Soul Mix 4

Do you have your smoking jacket on and a drink with an umbrella in it, no homo?  Then settle in and get ready for Soul mix 4.  Being totally unbiased it's the audio form of everything that is right in the world.  Someone named me likes it.

This mix has the Helene Smith version of, "Pain In My Heart," off of Eccentric Soul Vol 7: Deep City Soul Label.  I highly recommend purchasing it on vinyl, it's a solid collection.  Deep City was a seriously dope label out of Miami, there are a bunch of nice tracks in their catalog.  A little bit about them and the Eccentric Soul collection.  "Possibly the most influential of all the 60s Miami soul label's, the Deep City sound not only changed the Metro-Dade area, but set the tone for disco powerhouse TK's impressive run in the 70s.

The singles on Willie Clark and Johnny Pearsall's Lloyd and Deep City label's are Florida's rarest of the rare, and we've collected the best of their four year run here. Includes Betty Wright and Paul Kelly's first sides, the can't-miss-but-did diva Helene Smith, obscure work by Frank Williams & the Rocketeers, as well as a previously unreleased acetate by the Moovers."

 












Eccentric Soul Vol. 7 and Otis playing peek-a-boo.

Back to Helene's cover, I was in a record shop in the city and this came on and I had to do that thing where you stop what you are doing, walk up to the counter and demand they give you the name of the artist singing or you will start breaking things.  Of course they coughed up the name immediately and that's just one of the many reasons they call me Jack Bauer.  It's not the fact that I get drunk and tackle Christmas trees, it's the way I make people talk...and I also happen to be 3' 11."  Apparently Helene has a Myspace Who knew?


Helene Smith- Pain In My Heart

Here is one more sample.  The James Brown track, "Prisoner of Love."  That's some old school James, it's amazing how long this man was good.  From slow smooth grooves to rock your face off funk fantasticness this dude could do it all.  This one of the slower jams, but dude could SANG!!

James Brown- Prisoner Of Love



The rest of the mix has music, with instruments and singers.  If you like music and instruments and also singers then it might make sense for you to download this, but that's just like my opinion maan.


Soul Mix 4

Email Updates

So we are kind of new at this blogging thing, well besides my now defunct blog Serbianwarlordsposingwithfinecheeses.org/edu;.comgigabyte let's just not mention that anymore though, deal?  Oh but one final note, all you Serbian warlords out there can stop sending me pictures.  I have enough to last a lifetime.

I thought that if you were a follower you would have the ability to get email updates automatically sent to you.  What else is the point of becoming a follower?  You don't even get a free t-shirt and we don't even have a rallying cry, may I suggest someone write one?  The only requirement is that the phrases, Fattenings, pygmy, and elephantiasis be included in the second verse, those are just a couple of mandates.  Regardless of our lack of a rallying cry, the automatic email thing was not working or was non-existent. *Dun, Dun Dunnn* Until now that is!!! *rips open curtain to reveal senior citizens in cages*  Sorry you shouldn't have seen that.

Anyway, you can now sign up to get email updates whenever a new post is posted...post.  If you look on the right side there will be a thingy for you to clicky and then enter your social security number, address, and bank account numbers, this is all standard protocol, my Nigerian Banker set this up for us and he is on the up and up...don't worry.  We will free your money soon Senator Tchksipolo the third.


Another official blog news tidbit we have entered the 21st century and now have a Friendster page!!  Put your party hats on and start throwing sheep at each other, poke each other farmville each others organs, whatever you kids do.

So become a fan of us and...I don't really know what you do after that.  
Stereophonic Fattenings on Facebook

Tidbit three, if you actually download the mixes and burn them to cd's, you may have noticed that they are very close to the maximum time allowed.  Because I push it to the limit, BAWSE!!!  So just set them to burn with no gap or a one second gap and they should be good to go.  All of the ones I make are burnable and listenable in your car stereos.

*All emails collected will also be used to sign up for erectile dysfunction pills, mail order poultry, and Bridal Shower weekly...hurry the Summer issue is just around the corner*

Ctrl Alt Country Delete

Ok, so I have little backpedaling to do: in my last post, I claimed to not like contemporary country, which is only half-true. I'd rather get a root canal than listen to 90% of the garbage that gets showcased at the CMT awards; however, there are a lot of new artists doing some really great stuff, but by and large, these artists get snubbed by mainstream country listeners/critics. Generally speaking, these acts are bringing country back to its roots, and this is perceived as backward-looking by the purveyors and consumers of major label country music. Given their relegated status vis-à-vis the big money country bands, these artists are often labeled as "Alt Country", which I'm sure doesn't sit well with performers who are putting out music that, in my opinion, is a much more authentic extension of the classic country music of the sort that I showcased in my last mix. Anyway, stepping down from my soapbox, check out my take on new country that doesn't suck.

