Back In Shellac (again)

"He ain't dead, he's just asleep" - Bob Dylan

Aside from the usual harassment that comes to my inbox daily from publicists, bloggers, special new acts with myspace pages, and eletro-DJ dudes from faraway places like Estonia and Omaha asking me to be a shill for things I couldn't possibly be interested in, I've been getting a number of emails from friends and actual readers of this blog asking me where the hell I've been.

Well, sometimes a man just needs to (as today's artist in spotlight, Gene Autry, would say) drift along with the tumbling tumbleweeds. Well, you get my drift, and, for now, I'm back in the saddle again. So, I come out of hiding today and offer you two of the greatest cowboy records ever made.

Download:



"Back In The Saddle Again" mp3
by Gene Autry, 1946.
available on Essential Gene Autry



"Tumbling Tumbleweeds" mp3
by Gene Autry, 1946.
available on Essential Gene Autry

Bonus:

"Tumbling Tumbleweeds" mp3
by Michael Nesmith & The First National Band, 1971.
Available on Nevada Fighter

Also:



Friend of Fluville and Fat Possum recording artist Sonny Smith (Sonny & The Sunsets) has an exciting new project called 100 Records. Sonny is a past contributor here at the Boogie Woogie Flu, and a multi-talented artist who conceived this art project, in which he asked 100 artists to pick from song titles of then still unwritten material, come up with band names, and design 7" 45 record sleeves for the fake bands. Sonny then recorded 100 songs and built a jukebox to play them. Last year Sonny asked me to design one of these sleeves, and it is pictured here below with the track he recorded, which can best be described as what the Velvet Underground would sound like if they played surf music. The show, opened in San Francisco at Gallery 16 and moved to the Okay Mountain Gallery in Austin, Texas. It is currently in Brooklyn at Cinders Gallery (103 Havemeyer Street, Brooklyn NY), and will open tomorrow night August 12th (and will run through September 5th) starting with a performance by Sonny at 7PM. There will be an after party at Gordon Bennett Bar (109 South 6th Street, Brooklyn NY) starting at 10:30, and yours truly will be spinning real 45s til they kick us out. Please come, we'd love to see you all there.



Download:

"The Bad Energy From LA Is Killing Me" mp3
by Durango Dexter and The Dolphins
AKA Sonny and The Sunsets, 2009.



photo of Sonny Smith and Durango Dexter sleeve
© Ted Barron, 2010.

top photo: Gene Autry & Peggy Stewart in Trail to San Antone