Stretchin Out

I dig the booming bass and chicken cluck harmonica on this one. Oh, that and Duane's trademark twangy geetar of course. I might as well have been issued this record at birth, i've had it for almost as long...


Stretchin Out



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Stand Proud

Here's the flip side of Black Lung. I think this little blurb i found from the Apirl 24, 1971 issue of Billboard magazine sums up the record pretty nicely. They sent a copy to Richard Nixon when it came out, and even got a generic thank you letter back. How great is that..? I wonder if it's still there in the presidential music library...

(Click photo to make it big enough to actually read)


Stand Proud. Like the fathers of yesterday.



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Black Lung

Here's one that i actually spent some real money on (a whole buck.) Not knowing what it was, it turned out to be exactly what i hoped it was going to be: An old honky-tonk ballad about the plight of the coal miner. I grabbed it because it was on a vintage label i had never seen, it's from 1971, and for the title of course: Black Lung. How could this not be a winner? I gambled and i won. The flip side is equally as good. I won't be able to sit on it for too long. It'll end up here soon enough...

It's just too bad i didn't have it a few weeks ago when they were digging out those Chilean miners. It would have been fitting then.
You know what- Fuck it. Those guys all lived, they're all happy about it, They're signing book deals... This ones for the Chilean miners anyway. Better late than never i say.


"If the slavin don't kill you, then the black lung will."



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Six To Go

I didn't know the name Willie Mitchell before i bought this one, Being the music lover that i am, i probably should have- but i didn't. I'm not ashamed to admit my ignorance... As i've stated before i'm a big fan of 'taking a chance' with 25 cent records, so i grabbed it blind. And why not? I didn't know what it was going to be, but i got lucky and discovered a pretty righteous groove. I've since consulted the internets for info on Willie, and actually gained some knowledge in the process... Turns out ole Willie ran the label that released the record. Who knew?

Here's the first bit of his Wikipedia entry:
Willie Mitchell (March 1, 1928 – January 5, 2010) was an American soul, R&B, rock and roll, pop and funk record producer and arranger, who ran Royal Recording in Memphis, Tennessee. He was best known for his Hi Records label of the 1970s, which released albums by a large stable of popular Memphis soul artists, including Mitchell himself, Al Green, Syl Johnson and Ann Peebles.
You learn something new every day...

This one's from 1970. Check it out.


Six To Go


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Beer Drinking Music

Hey- whaddya know, it's my 200th post here on my little speck of the vast webernets. Here's a novel idea- To commemorate this momentous occasion, let's celebrate with a song... Shall we?

Since i dig shitty beer, and groovy obscure sounds from the 60's, hows about a combination of the two? The Utica Club Natural Carbonation Beer Drinking Song. Or UCNCBDS, as i like to call it. Yeah, i know, you can already hear this one all over the wild world of webs if you look for it, (like the history of the song on THIS WEBSITE, or this ARTICLE, among others.) Well i got a copy of it too, and i gotta do something with the damn thing, so i might as well share it with the fine folks who read and listen here... No harm in that as far as i can tell...

So crack a cold reigonal yellow-fizzy-beer-in-a-can of your choice and celebrate with me, won't you? Have a Utica Club if you can. Me, I can't get it where i'm at, so this evening i'll be enjoying a few Old Styles here in the great midwest...

Enjoy!


The Utica Club National Beer Drinking Song:



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And get the Other side too if you want it. It's just a mediocre trumpet led instrumental number, but it's there if you really feel the need to hear it.


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Drivin Blues

Here's one i posted a long time ago, but my original transfer was horrible. I mean bad. A tune like this deserves more respect than that- and needs to be heard LOUD ya know? I just re-did this, and a stack of others last night and figured- What the hell, lets have that again.... So here it is.

Turn it up.



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Jumping Bean

Little ditty by the band who gave us the classic 'Tequila.' I mean, who could forget the biker bar scene in Pee Wee's Big Adventure?! Cinematic gold right there. He should have won an oscar for that performance...

Here's nice laid back guitar riff instrumental from The Champs. Nothing too fancy. This one's on the twangy side, but with just enough fuzz to get the job done. And nary a saxophone to be heard.

