Breaking Blues

I was originally planning to do the 80th b'day of flugelhorn flogger Chuck Mangione today, but I didn't feel the 1973 show I had was up to snuff soundwise. Then energies shifted elsewhere.

For it's also the 87th birthday -- seniority, you know -- of another legendary figure, and one who nearly six decades ago helped get the ball rolling on a very fertile period in the music of our age.

That he is still alive at his advanced age, and still carrying the torch for the music, makes it all the sweeter.

They called it the British Blues Boom back then, and it unleashed a great deal of the music everyone worships for the last 50 years from Eric Clapton to Fleetwood Mac and back again.

Why this happened this way has been the subject of dozens of books and films.

They're still wondering, why? How did The Blues -- the indigenous, articulated suffering song of an oppressed minority in a faraway land -- cross the pond and get adopted, recapitulated and repurposed by white, well-off kids in the UK?

The answers to those questions are probably more detailed than a single post here could cover.

Our 87th birthday guy sure helped ask the questions, anyway. The list of luminaries that have passed through his band is so extensive, it reads like a Hall Of Fame in and of itself.

So yeah, yesterday I dug out my John Mayall folder and went diggin'.

Originally I had intended just to share a single set from the Fillmore East from 50 years ago.

However, as soon as I went down the rabbit hole, things got a little crazy. But it's a good folder, you know?

I think it was the late, great Daniel Johnston who said that he leaned towards the excessive... but that's just how it is when you're a manic depressive. So here's four hours of the best live Bluesbreakers -- featuring three of his best bands -- that be.

John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers
NYC 70 + Gothenburg 72

i.

Fillmore East

New York City, NY USA

3.15.1970

01 "Casablanca" intro/band introductions

02 Train I Ride

03 Can't Be Wrong for Long

04 The Laws Must Change

05 Be with You Tonight

06 Jumping At Shadows

07 Move, Baby, Move jam

Total time: 57:34

John Mayall – vocals, keyboards, harmonica & guitar

Jon Mark – guitar

Alex Dmochowski  – bass

Johnny Almond – tenor saxophone & flute

Duster Bennett – harmonica, guitar & drums

48k soundboard master reel from the collection of David Gans, transferred by Charlie Miller and edited/mastered by SIRMick

converted to CD Audio 16/44 by EN, November 2020

216 MB FLAC/November 2020 archive link

ii.

Fillmore East

New York City, NY USA

10.10.1970

early set

01 You Must Be Crazy

02 Deep Blue Sea

03 My Pretty Girl

04 Someday Baby (You'll Be Sorry) 

05 Possessive Emotions

06 Nature's Disappearing

07 encore break

08 We Get Along (Nobody Treats Me Like You Do)

late set

01 introduction by John Mayall

02 Deep Blue Sea

03 Going Out Walking

04 Took the Car

05 Off the Road

06 Why (Do You Treat Me So Mean)?

07 Possessive Emotions

08 encore break

09 My Pretty Girl

Total time: 1:55:27

John Mayall - vocals, keyboards, harmonica & guitar

Harvey Mandel - guitar

Larry Taylor - bass

48k soundboard master reel from the collection of David Gans, transferred by Charlie Miller and edited/mastered by SIRMick

converted to CD Audio 16/44 -- with the first 90 seconds of the early set repaired/restored from existing bits -- by EN, November 2020

589 MB FLAC here

iii.

Konserthuset

Gothenburg, Sweden

4.12.1972

 

01 Driving Dangerously   

02 Mess Around

03 Good Time Boogie/That’s Alright for You

04 Times Are Getting Tougher 

05 I Wish I Could Understand/Baby, What Do You Have to Lose 

06 Dry Throat 

Total time: 1:08:28

John Mayall - vocals, harmonica, keyboards & guitar

Freddie Robinson - guitar & vocals

Blue Mitchell - trumpet & flugelhorn

Clifford Solomon - tenor saxophone

Victor Gaskin - bass

Keef Hartley - drums

master cassette of an indeterminate FM broadcast from Swedish radio

transferred and remastered by 38f

track markers modified and FM announcer removed by EN, November 2020

460 MB FLAC here

I repaired the beginning of the October 1970 Fillmore show from existing materials, and I'd dare say I did a real tasty job on it too. Tell me how you liked it.

