Burning Dervish

Our second compilation, available for download here.

1. Popcorn, by Lee "Scratch" Perry, from Scratch the Upsetters Again


2. El Pussy Cat, by The Skatalites, from Stretching Out


3. Guajira Van, by No. 1 de No. 1, from World Psychedelic Classics 3: Love's a Real Thing


4. Lion, by Burning Spear, from Live


5. Rastafari Chariot, by The Itals, from Brutal Out Deh


6. Take Me Home Country Roads, by Toots & The Maytals, from Funky Kingston


7. Give Me Your Love, by Junior Marvin, from Darker Than Blue: Soul from Jamdown (1973-1980)


8. Yasdestal, by Mahmoud Ahmed, from Ethiopiques, Vol. 6: Almaz


9. Tezetaye Atchi Lidj, by Mulatu Astatqe, from Ethiopiques, Vol. 4: Ethio Jazz & Musique Instrumentale, 1969-1974


10. Bellyfull, by The Gladiators, from Dreadlocks The Time Is Now


11. Sit And Wonder, by Prince Buster, from 200% Dynamite!


12. Ma Ne Vale La Pena, by Augusto Martelli, from Black Sound From White People


13. Black Slavery Days, by Skulls, from Black Slavery Days


14. Mountain Time, by Ginger Baker, from Horses & Trees

Download Burning Dervish Vol Two until August 2nd here.

We all know the web is jam-packed with funny, bizarre, silly, sophmoric, inane, brilliant, inspired, insipid material. Some websites manage to be all of these things at once.

Brett Meisner's Rock and Roll Bad Boy website is one such site.

One can spend endless hours on his site only to come away confused and thrilled. One page in particular exemplifies Brett's unique worldview, something he alternately calls the "Meisner Manifesto" or, "The Hard Truth".

The Manifesto is actually a list of nine "truisms" which Meisner insists are based on both scientific and spiritual principles. These truisms are:

1. Music Does Not Sound Better On Pot. Asks Brett: "...what is the finally (sic) destination for musicians who smoke pot? Just ask Kurt Cobain, Elvis Presely and Buddy Holly. Oh, I forgot - they're all dead! Nuff said..."


2. Rap Music Is A Passing Fad. According to Brett, "...like a drunk party guest who can't find his car keys, rap music continues to overstay its welcome. Now calling itself "hip-hop," rap is trying to buy a new lease on life. I say let's end this charade once and for all..."


3. Hank Williams and Johnny Cash Were Not Cool. "...Believing that either of them made one iota of a contribution to rock and roll is like believing in Santa Claus past your 11th birthday..."


4. The CIA Killed Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison. Supporting evidence, "...I have received an number on anonymous documents that indicate that Hendrix may have been killed for being half white (unconfirmed), while Morrison was killed for being half black (confirmed)..."


5. Steely Dan is the Best Recorded Band in Music History. Not even really sure what this means but its as good an explanation as any: "...Hey just 'cause someone is good looking and intelligent, does that make them an asshole? David Hasselhoff is a genius in Germany, but he can't buy a fart in America! Give him a lazy eye and some webbed feet and they'll call him a genius!"


6. Technically, Peter Frampton was Never Famous. Apparently, "...what many of you don't know are the facts..." about Peter Frampton's supposed fame and Cameron Crowe's role in continuing the myth. Nor did we.


7. MTV Ruined Rock Music. OK, we'll give him this one.


8. Woodstock was a Farce. "Quick: Name one band from Woodstock that hasn't broken into your car and stolen your Blaupunk for crack money!" And all these years we thought it was the crackhead who live down the block! Turns out it was Richie Havens!
.

9. Napster Saved the Music Industry. Brett's argument being based on the fact that people who download free music create demand for legitimate store-bought product because they need the cover art to fully enjoy the experience.

We're hoping to roll out 2 or 3 mixes a month as we comb through our trove of music...this first collection really speaks to where we've been at for the better part of 2006 - lots of music from the Middle East, Africa, the Carribean and South America. There will probably be several compilations along these lines, especially given 1. that we've recently stepped into about 16GB of rare reggae and dub MP3s and 2. our eMusic "saved for later" download list is jam-packed with jems they continue to surface from around the world...As with our individual MP3 posts the link to download Burning Dervish Vol One will expire seven days from this post going up...Enjoy and let us know what you think).

1. Maduba (Crisis Creation), DXT, from Reanimator: Black Market Science. DXT, essentially the inventor of turntablism, laying down futuristic, apocalyptic, electronic dub. Produced by Bill Laswell.


2. Telegram Dub (African Postman), Burning Spear, from Living Dub, Vol. 2, the dub companion to Spear's classic Hail H.I.M.. It's one's chocolate to the other's peanut butter...


3. Im Ninalou, DJ Cheb I Sabbah, from, La Kahena. A Sufi, a Jew and a Berber walked into a bar...


4. Allegro, Sanjay Mishra, from, Blue Incantation. We originally picked this record up to catch the three tracks Jerry Garcia contributed to in what turned out to be some of his last sessions and then shrugged the record off as new age fluff. Coming back to it many years later we were really sucked in by some of Mishra's melodic guitar playing. Turns out Jerry's parts are the weakest of the record...


