R.I.P. Johnny Winter

Johnny Winter - "Live Johnny Winter And" (1971) - Columbia Records

Hello Friends,

A couple of weeks ago legendary electric bluesman and everyone's favorite albino, Johnny Winter, passed away at age of 70!

Originally hailing from Beaumont, Texas, Johnny Winter's 50+ year career was that of a true blues troubadour recording dozens of records and playing thousands of live shows without ever really crossing over into the mainstream!

Born John Dawson Winter III, he played Woodstock, jammed with Jimi Hendrix and backed up Janis Joplin.  He was best known for his early work with ex-McCoy Rick Derringer ("Rock & Roll, Hoochie Koo") and for playing in his younger brother's band, Edgar Winter's White Trash.  Basically he was a weirder and freakier-looking Stevie Ray Vaughn! 

In 1977, he fulfilled a lifelong dream to play with his idol, Muddy Waters.  Winters collaborated with and produced Waters' last 3 or 4 records and they're all really good! (Even won him some Grammys!)

In honor of good ol' Johnny, tonight we're listening to Johnny's 1971 seminal live record, Live Johnny Winter And.

The "And" of the title would be Derringer (on guitar & vocals), Randy Jo Hobbs (on bass & vocals) and Bobby Caldwell (on drums).  The songs were recorded during the band's 1970 tour stops at Pirate's World in Dania, Florida (a pirate-themed amusement park which hosted tons of great bands from '69 to '73!), NYC's Fillmore East and Portchester, NY's own Capitol Theater!

Solid, high energy, live blues set from Johnny and the gang.  Side One begins with a rip-roaring cover of the Sonny Boy Williamson classic "Good Morning Little Schoolgirl" and continues shredding through a 12 minute take on B.B. King's "It's My Own Fault" and an extra sleazy take on the already sleazy, "Jumpin' Jack Flash".

Side Two opens with a "Rock & Roll Medley" which has Johnny & company interpreting 3 rock & roll classics, "Great Balls of Fire", "Long Tally Sally" and "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On".

"Mean Town Blues" is the only Winter original on the set (which is kind of interesting being that by 1971 Johnny had released 4 solo albums and one would think that he would want to self-promote himself a bit more than with just one original song!  But, hey, who are we to judge?)

The record closes with another high energy take on another rock & roll classic, Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode".  Great album!  Great live set!  Johnny Winter will be missed!

RATING: 4 its a gas-gas-gases out of 5


R.I.P. Johnny Winter!

Prog Rock Saturday: Moving Waves

Focus - "Moving Waves" (1971) - Sire

Hallo Vrienden,

Its another Summer Saturday which means the drinks are flowing and we're rocking out to the second release by the severely under-appreciated Dutch progressive band, Focus!

Anchored by what would become their signature, the incredible, "Hocus Pocus", Moving Waves (released in Europe as Focus II) is a classic in the annals of Dutch progressive rock!

And speaking of anals, how good is the song "Hocus Pocus"?  Wow!  Its so good that if I worked out it would be my go-to workout song!  Epic! Operatic! With fantastic riffage on par with the best of Deep Purple or Black Sabbath and probably the greatest vocals on a rock & roll song without any lyrics! (Courtesy of frontman, Thijs van Leer, who also plays flute and all the keyboards on the record!)

Its six & half minutes of ball's out prog fucking rock!  

Things calm down quite a bit on "Le Clochard" (French for tramp or beggar), guitarist Jan Akkerman's Spanish-guitar influenced instrumental accompanied by an ambient mellotron.

Akkerman also wrote the next track, "Janis" which is a Renaissance-y piece highlighting van Leer's multitracked flute playing.   Very mellow.  Reminiscent of Greg Lake-era King Crimson or Pink Floyd around the time of Atom Heart Mother.


"Moving Waves" is a three-minute piano solo piece by van Leer who sings the lines of a poem written by musician, philosopher & spiritualist Inayat Khan-- who founded London's Sufi Order of the West in 1914.

