Here We Come a-Wassailing

This just in from the Workshop:

Elf Johnny, through bursts of profanity, threats of grievous harm to computers, forays into the World of Commerce, fair amounts of beer consumption, quality time with Miss Oonagh and the creatures of the Holler, Christmas eve supper with some old friends (and a big sack of oysters), and a tad of NFL action, has somehow managed to finish this sucker and stick it under your tree, just under the wire.

It was mixed on some weird monitors and is kinda 80% finished, but I do hope you like it.  That's Mike E on the drums, Thanksgiving.  I guess in the long run, the holidays are all what you make 'em, so do make 'em count.

Peace and love to all-- That includes anyone whose machines (I'm looking at YOU, Apple Inc) can't do the Flash Player below. You guys can head to the link at bottom....

jk

Christmas Ain't for Family:


Link:
http://www.box.com/s/f154ec46igesu5g452nc

Ho!-down!

'tis the season, peoples!  As perhaps only Santa and a few others know, I've been trying to be a good do-bee the past couple of years, attempting to cook up a new Christmas/ seasonal hit for when the holly jolly time rolls 'round.  There's indeed a new one in the hopper for 2011, thanks to Elf Mikey's help over Thanksgiving at Harpswell Holler, but we've since hit a few snags on the production line.  There's no telling if I'll manage to get that new product under your tree by Flying Baby J Time on Sunday but in the meantime, you can reheat these classics in your microwave.

"Christmas Parties" needs a bit of cleaning up, and somehow this version's missing a verse, but I'm proud of my little Yuletide kiss-off, and that's Roady on the drums.  It's the kind of song you could only write on a Wurlitzer electronic piano--- a lil' nugget of heartbreak, bitterness and ill will with that gooey heart of sentimentality that you love (or hate). "Everyday Christmas" is really more of a Christmas-in-July thing, but it does have plenty of the C-word in it, two drumsets, a dinger-bonker and all my other usual slatherings, in tribute to Phil Spector and Brian Wilson.  "Ho!" thyself up and "Ho!" it back down again!

And of course if anybody needs holiday cocktail recommmendations, our HelpLine is always open!


Christmas Parties:


Everyday Christmas:

Buttsteak, summer '09, part 6: Going to the bullpen

Ladies and Gents--- Hoist one for the back-benchers and pinch hitters!  Wrapping up this particular trip down Memory Lane with the Buttsteaks, Scotty and I turn over the vocal chores to some fellows that don't get to sing often and, when they get the opportunity, can really bring some goddarned joie de vivre!

First up is John T. Faulkingham with his perennial, classic take on the Beat Farmers' "Lost Weekend".  The 'Steaks have always had a secret ability to pull off some honky-tonk C&W, and this was probably the first tune on which we really ran with it.  It used to be something of a Tom Waits parody but as Faulk's grown more rowdy and shameless over the years, he's taken ownership of this particular barn-burner. 

And speaking of the country music, we follow up with an off-the-cuff version of "Folsom Prison Blues".  During the summer '09 recording session, we did have some company in the studio, in the form of Al Schnittman and Dennis Hoban.  They lent us their ears and opinions,and helped us make a dent in the refreshments.  After a large number of said beverages, we stumbled into "Folsom...", got Denny up to the mic and rolled tape.  One-take wonders never cease!

jk

Lost Weekend:


Folsom Prison Blues:

It wasn't all fowl

More photo goodness as you recover from the last batch of songs. The Roadkills took a visit to Maine over Thanksgiving and were treated quite well by the Buttsteaks. In addition to the aforementioned fowl, there was the requisite lobstah and some fine dining in Portland. And a meat wagon.

There was also some new rock, recorded at the scene of last spring's hootenanny crimes. The cue of stuff to post is long, so who knows when the new songs will grace your in boxes. And, I fear things may have been lost due to a conflagration in the Greater Lexington area. But that's another story.

The view from behind the drum kit.

Keating's wagon of meat.

Doc tickles the ivory.

Photo interlude: "Buttsteak Rulez!"

Many thanks to Andy Thomas and his crazy bunch of pirates over at Donna's in Charles Village for the heartwarming reception during one of our spring '09 practice sessions....

Buttsteak, summer '09, part 6: Bringing the Rock

Awaken, ye, from your holiday torpor!  And if you need some help doing so, follow the links to some straight-up FM-style classic rock-ery.  It's pretty meat-and-potatoes stuff. 

Our version of "Knockin'..." is basically a Guns n' Roses rip-off with a patina of actual Dylan on the top (thanks to my stubborn inner traditionalist), and some tinkly Elton-ian piano (thanks to my equally stubborn inner cheeseball).

"You Shook Me..." is another straight shooter, which arose from our post-gig recording session in Sei's basement.  After recording a bunch of the "usual suspects" and having put away a few refreshments, nature called me away for a couple of minutes and I returned to find Road, New Guy and Faulk letting loose on this number, which we'd never taken a shot at before.  Why, what lil' Care Bears those fellas are!  What a fine surprise!  Reminds me of the time an old vet school rommate cooked up a birthday scrapple pizza for me, but that's another story....   So we dropped the vocals down into a more sing-able range, slathered on some pedal steel as a curveball and let the rhythm section and Oken carry it.

