Meet The Wilsons

Hurray once more for the mighty Tompkins Square label, as the wise people in charge there just re-released Bill Wilson's fine fine Ever Changing Minstrel album, originally recorded in 1973 with the same bunch of pickers you hear on Dylan's Blonde On Blonde. In honour of that, here's a ten pack of boss tunes by guys called Wilson. Brian was off somewhere alas, but brother Dennis showed up instead. Better get ready!

Bill Wilson - The Good Ship Society
Dennis Wilson - Love Surround Me
Larry Jon Wilson - Sapelo
Jonathan Wilson - The Way I Feel
J. Frank Wilson & The Cavaliers - Last Kiss
Elder Roma Wilson - Better Get Ready
Delroy Wilson - A Place in Africa (aka Addis Ababa)
Ernest Wilson - I Know Myself
Flick Wilson - Don't Give Up Your Culture
Wilson Pickett - Toe Hold

Wild Weekend Vol. 16

I´m reading Juliet, Naked at the moment, which is quite hard to put down. Really should get busy to bring you edition 16 of Wild Weekend now... Ok, ok, here goes. The iPod´s on shuffle once again, and a surprise six pack in the works. No songs from Nick Hornby´s rockstar hero Tucker Crowe alas, but a whole lot of other goodies nonetheless.

Such as Fallin´ In Love by American Spring, a Brian Wilson produced pop gem from ´73. Penned by Beach Boys brother and drummer Dennis, you can find it on a heartily recommended compilation called Pet Projects. Want some heavier stuff from the same year? Featuring Iggy doing his trademark caged animal impersonation perhaps? Then try on this terrific live version of Open Up & Bleed, recorded live at Richards in Atlanta, Georgia.

American Spring - Fallin´ In Love MP3

Iggy & The Stooges - Open Up & Bleed (live ´73) MP3

Time for some Ethiopean soul now. I´m a huge fan of the Éthiopiques series, and can listen to a singer like Alèmayèhu Eshèté all day and all of the night. My Amharic is kinda rusty, but I´d wager that Addis Abèba Bété translates as ´I love Addis Abeba´. Before Built To Spill, Doug Martsch played in a grungy Seattle band called Treepeople. Nirvana they were not, but a song like Liquid Boy sure hinted at things to come.

Alèmayèhu Eshèté - Addis Abèba Bété MP3

Treepeople - Liquid Boy MP3

Moving to New Orleans now, where we´ll look up Roy Byrd aka Professor Longhair and his pumping piano. "Tell me pretty baby, is everything alright?" You bet. Worth it for that honking sax alone. And we´ll call it a day so I can finally go back to mr. Hornby with a beautiful song by Copey´s Teardrop Explodes about... books. "I´ve seen it in your eyes and I´ve read it in books, who wants love without the looks?" Not me, Julian, not me.

Professor Longhair - Who´s Been Fooling You MP3

The Teardrop Explodes - Books MP3

Wild Weekend Vol. 8

Hola, amigos da musica. Time to put the old iPod in shuffle mode and see what surprises we´re gonna get this time around. It´ll be a Wild Weekend again, with yet another musical grab bag of goodies for your aural liberation. Because, as the Residents once rightly proclaimed, ´ignorance of your culture is not considered cool´. Right on.

To start off this week´s edition, the ghost in the machine picked a cool song by the Soft Boys. Fun late-seventies punky glamrock psychedelica - or was that the other way around? - from Robyn Hitchcock and company. Their albums A Can Of Bees and Underwater Moonlight have since become cult classics, and that´s totally deserved for once. And talking about cult classics, Beach Boys drummer Dennis Wilson´s terrific Pacific Ocean Blue definitely belongs to that category as well. Go for the deluxe edition, which comes with a second disc featuring the interesting sessions for the unfinished Bambu album. As a taster, here´s the rather strange He´s A Bum.

The Soft Boys - Insanely Jealous MP3

Dennis Wilson - He´s A Bum MP3

Don´t know about you, but I just can´t wait for the new Drive-By Truckers cd, which will hit the stores any day now. In the meantime, here´s one of their oldies but goldies. "If Mr. Phillips was the only man that Jerry Lee still would call Sir, then I guess Mr. Phillips did all of y´all about as good as you deserve..." Now that´s what I call a solid argument. After which we move to the (mostly) sunny island of Jamaica for some mento sounds from Lord Beginner, who delivers a delightful pre-reggae song about a fearful hurricane hitting Kingston. "A hundred miles an hour was an awful blow..." You can say that again. Thanks to my esteemed Groover´s Paradise colleague Nicolas for this one.

Drive-By Truckers - Carl Perkins´ Cadillac MP3

Lord Beginner - Jamaica Hurricane MP3

"I guess I missed my calling, ´cause I should have been a clown..." Yup, we´re talking prime southern soul and heartaches here. James Carr recorded many a scorcher, but the bitter Pouring Water On A Drowning Man was arguably his finest hour. And we´ll be off with a fascinating Stones rarity from the Exile On Main St. era, featuring some sharp barbed wire guitar by Keef. I wonder if this one will show up on the upcoming deluxe edition of Exile.

James Carr - Pouring Water On A Drowning Man MP3

The Rolling Stones - I Ain´t Lying MP3