[You can listen to Party Ben's mash of Radiohead's "Reckoner" by navigating to the post "Song087" and clicking or right-clicking on the title or the link.]

---

---

Go Home Productions / X-Press 2 : Lazy (ft. David Byrne)

Here's another of my early favorite mashes.  This one is similar to Skee-Lo's "I Wish" in that I had never heard the original before hearing the mash, so to me, the mash is 'the original'.  And frankly, it's much better than the original.

Popular-culture-wise, there's all sorts of things going on.  First, there's David Byrne singing vocals on a track by some band called X-Press 2. Then, Go Home Productions takes as their base for the song, Kelly Osbourne's version of Madonna's "Papa Don't Preach".  That's like six different collaborators thrown into a giant vat and out pours this amalgam of rock that might be the best thing David Byrne has done since Talking Heads broke up.

I'm not quite sure how he did it, but the rock of the original fits perfectly under David's vocals.  Every little bit matches so perfectly, it's hard to believe they were two completely different songs.

You can't buy "Lazy" anywhere, but X-Press 2's original can be found on their 2002 release Muzikizum, and Kelly Osbourne's cover is on the 2002 single release, Papa Don't Preach.

[You can listen to Go Home Productions' mash of X-Press 2's "Lazy (ft. David Byrne)" by navigating to the post "Song082" and clicking or right-clicking on the title or the link.]

---

The Eagles : The Disco Strangler

I don't have much to say about the Eagles. I mean, they're the fucking Eagles for god's sake. What could I say that hasn't been written already? Except that one of the functions of this blog is to introduce you to interesting music you probably haven't heard before, and this song almost certainly falls into this category (unless you're a huge Eagles fan).

It is a very strange song. It sounds a bit like someone rammed "Life in the Fast Lane" headlong into Studio 54 and the result was this mangled wreckage of a tune. It's funky, fooling around with a disco offbeat, but it's hypersyncopated, too funky to really dance to. The angular guitar is clearly a Walshian Eagles lick, but it's off-kilter with the rest of the track and the snare staggers around like a drunk at closing time. The whole thing stumbles along, seemingly ready to come crashing down at any moment, but it manages to hold itself together, and in the end you end up with a frustratingly catchy tune.

"The Disco Strangler" is available on the Eagles' final 70's release, The Long Run, which has a bunch of hits on it, as well as the so-awesome-I-almost-posted-it-instead "Those Shoes".

Listen to "The Disco Strangler" on Spotify.
Listen to The Long Run of Spotify.

---

Back Door : Catcote

I first heard of Back Door while researching a sample from a Beastie Boys record. They had a song called "Stand Together" on their 1992 LP, Check Your Head, that sampled a Back Door track called "Slivadiv". If you know the song you'd instantly recognize the crazed honking sax riff they borrowed.

Anyway, we tracked the record down in the hallowed annals of WRUW and gave it a listen. I thought it interesting, but not spectacular. Years later, I ran across it on some sort of P2P network and pulled it down because I wanted to hear the sample in context again.  But I listened to the whole album a couple of times and it grew on me.

Back Door is a bass-drums-sax trio that plays music along the lines of progressive rock or jazz-rock fusion like Mahavishnu Orchestra or Return to Forever.  This particular song starts off with a bang, rocking hard from the get-go, hammering a staccato jazz riff a couple of times to make sure you really get it.  Then they toss in a quick variation or two and head right into the solo.  I love when the sax player first takes a breath and someone in the background yells "Yeah!"  They're absolutely right.  The sax wails through the solo over a furiously funky backbeat and the band finishes off by beating on the riff one more time.  This whirlwind of a song is a concise chunk of rock that never lets up on the energy.  It reminds me a little of the highly engineered rock of the Ruins.

"Catcote" is from Back Door's self-titled debut from 1973.  The whole album is great, especially if you like jazz-rock fusion.  The band was notable for using the bass as a lead instrument along with sax and for being one of the first groups to use chords on the bass.  The songs range from soft ballads to full-on riff-rockers like this one, but they're all pretty good.

