Music Category
Music news and reviews, music videos and tittle tattle, with a lingering look at the past from Anorak. A source for rock, pop, album and live music, new releases, artist interviews and features.
A Black Gnostic Introduction To Sun Ra And His Archestra: Space Is the Place For Saturn’s Angel Race
BEFORE cosmic ordering became the celebrities’ guiding light, there was Sun Ra, jazz maestro of Saturn’s Angel Race. He was not from Earth. He was from Saturn. Sun Ra was born into Alabama’s deep segregation. He was named Herman Poole Blount. But as he said: “That’s an imaginary person, never existed … Any name that I use other than Ra is a pseudonym.”
Don’t call me Herman
Sun Ra was the cosmic leader of The Solar Myth Arkestra, His Cosmo Discipline Arkestra, the Blue Universe Arkestra, The Jet Set Omniverse Arkestra and all manner of Arkestras. The line-ups changed to reflect his changing music. Right now, the Sun Ra Arkestra boasts over 20 “tone scientists”.
The Arkestra were for hire. Take a card:
Want to hear him?
Filmed in Chicago & finished in 1959, The Cry of Jazz is filmmaker, composer and arranger Edward O. Bland’s polemical essay on the politics of music and race – a forecast of what he called “the death of jazz.”
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Posted: 1st, February 2014 | In: Flashback, Key Posts, Music | Comment (1)
What’s New at The Brit Awards This Year?
Boy George and his band Culture Club with Michael Jackson’s sister Latoya. The band won Best British Group and Best Selling Single for ‘Karma Chamleon’. Latoya was there to collect the award for Best Selling Album for her brother for ‘Thriller’. 1994.
THE Brit Awards – the British recording industry’s lavish work’s do – is less than 3 weeks away and a slurry of famous faces will be trudging through the doors of the O2 Arena, hiding cocaine in their underwear, getting wasted in front of their label bosses and making unpleasant sexual advances toward interns.
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How The Beatles Hypnotized Western Youth To Fight For Russia In The Cold War
IN 1974 the Reverend David A. Noebel put own in words his thought on The Beatles. These thoughts were deep enough to form an entire book, The Marxist Minstrels: A Handbook on Communist Subversion of Music.
Who is Rev. Noebel? We turn to the back of the book:
Rev. David Noebel, Associate Evangelist of Billy James Hargis and Dean of the Christian Anti-Communist Summer University, The Summit, Manitou Springs, Colorado, is the author of this excellent study. When Dr. Hargis discovered Rev. Noebel and recognized his leadership ability, the author of this book was pastor of a Bible Church in Madison, Wisconsin, where he was also working on his Doctorate of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin. Rev. Noebel enthusiastically joined Dr. Hargis’s team and has become a leading spokesman for Christian Crusade in recent months.
That same year, he penned Rock ‘N’ Roll: A Prerevolutionary Form of Cultural Subversion.
These followed other works, like the 1966 panic reader Rhythm Riots and Revolution and 1969’s The Beatles: A Study in Drugs, Sex and Revolution. The artwork on this is fabulous.
But Communism, Hypnotism, and The Beatles is hard to beat. In it we learn:
“And, since our teenagers under Beatlemania will actually riot, it is imperative to understand the basic underlying philosophy of the Beatles. Are they susceptible to the enemies of our Republic?”
The subtitle to his insight is “Analysis of the Communist Use of Music – the Master Plan”.
The Beatles as Communists? The Beatles who sang:
Let me tell you how it will be,
There’s one for you, nineteen for me,
‘Cause I’m the Taxman,
Yeah, I’m the Taxman.
Should five per cent appear too small,
Be thankful I don’t take it all.
‘Cause I’m the Taxman,
Yeah, I’m the Taxman.(If you drive a car ), I’ll tax the street,
(If you try to sit ), I’ll tax your seat,
(If you get too cold ), I’ll tax the heat,
(If you take a walk ), I’ll tax your feet.
Taxman.
You see, rock ‘n’ roll is making your Communists and gay. Pop is “un-Christian, mentally unsettling, revolutionary and a medium for promiscuity”.
And that’s why we love it!
In 1965, Newsweek covered Noebel in an article called Beware The Red Beatles:
Fluoridation, mental-health programs, and the United Nations are, as every Right-thinking fundamentalist well knows, insidious Communist plots to soften up America for the Bolshevik takeover. But by dint of ‘hard intelligence’, a 28-year-old Wisconsin preacher, on tour for Billy Hargis’s Christian Crusade says he has unearthed a more subtle Communist ploy -the Beatles.
