In 1965, a year before hooking up with the musicians who would form The Buffalo Springfield, Neil Young had a brief stint in a Canadian rock group called The Mynah Birds fronted by Rick James (yes, THAT Rick James). At this point in James’ career he was known as Ricky James Matthew and did a stellar imitation of Mick Jagger. The group had a raw exciting sound that hinted at The Stones, Them, and various American garage bands. The Mynah Birds nailed a deal with Motown Records (the first white band to do so) and recorded sixteen tracks in Detroit. But things turned bad.

In his authorized Neil Young biography, Shakey, Jimmy McDonough describes the scene:

The Mynah Birds—in black leather jackets, yellow turtlenecks and boots—had quite a surreal scene going. The band was financed by John Craig Eaton of the Eaton’s department-store dynasty. Legend has it he poured money into the band, establishing a bottomless account for the band’s equipment needs.

Those lucky enough to see any of the band’s few gigs say they were electrifying. ‘Neil would stop playing lead, do a harp solo, throw the harmonica way up in the air and Ricky would catch it and continue the solo.’

Unfortunately, everything screeched to a halt when James was busted in the studio for being AWOL from the navy. “We thought he was Canadian,” said Palmer. “Even though there are no Negroes in Canada.” A single, “It’s My Time,” was allegedly pulled the day of release, and the album recordings were shelved and remain unreleased to this day.”

Here’s a couple of hard-rocking tracks from the legendary Motown Mynah Birds’ sessions. The musicians are Young and future Buffalo Springfield member Bruce Palmer and Goldy McJohn and Nick St. Nicholas who would later establish Steppenwolf with John Kay.

“It’s My Time” was co-written by Young and James:
 

 
“I’ll Wait Forever”:
 

 
“I’ve Got You In My Soul “:
 

 
“Go On And Cry”:
 

 
Yesterday when I posted “‘Pepper Box’: The funkiest space-disco synthpop rare groove record of 1973,” it occurred to me that I should also post another long-forgotten instrumental one-hit wonder, “The Crunch” by The RAH Band, a studio “group” helmed by Richard Anthony Hewson.

Hewson is an English producer, arranger, conductor and multi-instrumentalist who has worked with the likes of The Beatles, James Taylor, Fleetwood Mac and Carly Simon. He was the sole member of The RAH Band and played all of the instruments himself.

When the song made it to #6 in the UK pop charts in 1977, a band was put together for a Top of The Pops performance (that’s not Richard Hewson playing the keyboards). Although this video is crazy and great, the original track is still way better than even this super-flipped-out live stomper. Despite what’s seen in the clip, the original song’s arrangement used no synthesizers, only electric guitar and an organ with pedal effects.
 

 
The Rah Band returned in 1985 with another hit record (and another TOTP’s appearance), “Clouds Across the Moon.”
 

 
When I was a teenager growing up in Brooklyn in the early 1980s, on Saturday nights, a pirate radio station would sometimes elbow its way to the fore, past the college stations in the lower FM band. One piece I very clearly recall being introduced to on one of these illegal broadcasts was “Music on a Long Thin Wire,” by Alvin Lucier.

Lucier’s curious acoustical installation was originally set up in a shopping mall in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 1979 and broadcast for five uninterrupted days and nights on PBS station KUNM. The “score” consisted simply of a very long piano wire (in some installations as long as 80 feet) clamped by magnets at both ends to tables and driven by a sine wave oscillator. Variations in ambient temperatures, room vibrations, humidity and (who knows what) quantum ephemera would cause the wire’s sound to slowly drift and change over time. Aside from setting up the wire and switching it on, there were no performers per se, so experiencing the piece “live” was difficult by definition.

As Lucier started “composing” (if you want to call it that) such work in the mid 1960s, you could probably include him in that subgroup of the early John Cage-influenced minimalists who, like Steven Reich (with his mind-blowing phase-shifting tape manipulation “Come Out”), were rejecting European traditions about how music should be made, and through what means. Unlike Reich or Glass, however, Lucier never made a transition back into more conventional performance-based music, but indeed kept going deeper and deeper into more formidable and abstract sonic territories. That’s why it’s hard to find any Alvin Lucier “fans,” as only someone with access to a private jet could ever have seen more than a handful of his distinctive installation compositions.

