Make Time

A fun song for troubled times - in Funkadelic lite mode - by the one and only Archdruid. "Deep in the lost luggage of your mind, time for a rummage sale..."

Julian Cope - That Ain't No Way To Make A Million

Same Again

I kid you not: ye olde arch druid Julian Cope, famous for his intake of all things psychedelic, has discovered the joys of booze all of a sudden. The result: a highly amusing new mini album, called Drunken Songs as it bloody well should. "And in the morning, we won't remember a thing..." You just got to love the guy. Cheers!

Julian Cope - Drink Me Under The Table

Not A Protestant

The arch druid's been at it again, and thank Odin for that. "When I'm in a country where they worship the duck, I'm careful to never say duck worshippers suck..." Yeah, sure thing mate. The double disc Revolutionary Suicide proves once more that Saint Julian is one of the very few true originals left, and always a whimsical one at that. I bet you more weirdness abounds in One Three One, Cope's 'time-shifting gnostic hooligan road novel' which will be out shortly, with matching soundtrack to boot. Now answer that question below if you dare.

Julian Cope - Why Did The Chicken Cross My Mind

It's The Place

Presenting an in your face ten pack in orbit for your listening pleasure. "Gonna ride gonna ride gonna ride with you..."

Luna - Lost In Space
Sun City Girls - Space Prophet Dogon
Robert Pollard - Subspace Biographies
3Ds - Outer Space
The Langley Schools Music Project - Space Oddity
Jah Wobble - Tales From Outer Space
The Mekons - Space In Your Face
Soul Hooligan - Space Travel
The Byrds - Mr. Spaceman
Julian Cope - Spacehopper

No Compromise

"If you're a greedhead you're going down... if you're a fat cat you're going down..." Dunno if you realised it yet, but Saint Julian has a new album out, and it's a double helping at that. Looks like the archdrude is seriously fed up and pissed at the mo, toting a machine gun and dedicating disc one to Che Guevara and disc two to Leila Khaled. Here's the heavy heavy title track, with main vocals by one Lucy Brownshill. "Gonna spike some fuckers tonite..." That's the spirit.

Julian Cope - Psychedelic Revolution

Wild Weekend Vol. 51

Just another Wild Weekend, and the beat goes on. Here's edition #51, bringing you rock from the motor city, lofi psychedelica from Brooklyn and roots reggae from the island. And we dig up the unjustly forgotten Jerry Riopelle. Get wild or get even.

Saint Julian Cope's been busy again, this time compiling an inspiring 38 song list - with fitting over the top commentary of course - of Electrifying Edisonian Rock ’n’ Roll from sixties and seventies Detroit. Which doesn't omit certified greats like the Stooges and the MC5, but also features lesser known revelations as The Up, Terry Knight & The Pack, and the Rationals. I guess you'll all agree the latter's Guitar Army is a stone cold classic. And pssst... you can dl the complete package over at IPunkSound. Meanwhile, we're moving to warmer climes with the angelic voices of reggae vocal duo the Congos, in a cool Lee Perry sculpted soundscape. Their Heart Of The Congos just may be my all-time fave roots album, but the sharp selection below hails from Arkology, one out of many great Perry collections.

The Rationals - Guitar Army MP3

The Congos - Don't Blame On I MP3

Acid folker Chris Hickey has just reissued his first two solo albums from the late eighties. Get busy here if you dig Dark Cold Day, which sets to music part of a poem by W.H. Auden called In Memory of W.B. Yeats. "The mercury sank in the mouth of the dying day, the day of his death was a dark cold day..." Chew on that, pop kids. On a brighter note, the together again Feelies will be releasing a new album soon and judging by taster Should Be Gone, not much has changed. Which is a good thing for once. I'm not a big fan of reunions in general, but I gladly make an exception for New Joysey's finest beatmakers. Btw: the guitar work near the end instantly reminded me of an early Television song, but I can't put my finger on it yet. Anyone?

Chris Hickey - Dark Cold Day MP3

The Feelies - Should Be Gone MP3

Remember Jerry Riopelle? Probably not. Dude was always busy as a producer and songwriter for others, which may have overshadowed his career as a solo artist. Riopelle was one of those typical critic's darlings, who heaped tons of praise on rootsy rock albums like Saving Grace (´74) and Dangerous Stranger (´79). If you dig the faintly Feat-like Blues On My Table, try picking these up for next to nothing on eBay or in the bargain bin of your local record store. And we've reached yet another Wild Weekend finish line with one more album of last year I managed to miss when it came out. Hey, nobody's perfect. Would have been a shame to do without the psychedelic lofi of Brooklyn-based Woods and their cd At Echo Lake though. To illustrate my point, here's the Powderfinger-inspired opener Blood Dries Darker. Have a wild one, see ya next week.