[You can listen to Back Door's "Catcote" by navigating to the post "Song078" and clicking or right-clicking on the title or the link.]

---

John Martyn : I'd Rather Be the Devil (Live)

This is another psychedelic folk number, like Jake Holmes, Tim Buckley or American Gypsy.  John Martyn was a British singer who was a pioneer in the folk-rock and blues-rock traditions developing across the pond in the late 60's.  Apparently he was pretty good friends with Nick Drake, another psychedelic folker who you might see pop up in these pages in the next year.

John began working with a jazz bassist for this album, which might explain it's general funkiness and meandering song structures.  They vary in energy from the nice light straight-up folk of "May You Never" to the harder blues edge of Skip James' "I'd Rather Be the Devil" which is the star of the album.  I've selected the live version because it's a little edgier than the album version, but they're both excellent.

The song kicks of with some acoustic guitar played through an echo pedal, which sounds distinctly similar to "On the Run" by Pink Floyd.  Then the bongos kick in and the song launches itself, buoyed by near constant tom work.  It lurches forward from verse to verse, full of tension that rarely, if ever, dissipates at all through the song.  You do get the feeling that the devil is really riding out after him.  John has a unique way of singing, a slurry, sibilant, almost falsetto (see: Nick Drake), that further pushes the song into psychedelic territory.

You can find this live version of "I'd Rather Be the Devil" on the re-release of his seminal 1973 release, Solid Air.  It's a fantastic album, great listening for a dark, rainy night.

[You can listen to John Martyn's "I'd Rather Be the Devil (Live)" by navigating to the post "Song077" and clicking or right-clicking on the title or the link.]

---

The Police : Nothing Achieving

The Police used to rock. I mean, a really, really long time ago, back when Sting was wearing black and yellow football shirts, back before Andy Summers joined the band, back in 1977*. But they really did rock. Their first single "Fall Out" is a nifty little hard rock effort, though I'd say it owes more to the snarling garage rock aesthetic of the late 60's.

The flip side of the single is the tune I want to discuss today. It's a curious chunk of punk rock history with the prerequisite angry-at-your-parents lyrics and a nice little melody.  Gordon's distinctive falsetto soars and dives over the chugging guitar riffs and weaves in and out of the band's stops and starts. And while it was in no way indicative of their work to come, it's a great little number that really deserves more exposure.

You can find "Nothing Achieving" on the Police's big box set, Message in a Box: The Complete Recordings. Or, I suppose you could try and dig up the single from somewhere. That'd be kind of cool.

*: They still rocked later, just not as often. "Synchronicity II", for example, is a sizzler.

[You can listen to The Police's "Nothing Achieving" by navigating to the post "Song071" and clicking or right-clicking on the title or the link.]

---

Big Business : Shields

So, we talked about the Melvins a couple of weeks ago and how they drafted the entire band Big Business into their fold. This happened in 2006, I believe, and here we have a track from Big Business from 2007. You can hear the similarities. In fact, if you had told me this was the new Melvins release, I probably would have believed you.

They've got the same metal-influenced, bottom-heavy, hard rock style, which I dearly love. Intense, sturdy drum work and thick, detailed bass riffing underscore the urgency of the screaming almost-metal vocals. This is coupled with a great sense of dynamics and pacing and even a nice melody with what sounds like harmonies, but could just be the overtones generated from his shouting. It's tough to tell.

"Shields", from their 2007 release, Here Come the Waterworks, hits on all cylinders and is a perfect example of their sound at its perfection.  There's not a duff track on the entire disc. A great album.

[You can listen to Big Business' "Shields" by navigating to the post "Song069" and clicking or right-clicking on the title or the link.]

---

Uzeda : Surrounded

Uzeda is a heavy proggish rock band, along the lines of Helmet, Dazzling Killmen or Jesus Lizard.  Some call it 'math rock' which is probably appropriate, as it's concerned with rhythms, particularly non-standard ones.  Some call it 'post rock' which totally doesn't make sense, because that implies that they aren't rock, which implies that they don't rock, which makes no sense at all, because they totally fucking rock.  So, yeah, that's stupid.