5. Exodus, Bob Marley, from, Dreams of Freedom: Ambient Translations of Bob Marley in Dub, one of our "desert island discs" of the 1990s and one of the best examples of that era's output of "ambient dub". Exodus and The Heathen are the stand-out tracks.


6. Water No Get Enemy, Fela Kuti, from Expensive Shit. Jamming defiant funk from the Kalkuta Republic.


7. In These Times, Errol Walker, from Lee "Scratch" Perry's Arkology box set. There are a million ways to get into Scratch Perry given that he has produced literally countless reggae and dub sides, but this box set might be the best way. Lots of notes and info to send you on your way...This guys talent is impossible to measure or describe.


8. Dance Mediterrane, Simon Shaheen & Qantara, from Blue Flame. Shaheen has made more "authentic" records but the playing on this record really legitimizes the fusion style.


9. Jah Works, The Gladiators, from Dreadlocks, the Time Is Now . This is such a deep record. Some serious spirit runs through the entire enterprise...


10. Roll Jordan Roll, Wingless Angels from Wingless Angels. A Keith Richards side project in which he recorded some Nyabinghi sessions at his home in Jamaica, laid in the most perfect bass and guitar lines and produced a rootsy, acoustic, trance of a record. Almost makes you wish Keith would quit his day job to follow his own muse more often. Really.


11. Dem a Come, The Abyssinians, from Arise. Deep roots and equisite melodies make this record...


12. Herbsman Shuffle, King Stitt & Andy Capp, from Tighten Up: Trojan Reggae Classics 1968-74. This track is from a 2-disc "best of" the Trojan series of Tighten Up compilations. Bad-ass throughout with lots of gems. Herbsman is one of our key tracks.


13. Mela Mela, Mahmoud Ahmed, from Ethiopiques, Vol. 6: Almaz. As of this writing there are 21(!) volumes in this series of Ethiopian music spanning traditional, tribal sounding music to modern Ethiopian music, which, from the late-60s thru mid-70s was all about soul, jazz and mellow funk. It is a thrill to listen to most of this stuff and Mahmoud Ahmed is widely held to be the premier practitioner of the sound.

Download Burning Dervish Vol 1 here. Check out the albums these tracks are from here.

Lots of people stumbled across this music in Jim Jarmusch's film, Broken Flowers. We didn't but nonetheless only came to it recently...

The reviewer on Amazon says it is, "reminiscent of Miles Davis's "In a Silent Way" paired with Cannonball Adderly and Roy Ayers". Yeah, ok, but throw in a side of Grant Green, too...All we can say is put this record on loop for a few hours and you will easily cool down by several degrees...most welcome on yet another Brooklyn dog day...

Mulatu Astatqè, Tezetaye Atchi Lidj - (Baby, My Unforgettable Remembrance)
from: Ethiopiques Volume 4: Ethio Jazz & Musique Instrumentale 1969-1974

- Doug Sahm, on "At the Crossroads", from Sir Douglas Quintet's Mendocino.

Doug had soul in spades. Talent, too. This track is from what's assumed to be his last studio collection, unless there are some more posthumous releases we don't know about...

Doug Sahm, Dallas Alice
from: The Return of Wayne Douglas

Oh thank you, thank you. Help us celebrate the big day:

The Monkees: Happy Birthday to You
from: Head

Today was our first day back from work after a 10-day holiday. The iced coffee with a shot of espresso didn't do it...the comfort that though it feels like Monday it is really Wednesday didn't do it...the fact that we are so busy catching up and digging out that first we looked up it was lunch time didn't do it...we just couldn't seem to get it in gear...This did it:

The Who: 5:15
from Quadrophenia

"Well, for me, listening to music is akin to a religious experience; it's the closest thing to a religion I have. I mean, I wouldn't put it in terms of God, because I'm an atheist, but I think humans are hard-wired for religion, hard-wired with a sense of divinity, however you interpret that. There's probably some evolutionary advantage to it — this urge for meaning." Spoken by singer-songwriter Katell Keineg to Darcy Frey in a profile of the artist in today's New York Times Magazine.

The coverage should raise her profile again, at least for a while, but reading it one gets the sense she may not want to do what is required to be a "success" in the mainstream music business - or that she really cares on way or the other.

You can listen to some MP3s of Katell on her website.

In an earlier post we mentioned our week off in the Catskills...well as you may have heard, it rained up there more than it has in probably a generation. We had floods, roads washed out, Red Cross evacuations (not us, we were on higher ground), contaminated water, etc, etc...The good news is that we discovered a few hundred CDs in the basement of the house we rented and we came prepared with a laptop and our external hard drive. Score!

Lots of great stuff: Stone Roses, Buffalo Springfield, Led Zeppelin BBC Sesssions, Jungle Brothers, Blach Uhuru, Hamza El Din and tons more. Really great cache of diverse stuff. The Good King Elvis was fairly prescient on one of the tracks we acquired from his Complete 50s Masters over the holiday: When It Rains, It Really Pours!