“In the excitatory state that the Beatles place these youngsters into, these young people will do anything they are told to do . . . One day when the revolution is ripe,’ the minister warns in dark, apocalyptic tones, ‘they [the communists] could put the Beatles on TV and [they] could mass hypnotize the American youth. This scares the wits out of me.”
Writes Noebel:
The Communists, through their scientists, educators and entertainers, have contrived an elaborate, calculating and scientific technique directed at rendering a generation of American youth useless through nerve-jamming, mental deterioration and retardation. The plan involves conditioned reflexes, hypnotism and certain kinds of music. The results, destined to destroy our nation, are precise and exacting. Little wonder the Kremlin maintains it will not raise the Red flag over America—the Americans will raise it themselves. If the following scientific program destined to make our children mentally sick is not exposed, mentally degenerated Americans will indeed raise the Communist flag over their own nation!
Noebel had science to support his theories:
Pavlov experimented with animals in other areas as well, for example, in an area known as artificial neurosis. Here the scientist took healthy animals and using two conditioned reflexes, the excitatory reflex and the inhibitory reflex, caused these healthy animals to break down mentally with cases of artificial neurosis. As we shall see, this is exactly what the Beatles, in particular, and rock and roll, in general, are doing to our teenagers’.
You want more?
Former rock player, Bob Larson, in conjunction with a physician, offers some light on the relationship between hard rock and promiscuous sex. He contends that the low frequency vibrations of the bass guitar, coupled with the driving beat of the drum, have a decided effect upon the cerebralspinal fluid. The fluid in turn affects the pituitary gland which directs the secretion of hormones, resulting in an abnormal balance of primarily the sex and adrenalin hormones. Instead of their normal regulatory function in the body, these hormones secreted under such conditions produce radical changes in the blood sugar and calcium of the body. Since the brain is nourished exclusively by blood sugar, it ceases to function properly, causing moral inhibitions to either drop to a dangerous low or be wiped out altogether. (Former rock player, Bob Larson, in conjunction with a physician, offers some light on the relationship between hard rock and promiscuous sex. He contends that the low frequency vibrations of the bass guitar, coupled with the driving beat of the drum, have a decided effect upon the cerebralspinal fluid. The fluid in turn affects the pituitary gland which directs the secretion of hormones, resulting in an abnormal balance of primarily the sex and adrenalin hormones. Instead of their normal regulatory function in the body, these hormones secreted under such conditions produce radical changes in the blood sugar and calcium of the body. Since the brain is nourished exclusively by blood sugar, it ceases to function properly, causing moral inhibitions to either drop to a dangerous low or be wiped out altogether.
MORE?
Hermina Eisele Brown, Director of Music Therapy Dept, New Jersey State Hospital, says that primitive rhythms are rarely good as they arouse basic instinct in the emotionally insecure person. Rock and roll has a direct bearing on delinquency since all delinquents are emotionally insecure;
But The Beatles as Communists… Really?
But our younger children are not the only ones being tampered with by the Communists. Our teenager is also being exploited. Exploited for at least three reasons: (a) his own demoralization; (b) to create in him mental illness through artificial neurosis and (c) to prepare him for riot and ultimate revolution in order to destroy our American form of government and the basic Christian principles governing our way of life.
Four young men, noted for their tonsils and tonsure, are helping to bring about the above. When the Beatles conducted their “concert” in Vancouver, British Columbia, 100 persons were stomped, gouged, elbowed and otherwise assaulted during a 29-minute performance.
Nearly 1,000 were injured in Melbourne, Australia; in Beirut, Lebanon, fire hoses were needed to disperse hysterical fans. In the grip of Beatle fever, we are told the teenagers weep, wail and experience ecstasy-ridden hysteria that has to be seen to be believed. Also, we are told teenagers “bite their lips until they bleed and they even get over-excited and take off their clothes.” To understand what rock and roll in general and the Beatles in particular are doing to our teenagers, it is necessary to return to Pavlov’s laboratory. The Beatles’ ability to make teenagers take off their clothes and riot is laboratory tested and approved. It is scientifically labeled mass hypnosis and artificial neurosis.
And not just The Beatles:
The music isn’t “art-form” at all, but a very destructive process. Teenage mental breakdown is at an all time high and juvenile delinquency is nearly destroying our society. Both are caused in part by emotional instability which in turn is caused in part by destructive music such as rock and roll and certain kinds of jazz. But no matter what one might think about the Beatles or the Animals or the Mindbenders, the results are the same—a generation of young people with sick minds, loose morals and little desire or ability to defend themselves from those who would bury them.
