The French Connection, Special Bulletin Edition: Et Maintenant, Le Dernier Vestige De Rita Mitsouko N'Est Plus Non Plus...

Cancer did it again. The evil, no-good, very bad S.O.B got Catherine, too. Having seen her life partner and bandmate Fred Chichin die suddenly of what the French call un cancer foudroyant, a rapidly evolving, ultra-agressive cancer, in 2007, now Catherine Ringer has suffered the same fate yesterday. Les Rita Mitsouko died with Fred in 2007, but now the last trace of this unpredictable, one-of-a-kind band is gone, by the same cruel fate that took her soul mate 19 years ago. Poetic? Or just more proof that we haven't made huge inroads in fighting that evil, no good, very bad S.O.B.? I let you decide. 

Come to think of it, Catherine Ringer was, as far as I recall, the last concert I went too...five years or so ago. Ah, tempus fugit. Her stage presence and rock'n'roll give-no-fucks spirit, even at an anvanced age of 63, finally turned me around on Les Rita Mitsouko, a band I admittedly didn't get for a long time. Too shrill, too bizarre, too....French, maybe? My wife has been a fan since her teens, but that group kind of always got on my nerves, though my opinion started to change when I got her the band's last album Varieté for a birthday. It was an acoustic-based album, a much more gentle and melodic adventure than the shrill New Wave and post-punk stuff from the 80s. 

Catherine Ringer in that very concert. The dude in the hat on the far left is her youngest son, Raoul.

Anyway, after coming away from that concert with a new appreciation for Madame Ringer, I compiled a little album of Rita Mitsouko (and a then-recent Ringer live track of a band song) stuff that first saw light of day over at Farq's place. And now, to honor Ringer and Les Rita Mitsouko? I'll pull this out of mothballs. And oyt's a weird sense of deja vu taht exctly three weeks ago I was writing a eulogy for Dolly Parton. What the hell is this, dead musician tuesday? 

Les Rita Mitsouko (they added the 'les', so people would stop thinking it was Catherine Ringer's name, instead of the band's) were obviously made for the 80s and the second wave of New Wave. They were misfits, they were vaudeville performers, they were deeply they're own thing. Theatrical, provocative, and for a couple of years, on the forefront of the new and exciting rock and pop that was sprouting from the alte 70s on. They passed by a couple of different styles over the years, leaning into synth pop, art pop, even experimenting with jungle and drum'n'bass rhythms in the 90s. And through it all, they were always Catherine and Fred, she the former porn actress with an extroverted voice and a 'don't mess with me' attitude, he the pencil-moustached silent pole of the band. They were an odd couple, and they were perfect for, and with, each other. 

Now, I mentioned that I didn't 'get' Les Rita Mitsouko until a couple of years ago, and even then, some of their more thatrical and shrill work is still not for me. I can admire parts of it from a distance, but I'd rather not listen to it, particuarly, which is fine. You will see in the accompanying comp that I was really picky in what I like about and from the band. It doesn't necessarily have all the best-known hits from the band, and those that are here are not in the versions that hit the airwaves in the 80s. For "C'est Comme Ca" I used a live version of Catherine Ringer and her band that comes closest to the barnstormer it was in concert. I used edited remixes for both "Andy' and "Marcia Baila", their breakthrough hit in 1985 and a tribute to Catherine Ringer's dance teacher Martia Moretti, who - like the two persons that would pay tribute to her would in the future - died of a quick acting cancer in 1983. Yup, there's thread here, though not a good one. 

A whooping seven songs come from Variéty, their last album, that started to turn me around on the band, and since I already have the French version at home, I decided to use the English-language versions of the songs for this comp. In other cases, I just kept the bits I liked, like the instrumental intro of "Elevator" or bits of an improvisation piece, or jam, called, well, "Jam". I took the bits I liked and used them as short breaks in betwen songs. And I coul not decide wheteher I like the original version of "Don't Forget The Nite" or the Tony Visconti remix better so I decided to keep both. So, enjoy Do The Mitsouko! for what it is, a deeply personal selection of favorites from Les Rita Mitsouko. 

C'est la mort qui t'a assassiné, Marcia

C'est la mort qui t'a assassiné, Fred.

C'est la mort qui t'a assassiné, Catherine. 

C'est la mort qui nous assassinera tous, mes amis.

Mais aussi...

Même si, même si tout disparaîssait,

Je serais près de toi...

R.I.P. Catherine Ringer, 1957-2026

Bing! Bang! Boom! Bluegrass! Chartbusters!

Bluegrass fiends, you have not been forgotten. I'm surprised to find that it's been almost a month since our last volume, but of course our Bluegrass Chartbusters series will continue unabated, and here's Vol. 14, another volume that has been reworked a numbe rof times and probably doesn't resemble its original incarnation in the slightest. This can of course only be positive, because I found tons of cool stuff that I wanted to bring to you first, and this volume doesn't disappoint! After sitting out the volume, The Brothers Comatose are back with a vengeance...and a great cover of "Mercedes Benz" to boot! Della Mae are back with an equally wonderful version of "No Rain", a song that, as further reserach for the series has shown, is very propular among bluegrass bands. Dierks Bentley, normally not a Bluegrass player, sings U2"s "Pride (In The Name Of Love)", and boy has he brought some back up, enlisting both the Punch Brothers and genre legened Dl McCoury. 

As for newcomers, here's the first appearance of Holler Choir with "Heart-Shaped Box". I was ready to call them a one-off, but the latest expansion wave has brought some more Holler Choir tracks, so these guys will be back. The same is true for We Banjo 3, a now defunct Irish group who - in order to do justive to Tom Petet's "Wildflowers" - recruited Kiana June and Steve Ferrone for backup. I'm not the huget Old Crow Medicine Show fan, but they're debuting here in a backup function - lots of collabs on this one, as you might have noticed - as they are supporting Molly Tuttle and her beautiful take on Uncle Neil's "Helpless". 