Many thanks to Fitz for providing all the high notes.


Knockin' on Heaven's Door:


You Shook Me All Night Long:

Buttsteak, summer '09, part 5: Where the Hell is Hank?

Oh, the stories we could tell about Our Man in Hong Kong.  Hank.  Hank Shalabi, that is.  International Man of Mystery, Suavitee and Relentless Pursuit of Delicious Cocktails.  Yep-- And sometimes you miss that lil' bastard more than others. The attached cuts provide ample examples.  First off is "Lorraine", our favorite song by the early '80's UK ska band Bad Manners (and who among us would not love an overweight, bald, sweaty, belly-rubbing, crowd-mooning lead stomper named "Fatty Buster Bloodvessel"?).  Anyways, the Buttsteaks long had a love of the genre and (I just have to add) were surprisingly good at playing ska tunes.  The typical Buttsteak version of "Lorraine" featured some excellent faux-Brit vocal stylings from Scotty and some brassy keyboards from Hani approximating a horn section. Here we imitate but don't manage to duplicate.

Second is "Punk Rock Girl", the piece-de-resistance of Philly's snot-punk Dead Milkmen.  Blistering little guitar lead part, accordion accompaniment, flat and whiny vocal part--- check, check check!  During Buttsteak's stint in '89-'90 following Fitz's decampment for NY, Hani took over lead vocals on quite a few songs, and ended up really owning some.  This was one that was his from the start, with cig in one hand, beer in the other, and air guitar in both.  This is not to shortchange Road and New Guy, who nailed the crap outta this one, by the way!

Let us give thanks for the ska, the punk, the Hank, the goddarn Pilgrims and the trying for years to nail down a cover song!

Lorraine:


Punk Rock Girl:

Buttsteak, summer '09, part 4: Some basic rock tunes: Man/ Rat

In the interests of expediency in continuing on with the Buttsteak '09 recordings, I won't bore you with much in the way of chit-chat.  Basically, what you get with this post is, to me anyway, a pretty accurate presentation of the Buttsteak band bringing some rock.  Crank up the volume, overdrive your speakers, drink a few beers and make sure to douse yourself with one or two more, turn down the lights, blow in some secondhand smoke and pretend that Hani's M.I.A. and you're pretty much there.

"I'm the Man" is one of the several Joe Jackson tunes we ended up covering-- a real lost classic, a fine example of the Angry Young Brit genre and a perennial favorite for doing impressions of Scotty's singing, dance moves and lyrical interpretations.  "You Dirty Rat" is a Scruffy the Cat song classic that for some reason is not one of Charlie Chesterman's faves, but such is the gulf between songwriter and listener.

For your consideration:

I'm the Man:


You Dirty Rat:

Buttsteak, summer '09, part 3: Halloween ZombieFest-- REM and the Pixies

A spooooooky Halloween to all you rockers!  Vampires are still boffo box office, and werewolves have been getting some lovin' of late, but it's zombies that rule the day.  Rock Zombies.

I suppose it stems from the necessary, juvenile bent of the rock genre.  Unlike blues, jazz, bluegrass, hip-hop, and so on, which get by with fluid combos and ever-changing combinations of players, rock n' roll has always traded on the image of the band as a unit/ gang/ family identifier.  Them's the rules.  It's a fine line for band to walk, and it can make for a good ride, but forestalling evolution or extinction is always going to fail in the end (not to mention that it's an absolutely unnatural state of being).  What's it gonna be?: Evolution, extinction or that grey land in between?

Your average zombie band, of course, doesn't know it's dead.  It walks on past its prime and slogs through decline, stumbling onward but rarely forward.  REM announces retirement.  World shrugs.  Other bands such as the Pixies die perfectly respectable, natural deaths (see also Pavement, X, Camper van Beethoven, etc) only to later rise from the grave in response to some mysterious call (usually that's the money talking).  They might, deep down, understand that they're not gonna be flowering back to full life anytime soon, but can manage to ride the cultural mojo for some fun and a cash grab (or several) and maybe make an event (as is now de rigueur) of playing the seminal album(s) in its entirety.  That sack of flesh rarely can it tuck itself in, straighten up and make some "valid" new music, whatever that is but I guess that, in the right light, it doesn't really matter to me, so long as whoever's playing is actually, as they say up here in Boston, "puttin' some haaaaaaahht into it".  I can love me a zombie just fine.  I'm a guy who can watch those PBS fund-raising oldie-fests for quite a while.

Lord knows where that leaves Buttsteak and the Haggises Five, living dead-wise.  Feasting on the flesh of rock zombies perhaps?  As ever, I suppose.  We were sodden carrion -pickers from the start, so I say "Huzzah"!  Hoist a glass and gnaw some bones!  

