A not-so-sunny Sunday brings us edition 62 of Wild Weekend, which this time around features two brand new acts, a reggae classic complete with mondegreen, and a lost lofi Dutchman to boot. Is that wild or what?
Gonna start with the gorgeous Bettye LaVette though, as I just bought a much recommended collection of the soul diva's late sixties Memphis recordings with the Dixie Flyers. Thirteen songs and not a dud between them, with
We Got To Slip Around my current fave. "You've got another woman, and I've got another man..." To think it wasn't even released at the time, because the version by its author Charles Hodges utilized the same backing track. Roots reggae up next. A good friend asked me recently if I was familiar with Max Romeo's
War Ina Babylon album. The answer was a clear yes of course, as I've treasured that Lee Perry produced classic more or less since it came out in the year of our Jah 1976. This pal also told me that when he was young, he always thought Maxi sang "I'm gonna put on an
Ajax shirt" in
I Chase The Devil. And that's a
mondegreen that even puts Hendrix's "Scuse me while I kiss this guy" to shame...
Bettye LaVette - We Gotta Slip Around MP3
Max Romeo & The Upsetters - I Chase The Devil MP3
Two new bands up now, as it's certainly not all old, mothbally stuff around here. The Zermatts hail from smoggy LA, do the lofi pop thing, and use a cool organ to boot. Ramshackle and fun, so worth keeping an eye on I'd say. God bless, you guys. Mount Moriah from North Carolina stumble around in Americana territory, and they do it well. They have a fine singer in Heather McEntire, plus a guitar player who definitely treasures some Crazy Horse and Allmans in his record collection. And since they proclaim in the lovely Only Way Out that "the only way to love something is to give it away...", here you go.
The Zermatts - The Babes In The Woods MP3
Mount Moriah - Only Way Out MP3
Most bands from the noisy
Amphetamine Reptile records stable always sounded a bit the same to me, but I make an exception for the Cows. They certainly were loud and uncompromising, too, but used a certain neurotic weirdness to differentiate themselves from the pack. Try their ingeniously titled
Cunning Stunts album from '92 to see what I mean and don't look back. And it's closing time with someone who once was the lofi pride of Holland: Joost Visser. He made headway with De Artsen, but missed out when the rest of that band hit the big time with Bettie Serveert. Visser soon made a rather uneven solo album, on which highlights like
Fingers In The Wind were promising to say the least, but it seems he has withdrawn from music altogether since then. Come on man, it's comeback time already.
Cows - Heave Ho MP3
Joost Visser - Fingers In The Wind MP3
