Fluville Gazette Vol. 1 No. 1

I've been getting a little static lately from the readers of this blog about the lack of posting frequency here. This is a blog. It's not my job, but it feels like it. A few months ago I had to explain this to my son. He's kind of impressed at how many people actually read this (and I am too) but confused at how much time his Dad spends doing it. Today, on the phone, he asked me how to download the songs here.

So, rather than compose another one of my long winded and angular diatribes combining conspiracy theories of relativity with songs we love so much and the people who record them, I thought I might bring you all up to speed on some exciting new developments here at the Fluville Chamber of Commerce.

Well, not really. But that was fun to say.

Let's see.

Yesterday, I went to the dentist and left with one less tooth in my mouth. It's a drag, because I really liked that tooth. It reminded me of this song which I saw The Feelies perform last month, it was one the best shows I've seen by anyone in recent memory. It contains the following lines:

Next day I went to the dentist
He pulled some teeth
and I lost some blood

"Sedan Delivery" mp3
by Neil Young, 1979.
available on Rust Never Sleeps

"Sedan Delivery" mp3
by The Feelies, 1986.
from No One Knows EP
out of print

They also played a semi-obscure number by The Modern Lovers.

"I Wanna Sleep In Your Arms" mp3
by The Modern Lovers, 1976.
available on The Modern Lovers

When I got home, a little lighter in the jaw, I saw that I had received a package from the nice folks at Rhino containing the new batch of Replacements reissues. After you listen to these teaser tracks, just go and buy the damn things if you don't have them already. They are that good. I contributed a photograph to the Pleased to Meet Me reissue, and you can see and read all about it HERE and listen to one additional track.

"Waitress In The Sky" (alternate) mp3
by The Replacements, 1985.
available on Tim

"Tossin' and Turnin'" mp3
by The Replacements, 1987.
available on Pleased to Meet Me

"We Know the Night" (alternate) mp3
by The Replacements, 1989.
available on Don't Tell a Soul

"Attitude" (demo) mp3
by The Replacements, 1990.
available on All Shook Down

Okay, so then I went upstairs and and ate some very soft food in my very sore mouth, and watched the very excellent Johnny Cash's America on the A&E Biography Channel produced and directed by friends of Fluville, Robert Gordon and Morgan Neville. You can buy the DVD next week HERE

In the meantime, enjoy this:

"The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" mp3
by Johnny Cash, 1975.
from John R. Cash
out of print

Oh, there are some very good interviews in the film by a number of artists including these people:

"Violin Bums" mp3
by James Luther Dickinson, 2006.
available on Jungle Jim and the Voodoo Tiger

"Killing Him" mp3
by Amy LaVere, 2007.
available on Anchors & Anvils

"Marching To The City" mp3
by Bob Dylan, 1997.
available on Tell Tale Signs: The Bootleg Series Vol. 8 (Deluxe)

"In The Jailhouse Now" mp3
by Steve Earle & The V-Roys, 1996.
available on Songs of Jimmie Rodgers: A Tribute

Also featured in the film is 'Cowboy' Jack Clement. He wrote a lot of songs for Sun artists, and produced and engineered a lot of records recorded there.

Here's a few of the songs that he's written:

"I Like It" mp3
by Roy Orbison, 1956.
available on Rocker

"It'll Be Me" mp3
by Jerry Lee Lewis, 1957.
available on All Killer, No Filler: The Anthology

"Guess Things Happen That Way" mp3
by Johnny Cash, 1958.
available on The Essential Johnny Cash 1955-1983

"Miller's Cave" mp3
by Gram Parsons & The International Submarine Band, 1967.
available on Safe at Home

This weekend, I'm going to the WFMU Record Fair. It's a lot of fun, but I'm going to try and practice some restraint and try not to buy too many records. My tooth is not the only thing I'm missing these days, and when I'm not sharing all this fabulous music with you folks, I've been out trying to find another more lucrative gig. You can direct any reasonable offers to me here.

Last year I picked up this one up at the fair:



"Susie-Q" mp3
by Dale Hawkins, 1956.
available on Oh! Suzy-Q: The Best of Dale Hawkins


In related webosphere news, I've been posting mp3's and some of my photographs at East of Bowery, a fantastic new blog that my good friend and writer Drew Hubner (that's pronounced Huebner) and I are collaborating on. Check it out. Drew is posting stories of his misspent early days in New York City. I didn't know him then, but it seems we were in the same place at the same time. Life is sweet.

Also on the Interweb, artist and fellow blogger Steve Roden graciously plugged the Boogie Woogie Flu, at the web version of The Wire magazine last week. You can see it HERE.

And recently, I recieved a letter from a reader who lives on an olive farm in Catalan, Spain, who was so excited by the music here on the Boogie Woogie Flu, that he decided to start a Boogie Woogie Flu listeners page on Last FM. I'm not sure how that thing works, and I'm a little over-saturated with this web stuff, but if you use Last FM, join him, his name is Pault and he goes by the tag r_seven. He's very nice.

Okay, that's it for now. Have a good weekend.



Photographs: Lincoln Barron by Ted Barron © 2008

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