NOVEMBER PLAYLIST

This month I have mostly been diggin'...

1.  Cliff Bennett & The Rebel Rousers - "Slow Down" (1964)

The Larry Williams chestnut given a fat soul club sound indicative of their live reputation.  

2.  The Master's Apprentices - "War Or Hands Of Time" (1966)

This rollicking garage-punk single, with its A-side "Undecided", is the greatest thing Australia has ever given the world.

3.  Paul Jones - "Sonny Boy Williamson" (1966)

Paul Jones and Jack Bruce wrote and recorded this tribute to the man who made such an impact on the British R&B boom after this death the previous year. Tucked away as a B-side, featuring only Jones on vocals and harmonica and Bruce on bass, its simplicity is a far cry from the bombastic (and let's be honest, rather naff) "I've Been A Bad, Bad Boy" on the A-side.

4.  Bob Dylan & The Band - "Blowin' In The Wind" (1967)

There's a heck of a lot to take in - almost too much, if that were possible - in the 6-CD The Basement Tapes Complete but it's great to drop in for short spells to earwig Bobby and the boys having a sing-song. The woozy, bar room band take of "Blowin' In The Wind" is an immediate favourite.

5.  Percy Sledge - "True Love Travels On A Gravel Road" (1969)

Countrified Muscle Shoals soul. From the title, to the pedal steel, to the horns, to Sledge's rootsy vocal, everything here is simply magnificent. If you only investigate one song from this list, make it this.

6.  Kelly Gordon - "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother" (1969)

I love the Hollies classic but check out the outstanding original version. Gordon's almost unbearably raw emotion gives it the kind of gravitas the lyrics deserve.

7.  The Stovall Sisters - "Yes To The Lord" (1970)

Lillian, Netta and Joyce Stovall began singing in the 1950s as gospel group God's Little Wonders aged just 5, 7 and 2 respectively. By the time of their only album the sisters had embraced elements of rock and roll into their repertoire and here, in a reversal of the more common practice, take a secular song ("My Baby Loves Me" by Martha & the Vandellas) and give it a glorious religious make-over.

8.  Archie Shepp - "Attica Blues" (1972)

Two weeks after George Jackson was killed in San Quentin, 43 people died during riots in New York's Attica Prison. The title track of saxophonist Shepp's Attica Blues is a righteous, defiant, fist-raising soul stirrer. With Henry Hull on lead vocals, it's as funky as hell.

9.  Five Thirty - "Out To Get In" (1991)

Last month I included Ride and they've subsequently reformed. Gonna try and repeat the trick with their superior Oxford neighbours Five Thirty whose 12 inch extra tracks were better than most band's singles. 

10.  John Sinclair - "Straight No Chaser" (2014)

Best known as MC5 manager, White Panther Party founder and counter-culture pot stirrer, Sinclair is also a poet, journalist, performer and major jazz head (check out It's All Good - A John Sinclair Reader for a good sample of his work) . On latest album Mohawk he raps beat poetry in an evangelical manner, backed by a small jazz combo, about Bird. Monk and Dizzy. It's passionate, warm and inspiring; part history lesson, part heartfelt tribute.  

PRIMAL SCREAM and MC5/DKT - "BLACK TO COMM"

I didn’t review the Primal Scream and MC5 Meltdown Festival gig at the Royal Festival Hall back in 2008. Not because there wasn’t anything to say, more I didn’t feel equipped to do it justice. It was a rare moment when two bands from different decades and continents not only played consecutively, but simultaneously. In an era when one gig and performance is much the same as another, this was a special night that could only be fully appreciated by those in attendance. Until now. It is finally available as a three disc set: two CDs and a DVD, featuring the entire show.

Primal Scream took a while to get fully loaded. The combination of the early slot and plugging their new LP, Beautiful Future, didn’t help but the final quartet of songs “Shoot Speed Kill Light”, "Swastika Eyes", "Rocks" and "Can't Go Back" threw down the gauntlet to the MC5. Follow that motherfuckers.

