Count Basie: The Best of Basie Vol. 1

Review # 27
Artist: Count Basie
Title: The Best of Basie Vol. 1 (1937-1938)
Format: LP
Label: MCA
Year: 1974 (?)
Songs: 12








Like my copy of The Glenn Miller Story record, this is a French record and I had a hard time tracking down the year it was actually released. The best I could come up with, from a website where a private collector was selling some of his records, was 1974. This is actually the fourth volume of a French classic jazz collection, of which I don't have any other volumes. But that's what you get for a dollar and it was a dollar well spent.

While the record was released in the 1970s, these songs themselves, are all from the 1930s, specifically '37 and '38. That makes these recordings not the earliest in Basie's career, but certainly early ones. They fall squarely within the Bassie's classic big-band swing period and include classics like Basie's own "One O'Clock Jump" and other well known tunes like "Honey Suckle Rose." The songs are mostly fast-paced instrumental dance numbers (with a couple exceptions like the slower "Blues in the Dark," and the more up-beat "Sent For You Yesterday," both or which are blues numbers performed with a vocalist). I just had my first dance class and most of the songs on this record sound like they'd be good for practicing my steps, although some of them sound too fast for me to keep up, given my skill level. Count Basie was the king (or, I suppose, the Count) of swing-style jazz, and he and his orchestra don't disappoint for a minute on this collection. It's fun and catchy and makes you want to move your feet. I wish more people still played music like this. It makes me feel happy.

With old recordings like these, there are often problems with the sound quality, but these all sound great. Yes, like many recordings from this period, the low end doesn't come through as fully as I might like, even on my big old wooden console record player with it's beautiful, resonant sound.  But there's no tape hiss or distortion distracting from these songs, and my copy of the record is in excellent condition, so it just sounds good from beginning to end.

Like I wrote in a previous review, jazz is not my area of expertise, and this record offers little to expand my knowledge other than the recordings themselves. The notes on the sleeve are extensive, but sadly I don't speak any French. So I'll leave this review here  by saying that this is a fine collection of songs performed by a man who was a true master of his style.

If you aren't familiar with it, here's Basie and his orchestra performing "One O'Clock Jump."


Total songs listened: 332

Barrroom Piano: Fantastic, Honky Tonk Player Barroom Piano

Review # 26
Artist: Barroom Piano
Title: Fantastic, Honky Tonk Player Barroom Piano
Format: LP
Label: Audio Fidelity Records
Year: 1963
Songs: 14


Ok punk fans.  Get ready for a long dry spell, because this is the first of a whole bunch of other types of records. It'll be a couple of weeks now probably before we hit another straight-up punk rock record. For those of you into the more eclectic reviews, now is your time.

I listed the artist on the record as "Barroom Piano," because these are literally recordings of a player-piano.  There's no person performing on these songs, and the songs themselves are credited to a number of different people, so I have deemed the piano itself to be the artist on this record. Further, I personally file this under "BA," so whether or not this is the actual artist, that's where I keep it, so this is where I'll review it.  That's going to be a common theme over several of the next few records, actually.

These recordings were made in Paul Eakins' "Gay 90s Village," a recreation of an 1890s American town located in Sikeston Missouri, which the record sleeve describes as "the Disneyland of the Midwest." It began as Eakin's collection of player pianos, calliopes, and apparently "automatic banjos," which I've never heard of before. As best as I can determine from the internet, the village is gone, but the collection still exists in St. Louis.  I'm headed there soon, actually, so I may try to check this out.  There are some pictures here.

So that's all pretty interesting, to me at least.  A weird little slice of Americana.

The piano itself, according to the record sleeve, was made in 1915 for use in the red light districts of midwest steel towns. Apparently it was used in saloons and brothels before it found its way into Eakins collection. He spent over 600 hours restoring it to its original condition.  According to the sleeve, it was deep red in color, including the keys of the piano, to match the parlors where "ladies of the evening" would entertain their guests. The things this piano must have seen...

Anyway, the songs on this record are mostly well known tunes from days gone by. There's some Tin Pan Alley stuff and some other, even older songs.  A lot of these were tunes I recognized but never knew the names of. A few you might recognize by name include "My Blue Heaven," "My Wild Irish Rose," "Meet Me Tonight In Dreamland," and "The Battle Hymn of the Republic."  Something that's cool about these tracks and adds to the sort of field-recording feel of the record is that at the beginning of each song, you can hear a nickle being dropped into the slot to the start the piano. I guess the Bay Rum Boys may have been looking back with rose-colored glasses on the merits of player pianos as compared to juke boxes.