Driver 8:


Here Comes Your Man:

Buttsteak, summer '09, part 2: The Cure, perennial faves

Today we carry you further on into autumn with some more fine cover tunes courtesy of the largely reconstituted Buttsteak and the Haggises Five, summer '09.  Oh, and some old photos of the constituted Buttsteaks, circa spring '89.  Scroll thee down.

Those of you in the know would correctly note that our meat and potatoes were generally Scruffy the Cat and Camper van Beethoven, and we sure loved some Ramones, but over time we were always trafficking in a few tunes by the Cure and the Smiths and their peers.  Probably this in large part reflects the influence of Faulk and Fitz, but we all were (and are) big supporters of those British bands of whatever ilk you'd call it-- it wasn't "alternative" back then, or "new wave".  Maybe we'd call it "new music", or "college rock"?  No matter-- The songs were (and are) flat-out great and they were of course a huge part of the '80's soundtrack.  In Suite 201 of Building A at JHU, those two bands were on near-repeat for most of the year.  Of course, that wasn't my doing, classic/ roots rocker that I was, but I learned to adapt and learn and love.

I'll put on Steve Earle's boots and stand on Bob Dylan's coffee table and argue anytime for the unbelievable, wonderful Johnny Marr of the Smiths.  But maybe more on the Smiths later.  Today's argument is for Robert Smith and the Cure and their albums and albums of dark, weird, groovy, whiny, heartbreak .  Hopefully these make up for some of the brutal crimes against music that comprise some of our versions of "In Between Days" and "Close to Me".  Glorious low points, all!

Boys Don't Cry:


Just Like Heaven:

of buttsteaks & boston

Hello all, Roadkill here at exactly 1 p.m. on a Monday in Baltimore, which means they're testing the air raid siren at the courthouse while some of us try to work through lunch. The horn is a particularly blaring return to reality as I sit here still basking in the glow of fires, literal and figurative, that were stoked this past weekend in Boston.  

Originally, an extended cast of characters planned to converge at TT the Bear's, a sweaty dive in Cambridge where the afore-mentioned Scruffy the Cat was to reunite after a 20+ year hiatus. But people in bands lead complicated lives and the shows were unceremoniously scuttled. The Fitz's stepped into this void and a small hoard of thankful college friends and spouses descended for some ambling walks, food & drink, and terrible fireside singing.  Along the way, cocktails were had, friends reconnected and, quite possibly, a septum was deviated. 

I bring this up in an ostensibly musical forum because of the degree to which music has been the surgical glue that stuck so many of us together so many years ago and that keeps giving us excuses to meet up in one city or another. At the heart of it is the friendships.  I mean, nobody ever went to a Buttsteak show (or a two-drummer rehearsal at 303) for quality songsmanship. It was about camaraderie and beer, in roughly that order. Sure, it would have been nice if Scruffy took the stage this past weekend but, sitting around the fire pit in Lexington, I think we all realized it wasn't really about them after all.

Dan, stoking the fires.

Buttsteak, summer '09, part 1: We were fans of Camper van...

Ah, Buttsteak!  The band, that is-- the actual Buttsteak.  With the sloppy cover song thing?  You know, with the Haggises Five and all that?  The ramshackle "organization" managed to get through no fewer than four major incarnations back in the JHU days but in our brains they've all sorta melded into The One.  And, sleeper cells that we are, the promise of old friends and stoopid rock songs and cold beer and bad dancing still manages to intermittently call us forward into action, and backward into silliness.  The signal's got enough  power that it was a no-brainer that, come the 20th reunion of the class of '89, we'd naturally all get back together and get our rock trousers on.  And indeed, that whole affair was a hoot.  So.  Much.  Fun.

But this isn't about the gig.  Even if the Hopkins show hadn't gone down, it would have been worth it just to have five of us get together for the practices down in Baltimore, and then to get joined by Hani in the stretch.  Like putting on an old, comfortable pair of cut-off camouflage pants in need of a washing, and a shirt with a sausage on it.

But this also isn't about the practices either.  It's about the idea that we get together a couple months after the '09 gig to at long last lay down some decent recordings of the band.  Not surprisingly, we'd never gotten our act together to do such a thing back in the day.  And this take was also incomplete, but we made do--- Hani had to head back overseas, so the sloppy and half-baked keyboards you hear are my fault (and I couldn't come close to bringing the Shalabi mojo).  Back in Boston, we managed to dub Fitz in.  Soooo at least it's an approximation.

And there's a big bunch to post.  First up, two unsung classics by Santa Cruz, CA's Camper van Beethoven, old mainstays...  "Skinheads" goes way back to the Scott Scummit/ Whiskey Sin and Moral Corruption days and, I dunno, maybe before I was on board, and enviously watching those yahoos in the lovely D.U. basement.  "Sweethearts" I believe we added in the post-Fitz era.  It's missing the string parts and whistling but I could listen to Todd play those guitar bits just about forever.

Take the Skinheads Bowling:


Sweethearts:


Four out of six, spring '09:

Hani's thoughts on the matter:

Fitz, winter '09 actually looking up lyrics!! Go internets!