Side One closes out with the jazz-influenced instrumental, "Focus II" which starts out relatively quiet and pastoral and builds to tricky, ever-changing jazz time signatures not unlike some of sounds Zappa was making around this time!

In true prog fashion, Side Two is entirely dedicated to one song, "Eruption"-- a 23 minute instrumental piece which re-tells the myth of Orpheus & Eurydice.  Its a little weird and meandering but when you're in the right state of mind, it sounds pretty fucking awesome. 

Here again, there's lots of changing parts, time signatures, instruments, etc.  At times it sounds like the jazz-fusiony stuff of Zappa or King Crimson; at others, it sounds like the melodic and cerebral stuff of early Pink Floyd.  There's even some abrasive synth stuff in there that recalls some early Genesis or Tarkus-era ELP.

This record is a bit more refined, instrumental and a lot less trippy than their debut record (review here.)  Moving Waves, aka Focus II, is the sound of a band growing up, mastering their instruments, feeling their oats and using the studio as an additional instrument! 

Proost!

RATING: 4.0 moving waves the wind has left you and you are still in commotion out of 5

The Rum Diaries: Cockspur Fine Rum

Hello friends,

Going back and forth from the tiki bar to the turntable all night long really makes you work up a mean, mean thirst!  

Tonight we're taking a break from record reviews and instead we're focusing our attention on one of the world's most delicious (and misunderstood) libations-- RUM.

Described by Marco Polo in the 14th Century as "very good wine made of sugar", the history of rum is as interesting and complex as the drink itself.  The story of Rum is the story of slavery, of pirates, of Navies, of the New World, of exploration, colonization, capitalism, rebellion and of course, hot, drunk college girls on Spring Break!  

YO HO HO, indeed!

COCKSPUR FINE RUM

Distiller: West Indies Rum Refinery
Country: Barbados

Cost: $21.00
Proof: 80
Size: 750 ml

Description: Gold rum distilled from fermented molasses.  Aged in whiskey & bourbon barrels.

Ned Tugent says: "A nice bourbon-y, vanilla, peppery taste.  A slight sherry-feel going down. Holds up in a rocks glass just fine with a slightly acidic finish. Grade: B+"

Tiki T says: "Hints of oak cask & sherry.  Nice balance.  Definitely boozy.  Hot finish. Grade: B-"

A great looking bottle at a great price point, Cockspur's roots begin with a seaman & a dream.  In 1884, Dane Valdemar Hanschell set up shop on the island of Barbados and began distilling and distributing his unique brand of refined Rum.  Aided by some cats named the Stade Brothers, Cockspur Rum lacked the impurities that many Caribbean based rums had in the late 19th Century, thus making it one of the region's most popular! West Indies Rum Distillery was established and continues to operate to this day!

Here's their website in case you're interested! 

NICE COCK!

13th Floor Elevators: Live in California

13th Floor Elevators - "Live in California" (1966) - International Artists

Hello Friends,

We're enjoying another record from our Music of the Spheres Box Set tonight. 

Recorded "live on LSD" in San Francisco in the fall of 1966, the Live in California LP captures rock & roll's first psychedelic band at the height of their demonic powers and its presence in the box set marks the first time that this LP would be officially released on vinyl.  

Live in California is much better quality than most of the bootleg-type live stuff that we've heard from the Elevators. The rhythm section gets a little muddy-sounding at times but still the vocals, guitars and electric jug come across sounding crisp and alive!   (Its much better, for example, than the official 1968 release "Live" which is basically outtakes of songs "enhanced" by fake crowds and overdubbed clapping!)  

Presumably recorded from a series of gigs at San Francisco's Avalon Ballroom, the exact dates or locations of these recordings remain a mystery.  What is known is that in the Fall of 1966, the Elevators migrated from Austin, TX to San Francisco, CA and shocked/awed/inspired audiences in the Bay Area.  During their tenure, they played with bands like Big Brother & The Holding Company, The Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service, The Jefferson Airplane & The Sir Douglas Quintet.  A real who's who of what was to become known as the "San Francisco sound."  There's no doubt that the Elevators presence in this scene was hugely influential not only because of their ground-breaking sound, but because of their LSD-fueled frenzied live performances. Like demons slithering in Eden.

