Midweek Mixdown: Kenny Dope

Here's Kenny Dope's Weekend mix of funk 45s from 2012 – check the track list below.

Tracklist: 
1.Love Me A Little While Longer - Funky Music Machine (Black Top)
2.Baby - The Phenomenal Handclap Band (Truth & Soul)
3.Mango Walk - Walter Branco (Dynamite Soul)
4.Ham Hocks & Beans Pt.1-Chuck Womack (Re-Joint)
5.Fancy Roll - The Grips (Ged Soul)
6.90% Of Me -Amrau's Trinidad Band (Weed Beat)
7.Strychnine - The Grits (Mocambo)
8.Chicken - The Soul Investigators (Timmion)
9.Get Involved Pt.1 - Wolfpack (White)
10.Hey Sallie Mae, Get Off My Feet - Lee Fields (Desco)
11.Scopolamine - Michael Leonhart (Truth & Soul)
12.The Hatch - The T.M.G's (Funk 45)
13.Black Boy - Dyke & The Blazers (Beat Goes Public)
14.Nervous Like Me Pt.2 - The Dap-Kings (Kay-Dee)
15.Dance Of The Dragons Pt.2 - The Heliocentrics (Now Again)
16.Freeway Crowd - J.T. Allen (Crowbar)
17.Hot Pants On Fire - The Fabulous Soul Investigators (Timmion)
18.C'Ex -Phillippe Nicaud (Rivera)
19.Hook N Sling - The Soul Command (Soul Fire)
20.Cold Heat - Lil Lavair
21.Daytona - Yosuke Tominaga (Champ)
22.Funky Thang - Dorando and The Ice Picks Of Soul (Sure Shot)
23.Stay In The Groove Pt.4 - The Dap-Kings Feat Rickey Calloway (Kay-Dee)
24.Purification Pt.4 - Funkshone (Kay-Dee)
25.Leave My Beat Alone - Raw Soul (Plut)
26.Pistol Whip - T-Bottoms (Funk Night)
27.Rappin All Over Pt.2 - The Marvelous 3 (Kay-Dee)
28.It's Just Begun - The Simonsound (Project Blue Book)
29.Electronic Brain Break - Virgil Howe & Shawn Lee (Breakin Bread)
30.The Clayton Break - Virgil Howe & Mark Clayton (Breakin Bread)
31.Phantom Pt.2 - Yosuke Tominga (Champ)
32.Soul To The People Pt.2 - The Fantastic Souls (Kay-Dee)
33.Tighten Up Pt.1 - Maceo & The Flames (Dynamite)
34.Ritual Pt.1 - Soul Sugar (Mocambo)
35.The Popcorn (Inst) - The Soul Believers (King)

Tomorrow Is Too Late: Looking Back at T.O.'s Hardcore Roots @ Henderson Brewing, January 23

Here's the scoop...
On Wednesday (January 23), Henderson Brewing (128A Sterling Rd) is hosting a panel discussion of Toronto's Hardcore scene prompted by the recent release of TOHC BOOK: Tomorrow Is Too Late - Toronto Hardcore Punk in the 1980s – published UXB Press.
The panel will include the people behind the book, namely Derek Emerson (MSI guitarist), Shawn Chirrey (Still Thinking fanzine), Simon Harvey (Ugly Pop label), Fran Grasso (Urbain Grandier label), and Sue McCluskey (Principal at Goods & Services) who will discuss the history of TOHC, including comparisons of the downtown vs suburban scenes, how punk changed lives, landmark gigs, slam dancing, thrashing, and hardcore punk’s influence on the greater local culture over the years.

Simon Harvey is also bringing the tunes – he'll be spinning classic worldwide punk on original 45s, with an emphasis on Canadian/Toronto stuff!

This is a free event, and everyone is welcome. Copies of the book will be for sale at the brewery! Listen to Danko Jones chat with Derek Emerson, Shawn Chirrey and Simon Harvey below.

Happy Birthday Barbara Lynn!

Watch Beaumont, Texas R&B great Barbara Lynn tear it up in 1966 on The !!!! Beat hosted by Bill "Hoss" Allen.  