Harpswell Hootenanny 2011, Part 5: Drug Test

Hey gang.  Hope you're enjoying our little backslide from autumn back into summer.  Also hope it doesn't last long.   Irregahdless, here's the last of the finished Hoot mixes for you.  It might not be to everyone's tastes, noisy lil' devil that it is, but it should provide some audio (and perhaps video) evidence that we managed to skronk it up a bit at March's throwdown, which is to say that we briefly flew the alternative- indie flag and let loose a tad of feedback as well.  This was thanks in no small part to Dillo's destructification of a couple guitar leads.  Never had I heard such a spectacular strangulation of my Telecaster, which is used to a more sedate, twangy, roots-rocking existence.  Happily this song provided one of those moments when you're playing a song and have to force yourself to keep going, because what's taking place right in front of you is so goddarned entertaining that you're almost inclined to just stop and listen.  Anyway, this is all above and beyond the fact that he flew up from Chapel Hill with his own home-crafted prosciutto.   A true Renaissance man! 

Hopefully you'll also be able to stream or (probably) download some of the video we had from the run-through, prior to all the "beautification" and other studio wizardry.  If nothing else, I think it gives an indication of the degree to which we were flying by the seat of our collective pants, if you pay attention to the confused, determined and surprised looks all around.  And hooray for the seasonal plumage and accoutrements!

We've got a couple more of these Hoot songs in the can, or partially so, and they'll hopefully see the light of day before long, once we work out the transcontinental file sharing and electronic recording situation so that Paul B can work his magic.  Might slide into something completely different next week.  We'll see.

jk

Drug Test:

Dillo- Guitar; Paul B- Guitar; JK- Bass, etc; Road- Drums

Drug Test in-progress video:

Filmed by Roggie

Harpswell Hootenanny 2011, Part 4: Jockey Full of Bourbon

As things start getting autumnal in parts northeast, we here at RK-BS Industries continue, like a fine PBS Frontline documentary, to address the events of this past spring.  So here's a funky(ish) number for you from the March combo, Day 1, when we were fresh and saucy.  Just in case anyone was under the impression that your Merry Band of Hooters limited ourselves to slop-rock and a Beatles cover, well, take a spin on "Jockey Full of Bourbon".  I believe it was a cover that was broached independently by Dillo and Roger, and therefore proof that great minds do think alike. 

For those not familiar with the song, "Jockey Full of Bourbon" is yet another classic sprung from the carnival mind of the great Tom Waits, off of his landmark "Rain Dogs" LP from '85.  The original is indeed a distillation of that particular Waits-ian era: barking vocals, chugging rhythms, a stinging and echo-laden guitar line, bubbling organ, a baritone sax, tons of percussion, something that sounds like a whip cracking, and lyric references to busted $2 pistols, Cuban jail, a Slingerland ride (cymbal, that is), stepping on the devil's tail and, it goes without saying, bourbon, birds and a house on fire.

We slowed it down a bit and tried to play up the Afro-Cuban feel.  Double secret extra credit goes to Mr. Bonanos, who absolutely sealed the deal by nailing his parts on the inimitable Wurlitzer 200a electronic piano. Maybe next time we lay on a horn section!  Now accepting applications....


Roggie: vocs and gtr; Paul B: Wurlitzer; Paul C: Bass; JK: gtr, percussion; Road: Drums

Harpswell Hootenanny 2011, Part 3: Sail On

Keeping it brief, we're pushing onward through the last-minute mixing tweaks and we're into the middle third of the group recordings from this past March.  I think it's fair to say that this here number would've been the Song Voted Most Fun to Play by the participants of Hoot '11.  Songs like this are your purest, basic hootenanny fodder and, what with all the Lionel Ritchie visions dancing through one's head, it's hard not to get your goof on.  It's kinda funny that such a country pop hit would've sprung from such a smooth funky beast as the Commodores but I suppose that being Alabama boys, it was in their blood.  Credit also to the Supersuckers, who play a nice version that inspired this one in no small part. 

Sail On:


Bonanos: Wurlitzer; Cardillo: Bass; Evitts: Drums; Sorkin: lead guitar, vocals; Keating: Rhythm guitar, steel, vocals

let's go to the videotape

After more than a year, rumor has it that video footage of the 2010 Buttsteak reunion show has been smuggled out of Charm City and made its way up the coast. Experts are examining the files and, hopefully, scrubbing out the embarrassing and/or off-key, but that won't leave us with much. Perhaps there will be an un-redacted Assange-like release? 

Better yet, perhaps there's a way to post older material that Oken edited down a few years ago.  Whaddya say, boys?