Check it out.



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I know who you been socking it to

How about another one of the many Isley Brothers singles i recently picked up. I got enough that's for sure. I bought eleven of them over the summer. (Read the full story, and enjoy another song HERE.)

I don't know much, but one thing i do know is that a record where they say 'Sock it to me' over and over is usually a keeper. In this case it's I know who you been socking it to, but it's the same thing.

Dig it.



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The Greatest

Sometimes the song just needs to speak for itself without some music obsessed nerd like me having their say about it.
Enjoy!



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Sock it to em judge!

Pigmeat Markham did his "Judge" routine on Laugh-In in 1968, and released 'Here comes the judge' as a single. The song (which can be heard HERE) is now considered to be one of the forerunners to what we now know as Rap music... But of course, you knew that already.

Here comes the judge was a hit when it was released, so someone decided it would be a good idea to make a follow-up single in the hopes of riding the coattails of the original, which is what i have for your listening pleasure today. Seems the sequel wasn't as wildly successful as its predecessor. Some forty years later it remains largely forgotten. I had never heard it (or even heard of it) until i dug it out of the three-for-a-buck bin at my local record shop a few months back... And what do you know- it smokes just as much as the original. The other side is pretty much the same schtick, with more upbeat backing music. I dig this one better out of the two, so here you go.


Sock it to em judge



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The Man From Mecca

The B-side to the bouncy, catchy, glam hit Little Willy. Here's the heavier rocker 'The man from mecca.' This track is where it's at... I really ought to grab a Sweet long-player as much as i dig the 45s i have of theirs. I've been told that their stuff is, as the kids say these days, all good.



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Ha Ha Laughing Song

"It's a new ballgame baby- now i'm the man at bat... knowhatimean..."


Wanna know the best part about this record?
It's got two sides! And the other song is just as awesome as this one.


Ha Ha Laughing Song:



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Which Doobie you-be?

Here's another one from the box of 70s awfulness i picked up the other day. (See previous, long-winded post: HERE.) There were actually a handful of keepers like this among the Carpenters, Osmonds, Captain & Tennille, and whatever else. I did end up converting 16 sides total out of the 50+ records though. Not bad- You get what you pay for... Odd to find a heavy rocker like this among that crowd, but it's the flip side to 'China Grove' so there you go.

Anyone need a shitload of disco records? ...I'm talkin real cheap.
I got the hits over here- Love Hangover, The Hustle, Disco Lady... I got Diana Ross, Gloria Gaynor, The Jackson 5, Andy Gibb... I got so much disco- I feel like dancin' just thinking about it!


Dig this Doobies groove while you contemplate my generous offer.



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cuidadano del mundo

It's really hard for me to find any information on a record like this since i can't read/speak Spanish, and i get distracted easily. It's Mexican and from 1974. That's about all i got.
Normally i'm not into this type of thing, but i am seriously diggin this record right now. You really can't deny a righteous rock groove like this- I don't care what language the singer is singing. The melody seems familiar on this one too, maybe because of the flip side i just want it to. It's not likely that there's an English version of this one, It was written by Jesus Rodriguez...
It's a quick catchy little ditty- Be sure and stick around for the smokin guitar solo, you'll be glad you did.

Oh yeah- if anyone cares- We were supposta go yesterday, but it didn't happen, so we're headed back to Carmen's (Yep, we're on a first name basis now) junk shop today.
Hopefully she's got some more good records for me...

Enjoy!

cuidadano del mundo


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La noche que murio chicago

I'm a big fan of songs about the place where i live. That's why i left Boston for Chicago. Over there all we had was the Standells Dirty Water, which is a great tune, and every single thing ever recorded by the Dropkick Murphys. Which is fine if that's what you are into, but me- i'm not. There might something by Aerosmith and/or the Cars too... No, i'm not knockin the 'Smith, i'm just sayin... Here in The Windy City they got lots of songs with the word Chicago right in the title, and much like Boston, there is a really overrated 1970s rock band who actually used the name of the city as the name of the group.