That time Captain Beefheart played on a beach in Cannes

Since it's Don Van Vliet's birthday, here's a 1968 performance of "Electricity" on the sand in the sunny south of France. 

New album from Nick Waterhouse on the way – Toronto show in May

"Song For Winners" is off Nick's new self-titled album. Tour dates following his set from the Nelsonville Music Fest. 

More raw, heavy and overtly confrontational than anything he’s made before, Nick's forthcoming self-titled album (due March 8 on Innovative Leisure) was recorded in Hollywood, California at Electro Vox Recorders – the last surviving ‘Golden Era” 50’s style footprint a la Gold Star, Master Recorders, et al. The 11-track LP was cut with a gang of new faces and recurring true believers and co-produced by Paul Butler.

Nick’s songs here are personal, but personal in the way that “Please Mr. Postman,” “What’s Going On” and “Cathy’s Clown” are — intimate, direct, yet still malleable enough for listeners to suffuse their own life stories into the mix. “Adapt or die",” Nick wails, sardonically, on crime-jazz blitz “Black Glass”, telling you all you need to know about his process.

Check out "Song For Winners" (below) which has an opening lick that echoes Joe Moretti's memorable riff from Johnny Kidd and the Pirates' "Shakin' All Over."

Happy Birthday Earl Hooker

Remembering the amazing Earl Hooker on his day with a 1969 performance of "Off The Hook"

Listen to an unreleased Townes Van Zandt tune "All I Need"

"All I Need" is off the posthumous Townes Van Zandt release Sky Blue due March 7 on Fat Possum.

Here's the scoop...
Sky Blue, a collection of unreleased songs by one of the most celebrated songwriters of the twentieth century, is a time capsule that Townes Van Zandt created forty-six years ago. Scheduled for release by TVZ Records and Fat Possum Records on March 7—which would have been his 75th birthday—this album shows the artist working out some of his most iconic songs in an intimate, comfortable setting with one of his lifelong confidantes.

These tracks will sound both fresh and familiar to even the most avid fans. Sky Blue includes eleven unreleased recordings made in early 1973 with the late Bill Hedgepeth, a journalist, musician, and most crucially a close friend of Townes. The singer-songwriter was splitting his time between Texas, Colorado, and a shack outside Franklin, Tennessee: an itinerant life that informed many of his most famous and beloved tunes. Throughout his life he would often return to Hedgepeth’s home studio in Atlanta, later with family in tow, to record, re-work, and experiment with new songs as well as old favorites.

The versions of “Pancho & Lefty” and “Rex’s Blues” show these songs as early drafts: raw, sorrowful, and as stunningly moving as he ever was, full of clean flat-picking and adept flourishes in just the right places. He emerges as a master of economic songwriting and playing, providing all that’s needed and nothing more, confident that his ideas and emotions would come through more clearly for being so judiciously understated.

In addition to a handful of old favorites, Sky Blue also includes two new songs that have never been heard before—”All I Need” (hear it below) and “Sky Blue”—as well as covers of songs by Richard Dobson and Tom Paxton. There is a smoky version of “Blue Ridge Mountain Blues” and a scarred and scarring interpretation of “Hills of Roane County,” an East Tennessee murder ballad from the 1880s that was popularized by Tony Rice. Van Zandt performs them deftly, sings them intuitively, and displays his delightfully twisted sense of humor on the devious “Snake Song” and the vicious “Dream Spider.”

Conceived by Townes’ surviving family—his wife and literary executor Jeanene, along with his children, J.T., Will, and Katie Bell—Sky Blue sounds like an entirely new album rather than a reissue of old recordings. That’s how urgent and invigorated these performances sound, offering a revealing glimpse into Townes’ process, the evolution of his songs as well as the myriad versions he had in his head.

Pre-order a copy of Sky Blue from Fat Possum right here. Check out "All I Need" below.



Sky Blue tracklist
1. All I Need
2. Rex’s Blues
3. Hills of Roane County
4. Sky Blue
5. Forever For Always For Certain
6. Blue Ridge Mountain Blues (Smoky Version)
7. Pancho and Lefty
8. Snake Song
9. Silver Ships of Andilar
10. Dream Spider
11. The Last Thing On My Mind