And:
The Beatles’ public pronouncements, in the main, could not please this socialist-communist coterie more and, therefore, although the Beatles might not fully understand all the ramifications of their usefulness, they have been considered more than acceptable by the Left. Hence, rock’n’roll in general and the Beatles in particular have a special significance to the disrupters of society for their promotion of drugs, avant-garde sex and atheism. The revolu- tion, though sometimes veiled, is fundamentally against Christianity and Christianity’s moral concepts. Karl Marx sought to dethrone God before he set out to destroy capitalism. Since the rebellion or revolution not only sustains, but feeds on the sexual revolution, it is quite natural that the revolutionaries are against morality and Biblical Christianity which impedes the sexual revolution . . . There is good reason, therefore, why the Red revolution- ists who are dedicated to attacking Christianity and the morals of Christianity look to the Beatles as their ‘cultural heroes’. Of course, to the naive and uninitiated, the Beatles simply appear as four, fine, wholesome, uplifting musicians, but to those who peer at the clenched fisted, radical revolutionists on our college campuses (and their useful idiots), the Beatles take on a vastly different hue and tone.
What to do? What to do? Your writer knew:
In conclusion, it seems rather evident to this writer that the communists have a master music plan for all age brackets of American youth. We know from documented proof that such is the case for babies, one- and two-year-olds with their rhythmic music; we know such is the case for school children with their rhythmic music and for university students with their folk music.4 What but rock and roll fits the teenager? This isn’t saying that the communists have invented rock and roll or any other type of music, but they do in fact know how to use each type for their own purpose
.Throw your Beatle and rock and roll records in the city dump. We have been unashamed of being labeled a Christian nation; let’s make sure four mop-headed anti-Christ beatniks don’t destroy our children’s emotional and mental stability and ultimately destroy our nation as Plato warned in his Republic.
He wasn’t alone. When John Lennon me his quip about Jesus being smaller than The Beatles, records were torched. “Christianity will go,” said Lennon. “It will vanish and shrink. I needn’t argue about that; I’m right and I will be proved right. We’re more popular than Jesus now; I don’t know which will go first — rock ‘n’ roll or Christianity. Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It’s them twisting it that ruins it for me.”
In 1p82. Noebel retuned The Fab Four with his screed The Legacy of John Lennon: Charming or Harming a Generation?. In 2006, Noebel wrote that these “pied-pipers from Liverpool led tens of thousands straight into the drug culture and sexual revolution. Indeed, Lennon’s gospel was a gospel of freedom without God, moral boundaries or adult responsibility. His mantra of ‘give peace a chance’ was merely a cloak to cover his drug-drenched lifestyle, promiscuity (free love) and Marxist/socialist revolution.”
Such are the facts…
Posted: 29th, January 2014 | In: Flashback, Key Posts, Music | Comment
15 Wonderfully Awful Album Covers For Your Viewing Displeasure
THE 1960s through the 1980s saw a flood of low budget albums released around the globe. It seemed all you needed to make a record was some loose change and poor decision making skills. Indeed, much of what landed on record store shelves can only be described as deeply regrettable. Of course, this endless variety of awfulness is what makes record collecting so enjoyable 30+ years later.
I won’t pretend to even scratch the surface of the worst of the worst in this article. Instead, here’s a random handful of 15. Enjoy!
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Posted: 29th, January 2014 | In: Flashback, Key Posts, Music | Comment (1)
Pete Seeger: Photos And A Great 1947 Film Tribute To The American Folk Great
– In this Aug. 28, 1948 file photo, former Vice President and 1948 Progressive Party presidential candidate, Henry A. Wallace, making a political tour of the south, listens to Pete Seeger, on a plane between Norfolk and Richmond. Seeger’s influence is incalculable. He’s the rare artist whose music and message transcends time, speaking to his children and their children and on and on. The son of a socialist musicologist and a violinist, he began leading others in song at 8 and was introduced to protest music around 12. (AP Photo, File)
LAST night in New York Pete Seeger died. He was 94. The patrician captured the mood of the masses. As it says on his website:
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Copyright Balls: Spotify versus Thom Yorke and Dre’s Beats
SPOTIFY has been incredibly divisive in the music industry, with some looking at it like a perfectly good promo tool to promote artists, while others think it’s stealing all their lovely royalties. Others sit somewhere between the two, thinking At Least It Isn’t Illegal Downloading.
Music fans are equally divided, with someone wondering why you’d pay a subscription for music you can’t keep, while others love how it opens up a huge library of music to delve into, make playlists and more.