I did a whole string of posts last winter. If you click Chicago in my tags, it'll bring most of them up. Some fun novelty records, classic rock, blues, forgotten garage, sports... Check it out.

But before you do, enjoy this Latino version of the mediocre (ok shitty) local mid 70s light rock favorite. I can't read Spanish, so i had no idea what this record was going to be until i dropped the needle in the groove. Even though i can't understand the words, (and that's probably for the best anyway) I recognized the vocal melody right away. The Night Chicago Died! Over the past two days, this one has become my new favorite song of the moment....

They say that you can't polish a turd, and i used to agree, but now i'm not so sure because i am really diggin the Spanish version of this one...
Enjoy!

La noche que murio chicago



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Hard To Handle

Yesterday the wife and myself were on a leisurely ghetto stroll through our neighborhood. We walked through the park, got take-out from the Mexican sandwich place that she likes, and on the way home we passed by a junk shop that neither of us had been in before. One of those places that's so cluttered there is barely enough room to even walk from one end to the other. Furniture stacked on top of other furniture up to the ceiling, random boxes of junk everywhere- some stuff is a hundred years old, and some stuff is from last week. No telling what you'll find. The type of place that if you sneeze in the wrong direction, a mountain of rubble will come tumbling down and bury you. I love junk shops like this... I don't think the place even had a proper name, it just said Used Furniture or something. When we went in, the door to the place literally couldn't swing in all the way because there was a cabinet blocking it. Talk about your fire hazards...

We were in somewhat of a rush because we were on foot and it was getting dark in the ghetto, and our dinner was getting cold, so we only looked around for a few minutes. Immediately i zoomed in on one of those old 45 carrying cases which was jammed full of records. It looked like a bunch of 70s blehh at a quick glance, Barry Manilow, Andy Gibb... awful crap like that. The majority of it is someone's crummy disco collection, but there were a handful of interesting looking things, and all original vintage label stuff. So my wife asked, How much?
The woman running the place spoke pretty limited English, and the wife and myself speak pretty limited Spanish, but she was super nice and told us that she was hoping to get 50 cents a pop for them (There are more than 50 records in the box.) At that point i was ready to put the box down and walk away, but my wife then explained: "My husband usually buys records like this for 25 cents or less each," etc- etc- at that point i was ready to pick out a few titles out and spend a buck or two, The shop owner and my wife spoke back and forth for a minute, then she goes: "We'll give you five bucks for the box," and the nice lady said, in her broken english, how about ten? Then my awesome haggling wife said: "How about eight?" "Ocho. Si." Ocho it is! There was a lot more broken Spanish/English involved on both sides, but that was the basic gist of the transaction.

Turns out 8 bucks was a reasonable price for the box after all, once i got it home and thoroughly inspected it's contents i found a few gems. Once i fired up the turntable, i found quite a few more. We live in a heavily Latino populated neighborhood, so i had a feeling that some of the records in the box would reflect that. I figured on finding one or two cool vintage latino jams that i could share here, and i did, and i plan on sharing them, but there was one record in the box that turned out to be more valuable (sez the internets anyway) than any other 45 i own.

I have a few of those 'World's rarest funk 45s' compilations and knew the Latin Breed version of 'I turned you on' from that. I never thought i'd actually see one of their records though, let alone find one in a box of crummy disco 45s from a dirty old Chicago junk shop, but here i am- the proud owner of one of The Latin Breed's other singles. This one is a smokin version of the Big O's "Hard To Handle" with "Danny Boy" (yes, that Danny Boy) on the flip. The way i figure, the person who used to own this box of records bought it without knowing what it was because it said 'Latin Breed' on the label. Judging by the condition of it, they were disappointed with their purchase and it didn't get a whole lot of play after that, because considering where it came from- it's in very good shape. It also has one of those little number tags on it, which means it spent time in a juke box at some point in it's life... I consulted the interwebs and found completed listings of this one that went for between 200 and 250 bucks! It's finds like this that make it all worthwhile. The vinyl scavengers dream. Finding that rare record for nothing and learning that it's highly collectible and sought after... So, yeah, 8 bucks well spent. I did the math- 8 (dollars)divided by 54 (records total) equals less than seven cents a piece! And that's not even including the cool vintage carrying case.

