Have bought a lot of vinyl and sat it next to the record player recently. I’ve played a couple. Such is life.

I was meaning to photograph them all but have so far captured the above quartet. The rest must wait. There’s some gooduns though. Ethio-funk sevens that really need recording onto the computer. Good Jazz and Soul LPs. Real nice.

Gotted some nice bits of vinyl recently. A couple of nice moody soundtracks from two of the masters. Everyone needs the UN Resolution on Racism on vinyl right? Bottom right is a UK HMV copy of an Impulse comp that has a bunch of tracks unreleased elsewhere on vinyl. Gooduns.

Some Impulse purchases am I rite?? My orange spine hunt continues. That Jackie Paris is actually pretty cool for some cornball Sinatra stan. That Mel Brown record has a hefty bit of drums on it. The other two are just nice original copies of classic albums.

The top two have Okay Temiz on drums. He is definitely one of the best drummers ever, from anywhere in the world and if you see a record with him on, grab it. The Indian record has Jnan Prakash Ghosh of “Drums of India” fame(!) on it. The Malaysian record is pretty cheesy as per usual but it’s got The Stylers backing the singer and they are always good for a song or two per album.

This Roy Meriwether album is mental. It starts out as kind of a Gospel album and ends up as crazy spiritual Jazz. François Rabbath’s “The Sound Of A Bass” is a fascinatingly original and musically jaw-dropping solo bass album from 1969. I also grabbed two great Elvin Jones LPs on Blue Note.

Some nice 12″s have been coming through recently. The first is a great track I’ve been after on vinyl for a while now, by Sylvia Robinson of Sugarhill Records fame. “PSK/Gucci Time” has got to be one of the greatest double-sided Rap 12″s of all time, seen here in it’s original Sound Makers Distribution pressing. “Do The James” and “Egypt, Egypt” are the kind of records that I would never have imagined finding original copies of ten years ago. I know you can find anything online, if you want to pay the price, but I like finding them in the wild most of the time. Like Pokemon.

How sleazy is this fucking porpoise? What a wrongun. Is he pimping an underage mermaid? This record must be good cos it’s bloody trashed.

Sweet Talks – Osode Medley (Drum Break) 1976

A bunch of great African LPs came in the shop this week, so you know I had to take half of them home with me. Sir Shina Peters, Super 5 International, Sonora Gentil, Tony Grey and the Black Kings etc.

Many of the LPs are end-to-end listeners, top quality duelling guitar and grooving polyrhythms but the highlight of the whole pile is this two minute drum break in the middle of an eighteen minute medley. It appears on Sweet Talks‘ ‘Spiritual Ghana’ LP and its everything that is good in percussion. All at once.

The credits list the hitters as J.Y. Thorty (Drums), Yaw Samuel (Conga), Max Cozy (Percussion) and Pope Flynn (Percussion). I salute them.

The Young Men – Get The Message

What can one write about The Young Men that hasn’t already been written?

According to Google, absolutely anything.

Unfortunately I know nothing more about The Young Men than can be gleaned from the above-pictured Promo.

“Get The Message” has a nice Psych/Pop sound and some excellent drumming underneath it but it clearly wasn’t a major success. I can find only one reference to it anywhere on the whole universalsuperinterweb.

This is a shame as it’s a great little tune. Sounds like The Happenings or countless Garage bands.

I can’t find much on Viva Records. Looks like a surfy/garagey 60s label. Nice enough. Great logo but it looks like it ought to be on Goblin soundtracks or something. The only bell that rings is Snuff Garrett, the producer of Brill Building pop and “I Got You Babe”.

S’good though right?