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The 15 Most Depressing Songs of the 1960s and 70s
THE LATE 1960s to mid-70s were a manic depressive time period in music, populated by exultant highs and soul crushing lows. The highs came in the form of disco and bubblegum pop via ABBA, The Bee Gees and their ilk. The lows came in the form of devastating testaments to inner sadness and existential rage. Perhaps it was Vietnam, recreational heroin use, and an economy that was in the crapper that caused such a swell in depressing anthems. Who knows? What is known is that this time period was fertile ground for misery put to melody, and whittling them down to a list of 15 was a daunting task indeed, but here goes….
15. “All By Myself” by Eric Carmen
Livin’ alone
I think of all the friends I’ve known
But when I dial the telephone
Nobody’s home
It’s not so much the lyrics as the morose delivery under a melody lifted from Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2. Carmen sounds so deeply depressed that you half expect to hear a gunshot at the end of the song.
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Posted: 21st, January 2014 | In: Flashback, Key Posts, Music | Comments (8)
How Did The Grateful Dead Get A Huge Archive Of Material? Jerry Garcia Is Unsure But The LSD Helped
Guitarist Jerry Garcia, of the band “The Grateful Dead,” second from left, is joined by his first wife Mountain Girl, left, Delaney Bramlett, centre, and Bruce Baxter III, right, in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, on July 2, 1970, during the legendary “Festival Express,” also known as the Transcontinental Pop Festival. (AP Photo/Ron “Sunshine” Mastrion)
GRATEFUL Dead fans for whom Jerry Garcia is more than an ice-cream pun can head over to JerryGarcia.com and tune in to the music of the 26 bands he played with. Best of all, you can see all the Dead’s shows archived. (They played over 2,300 shows.) If that’s not enough, you can check out Grateful Dead Archive Online from the University of California, Santa Cruz. And then take a look at the Internet Archive’s Grateful Dead collection.
If you don’t know the Dead’s work, listen to their first album. It is a country-rock classic.
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Jack White And Neil Young To Team Up For Grumpiest LP Ever Recorded?
APPARENTLY Neil Young and Jack White have teamed-up for an album of covers. Seeing as this is two of the most miserable singers on the planet, you can only imagine the size of the raincloud over the studio while they recorded.
We can only hope that Morrissey and Van Morrison get together in a bid to outdo this hugely glum record.
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Posted: 20th, January 2014 | In: Music, Reviews | Comment (1)
Morrissey To Release New Albums – Everyone Awaits The Beef
FOR a vegetarian, Morrissey doesn’t half thrive on beef. Every time he has something to plug, like a second division rapper, he gets out his broadsword and starts thrashing away at anything popular or generally, whatever cross that brain of his.
And now, Moz has inked a deal for his new solo album, with Capitol/Harvest Records looking mediocre sales in the second half of 2014, mainly from the few who use the True To You online fanzine.
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Posted: 17th, January 2014 | In: Celebrities, Music | Comment
Frampton Is Dead: Album Sales Dip To Lowest Level In The States
Shown in photo are head and shoulder shots of singer Peter Frampton on May 11, 1978.
FANS of albums, prepare to boo-hoo as reports state that album sales in That America have dipped to the lowest levels since records began. We should point out we don’t mean ‘long playing records’, but rather, ‘people making a note of how many albums had been sold, which they started doing in 1991’.
‘Since records began’ is much catchier.
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Why Spotify Allows Unlimited Free Music
THE music streaming service, Spotify, now allows unlimited free listening. This is seen as a great step forward: the company’s technology is getting better, they’re getting better at selling ads and all that sort of stuff. This may or may not be the actual reason they’re lifting their previous limits though:
Spotify’s advertising engine and paid customer conversion funnel are finally working well enough that today it eliminated all limits on free, ad-supported web listening in all countries. It’s an important milestone for the scalability and sustainability of Spotify’s business that contrasts with other streaming music services like Ex.fm and Rdio that are stumbling or shutting down.
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Posted: 16th, January 2014 | In: Money, Music, The Consumer | Comment
Eurovision: Belasrussia’s Robin Thicke Sings About His ‘Sweet Cheesecake’
EUROVISION gives and gives. This season it’s given us A Belarussian entry by TEO. It’s called Cheesecake. The video is by Robin Thicke’s less saucy cousin.
Did Somebody Drop His Mouse? Harry Nilsson And The Pensioners Sing ‘I’d Rather Be Dead Than Wet My Bed’
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Posted: 15th, January 2014 | In: Flashback, Key Posts, Music | Comment
15 Curious and Intriguing Beatles Covers
THE FAB FOUR had barely left Ed Sullivan’s stage before their songs were being covered like mad across the entire planet. You’d be hard pressed to find a single artist from the mid-sixties to mid-seventies who didn’t have at least one cover in their repertoire. Then royalty rates went up, and it naturally became harder to include a Lennon/McCartney track on an album…. and finally, in July 1978, The Bee Gees famously ruined the idea altogether.
