Author: Dr. Flucke (Page 3 of 7)

Few musicians the United States produced have had the multi-generational impact—yet are as little-known—as Professor Longhair. Pound for pound one of the most singularly ingenious and original jazz-blues-R&B piano players ever heard, ‘Fess inspired a gaggle of followers who evolved into titans themselves, players like Art Neville, James Booker, Dr. John, and Henry Butler.

He didn’t like leaving New Orleans; in fact legend has it when he was “discovered” on a national scale and was offered a cushy ride on a big coming-out tour from sea to shining sea, he declined, saying something to the effect of “If they like me so much they can come to N’Awlins and see me at the club.” Baton Rouge was about as far as he normally traveled to play out.

But why you bringin’ up this crusty old stuff today, Mojo, you ask? Lily Allen, man. You can’t get away from Professor Longhair. “Knock ‘Em Out” not only samples Longhair’s electrically charged riff from “Big Chief,” it makes it the cornerstone of the song. ‘Fess be universal, and a stunning fan MySpace celebrates his legacy with a quarter-cup of proper voodoo mysticism, which you can’t skip or logically ignore.

Play his cuts, read the books, celebrate the music. Get edumacated. Before you head on over there to MySpace, though, here’s a priceless vintage clip of ‘Fess on the piano jamming out to “Big Chief” with Art Neville on B3, Dr. John on Rhodes and a gaggle of other New Orleans musical legends like Earl King.

If we did Thee Almighty Handclaps last week, why not stick with the same theme this week? Straight outta Brooklyn is Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, some sort of trainwreck between Pavement, Sebadoh, and a truckload of electronic effects.

In this postmodern, post-Pavement, post-New Order new world order, guitars and melody are making a comeback. It’s how we rebel against the Soulja Boys of the pop charts and their annoying Fergalicious humpty humps in tow.

Enter these guys, who shovel lots of great tracks to their MySpace, some of which have been played to death and others that are little treats for MySpacers who happen by. Not every band customizes content for MySpace; so many pages are little more than the same advertising for the latest release you can get anywhere on the web.

Having built its popularity on the web before getting hyped by the likes of Rolling Stone, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah seems to work at making its MySpace a cool little club where people can hear new, cool, as-yet-unreleased music and video.

Here’s a video of them on Letterman:

Few things warm the cockles of a garage-rock fan’s heart than discovering a current band that shares the lo-fi ethos of the crappy-sounding 1960s pop bands that recorded their best work on used-too-many-times Ampex reel-to-reel tape, accented with far too much staticky analog fuzz and reverb to comprehend the lyrics.

You know the sound, as if it were filtered through an aluminum garbage can. Or four. Back in the 1960s, it was hard to make a good sounding record on a shoestring budget. Today, it’s hard to make one that sounds like crap, because digital technology’s so good and so cheap. You gotta deliberately make your albums sound absolutely horrible.

That’s exactly what Iowa City’s Thee Mighty Handclaps do, and quite well, actually. Their MySpace has a couple unreleased tracks (perfect!) that pretty much tell you everything you need to know about the band and their outlook. Needless to say, their next record won’t be released on some namby-pamby audiophile label for the benefit of the $20,000-a-pair B&W loudspeakers crowd.

Only on MySpace can this band live…but not for long. They’re so cool, they can’t stay unsigned for too long, can they? Don’t forget, you read about them here first–now go out and up the pathetically low play count on those sample tracks, would you?

Oh my gosh.

So, just poking around for new angles on MySpace Music led to a Digg article on Band Jammer spyware developed by devious hackers who, apparently, feel that there’s money to be made by busting into bad Dutch metal bands’ MySpaces.

The Digg piece linked to this great FaceTime Security Labs breakdown of how Band Jammer preyed on MySpace Music pages, and who was the first victim they used in their example? Heh, heh. Why, none other than your Man-About-MySpace group of the week: A New Dawn, the Netherlands’ finest crap-metal band, which has apparently been unjammed, because there’s no evidence of spyware there anymore, at least as I write this tonight. Clearly the class of Europe, A New Dawn is loaded with babes on stage, including this beauty worthy of Bullz-Eye:

The music–a very 1990s beyond-Metallica hardcore sound, with very serious, solemn female vocals floating atop the familiar barking, growling thrash-guitar dude–probably isn’t many people’s cup of tea. But someone likes them, as A New Dawn’s racked up nearly 20,000 friends, and–like Motley Crue’s never seen a state-fair shed it wouldn’t play–appears to hit every single metalfest The Continent has to offer. But don’t take our word for it, check out this riveting performance of their composition “Veil of Charity” and judge for yourself :