CounterPunch July Playlist

Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band 40th Reunion. DVD 2006

This concert took place in the UK in January of 2006.

I don't feel like I should have to explain who they are and I will not, but I know I should because the band had a relatively short lifespan, was British, never had a hit, and was too strange to make it out of cult status.

I am a member of their cult. Wanna buy a flower?

Missing only the dearly departed Vivian Stanshall (a man), the band is led by another man who calls himself Neil Innes, but doesn't look a bit like Neil Innes did forty years ago. Also appearing are old men impersonating Roger Ruskin Spear, Rodney Slater, Vernon Dudley Bohay-Nowell, and Legs Larry Smith. Also also appearing is the electric trouser press instrument, and the theramin leg.

Also also also appearing: Big hello to big John Wayne, xylophone. Looking very relaxed Adolf Hitler on vibes. Eric Clapton on ukulele. Yeah! Digging General de Gaulle on accordion. Really wild, General! Thank you, sir. Roy Rogers on Trigger. We welcome Val Doonican as himself. (Hello there.)

Among others.

Viv was such a huge presence in the Bonzos, that several people have stepped in to fill his shoes, including Stephen Fry, doing recitations such as:"My darling, in my cardboard-coloured dreams, once again, I heard your laugh. And I kiss, yes, I kiss your perfumed hair. The sweet essence of Giraffe. And eachtime I hear your name, oh, oh, my, my, how it hurts! In the wardrobe of my soul...in the section labeled "shirts."—from "Canyons of Your Mind."

Phil Jupitus stepped in for the dead Viv with a bowel-moving rendition of "The Strain," Stanshall's ode to taking a shit.

The audience was so attuned that when Innes athked the muthical lithp, "Do you like thoul muthic?" the audience replied, "No," en masse. Tho did I.

The audio sucks, the shooting sucks, Innes loses some of his voice as the night wears on, clams abound and few of the props seem to work; in other words, a perfect evening.

When they started playing "Jollity Farm," I cried.

I'll repeat that, the shirt event.

Nancy King Untitled CD c. mid-1990s

Nancy King is in the top 5 of our greatest living jazz singers. Thankfully, she is just now, at an age somewhere over 55, getting some of her due. She's quirky, scatty, bright, sarcastic and sweet, with the evidence of a difficult yet rewarding life advertised on her face.

She has been active nationally with a recent CD with pianist Fred Hersch.

She has lived most of her life in Portland, Oregon where she has frequently collaborated with the virtuoso bassist Glen Moore of the band "Oregon," as well as her long time pianist, Steve Christopherson.

She burned this CD for me in 1997 for an appearance on a radio show I was doing. I'm not sure when it was recorded, but I'm guessing it was shortly before that, maybe not. I played it underneath our interview, stopping along the way to talk to her about aspects of what we were hearing.

To tell you the truth, she puts all the current slim, cute jazz divas to shame. What she's got, only time and life gives you. Thank goodness she's still around to communicate that.

She's bop, she's ballad, she's irony and love, she's a brat and a seductress, as contemporary as they come but with deep roots. You can find a not-so-up-to-date website at http://www.nancykingjazz.com/.

Raymond Scott "Reckless Nights and Turkish Twilights" CD 1992/1998

Call me old fashioned, but the father of cartoon music never sounded better. Of course, as every schoolboy knows, Scott didn't compose these familiar tunes to be used in cartoons. He had all but abandoned Hollywood for New York when Carl Stalling decided to put some of Scott's music to Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies.

In addition, what most people don't know is that Scott was a pioneer of electronic music, building proto-synthesizers and other such machines. He also composed hundreds of jingles and other ephemera. Odd then, that he is best known for music to chase wabbits by.

He was also Dorothy Collins' husband and led the band on "You're Hit Parade." (Ask your grandfather.)

One of the oldest methods self-entertainment includes the following: 1) smoke some dope, 2) turn on the TV, 3) put some music on, and 4) turn the TV audio off and continue to change the channels till the music fits. Laugh if you like, but it still works. And it's still just as much fun.

