Joe Strummer

Joe Strummer died seven years ago yesterday. He was pretty cool.

Download:

"Johnny Appleseed" mp3
by Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros, 2001.
available on Global a Go-Go

"Julie's In The Drug Squad" mp3
by The Clash, 1978.
available on Give 'em Enough Rope

"Groovy Times" mp3
by The Clash, 1979.
available on Super Black Market Clash

"Broadway" mp3
by The Clash, 1980.
available on Sandinista!

******************

"Redemption Song" mp3
by Johnny Cash & Joe Strummer, 2001.
available on Unearthed

History Lesson

There's a joke about rock bands, that when they get too big and fall out of touch with their audience, they start writing songs about the trials and tribulations of being on the road. It's a cliche in 1980's rock videos. You know, being on the bus, looking wistfully out the window as you roll into another town. Whatever.

Here's a group of songs by an array of artists, that look to their band as a subject for their song. This is almost, but not exclusively, the provenance of British bands: the idea of being in a band as being a member of a gang. The Clash perfected this concept. I was hard pressed to pick just one of their songs. "Clash City Rockers" was the obvious first choice, but isn't really on the subject. It's no secret that they modeled themselves after Mott, or at least guitarist Mick Jones did, and that's a good thing. Railroad Jerk tells a tall tale. The Mekons have a sense of humor about it, but the Mekons are "a band that deals in the facts of life." The Minutemen are dewey-eyed romantic punks name-checking their forebears. Felt are jangly, and Them are Irish, slightly menacing, and very intense.

Download:

"History Lesson - Part II" mp3
by The Minutemen, 1984.
available on Double Nickels on the Dime

"The Ballad Of The Band" mp3
by Felt, 1986.
available on Stains on a Decade

"Sympathy For The Mekons" mp3
by The Mekons, 1987.
available on Honky Tonkin'

"The Ballad Of Railroad Jerk" mp3
by Railroad Jerk, 1995.
available on One Track Mind

"The Story of Them Parts 1 & 2" mp3
(THIS TRACK HAS BEEN REMOVED AS REQUESTED)
by Them, 1967.
available on The Story of Them Featuring Van Morrison

"The Ballad Of Mott The Hoople" mp3
by Mott The Hoople, 1973.
available on Mott

"All The Young Punks" mp3
by The Clash, 1978.
available on Give 'em Enough Rope

The Velvet Touch

"Ginsberg is both tragic and dynamic, a lyrical genius, con man extraordinaire, and probably the single greatest influence on American poetical voice since Whitman." -Bob Dylan

"Pot is Fun" -Allen Ginsberg

"I'm not a Hippie!" -Jonathan Richman

At the end of "See You Later, Allen Ginsberg," you can hear Bob Dylan start to say, "Let's erase..." (that!) or something to that effect. This track has most of what's great about the lighter tracks on the The Basement Tapes: humor, spontaneity, cannabis, and illicitness (it is a bootleg) and maybe we shouldn't be listening to it, or maybe it should have been erased as Dylan starts to suggest. Thankfully, it was not.

A few years later, Dylan heard Ginsberg at a reading, improvising poetry to some music and called him to talk about it. A week later they were in the studio recording with an assembled cast of characters including Anne Waldman and Happy Traum. They recorded several tracks for what eventually became Ginsberg's record First Blues, including "Put Your Money Down," which is the traditional sea shanty "Pay Me Your Money Down" and "For You, Oh Babe For You," which to my ears sounds more like late period Velvet Underground than anything else.

So, with that in mind I've assembled a sprawling little playlist here, that follows a tagent beginning with Dylan and moving on to some live Velvets from 1969; The Modern Lovers, who used to the Velvets' sound as a starting point; Wilco who nailed it on at least one track and another performance of Ginsberg from 1982 with The Clash.


Download:

"See You Later, Allen Ginsberg"
by Bob Dylan & The Band, 1967.
available on The Genuine Basement Tapes

"Put My Money Down"
"For You, Oh Babe For You"
By Bob Dylan & Allen Ginsberg, 1971.
available on Fourth Time Around: Genuine Bootleg Series Vol. 4

"Sweet Bonnie Brown/It's Just Too Much"
"Over You"
by The Velvet Underground, 1969.
available on 1969: Velvet Underground Live, Vol. 2

"Summer Teeth"
by Wilco, 1999.
available on Summerteeth

"Roadrunner" alternate version
by The Modern Lovers, 1972.
available on The Modern Lovers

"Velvet Underground"
by Jonathan Richman, 1992.
available on I, Jonathan

"Ghetto Defendant"
by The Clash with Allen Ginsberg, 1982.
available on Combat Rock



















this photograph:
Allen Ginsberg with Joe Strummer and Mick Jones
New York City, 1982. © Hank O'Neal

top photograph:
Bob Dylan and Allen Ginsberg at Jack Kerouac's Grave
Lowell Massachusetts, 1975. © Ken Regan

Jews On 45

Happy Hanukkah... a little late but not too late.

Below we have eight records that are in some way associated with my people. Bookended by a record by a nice Jewish boy from Brooklyn singing about a gospel tent show, and a noted disturbed and not Jewish anti-semite backed by Yo La Tengo, who celebrate the eight nights of Hanukkah in Hoboken almost every year with a star-studded Festival of Lights. In between we get noted Yids: The Lovin' Spoonful, The Clash (singer Mick Jones); The Strangeloves, who pretended to be Australian brothers, but were in fact the songwriting team of Feldman, Goldstein and Gottehrer; Joey Ramone AKA Jeffrey Hyman singing a song co-written and produced by psycho-Jew Phil Spector, Leslie West (nee Weinstein) fronting Mountain in a guilty pleasure of mine as well as my second favorite cowbell song; and a semi-rare B-side by Mr. Zimmerman himself.

Spin your dradles and rock.

Download:























"Brother Love's Travelling Salvation Show" mp3
by Neil Diamond, 1969.
available on The Neil Diamond Collection























"Nashville Cats" mp3
by The Lovin' Spoonful, 1966.
available on Hums of the Lovin' Spoonful
























"Gates Of The West" mp3
by The Clash, 1979.
available on Super Black Market Clash























"Baby, I Love You" mp3
by The Ramones, 1980.
available on End of the Century























"Angels Flying Too Close To The Ground" mp3
by Bob Dylan, 1983
available on UK Single "Union Sundown"
























"Mississippi Queen" mp3
by Mountain, 1970.
available on The Best of Mountain























"Cara-Lin" mp3
by The Strangeloves, 1965.
available on I Want Candy: The Best of the Strangeloves























"Speeding Motorcycle" mp3
by Daniel Johnston with Yo La Tengo (via telephone)
from Nicholas Hill's Music Faucet on WFMU, 1990.
available on Genius + Love = Yo La Tengo