Formed in 1987, Uzeda hails from Sicily (yes, in Italy).  The band is fronted by a nondescript Italian woman, Giovanna Cacciola, who screams the lyrics in slightly broken English.  Their music is loud, coarse, angular, with a great sense of dynamics and a mastery of tension and release.  It's nearly atonal, but it still completely rocks.

They released a Steve Albini-produced EP in 1995 on the excellent Touch & Go label that is four songs and ten short minutes of awesome.  I almost chose a song called "Sleep Deeper", mostly because with Giovanna's accent, it sounds like she's shouting about a "Sleepy Bird", but I went instead with the lead song, "Surrounded".  The song starts with a stutter, introducing its circular riff interlaced with open vocals.  Then the band goes at it in earnest, hammering away on the riff until it can barely take the weight anymore.  Listen for the break where they drop to a completely different, far thinner guitar sound for a few measures of respite, before launching back into the full-fledge frontal assault.  It's a vicious pounding of a song. Play it loud.

"Surrounded" comes from Uzeda's 1995 EP, 4.  I also have Stella, their most recent release (2006) after
a lengthy hiatus, but it's not nearly as good.  There are a couple of good songs, but they tend to drag on (none of the songs on 4 are over three minutes), and they lose their impetus and forget to rock.  I haven't heard any of their other stuff.

[You can listen to Uzeda's "Surrounded" by navigating to the post "Song065" and clicking or right-clicking on the title or the link.]

---

Sparks : Here in Heaven

Sparks is a bizarre band, influenced by both Gilbert and Sullivan style operetta and the glam rock of Gary Glitter and Cheap Trick. The music is varied, expressive and soaring, while remaining firmly grounded in the rock oeuvre, and their wordplay is second-to-none, clever and ironic, with a terrific sense of rhythm.

"Here in Heaven" is a bombastic rocker with a sense of humor.  The song takes the form of a letter, or perhaps a monologue, from a jilted Romeo up in heaven to his Juliet, wondering what happened to her and why she's still down on Earth.  In the first verse, he describes heaven somewhat like one would describe a car dealership waiting room, where "there are lots of things to do" and "it's really very clean".  In the second, he straight up questions Juliet's intentions, wondering if she's had second thoughts and if he's "that sucker in the sky".  It's a great premise, and the lyrical execution is wry perfection, with the band providing the crunching power chords and heavy drums doing their best to anchor brother Russell's trademark soaring falsetto.

"Here in Heaven" is from Sparks' 1974 release, Kimono My House, which is 10 tracks (12 if you get the bonus tracks) of musical brilliance.  My old roommate played this record for me once, and I totally didn't get it.  Then, like pretty much everything else he played for me and I passed on, I later grew to love it.

[You can listen to Sparks' "Here in Heaven" by navigating to the post "Song060" and clicking or right-clicking on the title or the link.]

---

Melvins : A History of Bad Men

I love the Melvins. They are one of my favorite bands, and, unlike many of my other favorite bands, they've managed to both stay together and release good quality material consistently for over twenty years.


While their older stuff is classic, the stuff from their newest phase, starting with 2002's Hostile Ambient Takeover on Ipecac, is just as awesome. Somewhere along the way, (2006, if Wikipedia is to be believed) they lost yet another bass player, but this time they drafted an entire band to replace him, pulling in the power sludge duo Big Business. This gave them the bass player they needed, but also gave them an extra drummer, for super-heaviness.

Having two drummers is awesome. If you've never seen a band with two drummers (I saw the Boredoms with two drummers once), you're missing out. There's this naturally occurring choreography between them that occurs automatically (since they're playing the same rhythms) that is just amazing to watch. Plus, the Melvins' second drummer is left-handed, so Dale and he can pull off a mirror image thing as well. They've even melded part of their kits. So sweet!

There are several great songs off this album, but I chose "A History of Bad Men" for a couple of reasons. First, they do speed-punk quite nicely, but I wanted something that showcased the slow churning heaviness that the Melvins are known for. Second, you can really hear the two drummers on the track. Third, you can really hear the Big Business influence, which is funny in a way, considering you can really hear the Melvins influence in Big Business. But the vocals, while clearly following the Melvins grunge lineage, draw from BB's soaring, metal-based style.