It works with old movies, it works with Wolf Blitzer and the other night Raymond Scott's CD worked with a silent Dada film from the 20s. It worked really well. Like it was written for it.

Might have just be me. Doesn't matter.

The CD I have is a 1998 re-mastered version of the original 1992 transfer to digital. Ray would have loved it.

Papa Grows Funk "Live at the Leaf" CD 2006

Even if Ivan Neville's Dumpstaphunk occupies the throne of New Orleans funk bands, PGF is thatclosebehind. This was recorded live last April at the Maple Leaf Bar, a creaky old place in New Orleans. It might look like it's going to fall down any moment, but the Leaf is a cathedral of great music.

PGF has been holding down Monday nights there for years, in that narrow, sweaty, way-to-loud room next to the bar where you swear that any moment the whole place may explode, implode or otherwise self-destruct due to the level of funk and blues. I'm not exaggerating.

John Gros (pronounced Grow, hence the name of the band) holds all the keys to the rooms where they store the legacy of the great New Orleans piano players. He knows it, lives and plays it. It's in him. It is him. Add fiery guitarist June Yamagishi, ultra-cool Jason Minglesdorf on saxes, Fatback Mark Pero on bass and you've got all the funk you can use. They have had one major change in their lineup in the past year or so. Although Jeffrey "Jellybean" Alexander is a fine drummer, nobody can replace Russ Batiste. Nobody, nohow.

Still, if you're 3000 miles away from New Orleans like I am, slipping this CD in the drawer and closing your eyes will very nearly make you sweat no matter what the temperature.

P.S. Now that they've got the live CD done, they could use some new tunes.


Salif Keita "M'Bemba" CD 2005

Have you ever seen a bad review of a world music recording? I never have, although I don’t go looking for reviews good or bad. I think it's probably politically incorrect to not like something like this. Not that this is a review. I don't know what this is. David Vest just told me I should write these things, and he's rarely wrong about such matters.

My taste in African music tends toward old Ethiopian soul music and Tabu Ley Rochereau. And I don't keep up with it. This didn't grab me. I know that Mali is supposed to be where the roots of American music lie. I wanted to like this. I paid cash, retail full price, too.

I am prepared to be wrong.

Delmark Goldfarb "Up To My Neck" CD 2004

From the deep past when men were men and it was cool to play in jug bands, comes Del Goldfarb who spent some time working for the Blues Museum in Memphis, organizing the collection by day and trying on clothes worn by Johnny Cash and Billy Lee Riley donated to the museum by night.

He also spent a long time playing with jug band legends like Fritz Richmond and people like John Sebastion. Both of them are on here, plus Cody Dickson from the North Mississippi All-Stars. Del lives in Portland, Oregon now where he plays, records and drives a delivery truck.

The title of the album refers to major back surgery he had a while back which is documented on the front of the CD by a nasty photo of the scar running up to the back of his neck.

This is a pretty amiable, kinda dog-eared good-timey type-a-thing. Which is also pretty much describes what Del is like, too. Find it at http://www.delgoldfarb.com/

"James Brown's Funky Summer" CD included in August 2006 issue of Mojo Magazine

Mojo, the British music magazine always includes a CD and most of them are spectacular. Not all of them. I never want to see another album of Beatles or Kinks covers, but this one falls into the classic category.

Not only does it include, "Gut Bucket" a cut from James Brown's new recording due out next year and a welcome return to his brand of funk instead of following trends, something that's left him in the wilderness for decades. The best thing about the tune is that he seems to have regained his voice which had been reduced to a hoarse shout. He'll never have the ballad voice of "Please, Please, Please," but he actually sounds like James Brown on this.

The rest of the disc is filled with musicians who worked with Mr. B or covered his tunes. One from from "Maceo (Parker) And All The King's Men" is included. I found that LP years ago. It was recorded (poorly) during a time when Maceo and James weren't working together. Bootsy Collins, Fred Wesley, Bobby Byrd, Vicki Anderson and Lyn Collins from various versions of the Famous Flames/JB's have solo cuts. Tammi Terrell, Albert King (Cold Sweat), Soul Survivors (minus the traffic), Roy Brown (!), The 5 Royales cover other JB tunes.

