Body Parts: Your Feet’s Too Big

Fats Waller: Your Feet‘s Too Big

[purchase]

Fats Waller was one of the great talents from the time before jazz had a name. Starting in the 1920s, and extending into the early years of WWII, Waller’s career was a steady string of novelty songs, interspersed with a few that have become standards. His best known songs today are Honeysuckle Rose and Ain’t Misbehavin’. In 1978, the show Ain’t Misbehavin’, a revue which was a tribute to Waller’s music, made its debut on Broadway.

Your Feet’s Too Big is a wonderful display of the sense of humor that made Waller’s novelty songs so successful in their day. It also displays the musicianship that has helped his music endure, when so many of his contemporaries have been forgotten.

Body Parts: New Jersey Edition

All Gods' Children: Peace Fills Your Head

[purchase]

From the mid '80s to the mid '90s, New Brunswick, NJ had a very fertile local music scene. One of the most originals band in that scene was All Gods' Children. They were a large band (up to 14 members) with a constantly shifting lineup lead by jazz bassist and songwriter Adam Bernstein. (If you have very young kids, you may recognize Adam Bernstein as the bassist for the current queen of children's music, Laurie Berkner.) Musically, they were all over the map, covering funk, folk, soul, rock, reggae, klezmer, afropop, and avant garde jazz, with equal aplomb. They only released a handful of cassettes in their six-year run, but what really made them special was their live shows: nobody sat at an AGC show, and the band were always having as much fun as the audience.

"Peace Fills Your Head" is from their only full-length studio cassette, Zapata and Other Love Songs, from 1993. (Note: I digitized it from a well-worn cassette, so the fi is not necessarily hi.)


ISOE: Brown-Eyed Stare

[purchase]

One of the great things about All Gods' Children was that it seemed like everyone in the band could play at least two instruments. You often didn't know it until you saw various members in other bands. AGC vocalist/flautist Kate Evans was also a singer-songwriter and keyboardist, and AGC trumpeter Andy Maroko was also an accomplished guitarist. They joined forces for their own band, ISOE, and released one CD, Manhattan Lullaby in 1995. Kate's almost uncomfortably personal lyrics often dealt with relationships, including the CD's lightly funky opening track, "Brown-Eyed Stare".


Tiny Lights: Curlyeyed Open Stare

[purchase]

Although they were based in Hoboken, Tiny Lights were regulars on the New Brunswick scene. Drummer Andy Demos played percussion and various woodwinds in All Gods' Children. Tiny Lights were another band best experienced live, where they came off like Fairport Convention and Sly & the Family Stone jamming on the Beatles' "I Am the Walrus". Their most famous alum is "cellist to the stars" Jane Scarpentoni (Bruce Springsteen, Lou Reed, R.E.M., etc.), but she was gone by the time they released their fifth album Stop the Sun, I Want to Go Home, in 1992. The album opens with the funky "Curlyeyed Open Stare". Straightforward lyrics were never their forte.

Note: The All Gods' Children and ISOE catalogs are both out of print. The purchase links go to more recent solo albums from the main songwriters of each band.

Body Parts: Up To My Neck In You

Mark Kozelek: Up To My Neck In You

[purchase]

AC/DC: Up To My Neck In You

[purchase]

Though I'm a coverblogger at home, I tend to favor originals here on Star Maker Machine - after all, it is the popular starpower of the original which so often drives coverage. In this case, though, Mark Kozelek's dreamy, melodic deconstruction of what had been a pretty typical guitar-driven AC/DC B-side screamer deserves first billing, if only for reclaiming the power of the lyric from the less-than-subtle 1978 original. For more of the same, Kozelek's full album of slow, acoustic Bon Scott-era AC/DC covers comes highly recommended.

Body Parts: Baby Scratch My Back

Slim Harpo: Baby Scratch My Back

[purchase]

"Ahhh, itchy! And I don´t know where to scratch..." You may know Slim Harpo because the Stones covered his immortal I´m A King Bee early in their career, but that sure enough wasn´t the only trick this always laid back sounding bluesman from Baton Rouge had up his sleeve. Baby Scratch My Back was actually his biggest hit, back in ´66. Now do the chicken scratch, y´all...

Body Parts: My Liver Needs a Lawyer

The Naysayer: My Liver Needs a Lawyer

[Purchase]

The Naysayer is the music of Anna Padgett. She makes folk/country music and most of her work has a great sense of humor, as seen in this track which is take on all the classic country songs about drinking problems.