Jerry Riopelle - Blues On My Table MP3

Woods - Blood Dries Darker MP3

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

The Monster In The Mirror

I usually cover nothing but music here at For The Sake Of The Song, but that doesn´t mean I haven´t got any other interests. Far from it. Football (got my ticket for tomorrow´s edition of El Clásico... yes!), literature, movies, travel... And politics. And that´s what I´m on about tonight. Do not fear though, there´s a fitting soundtrack attached as well.

The recent Mumbai terror attacks must have shocked everybody, but I was kinda surprised to find how hard this catastrophe hit me, staying glued to the telly and surfing the web for days on end to check on how events unfolded. I´m usually quite cool in situations like these, but what happened in the city formerly known as Bombay had about the same impact on me as 9/11. Reason is probably that I´ve lived in that (cliche alert!) ´huge and fascinating country full of contradictions´ for five months in 2007, and stayed in quite a few Taj Group hotels (although not in the targeted Mumbai one) as well over the past few years.

When it was all over, I was waiting for someone who would put things in a broad perspective. That took awhile, but tonight I finally stumbled on a remarkably insightful piece by Arundhati Roy in British newspaper The Guardian, covering all I was hoping for and more. The Indian writer and activist, who won the prestigious Booker Prize in ´97 for the excellent The God Of Small Things, asks all the right questions in her well-informed article, and even manages to give a few answers, which is no mean feat.

Here´s a fitting excerpt. "Eventually the killers died and died hard, all but one. (Perhaps, in the chaos, some escaped. We may never know.) Throughout the standoff the terrorists made no demands and expressed no desire to negotiate. Their purpose was to kill people and inflict as much damage as they could before they were killed themselves. They left us completely bewildered. When we say "nothing can justify terrorism", what most of us mean is that nothing can justify the taking of human life. We say this because we respect life, because we think it's precious. So what are we to make of those who care nothing for life, not even their own? The truth is that we have no idea what to make of them, because we can sense that even before they've died, they've journeyed to another world where we cannot reach them."

The article ends thus: "The only way to contain (it would be naïve to say end) terrorism is to look at the monster in the mirror. We're standing at a fork in the road. One sign says Justice, the other Civil War. There's no third sign and there's no going back. Choose."

Read the complete article on the Guardian site here. And while you´re at it, here´s a fitting soundtrack, complete with songs from two of my fave singers from Pakistan (Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, the king of qawwali) and India (Lata Mangeshkar, the Indian nightingale).

The Damned - Born To Kill MP3

Julian Cope - All The Blowing-Themselves-Up Motherfuckers MP3

Psychedelic Furs - India MP3

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan - Data Ke Ghulamon Ko MP3

Lata Mangeshkar - Kabhi Kabhi Bezuban Parbat Boltein Hain MP3

Japrocksampler

Shopping for stocking filler that will satisfy even the most jaded rock fan? Look no further than Julian Cope´s latest book Japrocksampler, out now in paperback from Bloomsbury books. Following in the footsteps of his authoritative and now sadly out of print Krautrocksampler tome, which explored the highs and lows of the German music scene in the late sixties and seventies, Cope now looks eastward and lord, it´s a trip. Thoroughly researched, Japrocksampler first puts the whole shebang in historical perspective before going all out with enthousiastic descriptions of the highlights of Nippon rock. And all that in typical, no holds barred Cope stylee of course. Banzai! A lot of the music featured in Japrocksampler - subtitled ´how the post-war Japanese blew their minds on rock ´n´ roll´ - is for freaks only, but believe me, the genre spawned some real boss sounds... Here´s a few of them.

Yup, that´s them ridin´ their chopped-up Hondas bare ass down the highway on the cover of Copey´s book. Destination? Anywhere of course... The semi-legendary Flower Travellin´ Band made at least two great albums: Satori (more about that ´71 gem in an upcoming post) and their debut Anywhere (´70). Led by wild afro´d singer Joe, they managed to demolish quite a few well-known songs on the latter. Check out their amazing Stairway To Heaven-like treatment of ye olde classic House Of The Rising Sun for proof.

