The Soundtrack To My Life. 20/08/2011.

Well, I’ve slowly been moving out of my flat for the past couple of days now and here are some of the records that have kept me from going mad…

Pokey LaFarge & The South City Three – “Live At The Newport Folk Festival 2010”:

Robert Crumb And His Cheap Suit Serenaders’ selt titled Debut Album (1974):

Leadbelly: “Easy Rider” (3-Disc Compilation):

Big Mama Thornton: “The Original Hound Dog” (1990):

The “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest” soundtrack by Jack Nitzsche (1975):

Almost 2 years have gone by since I wandered into The Strathclyde Suite in The Royal Concert Hall and saw Pokey LaFarge & The South City Three play one of the best gigs I’ve ever seen and they are STILL one of my favourite bands right now.
Still!
I got a hold of their performance at last year’s Newport Folk Festival and it’s just as good as their studio work.
I listen to these guys a lot and the Newport performance put me right in the mood for some more oldies…

Robert Crumb And His Cheap Suit Serenaders.
– Now there’s a fucking band!
Robert Crumb is of course, THEE Robert Crumb; the World famous (and notorious) underground cartoonist and illustrator. If you think his drawings are the works of a genius, you should check out this debut album because it fits perfectly with his artwork and him and his band will take you right back to the 1920’s.
Back to when music was good and inspired and played with heart.
Back before it was cheap and disposable like most of it is now.

I’ve been playing that Leadbelly compilation up there quite a lot recently too because I don’t know how he gets his 12-string guitar to sound exactly like it does and I want to find out. I’m pretty sure it’s because he tunes real low and hits his guitar rather than plays it.

Big Mama Thorton’s version of  “Hound Dog” will always be better than Presley’s for me but this particular album has a song on it which I love just as much. It’s called “Big Mama” and I love it because it starts off like this:
“WELL…THEY CALL ME ‘BIG MAMA”BECAUSE I WEIGH 300 POUNDS!”
Big Mama Thornton is how I imagine the Woman at the top of those legs in the Tom & Jerry Cartoons to be!

I’m not moving house very far. In fact I’m moving next door to myself but that’s besides the point because moving can still drive you crazy and sometimes it’s better if you just go with it and Jack Nitzsche’s “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” soundtrack will take you all the way to crazy and back.
I love that soundtrack more than the six invisible penguins who helped me move my things out of the flat.
Cheers boys!

Time to lie down for a few days.
Good morning.

No Particular Place To Go.

Chuck Berry is my hero.
Always has been, always will be.
There’s only ever gonna be one of that guy.

When it comes to Rock & Roll, it’s hard to pin down exactly who did what first but it basically comes down to Chuck, Elvis, Little Richard & Jerry Lee Lewis and for my money, I think Little Richard invented Rock & Roll but right behind him and ready to take over was Chuck Berry.

I never got the chance to see Little Richard pound that piano live but I once went to a Chuck Berry gig!
…The only problem was that Chuck Berry wasn’t there.

It was a few years ago now in Glasgow but basically Anna and I sat through the crappy support band for a LONG time until we realised that Chuck probably wasn’t gonna show up.
I remember feeling disappointed because it’s not often that Chuck Berry rolls into my town to play but I’d read a couple of books about him and I half expected him to be a no-show or at the least, very late.

I kept saying to Anna: “He ain’t coming. He’s probably arguing about money backstage! I’m never gonna see Chuck Berry.”
And you know what folks? I never did get to see Chuck Berry.
Goddamn.

We knew that we’d have no problem getting our tickets refunded so we left the 2000 strong audience to argue and complain at the box office and went for a drink.

I think it took us about a week or so before we actually found out what had happned to Chuck because it made the papers.
Apparently, Chuck had wanted to drive himself to the venue for the concert and although his hotel was less than a 10 minute walk away, Chuck is said to have insisted on driving.

His people had to explain to him that you can’t drink & drive in Glasgow and that you also must have a license to drive a car here.
Ol’ Chuck didn’t have any of these things going for him so that was that.

The story goes that he showed up later on at the empty venue demanding to be paid. – Whadda guy!
It’s easy to get pissed off at an uncompromising old feller like Chuck Berry but read any book about him and you will see how badly promoters and managers in the 50’s burned him for cash.

Also, he wrote “Johnny B. Goode”. 
What the hell have you ever done?

Chuck Berry comes across as really difficult at times and as you can see HERE, nobody knows this better than Keith Richards.

The Arlo Guthrie Concert 18/08/2010.

Me and Anna decided at the last minute to go see Arlo Guthrie in The Old Fruitmarket the other night.
Turned out to be a great idea too!

I’ve been listening to Woody & Arlo Guthrie for a long time now and my band used to cover Arlo’s “Coming Into Los Angeles” so I was pretty excited.

It’s a real shame that the ticket sales for this gig were low because Arlo put on a great solo show.
Just him, an acoustic guitar and a moothy.
He played old and new songs and even a few of his Dad’s too which was cool but it was his stories which cracked everyone up.

Matter of fact stories about how he only really remembers arriving to play at Woodstock in 1969 and not much else for weeks.
Stories about Ramblin’ Jack Elliott and playing 12 string guitar on top of Leadbelly’s grave.
The stories about Leadbelly and his Dad were amazing actually.

My favourite one was about the time Woody Guthrie started to get ill and checked himself into a psychiatric ward in an attempt to find out what was up with him.

After a while the doctor said to Mrs. Guthrie:
“I’m afraid your Husband is not very well at all Mrs. Guthrie.
He has delusions of grandeur.
He believes that he’s a famous folk singer who has also penned a best selling book”.

Arlo went on to say that after a while,
His Mother went to the hospital to get Woody out but by that time he’d made friends with some of the patients and didn’t want to leave.

Apparently nobody in the hospital believed Woody was who he said he was!
One day a fellow patient approached Woody and said:
“I know who you are.
You’re Woody Guthrie.
You wrote the book “Bound For Glory” too”.

Woody goes: “You read my book?”

And the patient apparently went: “Nope. I ate it”.

🙂

Arlo Guthrie’s a great guitar player.
I never knew that.
Try and catch him if he plays in your town.

PS:
Did I mention that he likes to write poems to scare his children?
Look HERE.

Celebrity Mugshots (PART I).

You ever see the mugshot of Al Pacino as a kid?

Amazing to see how young Pacino is there.
That photo got me looking for other (In)famous mugshots and I”ve decided that ‘Ol Jim Morrison seems to hold the record:

Here are some of the other ones:

David Crosby:

Elvis Presley:

Johnny Cash:

Steve McQueen:

George Carlin:

But wait!
There’s some more!
Find them over in the next post HERE.