It lives! Richard and I have taken the leap and are aiming to post a new episode of Dangerous Minds Radio Hour every two weeks. It’s serious fun for us to sit around and play records and chat about them, so listen in and know the pleasant feeling of being in a small room in Granada Hills with a couple of total music nerds for an hour or so.
Sir George Martin: “Theme One” (BBC Radio One theme)
The Fall: “Fit and Working Again”
Material w/ Nona Hendryx: “Take a Chance”
Nervous Gender: “People Like You”
The Turtles:“Somewhere Friday Night” (produced by Ray Davies of The Kinks)
Lilys: “And One (On One)”
Meredith Monk (with Don Preston): “Candy Bullets and Moon”
Love: “Willow Willow”
Firesign Theater: “Station Break”
Tyrannosaurus Rex: “Fist Heart Mighty Dawn Dart”
Marsha Hunt: “(Oh No! Not) The Beast Day”
Klaus Nomi: “Za Bak Daz”
Talk Talk: “It’s Getting Late in the Evening”
The Goon Show:“The Ying Tong Song” (Peter Sellers, Spike Milligan & Harry Secombe. Produced by Sir George Martin)
Orchid Spangiafora: “Dime Operation”
To download this episode or subscribe to the podcast please go to our internet radio partner Alterati.com
Wow !, Much thanks to DM reader Ryan who in his comment on Marc’s Beefheart post yesterday hepped me to this book: Beefheart: Through the Eyes of Magic by the Magic Band’s long suffering drummer, John “Drumbo” French. My copy is flying toward me in the mail as I type but I already know to expect tales of tyrannical cruelty (bunch of dudes living in a run down house in Woodland Hills, practicing 12 hours a day, eating only a handful of soybeans per day) and sublime inspiration. In anticipation, here’s a miraculous clip of the Lick My Decals Off,Baby era Magic Band (including Drumbo) playing a suite of tunes live on Detroit TV in 1971.
Back in May Richard, myself and Elvin Estela (aka DJ Nobody) had the notion to make a pilot episode for a possible Dangerous Minds radio show. The format is a round robin wherein we three music nerds each take turns presenting tunes we think the others (and hopefully the listening audience) would enjoy hearing along with some bits of information and personal anecdotes. In short, a radio/podcast version of what we do every day on the blog. So after some hemming and hawing, as you do, here’s what we came up with. We’re thinking of making this a regular feature for the site. Let us know what you think !
Alan Hawkshaw - Blarney’s Stoned
Armando Trovaioli -Sesso Matto
Keith West- On A Saturday
Alex Oriental Experience - Derule
? - My Name Is John (seriously, we don’t know who this is, help !)
Alison Gross - Naturally
The Oimels - A Day in the Life
Desmond Dekker - Come Together
Leon Russell - I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry
Marcos Valle - Mi Hermosa
P.J. Proby - The Day Lorraine Came Down
Baths - ♥
Monitor - Beak
Scotty - Clean Race
Focus - House of the King
To download this episode or subscribe to the podcast please go to our internet radio partner Alterati.com
Soon after his high profile 1980 drug bust, Papa John Phillips reformed the Mamas and the Papas with daughter Mackenzie, Denny Doherty and Spanky McFarlane (from Spanky & Our Gang). Both Phillips’ were still in rehab, at the time, where they were working as drug counsellors. John and Mackenzie made this appearance on Canadian magazine program, That’s Life, during their 1983 tour, to talk about rebuilding their lives after drugs in an interview seems that seems remarkably candid compared to the execrable confessional talk show culture we have today.
The new Mamas and the Papas toured and recorded for eight years. Initially, their band included Bowie guitarist Mick Ronson and keyboard player Arthur Stead, who’s next gig was playing with Public Image Limited! A new collection of unreleased songs from that period, Many Mamas Many Papas has just been released as part of the “Papa John Presents” series of archival releases, and proves that Phillips was still capable of churning out catchy songs with a sting in the tail long after his 60s heyday. Among them is Kokomo, almost unrecognisable in its original form from the later Beach Boys version – rewritten by Mike Love as a boozy paean to Spring break.
In light of recent revelations, Fairy Tale Girl is a poignant (even, prescient) song about daughter Mackenzie, written in the early 70s around the time she starred in American Graffiti. But then, Papa John has been a magnet for outrageous claims for years. Here, he tells Larry King about the night Roman Polanski accused him of murdering Sharon Tate!