With “vintage” acts it’s best to approach with low expectations and take positives rather than dwell on any negatives. With Rob Tyner and Fred “Sonic” Smith no longer with us, it could be argued it’s not really the MC5 anymore. For that reason, I massively respect the remaining members acknowledging this and insisting on being billed as MC5/DKT (for Michael Davis, Wayne Kramer and Dennis Thompson); not that anyone else calls them that, least of all me, as in my mind this was the MC5 and beyond the inescapable, contained no negatives at all. Brother Wayne Kramer in his white suit, stars and stripes Strat and freaky dancing, led the way. I’m a less-is-more kinda guy when it comes to guitar players but Kramer is a near genius when it comes to keeping Guitar Hero solos rooted in the earthy collective groove rather than flying off in spells of indulgence.

William Duvall from Alice In Chains was ideally cast into Tyner’s shadow: seven feet tall from the top of his afro to the sole of his Cubans and with a stage presence even greater. Not many can out-frontman Bobby Gillespie but Duvall grasped the crowd in his powerful outstretched fist and didn’t let go. After the Scream’s first song Bobby berated the audience with “you don’t need to stay in your seats, this is supposed to be a rock and roll concert,” - there was nobody in their seat now.

All that would’ve been enough but the half hour finale with both bands playing together took it somewhere else altogether. “I Can Only Give You Everything” is a song every garage band cuts their teeth on as they try to pick out that nagging riff. My old band, all those years ago, tried it (unsuccessfully) as we dreamt of being the MC5. You can bet your bottom dollar Bobby has dreamt it too, and there he was living out his fantasy as his flippy-floppy dance went into overdrive. It was fascinating to see the contrasting styles of Gillespie and Duvall go head-to-head as the bands laid down a holy racket around them. They ripped the bollocks out of a further two Scream songs and two Five songs, culminating in a fifteen minute John Sinclair, violin, saxophone, kitchen sink, bomb dropping, sensorial assault on “Black To Comm”. “This is liberation rock and roll,” testified Duvall. “The MC5! MC5! The MC5!” repeated Bobby, barely believing his luck.

I still can't get across how brilliant this was. At least now I don't have to.

Primal Scream/MC5/DKT Black To Comm is released by Easy Action Recordings Ltd

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JOHN SINCLAIR at FILTHY MACNASTY'S

John Sinclair. Manager of the MC5, Chairman of the White Panther Party, cultural revolutionary, political prisoner, marijuana campaigner, gadda gadda gadda. You know all this. Less known is his work as a music journalist and poet. It’s All Good: A John Sinclair Reader collects a sample from forty four years of writing, and the man is here to celebrate the publication with a poetry reading.

As befitting a man who penned a manifesto that included the commandment “Total assault on the culture by any means necessary, including rock ‘n’ roll, dope and fucking in the streets”, this is no staid, solemn, blanket-on-the-knees poetry reading. The first piece, from “Delta Sound Suite”, sets the tone for what follows: a testifying beat poetry performance. Whereas Jack Kerouac would occasionally perform to a calm jazz accompaniment, John Sinclair sets his words to a wild Delta Blues backing.

Assisted by Gary Lammin on guitar (who scored valuable points earlier in the evening by playing a song with “Queen’s Park Rangers” in the chorus), Buffalo Bill Smith on “blues saxophone” (that’ll be harmonica to you and I), and Charles Shaar Murray let loose with a bottleneck, Sinclair gets down to business. Stands tall, rocks gently on his heels, arms straight by his side, shoulders back, head up, spectacled eyes wide and glazed, snowy Egyptian beard jutting out, and that voice. The deep yet scratchy voice of a million spent spliffs. Half smoky Detroit urbanite, half swampy New Orleans funk, it’s a wise, captivating, storytelling voice.

“21 Days in Jail” begins: “Robert Lockwood Junior was born on a farm between Aubrey & Marvell, Arkansas, around 25 miles west & north of Helena, on March 27, 1915”. That sounds like nothing on the cold page but from Sinclair, and the sympathetic backing, it’s a magical, mythical tale of mystery and suspense. You find yourself willing the verses forward, onwards, go, go, go.

Much is centred on Sinclair’s love of the blues, of jazz, of the original beats. “The Screamers”, written in 1965, starts with a line that could come straight from Ginsberg’s “Howl” (“stagger down overgrown sidewalks of memory, giving hand and giggling”), whilst the aforementioned “21 Days in Jail” contains “secret hero of these poems” which is straight from it.

After a time, he gently bemoans the smoking ban and hot foots it for what one can only assume is some much needed herbal relaxation. Inspiring stuff.

It’s All Good: A John Sinclair Reader is published by Headpress, priced £12.99.