Herein are fifteen from the Golden Age of Beatles Covers – when everyone from Deep Purple to Peter Sellers had a Beatles song to make their own. Enjoy.
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Posted: 15th, January 2014 | In: Flashback, Key Posts, Music | Comment
The Beatles Remastered: Artist Rutherford Chang Plays 100 White Albums Played At Once
Beatles George Harrison and John Lennon, background, sit on rocks by a river in Rishikesh, India, in 1968. They are studying transcendental meditation with their yogi. Date: 01/01/1968
RECORD collector, artist and New York-based Beatles fan Rutherford Chang has collected 918 first-pressings of 1968’s The White Album, the band’s least butchered album in which George Harrison came into his own.
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Posted: 14th, January 2014 | In: Flashback, Key Posts, Music | Comment
Gimme Shelter From Hell’s Angels: Meredith Hunter, Alan Passaro And The Rolling Stones Horror Show
MEREDITH Hunter. He was the 18-year-old stabbed to death by a Hell’s Angel at the Rolling Stones’ Altamont Free Concert on December 6 1969.
The show took place just four months after Woodstock. This time peace and love did not win out. But it might have done.
Michael Azerrad sets the pre-show scene:
…a scene at a helipad on a pier on San Francisco Bay. The Grateful Dead are there, cavorting in zonked-out hippie fashion, waiting for an overdue helicopter. Jagger comes sweeping in, surveys the unruly scene. and says with amused disbelief to no one in particular, “What is going on?” He gets the lay of the land from a chuckling and ultra-mellow Jerry Garcia, attired in an outtasite lavender wool poncho, and chats warmly with Ian Stewart. The vibe is sweet and playful.
The chopper won’t arrive until 2:00. “Right, film people, let’s do something!” Jagger proclaims. “We’ve got ten minutes.” He pulls some hippie chick aside and imperiously directs the cameraman (probably Albert Maysles) to go “Tighter tighter tighter tighter tighter tighter” on her face, adorned with a groovy beaded headband and massive square shades. He plants a kiss on her forehead and steps away. Then he orders Charlie, poor, long-suffering Charlie, “Do the same thing as I did. Kiss the young lady, please.”
Watts demurs. “Love is much more of a deeper thing than that,” he replies, with mock hauteur, although he clearly kind of means it too. “It’s not flippant, to be thrown away on celluloid. No.”
Jagger laughs at his disobedient drummer. “OK,” he says sheepishly, straight to camera, “we cut.”And then they headed off to Altamont.
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Posted: 13th, January 2014 | In: Flashback, Key Posts, Music | Comment
Barry White’s Animated Thoughts On Making Love And Not Blowing Up A Nation
American singer Barry White at his first London concert at the Rainbow Theatre in Finsbury Park, last Friday.
Date: 22/02/1974
THIS animated interview with late great 1970s singing love walrus Barry White, throbbing growler of such bedroom-of-kitchen-sofa- you-name it-friendly hits as Can’t Get Enough Of Your Love Baby, You’re the First, the Last, My Everything, It’s Only Love Doing It’s Thing, Love Theme and the puntastic Love Making Music is a soothing appeal to our loving souls. Says Barry: “When a man is making love, the last thing he thinks about is war! The last thing he thinks about is ‘how can I blow up a nation?’.”
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Elizabeth Cotten Plays In The Cotten Picking Fashion
ELIZABETH Cotten wrote Freight Train, the song for which she is best remembered, in her early teens. Libba” Cotten (January 5, 1893 – June 29, 1987) was an American blues and folk musician, singer, and songwriter.
A self-taught left-handed guitarist, Cotten developed her own original style. Her approach involved using a right-handed guitar (usually in standard tuning), not re-strung for left-handed playing, essentially, holding a right-handed guitar upside down. This position required her to play the bass lines with her fingers and the melody with her thumb. Her signature alternating bass style has become known as “Cotten picking”.
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Paul Simon’s 1992 South Africa Tour Was In Another World To His 1985 Graceland Mission
ON January 11 1992, Paul Simon kicked off his South Africa tour. He’d visited the country before, back in 1985 in defiance of the UN-sponsored cultural boycott against apartheid. On 2 December 1968, The UN General Assembly requested all States and organisations “to suspend cultural, educational, sporting and other exchanges with the racist regime and with organisations or institutions in South Africa which practice apartheid”. Sportsmen and music acts were encouraged not to play in South Africa.