Harpswell Hootenanny 2011, Part 2-- Dylan and the Band

A couple years ago, I was taking a coffee break from my professorly duties in North Grafton, and was over at the Newbury Comics store in Shrewsbury, MA.  I bought a copy of Bob Dylan's just released official Bootleg Series Vol. 5 release of  the "Rolling Thunder Revue, Live 1975".  Popped it into the car's CD player, waited out those first delicious, silent, anticipatory moments, and then got flat-out walloped by the first cut, "Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You".  Nearly plowed into several cars in the "Stah Mahket" lot, I did!  It's a totally different beast from the crooning, laid-back "Nashville Skyline" original--  an amped-up, rip-roarin' version, supplying that good ol' "Ya Ya Ya!!!  Rock Rock Rock!!" adrenaline charge in spades.  In the back of my mind I thought "Hmmmm.... Maybe we can rip this off someday?....".   Well, that day is here!  Or, I should say, it was here at the end of March.  "Tonight..." was the first song we recorded from this March's Harpswell Hootenanny and, after not being sure if the organization was really going to gel, we looked around when we'd finished a run-through and breathed a collective "Hell yeah-- Something just happened there!"

And what better to pair that with than a classic from the "Basement Tapes" sessions of Bob and the Band?  We ran through this version on  Sunday, after Roggie had already decamped for home and we'd devolved into 3-chord garage slop-rockers.  After sometimes getting bogged down, as will happen, with take after take of some long and/or tricky and/or demanding song or other, there's nothing like a good dollop of rock n' roll to clear the old pipes and put a charge back in your ticker.wo

May have some more pics for your viewing pleasure, and perhaps a video or two.  For now, git on out there and enjoy some fine long weekend action!

Tonight I'll Be Staying Here with You:

Paul B- Wurlitzer; Rog- lead gtr/ harmony voc; Dillo- bass; Road- drums; JK- rhythm gtr, voc, pedal steel, organ

Odds and Ends:

Paul B and Dillo- guitars; Road- drums; JK- bass, keys, voc

Harpswell Hootenanny 2011, Part 1-- Beatles or Stones?

The internets should've been lighting up--- In late March of this year, we managed to convene a veritable rogues gallery here at the Harpswell Estate, for the inaugural version of what we hope to make a yearly, ragtag,  floating rock session, beer slaughterin' and general gathering of friends from near and far. After a few months of calendar co-ordination, gear acquisition and song selection, Roadkill flew up from Charm City, and Roggie drove up from the new Sorkin Compound in lovely Florence, MA.  Gold stars went out to Dillo, who made the trek up from the Chapel Hill metro area (with his own prosciutto!), and to Paulie Bonanos, who caught a transcontinental flight from San Fran just to take part (and make gumbo). Platinum star, as ever, to Miss Oonagh, who put up with all this nonsense with poise and wit.

Anyway, a great time was had by all over the course of the weekend.  We yowled and hooted, swapped instruments, put a dent in our stores of libations and comestibles, and had a fine go of things, even putting a little hard work into the musical end.  To show for it, we have passel of fine tunes (some still under construction) and a bunch of silly pictures to share.  Already we've got our sights on spring '12 for the next go-round.

So here you go, for the first couple of cuts from the Harpswell Hootenanny 2011: one Beatles and one Stones.  I'm not sure if you can really call it a "battle", to put one of the all-time greatest Beatles tunes from one of their bestest albums ever ("Revolver", '66) up against a pretty deep Stones cut (from '67's "Between the Buttons-- another absolutely essential disc).  But, whatevah.....

And Your Bird Can Sing:


Paul B- rhythm/ lead gtr; Rog- lead/ harmony voc, rhythm gtr; Dillo- bass; Road- drums; JK- tambourine, harmony voc

Connection:

Paul B and Dillo- guitars; Road- drums; JK- bass, keys, tambourine, voc

Airliner

Airliner:



As the song says, "It's a two lane stretch of blacktop, it ain't nothin' 'bout a plane".  "The Airline" is the stretch of US Route 9 that runs between Bangor and Calais (pronounced "kal-lis", of course), which lies at the far southeastern border of Maine and looks across the St. Croix River to St. Stephen, NB, Canadia.  There are a few ideas as to why the road's called the Airline, the most likely being that the alternate route along the Downeast coast would have been the "shoreline" route.  The inland route crosses some of the tallest hills in the area, and at times it does feel like you're up in the clouds.  The road's been nicely resurfaced and generally improved in recent years but it still bears some of its old mojo as a trucker's ribbon winding through the hills, lakes and endless forests of Hancock County.  When you're crossing a hilltop in the dim grey middle of a cold winter day, maybe with some snow falling and not a soul in sight, you really feel you could just get swallowed up and not be found again.

I believe this particular song would've been mighty in the hands of the old Dillo or Pourbillies bands, but here's a solo version. Later on this week, we'll get some more of the collaborative stuff posted, and hopefully some photos.

jk

You're So Serious

You're So Serious:


Ah, the garage rock!  Who among us does not love it?  Even if, in this case, it's actually garage rock with a bit of psychedelia thrown in.  It's a classic combination-- two great tastes (or one great one and one OK one) that taste great together. For those of you who are "lumpers" and not "splitters", as we call 'em in the pathology biz, the fine points of rock music categorization are probably a snooze, but us geeks find them fun and sort of useful.  Admittedly, that's "useful" in that "turning-off-the-ladies-and-causing-their-eyes-to-glaze-over-until-their-patience-runs-out-and-the-irritation-takes-over" way, but also in that inside baseball way.  Shorthand.  Like "fuzzed-out, overdriven R&B revival with odd retro techno touches"