As usual, I can't make heads or tails of what Buzzo is singing. In an interview with him once, I asked him whether the lyrics they printed for "Hooch" in the Houdini booklet were a joke, and he said, no, they were the actual lyrics. He doesn't really write lyrics, per se, he just writes sounds. I think this has changed a little, as you can actually hear him say "I got a head start running away" and "Not dead, just sleeping" in the song. But it's still anyone's guess as to what he's talking about.

You can hear "A History of Bad Men" on the Melvins' 2006 release, their first with the Big Business boys, A Senile Animal. The album is excellent (as is their most recent, Nude with Boots) and straddles the full range of the band, completely delivering exactly what you expect from them, yet somehow continuing to progress their sound. Excellent.

[You can listen to the Melvins' "A History of Bad Men" by navigating to the post "Song058" and clicking or right-clicking on the title or the link.]

---

The Rugbys : You, I

I didn't know much about the Rugbys before I started this post, but it turns out they were a modestly successful rock act in the US, even cracking the top 40 with "You, I". I originally heard the tune from a posting last summer on the ever-amazing Iron Leg blog. Before that, I'd never heard it, which is a shame, because it's a solid song. It just goes to show you that there is a ton of music out there that may have been somewhat popular, but just never makes it into rotation for some reason.

"You, I" is a semi-psychedelic blues rocker, very much in the vein of Jimi Hendrix or Deep Purple. The guitar is hard, the rhythm section is tough and capable, and the singing is pretty basic. They do throw in a nice Cream-like vocal harmony bit right in the middle, during the guitar solo, but the song is simple. It's just meant to be catchy and rock, which it does well.

The lyrics are ... stupid, mainly consisting of rhymes for 'you', although the group didn't even put much effort into that, at one point even rhyming it with 'magic mood'. I mean, seriously: 'goo', 'zoo', 'few', 'pew', 'cashew', 'ague', 'grue'. It's not that hard, boys.

You can find "You, I" on their 1969 release, Hot Cargo, which is available for download from Amazon as an mp3 album. It's also available as an import CD and on a 2-for-1 with a band called Lazarus.

[You can listen to The Rugbys' "You, I" by navigating to the post "Song047" and clicking or right-clicking on the title or the link.]

---

Kings of Leon : Knocked Up

Man, I do like Kings of Leon, especially their earlier stuff. I, for one, am glad they're seeing some success on the pop charts. When I caught my wife and younger daughters singing along with "Use Someone", it made me happy.

Kings of Leon is a group of brothers and a cousin, all named Followill, who got together just before 2000 and formed a band. Their sound is primarily driven by southern rock (think Skynyrd) and that Americana-folk that permeates modern indie. They come by it honestly though, in that these guys were literally the sons (and nephew) of an itinerant southern Pentecostal preacher, traveling from town to town throughout the Bible Belt. Their early stuff rocks hard, but they've sweetened up and mellowed out a little over the course of four albums, with their latest opus being far more MOR rock radio ready than previous efforts.

"Knocked Up" is a great tune about two young adults who are dealing with, well, being knocked up. They've decided to leave against the better wishes of their parents and set out for who knows where. And although it's a dead ringer storywise for "Young Turks", it's got that sweet, sad, 'what the hell are we supposed to do with our lives' pathos of "Jack & Diane".

Musically, there are a couple of things this song really has going for it. First, there's the driving road-trip rhythm that just propels through the whole song. It really makes you feel like you're cruising down a desert road in the dark of night, and each time the little bit of guitar chimes in, it feels like a ghostly telephone pole whipping by through the corner of your headlights. Suddenly it gets a little angrier and heavier, gearing down and rocking out, just to rev the engines a little. But it always comes back to the relentless beat.