Ernest Hemingway – The Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech 1954

Ernest Hemingway – Second Poem To Mary Written 1944

Caedmon’s Ernest Hemingway Reading LP sounds an awful lot like Colonel Walter E. Kurtz’ recordings in Apocalypse Now. The gatefold sleeve contains extensive notes on the recordings, written by Mary Hemingway and Hemingway’s biographer A.E. Hotchner (subject of the film King Of The Hill). Unlike almost all Caedmon records which are of superb sound quality, this LP contains home recordings. A.E. Hotchner writes:

One of Ernest Hemingway’s deadliest enemies was The Microphone. The Camera ran it a close second, but The Microphone was the blackest villain that stalked his life, and despite the persistent blandishments of radio stations, television producers and record companies, he successfully fended off all efforts to put him in the grips of The Demon Mike.
But Over the years, under special circumstances, Ernest did record a few things for me on an old Webster wire recorder the he kept in his finca in Cuba, and on a transistorized pocket recorder called a Midgetape which we took on our travels. These wires and tapes, imperfect though they are, are virtually the only record we have of his voice. (The one exception is his acceptance of the Nobel Prize which was recorded by a Havana radio station.) This album contains, in addition to the Nobel acceptance, five recordings made during 1948-1961, which was the span of time I knew him.

The homemade feeling of the record carries over to the sleeve, with cover photo taken by Mary Hemingway and the candid picture of the couple attending a bullfight in Pamploma. This record is strangely personal and a bit disturbing but I guess that fits the profile we have of Hemingway. Regardless of his opposition to microphones he has a real character and presence when reading his work, something many authors that record profusely lack entirely. If he hadn’t terminated himself (with extreme prejudice) at 61 we might have heard more from him.

It doesn’t seem to be available on CD at all, the tapes belonging to Hotchner rather than Caedmon’s now parent company Harper Audio, but copies do pop up on Musicstack and Amazon sellers from time to time.
Recommended.

I love record labels.
While most music fans hate them and blame them for everything from Prince falling off to record sales slumping, I defend their place in music today, and obsess over their back catalogues.
Some labels are favorites because they are synonymous with musicians I love. The Isley Brothers and T-Neck or John Coltrane and Impulse.
Some are favourites for issuing a handful of niche records. Fondle ‘em, Prism, Childrens Television Workshop or SoundInk.
I even have love for some large labels. Atlantic still means something to me even with Ahmet Ertegün gone and the strings being pulled by the Warner Music Group. They still put out some great music, sixty years after they started. I’m even kind of fond of the the first record label, Columbia Records, despite no one having anything good to say about them. I like that their name has lasted from Wax Cylinders to MP3 downloads.

I’ll get round to writing about more of my favourite labels, but to start I’ll do a few posts on the phenomenal American literary label Caedmon.

Founded in 1953 by Marianne Roney and Barbara Holdridge (omg women!!), Caedmon initially released recordings of well known authors reading their own work. This line included works from such literary stars as W.H. Auden, Dyland Thomas, Gertrude Stein, Tennessee Williams and T.S. Eliot.

The above record contains the only recordings of Ernest Hemmingway and is, frankly, pretty nuts indeed.

Caedmon went on to issue records covering all areas of literature. Their children’s line featured the astonishing storytelling skills of Carl Sandburg and renditions of dozens of classic kids stories, read aloud by the likes of Boris Karloff, Carol Channing and Maggie Smith.

The “Shakespeare Recording Society” line saw recordings of the most celebrated stage actors of the 50s and 60s doing everything from Macbeth to The Rape of Lucrece. Many of them released as large box sets with lavish booklets. The “Theatre Recording Society” line featured the cream of 20th century plays, with casts to match. Caedmon recordings regularly featured Michael Redgrave, Jessica Tandy, Montgomery Clift, Anthony Quayle, John Gielgud, Ian Holm, Richard Burton and the RSC.

Caedmon released three volumes of Edgar Allan Poe (read by Basil Rathbone!), Homer, Hardy, Emily Dickinson, Beowulf and the Canterbury Tales. They even had a Social Studies line that featured Carl Sandburg on Abraham Lincoln and Eartha Kitt and Moses Gunn reading Black Pioneers in American History – 19th Century.

The label is a favourite because it had Vincent Price reading Shelley and Ossie Davis reading Langston Hughes, but its also a favourite because of the care they took in packaging the records. Looking through my stack of Caedmon LPs, the only one that doesn’t look great is a Tolkien album, cursed with a photo of the old wizard. Every other LP I’ve seen on Caedmon is a thing of beauty.

