I mentioned yesterday that I was going to make a big announcement today, so there's no need for me to beat around the bush. I'll just out and say it. I'm getting married. No, just kidding. HA! That's not it at all. Sorry. Here it is: On July 12th, 2005 I set out on a [...]
Filmed in the early part of 1968 and released in the summer of 1969, Easy Rider was a surprise box-office hit, pulling in over $19 million dollars (~111 million in 2010 dollars) in its initial run. Unafraid of stepping on the toes of conventionality, Dennis Hopper's directorial debut certainly helped usher in a new approach to filmmaking. Much has been written about the film Easy Rider and its subsequent effect on Hollywood; however, little has been written on the film's groundbreaking soundtrack. According to Hopper, Easy Rider [...]
The Hoboken trio records 36 spontaneous covers, chosen by listeners, to support to Jersey station.
Holy Modal Rounders : Hesitation Blues [ purchase ] Growing up in midwestern America, I listened to a lot of music that everyone else was listening to as well. There was AM radio where I absorbed my share of the rock and roll culture. There was the tiny cache of my parents' vinyl albums (Mom's taste ran to Andy Williams, Johnny Mathis, and Mr. Acker Bilk; my dad liked Boots Randolph). There were my sister's Beatles albums. It took leaving home and going to college before [...]
Holy Modal Ramblers: Down The Old Plank Road [ purchase ] The Chieftains w/ John Hiatt: Down The Old Plank Road [ purchase ] The Highwoods String Band: Way Down The Old Plank Road [ purchase ] The Mammals: Way Down The Old Plank Road [ purchase ] [...]
![Bart's CD Cellar in Boulder, Colo., to close [Record Store Trip #6]](http://cdn.elbo.ws/posts/2261148_lg.jpg)
A local paper took this picture of the inside of Bart's at Sale Time. Here we go again; another record-store funeral, perpetrated by a piping-hot combo of the economy and slipping CD sales (though vinyl is selling better than ever; SNAP). This time it's Bart's CD Cellar, a stronghold for vinyl in the Boulder, Colorado, area. This isn't as big a loss as, say, losing Wax Trax, but it hurts all the same. Is god literally going to see to [...]
I remember reading an article in Metro recently where someone actually did the sums on just how much Father Christmas would have to drink, how many miles he would have to cover and how many present he would have to carry in order to deliver presents to every little child in the world in one night (not the Muslim, Hindu or otherwise slightly dusky-skinned babies of course, because Jesus doesn't love those babies and the chapter on Father Christmas came right after the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and John in the Bible as well all know - Matthew, Mark, Luke, [...]
1969 represented the end of the '60s in more ways than one. While Woodstock has come to symbolize love and peace, the Altamont Free Concert destroyed the hippie movement due to Meredith Hunter's death at the hands of the Hells Angels. The Beatles started the year with their infamous rooftop concert, but by that fall, John Lennon had officially decided to break the group up. While Lennon was writing "Give Peace a Chance", Charles Manson murdered Sharon Tate and other across the Atlantic. In the middle of all this change and chaos, Easy Rider hit theaters. [...]
DOING THE POLKA Frank Wright Quartet Last Polka in Nancy? Center of the World : 1973 FW, tenor sax; Bobby Few , piano; Alan Silva, bass; Muhammad Ali, drums. What? Yeah: polka . The title of Frank Wright's 1973 live album is no joke and [...]
Since we've been so quiet lately, here's a bunch of songs to try and make up for it! Recently, my daughter has been learning about the solar system in school. As part of this, they put on a class play about all the planets and various other heavenly bodies (the sun, stars, comets, meteorites, etc.), which was a lot of fun to watch. In addition to the parents, they also performed it for the grade below them. As a result of this, she had been looking forward to being in the play since last year when she saw [...]