Flower Travellin´ Band - House Of The Rising Sun MP3

A glue sniffin´, amphetamine-crazed, longhaired free-blues power trio anyone? All hail Speed, Glue & Shinki. "I got a big headed woman who talks about herself... she drinks all my liquor and she smokes all off my stuff... yeah she smokes all my dope, she´s baaad..." The incredible ´young loud and snotty´ vocals and even snottier asides come courtesy of singing Filipino drummer Joey ´Pepe´ Smith, while we have to thank the great Shinki Chen for the down and dirty soloing. Heavy stuff that´s in heavy rotation around here at the moment.

Speed, Glue & Shinki - Big Headed Woman MP3

According to Julian, we´re not here to praise the aptly named First Album (´69) by the Helpful Soul, as it´s shit. And he´s right. But he goes on to say: ´...which makes side one´s closing song - the 10-minutes-and-33-seconds of Peace For Fools - all the more remarkable´, and he´s spot on again. Cope calls it ´a strung-out slab of monolithic genius´, while comparing singer Junio Nakahara to the Fall´s Mark E. Smith before he became ´a professional Northerner´... And that´s a mighty fine desciption.

The Helpful Soul - Peace For Fools MP3

Les Rallizes Dénudés are a cult band avant la lettre. Hailing from the Kyoto university scene, their destiny was changed abruptly when their original bass player Moriaki Wakabayashi was involved in the infamous hijacking of an airplane by the Japanese Red Army in 1970. Since then, Rallizes mastermind Takashi Mizutani has led a remarkably reclusive life in the isolated wilderness of northern Japan, releasing his dark, feedback-drenched laments mostly via live bootlegs. The Japanese Velvets? Definitely underground and well worth checking out.

Les Rallizes Dénudés - More Deeply Than The Night MP3

Love Live Life +1 (´71) was one of these ´super sessions´ which were huge in Japan in the early seventies. Its legacy? A mighty impressive, soulful album filled to the brim with freaky cosmic rhythm & blues. Title track Love Will Make A Better You makes one think of a Sly & The Family Stone from the land of the rising sun. Dig these horns and way-out-there guitars, brothers and sisters!

Love Live Life +1 - Love Will Make A Better You MP3

Friday grab bag

If the good Lord´s willin´and the creek don´t rise, every Friday night will be grab bag night here from now on. A selection of songs that caught my fancy over the last week for one reason or another. Old, new, borrowed, blue: everything goes.

First up is Tyler Ramsey, who´s better known as the bearded guy in Band Of Horses. No One Goes Out is a song from his brand new solo album A Long Dream About Swimming Across The Sea (Echo Mountain records). Beautiful melancholia. It reminds me of a certain Neil Young track, but the title won´t come... Anyone?

Tyler Ramsey - No One Goes Out MP3

Next are the Bongos, a nearly forgotten power pop trio from Hoboken, NJ. Their sparkling album Drums Along The Hudson from ´82 - which includes In The Congo - finally got a cd release last year by Cooking Vinyl. Hurrah!

The Bongos - In The Congo MP3

Gram Parsons can do no wrong in my book. Here´s a lovely Stones-cover off the second Flying Burrito Brothers album Burrito Deluxe (´70). For more hot Burritos and Parsons stuff do yourself a favour and head over to the mighty Setting The Woods On Fire blog. Rumour has it Paul put up some tracks from a newly released Burritos live album...

Flying Burrito Brothers - Wild Horses MP3

Julian Cope is as mad as they come of course, but in a very pleasant way. I particularly like his Peggy Suicide album (´91), featuring Beautiful Love. Great moog, great trumpet, great song. Did you know Copey is a fine writer as well? His autobiography Head-On may very well be the best book written by a so-called rock star. Sorry Bob, Chronicles is great too of course.

Julian Cope - Beautiful Love MP3

Here´s an oldie for you, from Harry Smith´s amazing Anthology Of American Folk Music box set. One of the most powerful blues vocals ever recorded. I always thought Blind Willie Johnson sang "Who´s that riding...", and had this vision of John The Revelator speeding through a biblical landscape on a big black stallion, cape a-flowin´. I now know that John is actually writing (and the book of the seven seals at that), but I don´t think I can ever shake that image when I listen to this song. Oh well.

Blind Willie Johnson - John The Revelator MP3

Tonight´s closer is my favorite popsong of 2007. Vampire Weekend hail from New York City, look square as hell and just released their self-titled debut on XL records. Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa is full of jumpy hi-life guitars straight from Africa´s townships, neurotic Feelies-like vocals, a namecheck for Louis Vuitton luggage (surely a first in a song?) and an irresistable beat. "Is your bed made? Is your sweater on?"

Vampire Weekend - Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa MP3