Also making their first series appearance is Duluth's own Trapled By Turtles, an Americana group that play all kinds of country-inspired music, and only very rarely dabbles in Bluegrass, but often enough to record their fine cover of "Where Is My Mind?", which means that - somehat improbably - The Pixies are now joining the list of artists being covered. Other artists covered for the first time: Scotland's own Franz Fredinand via Cornbread Red's "Take Me Out" and Howard Jones via Love Canon's "Things Will Only Get Better". 

What else do we have here: Vets Iron Horse covering not one, not to, but three classics ("Sweet Child O' Mine", "Proud Mary" and "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath"!  David Lee Roth covering himself, again, gicing Jamie's Cryin'" a bluegrass makeover with the help of The John Jorgenson Bluegrass Band. And more! So, 20 fine handpicked tracks, showing once again the genre's elasticity in bringing these pop, rock, folk and reggae songs to life...

Yes, Yes...I Haven't Forgotten You

When the first part of this lil' project came out in May, I more or less isinuated that that wasn't the end of the story. Because, while I also insinuated - rightfully so, I'd say - that that album tells it's own story, it waasn't the end of the story. Knowing I could not fit all favorites of Yes on a single disc, YEsterdays was always conceived as a two-dis adventure. But as a sort of test balloon I sent out disc one as it's own thing, and now it's time to complete the mess adventure. 

If you remember, the original plan was an uninterrupted megamix with lots of linking sections taken fromlonger works, but halfway through I changed my mind. The linking sections remain, so you"ll have soe bits that don't sound like you might remember them. I also did some associations that seemed obvious to me, like pairing up one of Drama's highlights, "Tempus Fugit" with "Würm" [sic!], the ending section of "Starship Trooper" or ending with the last section of "Machine Messiah" fused to a reprise of "We Can Fly", which brings the YESterdays somewhat full circle - the first real track on volume one after the short prologue of "Vevey's Theme" was "We Can Fly", so circling back to it, albeit briefly, for the finale, seemed a neat idea. 

And of course  I might have edited some stuff out. I don't recall what or where in detail, but I can see that "Perpetual Change" lost about three minutes, and "Yours Is No Disgrace" about three minutes and a half, presumably of stuff I wasn't in love with. So, as usual: proceed at your on risk and peril. But you might to hear some of Yes' finest - according to ol' OBG, of course - in a new context or with new neighbours. There are a ton of classics present here, along with the aforementioned - "Siberian Khatru", "And You And I", "Turn Of The Century", "Yours Is No Disgrace", and more. I even found place for the proggiest of Trevor Rabin-era megaseller's 90125 proggiest and possibly best track, "Hearts". As usual, flow was importat to me, so again, here's hoping that for ypu this flows as nicely as it does for me.

And, well, that's it. That concludes this blog's adventures in Yes Land for now. So get ready for about an hour twenty of some of the best bits that Jon Anderson, Steve Howe, Chris Squire and the  rest of the crew have produced. Revel in some YESterdays, and then, as ever, it's off into the future. 

Here Come More Chartbusters, But Not The Ones You Expected...

 

The Chartbusters are back, but not the ones you're used to. Well, it is summer after all, so what sounds like summer, and also kind of sounds like something the One Buck Records would throw onto an unsuspecting public: Why, it's the Reggae Chartbusters, of course! Instead of some sweet Bluegrass, we're going to listen to some sweet Reggae, covering the last sixty years or so of popular music. 

Most of this series is based on the Vintage Reggae Café series from cheapo Argentine 'specialist' label Music Brokers that specialises in 'hits but played as reggae/jazz/easy listening/etc.' type compilations, with that Vintage Reggae Café series nonetheless reaching an impressive sixteen volumes. Now, what exactly is vintage about it is another question, one better not to ask. The other, also not great to ask: Who are all these people? Other than Pinky Dread I have never heard of any of the Vintage Reggae Café roster. They are essentially like the first years of CMH's Pickin On... bluegrass series, pure studio projects with a clear purpose, rather than real, organic bands finding purpose in their assigned cover albums, as was increasingly the case in that series, once Iron Horse got the ball rolling in that direction. The purpose is obviously 100% mercenary, but hey, who's to say you can't have fun with this.

Speaking of mercenary motives...

Fun in limited doses that is. There are a ton of their covers that don't work particularly well, so this series will not be like its sibling, the Bluegrass Chartbusters, which mushroomed into an XXL endeavor. This will be four volumes and not one more. One reason for that is also, that in these songs with their relatively samey rhythms, it's hard to find much particular artistry. I would argue that the Bluegrass Chartbusters often found real interesting things to do with the covers they did, whereas the Reggae Chartbusters are admittedly closer to pure novelty, albeit entertainingly so. These hand-picked covers are a ton of fun, whether it's United Rhythms Of Brazil and Shirley Adamson's covering "Walk Of Life", Reggister's covering "Girl's Just Wanna Have Fun" or Luca Giacco covering "Hotel California". 

To not make this an entirely Vintage Reggae Café affair, and for sentimental reasons, I added some other stuff. It would be cooler to say I first heard reggae by, say, Bob Marley or Peter Tosh or The Clash, but being a kid growing up with 80s mainstream radio the first reggae I heard was most likely including UB 40. (Other reggae hits I remember from when I was young are Musical Youth's "Pass The Koutchie Dutchie"  and Sophia George's "Girlie Girlie"). So UB 40 will grace these, helped out by Chrissie Hynde for their first appearannce here with "I Got You Babe". And I also included NYC's finest in terms of reggae covers, the Easy Star All-Stars, checking in with covers of Radiohead's "No Surprises" and the Beatles' "With A Little Help From My Friends". 

You know the M.O. already from the Bluegrass Chartbusters: 20 tracks, a cool flow, tons of fun to be had. So, get these and have fun...

 

Them Bluegrass Bands and Folks Would Like Your Attention Once More, Please...