Lucier described the piece as “an interest in the poetry of what we used to think of as science.”:

“I always thought that the world was divided into two kinds of people, poets and practical people, and that while the practical people ran the world, poets had visions about it…. Now I realize that there is no difference between science and art.”

You have to admit that if you ran across something like this you’d stand there with mouth agape, simply amazed that someone decided to put something like this together (Kinda similar to encountering a Richard Serra sculpture in real life). YouTube was obviously invented for the express purpose of allowing you to get a sense of “Music on a Long Thin Wire” as it looks and sounds in real life. “Like” it or not, it’s undeniably ambitious and impressive.
 

 
I dare you to listen to this insanely catchy instrumental number and then try to scrub it out of your head. As with Hot Butter’s “Popcorn” and “Apache” by The Incredible Bongo Band, two similar hit instrumental songs of the same vintage, it cannot be undone. You’re stuck with this “Pepper Box” by The Peppers for life after just one listen (mind you, not that this is a bad thing!)

‘Pepper Box’ was originally supposed to be a TV commercial jingle, but producer Roger Tokarz, thinking he might have a “Popcorn” on his hands, held back and offered his client something else. Tokarz asked Pierre Alain Dahan and Matt Camison to expand on his theme and “Pepper Box” was born, ultimately selling over 3.5 million singles.

I read the above album cover being described as “self explanatory” on the Internet. That cracked me up.
 

 
Claude Lelouch’s Vivre Pour Vivre (“Live for Life”) tells the tale of a torrid affair between Robert, a philandering war correspondent (Yves Montand) and a volatile young American fashion model (Candice Bergen, looking incredibly gorgeous here) and how it causes the disintegration of his marriage to Annie Girardot’s gentle, sorrowful Catherine.

Vivre Pour Vivre was one of the most successful French films of all time and nominated for an Academy Award as Best Foreign Language Film in 1968. Today the film is probably best remembered—at least outside of France—for its lush Francis Lai soundtrack, in particular the title theme which has become something of an instrumental “standard” and the themes for each of the three main characters. The composer stayed close to the formula he’d established for a previous Lelouch film, A Man and A Woman: “la la la” scat singing, briskly pounded organ, piano and clavichord parts, electric guitar and histrionic strings.

Thème de Candice:
 

 
Thème de Catherine:
 

 
More from Vivre Pour Vivre after the jump…

 
Due to the release of what is supposed to be the final final unheard cache of Jimi Hendrix recordings, People, Hell & Angels, worldwide interest has been stirred in a tantalizing bit of memorabilia currently residing in the collection of the Hard Rock Cafe in Prague: A 1969 telegram from Jimi Hendrix inviting Paul McCartney to record with him, Miles Davis and jazz drummer Tony Williams in New York.

The telegram, seen below, was sent to the Apple offices in London on October 21, 1969:

“We are recording and LP together this weekend in New York STOP How about coming in to play bass STOP call Alan Douglas 212-581 2212.

Peace Jimi Hendrix Miles Davis Tony Williams.”

Imagine that…

Beatles aide Peter Brown replied on Macca’s behalf, informing Hendrix that McCartney was on vacation and would not return for another two weeks (This was around the height of the “Paul is dead” rumor and a pissed-off McCartney was holed up with his family on his farm in Scotland trying to escape that mess).
 

 
Below, The Jimi Hendrix Experience covers “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band”(I think just two days after it was released and with more than one Beatle in attendance)—this is probably as close as we’ll ever get to knowing what this supergroup might’ve sounded like:
 

 
Thank you kindly, Michael Simmons!

 
Their name is Unlocking the Truth. The Brooklyn-based band consists of three 11-year-old kids who write and create their own heavy metal music.

Rock on, little dudes!

Here’s their Facebook page.

 
More of Unlocking the Truth after the jump…
 

“Booger the hooker, he’s in the palm of the pusherman!”

Black Nasty were a Detroit-based hard funk group who sprang from the same lysergic R&B scene as George Clinton’s Parliament/Funkadelic. The group was a family affair: lead singers Audrey and Terrance Ellis were married, and her brother, drummer Artwell Matthews, Jr. was the musical leader of the group. Their mother, Johnnie Mae Matthews, the first black woman to own a record label, was their manager.

