Shambala – Three Dog Night
Posted: March 24, 2012 Filed under: Music, Songs | Tags: 1970s, 1973, 70s, california, isolation, music, outcast, pride, shambala, texas, three dog night Leave a comment »Shambala
Three Dog Night
From the album Cyan
Yeah, so a few years ago I was living in Austin, Texas, which is probably the best place to be in if you have to live in The Lone Star State. But Texas is a very strange place, even more so for anybody not originally from there. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, as the folks there are among the nicest I have ever met, full of an exuberant warmth and beaming with genuine hospitality. But in spite of all the charm and smiling faces, we can’t forget that Texas was once it’s own country, and for the vast majority of Texans, that is still the prevailing mentality down there.
I had visited the state briefly a couple of times before, but it wasn’t until I moved there that I was confronted by the fierce pride and tunnel-visioned existence many of the folks led. When you live in Texas the world outside of Texas ceases to exist. These folks are simply batshit crazy for their state. Kids in schools recite the Texas pledge of allegiance, major auto manufacturers plaster tiny texas-themed logos on the backs of the trucks sold there, and supermarket aisles are saturated with Texas-this and Texas-that stamped on virtually every product… “Buy Texan,” “Texas Pride,” “Lone Star made,” I saw them all… Dude, all I want is a bottle of salad dressing, not a deluge of your tainted, pro-state propaganda.
Texas was like another world to me, everything was different, even the most trivial of details flied high in the face of everything I had known up until that point: Traffic lights were arranged horizontally instead of vertically, fish was overpriced while grapefruit was dirt cheap, liquor stores were closed on Sundays and gun ranges were open 24/7. Adjusting to the new norms was futile, I may as well had moved to Bangladesh.
I really tried to make it work at first, to surrender myself to the local culture. I dug out all of my favorite Sir Douglas Quintet albums and set them to repeat, hoping somehow that the crooning spirit of Doug Sahm would seep into my pores and bring full Texan enlightenment to my consciousness. I never could bring myself to indulge in the local tongue or the quirky mannerisms. The thought of me welcoming guests with a “Howdy y’all!” and a friendly slap on the back was laughable. I felt the gap between myself and my new home growing wider and wider. I would dwell in solitude for hours at night, drinking warm cans of Dos Equis while sitting on the back porch listening to the wall of roaring cicadas bouncing around in the trees, wondering what the hell I was doing in a place that seemed to go out of its way to remind me every day that I did not belong there.
It was during one of those days, caught aimlessly Drifting down supermarket aisles stacked high with Texas-shaped ice chests & vomit orange Longhorns gear that I decided I couldn’t take it anymore. I needed to go somewhere where I wasn’t being constantly reminded what an amazingly, wonderfully, fantastic state I was living in. I needed to go back home to dirty, shameful Los Angeles, where the air is permanently colored shitstain brown and the traffic moves like a dying tortoise on Quaaludes.
So I charged a ticket that I really couldn’t afford, and went to visit my parents back home for spring break. After touching down on the Tarmac at the Burbank airport I wandered outside for my first taste since leaving. The smog-tinged air was surprisingly devoid of that oppressive Lone Star humidity and for the first time in months I didn’t feel like the odd man out. On the speakers, this little ditty by Three Dog Night about affirmation and self-discovery was blaring through the tinny speakers. Sometimes you hear the right song at a truly profound moment in your life and you just know that this piece of music will be permanently grafted to this particular moment in time. That song was my red flag. It told me that there was no shame in cutting your losses and admitting that your heart was correct where your intellect was not. I knew, for my own sanity’s sake, I had to move back home.
And here I am. I’ve been back for about four years now, and it didn’t turn out to be the answer to all of my problems. Not even close. Our state is riddled with massive debt, piss-poor education standards, and rising unemployment. Sometimes I feel that I’m just scraping by on a salary that ought to be a lot higher. But it was never a question of living in a place that I knew would take care of me, it was a matter of living in a place where I knew I belonged.
Blaxploitation, Vol. 1 – Soul, Jazz, & Funk From the Inner-City (1996)
Posted: March 3, 2012 Filed under: Albums, Music | Tags: 1970s, 1990s, 1996, anthology, blaxploitation, compilation, Funk, Jazz, Soul, Soundtrack Leave a comment »Blaxploitation, Vol. 1 – Soul, Jazz, & Funk From the Inner-City (1996)
Various Artists
Wasn’t it Jay-Z who coined the term “Black Superhero Music” and applied it to his own body of work? I have to take issue with that claim, it doesn’t take much searching to realize that Black Superhero Music is nothing new. It’s been around for years, as anthologies like Blaxploitation exist to prove. The title and cover art of this brilliant compilation instantly evoke memories of American International’s string of gritty black cinema classics of the 1970’s, but shoehorning this amazing compilation into the category of “genre soundtrack” would be to massively shortchange the music contained inside. Yeah, many of the tracks included were culled directly from movies like Superfly and Shaft, but the songs are powerful, honest, and just plain badass enough to stand on their own merit, and in many cases, they have actually eclipsed the popularity of the films they were featured in.