Kicking things off on the record is a raucous cover of Solomon Burke's "Everybody Needs Somebody to Love"-- an R&B song covered by practically every garage band from 1964 to 1968-- however in Roky Erickson's hands it becomes a demented-druggy sermon to his eager parishioners: "So glad to be here tonight / It's so good to be home / And I've got a message I want to tell everybody tonight..."  Intense and furious.    

Another oft-covered blues tune, Bo Diddley's "Before You Accuse Me", is next.  If you were on acid seeing these guys perform, no doubt by the second song you were convinced that ringleader Roky Erickson, with fire in his eyes, was some sort of rock and roll demon and that maniacal boop-boop-boop-boop sound being made by the kid with the ceramic jug was actually sounds emitting from the innards of your own subconscious!

The originals "You Don't Know (How Young You Are)" and "Splash 1" are next and sound pretty close to the record versions.  By this time in their young career, they've probably knew these songs inside-out but considering the generous amounts of mind-altering substances they were ingesting on a daily basis, they do a great job holding things together!

The Buddy Holly hit, "I'm Gonna Love You Too" makes an appearance and wouldn't be heard from again until Blondie covered it in 1978.

"You Really Got Me" closes out Side One and the Kinks have never sounded so threatening and dark!

Side Two begins with a howling version of "Fire Engine" with some extra crazy-sounding electric jug!  

Next up there's two more cover songs, the oft-covered Chuck Berry classic, "Roll Over Beethoven", followed by the Rubber Sole classic, "The Word".  Not your typical cover song in 1966, but in the Roky Erikcson and the Elevators' hands it sounds less like a pot-influenced love song and much more like a fiery, drug-fueled, Revelation-inspired sermon. Charlie Manson would be proud!    

The side closes out with "Monkey Island" and an excellent, extended version of "Roller Coaster" complete with start-stops, tempo changes and more Erickson howling litanies: 

"You've gotta open up your mind and let everything come through..."

Kinda funny how "You're Gonna Miss Me" is absent from the set considering how it would have been the band's biggest (and only) "hit" of the time and you think the band would have been playing it any chance they got!  We're not really complaining though because we really like this record as is!

RATING: 4.5 starts like a roller coaster ride so real it takes your breath away out of 5 

The Rum Diaries: Appleton Estate V/X

Hello friends,

Going back and forth from the tiki bar to the turntable all night long really makes you work up a mean, mean thirst!  

Tonight we're taking a break from record reviews and instead we're focusing our attention on one of the world's most delicious (and misunderstood) libations-- RUM.

Described by Marco Polo in the 14th Century as "very good wine made of sugar", the history of rum is as interesting and complex as the drink itself.  The story of Rum is the story of slavery, of pirates, of Navies, of the New World, of exploration, colonization, capitalism, rebellion and of course, hot, drunk college girls on Spring Break!  

YO HO HO, indeed!

APPLETON ESTATE V/X

Distiller: Appleton Estate
Country: Jamaica

Cost: $21.00
Proof: 80
Size: 750 ml

Description: A blend of Rums of at least 5 years of age, matured in smaller oak barrels before marriage in casks.

Ned Tugent says: "Sweet & peppery. Hints of vanilla & caramel.  Nice spice; medium bodied. Balanced. Great on its own; even better in a Hurricane! Grade: B+"

Tiki T says: "Smoky. Cedar. Pretty smooth but I wish it had a little bit more of a fruit/citrus component. Grade: B-"

Tiki T. seems to be a tough little judge!  

A very good, very reliable Jamaican Rum.  Big fruit flavors with a little bit of bite.  Makes a fantastic mixer!

Ms. Joy Spence is Appleton's Master Blender-- she also has the distinction of being the first female master blender in the spirits industry! Joy seems like our kind of gal!  Here's the Appleton's website.