Businesses are failing. Hundreds of thousands of people are losing their jobs every month; at the same time, hundreds of billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars are being diverted to banks that won't divulge how the money will be spent. Christmas Is Coming is definitely a holiday song for these recessionary, economically bizarro times, even though it was recorded 25 years ago by one of my all-time favourite Canadian bands, The Payola$. The song comes from the Vancouver band's third and finest album, Hammer on a Drum (pictured left). [...]
The seeds for U.S. Beatlemania were days away from being sown on this date, 45 years ago. After turning up its nose at early singles such as Please Please Me and Love Me Do, EMI's American affiliate Capitol Records finally decided four Liverpool moptops might have a modicum of commercial potential and, on Dec. 26, 1963, the label released its first Beatles record, I Want To Hold Your Hand b/w I Saw Her Standing There. It hit No. 1 on the North American singles charts five weeks later and the rest is over-documented history. Of course, The Beatles were already [...]
Dancing In The Street by Martha and the Vandellas is, without question, among the greatest recordings of the 20th century. Don't take my word for it: Ask members of the Library of Congress, who've chosen to preserve it in the U.S. National Recording Registry. So, you'd think other artists would leave well enough alone. Alas, this hasn't been the case and we live in a world with too many renditions of this Marvin Gaye-William Stevenson-Ivy Jo Hunter composition: most are simply adequate (Mamas and the Papas, Cilla Black); a few border on criminal (Van Halen and the excruciating Bowie-Jagger duet). [...]
Apparently Neil Young was a contrary ol' git even when he was a young man. In February 1979, a 33-year-old Young secured a Rolling Stone cover story (pictured below) to promote his then-current album, Comes a Time. Problem was, speaking to writer Cameron Crowe, the musician could barely muster a spark of enthusiasm for the record and its comfy country-pop. "It's in the middle of a soft place. I hear it on the radio and it sounds nice, " Young said dismissively. "But I'm somewhere else now. [...]
He laid down some supremely funky, Nuyorica soul in the 1960s and '70s; in the process, helping to originate Salsoul, the genre and the record label. His fusion of Brazilian and Afro-Cuban styles with lush orchestration presaged disco. He charted one of the first rap singles. Now 66, he's still going strong. So why the hell don't more people know of Joe Bataan? The man has a fascinating history. Born in Spanish Harlem, Bataan Nitoliano spent his youth running with Puerto Rican gangs and, from age 15 to 20, was incarcerated at the Coxsackie [...]
Last Friday afternoon, at around 4:30 p.m., I was happy ... and very, very cold. My work day complete, I was looking at a three-week vacation ahead of me, as well as a protracted, white-knuckle drive home through a nasty blizzard that had slammed into Calgary a couple hours earlier. Temperatures in my little part of the world quickly dropped to minus-40 Celsius at night which, for the metric-impaired, happens to be the same as minus-40 Fahrenheit. Which, for those who know neither metric nor imperial measurement, can be described in three words: off, balls and fall (not necessarily in [...]
Rock lists are, by nature, contentious things but I'd be surprised if there was any significant opposition — outside of the Michael Bolton fan club — to Rolling Stone's decision to anoint Aretha Franklin the greatest singer of all time. Even the most cloth-eared must recognize her voice is a force of nature; an eighth wonder of the modern world. Recently, I've been digging into her back catalogue and realizing that, like Dylan, in the long shadow of her landmark records (Lady Soul, I Never Loved A Man The Way I Loved You) resides a treasure trove of less-heralded, second-tier [...]
Official history shows the original lineup of the Byrds stayed together long enough to record two classic 1965 albums before reassembling eight years later for a largely uninspired, one-off reunion disc. Case closed. That's all she wrote. Well, not quite. In May 1970, Gene Clark — the Byrds' best songwriter and first original member to fly the coop — convinced all four of his former bandmates to perform on She's the Kind of Girl, his first new solo single following the dissolution of his country-rock duo Dillard and Clark. (Two months later, the [...]
I still find it strange hearing the name David Axelrod mentioned regularly on the news and in the papers. Of course, that David Axelrod is President-Elect Barack Obama's former chief strategist and current senior advisor; the David Axelrod I've followed for years is one of popular music's unsung heroes, a cool-as-f--- composer/arranger whose late-career resurgence at the start of this decade appears to have petered out. Sad, that. I think it's time to give a little more love to the other David Axelrod, whose music will still be heard and enjoyed when President Jenna Bush takes office in [...]
Last weekend, as I watched a preening Beyonce belt out a lung during her SNL musical performances, I was faced with a horrible dilemma: Do I poke out my eyes first, or chop off my ears? In the end, I opted for a third option: Mute the TV and go feed the cats. Less blood. Nevertheless, my initial reaction sums up how grating I find Beyonce and her diva contemporaries: They may have the ability to sing on key without the use of Auto-Tune but remain painfully oblivious to the concept of nuance, opting to deliver lyrics as if they [...]