Then there's the singer's plaintive voice, wrapped around these amazing lyrics, shot through with bull-headed machoism and the naïve optimism of the young and in love. "I don't care what nobody says, we're gonna have a baby." Screw you if you think we can't handle it, because we just did it and we are so out of here. "I don't care what nobody says, no, I'm going to be her lover. Always mad and usually drunk, but I love her like no other." They don't know where they're going, or what they're even supposed to do. They're just... going, because they know that, no matter what, they are in love and true love will prevail.

I'm serious, it makes me weepy just thinking about this mythical couple, the subject of a million after-school specials, special episodes and Lifetime made-for-television movies. But somehow, this band really nails it.

"Knocked Up" is off Kings of Leon's third release, 2007's Because of the Times. But they're all good. Seriously. Grab 'em all.

[#42]

American Gypsy : Golden Ring

This one's hard to classify. There are flutes and a string section, and the whole thing has a close, dark feel to it, but there's also some upbeat funk and scatting going on. I think it falls somewhere between psychedelia and soft rock; between Santana and America. It's tough to say.

Regardless of where you try and pigeonhole it though, it's a great tune. There's not much out there about American Gypsy on the interwebs, so I can't give much background, except to say this is off their third album.

The songs starts off with a bit of psychedelia, some acoustic guitar, light organ, light echo on the vocals, all vaguely trippy. There's something about the way they process the vocals on this track that makes them sound very close-up, almost like the singer is in your head, whispering in your ear. Then, about 90 seconds into it, they funk it up, bringing up the speed, adding wah-wah guitar, more strings and a bebopping scat solo. Then they slow it down and do it all again. It trips and grooves, it's alternately spooky and funky, which doesn't seem like it would work, but they really make it go.

You can find "Golden Ring" on American Gypsy's self-titled 1975 release. But I found it on this most excellent compilation, As We Travel: Folk Funk Flavours & Ambient Soul. It's full of 70s psychedelic funk like this. A superb compilation; highly recommended

[#41]

Jethro Tull : For a Thousand Mothers

I think Jethro Tull gets a bit of a bum rap in the rock world. Maybe it's because, while half their songs rock heavy ("Aqualung", "Hymn 43", "Cross-Eyed Mary"), the other half sounds like they were stolen from the local Renaissance Faire. Or, maybe it's because they stole the first Heavy Metal Grammy out from under Metallica's "One", even though Metallica had completely blown the song out live on-stage for the Grammy audience not more than fifteen minutes previous.

But Tull (as the fanboys call them) can throw down some serious licks. Say what you will, but their heavy songs are heavy, full of slightly broken proggy blues riffs and furious drumming. And of course, props to Ian Anderson for actually making the flute work as a rock instrument. He gets that thing howling as angrily as any sax or guitar out there. I once knew a flautist who hated Jethro Tull because Ian just played the flute wrong, to which I can only say, "Well, fuck you then" because you're missing the whole point of rock music in the first place.

Speaking of fuck-you's, even though the title sounds like a tribute, it's not exactly Mother's Day material. This piece is a bit of a kiss off to all the mothers and fathers out there who cast doubts on the dreams of their offspring. He's made it, and he's picking you up at eight in his limo to remind you just how seriously wrong you were.

"For a Thousand Mothers" is a serious rocker, with a prog bent. The guitar hammers the riffs hard and is matched in lockstep by the bass and drums, grooving on this 6/8 (maybe 12/8?) rhythm that shifts back and forth between twos and threes. Meanwhile, Ian shreds his flute, seriously pushing it to the limits with all sorts of nasty overtones crashing over the top. There's even a killer post-verse breakdown with just unaccompanied flute. And on top of all this, Ian delivers his parental kiss-off, which is thinly disguised by a rather nice melody. Very hummable.

Then, finally, after the song has been sung and the music fades, they go at it some more. It sounds like they looked at each other and decided, "Screw it, let's jam some more," and they kick it back into gear and jam for another sixty seconds or so, which unfortunately gets the fade out a second time.

You can find "For a Thousand Mothers" on Jethro Tull's 1968 release, Stand Up, which is a great LP, even with all the fay medieval stuff.

Actually, that's stuff's nice too. I just don't want you to think I'm a pansy.

[#38]