The magazine is always a treasure, even if I don't care about British pop (and never did), but this CD makes it extra-special.

This also appears on CounterPunch.com

A Middle Eastern "Who's On First" History Lesson

Let me get this straight.

We attacked Saddam in GW1 and then promised the Shiites that we would help them to overthrow him. Then we shrugged and said, "Nah, never mind," freeing Saddy to kill them, while the Baathist Sunnis remained in power.

Then we attacked Saddam again, killed a lot of Sunnis, and we threw the Baathists out and made friends with the Shiites who were building armies of their own, some of whom were killing our soldiers. Then we tortured a lot of Sunnis and put the Shiites in power.

Then somebody told the home office that Iran was full of Shiites who liked the idea that Iraq was going to be run by their home boys. Then the Sunnis started killing everybody, our soldiers, lots of Shiites and a few Kurds.

So then to stop the Sunnis from killing everybody, we made a place for them in the new "government," while building ourselves a palace/embassy which would enable us to stay in Iraq in perpetuity. For what reason, we've never been told.

Then the Shiites and the Sunnis decided that maybe they should concentrate on killing each other. "Oh, ok," they said, "we'll kill a few Americans, but they're not much of a factor anymore, and those Americans will probably be ok with whoever won, as long as they can hand out fat contracts to their friends and be involved in oil."

That particular civil war has been raging for several months, although the liars in government and the scaredy cats in the media alternately said, things were getting better or (at worst) things were "verging" on a civil war. Meanwhile, to anybody in Iraq, civil war was a fact of life and death.

So guess what happens then? The Shiite Hezbollah sparks a new war vs. Israel. They get their weapons from the Shiite Iranians, FWB of the Iraqi Shiites. Hezbollah also gets support from Sunni Syria. All of a sudden, it is suggested we might begin playing diplomatic footsie with Sunni Syria against Shiite Iran.

Oh, wait a minute. We're not involved in diplomacy. It's the Democrats who are suggesting that we bring Syria into line with the Saudis and Jordanians and against Iran and Hezbollah.

It's the home office which is helping fill orders for missiles and watching the price of oil rise (their version of Viagra). How much money do you think they could make with just "one more week" of carnage?

And the deaths? I can see them sitting around a table, like the representatives of the Five Families in The Godfather and hearing Cheney say, "Let them lose their souls."

So let's add this up. We set up the Shiites in Iraq. They're FWB with Iran which we might invade. The Sunnis whom we defeated in Iraq, and who have killed the bulk of the American military in Iraq and may now end up on our side in the Israel-Hezbollah war.

We have made friends of our enemies who still try to kill our men and women. We have made enemies of the guys we brought to power in Iraq and we have given Israel a blank check and a lot of death machines to kill them. And now the Iraqi Shiites just announced that they want Hezbollah to win.

Third base.

Cheney is Abbott. W is Costello. The problem is the jokes aren't funny. And the movie is out of control.

This can also be found on huffingtonpost.com

Another Bush Pet Goat Moment

We have just witnessed yet another "Pet Goat" moment in the sad history of the Bush presidency. Another one of the many we have suffered through. The first one of such moments was, of course, when he did not act when informed of the airliner hitting the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 and continued reading the now-famous book.

There have been many others we have not seen, but the most public "Pet Goat" moment since then had been when he appeared to be totally disengaged as New Orleans was destroyed.

He glazes over. He doesn't know what to do. He can't think. He becomes inert. We have seen it, publicly, a few times. How many times do you think Rove, Cheney and company have seen it and told him what he should do?

At the precise moment when the nation needs a leader, he fails.

This weekend is the latest example. Look at him with the other leaders. He looks out of place. Look at Putin humiliate him at the news conference as the audience of reporters laughs in his face when Putin gets off a good line about the Iraq "democracy."