Body Parts: Foot of Pride

Lou Reed: Foot of Pride

[purchase]

Here's a song to bridge the gap between last week's theme and this week's.

Back in 1992, I had an old Chevy pickup truck that had been bouncing around the family for a while. Not everything worked on it, including the gas gauge. I relied on the odometer to guess when I needed to get gas. I usually got it right. On October 16 of that year, I was driving home from somewhere, and I knew I was running low. But I was trying to make it home in time to catch the live television broadcast of Bobfest, the the huge 30th anniversary Bob Dylan tribute concert at Madison Square Garden. As I pulled off of Rt. 1, a mile or two from home, the engine died. I managed to steer it into an empty parking lot and mulled over my options. It didn't take me long to figure out what my priority was. I left the truck, walked the rest of the way home, watched the whole concert broadcast, then figured out how I'd get gas for my truck. It was one of those events I did not want to miss.

The concert was flawed (where were Joan Baez and the Grateful Dead?), but there were many highlights. Some even involved people other than Neil Young. One of my favorite performances was Lou Reed's take on this relatively obscure song. He stretches out the original's six minutes to almost nine, and the guitars get almost psychedelic.

I have to confess, I've never studied all the lyrics to this song. I just like the way they come pouring out, almost too fast for Lou to keep up. I remember at the time people were dissing Lou for using a lyric sheet, but I recall his defense was that the teleprompter everyone else was using just wasn't able to keep up with the lyrics for this one.

I eventually sold the truck and bought a Honda Civic hatchback. Loved that car for ten years, but I had a lot more friends when I owned the pickup.

Body Parts: Fishing in Your Eye

The Balancing Act: Fishing in Your Eye

[purchase]

This post happened by accident.

The Balancing Act was an undeservedly obscure band on the IRS label, back in the 80s. I don’t even remember how I found out about them. But I did, and I loved what I heard. Acoustic rock with great pop sensibilities, and wonderful vocal harmonies. Eventually, the IRS label went bankrupt, and all but the most popular acts, (R. E. M.), went out of print, to be lost forever, or so I thought.

Just for fun, I was searching Amazon’s download store for obscure body parts. My daughter gave me a challenge to find a song about the large intestines, and what I found for that was a guided meditation for body health. There are some intestine songs, but I will not be posting them; they all sound pretty disgusting.

So, anyway, while doing that I remembered Fishing in Your Eye. I had no hope of finding it, but, I figured, why not? You can see what happened. So, I am very happy to be presenting The Balancing Act in one of their more adventurous moods, adding a jazz flavor into their mix.

And now you know more than you ever wanted to about the thought processes of a music blogger.

Long Songs: Mortal City

Dar Williams: Mortal City

[purchase]

This song took a while to grow on me; for years, I skipped past it, looking the harder, more upbeat tracks which have made Dar Williams a force to be reckoned with in the contemporary world of radio-ready folkpop.

But sit in a lonely chair, perhaps with your eyes closed, locked away from the hustle of multitasking, and really listen, and the song unfolds gloriously, revealing itself as a gorgeous piece of quiet, still short fiction, a girl in an ice storm finding her center in a frozen eternity. Dar's broken, breathy octaves were never more appropriate.

Long Songs: Longing for More Edition

The Poozies: Ma Plaid/ Freya Dances

[purchase]

Ma Plaid is a traditional Scottish tune which, as recorded by The Poozies, comes in at about six minutes. But the group placed it in a medley with an original instrumental, Freya Dances, which brings the whole thing in at 7:07. It is a tribute to Mary MacMaster, who wrote Freya Dances, that it serves as the perfect coda to Ma Plaid; I cannot imagine hearing the one without the other. MacMaster and Patsy Seddon were the harp duo Sileas before joining The Poozies, and this one sounds very much like a fuller arrangement of their work in that earlier group. Kate Rusby and Karen Tweed complete the lineup.

Ma Plaid, on its surface, appears to be nothing more than a love song to a man who has departed for distant shores, and who the narrator hopes will return to marry her. She keeps the plaid that he gave her to remember him by. But there may be more going on than that. She starts by singing, “this is not ma plaid”, and proceeds to describe her plaid for the rest of the song. But whose is the plaid at the beginning? It is possible that the object of her love may be Bonnie Prince Charlie. He led an unsuccessful uprising against the British rule of Scotland in 1745, and many apparent love songs from Scotland from that period are veiled references to a yearning for Scottish independence. The matter is not certain, but Ma Plaid may be one of these songs. In that case, the plaid at the beginning would represent British rule. Following the 1745 uprising, Bonnie Prince Charlie was exiled, which would account for the departure of the lover in the song to distant shores.

Joni Mitchell: Song for Sharon

[purchase]

Joni Mitchell began her exploration of jazz with the album Court and Spark, and continued with The Hissing of Summer Lawns. Hejira was the next step in the journey. On this album, Mitchell stripped down the arrangements. Most songs feature just guitar, bass, and drums. About half of the songs anticipate Mitchell’s future explorations, and these feature her first work with bassist Jaco Pastorius. The remaining songs either use no bass at all, or feature Max Bennett, who had been with Mitchell since Court and Spark. These songs represent a consolidation, as Mitchell sums up where she has been. Musically, Song For Sharon is one these “consolidation” songs. It breaks no new ground for her, but is a solid addition to her catalog.

The song comes in at just over 8 minutes, mostly because there are a lot of words. In this way, jazz freed up Mitchell; she could write the song without worrying about length, and say all that she had to say. I read the words this way: on a ride back to Manhattan on the Staten Island ferry, Mitchell’s character thinks of Sharon, a friend from childhood. Mitchell’s character imagines a letter to Sharon, and her thoughts ramble through her day, life in New York City, and how different their lives turned out. The whole thing is a verbal improvisation, more jazz than the music that accompanies it. I am not sure the letter ever gets sent, or even written.

Traffic: The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys

[purchase]

The whole concept of jam bands tickles me. In the 1960s, every band I cared about jammed. It was a badge of honor, and essential to what performing live was all about. When I started hearing about bands who would try to recreate the sound of their albums in concert, I found the idea offensive. I still do. But The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys is something else. This is the purest attempt I know of by a band with roots in the sixties to recreate their live sound in a studio recording. Here are all the solos and mood changes one would expect in a live performance. The whole thing threatens to fall apart in several places, but never does. The result is a breathtaking listening experience.

So what is the song about? Well. Jim Capaldi of Traffic was in Morocco with actor Michael J Pollard, working on a movie that wound up never getting made. I’ll let Capaldi explain further:

“Pollard and I would sit around writing lyrics all day, talking about Bob Dylan and the Band, thinking up ridiculous plots for the movie. Before I left Morocco, Pollard wrote in my book 'The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys.' For me, it summed him up. He had this tremendous rebel attitude. He walked around in his cowboy boots, his leather jacket. At the time he was a heavy little dude. It seemed to sum up all the people of that generation who were just rebels. The 'Low Spark,' for me, was the spirit, high-spirited. You know, standing on a street corner. The low rider. The 'Low Spark' meaning that strong undercurrent at the street level.”

Long Songs : Diaraby

Ali Farka Touré & Ry Cooder : Diaraby

[purchase]

I first thought of posting the great Ethiopian singer Mahmoud Ahmed, but then to my surprise I realized that his song "Era Mèla Mèla" was less than 7 minutes long, so I'll save it for another theme. I first heard him on a great German compilation called Desert Blues, along with a lot of artists that became favorites of mine.

But there are other great long tracks on these two CDs, and of course, this famous Ali Farka Touré/Ry Cooder duet. Ali Farka, when this record came out, was hastily advertised by marketing executives as "the source" of the blues, while the Malian griot himself claimed that one of his masters was … John Lee Hooker. The perfect "round trip" influence between the old and the new world.

Anyway, this music makes me long for the dusty and red roads of Mali and Burkina Faso, where I made wonderful trips and made many friends in 1996 and 1999. Now I'm older, I have young kids, and cannot travel so far for the moment. But just looking at a picture or listening to such a song takes me back there for a while.

now the question is : will this post recieve more than the "0 comments" I usually get when posting something that is a little bit too "foreign" or non folk or rock ? (please consider that as a friendly teasing and an invitation to comments)

Long Songs: Marquee Moon

Television: Marquee Moon

[purchase]

Well it seems like a lot of the SMMers are on summer vacation, so here's another one from the new guy.

Television sprung from the same mid-'70s CBGB's scene that gave us Blondie and the Ramones, but they weren't really punk or new wave. While their peers were putting out two- and three-minute bursts of pop energy, Television were stretching out, jamming with a purpose. The interplay between guitarists Richard Lloyd and Tom Verlaine was the draw, and that was never more fully realized than on the nearly 11-minute title track off their debut album from 1977.

I didn't discover Television until their 1992 reunion album. And while that's an okay album, it wasn't until I went back to their first album that I discovered what all the fuss was about. After getting past Verlaine's adenoidal vocals, hearing this song was a revelation.

Long Songs: Deacon Blues

Steely Dan: Deacon Blues

[purchase]

Steely Dan, in their heyday, made a habit of being sneaky. They would use all these jazz harmonies in their music, and get people who “hated jazz” to love it. The album Aja was their commercial peak, and the sneakiness was here in full measure, if you knew what you were hearing. But with Aja, Steely Dan managed another bit of sneakiness: they took a long song to #19 on the pop chart. I know that Roundabout by Yes had charted even higher a few years earlier, but that was a 3:27 radio edit. Does anyone know if Deacon Blues was the longest song ever to reach the top 20 up to that point?

Another thing about Deacon Blues: I grew up in a non-sports household. About fifteen years after the release of Aja, I finally found out the meaning of the line, “They call Alabama the Crimson Tide...” But I loved the song anyway. There was one other sneaky thing about Steely Dan. When I asked my older brother to explain some of their lyrics, he would smile in an evil way, and say, “you’ll understand when you’re older.” Now I am, and I finally do.

Long Songs: Future Games

Fleetwood Mac: Future Games

[purchase]

I was extremely happy to see Boyhowdy post the original Fleetwood Mac version of "Black Magic Woman" last week. I'm a big fan of the Peter Green-era Mac. In fact, I almost posted their full version of "Oh Well" this week.

But I also have a soft spot for the Mac's Bob Welch years, too. In some ways, they are the lost years, when the band was searching for a new identity. They were well past their blues beginnings and their acid-rock adolescence, but had yet to mature into the LA hit machine they became when Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham came on board.

They released a lot of mediocre albums during this period (1971-74), but they contain a clutch of unique, atmospheric Bob Welch songs. My favorite is the title track to their first album with Welch, "Future Games". It clocks in at over eight minutes, but it never overstays its welcome. I really have no idea what Bob's singing about; I just love the way it sounds, floating out of the speakers.

Long Songs: Matty Groves

Fairport Convention: Matty Groves

[purchase]

My first thought when I learned of this week’s theme was, “There must be one of those English folk songs with tons of verses that would work this week.” And, of course, there is.

There was a time when most people in England, particularly the lower classes, were illiterate. Songs like Matty Groves served the same role that tabloid newspapers do now. And the juicier the story, the more details people wanted. And in this case, details are what they got.

As songs like this worked their way into the body of traditional material, they tended to acquire verses from other songs. So it is impossible to say what actually happened here. Enjoying songs like this is like enjoying the beauty of a patchwork quilt. And this musical quilt is a particularly fine example of the form.

Long Songs: Weird Al Edition

Weird Al Yankovic: Albuquerque

[purchase]

Weird Al Yankovic: Genius in France

[purchase]

Weird Al Yankovic: Trapped in the Drive-Thru

[purchase]

Recently, Weird Al Yankovic has taken to ending each of his albums with ridiculously long songs that are possibly even more absurd than his usual fare. If you have a half-hour or so to spare, I'd like to share those songs with you here.

The trend began with "Albuquerque" from 1999's Running with Scissors. The song is basically one large tangential rant involving rabid weasels, hermaphrodites, Leonard Nimoy's butt, and a lucky snorkel. All of these things are mentioned only to drive home the point that Al hates sauerkraut.

Did I mention that these songs might be a bit absurd?

Al followed that exercise with "Genius in France" from 2003's Poodle Hat. This time Al pays tribute to the late Frank Zappa with a track that jumps around from style to style with tons of dynamic shifts to an intentionally unsettling effect. Frank's son Dweezil Zappa plays the guitar intro to the song.

Finally... from 2006's Straight Outta Lynnwood... comes "Trapped in the Drive-Thru." If you've ever seen any of R. Kelly's "Trapped in the Closet" videos, then this one needs no further explanation.

Kudos to any of you who can make it through all three of these.

Long Songs: Rose Rouge

St. Germain: Rose Rouge

[purchase]

My first trip to Amsterdam was as an adult, in March of 2000; my wife had just miscarried after several years of earnest attempts at bearing a first child, and although the doctor advised against flying, we really needed to get away from it all. I have fond if somewhat inevitably hazy memories of a week museum-hopping and roaming the castles and small rustic villages of the countryside, sitting by the side of canals eating bread, cheese, and salami -- about all we could afford on my teacher's salary.