The garage rock, anyway, has one of the deepest pedigrees out there-- It's snotty and unpolished music, though generally not angry, and usually it's loud and sloppy enough that you indeed might want to banish it to whatever outbuilding you had handy.  Having played in several garages in my time, there's something about the smell of trash and gasoline, and the tools and junk and storage, and the way the cacophony bouncing off the concrete surfaces that's pretty darned appealing.  But what made me post this particular song and rant it that I'd been thinking of a quote from Lester Bangs, our quintissential development-arrested, self-destructive slop-rock critic, on the Troggs' "Wild Thing", one of the cornerstones of garage rock.   From his essay "James Taylor Marked for Death", 1971:

"It's that kind of a song, 'cause it's about you when you had a good time and went mad for real and reared for release 'cause you were too young and naive to know any better. .... if kids are really too smart and cool to just loon about anymore, if first day of summer means rolling one after another from new lid and plopping hour on hour in front of television or record player instead of tearing into the street and hunting out buddies and leaping and yupping till at least some of the scholastic poison accumulating like belladonna ever since September is plain crazied out of your soul, if all of that's a pipe dream and I'm just an old fart now-- cranking out complaints about the New Generation regular as TB spittle-- if all that's true, then THE LESSON OF "WILD THING" WAS LOST ON ALL YOU STUPID #%$@^-ERS sometime between the rise of Cream and the fall of the Stooges, and rock n' roll may turn into a chamber art yet or at the very least a system of Environments."

So there!

Note: As summer's getting short and the pile of "hit rekkids" is undiminished, next week we start two-a-days, so take heart, have patience, get some rest and drink plenty of fluids.

More Scruffy

As with his Mum's post, Doc once again perfectly captures the scene and what it felt like to get happily steamrolled by Scruffy.  But he soft-pedaled the many interactions that Buttsteak (the band) had with those fellows.  I fondly remember crashing at a house on St. Paul St. with Stephen and, Burns maybe?, after the Glass Pav show.  Stephen couldn't sleep and quietly sat reading the white pages of the Baltimore phone book.  Earlier that evening, we opened up for them, performing our own Scruffy min-set/tribute. It's been reported by several reliable witnesses that Stephen didn't recognize our "disco" version of their song Blue Russian. 

Of all the music I've performed or seen live, Scruffy set the high water mark at what must have been a low point for them. I'm speaking, of course, about the show at the DU house. That was the return wing of their last tour and if they hadn't decided to throw in the towel up until then, I'm pretty sure me standing on a speaker screaming "Buck Naked" probably pushed them over the edge.  Sorry folks. 

But even in those trying circumstances, they were consummate professionals.  They set up, loaded in, no sound checks, no flirting with willing young ladies, no extensive tuning and mic checks.  They just turned on and played a blistering set... one of those chapter room events where the floor bounced and even the ceiling was sweaty.  I've never seen any band come close to that show before or since.

-RK

You and Randall Lee

Hey friends-- Here's the song link up top this time, 'cause I might go on a while:

You and Randall Lee


Randall Lee Gibson IV, that is.  Fantastic drummer, and one of my faves.  Typical of that lot--- Stay in the pocket... don't mess with the flashy stuff... just drive that goddarn song, and MEAN IT...   Anyway, once when he was in Baltimore on one of those Scruffy tours, I saw him walking up 30th St. in Baltimore with a young lady.  The song came to me a decade later, and now we're another ten or so down the line.

You've already seen how much I love to try and dissect these songs and whatever primordial soup they may have arisen.  But I can promise you that I'm responsible for few more direct acts of musical tribute/ thievery/ pale imitation than the attached song-- It's a straight-up, 100% testimony to the impact that music, and a band, and a place in time can leave.  For a bunch of liquored-up, college kids in often bo-ring uptown Baltimore as the 80s were winding down, that band was Boston's Scruffy the Cat.

I recall the review of "Tiny Days" in the Baltimore City Paper: "Another Boston bar band quietly kicks ass."   My first show at the 8x10 Club sealed the deal.  Soon enough we were off a-shoutin' and a-baptizin', picking up steam and picking up converts.  This was IT!-- This was ROCK and ROLL!-- Or some kinda freewheeling hybrid of rock n' roll, honky-tonk, punk, R&B and lord knows what that was somehow hard-wired to our young rock n' roll souls. We'd read tea leaves, magazines and the CP listings for any sign of shows in Baltimore or DC, or maybe even Boston, NYC, Northampton, Port Chester or lord knows where.  Finally we realized we could just put Klausner on the case and just pay the band to play a gig for our own entertainment.  Huzzah!  And this despite the crimes that the Buttsteak and the Haggises 5 band routinely committed against "Mybaby..." and "Moons'" and "Betty" and "Rat" and "Russian".  (Hell, Fitz and I just sang, and probably once again ruined, "2day, 2morrow,4ever" across a campfire just this past weekend...)