Singer-songwriter Paul Simon is joined by Albert Mazibuko, left, and Joseph Shabalala, right, at a news conference in New York, Aug. 25, 1986, to introduce Simon’s new album, “Graceland.” Mazibuko and Shabalala are two of the many South Africa musicians and singers who collaborated with Simon on his new album which blends the sounds of American pop music with that of black South Africa. (AP Photo/Marty Lederhandler)
The ANC and Artists Against Apartheid were outraged. Why hadn’t Simon consulted them before arriving?
Said Simon: “You went to South Africa but you didn’t ask us. You need to ask the ANC. So that’s the kind of government you’re going to be? Check our lyrics? F*** the artists like all kinds of governments have done in the past?”
Rev. Allan Boesak of South Africa, left, meets with entertainer Paul Simon at the home of Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden in Santa Monica, Calif., March 10, 1987. (AP Photo/Mark Avery)
Simon’s foresight introduced much of the world to the music of black South Africa. That first trip led to his groundbreaking Graceland album, featuring South African musicians Hugh Masekela, Simon and Miriam Makeba and the Ladysmith Black Mambazo.
Joe Berlinger followed Simon on his trip. In his documentary Under African Skies, we hear Dali Tambo, founder of Artists Against Apartheid and son of the late African National Congress (ANC) president Oliver Tambo. He says: “At that moment in time, it was not helpful. We were fighting for our land, for our identity. We had a job to do, and it was a serious job. And we saw Paul Simon coming as a threat because it was not sanctioned by the liberation movement.”
Simon found it absurd that artists should be viewed in the light and shadows cast by politicians. Art, said Simon, would endure.
In 1987, Simon performed his Under African Skies Concert in Harare:
American pop star Paul Simon, second right, joins hands with South African musicians Joe Shabalala, left, Miriam Makeba, second left, who has been exiled for 27 years, and Ray Phiri, during the first day on a two-day concert entitled Graceland in Concert, in Harare, Zimbabwe on Feb. 14, 1987. Blacks and whites from as far away as New York, Nairobi and South Africa attended the concert, the first public performance in Africa of Simon whose latest songs blend African rhythms with American pop music. (AP Photo)
American singer Paul Simon performs for 20,000 fans in an open air stadium in Harare, Zimbabwe on Feb. 14, 1987, the first day of a two-day ÂGraceland in Concert event by Simon and 25 black South African musicians. It was Simon’s first public performance in Africa of his Graceland album which blends African rhythms with American pop music. (AP Photo)
When Simon returned in 1992, that boycott has been lifted. This time the ANC backed him.
lson Mandela the president of African National Congress claps hands with American singer and songwriter Paul Simon in a gesture that signals the end of the boycott imposed by anti-Apartheid organizations, at a function held in Simon honour in Johannesburg, South Africa Friday, Jan. 10, 1992. (AP Photo/ Adil Bradlow)
Of the show in Johannesburg’s Ellis Park Stadium, The New York Times noted, “Most black South Africans could not afford to pay up to $30 for a ticket, or, lacking cars, to travel to Johannesburg from the outlying black townships.”
Entertainment Weekly surveyed the scene:
While Simon opened his two-week South Africa tour with such gentle songs as ”The Obvious Child,” ”Bridge Over Troubled Water,” and ”The Sounds of Silence,” armored police vehicles, bomb-sniffing canines, and even a surveillance helicopter patrolled the stadium. Outside, clusters of angry black protesters, representing leftist fringe groups that ferociously oppose the lifting of international sanctions against South Africa, were handing out leaflets, waving anti-Simon signs, and threatening to disrupt his concert with violence.
Not everyone could make it. One month earlier, Ladysmith Black Mambazo co-founder Headman Tshabalala had been shot dead by a white security guard. The guard had been arrested. He’d been released on $300 bail.
The day he arrived, two hand grenades exploded outside the offices of a Johannesburg company that helped arrange the tour. Complaints were also aimed at Whoopi Goldberg and the production of Sarafina!, which she is filming in South Africa.
U.S. singer Paul Simon performs during his concert in Johannesburg, Jan. 11, 1992. Simon is the first international star to perform in South Africa since the lifting of the cultural boycott last year. A small group of black militants staged a demonstration outside the stadium. (AP Photo/Adil Bradlow)
The Baltimore Sun reviewed the show:
A small group of black activists, as many as 100 at one point, marched outside the entrance of Ellis Park Stadium in east Johannesburg with signs that said the singer had come at the wrong time with his “Born at the Right Time” tour.
