The Not-Pop Jukebox

Lest you think that Taj Mahal is a one-trick blues pony, I offer you a fantastic version of Hoochi Coochi Coo, that great R&B oldie from Hank Ballard and the Midnighters. As much as I like the original, Taj Mahal sped it up a bit and gave it some serious boogie potential. That's why I'm sharing his cover with you today although I do like both versions.

I'll bet you thought I wasn't going to make twenty posts this month, didn't you? And yet here I am with another fantastic song that I doubt you ever heard. It's all part of the service, here at The NPJ. Let me know what you think. For some reason Grooveshark is being difficult about letting me have the URL for the original, though it'll play there, but you'll have to find The Hoochi Coochi Coo on the list of all their great doo wop songs. In case you're wondering, they did The Twist first, before Chubby Checker.

As so often happens, I awoke with a song in my head. In this case it was Pale Young Gentlemen's Saturday Night, wholly inappropriate for a Monday morning and yet there it was...and still is. But when I went to see if I'd posted it I found only a sorry imeem widget that had long since given up the ghost.

Naturally I thought it best to replace that post, though you can still read what I thought of Saturday Night three years ago, with a song you could actually play. And so here I am today with a great indie group out of Madison, Wisconsin that still sounds inventive and fresh.

Sadly, I can find no indication that they're busily recording and making a new record for us impatient fans. They're been nothing on social media for weeks which, as you know, is something like a decade in dog years and a century in Internet terms. We can only hope that they're getting ready to follow up their first two albums with something even better. Cross your fingers, folks!

Bright Light, Big City stands out as one of the most delightful songs on "Two Men with the Blues", the album of songs from the gorgeous performance of Willie Nelson and Wynton Marsalis at Carnegie Hall. But just posting the one version of what I consider a standard seems like cheating you folks. Normally I round up and find ten versions for you. I thought I'd mix it up by sticking with only nine, this time.

Naturally, I've included Wynton and Willie but you can also enjoy a cornucopia of 20th-Century names like Neil Young, The Rolling Stones, The Animals, and Jimi Hendrix. No, really! And there's Bill Cosby, Taj Mahal, and the man who started it all--Jimmy Reed--to round out the bunch. Somehow I thought the song was much older than 1961. I blame Willie Nelson. Which is your favorite, or have I missed it completely?

With deep thanks to the darling Polybore, who's anything but boring, I bring you all the best band name on the entire weird band name discussion: Pookiesnackenburger. While I almost went with Happy Cajun they just couldn't beat Hot Dog.

I'm not sure how this widget will work as it's from we7 radio but, unsurprisingly, Grooveshark had nothing from the short-lived group (though they had their own television show, apparently). I found two different "whatever happened to" answers, one widely-accepted version saying that they developed into Stomp and the other alleging that they became The Yes/No People. I'm on the case, my dears, and I'll let you know what I find. Until then, enjoy Hot Dog from Pookiesnackenburger.

Okay, that left you with a crappy link and no music to listen to here. I can't help but think that's supposed to work differently. I offer, as a supplement, their song Just One Cornetto to give you an idea of their wacky sound.

Edit: HA! It started working and now you get two for the price of one. Enjoy!

I know realistically that Southern Culture on the Skids and their admission that Daddy Was a Preacher but Mama Was a Go-Go Girl had nothing to do with Ana Popovic who sings a conversation based on the question How'd You Learn to Shake It Like That?. But the first time I heard the latter my mind fully expected her to finish the chorus with the SCOTS title.

I don't know if you're familiar with the ever-so-talented Ms. Popovic but her album "Still Making History" came out last year and How'd You Learn to Shake It Like That? grabbed me from the very first. She's got serious guitar chops and a distinctive but not unpleasant voice, the sort of whisky-and-cigarettes twang that makes you want to hear more.

In truth, the first time I heard this one I thought she'd make an excellent Catwoman. Songs like Is This Everything There Is? reinforce that thought. And naturally she'd fit right in with Southern Culture on the Skids. I think an Ana Popovic cover of Daddy Was a Preacher but Mama Was a Go-Go Girl would be wildly entertaining.

So what do you think, related or not? I apologize for the sound quality on the SCOTS track. The only other upload Grooveshark had was a live one with a lot of blather. It's still fun.

Usually, when I do a mashup post I pick a single favorite for the day. But today I've got four mashes based on Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit. You can whistle along with The Jackson 5 in Smells Like Rockin' Robin, do the robot with Daft Punk's Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger in Smells Stronger, and get Rick-rolled with Never Gonna Give Up Your Teen Spirit. All of that is a countdown to The Final Teen Spirit in which Nirvana meets Europe.

Naturally, you can download these bad boys for free. The first hails from Go Home Productions, the second is courtesy of Party Ben, the Astley version came from DJ Morgoth, and the final mash was the brain child of Wax Audio. If that isn't enough to entertain you of a Sunday afternoon then there's little more I can do. If you pick only one, try the first. It makes Cobain sound almost happy, a feat more magical than Lucky Charms!