After making one remarkable self-titled psych-pop album in the ‘60s that’s been a collector’s staple for years, Jamme are one of those bands that somehow slipped through the net. Their debut has just been reissued for the first time, 40 years later (via Now Sounds), and has a fantastic story attached to it.
In 1968, Jamme—a four-piece made up of two Brits and two Americans—were just another young group of musicians trying to make it on the Sunset Strip when they were handed the opportunity of a lifetime after John Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas offered to produce an album for them, thinking he had found the new Beatles.
So far, so good. However, not everything went quite to plan. The band came into Phillips’ life in the summer of 1968, just as the Mamas and the Papas were breaking up, his marriage to Michelle Phillips was on the rocks and he was having an affair with Mia Farrow (right under the nose of Frank Sinatra!).
All of that contributed to a rather bizarre recording experience, all of which took place in the studio Phillips had installed in the roof of his Bel Air mansion—the same studio Sly Stone later used to make “There’s A Riot Goin’ On”—the entrance to which, incidentally, was hidden (James Bond-style) behind a secret panel on the first floor of the house.
The whole amazing story of the Jamme is detailed in the pretty lengthy liner notes that come with the reissue. For now, listen to their groovy signature tune, “Strawberry Jam Man”, which sounds it like it should be the theme to some whacked-out Saturday morning kids TV show, and enjoy this little nugget from the notes:
———-
One night, Michelle Phillips, Mia Farrow and Jamme drummer Terry Rae all dropped acid together in the lounge below the studio, while John was upstairs leading a session with the band. When the panel that lead out to the main house was closed, the room was cast into pitch blackness. They all laid underneath a table with their heads pressed together, legs sticking out like the spokes of a wheel, all giggly and loose.
“Wouldn’t it be great to go to France,” squealed Mia. “Just jump on a plane right now and go.”
“Let’s go to France, then,” added Michelle. “Let’s just go!”
Rae’s 18-year old acid-fried mind was having trouble taking all this in. He was sitting under a table in the dark with Michelle Phillips and Mia Farrow as they were discussing taking him with them halfway across the world on a Lear jet. When the talk turned to more intimate matters, Rae began to get feel uncomfortable.
“What would the sleeping arrangements be,” Mia asked out loud.
“What if John was here? You wouldn’t be talking like this,” Rae stammered.
But no sooner had he said it then the panel opened up, the room was flooded with bright white light and John Phillips’ voice boomed out: “I am here.”
He had been there all along, standing silently at the bottom of the stairs that led up to the studio, listening to every word. Rae was mortified. “Being on acid, it blew the whole thing up in my mind. I was just totally blown away that he might have thought I was doing anything. But he took the opinion that I was a threat and had all the intentions of going to France with them to get laid. It was just a crazy fantasy. A joke, basically. We were having fun. But it turned out to be my demise.”
Shortly afterwards, John pushed the other members of the Jamme into firing Rae. As he was not only acting as their producer but also bankrolling the sessions, they had little choice but to comply.
“Funny enough,” Rae reflects, “both Mia and Michelle were in love with John. There were obviously problems with Michelle, but I don’t think she would have ever frivolously just gone off with some guy to get laid.”
A month after he was fired from the band, Rae was bemused to get a call from Mia Farrow. She invited him to the house on Copa De Oro Road that afternoon on the pretext of showing him some candid photographs of her with the Beatles in India.
“Nobody had photos, you know, actual 4x4 photos of the Beatles. You never saw stuff like that,” he says, even while acknowledging that he again found the situation alone with Mia Farrow in Frank Sinatra’s house“really weird”.
After a fashion, Mia sighed. “I have a problem,” she said, gingerly. “My best friend is Michelle, but I’m in love with John. What should I do?”
“Stick with Michelle and don’t mess with John,” Rae offered, his advice colored by his own recent experience at the hands of John Phillips.
by the Magic Band’s long suffering drummer, John “Drumbo” French. My copy is flying toward me in the mail as I type but I already know to expect tales of tyrannical cruelty (bunch of dudes living in a run down house in Woodland Hills, practicing 12 hours a day, eating only a handful of soybeans per day) and sublime inspiration. In anticipation, here’s a miraculous clip of the Lick My Decals Off,Baby era Magic Band (including Drumbo) playing a suite of tunes live on Detroit TV in 1971.
has just been released as part of the “Papa John Presents” series of archival releases, and proves that Phillips was still capable of churning out catchy songs with a sting in the tail long after his 60s heyday. Among them is Kokomo, almost unrecognisable in its original form from the later Beach Boys version – rewritten by Mike Love as a boozy paean to Spring break.
at Amazon