Alt Country Mix

Btw, iTunes keeps effing up my track order, so I'll reproduce it here:

1. One Little Song – Gillian Welch

2. Sweet Loving Man – Jolie Holland

3. Harvest – James Mercer (of The Shins, Neil Young cover)

4. Free Until They Cut Me Down – Iron & Wine

5. Gone for Good – Iron Horse (Shins cover)

6. When the Stars Go Blue – Ryan Adams

7. Tear Stained Eye – Son Volt

8. Erie Canal – Bruce Springsteen

9. She’s a Jar – Wilco

10. We Never Argue – Lambchop

11. Chinese Translation – M. Ward

12. Look at Miss Ohio – Gillian Welch

13. You Remind Me of Something – Bonnie “Prince “ Billy

14. Train Under Water – Bright Eyes

15. Cold November – The Maldives

16. One More Dollar – Gillian Welch

17. Acuff-Rose – Uncle Tupelo

18. The Galway Girl – Steve Earle

19. Four Winds – Bright Eyes

20. Jolene – The White Stripes (Live Loretta Lynn cover)

Anything but Country

For the longest time, whenever anyone would ask me what kind of music I liked, I'd reply, "Anything but Country." However, I eventually realized that what I didn't like was modern, top 40 Country à la Garth Brooks and the legions of other Wrangler-clad muzak-makers. If you dig into the roots of the genre, you find some really beautiful stuff: simple, straight-forward song-writing about universally-appealing subjects of lost love, hard labor, and good times. None of this 'I'm proud to be redneck' crap that so much of modern country boils down to. In this mix you'll find most of the OGs: Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, Conway Twitty, Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton, et al. I also included some stuff that may be considered more "traditional" than strictly "country", but it's exactly that period in American music when genre labels didn't define your art or your audience that I'm interested in exploring here, so I threw them in the mix. As usual, my last song is a bit of an outlier -- a live version of Etta James' "I'd Rather Go Blind" that begins with Etta saying to the audience:

"I always fantasized of being a Country and Western singer. No shit!"

Hey, if Etta likes Country, so can I.

Enjoy, y'all.

Classic Country Mix

DANGERxSHIN

Do you like the Shins?

Do you like Danger Mouse?


Then you should probably pick up Danger Mouse and James Mercer's new project, The Broken Bells. It sounds..well...exactly like what you'd think a Shins/DM collaboration would sound like. Seriously though, I'm going to start referring to DM as the Nike SB of the music business. He does the oddest collaborations and they generally generate a good ammount of hype. ie DMxBeck, DMxTheBlackKeys (Originally for Ike Turner!), DMxCartoonNetworkxMFDoom.


Here are a couple tracks from the latest album....oh and a Pink Floyd track that October reminds me of. Must be the opening sequence.


The Broken Bells - Citizen


The Broken Bells - October


Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here


Jeffro

The Goods

It's that time again where I play hypebeast.  *Pushes button to seal the air lock on closet*  Sorry about that, can't let those uv rays fuck up my kicks, nah mean?  *Adjusts thick rimmed glasses, lays on bed to wiggle and writhe into skinny jeans*  Sorry about that, I don't know why I was talking to you without any pants on.  Let's get our consumption on!!!

First up is some music infused art, which is like bacon encapsulated by fried chicken, or Mike and Ike's smothered in Vegemite, two of my favorite things in the world colliding into a brilliant wreck of awesome.  Is the Mike and Ike's thing just me?  Thought so.  Ian Johnson just had the opening for his new show, “Of The Living Sky, at Park Life in San Francisco.  Here is Ian's bio from his site, "Born in Syracuse, NY 1979 Lives and Works in San Francisco."  I guess that's all you need to know about him.  Not really, Ian does excellent intricate, realistic, renderings, of jazz luminaries and musical icons.  He infuses these with geometric designs, rays of rainbow colors, and abstract visuals to create awesome graphic depictions of legendary talents.  Check out this piece he did from his last solo show of one of the loves of my life, the Reverend.  That is a dope ass piece. 

 My only problem with Ian's work is that I don't know everyone he paints.  The pieces all look amazing, but I feel like I have to be a huge fan of someone before I display a prominent picture of them on my wall.  Ian knows his jazz, and his works are mostly focused on people I am not that familiar with.  I have the same issue with concert posters, and it's weird placing this guideline of synchronicity between liking the image and also supporting the person being depicted in the piece.  Usually I just go off image but portraiture is a different ball game that adds that other dimension....I want that Al though.

Either way if you are in the Bay Area you should go check the show out, it closes on May 1st, so you still have time.  Go see the Billie Holliday piece, it was stunning in it's simplicity and cleanliness.

Park Life
220 Clement St
SF CA 94118
415.386.7275

Two more things you should buy and a free Roots x Dilla mixtape after the jump.

Southern Fried Goodness

IT'S REAL! KFC is introducing their Double Down sandwich on April 12th. Who needs bread surrounding their cheese and bacon when you've got two pieces of Colonel Sander's special recipe instead? In celebration of this gluttonous and sinful event, I decided to post a few tracks by Southern artists to help set the mood when your mouth makes love to this "sandwich" on April 12th.



Ben Sollee - A Change is Gonna Come


Damn right a change is gonna come. Though Sam Cooke's version of this song was about the civil rights movement, and Sollee's has been toned down so that it's appropriate for a white dude to sing it, I like to imagine that this song is about all breads being replaced by fried stuff. Yeh that's right, fried stuff. No matter what the subject matter really is, I've got to say this is one of my favorite covers of Sam Cooke's original.

Eli "Paperboy" Reed - It's Easier


Is Eli talkin about a romantic interest......or is he talking about bacon? As he croons lyrics like "I've been loving you, for way too long, and without you, I can't go on" the answer becomes obvious. He's talkin' 'bout bacon yo!

Hope none of you had a heart attack reading this. Plenty of time for that after you try this sandwich...you know you wanna....

Jeffro