Six Days on the Road is one of those songs that worked its way into my subconscious at some point in my early life and never left, kind of like I Love a Rainy Night. I've got a few versions of the song but its a country standard so you can find plenty more out there.

It seemed appropriate to limit my list to six versions of Six Days on the Road. Naturally Taj Mahal made the cut as his is one of my favorite covers. I included George Thorogood and the Destroyers in honor of their having been in town last week (and because their version rocks). Naturally you can't have a list like this without Boxcar Willie. The Rumpshakers made the cut because their take on the song made me shake my rump and I kept George Jones because I like his voice.

If you've a favorite cover of Six Days on the Road, whether I included it here or not, please share it.

It's Friday night, so you get a snippet from me and a great song. After my love note to Jim Bianco you should have known I'd have more for you. Southpawe has been stuck in my head since I posted that, deliciously forcing me to listen to it a ridiculous number of times. And so "I beli-ee-e-ee-ve I will" pass it on to you all. (If you don't get that, listen to the song.)

In case anyone missed it, The Cars got tired of not being The Cars after twenty-some years and got back together to finish what they started in the 80s. And to listen to "Move Like This" you'd think you'd gone back in time with them.

The album sound like The Cars, a good thing, in my opinion. It's still got the synth-heavy sound and Ric Ocasek's distinctive voice. But since they've been off the radar for so long I can't help but wonder if they'll be able to garner a "pop" fan base like the one they had back then. I also wonder if they've been impatiently waiting for the 80s sound to become popular again before they launched a come-back tour, but I'm cynical like that.

At any rate, I quite enjoy the new album. It fits in with their older catalog well without sounding like they just threw together a bunch of songs they'd already recorded and just pretended they'd just come out of the studio. For today have a listen to Blue Tip and see what you think. you can listen to all of "Move Like This at Grooveshark and I intend to post at least Keep on Knocking if not several other songs at some point in the future.

I woke up this morning with Ice-T in my head. Perhaps I was simply thirsty, I don't know, but all day I've been wandering around hearing him say, "I'm your pusher." Since I don't have another one that's the role he's always filled for me.

For those of you unfamiliar with 80s rap I'll explain that, in this particular case, Ice-T is not playing the hardass. He pushes beats rather than drugs. It's a great example of storytelling and what rap sounded like 'way back when the roots were still being grown, back when rappers were known as MC and DJ, when beatboxing was an integral part of any of the genre's acts.

And so I'm sharing this with you all today to offer nostalgia or a new perspective, depending on how and if you lived twenty-five years ago. If you want more I do have a whole page dedicated to old-school rap and hip hop.

So, I wanted to post a song about left-handedness for Left-Handers Day, which was yesterday but I had already posted when I found out what day it was. In fact, I wanted to post Jim Bianco's Southpaw which has become a massive earworm for me, but Grooveshark doesn't have it. (It's on his album "Well within Reason" and you can listen to it on the official Jim Bianco web site

But that meant I had to find another Lefty song. For some reason a lot of songs about being a southpaw are death metal, one assumes because of the left-hand path religious nonsense. When I saw a band named Electric Blue Peggy Sue and the Revolutionions from Mars, however, my hopes rose.

Now, Lefty isn't great music. It's passable rock that's got a decent beat. But it's funny, particularly the "bridge". So have a listen, spare a thought for your favorite lefty, and let me know what you thought.

This all started with the new Steve Miller Band cover of Snatch It Back and Hold It from his most recent album of blues songs, "Let Your Hair Down". But I could hardly leave out the Junior Wells original or the Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears version, now could I? And in searching for those I found a few more, namely Chain, Gov't Mule (with a live version of great energy and terrible sound quality), and Lawrence Fritts and his instrumental version Snatch It Back and Hold It in G.

But I discovered that Albert Collins had a great tune called Snatchin' It Back, itself a cover of Clarence Collins. Naturally I had to add both. Then I remembered the Southern Culture on the Skids has a spacey surf rock instrumental called Snatch It Back so on the list it went. To round the list out to a full ten I found the rockabilly retro sound of Mars Attacks with Snatch It 'n' Grab It because, really, nine just isn't enough.

I've yet another song for my "men pretending to cry" list today: Danny Kaye telling us a little story about his leaky faucet in Bloop Bleep. I'm too distracted by the Blue Angels flying all over to give you much more to go on than that. What more do you need, anyway? It's Danny Kaye, who was always amazing, and he's singing about a leaky faucet. Enjoy!

From time to time I do hear current pop songs. Rihanna's S & M was one such song. But I'm not posting just because it's popular but, at about the 2:30 mark, I heard this little synth that made me wonder how much similarity there was between her song and Master and Servant from Depeche Mode. The answer? Not much. And yet for some reason the music for S & M reminds me of Depeche Mode. I'm sharing with you all today both songs. It may be just my inner DJ insisting that these songs go together so I thought I'd see if the two of them share the same flavor to you, as well. I don't mean subject matter: that's obvious. I'm asking about the music. Any thoughts?

