“Dazed and Confused” is thought of as a Led Zeppelin original and Jimmy Page’s dramatic use of the violin bow during his extended soloing made the song a centerpiece of the Zeppelin live experience. But the song actually debuted during Page’s tenure in the Yardbirds, and apparently before that as well. From The Thieving Magpies: Jimmy Page’s Dubious Recording Legacy:

On August 25, 1967 the Yardbirds caught an acoustic act fronted by Jake Holmes at the Village Theatre in New York’s Greenwich Village. Holmes and his two sidemen played a song about a love affair gone dreadfully wrong. The song was called “Dazed & Confused.” It’s often been described as a song about a bad acid trip. Jake Holmes set this author straight in a 2001 interview.

“No, I never took acid. I smoked grass and tripped on it, but I never took acid. I was afraid to take it. The song’s about a girl who hasn’t decided whether she wants to stay with me or not. It’s pretty much one of those love songs,” Holmes explained.

Asked whether he remembered opening for the Yardbirds, Holmes laughed.

“Yes. Yes. And that was the infamous moment of my life when ‘Dazed & Confused’ fell into the loving arms and hands of Jimmy Page,” he said.

 
The Thieving Magpies: Jimmy Page’s Dubious Recording Legacy (Perfect Sound Forever)

Part II (which is even juicier than part 1)

Hear Dazed and Confused by Jake Holmes on his Myspace page

 
Here’s what the 64-year-old is up to these days according to The London Sunday Times:

7:30 a.m.: Juice and Cuban coffee.
9:30 a.m.: Look at Koi Pond, listen to waterfall, look at clouds.
10:30 a.m.: 1/2 hour of Qigong.
11:00 a.m.: Breakfast (fruit, cheese, maybe a bagel)
11:30 a.m.: Look at email, but don’t answer them.
Noon: Iggy usually doesn’t eat lunch. Surprised?
1:00 p.m.: Shower. Apply moisturizer or leather polish to skin. Lament that it’s in vain.
2:00 p.m.: Read New York Times, books, etc.
3:00 p.m.: Lose mind listening to music.
5:00 p.m.: 15 more minutes of exercise then dress for dinner. If dinner is at home, Iggy prefers to wear only a smoking jacket and slippers. Iggy will also indulge in a couple of glasses of Claret, a dark, rose wine.
10:00 p.m.: (or earlier): Bed

With thanks to Cherrybombed

 
Reggae music is one of those things that really divides people. Like country music. You’re either all in or all out. And it’s usually impossible to change someone’s mind about the subject.

BUT… but… if I was trying to Jedi-mindfuck all of you reggae skeptics out there reading this, en masse, into giving it a chance, then the track I think you should listen to—preferably LOUD and with you as stoned as hell—is this, the lead track from Lee “Scratch” Perry and the Upsetters’ classic Blackboard Jungle Dub, a tune called “Black Panta.”

Blackboard Jungle Dub, recorded in 1973, is considered the first full-length dub album. Apparently the great dub producer KIng Tubby was in control of the echo-drenched mixes. If you listen closely, this would appear to be a stereo mix, but it’s not. It’s two different mono channels. Each channel is mixed down to a insanely trippy conclusion—in mono—and then married to the other. Fantastic! It’s a sonic masterpiece of incredible genius. (Whoever uploaded this did a good good of keeping the separation, so you can really hear it properly).
 

 
Below is a mini-documentary about the album and Perry’s first foray into dubstep, remixing Blackboard Jungle Dub with Dubblestandart, Subatomic Sound System and Jahdan Blakkamoore:
 

 
Spacerock combo Lumerians (who share their name with an alien race on Star Trek: The Next Generation, but insist that there is no relation) will be bringing their strangely hypnotic, trance-inducing sound to SXSW again this year.

Known for their live outings featuring elaborate projected psychedelic visuals, the group aims to make each of their performances a ‘happening’ that audiences will not soon forget. SF Weekly music critic Carla Selvin called experiencing Lumerians in concert “tantamount to listening to the soundtrack from an epic science fiction movie about a jungle on another planet.”

Since the release of their first full-length album, Transmalinnia in March of 2011 on Knitting Factory Records, the Bay Area band has steadily racked up new admirers touring with post-punk stalwarts like the Butthole Surfers and Killing Joke.

We caught up with one of the Lumerians for an interview:

How did you know that you were Lumerians?

On our third trip down from Mount Shasta to pay for primitive provisions from the locals using sacks full of gold, we noticed the glares and realized we just might not be like everybody else.

 
How did you recognize each other as fellow Lumerians?

It’s sort of a dialect/pronunciation thing. When speaking with the language of eyeball-crushing, incendiary spacerock, we noticed little things like elongated vowel sounds and heavy rhotic r’s.

Is there a belief system or lifestyle that Lumerians adhere to? A cosmology?

Wait for the stillest moment, consider something passive and insignificant and then start an argument about it and draw it out as excruciatingly long as you can, preferably with strangers watching.

