TheGoodRev

Does anybody remember a solo album that Ocasek did a few years ago? I've never heard it, don't know anything about it, all I remember is reading in Guitar World that Billy Corgan and Melissa Auf Der Mar (who was already playing bass for the Smashing Pumpkins, who were on their last legs) played on it.

I used to know a guy, Paul, who was a huge Cars fan. He travelled a lot for work and one day found himself on a plane to L.A. sitting next to Eric Erlandson, guitar player for Hole (Courtney Love's band for which Auf Der Mar also played bass). They get to talking, blah blah blah, Erlandson says something like, "We're on our way to shoot the next Hole video."

Paul says, "'We'? Who's 'we'?"

Erlandson: "Well, Courtney always flies first-class, but Melissa's on the plane too, a few rows back."

Paul: "Melissa's on this plane? No way! I loved her playing on the Ric Ocasek solo album!"

Erlandson: "(Pfff) What? [sits up, turns halfway around in his seat and yells behind him] Hey Melissa! [pointing down to Paul in the next seat] This is the guy who bought the Ocasek album!"

And that's the story I tell whenever anybody mentions the Cars.

My pleasure, Brad. I figure most of these tunes are ripped from 78rpm records, or at the very least, taken from CD reissues where the masters were 78rpm records (kind of hard to find a wax cylinder master from the 30's...I think most of them are long gone).

Check out music and photos on our MySpace page

Check out our temporary website, the brand new page should be up some time tomorrow.

Hope to see some folks out, it's gonna be a fun night!

Was going to post in this thread, but didn't want anybody to miss the download so I made a new thread:

Old School Reefer Songs for Download

I downloaded a torrent a while ago with a collection of old time songs about weed, it's a blast. I figured given the occasion I'd offer up the tunes for download. The quality is pretty basic, given that these tunes date from the first half of the last century. Lots of hilarity though, like this moment from Don Redmond's "Reefer Man":

"Oh no, you never met the Reefer Man? And yet you say you'd swim to China, and you wanted to sell me South Carolina? I believe you know the Reefer Man!"

There's also lots of awesome big-band swing jazz playing; dig the clarinet solo in Trixie Smith's "Jack, I'm Mellow" and the piano in Barney Bigard's "Sweet Marijuana Brown". Here's the tracklist:

Don Redmond - Reefer Man (1932)

Cab Calloway - The Man From Harlem (1932)

Stuff Smith - Here Comes the Man With The Jive (1936)

Bob Howard - If You're A Viper (1938)

Benny Goodman - Texas Tea Party (1933)

Buster Bailey - Light Up (1938)

Trixie Smith - Jack, I'm Mellow (1938)

Barney Bigard Sextet - Sweet Marijuana Brown (1946)

Sidney Bechet - Viper Mad (1938)

The Harlem Hamfats - The Weed Smoker's Dream (1936)

Cee Pee Johnson - The "G" Man Got The "T" Man (1945)

Andy Kirk - All The Jive Is Gone (1936)

Georgia White - The Stuff Is Here (1937)

Chick Web - Wackey Dust (1938)

Harry Gibson - Who Put the Benzedrive in Mrs. Murphy's Ovaltine? (1944)

Clarence Williams - Jerry The Junker (1934)

Fats Waller - Reefer Song (1943)

Julia Lee - Lotus Blossom (1947)

Ernest Rogers - Willie The Chimney Sweeper (1927)

Bea Foot - Weed (1938)

Buck Washington - Save The Roach For Me (1944)

Lil Green - Knockin' Myself Out (1941)

Cab Calloway - Minnie The Moocher (1933)

This is easier than a torrent for me because I'm on a new webspace with a TB of transfer monthly.

The songs are all VBR MP3s, looks like a peak of about 256. There's no text file but all artist, song and year info is in the MP3 tags.

It's a zip file, about 100MB, right-click and 'Save As': Reefer Songs

Enjoy and Happy 420!

You gotta be kidding! That's fucking awesome! Much love and respect to Dave for heading to Nashville. Al, does he have a website or anything where we can keep track of who he's playing with?

Jesus, forget this school bullshit, I need to get MY ass down to Nashville. I know a couple different folks down there now, and I hear it's tough, but I know Dave is an unreal player, and went to Humber as well. Best of luck to him.

What happened to Dave Cohen on the organ? Is he still in the band?

Ugh, my most hated of yontifs. Happy whatever fellow Heebs.

I caught a bit of their set at the Pepper Jack, had to leave early unfortunately...here's what I said about it:

The Rev on Jay Crocker

Bumpin it up.... http://cfmu.mcmaster.ca

I have been playing his new disc religiously on my show for the past month and a half. It's awesome, raw, slide-abound, deep-down-dirty blues. Just found out that I can't make the Hamilton gig, I'll be out of town, and I'm kicking myself. I will be giving away a pair of tickets to the Hamilton show on the Attic this Friday morning though.

