Album of the Day 7/7/11

Still wrapping up the July/August NYC Live Music Calendar, shooting for getting it done tonight. Upcoming: crazy good times in Halifax; jaw-dropping virtuosity in Madison Square Park; a jealousy-inducing photo exhibit at the Instituto Cervantes. In the meantime, as we do every day, our 1000 best albums of all time countdown continues all the way to #1. Thursday’s album is #572:

Don Drummond – 100 Years After

Classic ska instrumentals from the legendary Skatalites trombonist, 1965. Not only did the Skatalites record an enormous amount of material as a band, they also did numerous solo albums, most of them billed to individual group members Tommy McCook and Roland Alphonso – a model that both George Clinton and the Wu-tang Clan would follow with similar success. Drummond was arguably the most talented of all of them, but also the most erratic. This whole thing has the feel of a late-night session fueled by ceiling fans and lots of collie weed. A handful of the dozen danceable cuts here have made it to youtube: the evocative Last Call; the energetic Heaven and Earth; a signature song of sorts, Roll On Sweet Don; a lively ska version of Vienna Woods; and a surprisingly subtle version of the Dick Tracy theme popularized by the Ventures. Drummond would shortly thereafter murder his girlfriend; he died behind bars in 1969. Here’s a random torrent via You and Me on a Jamboree.

Song of the Day 8/21/10

Every day, we count down the 1000 best albums of all time all the way to #1. Saturday’s album is #892:

Albert King – Live Wire/Blues Power

A characteristically intense yet nuanced concert recording by the great blues guitarist, clearly amped to be playing in front of a captive audience at the Fillmore West in 1968, probably making twice as much as he did playing the chitlin circuit where he honed his chops. Like a lot of lefthanded guitarists (Hendrix, Otis Rush, Randi Russo), Albert King had an instantly recognizable, signature style, in his case a finely honed, bent-note attack where he could say more with a note’s subtle inflection than most players could say in an entire album. This album captures both sides of King, his subtlety and ferocity, in a mix of extended excursions – Elmore James’ Blues at Sunrise and a sprawling, ten-minute version of King’s own Blues Power – as well as a spirited blast through the instrumental Night Stomp and a bit later, B.B. King’s Please Love Me. Booker T. & the MGs drummer Al Jackson Jr. is his magnificently understated, groovemeister self and the rest of the band hangs back and lets King do his thing without getting in the way. Ask any fan of electric blues if they have this and the answer is that most of them do. As good as King is on this date, he’d get even better as the years wore on: pretty much any bootleg from the 80s has at least a few transcendent moments. Here’s a random torrent.

Song of the Day 6/19/10

Every day, for the next forty days anyway, our best 666 songs of alltime countdown continues all the way to #1. Saturday’s song is #40:

Albert King – As the Years Go Passing By

The studio version of Don Robey’s dark, stately, minor-key 6/8 blues ballad on the 1965 Born Under a Bad Sign album is ok, but it’s the live versions that really haunt. The best we know of is a ten-minute version on a 1979 double live album on the French Tomato label. The link above is a nice extended version from that same period.

Song of the Day 4/25/10

The best 666 songs of alltime countdown continues every day, all the way to #1. Sunday’s song is #95:

The Church – Kings

Grimly hypnotic, apocalyptic anthem from the legendary psychedelic janglerockers’ visionary Priest=Aura album, 1992.

Software hums and hardware hears
We’re destined, babe, to live these years

The link above is a torrent of the whole album.

Song of the Day 4/12/10

The best 666 songs of alltime countdown continues every day, all the way to #1. Monday’s song is #108:

Midnight Oil – Mountains of Burma

The haunting, apocalyptic centerpiece to the Australian art-rockers’ possibly career-best 1990 Blue Sky Mining album is an epic touching on topics as diverse yet interconnected as genocide, womens’ rights and global deforestation, all in six-plus crescendoing, funereal minutes.

Songs for the Weekend

We’ll be upstate at the Beefstock Festival til Sunday and will be full of news about it when we get back on Monday. Since the mountain valley up there has no frankenpines, and no cell or wifi service, unless we can score a dialup connection somewhere we’ll be (somewhat gratefully) offline til then. In order to keep the best 666 songs of alltime countdown going without missing a beat, Friday’s song is #111:

Phil Ochs – The Scorpion Departs but Never Returns

Like the Thresher, the Scorpion was a US nuclear submarine that went down off the coast of New Hampshire. Ochs uses the story as a springboard for his own tale of departing and never returning: “I’m not screaming, I’m not screaming, TELL ME I’M NOT SCREAMING!!!” The piano-based art-rock version on the classic Rehearsals for Retirement album, 1968 is pretty intense, but others prefer the janglerock guitar version on the live Edmonton album, recorded the same year but not released until the 90s.

Saturday’s song is #110:

Ninth House – Put a Stake Right Through It

In our predecessor e-zine’s first year of publication, 2000, this was their pick for best song of the year, a despairing, exhausted, Rachmaninoff-esque guitar-and-string-synth-fueled portrait of complete emotional depletion. From the Swim in the Silence cd.

And Sunday’s is #109:

The Dead Kennedys – Dead End

Written by guitarist East Bay Ray, this is a rare non-political song for these guys, but still a great one, all trebly reverb-drenched guitar with characteristically melodic bassline and morbid lyrics. From Plastic Surgery Disasters, 1983.

Song of the Day 4/8/10

The best 666 songs of alltime countdown continues every day, all the way to #1. Thursday’s song is #112:

Bob Dylan – When the Ship Comes In

Revenge has seldom sounded more sweet than it does here: “And they’ll piss themselves and squeal, when they know that it’s for real, the hour that the ship comes in.” From The Times They Are A-Changing, 1964 – why haven’t more bands covered this one?

Song of the Day 4/7/10

The best 666 songs of alltime countdown continues every day, all the way to #1. Wednesday’s song is #113:

The Saints – Grain of Sand

One of the great janglerock hits of alltime, and also the most evocative song about cocaine ever written. It doesn’t exactly romanticize the drug. From All Fools’ Day, 1989, the group’s high point as a jangle band.

Song of the Day 4/6/10

The best 666 songs of alltime countdown continues every day, all the way to #1. Tuesday’s song is #114:

Bob Dylan – Mississippi

Essentially, this is his self-penned obituary, a cynical, anguished requiem for the promise of an era gone forever:

The emptiness is endless
Cold as the clay
You can always come back
But you can’t come back all the way

 

From Love & Theft (released 9/11/01), arguably his best album.

Song of the Day 4/5/10

The best 666 songs of alltime countdown continues every day, all the way to #1. Monday’s song is #115:

Supertramp – A Soapbox Opera

The lyric to this one is at best inscrutable and at worst doesn’t make much sense at all. It’s the melody – Rick Davies’ hushed, upper-register piano against lush string synth orchestration – that makes this swaying backbeat ballad so wrenchingly beautiful. Originally released on Crisis? What Crisis? in 1975, the best version is on the 1979 live Paris album. Or look for a bootleg from that era: there are some good ones out there.