Aaaand welcome everybody to Chartbusters week over here at One Buck Records which of course must kick off When last we checked in with with our beloved Bluegrass Chartbusters series - or probably the time before that - I talked about the massive expansion that took place in the meantime, when I was alerted to certain bands that might fit the format. After I had just weaved those bands (The Fly Birds and Della Mae) into existing volumes, I went on a crazy Bluegrass cover song search bender, searching high and low and ending up with something like eighty plus tracks as a haul. Now that's a lot of tracks, and certainly way too many to just try and weave into existing volumes by throwing out or pushing doiwn the line a couple of others. No, a more radiczl solution was needed. 

Seeing the massive number of tracks, I thought, that I'd better start from scratch and create a couple of entirely new comps that I would then weave in between existing ones, whcih is what I did. This is the first of three entirely newly compiled volumes that will show up in the following weeks and months, as I also want all regular contributors to have been introduced by the series halfway point. To keep continuity with the other volumes, I took a couple of tracks of series stalwarts like Love Canon or from the Pickin On...-crew of other volumes, but one side effect is still a rather huge influx of new faces and names into Bluegrass Chartbusters Vol. 13. 

Having already established most of the bluegrass bands trading in pop and rock covers, most of the new arrivals make their own original music, with the very occasional cover song thrown in for good measure. Such is the case of country/Americana veteran Darrell Scott, who doesn't necessarily do a lot of bluegrass, but got his String Band together for a fantastic take on "Southern Cross", which hereby becomes the first triplicate Bluegrass Chartbuster. Well, what can I say, I love the song, and I have yet to run into a Bluegrass cover I don't appreciate. The Darrell Scott String Band version is interesting as it's the only one with harmony singing, but instead of the close harmonies of the original, they are loose, shouty harmonies, really upping the back porch get together feel of the cover.  All this is to say: it's awesome. 

Also not strictly a bluegrass group, but occasionally dabbling in it: The Whiskey Brothers, opening things here with a simply wonderful cover of Van Morrison's "Brown-Eyed Girl". Also new to the series is the Grass Mountain Unit, a young quartet from Alabama, tht even has double representation on this whole volume. The group, with lead vocalist and mandolin player Drury Hammond tackle Johnny Cash's "Big River", while second-in-command Lucas Black with other bck up plays a superb cover of The Grateful Dead's "Deal". The Mountain Grass Unit will have their debut album out later this month, and are definitely on the rise, so check them out here first!

And the debuts just keep on coming: Just when I thought I had caught all 'play unexpected bluegrass covers for a living' type bands, here come the Grasslers, et ils vient de près de chez moi, plus ou moins. The Grasslers are coming from - careful, pun incoming - the Var Ouest as they like to say (so the south of France), with their covers landing just on the right side of reverence. Their debut in this series is a cover of "Dancing In The Dark". 

Fireside Collective usually play what they call GrooveGrass - with electric guitars and drums - and we'll have some of that on later volumes,  but here they debut with an acoustic take on Dylan's "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue". Also debuting but here to stay: The Hayde Bluegrass Orchestra, here helped out by Darling West, for "Gold Dust Woman". And finally, in the one-and-done category: The Stray Birds were an acoustic trio out of Lancaster, Pennsylvania - now also sadly defunct - leaving a beautiful version of Nancy Griffith's "I Wish It Would Rain" for our delectation. 

As if all these new folks were not enough, the old(-ish) crew also has some highlights lines up. AJ Lee, once again backed up by Blue Summit, has never sounded as soulful or sultry as on Southern soul classic "He Called Me Baby". Truly wonderful stuff. Plus more quality work from Iron Horse, Cornbread Red, Love Canon and others. I also really like what Kenny Blackwell and violinist Gabe Witcher do with their instrumental take on Neal Diamond's "Red Red Wine", turning the normally upbeat song into a surprisingly elegiac tune. That's one of the things I like about this series, still being able to wring something unexpected from the well-known and even the hoary. 

And that should do it for today, folks. Now load up those twenty tracks and have yourself a grand ol' time. Spoiler: Total keeper, this one...

Some Recent-Ish All Pearls, No Swine, For Your Delectation

All Pearls, No Swine might be slowing down, but this series is far from over, checking in with the third volumededicated to relatively recent music, meaning the last fifteen years and change. 

To get listeners' attention I put the hardest rocin' trak up front, with Dead Sara's bad-ass ass-kicker "Weatherman". If the lead singer's voice sounds vaguely familiar, that's because Emily Armstrong got a more high-profile gig recently, relacing deceased lead singer Chester Bennington in the reforùed Linkin Park. Dead Sara, the power trio with female guitar gunslinger Siouxsie Medley isn't dead, per se, but in a holding pattern since then. Funnily, there's a second track called "Weather Man" by German slow-pop outfit Someday Jacob, that reminds you a bit of The Czars. 

All Pearls, No Swine 42 consists for the most parts of tracks that I picked up here and there because I liked them, ranging fom r'n'b from Candian artist P. "Don't Call Me Philip" Bailey to brass-driven soul-rock from Cole Gallagher with "Sugarland" - yes, the Bruce Springsteen rarity that finally got its official release last year on Tracks II. There's slightly-artier-than-you-remember Counting Crows with comeback single "The Tal Grass" and crunchy power pop verging on punk rock from The Cry! with "Toys In The Attic" (not the Aeromsith song). There's reliable vets Wilso and the also ever-reliable Jason Isbell with the demo version of one of his greatest songs, "Elephant", and Kacey Musgraves with a cover of "Can't Help Galling In Love", done for that weird Baz Luhrmann Elvis movie a ouple of years ago. 

You will realize that there are a number of very short songs - Lucero's rootsy "Take Me Away", Jason Faklner's rock instrumental "The Perfect Crime" and the also instruenta little jazz excursion "Swan Dreams" by the Colin Steele Quartet. There are here for a purpose, since I knew that the closing track would run long. Really long. It's the "Terrapin Station (Suite)" track that Daniel Rossen and The National (among others) did for the massive Grateful Dead tribute Day Of The Dead compilation, and that didn't feature on my two-disc distillation. A perfect run-out groove that necessitated the inclusion of some short songs to fit under the - yes, still existing - 80 minute time limit. 

As you can see fro this write-up, there's aain a good number of different styles and genres on this compilation, as it should be. Something for everyone, hopefully. Also as usual: enjoy!

Ladies And Gentlemen, With A Lot Of Ado, Born In The U.S.A. Like You've Never Heard It Before

July has slipped away, but this blog's Born In The USA Appreciation Month has not. Think of it as a game at this year's football World Cup, with ridiculous stoppage time additions prolonging the fixed time limits by someties 20%. It's time to wrap the extravaganza up, and there was only one way to do it - with a completely rethought and re-arranged album called Born In The U.S.A. The subtitle A Musical Journey To Vietnam And Back already tells you that this isn't your youth's (or semi-youth's) Born In The USA, To be fair, until not too long, it wasn't mine either. The original One Buck Records Born In The USA was a simple alternate album with more of the 1983 solo material, worked around the original, downbeat version of the title song. 

But hey, you know, I can read the room, at least from time to time. Bruce's release of Tracks II with pretty much all of that material made my lil' alt album superfluous. I had snuck out Don't Back Down last year before that box set could steal my thunder, but that old version of my own Born In The USA simply wouldn't have brought muvh to the table. So back to the drawing board I went, and did I ever. It so happened that this was just after having made a deep dive into Brice's back catalogue again, and thinking about some of the pillars of his discography. Cars and girls, as that glib Prefab Sprout parody I hate has it, but you kno, the other stuff Dead end twons in insudtrial decline. And the big one - Vietnam. Bruce has returned to the topic of that war again ans again throughout his career - until it got replaced by more current wars, even if the sentiments stayed the same. But the Vietnam war had an outsized impact on Bruce Springsteen and his music that some people kind of handwave away, instead of acknowledging it as one of the major themes and settings of his work. 

Survivor's guilt is a real thing, even an indirect one, and Bruce Springsteen knows it and feels it - maybe not every day, but a lot of days. His opening rap from the big Live box set he brought out in 1985 about fighting with his dad that ended with him being rejected by the army and the understated 'punch line' of his dad simply saying 'that's good' has always stuck with me. As have the lines that Springsteen says that cut to the heart of Spirngsteen's experience of that war and its veterans: "There was a lot of guys going to Vietnam. And a lot of guys went, and a lot of guys didn't come back. And the ones that came back, weren't the same anymore.". Bruce and his friends didn't go, but ever since Bruce has wondered - in song, in writing, in onstage banter - about what that really means. He didn't go, but someone else went in his stead. What happened to that person? Did he go and not come back? Or come back and not be the same anymore? 

Springsteen has brought up how on a personal level the loss of young men going to Vietnam and not coming back, or coming back in a body bag, by evoking the fate of Bart Haynes, the drummer in his first band, The Catsiles, and that of Walter Cichon, lead singer for Jersey bar band The Motifs and a guy that his peers were sure was going to make it in rock'n'roll. "The Wall" - the latest song on this collection, recorded in the late 1990s after reuniting with the E-Streeters .

The vietnam war, like so many wars before and after -  came and ent, but one of its cruelest aspects is the memory that remains, a memory that continues to haunt Springsteen. The controversial production choices and ensuing common misperception of "Born In The U.S.A." have obscured how personal and important its observations and sentiments were on a personal level for Springsteen. People didn't listen closely at the time, as some will continue today, out of some weird anti-Springsteen Pavlovian dog-like  reflex. Millions bought the "Born In The U.S.A." single, but how many listened closely to its b-side "Shut Out The Light", another song about a Vietnam war vet coming home and not being the same anymore - it should have quelled any ambiguities about Bruce's stance right then and there.

 The a- and b-side of tha single spring from the same source, literally. Bruce demoed a song called "Vietnam" during the Nebraska demo sessions that he would rework until it essentially split into these two songs. Famously cribbing the title from a Paul Schader script to possible write music for - an implicit debt Springsteen repaid years later with the title song for "Light Of Day" - that became the new chorus for one song, with some of the other verses he was experimenting with turning into "Shut Out The Light". Te two existing demmos of "Vietnam" finally became the impetus for this radical variation of Born In The USA, not an album he could've brought out in the mid-80s, but an album that looks at Bruce's treatment of the Vietnam war in its entirety - from contemporaily commenting on it while the war as going on via two Steel Mill tracks from 1970 to the quiet rumination of "The Wall" almost thirty years later. 

You'll find that this is in no way 'authentic', so if that is what you"re looking for in musical offerings, you'll have to look elsewhere this time. I reworked most of the tracks, adding in things that weren't there and in some cases never supposed to be there - other music, sound effects, you name it. This Born In The U.S.A. is really supposed to be eperienced as its own thing, not a simple rummagging through Bruce's archive. Just to give you a quick idea: The "Prologue" consists of that aforementioned concert speech that was - somewhat incongruously attached to "The River", a song that notably neither talks about Bruce's relationship with his dad or the Vietnam War. It has gotten a new backing (bonus points if you identify what it is...). 

The first album side is built as the journey promised in the album's subtitle - with a three-part 'Born In The U.S.A. 'suite' that goes from the U.S. to Vietnam and back, supported by the two Steel Mill numbers from a concert in 1970. It consists of re-edited versions of "Vietnam" - to which I've added the "Born In The USA" chorus that shows up on only one of the versions (Part 3 is a hybrid of parts of both versions), as well as an excised verse from an early try of "Born In The USA" that details the Vietnam portion of the journey. Part 1 details the hometon troubles of our protagonist in Glendale and ends with him touching down in Vietnam, Part 2 has him trying to survive in the Vietnamese jungle, and Part  opens with his plane touching don back home, only for him to be completely alienated by the infifference of evryone aaround him. He's a long-gone daddy in the U.S.A now, even if Bruce hadn't found those words yet...

"We'll All Man The Guns" follows a soldier into the war who's echoing the slogans of his superior, wile hoping to get back to the girl he left at home - a well-worn scenario whose exceution is in the band obviously sneering at the sloganeering ("And we'll all man the guns for America / And we'll all run the enemy home). Speaking of sloganeering: Bruce and his SteelMill cohorts are not above that themselves, when they end "America Uner Fire" with a coda juxtaposing "America The Beautiful" with the theme of "The Micjeu Mouse Club". Subtle this is not, but then again, these were guys 20 year old. "America Under Fire" is the very first song in Springsteen's work that looks at vets coming home and feeling alienated, while society looks down on them, giving way to the later songs in that register. It also has a bit of a soul bent to it that is interesting. 

Side b opens with "Shut Out The Light", albeit not the 1984 b-side version (and I hated to lose Soozie Tyrell's first contribution to a Springsteen recording), but the 1983 demo version which has verses Bruce later excised for the b-side version, notably an ending that implies the vet will commit suicide by letting himself drown. a bummer ending to a bummer song, that Springsteen maybe felt was too much. From there we take another look at Vietnam War vets in "Brothers Under The Brifge", an outtake from The Ghost Of Tom Joad that finally showed up on Tracks (and Soozie Tyrell is finally here!), thus time about a group living as drop outs far from society in the Californian desert. From there we go back to "Born In The U.S.A", the original acoustic country-blues with the trademark Nebraska howls, From there, Bruce's unnamed narrator - but really a version of himself - visits "The Wall", the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington and reminisces about an old friend lost in the war - in true Bruce fashion, it's Billy yet again, but really he's talking about Walter Cichon. This late Nineties recording was finally isuued on High Hopes, the not very satisfying grab-bag of outtakes and redos, and will hopefully be appreciated better here. I have used the little keyboard figure of Bon In The USA" as a sort of leitmotiv throughout the album, so it would have seemed churlish and, worse, cowardly not to have that version of "Born In The U.S.A." on here, so it's next to wrap up the album with a short reprise of "we'll All Man The Guns" and another surprise that I think works well and contextualizes some of his choices, and then a little "Coda" I let you discover for yourself. 

I did a lot of work and spent a lot of time on this, so I hope some of the more doubtful as far as Bruce Springsteen is concerned will give this a shot. It really isn a Springsteen album that oves and sounds lile nothing else - a sort of meta-album on how Springsteen frames and contextualizes the Vietnam War in his songs. I think its interesting to compare the rawness of the first side - obvious for the Steel Mill tracks and for the work-in-progess early work on what would become "Born In The USA" with the more refined, subtle work on the pieces on the second side, especially "Brothers Under The Bridge" and "The all". Anyone who declares that Sprngsteen 'does the same old' and didn't evolve as a songwriter and storytelle should listen closely. 

When I say in the title that there was a lot of ado, that's because I knew this write-up ws going to run long, and it did. Nut, you know, sometimes there's a shit ton to say anout an album, and so few paragraphs to do it. So, now it's time to get into Born In The U.S.A. - the version you've never heard before.

Allez, Enfants De La Patrie De Tous Des Perles Et Aucun Cochon!

Bonjour chers amis de la France, pays des mangeurs des grénouilles et d'escargots et des fromage un moitié pouris...it is the national holiday here in France and this morning followed with a quarter eye the big-ass military parade through parisian Boulevards that the wife and kids watched on TV. The real national celebration will of course hopefully happen tonight, when the French national team beats Spain in the Football World Cup semifinal. I'm not the biggest fan of the squad, though family loyalty means I have to be rooting pour les bleus, but I certainly don't want to see the sneaky Spaniards squeek into the finals. I have yet to be impressed by that squad, other than the individual brillance of Lamine Yamal, who is as good as advertised, and see them underwhelmingly make round after round...the worst of course would be to have Spain meet Argentina, who have also squeeked through in even less impressive ways. They have basically played every game a little worse than the preceding one, yet somehow are two games away for the title. I might even have to swallow my usual discontent for the Brits - more aimed at their asshole fans than the team itself, they are the absolute dirt worst - and root for those guys to go to the title match. 

Wait a minute, you say, did I go to the right place? Since when has One Buck Records turned into a sports blog. It hasn't, of course, but I feel like chatting about this and that, because, well, this newest installment of All Pearl, No Swine has me with little to say. after having done forty of these suckers, you run out of useful things to say -  you know what these are and how they work. I could annotate some of the artists, but that would be relatively random, and if one of these songs makes you want to investigate the guilty party, you can hop on Google or Discogs and find out more for yourself. So I'll just talk a bit about why I compiled this volume as I did and then I'll be out of your hair and, uh, let the music do the talking...

You will find that there's little of the usual folk and country rock on this album - since I was compiling in the moment, I was in the mood for something a little funky, even in its mid-tempo songs, so this is a volume of All Pearls, No Swine that moves a lot more than some of its mellower siblings. For variety purposes we do get a belated return appearance of fey folkie James McCarthy - it's ok, James, no need to declare that you are "Born A Loser" - and of soft acoutic duo Joe And Bing (cf. the two sensitive gentelemen above). And since Bonnie Tyler just died a couple of days ago I thought it would be neat to have something from her on here as well, so I put "Hey Love (It's A Feeling)" on here. 

So, what else is going on around here? A bunch of midtempo groovers from folks like Redeye, Shawn Harris, Riverson, Carmen, and others. There's also a bit of a psychedelic bent to some of the songs here, whether ir's Dory Previn's ballad "The Game", Creme Soda's "Tonight" or Major Arcana's "Wsteren Wind". And did I mention crunchy guitars? Oh yes, ladies and gentlemen, we have crunchy guitars. Power-poppers Bram Tchaikowski set the tone with the opener "Lullaby On Broadway", we get the punk-ish "You're The Disease" from The Outcasts, Luke & The Apostles' gospel-ish "You Make Me High" gets high on electric guitars, and finally Kiwi prog rockers Ragnarok - having previously been compiled here on One Buck Records, and pictured below - show their roots as a bar band playing covers by bringing out a super-heavy version of Led Zep's "Whole Lotta Love" that brings things to an end in suitably thunderous fashion.

So, twenty underappreciated quality tracks from the 70s. You know what to do. 

 

My Bonnie Is Over The Ocean...

 ...well, so to speak. You know, that big-ass dark unknowable ocean that we all have to cross someday. Well, today was Bonnie's day. Gloria Gaynor a.k.a. Bonnie Tyler died yesterday. I knew she had been sick, and had just come out of a medially induced coma last week or so, so I figured she was doing a little better, but, uh, nope...another one of the old crew gone. And Bonnie Tyler was definitely someone I heard a ton on the radio when I was young. By that time, she was already - like her sister in roaring vocals, Tina Turner - in her MOR/AOR phase, which made her a perfect fit for my parents' preferred radio station, fitting in neatly amongst your Elton John and Rod Stewart and Bryan Adams. Her biggest smash, "Total Eclipse Of The Heart" was still played all over the radio, as were the old classics "It's A Heartache" and "Lost In France" and her frecent work  also got some air waves. 

Now, unlike for Tina - for whose comp I did serve up a number of MOR/AOR classics - I had compiled a pretty neat compilation of Tyler's early years, before the frivolous hairspray and equally frivolous production took over. There's no shame in liking that Bonnie Tyler - and I really do - but her early, grittier, earthier work deserves another look from a lot of people put off by the puffy hair, the cocaine-addled videos and the really mainstreamy production of the 80s. 

That's why you should check out Really Cool Antiques, if you didn't at the time. 20 early tracks before folks like Jim Steinman and *shudder* Dieter Bohlen got their hands on her. The two early classics, plus gritty takes on classics like "Living In The City", there's lots of stuff to like in here and remember our sweet Bonnie over the ocean... 

R.I.P. Gaynor "Bonnie Tyler" Hopkins

1961 - 2026

I Feel Like Ol' Michael Corleone And Here's Why...

 

"Just when I thought I was out - they pull me back in". 

Yup. I do feel like Michael Corleone being dragged back into the mafia life. Except here the Cosa Nostra is them Bluegrass Chartbusters. I mentioned in my write-ups that this series is in constant revision. I also said that with this ever-expanding series I was done setting somewhat artificial limits, but admit that secretly, I did. I thought I'd wrap up the series in 25 volumes, but had too much overflow at about 27 voumes and then said to myself 'there's no way we're gonna go beyond 30'. Thirty seemed like a total resonable number to go with, I figures if I come across three or four stragglers, I'll swap them in for a couple of numbers on the last volumes et voilà, my work is done. 

And then reader Kyra Dean pointed out in a comment on the last volume of the Bluegrass Chartbusters that two all-female bluegrass bands, The Fly Birds and Della mae, would possibly make fine additions to this series. Damn you Kyra ! Thank you Kyra! These are indeed excellent bands and they also have some very sweet cover versions, especially The Fly Birds. So both bands will obviously become regular contributors to this series, starting with their lovely cover of James Taylor's lovely "Sweet Baby James". 

But, of course there is not only enough overflow tracks now to go past thirty, this discovery brought out the hunter and gatherer in me once more. I don't know what it is especially about this series, but I'm like a freakin' shark having smelt a tinsel of blood in the water, now scoring the internet and the Youtube once more for cool bluegrass cover of popular rock and pop tunes. Happily I have found another batch of songs and bands /artists I missed the first time around, but of course this means that I have to rework the next, oh, twenty volumes of this series. Just when I thought I was out...

The tons of volues still to come also explains the relatively quick turnaround between volumes this time. And need I specifically point out that volume eleven has another excellent line-up of artists and songs lined up? I don't, but I will anyway! As the last volume before the re-make/re-model work begins, this one is still very much in the old school 'mostly CMH/Pickin On... artists with a growing number of other artists mixed in' mold. Pickin On...'s most popular band Iron Horse have a whooping four numbers here, including their epic take on "American Pie" as a run-out groove. The Sidekicks cover Jimmy Buffet for the firt time with "Son Of A Son Of A Sailor". Brad Davis makes us forget about Huey Lewis, or almost, with his take on "The Power Of Love". Cornbread Red are back with "Be My Yoko Ono" and "Sweet Emotion". 

As for the relative newcomers, Love Canon are back with great takes on "Everybody Wants To Rule The World" and "Danger Zone", The Infamous Stringdusters have an off-the-cuff version of The Killers' "When You Were Young" and Bourbon Revival cover another song ready-made for Bluegrass, Fleetwood Mac's "Landslide". Greensky Bluegrass, not in action since volume 8, check back in with a take on Dylan's "When I Paint My Masterpiece". And as for real newcomers, in a one-off we welcome Theo & Brenna and their wonderful take on The Ronettes' classic "Be My Baby".

As you can gather, another 20 song program full of great tunes, well-played and sung with the quality stamp approval of your truly. Have a quality hoedown with these, same as it ever was. 

I Am...I Said (No Neil, But Lots Of Other Diamonds)

 

I am The One Buck Guy.

I said that once I completed the next decade of All Pearls, No Swine, I would post an All Pearls, No Swine Megapack to permit people to pick up missing volumes, notably 31-34. 

Well, I Am...I Said...And here it is.  

Not to turn this into repost city, but a promise is a promise. And this I promise as well: I'll be back with new music shortly... 

Of Indians, Italians, Germans And Pirates: Terry Dolan's Later Adventures Revisited

Making a hackneyed joke about how all the Germans love the music of David Hasselhoff is akin to maing a joke about Nickelback being the bane of any real fan of rock music - there is some truth to it but boy, is that joke worn out. Oh, also: Did you lnow that Germans love The Hooters more than almost anyone else? And, since you've read the title and checked the artwork, you'll probably know where this is leading. One country loved the best bar band ever - or at least the most accomplished bar band ever - more than any other country, although Italy fought them really hard/ Why it's ze Germans, of course. You might or will hopefully remember Terry Dolan from making one of the all-time great one-offs (or rather none-off, but that's another matter) with his shelved self-titled debut. Having given up on a solo career, Terry Dolan formed Terry & The Pirates, a.k.a. the best bar band ever. 

Led instrumentally, as Terry Dolan originally had been, by the twin-guitar attack of Greg Douglass and John Cipollina, Terry & The Pirates became a local legend in the Bay Area and consistently drawing in its musicians. But being a great bar band with a really good songwriter like Dolan and a guitar player extraordinaire like John Cippolina didn't mean that the record comapny industry had a use for an aging (urban) legend like Dolan, and his merry band of pirates. They could fill the local bars and watering holes around, but despite Cippolina's somewhat legendary West Coast status and Dolan's proof of talent, they couldn't get a record company to bite on them, after Warner Brothers ditched Dolan. Enter ze Germans. Though to be fair, and chronologically correct, entra en scena: gli Italiani. 

Now that's some pirate crew ya got there, Terry...

Why exactly Germans and Italians latched onto Dolan's good-natured Westcoast rock, while the band couldn't make an impression anywhere else, is a mystery. But Italy and Germany it was to get Terry & The Pirates a forum. The Italians were first with a live album (1979's Too Close For Comfort), but to bring out an honest-to-goodness studio album, Terry & The Pirates had to cross the Rubicon Rhine. Their 1980 debut The Doubtful Handshake and 1981 follow-up Wind Dancer were only issued in Germany, 1982's Rising Of The Moon was at least also issued in Italy a year later. Given their popularity in Germany, it's not surprising that the band was flown over for a very short visit in the same year, but long enough to show up on Germany's legendary Rockpalast concert series, that were televised.    

I mentioned this towards the end of my write-up on Terry Dolan's classic that never was, that his music career didn't end there, and that I might look at his later career a little further on. Well, the time is now. Native American Trilogy is inspired by the artwork of those three albums - as well as the content of a number of songs - and compiles the best moments of those records, which for all intent and purpose are the only records the band did during the Eighties, arguably their high-time as a performing outfit. By the time of Rise Of The Moon, the band had shed their late 70s West Coast rock sound for a typical 80s production, ultrasynthetic and booming-sounding. That's why the title song of that album is here in a nicer, tougher-sounding live version from that Rockpalast concert, together with an instrumental Cippolina showcase called "Cobra". 

Notice ze German-speaking sticker on ze album cover, ja?!

As for the songs, most of them are good old fashioned rock songs, some with a country feel, like the ballad "Montana Eyes" that he cut two times across these three albums, and both versions are equally good, so I kept both. Also on board of this pirate ship is the first issued studio version of Dolan's classic "Inlaws And Outlaws", that had been in his repertoire for the past seven years or so, before making its debut on Too Close For Comfort and, in a muscular version, its studio album debut on The Doubtful Handshake. While not earth-shaking or suer-innovative, these are very fine songs that deserved to be heard by more people than just ze Germans et gli Italiani. 

And now of course you can be some of the lucky non-German and non-Italian folks listening to more Dolan, as we all should. 

P.S. For more John Cipollina, check out Jim Murray's The Ladies Man, if you haven't already... 

Hey There Bubba, Get Yer Fiddle, Time For Another One Of These...

X To The B To The G To The C, y'all! Word! Oh, uh, I'm sorry, wrong genre. Howdy y'all, my fellow musical country bumpkins and Bluegrass lovers - it is indeed the time of X, as in, the tenth volume of our Bluegrass Chartbusters series. That would be a neat achievement for many a series, but as I hinted at before, for this particular series it's fair to say that we've only just begone... 

Nothing new 'round these parts in terms of what you'd expect and what you'd get: another set of twenty handpicked covers of yesteryear's chart entries, as brought to you by the same fine batch of musicians that populated the first nine volumes. We sadly say goodbye to the long-defunct Grass Cats, who leave this series with a very fine rendition of Bill Withers' "Ain't No Sunshine". And we say hello to a new band of contributors, the ominously named Grassmasters.

Bye Bye Cats, it's been god knowin' ya!

Grassmasters sems to have been the short-term rival project of the cheapo comp and lapsed copyright release specialist Synergy Entertainment for the subgenre's undisputed king, CMH's Pickin On...-series. They brought out three dozen albums between 2004 and 2010, with most of them cmoing out in 2005 and 2006, or around the prime of the Bluegrass cover album genre, probably to compete with the Pickin' on offerings. And while CMH was using this boom period to branch out into a ton of less conventional artists and genres, The Grassmasters stayed with the classics, covering Dylan, Clapton, Aerosmith, Johnny Cash, The Grateful Dead, Fleetwood Mac and Elvis. The latter's "Heartbreak Hotel" is included here as their introduction to the series. Most of their work is instrumental, though they would occasionally add vocals to some selections and we will see them again a number of times. 

Lots of good stuff covering artists we haven't had on the series before: Jackson Browne! Poison! Daft Punk! The Raconteurs! Urge Overkill! The Dream Academy! My personal fave from this collection is Love Canon's wonderful take on Bruce Hornsby's "Just The Way It Is", which for me brings out the emotional nuances of the song better than the original. I'm also quite taken by Steve'n'Seagulls' take on AC/DC's "You Shook Me All Night Long", which captures the song's ridiculou single entendre's perfectly. And long-time reliable series contributors The Petersens, mainly working in the ballad section, surprise with a groovy take on Alain Toussault's "Southern Nights" (made famous by Glen Campbell, of course) in which Julianne Peterson really let's the Southern drawl shine through. For, you know, that extra Southern feeling. 

So, folks, throw this on for another smokin' good time with them Bluegrass Chartbusters, as ever, only and exclusively brought to you by One Buck Records and the One Buck Guy...

Get Into The Spirit Of Spirit...Once Again

Someone asked, the One Buck Guy delivers. In spades. Indeed, all original Spirit links are dead, as these have been around for a while. Short reminder: You want a re-up, just ask for it, as 'Unknown' did. Now, if he had given himself a nickname to sign his message, in the name of convivility, that would have been even better, but we're off to a good start. So, here's the sprited Spirit Five Pack,

including

- the reimagined one album version of sprawling double whopper Spirit Of '76, one of this blog's first 'classics' which you can find more about here.   

- the Spirit Of The Seventies comp that compiles the rest of the worthwhile 1970s Spirit material post-Sardonicus into much more listenable form, with more info over here. 

- Radio Aqua Blue, the power quartet albumm that Spirit could have brought out in 1979 during a lean period in Spirit land (which, by now you have guessed, you can read about more here).  

- Possible follow-up Rock Of Ages, featuring lots of guitar power from the once again power trio (I don't post a link since the write-up is really short and relatively inconsequential). 

and finally

- the Spirit of The Eighties comp that compiles the band's uneven 1980s material into a very listenable compilation, that I talk about here.

The words, wit and wisdom of the One Buck Guy (ahem...) are over there, the music will be right here. 

Hours of heavy rock'n'roll, beautiful ballads and endearing oddities from Randy California and his ever-changing - except step dad Ed Cassidy of course - line-up of sidemen.

This is your chance, folks, get into the Spirit of Spirit once again...

Summer's Just Around The Bend - And I Got The Music For It...

I guess four CDs are not that much in the grand scheme of things, especially the grand scheme of my music collection, which should be somewhere north of 2.500 physical albums. But if someone would read along the labels of albums and go by 'R', they would say, hey this guy really likes Rascal Flatts. Which I kind of do, although I'm not some sort of super fan. I actually came into the posession of these four discs by happenstance. There was a used & new music store in the Paris city centre which I usually visited twice per year. Yes, you guessed it, during les soldes, the special sales weeks that are coming up next week I believe. That music store had this back room full of CDs that they really wanted to get rid of, and they really wanted to get rid of them during les soldes, so the deal was 'empty out these racks of crap, and to make sure you'll do, you'll get 15 CDs for ten bucks'. Which, for year, I happily obliged. These 15 CDs would often break down in about 3-4 that you would genuinely be happy to have 5-6 from artists that you'd know and might like and about 5 free agent/take a flyer albums that you took to make up the count. 

It's been a couple of years, but during my - by that time probably only annual - visit, four of Rascal Flatts' albums fell in my hand during the 15 for 10 hunt. I had only heard the name, might've heard "Bop That Head" exactly once on the radio and knew that they were broadly classified as country music. So in the bag with those four! Clearly, the music store had drastically overestimated the Parisians' hunger for friendly coutry pop as clearly these discs were brand new. I guess the store had just quietly emptied out their Rascal Flatts section and moved these discs into the dreaded backroom purgatory, where Cds don't go to die, but to linger undead around for years. But no more! One Buck Guy to the rescue! 

Having brought my big-ass plastic bags of treasures home - there was the same deal for DVDs, so I normally arrived with fifteen new CDs and fifteen new DVDs, much to the wife's happiness, no doubt - how to proceed with this band I somewhat barely knew. So I went with the chronological approach, taking the oldest disc, Feels Like Today. A mistake, as it was the worst of the four albums, by quite a bit, full of sappy ballads and not much else of interest. But things got better, once we hit Me And My Gang, Still Feels Good and Nothing Like This. Here's the thing about Rascal Flatts' music: It's not great music and it's not very profound. But it is fun, especially if you weed out all those sappy ballads, which was the trigger for today's One Buck record of the day. 

Summer's Just Around The Bend - it's title taken from aline in kick-ass opener "Red Camaro" - is named as such, because that's what Rascal Flatts' midtempo and uptempo evokes: Rolling in a car with the windows down, fighting off the heat that comes right between the end of spring and the beginning of summer. There's tons of things Rascal Flatts' music is not good for - philosophizing for one thing - but this is great driving music. If only I could still have a car that accepts, you know, physical bearers of musical gifts. Not in the wife's Muskmobile, of course! Originally it was about fourteen tracks as a sort of best of of those four discs, but then I decided to go the whole hog, dropping two sappy-is numbers and filling it up with fun and uptempo numbers from throughout the band's career. 

They're rednecks and male models all in one - they're reddels. Oh, they also make some music...

There's a reason why Rascal Flatts' music got better and more immediate with Me And My Gang, and that reason is named Dann Huff. The long-standing Nashville producer and former member of AOR/hard rock band Giant. It's obvious what Huff brings to the table: more guitars, more stadium-ready choruses, a lot more punch to the proceedings. Also included is "Backwards", one of the rare 'country humor' songs that I really like, and that are funny - the yodeling honky tonk intro that makes Gary LeVox sound like Garth Brooks giving way to a frenetic rock-based list of all the things that you get back, when you play a country record backwards. Fun stuff! And then I made room for exactly one (1) sappy ballad, their cover of Marcus Hummond's classic  "Blesss The Broken Road" which is a wondeeful song, and as the closing number I'll allow it. 

I haven't had time yet to make fun of the dudes' names. Gary LeVox and Jay Demarcus can at least claim royal lineage or Cajun kin or something with those names, but how great of a redneck name is Joe Don Rooney? His parents were seemingly big fans of Walking Tall, which makes it even better and more Redneck-y! At least they didn't name him Buford! This willl almost certainly be the only Rascal Flatts album around here, so allow me to make some good-natured fun of Joe Don while I can! 

Oooh, moody, baby!

Anyway, let's cut the chit chat, and the mockery of poor Joe Don (...on second thought, let's not), and get down to business. Twenty Rascal Flatts tracks, one great comp to roll down the highways (or, you know, your diveway) and feel the sounds of the summer...