So. Michael Hurley, aka Snock . An acid folk casualty/survivor, associated, leastaways with the classic "Have Moicy" , with The Unholy (and Holy) Modal Rounders school of country/bluegrass fuckwitery. That's a good thing. From Hurley's recently reissued on vinyl (via Mississippi Records ) record, "Armchair Boogie", we've got his laconic back porch ode to the love of a, ahem, "difficult woman". "Sweedeedee" has been recently revived/popularized by one Miss Cat Power, but Hurley's original has the mix of wistfulness and humor that Ms. Marshall's version lacks. [...]
Jerry Jeff Walker was the heat-seeking missile who tore up Luckenbach on Viva Terlingua and once got in a dust-up with Willie Nelson on stage. He has covered several Texas classics and written some of his own, too. He speaks now from Nashville. This interview by Chris Ziegler.
Eefing (sometimes spelled eeefin' or eephin', among other variations) is a jarringly weird hillbilly vocal tradition that traces its birth back to at least the 19th century. Sometimes described as sounding like a wheezily rhythmic asthma attack, eefin' afforded those without musical talent or instruments the opportunity to hop on stage and be part of the entertainment. It's pretty hard to convey the essence of eefin' with mere words, however, so by all means go ahead and watch the short video clip up above if you haven't already done so. Long ago, before I [...]
The Spacecast is yet another podcast dreamed up in the pub, this time between myself and Dylan, the official Song, by Toad photographer . And again it's one of those podcast which could have gone on for over two hours quite easily, but we don't do that anymore, not around here, we're disciplined these days goddammit. So I've missed off about a million other suggestions and come up with a combination of songs genuinely about space, and few that use space as some sort of metaphor and then a few which just stick a few spacey words [...]
But he did sing me about six songs over the phone while I interviewed him this morning. He was left all alone afterhours in the office of his Tried and True Music in Austin , just killing a little time before he was out to go see Guy Clark , actually, and so he was in a pretty personable mood. Talked about drifting on nitrous with Pete Stampfel from the Holy Modal Rounders after treatment by student dentists in New York, about how [...]
A long time ago an obscure "band" from New Jersey recorded a wonderful little collection of obscure songs from an even longer time ago (with a few of their own compositions thrown in for good measure). That band grew up to be Yo La Tengo . Yo La Tengo's wonderful little collection of tunes appeared on a gem of an album called Fakebook , which has long been a favorite of mine. This weeked I finally decided to dig up all of the original versions of [...]
It is an honor to share some words on boyhowdy's page, as I am a frequent fan of his writing, and most especially, the subject at hand. When composers write a song, they undoubtedly want others to sing it, play it, reproduce it either in their mind, living room, or on record. In this sense, I couldn't agree more with the headline up above, "In the folk tradition, music belongs to the community." The Holy Modal Rounders reinvented songs in an incredibly unique way. Their approach was as follows: "hear song, forget song, try [...]
A damn fine record! For years, I've been trying to get my ears around The Moray Eels Eat The Holy Modal Rounders with limited success. It's a totally weirded out record that kicks off with the If You Want To Be A Bird single famously featured on the Easy Rider soundtrack. The problem I had understanding Moray Eels was a lack of context - now that I've got my hands on this joyous and addictive little gem, I'm more anxious than ever to dive in deeper with the Rounders catalogue. Recently, I had the [...]
Y'all aren't gonna like this much, I shouldn't think. Still, fuck it, it's my blog and there is only one Mr Toad in Toad Hall. Right, The Holy Modal Rounders are part of my paternal legacy. My Dad is from Montreal (the Dutch part) and so when I was growing up, as an antidote to my Mum's danceable stuff he used to play a lot of American rootsy stuff. He had a really big record collection once, my Dad, but when we lived in Singapore the humidity caused them all to warp and [...]
Swan Fungus
Consequence Of Sound
Cover Me
Star Maker Machine
The Gumshoe Grove
Song, by Toad
Destination: OUT
R. O. pre-K.
Groover's Paradise
L.A. RECORD
WFMU's Beware of the Blog
Chewing Pine
ZCONTROLS
Setting The Woods On Fire
Cover Lay Down
The Rising Storm
The Corner Laughers “Poppy Seeds”
