She Comes in Colors, Everywhere, Refuses to Mop Up After Herself

So hey, thanks, Radiohead.  The record's nifty enough (tracks 1-4 and 9 would make a killer EP), and I'll buy it proper when it sees actual release.  Quality aside, thanks for legitimizing the leak and - most importantly - for letting it fall on all ears at once.  Didn't it feel like everyone in the world was listening to the same thing at the same time?  How fucking great was that?  In these days of fractured, ginseng-enhanced passion-kiwi-pomegrante-carrot-extract-smartTeas, how awesome just to buy the world a Coke, keep it company?

*

Pretty easy to get past Rainbows after watching the vid Vegan posted yesterday of Sharon Jones et al rehearsing their James Brown medley.  (I'm going to regret not coughing through that Apollo show for, like, ever.)  Since then I've been living on Star Time.  Hitting my mark, missing my deadlines, couldn't be happier.

Guerilla Reissues' Good God!  Heavy Funk Covers of James Brown from All Over the World 1968-1974 has jumped in and out of rotation over the past couple months; it's good, God, but can't get out from under that subtitle.

Comp's hardly "heavy" at all.  That's one of its strengths.  Of its sixteen tracks - drawn from relatively obscure sources - only five crack the four-minute mark, and while it's got its fair share of hnnngh and splat, there's also lots of froth.  That Philosopher's track below, it's got the breezy block party joy of a Go! Team concoction.

JB covers are tough, kids.  The songs are 112% delivery, and the second-timers aren't just fumbling after the tightest fucking band in the world.  The man's personality was so outsized that, by necessity, imitators tend towards either parody or anonymity.  His emphasis is so perfect and natural.  He's walking the walk, others stiffly hopscotch behind.  It's Tourette's Syndrome versus Shane Black.  There's not enough song to hide behind, not enough cover to take.  That's why it's so good that most of the people on this record - whoever the hell they are - get back, stay low, don't try so hard.

God's also not as "All Over the World" as you'd hope.  As far as I can tell (my hard copy ain't here, yet, so I'm going by Google) we only leave the Western Hemisphere once (Slovenia).  Most of the tracks come from the U.S., the Caribbean, and South America (two of the mp3s below are from Brazil), and while that gives some kick to the groove, more exotic - or, at least, curious - funkifications would be welcome.  Say, a shrill Vietnamese take on "Hot Pants."  Or Turkish prisoners, reaming out "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag."  From the northern peoples, a little "Get Up, Get Inuit, Get Involved."  (Sorry.)  At least some Afrobeat.

Anyway, it's a fun collection from which I've gotten a good deal of play.  And it's Friday, so here's some of that fun:

Six Pack - There Was a Time (mp3)

The Philosophers - Mama's Orgy (Cold Sweat) (mp3)

Waltel Branco - Tema de Zorra (Popcorn with a Feeling) (mp3)

Toni Tornado - Sou Negro (mp3)

There are twelve more where those came from.  Note that at Amazon, the third-party sellers' prices are much more reasonable.

*

The compilation that's really fanning my pipes right now is Mississippi Records' I Don't Feel at Home in This World Anymore 1927-1948, a rich, varied, passionate collection of immigrant American performances.  It's the sort of record that makes you happy to have ears.  And I can't find a hard copy.  I was sure I'd seen it at K Records, but when I checked back it was gone.  (Boomkat has it on vinyl in the UK.)

If anyone sees the CD available anywhere, please let me know.  Then grab one for yourself.

*

The CMJ clusterfuck is imminent, and though there's so very little I want to see I'm already frustrated.

CMJ's more or less useless when you live in New York.  Because every day is CMJ, here, and all the festival does is pack houses with the worst audiences in the world:  Music journalists.  This is why it's so much better to see No Age at Todd P's all-age Shangri-La show the following Monday than at the band's official Bowery showcase.  (I have bad, bad feelings about that Dan Deacon performance.  Deacon's all about the crowd, and that dance circle is doomed.)

But the In the Red hoo-ha at the Merc on Thursday night is solid ass-to-hoof rock, all in one convenient brick box.  Miss Alex White, The Intelligence, Jay Reatard, and the mf'n Dirtbombs (whom I haven't seen since way too long).  Me want.  So, of course, it turns out Local H/Caviar/Fig Dish electrodance side project The Prairie Cartel has exactly one live CMJ gig scheduled, and that that's also Thursday, and all the way out at Galapagos.  So I should hit that, then Todd P's Dark Meat thing, then try to catch the In the Red folks piecemeal?  Which would involve getting stuck in Brooklyn for a second night?  Ugh.

Too much worry, when all I really want to do is get home before 2am and avoid seeing any band with "Hands" in its name.  But bless the free day shows and the bloggers (AtJ, Beev, G'mist) who put ‘em on and the non-journos who show up and make ‘em fun.

And the bands, too.  Right.

Oh, hey, one last bit of stupidity:  This Friday night overpriced, segregated affair at Irving Plaza.  Really?  $25 so you can say you saw Santo Gold before she had a second song?  And this is the only Earl Greyhound gig all week?  Here's a band that should be playing on every fucking corner in their hometown, letting everyone know there's someone doing blues-based rock and roll a little justice, and they're limiting the eyeballs to badgeholders.  Think I'd rather drop ten bucks and watch Miss White and her Reds melt shit in B'burg.

*

Why has it taken Harmony Korine eight whole years to make another movie for you to hate?

"My goal was to be forgotten." Also, he spent a year in the Amazon trying to catch a magic fish.  (The page is in French, but the video is in English.) (via)

(And I liked Julien Donkey-Boy.  Sorry.)

tags: cmj  james brown  radiohead  in rainbows  

links: digg this    del.icio.us    reddit