Yep-- the Scruffy gigs were So Damned Good and the third LP was Going to Be #$%^'in Amazing.  But that was that.  Band breaks up, college is done.  Move it along, son.  Put it behind you.

Well, I was lucky enough to live in Boston after that, and saw a lot of Charlie Chesterman with the Harmony Rockets, and solo, and I dunno how many times with the Legendary Motorbikes, plugging away.  Plans sadly fell through to have the Motorbikes play at the Wack-Keating Belated Wedding Event/ Premature 2nd Anniversary Party a couple years back.  After that, I kept an eye out for Charlie gigs, hoping to catch up, but... nothing....  for many months....  strange....  Until, card-carrying stalker that I still must be, I happened to go to Charlie's ever-neglected and run-down website for the first time in a long while and...?  What the $%^&??  Cancer?  Benefit?  What the #%^#??

Well, more on all that business shortly.  In the meantime, this one goes out with eternal gratitude to Charlie and Randall and Stephen and Burns and Mac....

Honey Pie

Hey friends-

I have not much of note to prattle on about to accompany it, but I did manage to turn up a song to post: a companion piece to last week's bar-room rocker, recorded at the same time as that one.  The chassis was similarly lifted from the Stones-Faces design book, with maybe an additional nod to AC/DC along the way.  Thematically, though, it was spun off Beatle George's "Savoy Truffle" from the White Album.  Just another in a long line of Imaginary Foodstuff Rock Songs.... (insert Dessert Island Disc joke here.) 

Bonus Fun Fact That I Just Learned: Did you know that sometimes when blues and rock songs refer to sugar, candy, jelly rolls and other foodstuffs, sometimes they're always not speaking literally?  Sometimes they are.  Discuss among yourselves.

Aaaaanyhoo:

Honey Pie:

Mum's the Word

Doc's post on Mum's has it right. For a while, there was a choice to be made: Tio Loco's or Mum's? Actually, there were lots of choices to be made back then. Crazy Lil's, Sudsucker's, the original Captain Larry's and, if you were on a date or something, Sisson's or Bandaloops. The neighborhood was filled with shot-and-a-beer places that have slowly faded away to the point where it's hard to find a decent shufflebowl table anymore.

Management issues pushed Tio's into oblivion and shifted the focus to Mum's. Below is one of the relics that made the transition along with Brian and the rest of us:

Dillo and subsequent bands played Mum's with some frequency, the now-covered fireplace blazing away the skin from this drummer's back. There were plenty of sets with the Glenmont Popes, and that glorious holiday show with Dr. Tasty. And, who else... Splittsville, maybe? It's all a little hazy.

-RK

Down at the Crown

With the good ol' days of late-'90's Baltimore on the mind as a result of last week's post, here's one for you-- "Down at the Crown".  The song is a mash-up of sorts, taking it's name from the first practice space the Dillo band ever had, in the wonderfully decrepit and spacious Crown Industrial Park along the Highlandtown-Greektown border on Baltimore's east side.    The compound is one of those great holdovers from its industrial heyday that Baltimore specializes in.  Our room was huge and lit by a wall-full of frosted windows.   It was a pretty quiet/ sparsely populated facility.  There wasn't a lot of noise bleed.  Load-ins/ outs were a snap.    Assuming you didn't get inadvertently locked in the Crown compound, blocked in by a slow-rolling or (even worse) stopped freight train, you could still make the quick hop up the road to Samos for some fine Greek vittles, and maybe stop by Fell's Point for a cool beverage if it were late enough and you were taking the crosstown route back to Federal Hill.  The Crown was (and is) also the home to Invisible Sound Studios, where Dave Nachodsky recorded a couple batches of "hit rekkids" for us (including "South of Lombard"), somehow making us sound quite nifty in the process.  Perhaps more on that later.

Content-wise, though, "Down at the Crown" is fully sprung from the fetid loins of Mum's on S. Hanover St., which at the time and for several years thereafter was the center of social, musical and alcoholic operations in our Fed'l Hill/ South Baltimore world.  If you've not stepped foot inside Mum's, it's not hard to get the picture of the way it was back in the day: a dark, impossibly smoke-infused "Cheers" for a broad swath of white-/ blue-/ no-collar locals, post-shift tradesmen, barkeeps and restaurant workers, tattooed punkers and artists, sundry humanity and foolish youth overflowing from the Cross St. Market, O's games, street fairs and other downtown adventures.  The jukebox was good, live music was present on the weekends with fair frequency, the pool table had a pronounced warp but was playable...

The song itself dates back to '02 or so.  Like many of 'em, I've tried to nail it down a few times.  This version is probably the closest to true, even if it lacks the handclaps and "Exile On Main St."-era Stones horns that I hear in my head, and even if the tuning on one of the guitars is tenuous.   It's a solo affair, this particular attempt, so quality control is more likely to suffer.

"Down at the Crown":

South of Lombard

Yep, here we are, already into July.  It appears that time continues to fly.  But having posted a summery, quasi-4th-of-July song last week, we've got something completely different for your Independence Day weekend-- a cheerful kiss-off song, called "South of Lombard" (the "Lombard" in question being a main east-west thoroughfare in downtown Bawlmer).

