Hugh Cornwell and London-based Mariachi Mexteca take The Stranglers’ “Golden Brown” south of the border.
Golden brown texture like sun
Lays me down with my mind she runs
Throughout the night
No need to fight
Never a frown with golden brown”
It has been said (by Cornwell himself) that “Golden Brown” is a song about heroin (Mexican Brown). If so, this version is sort of a narcocorrido without the accordions.
I’ll take this any day over The Stranglers that are currently befouling the air.
The Pretty Things started as blues-rock band in the early 1960s, and they’re often described as being “meaner, louder, uglier and with longer hair” than the Rolling Stones. (Pretty Things guitarist Dick Taylor originally played bass in the Stones). Their gritty, primitive R&B sound was heavily influenced by Bo Diddley’s beat.
With their fourth album, S.F. Sorrow,the Pretty Things decided to shake it up a bit and create a psychedelic rock opera that some regard as a lost masterpiece (I am one of them). It’s held in the same high regard as another lost 60s classic, Odessey and Oracle by the Zombies. In fact, S.F. Sorrow was the first rock opera, not Tommy. Although Pete Townshend has pointedly denied that S.F. Sorrow was an influence on Tommy, this seems unlikely to me at best. (They were of the same small London scene, The Who and the Pretty Things, so the notion that Townshend was unaware of S.F. Sorrow is bullshit. It’s got to be.)
S.F. Sorrow was recorded between December 1967 and September 1968 at Abbey Road Studios. The sound incorporates the sitar, Mellotron, flute, dulcimer and tripped out sound effects.. At the same time, the album’s producer, Norman “Hurricane” Smith was working with Pink Floyd on their A Saucerful Of Secrets album and The Beatles were recording their White Album. (S.F. Sorrow came out the same week as the White Album and Beggars Banquet).
The opera’s libretto came in the form of liner notes that told the story of one Sebastian F. Sorrow, an ordinary fellow who works at the “Misery Factory” and is drafted into World War I. His life descends into meaninglessness after he witnesses a hot-air balloon carrying his fiance crash and burn. Along the way he has an encounter with a mysterious whip-cracking character called “Baron Saturday” (based on the voodoo deity Baron Samedi).
Saturday “borrows his eyes” and takes Sorrow on a trippy trip through the Underworld (something that seems to mirror the Acid Queen’s unorthodox therapy in Tommy, don’t cha think?). The opera ends on a sad note as the desolate Sorrow realizes that he can trust no one and that he will die alone.
Following are a series of awesome vintage S.F. Sorrow performances from European television:
Here’s a video/music mix celebrating New York City in the 1970s - street scenes and music you’d hear in the downtown clubs.
Of course, despite the animosity directed at New York City by people who didn’t “get” it, the City survived. We didn’t drop dead, we dropped beats.
1. “Jet Boy” - The New York Dolls 2. “Piss Factory” - Patti Smith
3. “X-Offender” Blondie 4. “Born To Lose” - The Heartbreakers
5. “SuperRappin’” - Grandmaster Flash 6. “Darrio” - Kid Creole
7. “The Mexican” - Babe Ruth 8. “Pop Your Funk” - Arthur Russell
Okay I lied. Morrison was dead months before “Stairway To Heaven” was released. What we have here is The Australian Doors in a highly entertaining video that manages to take the piss out on both bands.
This performance appeared on Australian TV show The Money Or The Gun, which ran for one season (1989-90) and each week featured a guest performer doing a version of Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway To Heaven,” over 25 in all.
I’ve picked three “Stairway” covers I like: Elvis, The Doors and The Beatles.
Choice clips of Public Image Limited, performing live at Zeche Bochum, Germany, for Rockpalast in 1983.
John Lydon was 5 years into his PiL experiment, and having either kicked out or split from the band’s original members, was now teamed-up with a band of session musicians (who acquit themselves admirably), and regular drummer Martin Atkins. Lydon seems happy that he is now in charge and gives a great performance of his “greatest hits”, a similar version of which would be released as the double EP record Live in Tokyo.
Track Listing
01. “Public Image”
02. “Annalisa”
03. “Religion”
04. “Memories”
05. “Flowers of Romance”
06. “Solitaire”
07. “Chant”
08. “Anarchy in the UK”
09. “(This is Not a) Love Song”
10. “Low Life”
11. “Under the House”
12. “Bad Life”
13. “Public Image”
More choice chunks of PiL on ‘Rockpalast’, after the jump…
This vintage footage of Vangelis playing around on his synthesisers at Nemo Studios in London, is equal parts beautiful and terrifying. What an incredible, intense, truly psychedelic sound he is creating! And what a crazy head space he must have been in to live and work in this environment every day.
[The] recording of this performance took place [on] Spanish Television in 1982, [and] also when Neuronium (Michel Huygen) visited Vangelis to perform together.
Some enhancement of the original video tape with denoising, contrast improvement and color correction.
Sound remastering for better clearity and stereo imaging.
Stunning new video directed by Matt Mahurin for Tom Waits’ “Hell Broke Luce” from the album Bad As Me.
Big fucking ditches in the middle of the road
You pay a hundred dollars just for fillin’ in the hole
Listen to the general every goddamn word
How many ways can you polish up a turd”
With Waits’ death-rattle vocals, Keith Richards’ snarling guitar and Mahurin’s post-apocalyptic visuals, this is one dark grungy slab of somethin’ or other. Magritte breaking real bad.
Ronald Reagan, that evil fuck President who willfully destroyed working class communities to give tax breaks to the rich. Reagan was happy to do it so long as it was African-Americans that bore the brunt.
Reaganomics left half the Black population on welfare. Reagan had no conscience about it. He had a money lust which hit hardest on those who were weakest and least able to fend for themselves.
Stopping poverty wasn’t on Reagan’s tick list. Rather it was cut corners and take, take, take from the poor - which stooped as low as having the tomato base on pizzas reclassified as fruit to ensure he could slash the cost of school dinners. He even tried to do the same with tomato ketchup but failed.
Reagan’s policy was simple - if you were poor: fuck you. If you were sick: fuck you. If you were dying of cancer: fuck you and get a goddamn job.
For young African-Americans in the 1980s, it seemed the hard-earned achievements of the sixties’ Civil Rights movement had been too easily betrayed and forgotten. And when crack cocaine hit the inner cities, it seemed any hope of a future was gone.
Against this background arose a culture of music that was to redefine Black America. Hip-Hop and Rap reflected the poverty, despair and violence of life in the ghettoes. It also railed angrily against the indifference and cynical exploitation by successive Presidents, whose only interest was to help themselves and help the rich.
Letter to the President is a fascinating over-view of the rise of Hip-Hop and Rap, and their importance in bringing a community together against a common enemy. Narrated by Snoop Dogg, and with contributions form Quincy Jones, KRS-One, David Banner, 50 Cent, Chuck D, Ghostface Killah, Nelson George, Sonia Sanchez, and Dick Gregory.
The Spotnicks are an instrumental rock group from Sweden. Formed in 1961, they were well-known for their “space suit” costumes and their Ventures-esque electric guitar sound. The Spotnicks have released 42 albums and sold over 18 million records. They still tour.
I guess if your gimmick works, then stick with it!
Below, The Spotnicks do their hit “Rocket Man,” based on a traditional Russian folk song, in 1962:
More of the space-rock sound of The Spotnicks after the jump…
,the Pretty Things decided to shake it up a bit and create a psychedelic rock opera that some regard as a lost masterpiece (I am one of them). It’s held in the same high regard as another lost 60s classic, 
by the Zombies. In fact, 