This will do it for me for November, and now it's time to figure out December and wrap up this insane, mega-challenging year.

Don't miss out on this exquisitely unissued triple play of our birthday Blues Maestro, though! It's gonna give you all the room to move!--J.

Post Punksgiving: Sixty Second Sight

We'll slip this in to start the weekend festivittles off on the correct leftover leg.

This crackling 41 minutes of Punk Jazz mayhem was delivered 38 years ago today and has lost fully none of its punch.

The leader of this group -- which likely would have broken through to greater success had he not died in 1985 in a car wreck -- passed away 35 years ago next month.

Their bass player picked up the pieces and went on to form a seminal band of his own, and thankfully he is still a force in music.

They are typically thought of as one of the screamingest Punk bands of the 1980s, but IMO they were too competent on their instruments and too stylistically diverse to just be mere punks for Punk's sake.

What's funny to me about them is how they bend time, managing to cram so much material into their barely-a-minute-long tunes.

It again goes back to their guitar player and leader, and his uncanny ability to sound like Wayne Kramer and James "Blood" Ulmer in the same song.

They also funked hard, and with intention.

Yes, these Minutemen marched into many's the battle, and came out victorious.

This set, taped at KPFK-FM's old midnight live concert series in the early Eighties, is as highly representative of their aesthetic ethos as any you're gonna come across. And the radio folk did a stellar job of capturing it on the fly as well.

Minutemen

Studio Z

KPFK-FM

Los Angeles, California USA

11.27.1982

01 opening jam

02 The Process

03 Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love

04 Sell Or Be Sold

05 Mutiny In Jonestown

06 Life As a Rehearsal

07 Beacon Sighted Through Fog

08 The Tin Roof

09 The Only Minority

10 Faith

11 Black Sheep

12 Cut

13 Joy

14 More Joy

15 Pure Joy

16 Joy Jam (with Spot)

17 Fake Contest

18 Sickles and Hammers

19 Polarity

20 Split Red

21 The Maze

22 Plight

23 One Chapter In the Book

24 encore applause

25 The Anchor

26 Paranoid Chant

27 KPFK-FM outro by DJ Andrea 'Enthal

Total time: 41:37

Dennes Dale "D." Boon - guitar & vocals

George Hurley - drums

Mike Watt - bass & vocals

Spot - clarinet

master cassette of the original KPFK-FM broadcast

286 MB FLAC/November 2020 archive link

I will return Sunday to finish this month off with something maybe a little bit more traditionally in line with this page. So look out for some vile Jazz snobbery, coming soon.

Don't sleep on this blistering show though.... it only takes a minute, y'all!--J.

                                                                 4.1.1958 - 12.22.1985

Punksgiving: Slits It!

We're back with some holiday fare, and a welcome and necessary antidote to my Sausage Fest of a page.

A few days ago I warned you all about this wild THTP archive series, with all these Punk, Postpunk and New Wave shows that have never seen the light of day until now.

This installment of Punksgiving comes straight from that, and oh my word is it a motherfucker.

Everybody thinks of The Runaways as the first all-female group of this period, but they had competition on the other side of the pond.

A little bit like The Clash -- they became famous by opening for them in the mid 1970s UK Punk explosion -- they started out barely able to play and then got good enough to sort of graduate from Gob University into other styles like Reggae and Dub. All whilst retaining their visceral edge and commitment.

They just don't make music or bands like this anymore; these ladies would not get past the reception desk these days.

No matter, because there was once an era where this sort of thing wasn't just welcome, it was encouraged.

I dunno about you, but I'm ready for those sort of times to revolve back again, any time they're ready.

What's perhaps the most awesome part of this tale is that The Slits -- a band as stylistically fresh and diverse as any of the classic Punk era, but who got "the shaft" in terms of wider recognition due to their non-possession of male genitalia -- still get out and play, where these Quarantine Times will allow.

They had an official vinyl bootleg from this tour, that was taped a few days before at The Stone in SF, but it's never been reissued since 1980. And honestly this tape, captured 40 years to this very day at another legendary Bay Area punk palace, sounds about 40 million times better, recorded as it was by the Superman of that scene, engineer Terry Hammer.

The story has it that he offered them these recordings to form the basis of their live record, but they turned him down and put out the crappier-sounding one to retain their Punk, D.I.Y. cred.

The Slits

Rat's Palace

San Francisco, CA

11.25.1980

01 New Town

02 Walkabout

03 Man Next Door

04 Life On Earth

05 I Heard It Through the Grapevine

06 Face Place

07 Fade Away

08 Typical Girls

09 Animal Spaces

10 In the Beginning There Was Rhythm

11 Or What It Is

12 I Heard It Through the Grapevine/Instant Hit

Total time: 1:12:56

Ari Up (Ariane Forster) - vocals & percussion

Viv Albertine - guitar & vocals

Tessa Pollitt - bass & vocals

Bruce Smith – drums & percussion

Steve Beresford - keyboards, melodica, trumpet, trombone, electronics & percussion

master reels of a multichannel matrix of soundboard and audience mics, engineered and recorded by Terry Hammer; 

#123 in the THTP series

Tracks 11 & 12 recorded at The Keystone, Berkeley CA 11.23.1980 with the same gear by Terry Hammer; from #122 in the THTP series

converted to CD Audio 16/44 from DAT 16/48, duplicate applause at end of Track 03 removed, 

track markers adjusted and bonus tracks added by EN, November 2020

387 MB FLAC/November 2020 archive link

This tape illustrates, with attitude to spare, what made these women the force to be reckoned with that they so manifestly were.

I took the liberty of adding a couple of bonus cuts, recorded two days previous at The Keystone in Berkeley and also captured by Terry Hammer, because why not? That way, you get the full 73-minute assault.

I may be back in a minute with more, but I'm not sure yet... but don't let that deter you from slicing open this package of Slits and letting this turkey spice up your Punksgiving revelry!--J.

From Here to Fraternity

We'll end the consecutive trifecta, and begin the weekend, with a tale of brotherly love and collaboration spanning decades.

These two siblings have been at it for a long, long time, both together and apart.

All told, they've led, co-led and sessioned on too many LPs to count.

I found their music from being a huge Fusion fan, with their propensity to turn up in that context early and often.

The younger plays piano and keys, the elder clarinet.

Joachim and Rolf Kühn have been recording and gigging since the 1960s, and it gives me great pleasure to report that they still are.

I've been meaning to cover them for the whole seven years I've been at this, and today provides a sweet 47th anniversary show to do just that.

Rolf & Joachim Kühn Septet

NDR Jazzworkshop No. 95

Studio 10, Grosser Sendesaal des NDR Funkhauses

Hamburg, Germany 

11.20.1973

01 Do Dat Dudek

02 Palle's Tune

03 Paris '73

04 German Country

05 Things Are What They Used to Be

06 Spider's Dance

Total time: 1:29:12

disc break goes after Track 03

Rolf Kühn - clarinet

Joachim Kühn - keyboards & synthesizer

Randy Brecker - trumpet

Toto Blanke - guitar

Palle Danielsson - bass

Edward Vesala - drums

Kasper Winding - percussion

spectral analysis seems to indicate a pre-broadcast source, but there's a line at 20k so it must be a superb off-air reel

Track 05 comes from a recent partial WDR digital FM rebroadcast

580 MB FLAC/November 2020 archive link

This constitutes the complete 90 minute set, composited from two different, awesome-quality broadcasts.

I shall return next week to baste you turkeys with a trifecta for Punksgiving, starting next Wednesday, but don't miss out on the brothers Kühn here.... there's an hour-an-a-half of funky fraternization on tap!--J.