Dr. Lester Grinspoon

This dude is awesome. I first encountered him in the Penn & Teller's Bullshit episode on drug prohibition. He is a 78-year-old professor of psychiatry emeritus at Harvard. He has an awesome site at www.marijuana-uses.com, where he has published an essay entitled To Smoke or not to Smoke: A Cannabis Odyssey. A couple exerpts:

I had come to understand that marijuana was not addicting in the usual, rather vague understanding of that word, but I certainly got hooked on learning about it. I was fascinated by my growing understanding of how little I actually knew about this drug, and even more so by the many false beliefs I had held with such conviction. It soon dawned on me that I, like most other Americans, had been brainwashed, that I was a part of this madness of the crowd. And the more I learned about cannabis, the more it seemed to be capable of providing experiences which would be worth exploring personally sometime in the future.

Finally, on our third attempt, we were able to reach the promised high. Our awareness of having at last crossed the threshold arrived gradually. The first thing I noticed, within a few minutes of smoking, was the music; it was "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." This music was not unfamiliar to me, as it was a favorite of my children, who constantly filled the house with the sound of the Beatles, the Grateful Dead and other popular rock bands of the time. They frequently urged me to get my "head out of classical music and try listening to rock." It was impossible not to listen to rock when they were growing up, but it was possible for me, as it was for many parents of my generation, not to hear it. On that evening I did "hear" it. It was for me a rhythmic implosion, a fascinating new musical experience! It was the opening of new musical vistas, which I have with the help of my sons continued to explore to this very day. A year later, I related this story to John Lennon and Yoko Ono, with whom I was having dinner. (I was to appear the next day as an expert witness at the Immigration and Naturalization Service hearings that Attorney General John Mitchell had engineered as a way of getting them out of the country on marijuana charges after they became involved in anti-Vietnam War activities.) I told John of this experience and how cannabis appeared to make it possible for me to "hear" his music for the first time in much the same way that Allen Ginsberg reported that he had "seen" CÈzanne for the first time when he purposely smoked cannabis before setting out for the Museum of Modern Art. John was quick to reply that I had experienced only one facet of what marijuana could do for music, that he thought it could be very helpful for composing and making music as well as listening to it.

morning man! and WHAT a morning!! i woke up today, sung my girlfriend a song, and proposed, and she said YES!!

WOOOHOOOOOO!!

That's awesome man but...haven't you guys been talking about planning your wedding for a couple months now? That is to say, this is nothing particularly new...?

In any event, good morning to you all! For today, 1:00pm is my morning. Don't even get me started on kookycanooky...he'll be in bed until dusk.

Thanks for the links fellas, I'm knee-deep in procrastinatory reading.

Except for that recipe page, that's blasphemous.

I just read this book for a class:

Selling Women Short: The Landmark Battle For Workers' Rights At Wal-Mart

by Liza Featherstone

The book is the story of a class-action suit that is happening now against Wal-Mart. The suit makes some SERIOUS allegations of inequality spread throughout the entire Wal-Mart chain. Women making $10,000 less per year than less qualified male counterparts seems to be consistent through the entire chain.

Don't forget - Wal-Mart is the single largest retail employer in the United States. And try to wrap your head around this one: If Wal-Mart were a country, it would be China's fifth-largest export market. The book claims that women in many of the Southern states who have full-time jobs at Wal-Mart STILL live below the poverty line and must rely on welfare and food stamps. It goes on to tell of a social assistance daycare program in Georgia that cared for 18,000 children of welfare recipients - a study then found that 10,000 of those children were children of Wal-Mart employees. Critics of this 'leftist propaganda' would argue that a private business should be left alone to its practices, but when a private business has grown to such massive proportions that it affects so many people, there is room to step in.

It's a quick read, but it'll make you mighty angry.

The Crowbar

I played there on Saturday night with Red Zeppelin. I have to say, I love this club! We're looking forward to playing there again. Good size stage, great sounding PA, and George the house tech is the coolest guy ever. No real band room, though. I don't need couches or anything, but a place to stash my coat and stuff while we're on would be nice. Other than that, great place. They have a big long chalkboard down one side of the bar and they lay out coloured chalk. Here are some pictures of the bar.

I seem to remember reading that one of the band members has a cousin named Humphrey McGee, and it evolved from that.

I caught a little bit of these guys last night at the Pepper Jack, I have to say I was incredibly impressed. It's just...fucking cool. There's lots of different jazz flavours, some swing, lots of orchestral pop a la Sgt Pepper with a pompadoured whiskey-voiced crooner's touch. Some moments where it dissolved completely into free jazz...the horn players were awesome, as was the keyboard player...shit, everybody! Go out and see this tonight, it's original and it's bloody cool!

er, I know I said it nerdily, but I actually meant 'yes'

Thanks dude

Have a good one Mary! Big breath now!

Joe Travers

Joe Travers played drums on Rich Robinson (he of the Black Crowes)'s solo tour a couple years ago. I remember looking him up at the time and seeing that he had played in "Z" featuring both Ahmet and Dweezil.

This sounds like a sweet tour, but I'm already reading the language of $100 tickets: "Accept no subsitutes" "The first OFFICIAL presentation of Zappa's music since 1993" etc.

nnyess, mglaben!

I wholeheartedly agree; I place Soup in my top 10 rock albums of the 1990's easily. Here is a post I made about it last September.

My pleasure dude, always happy to spin one for ya. One of these days I'll give a listen to the rest of that album, and the rest of their catalogue for that matter. Any other records of theirs you like in particular?

Bumpin it up

http://cfmu.mcmaster.ca