World In The Valley, Episode 010, September 26th, 2008

It was a foggy night last night on the road through the woods to the radio station. Arrived a little late, the old school house skirted with the fog; unlocked the door, ran upstairs, opened the door– red christmas lights glowing along the studio glass (I always wonder if I’m gonna surprise any ghosts, especially with that old cemetery next door, but everyone seems to be resting peacefully) unlocked the studio, powered the c.d. players and put on vol. 1 of the Nuggets box set, vol. 1 being the original release from @1972 (year of my birth) compiled for Elektra by New York rocker Lenny Kaye of classic garage rock sides from the sixties, a compilation that essentially defined a rich sub-genre of rock and roll– “It’s a nugget if you dug it.” We heard “Dirty Water” by The Standells and “NIghttime” by the Strangeloves. I wanted to play The Dirtbombs’ “Your Love Belongs Under A Rock,” but was having technical difficulty; instead, two songs from the classic Mazzy Star album So Tonight That I Might See– “Five String Serenade” and “Blue Light.” Hope’s voice seemed like a good way to transition out of the testosterone soaked tunes that came before. Next was Deerhoof, a band I don’t know much about, but some of whose songs have these super etherial, Lush-esque vocals. DEERHOOF this sums up the band better than I can. I had this Neil Young c.d. hanging around my office and I remembered there was at least one track from On the Beach, the rare Neil Young album from 1974. We heard “Pardon My Heart” (live from NYC 4/16/74) and “For The Turnstiles.” I’ve been enjoying Dimanche and Bamako, the Amadou and Mariam album produced by Manu Chao. We heard the first couple tunes– “M’bifé” and “M’bifé(balafon).” Then I played three Manu Chao songs; one from the Clandestino album, the amusing “Bongo Bong” and two from his last record La Radiolina, which has taken some time to grow on me, “Politik Kills” and “Rainin in Paradise.” The Amadou and Mariam album helped me appreciate more La Radiolina. After this we heard Jim Morrison from an album I found called Stoned and Articulate II, an interview with Morrison from 1968. This is not the same interview we heard last year. Another bootleg that was laying around my office was the Volunteers sessions of the Jefferson Airplane from 1969. We heard take 18 of Volunteers of America and what was possibly the first vocal take on the Airplane’s version of Wooden Ships, a song written by David Crosby, Stephen Stills, and Paul Kantner, aboard Crosby’s boat. I like the airplane version of the tune, which is slightly different than the CSN version. I’ve been listening to a lot of interesting compilations lately, one of which is called Paranda. Here is a blurb from the Stone Tree Records website:

Paranda is both a Garifuna rhythm and a genre of music. The basic rhythm can be heard in Garifuna traditional drumming styles that date all the way back to St. Vincent and West Africa. Paranda became a genre itself in the 19th century, shortly after the Garifuna arrived in Honduras. It was there where they first encountered Latin music, and incorperated the acoustic guitar and a touch of Latin and Spanish rythms into the music. Paranda reached its promenance in the early part of the 20th century and has changed little since. Its instrumentation is totally acoustic: Large wooden Garifuna drums (called Primero and Segunda), shakers, Scrapers, Turtle Shell percussion, and acoustic guitar.

We heard the song Africa. Another compilation we heard was the Orchard record label’s Rembetika: The Ottoman Legacy vol. 1. “The rembetika, songs that were sung in the poor quarters of Smryna, Istanbul and the ports of Greece in the late nineteenth century, and became the popular bouzouki music of the 1930s to 1950s, have many parallels with American blues. Like the blues, the rembeika were the music of outsiders, who developed their own slang and their own forms of expression” reads the blurb for a book on the music. We heard: Tsifte Telli – El. Melemenlis, Huseini Manes – A. Dhiamadidhis – “Dalgas”, Ballos Smyrneikos De Mane – E. Sophroniou – “Vaggelakis”, and Aidhinikos Xoros (Dance From Aydin). Finally we heard a track by the Comedian Harmonists, a hugely popular German vocal group from ’30’s, shut down by Hitler. Here’s some info. We heard, “Sleep My Little Prince.”