I don’t think they ever pressed records for the UK market, so all the copies I find are imports. This means they have the chunky card “paste up” covers Americans were treated too from the 50s to the 70s. Some UK record types hate them and prefer europe’s laminated thin card sleeves but not me. I love American pressings and Caedmon are amongst the swellest with their green and blue labels on thick vinyl and their intelligent liner notes.

If I said I wanted to collect the whole catalogue I’d be a fool but I don’t leave many in the racks. Either the subject or the cast manages to sway my wallet or failing that the cover art will. Probably all three.

I’ll be doing posts on some of my favourite releases and possibly including some sound clips but be warned that Caedmon was sadly swallowed up by Murdoch’s Harper Collins and may now have a stain of google wielding lawyers. “HarperAudio/Caedmon” now releases items such as Neil Gaiman’s Stardust and The Reagan Diaries, in the finest tacky jewel cases. Some might see this as carrying on in the same direction. I don’t.

In the 50s and 60s Caedmon had that feeling of great intelligent Americanness. Warm and unselfconsciously in love with culture. A feeling I, sadly, don’t get from HarperAudio.

These are records I will bore my future kids with.

Further reading: Caedmon 50th birthday on NPR (National Public Radio)

Jerry Fielding – The Uplifted Veil Of A Downhearted Frail 1967

Jerry Fielding is best known for composing the scores for films such as The Wild Bunch, The Outlaw Josey Wales, The Gauntlet and Straw Dogs. His big brass sound can also be heard on TV’s The Bionic Woman, Hogan’s Heroes and Bewitched.

The above song is taken from 1967’s “Near East Brass, West Coast Style”, his only recording for the Command label. Command is famous for its “Persuasive Percussion” series, and the MOR/lounge work of Enoch Light and Dick Hyman (there aren’t any good Dick Hyman jokes left, sorry).
The album features “bachelor pad” renditions of near Eastern standards alongside Fielding originals like the above “The Uplifted Veil Of A Downhearted Frail”. I’m not as big a fan of the Command sound as the rest of this country’s Hiphop crowd seems to be, but this album is brassier and dancier than the usual, and puts me in the mood to round up the cast of Disney’s Aladdin, put them in mini-dresses, and have a freakout party. Maybe round Will Kane’s house. Jerry meant it to be this way.

Random fact: One of the producers on this album is none other than the then head of Command’s then sister-label, Impulse! Was Bob Thiele lending experience gained from the East/West fusions of Coltrane and Yusef Lateef?

The sleeve reads:

You’ve never heard anything like this before because music has never been played like this before!

Brass for your arse, London.

The Elephant – Do What You Love 1975

Da-dum, da, da-dum, da-daaaamn!

One Mr. Ronald “Tubby” Zeigler on drums and purcussion. Feel it in your stomach.

The cover rescued this LP from a box of “Don’t wants”, and its a good job, cos this track is a motherfucker. The rest of the album unfortunately sees our man Tubby chained up, locked in a casket and thrown into an Ocean of MOR. I can’t imagine anyone ever enjoying swimming in this ocean. It smells.
Thankfully his bandmates let him out of his cage, gave him back his broken wings and he learned to fly again, albeit for one track at the end of side one, then back into the sea for side two.

I can’t find much on the band, just a lot about Elephants (endangered, except in the areas where they are overpopulous, wherin they are a pest) and frankly I don’t care to know more about them. The LP is on Big Tree Records, a label that was at one point home to Hot Chocolate AND Demis Roussos. You know?
Tubby played trap on a Stephen Stills album and maybe a few more things here and there in the mid-70s yadda yadda etc…

This track though… daamn.

Hard Meat – Freewheel 1970

Hard Meat – Smile As You Go Under 1970

Here is one of my favourite rock albums; “Through A Window” by Hard Meat.

I’m not rockist enough to have many obscure favourite rock albums. Most of my other favourites are obvious things like “Let It Bleed”, “Zeppelin II”, “Astral Weeks” and “After The Gold Rush”, so “Through A Window” is a bit of a one-off.

I bought it for the same reason I buy many late 60s/early 70s rock albums, for a drum break. “Freewheel” has appeared on a number of compilations in recent years thanks to its grooving bassline, dreamy acoustic guitar and supertight drumming (keep your ears on the snare!!!). Unlike most of the other rock albums I buy for breaks (like Elephant’s “Elephant” which I bought this week), this album is excellent from start to finish.