The hand-lettered placards read: “Simon Go Home,” “Yankee Go Home,” “Don’t Delay Our Freedom,” and “Liberation First, Entertainment After.”
Members of a radical black group known as the Azanian Youth Organization had threatened to disrupt the concert with violence, saying that the American pop star was wrong to come to South Africa before the country’s political problems were solved.
“Artists should come after we have a democratic government,” said Kgomotse Modiselle, a 20-year-old high school student who described himself as a spokesman for the left-wing youth group. “Right now is not the right time for sanctions to be lifted.”
He said that only whites were attending the concert because blacks were opposed to Mr. Simon’s presence in South Africa. “The stadium is filled with white people,” he proclaimed.
Fans at American singer Paul SimonÂs concert in the first of five concerts in Johannesburg, South Africa on Saturday, Jan. 11, 1992. The concert effectively marked the end of South Africa’s cultural boycott. (AP Photo/Adil Bradlow)
Violence was never far away.
About a half-dozen tanks painted in camouflage colors sat near the front of the stadium.
South Africa
Posted: 11th, January 2014 | In: Flashback, Key Posts, Music | Comment
45 Sinfully Underplayed Songs of the 60s and 70s
AT a time when even the most obscure vintage track is just a few clicks away, it’s very hard to create a list of “underplayed” songs. Many recordings swept under the rug have now returned to the light via music blogs, YouTube, Spotify, iTunes, etc.
The list before you is to help insert some new blood into your playlists. I’m always appreciative of a recommendation, so I figured some of you would be as well.
Note: There’s a tendency in many music lists to impress the rock snobs. Nothing is ever too unknown or clever for them. I’ve tried to avoid the temptation to plumb the depths of obscurity just to show off. We’ll keep things off the beaten path, but no so deep as to unleash the Balrog.
- 1941 – Harry Nilsson
Autobiographical ditty which got him noticed by the Beatles. Legendary debauchery by Harry and Mr. Ono soon followed. - 2000 Light Years from Home – Rolling Stones – The Stones shoot for Strawberry Fields and actually nail it. They’d be moving on to bluesier stuff in a hurry.
- A Minah Menina – Os Mutantes
Brazilian psychedelia unbelievably used in a 2008 McDonald’s commercial. It deserved the attention. - Any Major Dude – Steely Dan
Why this wasn’t a top ten hit will forever be one of history’s greatest mysteries. - Ballad of Danny Bailey – Elton John
With so many hits being churned out by Elton, I suppose this one got trampled and lost underfoot. - Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft – The Carpenters
Much more palatable than the original Klaatu version. Yes, it’s cheesy and insane – but that’s not always a bad thing. - Chevy Van – Sammy Johns
Like “Afternoon Delight”, the innocent veneer masks an extremely dirty song (about having sex with a hitchhiker) - Circle Round the Sun – B.J. Thomas
Beautiful, damn near transcendent song that apparently was too good for radio. - Cthlu Thlu – Caravan
Guitar noodling goes on a bit long in the second half, but HP Lovecraft still would be proud. - Daily Nightly – The Monkees
Moog infused psychedelia that, of course, gets no respect because it’s from the Monkees. - Disadvantages of You – The Brass Ring
Elevator music at its finest. - Fundamentally Yours – Stackridge
Sounds more like Badfinger than Badfinger, but you cannot deny it’s a flat-perfect pop melody. - Ghetto Child – The Spinners
May sound silly to those raised on hip-hop, but this is where talent, soul, melody and message come together. - Hard Times – Kiss
The circus often overshadowed their talent for simple quality rock. One wonders how their music would be viewed had they had just dressed like Foghat. - Hello Little Lover – Mahogany Rush
These Canadians can rock hard. Great music to exceed speed limits to. - Home Is Where the Hatred Is – Esther Williams
Esther lays it all out on the table. You’ll be exhausted by the time she’s through with you. - Houdini Said – Gilbert O’Sullivan
Well crafted, creative, melodic… the adjectives keep on coming, yet I can’t put it into a coherent description. - I See the Rain – Marmalade
Hendrix loved the guitars – you’ll get no better endorsement than that. - I’m Mandy, Fly Me – 10cc
The band was always wandering off the beaten path; here they take an obvious pop nugget and make it interesting. - In the First Place – Remo Four
From the Wonderwall film; a brilliant instrumental with George Harrison as its creator. - I’ve Got to Be Going – Peppermint Trolley Co.