Black Nasty were signed to Stax Records who released their one and only platter, Talking to the People in 1973. The album sank like a stone, but was later rediscovered and is considered a minor classic by funk aficionados.

The standout track,“Booger the Hooker,” is not about a prostitute, as might be expected, but is instead the story of a good kid gone bad on THE DOPE. Young Booger’s “smokin’ marijuana, poppin’ pills and snortin’ cocaine” and soon develops himself a “habit of a 100 dollars a day.”
 

 
Booger The Hooker (Album Version)

 
Legendary music impresario and Creation Records founder, Alan McGee has announced details of his new record label 359 Music, which will be a joint venture with respected indie Cherry Red

In a statement issued with co-founder of Cherry Red Iain McNay, McGee said he hoped 359 Music will provide “an outlet for new music artists that have been shut out by the system.”

McGee has also pledged to listen to all submissions personally.

The joint statement reads in full.

Alan McGee:  ‘Recently I found myself reinvigorated by new music again after being 5 years away from music living in rural Wales, and from which there has been much talk about how I will return to music. As recently talked about in the press, my original plan was to do a deal with major label backing in Japan. But when it came down to it I realised that I didn’t want to come back to music through a major music label - that’s not what I want to be part of. That’s when I had a chat with Iain McNay from Cherry Red and we quite quickly put our heads together and developed between us a much better deal for 359 Music which will be a joint venture with Cherry Red.

The first ever person to ever approach me about music when I was 19 was Iain McNay from Cherry Red. That was 1980 and 33 years later Cherry Red still continues to send me publishing cheques for songs I wrote then. To me that just proves nothing but honesty and diligence. To me it makes sense and it excites me - it’s where it all started and where I will have my, more than likely, last record label. 

My vision for 359 Music is a launch pad for new talent and some ignored older talent. We intend to release on average a dozen new bands per year every year - maybe more if I find a lot of new talent I like. Hopefully some of the artists will stick around and make numerous albums with 359 but some will go on to other things and that is just nature of the musical beast.

Due to technology the world is much smaller these days and 359 Music will be run from rural Wales by phone and computer and the day to day engine room will be run by the Cherry Red team in London. So basically the day to day logistics of 359 Music will be handled by Cherry Red Records and the A&R signing policy and creative decisions will be my domain.

There is no agenda of ‘let’s be the biggest like Creation Records’ - if in 5 years’ time people who I respect and who love music can turn round to me and say 359 Music has put out some great music then that to me will be success. There really needs to be an outlet for new music artists that have been shut out by the system and I hope 359 Music will be that outlet.

If you are an artist and want to be considered for 359 Music send an mp3 to INFOAT359MUSIC@AOL.COM and I will personally listen.

“So there you have it - 359 Music. I am extremely happy to be working again with my friend Iain McNay and to be again involved in the Cherry Red family after 33 years’”

Iain McNay:  ‘Alan and I go back a long time, over 30 years in fact.  Cherry Red celebrate their 35th birthday next month and we just continue to grow and grow. We released 623 albums (all on CD) last year, mostly catalogue but with an increasing number of new recordings.  I only know of two other labels that have survived the late ‘70s Independent breakthrough intact in the UK; that’s Ace and Beggars. I like to think of the three of us as the ‘A,B and C’ of British Independent labels.

I have always admired Alan’s passion and belief in the music he loves. His maverick side will sit well with Cherry Red’s committed Independent stance. I have no doubt we will have a great adventure together. One thing is for certain, working with Alan McGee is never going to be boring…..’

Iain McNay talks about Cherry Red Records
 

 
Few DJs can rock the decks like The Gaslamp Killer. I’ve never bought into the cult of the DJ, but he’s truly incredible at what he does. His own music is fascinating, compelling and intense, as heard on his first full-length solo release, Breakthrough, put out via Flying Lotus’s Brainfeeder label.

This new video for “In The Dark” is one of the most complete and satisfyingly original visions for electronic dance music that I’ve seen in some time, with Gurdjieffian dervish dancers, ominous worship and stunning cinematography perfectly complimenting the horror movie soundtrack elements of the track. Directed by Hyperballad, the piece was shot in Prague, including scenes inside a 12th century crypt. Everyone involved here knocked the ball right out of the park with this one. This is a work of art.
 

 
The (also quite stunning) Hyperballad-directed ad for “Breakthrough”: