The Age Of Aquarius: Vi Har Bara Varandra

Di Leva: Vi Har Bara Varandra
[purchase]

Funny thing about hippies: they tend to be right.  Oh sure, it's easy to sneer at the earnestness and positivity: after all, sneering is just what we do.  They're so naive.  And those clothes! They probably don't wash!  I'll bet they smell bad...  So we joke and belittle, look down our noses and snort, because we're just so much worldlier than them.  But deep down we know: they're right.

You see, the world would be a better place without hatred and war.  The love of one another and the planet we appear to be trying so hard to ruin may well be the only thing that can pull us all back from the brink.  These ideas aren't really open to debate, but we debate them anyway because that's the only way we can think of to justify our cavalier behaviour.  We're angry people, and we reserve the right not to want to move beyond that anger in order to try to find some positivity in amongst all the gloom and grime.

So it is that here in Sweden, Thomas Di Leva is something of a punchline.  Resolutely hippy, happy in the childlike persona he wears like a comfortable kaftan, he sings about how all we have is each other and how everything is interconnected, and everyone snickers.  Then they join in and sing along.  And perhaps, just perhaps, the joke is on us because in that brief moment that catches us roaring along with the ridiculous, infectious chorus, we might understand the gleam in Di Leva's eye, and the fact that he made believers out of cynical-old us, however fleetingly.

As someone else once sang, Immerse your soul in love.  After all, we only have each other.

The Age of Aquarius: Fresh Air

Quicksilver Messenger Service: Fresh Air
[purchase]

In the late 1960’s, Quicksilver Messenger Service was a popular Bay Area band, but it has been overshadowed by its more successful contemporaries like The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin and Santana. According to some accounts, the group was to be led by Dino Valenti, who wrote the song “Get Together” (under his birth name, Chet Powers). Unfortunately, before they really got going, Valenti spent almost two years in jail on marijuana possession charges. Instead, the band included David Freiberg, who later was a member of Jefferson Starship, guitarist John Cipollina, and guitarist and singer Gary Duncan, among others. For their fourth album, Just for Love, Valenti finally joined the fold, wrote most of the songs (this time under the name Jesse Oris Farrow), and their sound became more pop oriented.

“Fresh Air,” the single from the album, is Quicksilver’s biggest hit, reaching 49 on the Billboard chart. The song has a nice jam band feel to it, Marty Balin-esque vocals, good harmonies, a great Santanaish guitar solo from Cipollina and a piano solo from Nicky Hopkins, the great session musician, who was a member of the band at the time.

In the song, the singer tells a woman to “have another hit” of:

Sweet air;
Fresh air;
Sweet love; and
Sweet California sunshine

What I think he really is telling her to “have another hit” of:

Marijuana.

I could be wrong, but it was 1970, and considering the musicians involved, I’m going to go with that.

The Age of Aquarius: Do What You Like

Blind Faith: Do What You Like
[purchase]

I happened to be in Seattle in the summer of 69, and although I was just barely a teen (14 counts, doesn’t it?), my parents gave me and my younger brother permission to see Blind Faith. We got mugged on the way back home after the concert, but that’s another story and that was in the days before “terror” carried the meaning it does today.

Like so many others, including boyhowdy, my brother and I wore our hair long. Mine being thin (in more ways than one), I wore it tied back; his was even longer, kind of a cross between Tiny Tim’s and Ginger Baker’s. I kept mine long until I took a full time job after college.

I was schooled in a co-ed boarding school in the Philly area in the early 70s. Although it is a little bit of a stretch to say I was a hippie, there were forays into the culture – to the extent that circumstances allowed (maintaining a passing gpa, staying on the tennis team…). The school was bordered on one side by a river called the Neshaminy, and there were times that we would leave our clothes on the school-side riverbank and cavort nekkid in the field/woods on the other side for an afternoon’s fun. All very “Hair” even if we were only teens.

Do What You Like, from the only album Blind Faith made (the band came together in early 69 and disbanded in late 69), has lyrics that espouse the mentality of the hippy lifestyle:

Do right, use your head (one wonders exactly how)

Get together, break your bread… (peace, man)

The song also has the prerequisite extended jam that the hippie generation loved: nigh on 15 minutes of it, and it ends in a rather spacey ramble of notes.

The Age of Aquarius: Almost Cut My Hair

Crosby, Stills, and Nash: Almost Cut My Hair

[purchase]

Yes, that's me up there, in 2002: prep school teacher, daddy, and long haired hippie freak. Though I've never identified as terribly liberal or hippie-ish, I managed to avoid cutting my hair from the middle of high school; by the time I turned thirty, I could sit on it. The stories that this brought about are numerous, and include multiple old ladies stroking my head without asking first, a long-standing reputation as one of the "cool teachers" on the faculty, and a long tense standoff with the well-intentioned folks at the Amsterdam airport, who seemed convinced that anyone who looked like one of the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers was surely trying to smuggle hash back into the United States.

I swear, I only cut it because the changing table was higher than my hair hung down. That, and the sheer weight was starting to cause serious back and neck problems.

David Crosby's freak anthem, written and recorded in the midst of some pretty heavy drug use, has been recorded several times by Crosby and company, but I've always liked the long-form take above, recorded in 1970 but not released until 1991. It was played multiple times to welcome me to parties, in my long and misbegotten youth.

In my defense, I liked having long hair. The way it functioned as a bullshit detector for people carrying the weight of stereotype, and the way it lowered expectations from the universe, leaving room to impress, were a shield against the world as I learned to become a late-blooming adult. Unfortunately, I have no such excuse for the hemp necklace, nor the patchouli vial which hangs suspended from it, which you can see in the picture above.

Eating The Animal Kingdom: Catfish Blues

David "Honeyboy" Edwards: Catfish Blues


[purchase]




My wife's diet changes in the past year or so have meant that we are eating a lot more fish than we used to. We live on the water, so fish is plentiful and cheap. Where I live, you don't need no fishing license - you can feed yourself for free. Just dangle a line over the edge (if you are brave enough to eat the fish from a waterway that supports 16 million people!)  But we ain't got no catfish in these parts - far as I know.


The catfish has a venerable heritage. They say it can reach impossible proportions: 150 lbs? They say it was once a staple of the folks who played the early blues. They say that Robert Petaway wrote a song that Muddy Waters adapted and that many others heard and copied. It appears it isn't all that clear who took what and who did what with the conceit, but there are many folk who have a song called Catfish Blues.


Lightnin' Hopkins has a version, B.B. King has a version, Canned Heat has a version and so does Jimi Hendrix. Taj Mahal sings Catfish Blues, too.


Of the many versions I have, "Honeyboy" Edwards, whose version is showcased here above, does the best true blues: just the right number of notes. The wait-time between the notes is just what you want from the blues. You've got the harmonica, guitar and vocals that "hit' it just right to give you the feel - 'most like the catfish itself.

Eating The Animal Kingdon: Ham 'n' Eggs

A Tribe Called Quest: Ham ‘n’ Eggs
[purchase]

So, when was the last time you heard a rapper worrying about cholesterol?  Back in the days when Hip Hop was both funky and fun it was more than okay just to talk about what kind of food was palatable or otherwise, and being a "finger-lickin' winner" just meant that Q-Tip enjoyed his KFC.  No gold, no diamonds, no pretensions toward mafia-chic or the accoutrements of political clout: just beef jerky and asparagus tips.  But by all means, no ham and eggs.  They kind of smell bad, plus, you know, fatty blood.

And I wonder: were we really ever that young?  The hope and fun, the ramshackle sense of enjoyment: all of these things are missing, not just from Hip-Hop but from just about every genre of popular music.  We can do earnest - we're pretty good at that, and nowadays very few 'serious' artists arrive with chins unscratched and navels un-contemplated - and we can certainly still do throwaway, but everything just seems so premeditated, so calculated.  Every rhyme, every run, every Auto-tuned coo has been A&R-ed and focus-groupped to death, even in these days of waning record company power. And who knows, maybe the Tribe were too.  They just sounded like they weren't, and that's all that matters in the end.

Eating the Animal Kingdom : Enchanted Pork Fist

Meat Puppets: Enchanted Pork Fist

[Purchase]

Before Star Maker Machine looks like a series of Yesterday and Today Butchers Cover outtakes, I thought I'd offer some simple cover art with my entry. "Enchanted Pork Fist", from The Meat Puppet's 1985 album Up On The Sun, shows off Curt Kirkwood's Allman-Brothers-at-double-speed guitar chops before the boys sing about pistachios and getting back to bed.

 When the Puppets follow-up, Out My Way , came out in 1986 I got a phone interview with Curt and asked how he learned to move his fingers so quickly. In his laconic drawl, Curt said when you live in the Arizona desert there's nothing to do but jerk off and play your guitar and he's had a lot of practice at both.

Eating The Animal Kingdom: Praying Mantis

Don Dixon & Marti Jones: Praying Mantis
[purchase studio version]

I just finished spending the day smoking a pork butt, creating some delicious pulled pork, so I’m going to head off in a very different direction. There is a sense of recycled-ness to this week’s theme—we are extending last week’s theme, and this blog has already done a food theme, but a long time ago in Internet terms, and in any event before I was part of this community of music obsessives. So, in keeping with this overlay to the theme, I am writing about a song that was posted back in 2009 by Darius, our fearless leader. But to liven things up, so to speak, I am posting a live version.

“Praying Mantis,” by Don Dixon, is a great, twisted pop song, by a performer who is not widely known, and known if at all for being a producer of little known acts such as R.E.M., The Smithereens (the New Jersey band founded in 1980, not the Northampton, Mass. a capella group founded in 1945), Marshall Crenshaw, and his wife, Marti Jones. Dixon, as a songwriter and performer, reminds me of people like Nick Lowe and John Hiatt.

This track is from a live “official bootleg” that was, I believe, available for purchase at some point, but no more. I originally downloaded it from the music blog Popdose, which states that Dixon and Jones permitted them to post the show for download. It was recorded on May 11, 1990 at the 1313 Club in Charlotte, NC. It is still up and you can hear the entire show here: [Live from the 1313 Club]

It appears, however, that the story that the female praying mantis always eats the male after mating isn’t true. [Snopes Article] So, if any male praying mantises are reading this blog, you may be able to rest easily, and should get out of your house, or nest, or wherever praying mantises live, and try to meet a nice girl.

Eating The Animal Kingdom: Pigmeat

Ry Cooder: Pigmeat

[purchase]

A belated start to this week's theme, but not as late as all that, really, given how closely connected it is to our previous conceit - the difference here is, instead of merely celebrating fauna in all its forms, we find ourselves going for the gastronomical. In doing so, we retroactively include this morning's post featuring Little Feat classic Dixie Chicken, or at least the image accompanying it. Expect more of the same lip-smacking imagery as we move forward into June. Vegetarians, we apologize in advance for any distress.

This mess of a tune - originally by Huddie Ledbetter, swung here by master guitarist, composer, and one-time Rolling Stones studio sideman Ry Cooder - is a perfect thematic reboot, and not solely for the barely buried innuendo it hides under its sloppy, juicy performance. Pig meat, indeed. See also Cooder's One Meat Ball (pasted below), a tin pan alley cover from the same self-titled debut solo album, for thematically related though sonically distinct thrills.

The Animal Kingdom: Dixie Chicken

Little Feat: Dixie Chicken
 [purchase]

While we're stuck on the animal kingdom and temporarily focused on fowl (and the plural is fowls?), allow me to once again plug both one of my favorite bands and one of my favorite resources (poignantly appropriate at this point in time)

The original studio version (purchase link goes there) is from the 1973 album of the same name. This embedded link is from the legal/free repository at archive.org where it is labeled as a 1976 live recording from the Warner Theater. I think you'll agree that it is pretty crisp (all around) for a live recording. ( I hear something "funky" happen to the recording at about 9'30", but it doesn't detract much from the overall value. Am I wrong? Do you hear it, too?)

Please pardon my irreverance as to the image choice for "the animal kingdom", but I kind of wish that it might provoke a remark about what it is that we do to our animal brethren.

The Animal Kingdom: Gallo del Cielo

Tom Russell: Gallo del Cielo

[purchase]

Due to my love of country and folk music, I have 68 horse mp3s in my collection. But since I always wait until the last minute to post on Star Marker Machine, I usually miss my chance to post my first thought on the given subject. I spent the week scouring my brain trying to think of a non-horse animal kingdom song to post. Finally on Thursday, while listening to Outlaw Country on XM radio, it hit me.

Tom Russell's "Gall del Cielo" is the quintessential Americana song. Written near his native Los Angeles in 1979, the song tells the story of Carlos Zaragoza, a Mexican man trying to win enough money via betting on cockfights to buy back the land that Pancho Villa stole from his family. The rooster from heaven, Gallo del Cielo, is the strongest of the cockfighters. Zaragoza steels the rooster from his home in northern Mexico, swims the Rio Grande and travels the southwestern US and California winning money on Gallo del Cielo's fighting prowess. Unfortunately by the time Zaragoza gets to Santa Clara, Gallo del Cielo meets his match. Zaragoza losses all of his money on the fight, and exiles himself so as to not bring his family shame.

Ruseell has recorded several versions of "Gallo del Cielo." This one is from the completion Veterans Day: The Tom Russell Anthology, but the original is from Russell's 1984 album Heart on a Sleeve.

The Animal Kingdom: Will the Wolf Survive?

Los Lobos: Will the Wolf Survive?

[purchase]

Time flies. Los Lobos -- "The Wolves" -- formed in 1976. For a band that's been together for more than 35 years, Los Lobos has aged incredibly well: Los Lobos' founding members (David Hilgado, Conrad Lozano, Louie Perez, and Cesar Rosas) remain, and the new kid (Steve Berlin, who joined in 1983) is still there too. Members even work together on side projects (For example, Hildago and Perez collaborated on the Latin Playboys, as well a wonderful duet album quietly released in 2010). Not only do the band members seem to genuinely like each other, they are also committed to their craft. The breadth of material Los Lobos has recorded is impressive, and each of their 16 full-length albums has something to recommend.

Among mainstream listeners Los Lobos may be best known for two cover songs -- "La Bamba," which appeared in the film of the same name; and a rollicking cover of "I Wanna to Be Like You (The Monkey Song)" from the movie The Jungle Book. Their signature song really is "Will the Wolf Survive?," which echoes both the name of their first full-length English-language album (How Will the Wolf Survive?) and the translation of the band's name. Recorded in 1984, the song seems to sense the challenges the band would face during its long career. Looking back at over three decades as one of America's premiere roots rock bands, the answer to the question "Will the Wolf Survive?" is a resounding "Yes."

Bonus Track: Since it fits in with our animal kingdom theme, here's Los Lobos's fun cover of "I Wanna Be Like You (The Monkey Song)" from the Disney soundtrack tribute album, Stay Awake.

Los Lobos: I Wan'na Be Like You (The Monkey Song)

[purchase]

The Animal Kingdom: The Lion Sleeps (Wimoweh)

The Tokens: The Lion Sleeps Tonight (Wimoweh)

[purchase]

My favorite football team has always been the Detroit Lions. When I was little, my mom told me this song was written about the Detroit Lions. A misstatement I should have seen through -- but I had never heard the song "Wimoweh," and, frankly, the sentiment "The Lions Sleep Tonight" did come awfully close to describing the my team's play on the field. The Detroit Lions appear to finally be contenders, but I still think of them whenever I hear this song.

The Animal Kingdom: Cows

The Suburbs: Cows

[purchase]


I lived in Minneapolis back in the 80’s, so I am familiar with the Purple One. The album that includes ”Starfish and Coffee” is one my favorites of his. I never saw him perform except in that movie about Violet Precipitation and the other one which shall remain nameless. During the 1980s several other bands from the Minneapolis-St. Paul area got some critical notoriety outside Minnesota, such as The Replacements and Husker Du. Other groups like the Suburbs (from the Mpls. suburbs, of course) didn’t become as well known, and it seems a mystery to me. They had the dapper 1980s bad haircut look (see here) and performed sweaty, beer-soaked dance punk.

Since I grew up in the Dairy State of Wisconsin, I have some fondness for bovines, and when I was young, my dad was a dairy farmer. He gave it up for a steady paycheck and regular hours before I was old enough to take much responsibility for farm work. The song “Cows” is from the Suburbs first album In Combo, which seems to go in and out of print, but is also available on “best of” recordings. It is short and sweet and to the point: “and like their friends the shaved sheep, they got the skinny feet.”

Guest post by Paul T

The Animal Kingdom: The Caterpillar

The Cure: The Caterpillar
[purchase]

Skittering sticky sweet and sensual from the close confines of The Top, perfect pep deception from an imperfect post-Pornography, post-Pop epiphany Cure curiosity.  Onomatopoeic ticks and clicks scratch as cocoons hatch, new wings stretch and bend, a heart swoons and rends. Lies and disguises belie the truth he can't quite hide - gossamer bears away what gossamer lies hold back, and she was never in his league, not really.  He may be a caterpillar, but she isn't.  Not anymore.

The Animal Kingdom: Tiger Rag

Original Dixieland Jass Band: Tiger Rag
[purchase]

For some reason, this post was out of place, requiring me to delete the original and repost.
In a couple of weeks it will be my 30th reunion at Princeton University, so “Tiger Rag” seemed like the right song for this week. The picture is my class’ logo; our theme is “30 Rocks,” which fits with my participation in this blog and the fact that I worked at WPRB for 3 and a half years. Also, Alec Baldwin’s character on the show “30 Rock,” Jack Donaghy, went to Princeton, and based on clues about his age, could have been in our class, if he were a real person. Fifteen years ago, our theme was “The XV Files,” in reference to David Duchovny, the star of The X Files, who is a real person, and a member of my class (but who I don’t believed showed up at the 15th). Princeton Reunions is a crazy experience that defies easy description. Alumni all wear costumes, the drinking is excessive, and it is a blast. Google it, and you will find embarrassing pictures, and news articles that try to do it justice, but can’t. My kids tease me that it is the only weekend when I am friendly to everybody. Which is probably true.

The tiger became the mascot of Princeton sometime in the 1800’s. In 1867, Princeton started to use orange as its color, in honor of William III, of the House of Nassau, who was Prince of Orange. The oldest building on campus, Nassau Hall, was named for William. Black lettering was used on orange ribbons, and by 1896, the official graduation gowns were orange and black, despite the fact that the official colors of the House of Nassau were orange and blue. Meaning that Princeton came close to being Syracuse. With orange and black the official colors, it wasn’t much of a leap to sportswriters referring to Princeton teams as “tigers”.

“Tiger Rag,” however was not written about Princeton (although my class's 25th reunion theme was Tiger Gras). Its origins are lost in the mists of history, but the original recording was by the Original Dixieland Jass Band in 1917 (that isn’t a typo, by the way). This version, recorded in 1918 by them, after they changed the spelling to “Jazz” was on the Victor label, and therefore has been available from RCA and later owners of the label for years. It has been recorded by everyone from Louis Armstrong, to Billie Holiday to Frank Sinatra to Django Reinhardt to Joe Jackson to Jeff Beck. It is the official fight song of Clemson University, another team of tigers, and I performed it regularly, and inexpertly but loudly, as a member of the Princeton University Marching Band, which has been in existence since 1919, and embarrassing the university since at least the 1950’s. (Quick unrelated aside—my good friend Steve was the drum major in 1981, and we were marching in the streets of Princeton after a football game. Steve was arrested for parading without a license, because we didn’t need no stinkin’ licenses.. New Jersey Governor Brendan Byrne, a Princeton graduate, officially pardoned him. Saludo, Steve.)

The Animal Kingdom: Boa Constrictor

Johnny Cash : Boa Constrictor

[Purchase]

For his 23rd album, 1966's Everybody Loves A Nut, The Man In Black took his cue from Roger "Dang Me"  Miller and recorded a batch of silly songs that would entertain kids as well as adults. "Boa Constrictor" was written by poet, children's author and the man who would be responsible for Cash's 1969 worldwide hit "A Boy Named Sue" : Shel Silverstein.


As a single "Boa Constrictor" just barely crept into the Country Singles Top 40 in 1966. But my kids love it and I hope yours will as well.

The Animal Kingdom: Starfish and Coffee

Matt Nathanson: Starfish and Coffee

[purchase]

Haddy N'Jie & The Stoones: Starfish and Coffee

[unauthorized & unavailable]

Lest two horsey songs in a row set too narrow a net for our theme this week, I spent a few moments looking for an animal song from the other end of the kingdom, and came up with the first track above - a little number I first encountered on 2004 release For The Kids Too!, the middle child of a three round alt-rock kindie concept which remains a core component of our collection even as our kids come upon their second decade.

The song is actually a cover, but naming the originator runs high risk in a world of blog takedowns and song loss (hint: his name is royalty, and he likes purple), while sharing the song as first recorded would invite disaster. Instead, I'll merely note that Matt Nathanson's version of the song is bouncy and joyful enough for kids of all ages, and that the second of the above tracks is seriously unauthorized, coming as it does from a huge and hugely diverse collection of Norwegian he-who-cannot-be-named covers which I managed to scoop up before it was blocked at the starting gate just a few years back. And that it could just as easily have been posted in our recent Unusual Instruments theme week, given that it features a truly haunting saw as lead instrument in what turns out to be a funky world-beat epiphany once it gains momentum.

The Animal Kingdom: A Horse With No Name

Aemrica: A Horse With No Name

[purchase]

Back in the early 70s,  America was three kids whose fathers were US military stationed overseas: Gerry Beckley, Dewey Bunnell and Dan Peek.  They came together in the London area towards the end of their high school years.  Their 70s hits also included Ventura Highway and Sister Golden Hair. Today Bunnell and Beckley still tour (Dan Peek passed away last year).

Story has it that Dewey wrote A Horse With No Name with thoughts of the desert around Vandenberg AFB, one of the temporary places his family lived and one he would surely have missed in drizzly gray London. The song was first named Desert Song and was apparently additionally inspired by images of horses from Salvador Dali and MC Escher works.

The three-part harmony vocals and the acoustic guitars call to mind CSNY, and in fact Dewey admits the influence; you could be forgiven for thinking it was Neil Young singing. Personally, I have always thought that the song manages to convey a horsey rhythm of sorts and that the lyrics paint images of the desolation of the eastern California desert.

The Plant Kingdom --> The Animal Kingdom: Black Horse and the Cherry Tree

Black Horse and the Cherry Tree was the 2004 breakthrough hit for Scottish singer KT Tunstall. She first performed it live on Jools Holland's British music show, and it was later nominated for a Grammy. It's based on the Bo Diddley Afro-Latin beat (you can hear it clearly in his Who Do You Love), which is related to the earlier hambone rhythm of a traditional African-American dance. So from Africa to America (tinged with the Caribbean) to Scotland, this tune takes us on a worldwide musical journey. Plus the title features both a plant and an animal, making it the perfect transition song.

Note: Things are unsettled in musical blogland since the demise of MegaUpload earlier in the year, and the other file servers are now very twitchy. Very soon I'm going to delete my own music links older than a month or so to hopefully delay a suspension from my host. I think we all feel vulnerable these days, even though we hope that our posts are benefiting artists who may be introduced to new listeners.

Is it ironic that this post is the one that got me permanently suspended from my file server? Looks like I'm on an extended hiatus, folks, but I had a great time while it lasted.