Bongo Jazz was saddened yesterday to hear about the death of Kenny MacLean. For most, he will be best remembered as the bass player for Platinum Blonde, a hugely popular band in Canada during the mid-'80s who were, admittedly, thinly guised Duran Duran copycats. Suffice to say, Platinum Blonde were not my kind of thing and, as a young music writer learning the ropes, I surely took a few good swings at 'em in print at the height of their success. I thought they were fakes, flawlessly designed by accountants in some music industry boardroom to con 16-year-old girls to [...]
Hair metal, hip-hop and electro-pop are among the genres most widely associated with the 1980s but anyone who frequented indie record shops during the era knows the decade also spawned a seemingly endless supply of quality, '60s-inspired psych and garage bands. A few hit the mainstream but most came and went without much notice, leaving behind a bunch of shoulda-been hits waiting to be rediscovered. Rhino's excellent Children of Nuggets box set from 2005 collected 100 of them — and still there were notable omissions, including today's post from The Playn Jayn. [...]
2008 will be remembered as the year a beloved, late-'80s act returned to record stores for the first time in 17 long years. I am referring, of course, to the Bournemouth, England, duo of Caroline Crawley and Jem Tayle, better known as Shelleyan Orphan. (To whom did you think I was referring?) They are currently touring the UK in support of We Have Everything Their Need (pictured left), their first album of new material since 1991's Humroot. (You can hear a couple new songs, as well as their sublime 1986 single Cavalry [...]
Great songwriting never goes out of style. That's why, when someone like Rodney Crowell is given the freedom to simply do what comes naturally, the Houston native crafts crackerjack Americana records like his latest Sex and Gasoline. This Joe Henry-produced disc has been on heavy rotation at Chez Bongo Jazz over the past six weeks; its humanity, (often black) humour and homespun wisdom replenish the soul while leaving a smile on your face. Oh, and it rocks, too. There isn't a dud on the disc — Crowell's first [...]
Exactly 30 years after Warren Zevon scaled the pop charts with Werewolves of London, the song's addictive piano riff was once again all over radio this year — this time, as the foundation of the ubiquitous Kid Rock single All Summer Long. Sampling Werewolves proved a savvy move on Rock's part but not necessarily an original one. In 1985, Dexy's Midnight Runners released Don't Stand Me Down, the difficult and willfully contrary followup to breakthrough album Too-Rye-Ay and its globe-straddling single, Come On Eileen. The Celtic soul sound and gypsies-in-dungarees look of 1982 were [...]
The surviving members of The Faces are scheduled to reconvene tomorrow for the first rehearsal for a planned Summer 2009 reunion tour. Certainly, it's good to see 'em back together. Considering their boozy exploits throughout the 1970s, it's a small miracle four of the band's five original members are still with us, their livers apparently still functioning. (Bassist-singer-songwriter Ronnie Lane died in 1997 after a long battle with multiple sclerosis.) The question remains: Can Rod Stewart, Ronnie Wood, Kenney Jones and Ian McLagen conjure their former shambolic soulfulness now that they're all in their 60s? I'd be surprised if the old [...]
Another Smiths compilation; another missed opportunity. Rhino's two-disc Sounds of the Smiths best-of arrives in stores next week, boasting a fine track listing and much-needed remastered sound supervised by guitarist Johnny Marr. The first CD rounds up the usual singles, most of them timeless; a second CD cherry-picks album tracks and B-sides that haven't appeared on previous compilations. So what's this missed opportunity? The Smiths' late-1985, 12-inch single, The Boy With The Thorn In His Side (pictured left), contained two excellent non-album B-sides, Rubber Ring and Asleep, which were effectively conjoined. These [...]
There was a She & Him long before Her & That Guy. She & Him, of course, is actress/singer/songwriter Zooey Deschanel and multi-instrumentalist M. Ward, whose debut album Vol. 1 was one of the left-field hits of 2008. Deschenel's sweet, melancholy-tinged vocals wrapped in Ward's gentle country/folk/pop arrangements proved to a beguiling combination but not necessarily an original one. She & Him have drawn comparisons to countless acts and, today, I'll throw out a rarely mentioned antecedent: The Poppy Family, a Vancouver-based group led by another she-and-him partnership, Terry Jacks and his then wife Susan. Their two albums, 1969's Which [...]
Dear America, Hey, it's finally Election Day. Please don't screw this up. Sincerely, Bongo Jazz A Change Is Gonna Come (mp3) Buy it here
Lucinda Williams has made better records than her latest, Little Honey, but I don't remember the acclaimed singer-songwriter making one quite this loose, fun and high-spirited. Williams credits her upcoming nuptials to A&R director and Best Buy exec Tom Overby (who co-produces Little Honey) for the album's upbeat tone. Whereas many of the love songs in her CV vacillate between bitter and bittersweet, new tracks Honey Bee (not the Willie Dixon song), Plan to Marry, Tears of Joy and raucous opener Real Love are optimistic, jubilant and come with no romantic strings attached. (Surprisingly, many of these songs [...]
Bongo Jazz A Speciality
Lana Del Rey - Without You (Kill Paris Remix) [Dubstep]
Download: James Blake Live Album (Unofficial)
My Funny Valentines
Miike Snow - “Paddling Out” Jacques Lu Cont Remix (MP3 Stream)
Iron & Wine and Patty Griffin