This is theme music for grey skies, where tangled iron girders rise out of cracked asphalt like giant cages. This is music for inner-city guardian angels, strutting down decayed project streets with trash collecting in gutters and hungry babies in tenement buildings crying through broken windows. Slow police cars roll by with gazes of contempt hidden behind dark sunglasses, but you have a keen eye for the man and shoot him a glance right back with a short nod and a knowing stare. You understand the social contract on this side of town. It’s not easy roughing up dope-pushing pimps in back alleys and keeping the junk out of the hands of the children. Those kids that play with knotted jump-ropes and fire hydrants erupting like urban geysers in the streets because mom can’t afford to buy good toys. This is music for smooth talking ghetto crusaders with nice clothes and tough, no-bullshit attitudes, giving back to a community that nobody else would give a damn about. Another hailed taxi passes you by, and you keep on walking, because thats all you can do, that’s all you’ve ever done.
Black superhero music? I think it’s a pretty apt description.
All of the tracks included on the Blaxploitation compilations are the original, uncut recordings. You won’t find three minute radio edits or studio hack jobs cobbled together to fit on the side of a 45 here. James Brown’s full-length edit of Stone to the Bone clocks in at 10 minutes alone. But one of my favorite things about this collection is that it isn’t some hastily tossed together “Blaxploitation’s greatest hits” type of album. There is a definite thematic aim here that is apparent in both song selection and sequence. It’s no different than a great concept album. Donny Hathaway’s anthem The Ghetto is the perfect opener, instantly setting the mood, tossing you thick into the midst of inescapable poverty, fast talking pimps, and dirty sidewalks. And it only gets better from there.
The selections run the gamut from Roy Ayers to Isaac Hayes, covering a full spectrum of urban jazz, funk, and soul. Far from being relegated as outdated 70s time capsules, this music is just as hard hitting and important to our history as it was when originally recorded almost 40 years ago. I’d argue that the lyrics to Esther Phillips’ cover of the Gil Scott-Heron classic Home is Where the Hatred Is may well be the most poetic statement ever made about addiction amidst utter hopelessness in the inner-city:
Junkie walking through the twilight
I’m on my way home
I left three days ago, but no one seems to know I’m gone
Home is where the hatred is
Home is filled with pain and it
might not be such a bad idea if I never, never went home again…
Home is where I live inside white powder dreams
Home was once an empty vacuum that’s filled now with my silent screams
Home is where the needle marks
try to heal my broken heart
and it might not be such a bad idea if I never,
never went home again.
Words this potent speak of society’s ills and anxieties just as clearly as anything from George Orwell or Mark Twain. This is a world a million miles away from iPads, Jersey Shore, and designer handbags. It’s bleak as hell and still exists right in our back yard, even when we do our best not to think about such terrible, depressing things. Neglected, hassled, and expected to just rot away on some far-off side of town, it takes a special kind of man to keep pushing on against such dire odds.
And that’s really where this music, and those movies stemmed from. A whole demographic without a voice and without heroes needed somebody to look up to, protectors who took care of their own and always had their fingers on the pulse of the neighborhood as well as those who would threaten it. Foxy Brown, Shaft, Truck Turner… they were all desperately trying to keep a community on the brink of self destruction from spontaneously combusting. These characters were deeply liberating figures for black audiences at the time, and I’m sure they scared the shit out the establishment, who would prefer to turn a blind eye. These were cinematic heroes born out of necessity. Did the old guard really expect little black kids to run around playing cowboys and indians with each other forever? Are you kidding me?
Don’t bother with lesser, ill-conceived cash-in compilations. This, along with volumes 2, 3, & 4 are about as good as it gets for the urban funk & soul of the 70s. Although extremely difficult to track down, you won’t find a better, more lovingly crafted ode to classic black cinema than you will on these discs. Get ’em.
BADASS JELLYFISH
Posted: February 24, 2012 Filed under: Photos | Tags: aquarium of the pacific, california, jellyfish, long beach, Photo, photography Leave a comment »
Taken at the Aquarium of the Pacific, Long Beach, California.
Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus – Charles Mingus (1963)
Posted: February 9, 2012 Filed under: Albums, Music | Tags: 1960s, 1963, charles mingus, Jazz, mingus 2 Comments »Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus (1963)
Charles Mingus
I’ve always held the opinion that Charles Mingus’ music is the heavy metal of the jazz world. Any true Maiden or Slayer guy could easily transition into the raging musical currents and all out sonic assault of Mingus. What differences these artists may have in terms of instrumentation is rendered insignificant when compared to the underlying fire and pent up aggression that drives their music onwards.
No album better justifies this unlikely trans-genre comparison than his 1963 effort, Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus. On the surface this album may come off as a throwaway, a contractual obligation that had to be tossed together and shipped off to record stores as quickly as possible. This speculation can even be justified to an extent by the fact that this would be Mingus’ last album for nearly ten years and all of the material consists of rehashed, slightly altered compositions that Mingus tweaked and fiddled around with. But I’d like to argue that it’s these very reasons that make this album one of his most significant works.
Sure, the song titles may be different, but the compositions are nothing new and reflect only the most well known songs of the Mingus canon. That being said, every single song here outshines the original… every. single. song. I dare anybody to listen to the original Haitian Fight Song and the remade version, II BS back to back and tell me that the former holds a candle to its kerosene-drenched, volcano-blasted evil cousin. The same could be said of the others as well, Better Get Hit in Your Soul even has a new, gospel infused ending that will have you reaching for the rafters and shouting hallelujah before passing out at the altar. Make no mistake, the aggressive arrangements on display here should be regarded as the definitive versions of these songs. Imagine yourself driving a motorcycle, on fire, 120 miles an hour through a hurricane and you’ll begin to get an impression of how hard-hitting these arrangements are.
Even the ballads have a mean streak to them. Mingus’ slower paced works have often carried a savage, psychologically-tinged bite. Often orchestrated as intentionally syrupy or grandiosely over the top, I’ve always considered them Mingus’ attempt at a brutal point of irony, painting grim portraits of love’s most gruesome fallouts. One listen to the ultra-melodramatic version of Duke Ellington’s Mood Indigo on display here and you’ll be thinking of all of the romantic, late-night slow dances to this song which guided naively optimistic young couples into brief, unsatisfying marriages and ultimately, bitter divorce.
I bought this album during my obsessive jazz years, when I was single, and with little responsibility holding me back. I’d spend lots of time cruising around aimlessly at late hours of the night just to listen to albums like Saxophone Colossus or Giant Steps in their entirety. I’d blow whatever disposable income I had on Blue Note CD reissues, basing my decisions on whatever covers were the coolest (they all looked pretty badass). This was my introduction to Mingus, and it only whet my appetite for his other works. I’d never heard anything like it. Who would have ever guessed that acoustic jazz could rock so hard?
Radar Love – Golden Earring (1973)
Posted: January 21, 2012 Filed under: Music, Songs | Tags: 1970s, 1973, best of the best, classic rock, driving, esp, golden earring, moontan, road trip, Rock, tae kwon do Leave a comment »Radar Love (1973)
Golden Earring
From the album Moontan
I’m not gonna bullshit you, the only reason this song found a home on my iPhone is because it’s featured in the 1989 Tae Kwon Do classic, Best of the Best. From what I remember, this anthem is belted over the loudspeakers after the rowdy All-American TKD team stomps the balls off of the rivals in tournament competition… Because nothing says total and complete USA Tae Kwon Do dominance like Dutch classic rock.
According to music critic Bill Lamb, Radar Love earned the distinction of being named one of the ten greatest driving songs of all time. And with good reason, the song’s breakneck tempo and roadhouse blues inspired lyrics instantly conjure up raw images of Camaro haze, drifting clouds of desert highway dust, and balding Goodyears madly streaking across cracked pavement. This is the kind of music that birthed a million grungy cross-country road trips. Just cranking this monster in the car stereo makes me want to throw on a dingy wifebeater and hop into a bubbling vat of Valvoline.
As far as I can tell, the song itself is about a guy that has ESP, or his girlfriend has ESP or something and they can beam messages of love to each other. You dig? Their love is so strong that it actually can manifest itself physically and fly through the air like a carrier pigeon. It’s either incredibly deep or incredibly cheesy, but shit that cheesy only works when you have a song that rocks this fucking hard. One taste of that rollicking horn section and your knees will shake, your pulse will quicken and you’ll be convinced that Golden Earring’s ode to a couple of mutant-powered sweethearts is six minutes and 24 seconds of pure, unadulterated poetry.
So here’s to you Radar Love… inspiring American Tae Kwon Do supremacy, telepathic love letters, and tire sales since 1973.
