From the Vaults

Will Geer: Reading Woody Guthrie (1947)

2 Apr 2012 | 1 min read

Will Geer (born William Ghere) enjoyed quite a remarkable acting career but was perhaps best, and possibly only, known by many for his role as Grandpa in the popular television series The Waltons. When he died in '78 his passing was written into the series -- and only when the tributes flowed and the obituaries were written did many fans of that show realise the kindly old actor was gay,... > Read more

Unknown: A Teen Talks/Count Your Blessings (1965)

30 Mar 2012 | 1 min read

Even in these days of cheap downloads you'd still say $1.50 for 13 pieces of music and a spoken word track is kinda cheap. Possibly even good value . . . until you play the Teen to Teen Around the World album put out on the Word label from Illinois. According to the liner notes, the Youth for Christ organisation would send out groups of American teenagers ("each including half a dozen... > Read more

Noel Coward: Mad Dogs and Englishmen (1932)

28 Mar 2012 | <1 min read

Ahhh . . . because we can? Noel Coward (1899-1973) stamped his personality on an almost forgotten era and he was a polymath who whose work spanned theatre (as an actor and playwright) as well as being a witty songwriter whose lyrics were was often identifiable by their rapier wit. His songs however were usually so singular that few could convincingly cover them. And so it is to Coward... > Read more

Fatal Jelly Space: Moonlit Track (1990)

27 Mar 2012 | <1 min read | 4

Although they had a band name which wouldn't have disgraced a prog-rock outfit of the Seventies, Auckland's Fatal Jelly Space were rather far removed from lengthy noodling. They were an all-woman five-piece co-fronted by the wonderful Frankie who -- although tattooed and with a shaven head -- was far from a ferocious personality off-stage. But they delivered an abrasive confrontation... > Read more

Louise Attaque: L'imposture (1997)

26 Mar 2012 | 1 min read

Louise Attaque were, for about five years from 1996, one of the most popular bands in France. Their self-titled debut album of '97 was widely hailed and went on to sell almost three million copies, which was an extraordinary figure in the French rock scene at the time. With violin, a folk-rock drive and wry lyrics, they appealed to people who had perhaps grown up on the Clash and post-punk,... > Read more

The Last Poets: When the Revolution Comes (1970)

21 Mar 2012 | 1 min read

In the wake of the killing of Martin Luther King and the rise of Black Power politics, the ghettos were in flames. It was inevitable that music -- and in this case street poetry coupled with Afro-roots music -- should reflect, and even drive, the times. The Last Poets were mad as hell and not going to take it: and they were mad as hell about complacent blacks as much as the oppressive white... > Read more

Ringo Starr: Elizabeth Reigns (2002)

13 Mar 2012 | 1 min read

Right now Britain is gearing up for the 60th anniversary of the reign of Queen Elizabeth II which will be celebrated on June 2 with appearances by the great Sirs of her time . . . no. not Churchill et al but McCartney and Elton. Getting in with the mood early was Ringo -- who signs off here with "Well, there goes the knighthood" -- and this track from his 2002 album Ringo Rama,... > Read more

David Bowie: It's Hard to be a Saint in the City (1975)

12 Mar 2012 | 1 min read

Bruce Springsteen's song It's Hard to be a Saint in the City holds a very important place in his history. It was one of the songs he played at an audition for John Hammond at CBS which got him his recording contract, and before that it was the song that Mike Appel was so impressed by that he quit the day job to become Springsteen's manager. Springsteen has always had an affection for it... > Read more

Death Trash: Death Trash Rock and Roll (1988)

8 Mar 2012 | 1 min read | 3

For their 1988 album The 10000 RPM Groove Orgy, the band Death Trash didn't hide their ethic. Tracks include Liquor Whore, Sexbeast, Now I Wanna Make Some Noise, Mind Trashed and Loaded, True and Wild, and Death Trash Rock and Roll. We get the picture . . . .and if somehow you didn't then the album was "dedicated to the disciples of sleaze everywhere". Recorded in... > Read more

The Bassline Boys: Warbeat; Germany Calling (1989)

6 Mar 2012 | <1 min read

Odd what turns up in a record collection left in my care. While moving a few boxes of old vinyl I found a swag of stuff my oldest son had left behind when he lit out for Over Seas. He has strange and eclectic taste. A Joey Travolta album alongside obscure Elvis, David Hasselhoff recorded in Auckland, classical albums, Thriller, BBC sound effects records . . . And this album which is a... > Read more

Jesus and Mary Chain: Surfin' USA (1988)