But my strongest memories from that week are of St. Germain's Tourist, an album whose jazz-informed rhythms, jazz-club instrumentation, and long, trance-inducing tracks emanated from what seemed at the time like every coffeeshop and bar, providing the perfect atmospheric soundtrack to what otherwise could have fast become an insular and morose period in our lives. I bought the disc at overseas prices -- a comparative fortune, back then -- and have kept it with me ever since. Rose Rouge is one of the shorter pieces on the album, but it really blows away the blues, even now.

Black and White: White Room

Cream: White Room

[purchase]

I'm still in overwhelmed/numb/mourning/introspective mode... and this song certainly fits the bill - "lie in the dark where the shadows run from themselves" indeed...

From last.fm:

After bassist Jack Bruce wrote the guitar pieces, Cream’s lyricist, poet Pete Brown, grouped colorful four-syllable phrases, loosely organized around images of waiting in an English railway station influenced by the drugs he was taking. “White Room” is further noted for its unusual time signature of 5/4 in the introduction and bridge, with triplets played on toms by Ginger Baker, his thunderous bass drum part also lacing the verses. Finally, “White Room” is notable for showcasing guitarist Eric Clapton’s best known use of the Vox Clyde McCoy Picture Wah (a device used to turn off bass and treble as the pedal is rocked) in the bridge and extended solo.

Along with “Sunshine of Your Love” and “Crossroads”, White Room is one of Cream’s most notable songs, reaching number 6 on the U.S. pop charts.

A most vivid memory of my childhood is when the History of Eric Clapton album came out in March 1972 (my senior year of high school) and, since I didn't yet have my driver's license (long story there), I pitched a total tantrum until my dad gave in and took me up to the mall where I could purchase it on the release date - I still have the 2-LP set... and every snap, crackle and pop is accounted for from endless rotations in the white room of my angst-ridden teen years (is that a redundancy?)...

P.S. In researching this album to post for the purchase link, I note that White Room isn't even on it - I'd have bet money that it was...

Black and White: Black Magic Woman

Fleetwood Mac: Black Magic Woman

[purchase]

As I noted in back in February over at the coverblog, most folks have no idea that Santana signature tune Black Magic Woman is a cover song. But the 1968 original, which peaked at #37 on the UK Singles chart, is worth celebrating, too, and it's nothing like the smooth radiopop which most modern listeners associate with the classic literock radio era of Fleetwood Mac.

Instead, prepare yourself for a perfectly smooth, slightly trippy sixties sound straight out of a Vietnam-era documentary soundtrack, guitar-driven and full of funky feeling, that falls somewhere between the best of Cream and the Zombies. Note the sparse high production, which allows the listener to experience each instrument distinctly. And don't forget to stick around for the blues coda.

Black and White: My White Bicycle

Tomorrow: My White Bicycle

[purchase]

In 1966 the Dutch countercultural group Provo came up with a radical idea of scattering bicycles throughout Amsterdam for city residents to use whenever they needed. To make them easy to identify (and to prevent people from keeping them), they were painted white.

Tomorrow's "My White Bicycle" was apparently inspired by that program, but given the year (1967) and the genre (psychedelic pop), I'm betting that the title of the song is also a sly reference to LSD inventor Albert Hofmann's famous bicycle ride home from work after becoming the first person to ingest the psychedelic drug in 1943.

Tomorrow give the song an appropriately dizzy production, with backwards instruments, droning bass, sound effects, heavy panning, etc.

At the time, they were seen as psychedelic innovators. But they only managed to release one album, and now they are a a rock history footnote, known mostly for guitarist Steve Howe, who went on to make his name as a member of progressive rock band Yes.

Black and White: White Thread

Breedlove: White Thread

[purchase: warning, collector's prices only!]

I discovered the shortlived Austin-based jamband Breedlove through this song, a freebie on a mid-nineties H.O.R.D.E. festival second stage sampler; turns out it's the lead track from their only album, so I suppose they never made much of a splash. Today, lead guitarist and songwriter David Dyer enjoys a solid solo career, albeit not one successful enough to merit a Wikipedia entry.

Still, despite its somewhat unpolished arrangement, White Thread has a certain je ne sais quoi, enough to live on in my summer "funky backyard jam" playlist no matter how many times I update the damn thing.