Is there a Lumerians beach house like the Monkees used to live in or do Lumerians have a space ship?

You know how in Highlander 2 when they recap the whole Highlander history and explain that they’re actually all just ancient exiles from an alien world? I forget where I was going with that, but I guess we live in a spaceship that bends the universe around it rather than flying or maybe it’s a beach house, except instead of sand and water outside, it’s got taco trucks and human trafficking.

Where do Lumerians hang out in Austin during SXSW?

We like to explore using a technique called ‘stumbling distance cartography.’ Look it up.

In the clip below, Lumerians perform their hoodoo-infused cover of The Osmonds’ “Crazy Horses” on San Francisco public access program Dance Party Revival:

 
It’s been described as one of the most important gigs of all time, one that saw hundreds, even thousands of people claim they were there. In truth only around 30-40 people saw The Sex Pistols perform at the Manchester’s Lesser Free Trade Hall on June 4, 1976. But of those who did, most went onto form a generation of legendary bands - The Fall, The Buzzcocks, Joy Division, The Smiths.

Also, allegedly in the audience were such future ambassadors of taste as Anthony H. Wilson, who would co-found Factory Records and the Hacienda nightclub, and nascent journalist/writer Paul Morley.

Culturally, it was an event akin to the storming of the Bastille, for it unleashed a revolution.

I Swear I Was There tells the story of that now legendary night, and talks to the people whose lives were changed by The Sex Pistols.
 

 
With thanks to Graham Tarling!
 

 
Dig this amazing poster art for a Traffic appearance at the Boston Tea Party nightclub in 1970. It’s most assuredly still psychedelic, but the design is so clean and modern minus the typical hand-lettering of most of the era’s poster art. See more Boston Tea Party posters here.

Below, an early music video for Traffic’s “Paper Sun.” their very first single, from May 1967. Steve Winwood would have been just 19-years-old at the time. What a voice!
 

 
Barbet Schroeder’s La Vallee (aka The Valley or The Valley Obscured by Clouds), his second film, is a cinematic curio about a materialistic Frenchwoman who throws her lot in with a group of free-thinking hippies who are searching for a mythical valley of paradise somewhere deep in the bush of Papua New Guinea.

La Vallee is a bit long, but it’s stunning to watch. If you are in the mood to kick back and space out with a trippy film that you can kind of half pay attention to, it’s not a bad choice.

The original soundtrack by Pink Floyd was released as their seventh album, Obscured By Clouds in 1972.
 
Below, a beautifully odd scene from La Vallee with the song “Mudmen” by Pink Floyd accompanying the visuals.
 

The Masonic Lodge in Los Angeles
 
As pretty much anyone within the reach of the Internet can tell you, this is the week of the big SXSW music, film and interactive festival/convention here in Austin, TX.

The big names are starting to arrive in town. Jay-Z’s in Austin, there are rumors of a super secret Bruce Springsteen show and the whole city is abuzz with movie stars, rock and rollers, rappers, folkies and even a fair selection of computer geeks. [Lots of ironic facial here in Austin, too, but that’s for another discussion.]

Suffice to say, if a nuclear bomb got dropped on Austin this week, the music industry as we currently know it would pretty much cease to exist.

 
But if you can’t make it to Austin yourself (or if I just scared you away with my irresponsible nuclear bomb talk) and if you are lucky enough to live in Los Angeles (I love saying that), fear not because the fine people at MasterCard PayPass® and Google Wallet have teamed up with Cool Hunting and Dangerous Minds to bring a little of what’s cooking in Austin to you, the Dangeorus Minds reader. And they’re going to feed you and treat you to an open bar.

This Friday night, March 16th, at the Masonic Lodge at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles, you can catch a big-screen simulcast of the Sub Pop Records showcase, live from Red 7 in Austin. featuring Niki & the Dove, THEESatisfaction and South Africa’s exciting Spoek Mathambo

 
The Los Angeles event will be MC’d by “America’s Funnyman” Neil Hamburger and DJs that evening will include Chris Holmes, Elijah Wood, Brie Larson and TURQUOISE WISDOM.

Food will be served by Grill Em All and Mandoline Grill with sweet deserts from Coolhaus.

Please click this link to RSVP

.

Hollywood Forever Cemetery Masonic Lodge
6000 Santa Monica Blvd , Los Angeles, CA 90038
Friday, March 16, 2012 from 7:30 PM to 11:30 PM (PT)

Must be 21 or older with photo ID.

And if you don’t live in Los Angeles you can attend the other events happening in:

New York

Chicago

San Francisco

Washington, D.C.

 
Made with the blessings and full cooperation of Bob Marley’s family, Kevin Macdonald’s sprawling, two and a half hour documentary Marley is an emotionally engaging and beautifully filmed tribute to one of the great spiritual forces in music history. A revealing and well-rounded testament, Marley digs deep into the psychological and sociological forces that drove Bob Marley to create great art and eventually become an international symbol of inspiration to people everywhere. From Zimbabwe and Jamaica to the suburbs of privilege in America. Marley’s message of peace, love and human rights cut through all stratas of society and was Universal in its power and authenticity.