Look at him making a fool out of himself driving that little golf cart. It makes Dukakis on the tank look like Patton himself.

And when he was caught talking with the microphone on, did he give a well-thought out analysis of the situation? No, it was locker room talk, the only kind he knows. He said, "See the irony is that what they need to do is get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit and it's over."

Now there's a statement for the ages.

George W. Bush never fails to disappoint the nation. He makes fools out of all of us.

He looked totally out of his element at G8. What is his element? Hanging out with a bunch of rich goobers cracking jokes is. It is certainly not leading the world out of a dangerous conflict which threatens to become a wider war, dragging the United States in.

He is weak. He is lost. Just look at him. I've interviewed thousands of people. I am a good judge of character and intelligence. He has neither. He made a stop at the Portland, Oregon airport in the spring of 2000, long before he gained the Republican nomination. I went out there, in the media crush, just to see him and get a sense.

The first thing I noticed was that his neck was bright red. "Oh," I thought, "he must be an alki." I watched him glad hand. I came away with the simple conclusion that this was one of those men who I have tried to avoid my whole life. He was not the kind of man I wanted to drink with. I've never understood that. Wouldn't you want to drink with a man you could hold a conversation with? He looked mean and stupid.

I have had to revise my evaluation downward since then.

Perhaps someone should make him a tape of the newscasts on the Israel/ Hezbollah conflict. Never mind, he still would sound just as lost as he did all weekend. The Middle East is burning and nobody is home at the White House. We can't help because his keepers cut the U.S. off from the Islamic combatants.

The best we can hope for is that several of the G8 leaders took him by the hand and gave him a few good ideas. God knows, he's never had one on his own.

As we stagger and lurch toward the day when we are finally rid of him and his crew, America should invoke all the gods to help us avoid something irrevocable…Jesus, Allah, Moses, Zoroaster, Buddha…you name the god, we'll invoke his name.

Yes, it's that bad.


This can also be found on huffingtonpost.com

Feeling Like Slim Pickens On the Bomb

Waving my hat and yelling "Yahoooo." (Not in the internet way, but rather in the Pickens way, with the exhilaration of going out with a bang.) In the sense that events may be overtaking themselves in momentum and severity. The news stations are already in clear-the-decks this-looks-like-some-bad-shit mode. A new logo has appeared at the bottom of the screen.

Somewhere a neo-con is clapping his hands while the rest of us are wondering if a couple of missteps could lead to U.S. forces crossing over into Iran, or at least bombing it. The Republicans have proven that it doesn't take much for them to order up more weapons and ammo from their friends. And if you buy it, you gotta use it, right? And what better way than to have it all coalesce right in Bibleland. It's a slam-dunk.

With the rest of us riding the Republican bomb, Pickens style.

At a time like this, it is critically important that our leaders speak the truth to us. What we're faced with is a group of people so pathologically successful in their lies, that when we hear them now, we figure that the truth is whatever opposite to what they're saying.

Republicans lie. Republican lies. Easy to say. These four words should always be handy when discussing current affairs. Republican lies: two words joined at the hip. Synonymous even. I don't have to enumerate. Just about everything of any significance they've ever said in public has been carefully constructed and brilliantly conceived lying.

Hey, I appreciate the talent, thanks for the bomb.

Republican hate is another thing that makes me want to wave my hat as I dive through the clouds. This afternoon, the same old white racist evildoers from Georgia are in the U.S. Congress trying to destroy the Voting Rights Act. Here is the mating of Republican lies and Republican hate. A double-dip, not only do we get to fix some elections again, but we get to screw Negroes.

It must be fun to be a white racist Republican Member of Congress, or any Republican.

This is why I feel like a Pickens-on-a-bomb. Their demonstrated lack of the ability to govern and operate a government, not to say a super-power sits me astride the nuke, screaming. I don't think the Republicans have it in them, at best, and at worst, it may allow them to unleash the war they'd really like to fight.

I'm kissing my ass goodbye.

This can also be seen on huffingtonpost.com (although why would you go there to read it again?)