During last August's recording session here at the Harpswell Estate, the RK and BS co-op delved deep into our Charm City past and came up with the bones of this re-do of the song we used to play with our band "Dillo".  That band, named after one Paul R. Cardillo, scholar and gentleman, was comprised of the two of us, plus Goff Brown, Johnny "Rock" Marsh and eventually also Paulie Bonanos.  An irascible thing was the Dillo band, but great fun while it lasted.  Sadly I have no photo to post right now, but will eventually scare one up.  Those were the pre-digital days...  But they were certainly not the pre-rock days, as we brought quite a punked-up pop/ twang-tinged racket. 

Songs are funny things-- This one actually started out in a restrained, Richard Thompson-like acoustic vein, and in the hands of the Dillo band was much more a a crunchy runaway speedball than this version.  Our post-Dillo band Honcho (RK, BS and PB) slowed it down and sort of lounged it up.  I thought that exposing you to all four of those would be just too much love, but here's the new one:

South of Lombard:


/jk

Better late than never, that post gave me some Joe-mentum to get my mitts on a scanner and use it.  So here for your viewing pleasure, Dillo (the band), at he '98 Fells Point Festival:

 

Lesser Lights

Hey folks-

We decided on the "Roadkill/ Buttsteak" name for the site because (other than it just rolling off the tongue) most of the musical collaboration amongst our hardy group in recent years has been between Mike and me.   Certainly, this site is not called "Just Keating" for a reason.  Mostly, I think these things are more fun when a few cooks are in the kitchen.  So for a minute there I was concerned that all I had in the hopper were Keating-only covers and re-dos of some originals.  Boy, was I wrong!----

Happily, some "great" audio (and hopefully video) from this spring's inaugural Harpswell Hootenanny and Beer-Slaughterin' is just about ready.  I recently recalled that we have some Buttsteak studio recordings from '09 that have never seen the light of day but which probably need only a little tweaking.  For the brave of heart, there are some classic rock covers done last year by me and my old Iona Prep buddy John Stackpole, not to mention some stuff from me and my man Dillo.  There's the remastering/ de-stanking of the RK-BS archives, so there should be no shortage of goods eventually, even if a new note is not struck for a long while.  And, yeah, there's a big load of stuff I've been putting together in the laboratory on my lonesome.  So no one's gonna be stahvin' Mahvin' ovah heah.

Anyway, first to a Evitts-Keating goody.  This is an updated version of a tune I wrote back in the Wack-Keating Bath, ME days, as a celebration of life in the slow lane.  It's a summer song and I always regarded it as a 4th of July composition, so there you have it:

Lesser Lights:


/ jk

$.02 worth

If you go back, way back... and include all the various bands, bars, basements, and those few precious moments we spent here http://www.invisiblesoundstudios.com/, I conservatively estimate there are several dozen recordings of Keating songs out there. (I wonder if he has kept count?)

This isn't a warning so much as a statement of wonder. The man is a Trappist dedicating weeknights in subterranean solitude, scribing lyrics and frying things in duck fat. Or maybe songs come to him in random moments of inspiration, diligently captured in that notebook of his? Who knows? What is he building in there?

Recording with him is also enigmatic in that he'll come to a session with upwards of half a dozen songs, many of which I've never heard before. There's a scratch guitar track and the occasional instructions, whispered through headphones, as I record the drums. It's rare we go more than three takes. He likes to keep things from getting too, you know, professional sounding. Once drums are recorded, the usual scenerio involves laboratory magic in one of Doc's many undisclosed locations. For all I know, he's got a battery of mandolin-laden elves shackled up in Grafton.

As we've gotten better at the whole recording thing lately it's not unusual for a single song to get worked on in Maryland, Massachusetts and Maine. (Thanks for this goes, in equal parts, to the Interweb and AirTran.) Despite their provenance and squeaky clean digital encoding (and, whichever of our gang is sitting in on the session) I think the songs maintain their intrinsic Keating-ness and that's not something you can accomplish with a cheap plug-in effect. 

-RK

New Digs

Hey all-  As long promised, your inboxes should finally be pretty much free of spammy MP3 delivery.  The Keating-Evitts (and Cardillo, Bonanos, Sorkin, Faulkingham, Oken, Fitzgerald, Shalabi, Stackpole and whoever else) Recording Machine Corporation has these new digs, so now you can head over here, should the spirit move you, and stream, download (right click, etc...) and generally self-spam to your hearts' content.  We'll let you know when we get some new audio/ visual up.

For starters, here are a couple songs from '09 or so that you've probably gotten in some form or other.  I wrote them in tandem, and we recorded them in succession, and I always regarded them as a "single": "I've Changed" b/w "Let Me Sell You Something".

I've Changed:


Let Me Sell You Something:


As to the site itself, we're in beta testing right now, and hopefully will get the hang of our limited options and arrive at a good format soon.  Suggestions as to format/ content/ anything else are always welcome though not always understood.

/jk