Something else that stands out in these recordings are the rapid trills this piano is capable of.  According to the sleeve, the trill mechanism in this piano was quite special in that each hammer in the piano could strike a string as many as ten times per second. I don't know how fast a person can play a piano, but I'm guessing it's not that fast. You can really hear it, especially on the high notes.

This is probably not a record I'd play all the time.  Indeed, it's something I got free from my dad and this is the first time I've played it all the way through, but it's sort of neat slice of history to have in the collection.

I couldn't find any clips from this record on the internet, unfortunately, although it looks like you can buy this record on Amazon and a variety of other places if you just have to hear it.

I did find this clip of Paul Eakins on a game show in 1960s, in which he demonstrates the workings of one of his larger automated musical instruments.

Here's Eakins at the Gay 90s Village.

They just don't make them like they used to.
Total songs listened: 320

Bad Brains: Bad Brains

Review # 25
Artist: Bad Brains
Title: Bad Brains
Format: LP
Label: Reach Out International Records
Year: 1982
Songs: 15




The Bad Brains self-titled LP begins with the song "Sailin' On," which is reminiscent of the Ramones. Sure, it's a little faster than some of the Ramones stuff, and it has a guitar solo, but right down to the "ooh ooh ooh" vocals, this sounds a lot like it could be a Ramones cover.

Don't be fooled.

The Bad Brains did not play cookie-cutter punk.  In fact, compared to their contemporaries in the hardcore scene, there were few bands as inventive and interesting as the Bad Brains. They defied genre and racial barriers to bring us some of the most interesting punk rock ever recorded.

If you aren't familiar with the Bad Brains, it's worth noting that everyone in the band was black, which for the early 1980s punk scene was virtually unheard of. Musically, they also stood apart from other bands in the scene. Before the rise of hardcore punk, these guys had played jazz fusion, and it shows. The band wasn't afraid to mix their influences, and they were highly proficient at playing their instruments.  Some of the songs on this record (i.e. "Fearless Vampire Killers" and the famous single "Pay to Cum") are among the fastest and also most precise of any hardcore from the era. They rush forward at breakneck speed, only to stop suddenly, throwing you against the proverbial dashboard, before racing off again at 100 miles an hour. At other times, the pace slows down a little, and you can hear some hard rock/metal influence in the guitar. Some of these songs show a jazz influence, hiding just under the surface, in the rhythms and bass lines. 

By far the most obvious non-punk sound on this record, however, is reggae.  The record features three straight up reggae songs.  Not reggae influenced punk, but full-on reggae. We get our first hint of it on the short instrumental "Jah Calling," about midway through side A, go back to hardcore for one more song, and then close side A with "Leaving Babylon," a reggae song that, on it's face, would feel more at home alongside some early Bob Marley material than a hardcore track.  Yet, somehow it flows.  "Leaving Babylon" manages to feel like the same band.  Sure, H.R.'s distinctive and sometimes screachy vocal is obviously the same. But this aside, it still has the same feel somehow. The transition to "I Luv Jah," the third reggae tune on the record, feels a little more awkward, but on the whole still fits.

The record, oddly enough, closes with a track called "Intro," which is just a few seconds long.

Overall, this is one of the most interesting punk records to come out the American scene in the early 1980s.

Sadly, I don't think I can end this review on a wholly positive note.  I would be remiss here not to mention the homophobia controversy that surrounds this band. In the 1980s, singer H.R. made some very unkind remarks about gay people, and was rumored to be an anti-Semite as well. This sort of prejudice is sort of ironic given what the band themselves must have encountered as one of the first entirely non-white punk bands. But, the guys from Bad Brains were committed Rastafarians, and that's a religion that, like most (all?) others, is understood by some of its followers as promoting hatred of certain outgroups. I recently read an interview with bassist Daryl Jennifer, who said that those days are over for Bad Brains. According to Jennifer, the band was overzealous in the early days of their following of the Rastafari movement, and has since spent more time contemplating and studying the religion. This, he said, has led them to the belief that hating people is wrong and actually not in accord with the tenets of the religion. According to Jennifer, the band no longer condones prejudice. But he stopped short of an apology, and as far as I know, the band has never made one. Whether or not it's true, H.R. still has a reputation for being a homophobe and kind of a jerk all around.  So, do with that what you will. It's sad to have to write about this, because the Bad Brains were/are a great band (I believe they still tour now and then), but it's not the sort of thing that I feel can be swept under the rug.