The group is more known for the original Brady Bunch theme than anything else, which is a crying shame because they could craft some great bubblegum pop. - Ladies and Gentlemen – Clouds
In a perfect world, complex tunes like this go platinum. Instead, it was lost without a trace, and can’t even be found on Spotify. - Land of the Few – Love Sculpture
If ever there was a song begging to added to a playlist, this is it. Do it for Dave Edmunds. - Leave It – Mike McGear and Paul McCartney
Silly and nonsensical, but McCartney’s ability to come up with a brilliant melody on a dime is unnerving. - Life Has Just Begun – Spirit
The whole Sardonicus LP is woefully under-appreciated. The songs were just a bit too odd to become a part of classic rock mainstream. - Lord Grenville – Al Stewart
Transcendental tune about a 17th century naval captain which circles upwards like cannabis vapors to the Heavens. “Our time is just a point along a line that runs forever with no end.” Heavy, man. - Love Alive – Heart
The ladies did their best to be Led Zeppelin in the early days. Here’s where they came the closest. - Man of 1000 Faces – Gene Simmons
When all four members of Kiss simultaneously released solo albums, we sensed they’d be jumping the shark soon. This one is just too interesting to ignore. - Mary Skeffington – Gerry Rafferty
It’s about Gerry’s own mother who once was full of promise, now dodges her drunk husband’s punches. It’s simultaneously depressing and beautiful. - Mother Freedom – Bread
Not as pillowy soft as we’re accustomed with this band, but still has that signature triumphant hook. - My White Bicycle – Tomorrow
Best bicycle song there is: beats both Queen and Floyd. - Nice, Nice, Very Nice – Ambrosia
One of the few prog rock bands that recognized the importance of melody. Even Vonnegut couldn’t help but sing its praises; it’s not easy to adapt Bokononism for the radio. - Open Sesame (Groove with the Genie) – Kool & the Gang
Back when funk bands had 20 members and a horn section; this is the very definition of back porch, booger nosed funk. Can ya dig? - Psychic Vampire – Space Opera
More complicated than a song has a right to be; yet still pleasing to the ear. I could listen to this on a loop for the rest of my life. - Red Telephone – Love
Easily one of the greatest albums of all time, Forever Changes was widely unknown until it started popping up on “best of” lists. I’ll add my voice to the chorus. - Rose for Emily, A – The Zombies
It wants to be Eleanor Rigby, and comes damned close. Titled based on a Faulkner novel about necrophilia. - Satellite of Love – Lou Reed
I’ve heard this song 900 times over thirty years and I still don’t know why I like it. It’s a rock snob favorite, so I want to hate it, but can’t. - Searchin’ So Long – Chicago
One of the great codas in rock history. Coda hall of fame: “Hey Jude”, “Atlantis” by Donovan, “Aquarius” by the Fifth Dimension, and “Head Over Heels” by Tears for Fears “… and this is my foooour leaf clover.” - Seven Island Suite – Gordon Lightfoot
Epic dirge to escape the rat race. Rarely are songs this exultant. - She Was Naked – Supersister
Speaking of codas: this one starts off worrisome, then ends with a roundhouse kick to the solar plexus. - Some Gospel According to Matthew – Roberta Flack
Before American Idol infected the world with melisma, and before autotune turned the singers of a generation into synthetic ventriloquist dummies – there was Roberta. - Song of the Viking – Todd Rundgren
Playful on the surface, but bizarrely beautiful. Obviously written by a mad genius. - Summer of ’71 – Helen Reddy
Hearing Helen sing about getting high on mescaline is reward enough. The fact that it’s a great song is the cherry on top. - Theme One – The George Martin Orchestra
The Van Der Graf Generator did a respectable cover, but nothing tops the original sonic grandeur composed for Radio One. - Vacuum Cleaner – Tintern Abbey
If you’re not pleasantly surprised by this oft overlooked psychedelic gem, you’re just being stubborn
Over to you…
Posted: 10th, January 2014 | In: Key Posts, Music | Comments (2)
Trading Cards Of The 1970s: The Bay City Rollers Versus The Village People
THE Topps Company didn’t just make baseball cards with a stick of chewing gum in each packet. They made cards for non-sporting endeavours. Collect them. Trade them. The Garbage Pail kids cards sold well. So too Pokemon. But what about these?
In 2013 Topps created Lollapalooza Trading Cards.
But before that, they made these.
The Bay City Rollers
The girls will go wild for the Scots rockers. Back in the 1970s, it was Rollermania as Eric Faulkner and Stuart Wood, Les McKeown, Alan Longmuir and drummer Derek Longmuir emerged from Edinburgh to make tartan cool.
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Posted: 9th, January 2014 | In: Flashback, Key Posts, Music | Comment
