Not As Much As You

Rolled by: Me
Aroundabout: October 2021
For: Evryone
TRT: 1h13m45s

Just some stuff I've bin listning to lately.

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2. The Last Word “Keep On Bumpin' Before You Give Out Of Gas” (Polydor 1974)
   Collected on The J.B.'s – Funky Good Time: The Anthology (Polydor 1995)

   Superfun driving tune featuring members of the J.B.'s. Why they called themselves “The Last Word” for this record, I have no idea.



3. Eddie Bo “Getting To The Middle Pt. 1” (vocal) (Bo-Sound 1970)
   Collected on Eddie Bo's Funky Funky New Orleans (Funky Delicacies 1999)

   A SLAB o funk from the GREAT Eddie Bo.



4. The Jiants “Tornado” (Claudra 1959)
   Collected on Legendary Wild Rockers (BBE 2011)

   The tremolo guitar riff is meant to evoke a twister. I think it sounds just like “How Soon Is Now”. I wonder if the Smiths were ripping this joint off?

   The comp I found this on, Legendary Wild Rockers, is a real choice collection of early rock n roll (at least volume one is). I bought it for a tune I heard on the Hound show, “Goo Goo Muck”, but “Tornado” is another standout.



5. Chuck Cleaver “Bed”
   From Send Aid (Shake It! 2019)

   Slow n shaky “Rumble”-like guitar riff + drum machine. I highly recommend Cleaver's first solo album.



6. Solange “Stay Flo”
   From When I Get Home (Columbia/SAINT 2019)

   Electronic slow funk.



7. Hot Chip “Spell”
   From A Bathfull Of Ecstasy (Domino 2019)

   Drum & synths.



8. SAINt JHN “Roses” (Imanbek Remix) (Hitco 2020)

   More synth and drum (machine) and vocal effects. I don't really keep up with new R&B (or maybe they call this rap, but us oldheads don't recognize it as rap) but sometimes I turn on the radio. Don't accidentally buy the original version. It's the remix by the Kazakh that brings the heat.



9. Van Morrison “Cleaning Windows”
   From Beautiful Vision (Mercury / Warners 1982)

   Happy little bop about a guy who's got it all: music, books, baked goods, smokes, and a job. But his solitary life will eventually come to an end. Even the most melancholy Van Morrison album contains at least one uptempo number, like “The Way Young Lovers Do” from Astral Weeks or “Bulbs” from Veedon Fleece. I should make a whole tape of these Van bops! Yes I love the slownsad stuff too—God Damn I love the slownsad stuff—but he's smart to give us a little relief, usually at the beginning of side 2.



10. JJ Cale “Lies”
    From Really

    Another guitar bop with horn flourishes, this hit is about as lively as Cale gets and damned catchy.



11. Bob James “Feel Like Making Love”
    From One (CTI 1974)

    Mellow crooney thing not to be confused with the Bad Company song. James played keys on the Roberta Flack version of this tune, and then he decided to cut his own. Some sweet elevator music fuh yuh.



12. The JB's “Blessed Blackness”
    From Food For Thought (People 1972)

    More sweet elevator music, the JB's in a kinda smooth jazz mode completing a set of organic 70s groovers following up the earlier set of current electronic tunes.



13. Kraftwerk “Boing Boom Tschak”
    From Electric Cafe (EMI / Warners 1986)

    Back to synths, with electronic drums and layered vocals. This is the first movement of the suite that takes up side one of the Electric Cafe album, and it rocks hard. It might be my imagination but I feel like this album is a little underappreciated in the Kraftwerk canon, with some fans pining for a lost “original” version which doesnt really exist, and the band eventually reworking it; but to me this is classic Kraftwerk, just maybe a little dancier, which isnt bad at all.



14. Huey Lewis And The News “Some Of My Lies Are True (Sooner Or Later)”
    From Huey Lewis and the News (Chrysalis 1980)

    And now we steer into some 80s cheese.… 1980 found Huey Lewis and the News posing as skinny tie rockers in the style of the Romantics or the Knack, but who really wanted to be a doo wop rhythm n soul throwback kind of groop. No secret their whole catalog is kind of crap, but this debut album has a little bit of life to it at least.



15. Joe Jackson “You Can't Get What You Want (Till You Know What You Want)”
    From Body and Soul

    80s cheese? Or sophisticated jazz rock?



16. Joe Bataan “Charangaringa”
    From Saint Latin's Day Massacre (Fania 1972)

    Smooth but intense Latin soul. Building to the climax.



17. Fiona Apple “Hot Knife”
    From The Idler Wheel Is Wiser Than The Driver Of The Screw And Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do (Clean Slate/Epic 2012)

    Polyrhythmic layerd vocals, tympani and very percussive piano. Boom ba-boom ba-boom.



18. Van Morrison “Joe Harper Saturday Morning”
    Found on numerous compilations, most recently the comprehensive The Authorized Bang Collection (Exile/Legacy 2017)

    Going in for the close.

    I've no idea about the story this song is telling but I sing along to the chorus with great conviction. A standout from Morrison's 1967 sessions for Bang Records, for an album that was never finished. And you can read all about the drama that ensued.



19. Wilson Pickett “Time Is On My Side”
    From The Wicked Pickett (Atlantic 1967)

    Irma Thomas ballad gets the Wilson Picket treatment. I heard some English rock band did this song too.



20. Toots & the Maytals “Sailing On” (Jaguar 1973)
    Found on the Jamaican Roots Reggae album and the US, Island Records version of Funky Kingston, where I took it from

    Still going for the close with another midtempo singalong number.



21. Joseph Spence and the Pinder Family “I Bid You Goodnight”
    From The Spring of Sixty-Five

    Originally derived from an 1871 hymn by Ira D. Sankey and Sarah Doudney entitled “The Christian's Good Night”, this Goodnight became a traditional “lowering down” song in the Bahamas (that is, they sang it while they lowered caskets into the ground). The theme being that death is not goodbye but only goodnight because we will live again. The Incredible String Band appropriated it into their epic hippie spaceout Very Cellular Song, with handclaps. (A different section of that song took on a life of its own after being quoted in Be Here Now, another epic hippie spaceout.) I've heard that the Grateful Dead played it too. I fell in love with the Incredible String Band version, singing it to my kids often at bedtime. Eventually I went looking for its source and found Joseph Spence.

    Until next time!



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Transition that feels a little off: Roses into Cleaning Windows. Problem is Cleaning Windows isnt compressd enuf. It can't help but sound soft coming out of the extremely compressd Roses. I potted up the initial drum roll as much as I could but it will never sound as loud as I want it to.

Transition I like the best: Hot Knife into Joe Harper. I love the way that guitar riff hits.