Something 4 The Weekend # 255

Tom Zé:  Estudando a Bossa (Nordeste Plaza):  "Roquenrol Bim-Bom"  [mp3]

Tom Zé is one of my absolute favorites, but because he is Brazilian and sings in Portuguese, I don't understand a single word.  I think my love, despite the language barrier, is a testament to the musicality of his singing, and the strength of the songs themselves - endlessly inventive, exciting, even joyous.

A strange man from an alien culture, making often weird and sophisticated music, with plenty of nods and winks (Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da).  For more than forty years.  For me, he's the Brazilian Zappa, and that's about the highest praise I can offer.

Hotcha!  Hank

Something 4 The Weekend # 216

Yoko Ono: A Story: "Yes I'm A Witch" [mp3]

I love Yoko Ono.

Over the years, she's become a litmus test of sorts. When I hear a person making fun of Yoko, or bitch about her, or claim she's only famous for marrying John Lennon, I immediately question everything that person thinks or believes about pop culture, art, and even life.

Yoko Ono was an engaging, challenging, self-contained artist and person before she met Lennon. I'm pretty certain those qualities, among many others, is what made Lennon fall in love with her from the start. And it's not important whether or not one likes her art and music. I'll be the first to admit that it's not for everybody, and even someone like me, who adores Yoko Ono, doesn't like everything she's done. But it's important, to me anyways, that we recognize and respect the fact that she puts herself and her art/music/ideas out there for scrutiny. Especially when that art/music isn't the beige, lifeless kind of pablum that so many of us embrace so readily. Many of us don't want to be challenged or provoked, we just want to be entertained. Those kinds of people are generally as beige and lifeless as their music collections.

I work with a woman who was/is a bonafide '60's hippie. She has a bumpersticker on her Prius that reads I STILL BLAME YOKO. I asked her one day why she hates Yoko, knowing full well what her answer would be - "She's the reason The Beatles broke up."

So I asked her, "Don't you think it was John and Paul's massive egos that broke that band up, and Yoko is just a convenient scapegoat?", to which she replied, "That's just a bunch of nonsense."

I'm at a loss for words, so I'll just say it again - I love Yoko Ono. You don't have to, but you probably should.

"Every time you do what you want to do, you're living."

Hotcha! Hank

Something 4 The Weekend # 172

Blitzen Trapper: Destroyer Of The Void: "Sadie" [mp3]

I was listening to the new Blitzen Trapper album this past week, and they're a band that evokes (for me) an era forty years gone...Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Grateful Dead, Lennon & McCartney, Bob Dylan..."Sadie" is the last song on the album, a sweet piano ballad that I can imagine Richard Manuel working out with The Band in some empty afternoon saloon, circa 1969. That's kinda what it sounds like to me. Maybe even a splash of Elton John from way back when. It's all good - the song, the album, the band...

Bob Dylan: Self-Portrait: "Little Sadie" [mp3]

Speaking of Bob Dylan, here he is doing his version of a trad song, "Little Sadie", which you might/should recognize as a variation of "Cocaine Blues" as made famous by Johnny Cash. Both songs were born of, and usurped, an old '20's song called "Bad Lee Brown", about a dude who kills his woman with a .44 which he hides beneath his head when he sleeps that night... The next day Bad Lee Brown gets caught in rhyming places like Jericho or Juarez, Mexico...Anyways...

I love Cash's "Cocaine Blues" as recorded at Folsom Prison because he spits the song out with such fervor, a song of drugs and murder and judges and jail, and the inmates at Folsom cheer like a fucking choir. Nothing beats that, not even this song by Dylan, which is a damn fine version from a strange and interesting album in his catalog, an album that's a small, overlooked gem in it's way, and if nothing else, an album with stories and theories around it...

The Beatles: The Beatles: "Sexy Sadie" [mp3]

"Sexy Sadie" is the third song about a woman named Sadie that I am aware of, or should I say the third song in my MP3 folders? And the thing of it is - this particular song is supposed to be called "Maharishi" to begin with, a stinging indictment of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, whom the Beatles had visited in India , and who was accused of making improper and unwanted sexual advances towards one of the young woman in Fab Four's entourage. Harrison (and McCartney)thought the allegations were bullshit, and convinced Lennon to change the title and lyrics...Viola..."Sexy Sadie". "You made a fool of everyone..."

I am well into my 40's, and I cannot recall ever knowing a girl named Sadie. Not once, not ever, not even in passing.

Hotcha! Hank

Something 4 The Weekend # 138

The Jesus Lizard: Down: "Countless Backs Of Sad Losers" [mp3]

Of course, the remastered re-release of the entire Beatles catalog was the musical event of the season, if not the entire year, and for good reason - the original CD mastering sounded like absolute ass, and the new versions are stunning by comparison.

I like The Beatles, who doesn't? I respect their prolific output, and their songwriting skills are impeccable, plus I always felt that their musical progression is a rather remarkable mirror of the 1960's in general, from their innocent skiffle beginnings of the early '60's to the drug'n'mysticism influenced latter years when the counterculture ruled the pop culture landscape. More than any other band, The Beatles owned that decade. The Beatles were the 1960's.

But you know what? I was much more excited about the remastered re-release of The Jesus Lizard's Touch'n'Go recordings, which just hit the streets last week. I was excited, their great fucking music aside, because I owned those albums on cassette, and those cassettes had certainly seen better days, having been played and played and played to within an inch of their lives. And nobody plays cassettes anymore, including me.

The Jesus Lizard are one of those bands that pretty much defines what Rock music is to me - an unrestrained expression of the human Id. The Jesus Lizard were unpredictable, ugly and oftentimes violent, both musically and lyrically. David Yow sang about nasty people doing horrific things to themselves and others, cutting right to the heart of the human condition - the idea that underneath the thin veneer of civilized society, we are really just a bunch of animals with sick thoughts and poor impulse control. If that ain't Rock'n'Roll, I'm not sure what is.

Hotcha! Hank

Sideways Beatle Maneuver Filler

This is the Dakota Apartments building in NYC, circa 1890. John Lennon was assassinated in the lobby of the main entrance [seen in this photo] about 90 years later...

And yes, that is a witch on a broomstick in the skies above...

As always, click to enlarge...

Hotcha! Hank

Within You, Above You

The Beatles, from a slightly different perspective than we're used to seeing them, or any band...

Maybe I'm a bit amazed by the number of cables they apparently needed...

Hotcha! Hank