The lady in the junk shop (Carmen) gave me her number and told me to call before i came back, because she said she's got over 200 more records in her basement that she'd be happy to dig out for me. Who knows what else she's got. She said it's mostly LPs, but considering what she sold me yesterday, i think it's definitely worth checking out. I plan on giving her a call tomorrow, and heading back over.

It's in the neighborhood, and well, you never know what you'll find...


The Latin Breed - Hard To Handle



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Goodbye Boys Goodbye

I just scrolled to the bottom of this page (my most recent posts), and realized that a lot of the songs are instrumental numbers. It's nothing to be alarmed about, It just kind of happened that way. There's not a big thought process that goes into selecting a song to post. I just go through the 'My 45s' files in my i-tunes and find something that strikes my fancy at that moment. Head on over to DivShare, wait 30 seconds, copy, paste, write some stupid words, and bada-bing bada-boom you got more crap clogging up the ole internet tubes...

Since i noticed today that there have been a lot of instrumentals as of late, i decided to go with something very vocal oriented. Simple as that. I saw this one, i played it, and i went- 'Ohh yeah, i haven't heard that one in a while.' Just like that. My choice was made.

I dig this one quite a bit. It's the age old story of a guy who meets a gal and blows off his friends for some sweet lovin. Ole Jay is just tellin it like it is, that's all. It's the B-side of the 1964 mega-hit Come A Little Bit Closer, the lesser heard Goodbye Boys Goodbye. I enjoy the hits and all, but for my money this one is the better of the two sides.
Enjoy.



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Dartell Stomp

It's the flip side of the smash runaway hit Hot Pastrami (#11 Pop and #15 R&B on the US charts in 1963) You can hear that one by following this LINK.

Being the modern man that i am, i still find it amazing that records like this even got made. It's a different era we live in. Much like Punk Rock, the term Garage Rock has come to mean a lot of things in the past 45 years (give or take), few of them true to the original meaning of the term. This however, is the real deal. A true garage band. These tunes were literally recorded in someone's garage studio by a couple of of high school kids who were making it up as they went along. Four songs recorded and mixed in an afternoon, for the meager sum of five bucks. And it sounds like it.. Of course, at the time the boys probably liked to think of themselves as a legitimate R&B group. Me, I don't give a shit what you wanna call it, If it sounds like this, it's all right with these ears.

This one (and the LINK) is the first of two singles by the group before they faded into obscurity.
Enjoy.




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I don't want 'cha

Man, i feel like shit today. I got my first cold of the season. I could feel it coming on for a couple days now, but now it's here, In full force. Hooray for winter.

Here's a little low-down blues. This is the musical equivalent of how i feel physically right now, only it's not a two-timing woman that's causing me grief, it's a common disease! This sucks.

Kind of a poor-man's Jimmy Reed type groove on this one. Dig it.



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Get It

Greetings readers, listeners, loyal followers, and legions of adoring fans,
I have decided to start adding a link in my posts in addition to the on-screen player. I've gotten a few messages from folks asking how they can save songs. So here's what we're gonna do- From now on the words "Get It" will be added at the bottom of each post. Should you decide to follow the link, it'll open up a new page where the track can be downloaded for your listening pleasure elsewhere. Isn't technology awesome?!

This player doesn't do anything, it's merely an example of what a typical post here looks like. Go ahead and click the words "get it" below to see what happens.

Enjoy.



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Cruising

I had fun posting songs in October because i had a theme to work with, and yeah it sounds like something a cheezy classic rock DJ would say, but i got to really 'dig deep in the vaults', and play stuff that i hadn't listened to in a long time. Doing this blog has made me re-discover and re-appreciate so many of the songs i have on 45. I took a break from collecting 45s for several years for no real reason. I'd pick up the odd thing here or there, but it wasn't what i was looking for when i went to a junk shop, or even a record store. It wasn't until a few years ago when i moved to Chicago that i got back into it. Maybe because of all the new (to me) record stores here. Might have something to do with it...

