Hot Damn, 'Cilla...

I was burning off some Elvis bootlegs the other day, including his final performance, which took place in Indianapolis, and "I Can't Stop Loving You" was hard to get out of my head.

I know that the late Elvis is rather sad, what with the drugs and fried banana sandwiches and all, but it's something I can't turn away from, either.

Weird.

Oh well...enjoy The King from 1970.

Could Not Let Christmas Pass Without the Adam Sandler Classic

Maybe It's More Like Hibernation

I'm not sure what it is...nothing bad is going on, but I just haven't had the urge to put things up here lately. I'm not exactly ready to kill this off...I kind of like having the outlet now and then to throw things out there in a semi-anonymous way, but this was always just a hobby, primarily for my own recreation and I don't feel like forcing myself to keep it up.

So that said, who knows...I assume I'll throw something up here now and then when I'm particularly irritated or jubilant, but the frequency of posting has gone down for now.

Talk to you soon...

A Nod to the Hometown

No, I won't do my version of Go Higher with Dyer...I'm talking about Frank Zappa's hometown, silly.

Here's Uncle Frank doing What's New in Baltimore? from the Mothers of Prevention album. While there were vocals he did live, this is just the instrumental and I rather like it that way...

Lest I Forget Before the Week Slips By...

We can't get past T'giving without listening to Alice's Restaurant.

Lazily Linking up Videos

Hoping to not give in and do any real work today, but it's never a bad day for REM's Finest Worksong. This is from the Glastonbury Festival in 2003.

Enjoy this on the Lord's Day!

Some McCartney Before Heading Out

I guess it'd be too cheesy to post Cold November Rain on a day like today, so here's something more optimistic...Paul McCartney doing I'll Follow the Sun in Paris, 10-22-2007.

Enjoy!

Sorry, Ladies...He's Take (Well, Actually Dead)

It's been a little while since I've posted some homegrown videos/slideshows of the bootlegs, so tonight is as good a time as any.

This is from New Years Eve, 1969 at the Boston Tea Party. It's the Good Old Grateful Dead doing Big Boy Pete.

They only did it a few times (including at my dear Loyola's Rambler Room) and this is one of the times with Pigpen...enjoy!

Beatles Break Time

Just burning off some tunes for the week and came across a marvelous 17-disc compilation, The Ultimate Get Back Collection. I've no idea how someone got their paws on this studio material, but it's mindbending if you're into listening to The Beatles, horsing around, doing cut after cut of certain songs in ways that never made the album.

Anyway, I'm too lazy to make a slide show for you right now, so here's I've Got a Feeling from The Rooftop Performance.

Enjoy!

Some Election Day Music

Conventional wisdom seems to be that Indiana will be the first good indicator of how it's going tonight and if the Mac has a chance...

If Barry cleans his clock in the Hoosier state, it's hard to envision a scenario where McCain pulls it off.

Here's some wonderful Louis Armstrong, doing Back Home Again in Indiana in 1959.

How About Some Good Old Jerry Garcia To Ease Your Soul?

This morning, I had in a fantastic (and somewhat rare) soundboard recording of the Jerry Garcia Band at Keystone in Palo Alto, California on 11-12-1983.

Jerry's sound dudes, unlike those for the Dead, must have been a little bit less generous with the plugs into the board. While soundboard recordings of his band are still plentiful, there's nowhere near the proportion that exist for his shows with the boys...most are audience tapes.

Anyway, this one, Rhapsody in Red, had me bopping along on the way into the salt mines this morning. Hopefully it will have a similar effect on you!

Blues Break

I haven't put much up here in the way of the blues lately, so I went back to find some good John Lee Hooker for you.

Don't thank me...it wasn't hard to find.

Here he is at the 1980 Montreal Jazz Festival doing Serves Me Right to Suffer.

BB King and U2...Hard to Beat This Combo

I've been slacking off with the tunes lately, so had to dig this one out...When Loves Comes to Town with a nice little Midnight Hour interlude.

WLCTT appeared on Rattle and Hum, but this is from Australia in 1989, and is a different version than the commercially-released live cut.

God bless all these guys.

A Woodstock Moment

Here's another fave of mine by Crosby, Stills & Nash (and Young)...Suite: Judy Blue Eyes from Woodstock.

Three days, man...three days!

A Stupid Video for a Cool 80s Song

Recently, I got a nice bootleg of The Tubes at The Palladium in New York City from 1981. I was perusing it on the way into the salt mines this morning and found it to be a pretty enjoyable listen.

These guys were big in the San Francisco area in the 1980s, but their only quasi-hits were this song, Talk to Ya Later and the strip club staple, She's a Beauty.

Their keyboardist, of course, went on to bigger and better things afterwards.

Not finding a good live version of it from the 80s (there was a 2003 reunion version, but...blech), I grabbed the MTV video.

Enjoy the cheesieness!

Whack Fol the Daddy O

It's been a little while since I've posted some good tunes, so now is as good a time as any.

This is from the Grateful Dead's commercially-released box set, So Many Roads.

It's a compilation of live and other cool cuts from their full history, 1965-1995. It's got one of the prettiest Scarlet Begonias I've ever heard. The guitar solo in the middle, one of my favorite solos of their catalog, makes the hair on my neck stand up.

This cut is of the boys in the studio where Jerry starts picking at Whiskey in the Jar. Jerry's probably fibbing about just remembering it at that moment for the first time in 30 years, but who knows. Either way, we get to witness the wonderful powers of induction possessed by Robert Weir when he pounces all over its Irish origins.

Way to go, brainiac.

Either way, this is some really cool stuff and I love hearing them horse around in the studio. Would be great to get more of this goodness from the vault!

NOLA

The wonderful sounds of Billie Holiday and Louis Armstrong.

"Willow's Mom" Just Doesn't Have the Same Ring To It

But Fountains of Wayne's Stacy's Mom was the song somehow going through heads at the office today when we heard about John McCain's tapping of Governor Sarah Palin as his Vice Presidential nominee today. They're one of my favorite bands, so I don't mind posting this one again.

I hoped for this choice here in July...

In Honor of the Florida Delegation at the Democratic National Convention

Here's the great Muddy Waters doing a cool song...Deep Down in Florida.

I culled these pictures from an album of their convention delegates.

Yeehaw...I have to stay up later than normal tonight to catch Hill's speech...

Some Friday Grateful Dead

I was never one to go gaga when the Grateful Dead performed Gloria, but I was listening to 11-3-84 at the Berkeley Community Theatre last night on the way home and found it to be quite pleasant. I immediately set out on a plan to share it with you here.

Shows at the Community Theatre always seem, to me, to be the closest the Dead ever got to playing a house party in the 80s. It's an indoor venue in their backyard and on this particular evening, they were in a bit of a spunky mood, pulling out this nice Gloria, Why Don't We Do it in The Road, the first Meet Me in the Bottom and a pre-drumz jam that had Jerry noodling around with Dear Prudence without quite crossing the Rubicon.

Enjoy!