Here's a couple of songs:

Leaving Babylon

Pay to Cum


Total songs listened: 306

The B-52's: Wild Planet

Review # 25
Artist: The B-52's
Title: Wild Planet
Format: LP
Label: Warner Brothers
Year: 1980
Songs: 9





I used to dislike the B-52's, but as I got older, I came to realize, the problem wasn't the B-52's, the problem was me being too earnest for my own good (and that song "Love Shack," which I still think is terrible). Make no mistake: The B-52's are ridiculous.  But that's a big part of the charm.

Will Planet is the second LP by the B-52's, and it's nine songs of silly new wave pop.  It makes me want to bob my head  from side to side in the same way that Devo does. The B-52's are not Devo, they aren't as talented or as innovative as Devo, but they hit that same spot in terms of kind of weird herky-jerky tunes with absurd and sometimes non-sequitur lyrics. They blend in some 1960s pop sounds for good measure in some of the vocals and organ-like keyboard lines that set them apart from other bands in the genre. And as far as silly lyrics go, they're hard to beat.  "Quiche Lorraine" focuses on the important subject of a green poodle named Quiche, whereas "Devil In My Car" deals with the increasingly common problem of having one's car commandeered by the Dark Lord Satan, who's aim it is to drive the car to Hell.  Apparently, he's rough on the upholstery as well.

Perhaps the best known track from this record is "Private Idaho." I can't really tell what this one is about, except for that it seems to deal with someone's extreme paranoia. Whatever the case, it's definitely one of the catchier songs on the record and I like it a lot. Another highlight is "Give Me Back My Man," which seems to contain some heartfelt emotion, telling the story of a woman trying desperately to revive a relationship, although it also ventures into silly territory as she offers him fish and candy as an incentive to return to her.

This record is fun.  I don't have deep feelings about it.  The B-52's are not a profoundly important band to me and never have been.  But when you just want something fun to play in the background, Wild Planet is a good choice. I got it for 99 cents, and at that price it's definitely a good buy.


Total songs listened: 291

Axiom: Apathy & Privilege

Review # 24
Artist: Axiom (w/spoken word by Mike Antipathy)
Title: Apathy & Privilege
Format: LP
Label: Tribal War Records
Year: 2000
Songs: 8



We've now reached the end of the LPs beginning with the letter "A." Axiom was a crust punk band from Portland, Oregon, the singer of which I met in 2001 (?) when we were both practicing with a local band called Poxy for a few weeks right before they dissolved. But I digress. This was Axiom's third (and I believe final) release, and it is unified by a single theme that runs through the various materials that make up this album: we have a responsibility to bring about the social changes we want to see, and if we don't at least try, we're complicit in war, poverty, and environmental destruction. We have resources available to us that most of the world don't have access to, and it's up to us to use them to affect change. It's a hard message to argue with if agree that there are important problems in the world, and it's delivered here compellingly and in multiple media forms.

This album includes a poster, a booklet that features the lyrics to all the songs and a bunch of other writing, 6 metallic crust songs by Axiom, and two articulate and passionate soap-box speeches by Mike Antipathy. The aforementioned theme runs through all of these.

The music here is mostly fast, heavy crust with alternating screamy and growly vocals. This is definitely on the more metal side of the crust genre, with a few of the songs even featuring noodley solos. A friend of of mine who's the guitarist in a local punk band said to me recently, "when you start to get good at playing punk, you end up end up playing metal," and this band really demonstrates what he was talking about.  This isn't a straight-up metal album by any means, but the influence is pervasive with a lot of double-kick on the bass drum, thick distortion, palm muting, and the aforementioned solos. This band is proficient in a way that is just not necessary for playing '77 style punk or street punk or what have you. I would imagine this would appeal to fans of death metal as much as it would fans of punk.