You must know by now, my dears, of my love affair with coffee. I've posted a number of times about coffee songs in all their various forms, whether java or joe or just plain coffee.

The one thing I've never posted is the song that immediately comes to mind when someone refers to Black Coffee. It isn't the original Black Flag version of the song but the Henry Rollins "cover" of himself on the tribute album "Rise Above". It makes me think of some pretty dark times in my life when a lot of black coffee and a lot of anger kept me going. It's also got a simple chorus that I use to answer anyone who asks what I'm drinking at work. As you can imagine, the "stare at the wall" part keeps my co-workers on their toes...or at lease well away from me.

There's finally a good rip of the song available on Grooveshark so I'm sharing it with you all today. And if you wonder what's in that cup just by the monitor, you've already got your answer.

As I promised yesterday, we're going to have some Allo, Darlin' telling us how Henry Rollins Don't Dance. The reason the song first caught my attention was the verse in which dream-Rollins orders the DJ to play some Abba and "he raises his tiny fist to Dancing Queen". I don't know if you've ever seen Henry Rollins but his fists certainly don't qualify as tiny and I cannot, for the life of me, picture him rockin' to Abba.

But I picked the band not because they sent me music to review but because I saw the name somewhere and somehow associated it with a show I used to love, once upon a time, 'Allo 'Allo!. Now, the two don't have a thing to do with one another but I sought the band and found this song and immediately my weird associations came together. You see, hubby don't dance, either, just like poor Elizabeth Morris's beau but I dream about it anyway (though mine most often involve swing music rather than Abba).

That's perhaps rather more sharing than you need but it's Saturday night and I may or may not have been drinking mudslides so I'm willing to let you read it. And of course I definitely want you to hear the song which is all mixed up in my head with hubby having a French accent and jamming to Black Flag, with salsa horns in the background. I'd try to put that image out of your head and just enjoy the song, were I you. If you like their sound, try The Polaroid Song or My Heart Is a Drummer. I'd avoid the Allo, Darlin' cover of I Wanna Be Sedated, however, unless you want to be very, very sad. It's that slow.

Now, you can't take these sort of things seriously. Henry Rollins does dance, sort of. For evidence, see this video of Low Self Opinion.

Normally I wouldn't post the same artist two days in a row but I ended up listening to Amy Rigby's Dancing with Joey Ramone and two songs came to mind when I listened to the lyrics.  Ike Reilly, in Hip Hop Thighs, sings about "dancing with the ex-lead singer of The Clash", the great punkster Joe Strummer of about the same era as The Ramones. And when Ms. Rigby sings that Mr. Ramone hit her and it felt like a kiss how could my mind go anywhere but Florence and The Machine with Kiss with a Fist?

And so I offer all three vaguely-related songs today and ask you which you like best. Personally, I'm not a fan of domestic violence and don't support the idea of hitting, kicking, or throwing dishes as some twisted expression of love but I like both of these songs. I think dancing with Joey Ramone is a bit of stretch but you can find plenty of videos of Mr. Strummer dancing and not just to Clash songs.

I thought about adding Allo, Darlin' and their delightful Henry Rollins Don't Dance but I thought that rather went against the theme. I was going to link to my post on it anyway but I've found I don't have one. I guess you know what I'm writing about, tomorrow!

I bumped into Amy Rigby today and I had to share her with you. She's funny, clever, and sweet in equal parts, overlaid on a firm basis in snark. I've chosen to include I Don't Wanna Talk about Love No More because I know everyone has had this feeling at some point. The message of the song? Can't we talk about the billion other things in the world or does every conversation have to be about love and sex? If you like that one try Cynically Yours.

Now, Amy Rigby doesn't have a fantastic voice. What she does have is emotion, passion, and wit that carry her personality into every song. She's the kind of singer/songwriter you'd want to got out for coffee or a couple of beers with rather than just watching her in concert. She's been working in the music industry for decades, bouncing from project to project and putting every bit of her life experience, including motherhood and relationships, into the songs she writes. She's been punk, pop, country, and folk plus every combination and permutation thereof.

All of that makes for music that is fun and interesting. You know I have a serious weakness for that sort of thing, even if she doesn't have a horn section most of the time. So have a listen to I Don't Wanna Talk about Love No More and see if you like her as much as I do. And if you're an old, staid, married couple have a listen to Are We Ever Gonna Have Sex Again? and see if you don't find yourself in at least on of her examples.

I think we need something bizarre today. Happily, I have Boing! from My Robot Friend that fits the bill perfectly. It's like a freaky, sproingy self-affirmation for the weirdos amongst us. Before you ask, yes, I do consider myself one of them. Have a couple of minutes of bouncy fun and remember this song when times are tough. Maybe it'll bring a smile, if nothing else. Bing!