The rest of the album languishes in relative obscurity. It’s not so obscure as to make it a talked about rarity. You can pick the LP up for twenty quid or less if you’re lucky. It’s even been available on an Australian CD alongside the band’s self-titled debut, though I can only see it for sale on one site. No one seems to talk about it much though.

The back of the sleeve simply says:

“Many changes have developed since the first album and this, the second record, represents the middle of something that we started long ago.

Pete Westbrook and Phil Jump joined in on flute and keyboard repectively.
The band consists of Mick Dolan on six and twelve string acoustic guitars, six string electric guitar, harmonica and lead vocals; Steve Dolan on acoustic string bass, bass pedals, electric bass, acoustic guitars and vocals; Mick Carless on drums, castanets, congas and assorted loud noises.”

It’s basically two brothers and a drummer. A drummer that gets a writing credit on all their original songs no less, and it is Carless’ trapwork that makes the album cook. His drumming is more rigid than most of my favourite drummers but his touch is beautiful. Every snare hit or open hi-hat sounds detailed and deliberate. The recording is excellent in general but the drums are perfect. Loud in the mix and chrisply captured.

The album has a couple of shimmering electric guitar solos and the pleasantly naive lyrics of the Psych era. There’s also a big folk influence on the group. That said, even the folkiest songs are gatecrashed by a cascade of heavy drums. The band came from Birminghamd after all, the home of heavy. I’d like to imagine Mick Carless going on to drum for early metal bands, but it doesn’t seem to have been the case. The internet offers up nothing on him other than the two Hard Meat albums. Surely he went on to do something with all those chops?

The only person related to the record who leaves much of a trail is producer Sandy Roberton who worked with the Chocolate Watch Band and Harold McNair and is now some kind of LA music exec. Steve Dolan later worked with Pete Sinfield of King Crimson and Mick Dolan did some stuff with John Coppin and a dude out of Mott The Hoople.

The above “Freewheel” is a folky bit of break-rock that has already gained a decent audience. “Smile As You Go Under” on the other hand is the bumper-sticker anthem that never was and glorious singalong set closer if ever I heard one. It includes the shrewd tip “If that car’s hot, leave it where you found it, don’t hang around it”, a great solo and heavy heavy drum fills. It’s then followed by a section of “Freewheel” played backwards with some extra accompaniment. Yest!
These two songs are my favourites but if you lean more towards the folky guitar or the more driving rock then you might well like some of the others more. If you buy the album. Which you should.

I love it.

If you, like me, are trying desperately to fill up a massive iPod with computerised music, you would be well advised to visit Zartek from the Nelion galaxy. He’s probably the best MP3 blogger around right now (16 33 excepted of course) especially after a week of uploading amazing, osbscure space disco to his Awesome Hall Of Fame. He’s got everything right, sound quality, pictures, ID3 tags (well actually I have to tidy up the track titles after download. Who’s down with OCD?) and he manages to write just the right amount about each one. Maximum points.

You should know that it’s Tattooed Lady Month at the Hurkulaneum and Home Taping Is Killing Music Month at Altrap.com. Celebremos.

After the jump theres three more musicals that I thought about recording music from but decided they didn’t warrant it…

Melvin Van Peebles’ “Don’t Play Us Cheap”

One of two MVP musicals I know of. The other one is based on his albums. It’s odd. He’s a nutbag. I like him. This one is a proper theatre sitcom. It’s good fun but not essential. You can get this on CD, which surprises me a fair bit.
Trivia: This album is home to the “Yooooooou better watch yo’ step” vocal that the Beatnuts hooked for thier 1997 summer-owning “Off The Books”.

Actual on-stage performance – “You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown”

I think this is still running on Broadway. It would be a good show if it had child actors. With the patronising adults it has it falls flat to my ears. Its wierd how Peanuts is so big that it can have a 40 year musical that doesn’t appear to reflect the comic strip at all.

Original London cast – “Snoop The Musical”

This one is really bad. They have a bit part dude from “Terry and June” playing Charlie Brown. Why bother?