The booklet that's included with this album is better than most crust album booklets.  It features not only the lyrics and song explanations, but also ideas about how to get involved in activism, suggestions for further reading, and information on a specific environmental issue that the band must have been particularly passionate about, the Lowry radioactive waste landfill. It's clear here that the band actually wanted to give listeners tools for getting informed and involved, which takes this record to a level beyond the typical shouting about socio-political issues that characterizes so many punk records.

In both the writings in the booklet and the spoken word pieces, Mike and Axiom endorse a variety of tactics, from letter writing to protest to direct action. It's a refreshing and smart approach that invites people to participate in the way they feel they can best contribute. One of my favorite moments on this record is actually the first spoken word piece, which concludes side one. Mike Antipathy is persuasive, informed, and articulate. He'd be a great spokesperson for any political group, and he's apparently now an immigration lawyer, which I can imagine him being quite good at.

I guess I talked less about the music here than the other stuff, but I think that's in part because the other stuff is what sets this record apart.  But don't get me wrong, if you like thrashy crust, the music is good, too.

My favorite song on the record is "This Isn't Life."

Ok, so that wraps up "A!" I'm excited to get on to "B," in part because glancing at the records, it looks like there's a bit more variety there. Check back soon for the first "B" review!

Total songs listened: 282

Commenting problem fixed (?)

Hi loyal readers,

I've heard from a couple of people that the comment feature wasn't working properly.  I spent some time on the help threads and I think I got it figured out.  So, if you've been trying to comment, try again! It should work now, hopefully, and if it doesn't, let me know.

Thanks for reading,

Damon

The Avengers: Avengers

Review # 23

Artist: The Avengers
Title: Avengers
Format: LP
Label: C.D. Presents
Year: 1983
Songs: 14

It may be due to the scarcity of recorded material by this band, but I feel that the Avengers are an underrated band in the history of punk rock. Sure, aficionados of the genre are into them and their first single usually makes any top 100 punk singles list that Mojo and various other music publications will release from time to time, but for whatever reason, you just don't often see punk kids wearing patches and shirts for this band, even on the same level as many other bands with equally (if not more) limited discographies from the same era. And I've never understood why that is, because this band was great.

"The Pink Album," as this release is sometimes referred to by the band's singer Penelope Houston, is a compilation of tracks from across the band's short life (1977-1979) that includes much of what the band recorded and I think most or all of what they actually released while still active. It starts with "We Are The One," the opening track to the band's first single and an exciting and inspiring declaration of the punk identity: "we are not Jesus Christ, we are not fascist pigs, we are not capitalist industrialists, we are not communists: we are the one." "Look everyone," Penelope seems to be saying, "we're not like what you've seen before and we're taking over, so deal with it." On "I Believe in Me" this confident declaration is reinforced: "I can do it myself and make up my own rules, I believe in me, I'll make my dreams real." If that's not the manifesto of punk (or at least the early punk scene), I don't know what is.

 

Lest you should think this band is posi-core though, they show they can be snotty, dark, and critical as well any punk band with songs like "Fuck You," "The Amerikan in Me," "Car Crash," and a powerful cover of the Rolling Stones' "Paint It Black." The songs are gutsy and hard driving without needing to scream and grind. Unlike most of the California punk bands from the early days, the Avengers did not play hardcore. But it also manages to be melodic without needing to be poppy or having a new wave sound. The Avengers played straight-up old school punk with compelling, melodic vocals and sing-along choruses that owe a lot to the Sex Pistols and the first Clash record without being derivative of those bands. These are songs to sing along and pogo to, and they'll be stuck in my head for days after listening to this. It's a punk classic, made that much more so by the fact that several tracks on it (from the band's second EP) were produced by Steve Jones, the guitarist of the Sex Pistols. Punk historians will also note that the Avengers opened for the Pistols at their fabled final show at the Winterland in 1978. From what I hear though, that was no fun, and people left feeling like they'd been cheated.

Apparently this was out of print for a long time and tied up in publishing rights issues. So maybe this is why this band hasn't gotten the attention due to them in recent times. Fortunately, they're back in print and actually back on tour as well! I saw the Avengers a couple of years back at the Funhouse in Seattle. Not all original members, unfortunately, but still really powerful and fun as a live band.

If you have even a casual interest in punk rock and you don't know the Avengers, check this record out. It's fantastic.

Here's a little taste: "We Are The One"

Total songs listened: 274