I don’t often blog rock-ish stuff here but this deserves a post, as it is some trully excellent lo-fi psychedelic garage blues. The sound is dirtier than a truckstop bathroom, the vocals are appropriately hoarse, and the download should really come with a gram of cheap blow, a pint of shitty whiskey and a carton of Winstons. The only problem is the short length, but then again this kind of intensity is best in small doses.
STREAM/BUY VIA BANDCAMP:
Charles Bradley & Menahan Street Band are pretty unfuckwitable at this point, but this is even better than expected. This song was done for a free SPIN compilation of Nevermind covers; Bradley & Co could’ve easily done a straight forward soul version and called it a day. It probably would’ve been good too. Instead they take it a few steps beyond, and come up with a heavy mean proto-psychedelic garage soul number (Bo Diddley’s heavy rock period comes to mind). Which isn’t just good as hell, it’s also fairly clever conceptually – you can make a decent argument for this sound being an early progenitor that eventually led to grunge as we knew it.
DOWNLOAD: Charles Bradley & Menahan Street Band – Stay Away (Nirvana Cover)
via SPIN
Nerd item: Detroit guitar legend covers ‘Only Good For Conversation’, which originally appeared on Sixto Rodriguez’s obscure (but thankfully now easily available) cult favorite psych-folk classic Cold Fact. Not sure who the guy doing the vocals is, but he is good enough. This is taken from Coffey’s new album on Strut.
DOWNLOAD: Dennis Coffey – Only Good For Conversation (Sixto Rodriguez Cover)
BONUS: check out the original Sixto version here
Described by the creator as “Deep & Soulful Blues with a Bitter Bite”. Leans mostly toward very deep Southern soul and the heavier/slower sides of Chicago blues. Essential depressive/depressing winter listening.
I don’t have a full tracklising, but here are a few representative samples via youtube to give you a general idea of what this thing sounds like: Mitch Mitchell – Never Walk Out On Me, Charles Bradley – The World, OV Wright – A Nickel And A Nail.
DOWNLOAD: DJ Asma – Blues From The Soul
So blah blah Game mixtape blah getting sued blah blah RZA whatever… I don’t really care about the Game one way or the other, nor this lawsuit nonsense. What drove me to post this song is the following:
1. This might be the best new RZA beat I’ve heard in some time. If he chooses to pursue the hiphop hippy route, this is the way to do it. Incidentally, I got nothing against Grand Funk (the original G.Funk if you wanna get dumb-clever), but there are buttloads of phenomenal obscure heavy blues and blues-rock records he could draw on without getting into sticky copyright beefs. For the hell of it, video for a duly bong-rattling live version of the problematic sample is embedded at the top of the post.
2. Burke is the shit, as previously noted here
DOWNLOAD: Game – Heart Breaker ft Rev Burke (prod by RZA) NO DJ
Feels specious but some of these are surprisingly legitimately good.
The Brothers of Chico Dusty (Big Boi vs. The Black Keys) by wick-it
Good idea, good execution, and the whole thing just feels very different from what everybody else is doing right now. My only complaint is the short length, but that’s minor. Generally, more modern rap needs to stray into blues territories. Seems like it would be a natural thing, considering how much rappers love to bitch vis-a-vis the fact that blues turns bitching into a profound art form.
DOWNLOAD: Weapons of Audio – Ode to Mannish Boy
via DJBooth’s Freestyle Series
Also, here is my favorite version of Mannish Boy, taken from Electric Mud.
DOWNLOAD: Muddy Waters – Mannish Boy
I’m hooked on these two distorted alien blues experiments. The band draws on other musical styles too and they do it well, but these songs below is how I like them best. “Sweet Tooth” is marked as belonging to something called The Blues EP, unfortunately I haven’t been able to find anything more from it, if anybody knows anything please leave a comment. They have a LP coming out soon on Sockets Records, I’m really curious to hear it.
DOWNLOAD: Laughing Man – The Sweet Tooth
No dl link for “Almost Always”, it’s only available to stream via the label’s soundcloud.
Laughing Man – “Already Always” by Sockets Records
Numero Group’s Syl Johnson: Complete Mythology boxset is out next Tuesday, here is the first taste of the glory it will contain (courtesy of Get Off The Coast/Altered Zones). The song itself isn’t that rare (it’s on Syl’s best known album), but I’ve never heard it sound this good. Just listen to the opening, how the crisp the instruments sound when they come in one by one, how distinct every note is. And then the voice….
DOWNLOAD: Syl Johnson – I’m talking ’bout freedom
I previously posted the trailer for this box set, go here to see it.
You can pre-order the set from Numero here.
This is one of those rare times where an A&R that mountain climbs and plays electric guitar would not just be desirable but actually kinda necessary.
