It's a little known fact that back in the day, I could skank with the best of 'em...
Had my black combat boots and everything. Probably looked like a raging douchebag. But that's neither here nor there. Here's some classic stuff from The Maytals... which makes me wonder, where the fuck is Toots, yo?
... nah, just some bitch Fishbone knew, I guess. Sounds like a lovely gal. If you want my full Fishbone essay, go read this... I'll just reiterate here that Fishbone was the baddest band in the world and leave it at that. From their bonkers debut EP...
The Oscars generally don't get me nearly as riled up as the Grammys do, thank goodness. Especially when they do things like give District 9 a nomination for Best Picture. If you haven't seen that flick, do it now. It's the best movie I saw last year and probably one of the best Sci-Fi movies EVAR. It's genius, I tells ya, so watch that shit. I'll wait...
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Fuckin' awesome movie, eh? Told ya. Anyhoo, I had too much things to do yesterday to get around to posting, so it's a Twofer Tuesday on Wednesday... but first...
I'm somewhat ashamed to admit that I really know fuck-all about Grace Jones except that she was awesome in Conan the Destroyer. Never ever got into her music, so I can't even offer an opinion... but I'd most likely stop by just out of curiosity.
I know even less about Passion Pit, although people seem to like them. I'm not terribly impressed and don't see them as being a band anyone is going to be talking about a couple years from now, so I'll pass...
And then we have Grizzly Bear, who I know is probably a band I'm supposed to appreciate... and I've tried somewhat sincerely... but they just don't get more than a "meh" outta me. My post on them from '07 is hee-larious, by the way. I KILL ME!
And once again I find myself recommending '80s bands, because I am old and crotchety...
What they sound like: The sound like Ska, and I'm not talking about the knucklehead kind of stuff you hear on KROQ... I'm talking about the real deal... Vespas and Two-Tone all the way...
What I think: Kudos to these guys for not going down the road that some of their contemporaries have and plowing on like a pathetic self-cover band, playing Dollar Beer Night at the local horse track (I'm looking in your direction, English Beat). Here's the current version, and maybe they're to old to skank but it still sounds good, plus they have their dignity...
Being a Ska fan, The Specials are legends not to be missed. Actually, today's other band pretty much fits that same description...
Who they are: Mr. Jonathan Q. Rotten, ESQ., the surly old cur, and his equally craggy cohorts.
What they sound like: Not being hip to the scene when these guys first started, I wonder what the reaction was to hearing that Johnny Rotten had started a dance band. Did people accuse him of selling out? Because if they did I'm sure Johnny told them all to fuck themselves proper...
What I think: You bet yer ass I wanna see PiL live... if only for whatever batshit-crazy screeds Johnny goes off on between songs. Plus they still rock kinda hard...
Plus wouldn't it be cool to have Johnny Rotten as your crazy old uncle? Either him or Ozzy... anyhoo, thus ends '80s night at Coachella. We'll get back to the 21st Century tomorrow...
So... last week something quite apocalyptic happened. The library file in my iTunes got raped by drunken gremlins fatally corrupted. What that means is it has to be rebuilt, manually. This is a process which will hopefully be finished by... well, I hope it's finished before 2012 comes and I'm fleeing for some big spaceship with John Cusack. The result of this is that you will see a certain alphabetical progression to the bands picked by the shuffle over the next few million posts or so. Starting with the numbers, no less...
3 Foot People is one of the many aliases of the man also know as Freddie Cruger or Red Astaire, a maker of many funky beats for feets. On this one, he gets his skank on with the help of Reggae singer Desmond Foster who must be pretty easy to spot in a crowd in Sweden. Just sayin'...
This here is the kind of selection that proves that the shuffle truly is random.
I have loved Fishbone since, well, since I had hair... and that, my friends, was a long time ago. I think I've seen 'em live more times than any other band, at venues from the Lost Horizon in Syracuse to Dragonfly in Hollywood. Actually, at the Lost Horizon back (cough cough) years ago, Angelo (the singer/sax man) performed maybe the greatest crowd surfing feat I've ever witnessed, hopping off the stage and riding the crowd across the entire length of the club to the bar, grabbing himself a beer and making it all the way back to the stage without spilling a drop... all while the band played an extended jam in the middle of one of the songs. Classic. Fishbone, at the time, was at the height of their powers, playing in support of their classic Truth & Soul album. At the time I'd say they were the best funk band in the world, the best ska band in the world, and one of the best rock bands in the world, all at the same time. They came up out of the L.A. scene alongside the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and they were always the better band - tighter, funkier, and they had musical chops that were straight unfuckwiddable. They came thisclose to breaking big, even playing SNL, but while the Peppers just built and built momentum to become the chart stalwarts they are today, drug and personal problems eventually knocked Fishbone flat for a few years. They've never fully left though and they're actually putting out better music than they have in years (albeit with very few original members). Crazy how they pop up in the shuffle when their new album drops next week. What a coinkydink! (Honest... total coincidence... the shuffle works in mysterious ways!).
Anyhoo, today's track is a rather obscure yet excellent alternate version of one of the jams from Truth & Soul, from the CD single... taking a song that's original had manic horns and one of the most ridiculous slap-bass lines ever, and stripping it down to the raw funk:
The music posted on this blog is for evaluation purposes only and will be removed after a short time... so if you like it... support the artists, dammit! Buy the records, go to the shows, give them a ride to the airport if they need it! Don't be a schmuck! If you are an artist or scary lawyer type and want something removed from here, just holla and it's gone! I'm easy like that!