Anyway- In my collection, it's either fairly new, or it's been there forever. And even though they are all mixed up now, i can pull just about any title and tell you which it is. This, this would be one of the old ones. I probably bought it in the mid-90s in at a place called In Your Ear in Boston, but who knows, It could have come from any number of places. Both sides of this record have been favorites of mine for a long long time either way. Follow thisLINK to hear the flip side. It's a tune that fans of 60s surf/spy/hot rod guitar instrumentals are more likely to recognize. Me- i dig em both...
Enjoy.



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Rock And Roll

If you've watched an American sporting event of any kind in the past 20 years, you've heard Rock and roll Part 2. Sometimes referred to as The "Hey!" Song: "Duh-nuh NUUUH nuh, HEY! Nuh-nuh nuh... etc" but have you ever wondered what part one was all about? I know i always did. There are words. Sure, it aint Dylan, It's pretty repetitive stuff- but there are actual words. I'll be honest, I've always known 'Part Two' for being what it is, but i didn't remember ever hearing 'Part One' until i picked up this record, which was only a short year (or so) ago.

And whaddya know... It's not such a bad tune.

Sure, it's not the greatest song ever etched into a groove, but it's neat hearing the better half of a song that young and old alike have been mindlessly chanting at hockey games since before Gary Glitter was busted for being a kiddie toucher. I'm kinda diggin it. "Rock and Rooooooll, Rock and roll...Rock and Roooooll, Rock and roll...Rock and roll, rock- rock and roll." The words speak for themselves. The message is clear.
Rock and roll.

If for whatever reason you feel the need to hear Part Two, just turn on your TV. It's football season. Put on the game of your choice and wait. It'll be played eventually.

Enjoy this one here though, because you aint gonna hear it there.



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Sign Of The Times

No time to write anything today. Here's one that needs no explination.
It's just a jazzy little take on the Petula Clark classic. Nothing more, nothing less.
Enjoy.



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Wild Thing

Here's one for election day.
I'm not big on politics. Anyone who knows me knows this. In fact, there's not much else that other folks get all hot and bothered about that i find more boring- except maybe football. It's not that i don't care about what's going on in the world, i just don't... well.....
Sorry.
Politics just aint my bag.
Never has been, never will be.
Democrats, Republicans, or Independents- If you turn them upside down, they're all the same to me-- Assholes.
It being election day and all, how about a musical representation of my thoughts on politicians old and new- Some silly nonsense.


"Senator Bobby Kennedy" and his rendition of Wild Thing.




I don't know why the record says 1962 on the label. Part of the 'joke' that i don't get perhaps? Maybe it's just a typo. The song Wild Thing was written in 1965, and the Troggs hit version that everyone knows was recorded and released in the summer of 1966. Robert Kennedy was assassinated June 6, 1968, and had only announced his intention to run for president in March of that year. So that's roughly a two year window in which this could have been released. On the flip side is the same song done in the same style by Illinois "Senator Everett McKinley" Dirksen who died in 1969 of natural causes.

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I Turned You On

Now that Halloween time is over i can get back to the regular scheduled programming. That is: Posting whatever the hell i feel like.

Over the summer i was lucky enough to find a few hauls of extremely cheap, and for the price very interesting 45s. I tend to get carried away when i see three-for-a-buck records so i end up with a lot of different music. I like the odd novelty stuff, but i'm also a sucker for classic rock tunes that everyone's heard a zillion times on the radio. I don't know why. I don't actively search for Country or Funk records necessarily, but they do have a way of finding their way into my life on occasion...

Here's a good example. I was sitting cross legged on an uncomfortable-ass cement floor flipping through stacks of 25 cent records, and i found an Isley Brothers single. Right on- The Isley Brothers- I can dig that. I didn't know the title, but i figured- what he hell, It's a quarter. So i set it aside. Then i found another one. And another. ANd another, And another... All together i ended up buying eleven Isley Brothers 45s that day. All on the T Neck label. That's 22 songs for under $3.00 if you care to do the math. Not too shabby for a guy on my budget. And there were more even! I just bought one of each title. There were 4 or 5 duplicates...

I've only digitized five of them so far, and this is easily the best tune of the bunch. Enjoy!

I Turned You On



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