Marley walked it like he talked it and Macdonald’s film makes it absolutely clear that Marley was willing to put his life on the line for his beliefs…literally. His efforts to serve as peacemaker between warring political factions in Jamaica had earned him countless enemies and on December 3, 1976 he was wounded in an assassination attempt. The persuasive sting of a bullet didn’t for a moment stop Marley from his mission to unify his homeland.

Marley the movie is not blind to the contradictions and complexities in Marley the man. He was a “half-caste” who struggled with racial identity and was bullied relentlessly as a child for being neither white or black. In learning to balance the yin/yang of this racial polarity, Marley became an embodiment of the ‘“One Love” he preached of so passionately.

The film touches on Marley’s legendary womanizing. In interviews with his wife Rita and several ex-girlfriends, there is a bittersweet acceptance of some of the sexism in the patriarchal Rastafari culture. But if you look closer, you will see that Marley’s life was shaped by strong women and his attempts to control them was akin to a boat attempting to control a typhoon.

Marley is composed of some terrific restored concert footage and a wealth of anecdotes from friends and fellow musicians. A highlight is Bunny Wailer’s humorous account of how The Wailers overcame stage fright by rehearsing in a cemetery at night. Perhaps this was the seed that led to the song “Duppy Conqueror.” [Duppy being Jamaican patois for ghost.]

Is Marley the last word on Bob Marley? In addressing that question at the film’s SXSW premiere, director Macdonald commented on the distinction between an authoritative and definitive film on Marley’s life. “About 30 minutes,” he said. We’ll have to wait until that 30 minutes pops up as an extra on the DVD box set.

During a Q&A at SXSW, Ziggy Marley was asked to summarize his father’s legacy. He replied with one word: “love.”

 
Probably one of the top questions many (most?) SXSW attendees ask themselves upon looking at the (frankly overwhelming) festival schedule is (to be very frank) “Who ARE all of these bands? I’ve never heard of half of them.” (No, you’re not alone!)

One thing for sure about SXSW—but you can say this about music in general in 2012—is that there are a lot of great acts around, but how do you find out about them?

We asked Sean Moeller, Daytrotter’s man with the golden ear how he discovers emerging bands and lures them to his Rock Island, IL studio for a session.

Since a large part of Daytrotter’s appeal is the “filter” of your ear—you’re kind of like the Internet generation’s John Peel—I’m curious about what filters Sean Moeller himself employs to find out about new music before anybody else (or is that a closely guarded trade secret?)

I kinda just have one filter and it’s if I like it or not. A song or a band hits me rightly or wrongly, pretty quickly. It doesn’t take much. The ear “guts” just get it or they don’t. As far as outside filters, some of the greatest things that I hear about are from bands that we’ve worked with in the past and have become friends with. As everyone knows, great writers and musicians gravitate to other great writers and musicians and everyone’s always excited to talk about something great that they just heard. I learn a lot about different scenes and what’s happening there through friends like that. Sometimes they’re dead wrong and I’m not hot on something, but the majority of the time, it’s interesting.

What was the original impetus behind starting Daytrotter?

The original impetus was really just wanting to have some kind of platform—however big or small it was going to wind up being—to showcase artists that I really believed in or thought were incredible. I was that guy in college who was always listening to and recommending things to friends that were so foreign to them. I hardly had anyone listen to me. I was writing for a number of music magazines and even there—my pitches would fall on deaf ears, so I just started my own thing. And the idea of taping the sessions—and doing it the way we do them, live to tape—was something that me and our original engineer thought would be best. The sessions were just supposed to be something different. A new way to hear someone.

Which performers have produced the most magical Daytrotter sessions?

That list would be a long one. I think there are a bunch of different kinds of magic. There are the ones where the mere presence on tape and who they were was so special—Kris Kristofferson, Charlie Louvin or Raphael Saadiq. But then there are SO many who just surprise you. Even bands that you’re sure will be great, come in and we’re able to/they’re able to capture a truly inspired performance. It’s why anyone goes to see a live performance. It’s that chance that everyone hopes for. It’s the essence of what we try to do every day.

What sessions are you looking forward to recording this year at SXSW?

I’m really excited to tape Eric Burdon of The Animals, Jimmy Cliff, Built To Spill, PAPA, Counting Crows, Of Montreal, Spoek Mathambo, Diamond Rugs, Father John Misty, Youngblood Hawke, Harriet and a bunch of others. We’re gonna tape a good handful of old friends and that’s always a good time down there too, people like Barnstormer alums Hellogoodbye, Miss America (which is all of Nathaniel Rateliff’s band), Delta Spirit and Madi Diaz. Good times!

Who would your “dream” act be to record a Daytrotter session with if you could get into a time machine and travel back to their heyday?

I think Hank Williams or the Beach Boys during the “Pet Sounds” years would be the cream for me.

Check out the Daytrotter app at the iTunes store.
 

 
More SXSW 2012 coverage at Tap Into Austin 2012