2 Mar 2012 | <1 min read

Because it's hard to imagine William and Jim Reid from Glasgow would be enthusiastic surfers, we have to guess they chose to cover Brian Wilson's classic song for other reasons, like irony . . . or perhaps just because it was simple and they could imprint it with their aural fingerprint. This version turned up on their album Barbed Wire Kisses which was a collection of B-sides and other... > Read more

Bob Dylan: TV Talkin' Song (1990)

1 Mar 2012 | <1 min read | 1

You can -- and people do -- fill page after page banging on about the genius of Bob Dylan. But the man has also been responsible for some real stinkers, especially in the Eighties. Perhaps his nadir was the album Under The Red Sky which featured Slash, David Lindley, George Harrison and many other luminaries. None of whom could salvage material as weak as Wiggle Wiggle, which Dylan... > Read more

Nick Smith: Requiem (1985)

27 Feb 2012 | 1 min read | 1

Behind all the big names on the Flying Nun label -- the Bats, Chills, Verlaines, Chris Knox et al -- were a large number of artists who made fleeting flights, but don't deserve to be forgotten. Those who were there at the time hold special affection for the likes of Fatal Jelly Space, Marie and the Atom, Lee Harvey, the here'n'gone Stephen and Cake Kitchen, and . . . And lest we forget,... > Read more

Sonny Boy Williamson I: Good Morning Little School Girl (1937)

24 Feb 2012 | <1 min read

When the Yardbirds covered yet another variation of this old blues song in 1964, first committed to record by harmonica player Sonny Boy Williamson, it almost seemed . . . innocent? After all, at the time, British bands were "pulling the birds" and even in A Hard Days Night of the same year the model Pattie Boyd (soon to become Mrs George Harrison - then Mrs Clapton etc) and her... > Read more

Allen Ginsberg: Green Automobile (1953)

21 Feb 2012 | <1 min read

Although there is a decent reading of this poem on the Ginsberg box set Holy Soul Jelly Roll; Poems and Songs 1949 - 1993, this rather poorly captured version is much more affecting and, in its closing passages, considerably more sad. Addressed to his friend Neal Cassady and mythologising him in much the same way as Jack Kerouac had (as Dean Moriarty in On the Road), it is Ginsberg... > Read more

Cowboy Junkies: State Trooper (1986)

16 Feb 2012 | 1 min read

When the world started becoming very noisy around the time of grunge, the Cowboy Junkies out of Canada had the oldest trick in any public speaker's book. When everyone else is shouting, you speak quietly and people will stop to try and hear what you are saying. The Cowboy Junkies' Trinity Sessions album -- recorded cheaply in a church -- was a whispery and atmospherically airy collection... > Read more

Townes Van Zandt: Rake (1969)

13 Feb 2012 | 1 min read | 1

Few of Townes van Zandt's dedicated followers would know that he once played Carnegie Hall in New York, an unlikely venue for a man who later had a reputation as a difficult, morose and poetically gifted singer-songwriter with multiple dependencies. But at 25 in late '69 he was on a bill at Carnegie Hall with a rock band called Mandrake Memorial and comedian Dick Gregory. Van Zandt had... > Read more

Chad Morgan: The Psychiatrist's Joy from Kingaroy (1960?)

10 Feb 2012 | 1 min read

As I write this, it is highly likely that the great Australian singer-songwriter Chad Morgan -- aka the Sheik of Scrubby Creek, named after one of his most popular songs -- is probably out on the road somewhere. As Tex Perkins said last year of Morgan, a doco about whom he narrated, “Chad's never really been embraced by the country scene but it doesn't do him justice to call him a... > Read more

Straitjacket Fits: So Long Marianne (1990)

8 Feb 2012 | <1 min read | 3

With Leonard Cohen much on our mind again with his new album Old Ideas, it was time to go to the vaults to find this version of his classic, as done by New Zealand's Straijacket Fits. This treatment appeared on their Hail album (and was on the flipside of the Hail 12"), and was the line-up which many considered the most musically interesting, with guitarist-singer-writer Andrew Brough... > Read more

Fats Waller: My Very Good Friend the Milkman Said (1935)

8 Feb 2012 | 1 min read

Paul McCartney covers this old Waller song on his album Kisses on the Bottom where he goes back to songs he knew fondly in his childhood (and isn't the first Beatle to do so, Ringo did a collection "for his mum" with his album Sentimental Journey in 1970). But here is Waller, a man whose career was cut tragically short when he died in '43 at 39. But then he did rather push... > Read more