Podstock the fantasty festival is up for DL - and worra line-up. Piley, Mondo and Lord Hastings choosing from Chuck Berry, Bowie, Elvis Presley, Iggy Pop and The Ramones all live, live, live!
Keep 'em peeled for our gig quiz, an audience that refuse to leave - and who was Bowie's forgotten guitar star?
There's a world exclusive spin of Howling Black Soul - The Memory of You, and new music from Cosmetique - on Blow Up Records DL and dig in here
Podrophenia goes Lucky Dipping for June.. A jamboree bag of free plays - pop, punk, prog - who knows - it's all in the the musical mix. Where else could you go from Harry Belafonte to Hollie Cook and Johnny Harris to Johnny Rotten
There's a Pod Quiz - Audible or Edible. Is it a band name or bread based snack?
There's natter and chat about the Pistol series, Elvis film and a round up of recent gigs/festivals…
DISCOLICIOUS: sixty minutes of funky, kooky, kamp disco makeovers. From Nina Simone to Steely Dan, 10cc to Elvis. And behold as Ian Dury, Mike Oldfield and Gordon Giltrap get re-swished with Saturday Night glitter.
Whether you're kitchen disco-ing or preppin' for the pub - let the Soundr hour lead off your dance floor larks
The latest Podrophenia is up for download. where Piley, self and Lord Hastings spin in a playlist of lockdown listens: from Peaches to Public Service Broadcasting, newbie tunes from Bob Dylan and The Damned, Southern soul from Elvis and The Everlys. And two quizzes Nut or No Nut and Rotten Film Songs. Dig in and DL below
And behold a play of the new single from m'self and Mrs Mond' (Buskr - Back in this Place out 4th December Hottwerk) as heard on Janice Long last week ...
He's back - and he's brought his new book with him.
Steve Carr makes his third appearance in the pod (second of 2020 in fact), choosing tunes, relating R 'n' R tales and supplying handy tips for the vinyl buyer (wood glue and toothpicks anyone?) taken from the freshly pressed volume - Every Record Tells a Story
Musically we bring you the original version of Superstition (and it's
*not* Stevie) Cher regrooving Dr John, the Isley's refunking Stephen Stills, and a rocking new tune from ex Tubeway Army Sean Burke
Plus a bonus quiz - Blue or False. Is it a real Blue Oyster Cult title or Fake Blues
Dig in and DL here - or where ever you get your podcasts
As we're unable to get to gigs, live nights or festivals in these strange days -
let Podrophenia bring the the music to you - with a festival celebrating the
best live albums, rare sessions and possibly concert recordings of indeterminate
orgin ..
Saddle up for the Soundr Hour: wherein we take a canter around funky country, gumbo grooves and swamp-land soul. From Bobby Gentry to Bonnie Raitt, Elvis outtakes to Glen Campbell getting on the good foot.. s'all here..
Elvis' death was my JFK assassination moment. I remember precisely where I was when the news was first whispered around the room - at my paternal Aunt Shirley's, well her ladies hairdressing salon in Salisbury (the glamour!). It was like being caught in a morbid tornado hearing this omnipresent superstar had faded, flat-lined and was now, gone forever.
Although I was too young catch the sonic boom of his Rock 'n' Roll years - the aftershock of Elvisness was still resonating in my era - the seventies. His films were repeated in the schedules during the summer holidays, record shops and department stores had endless variations of compilation albums (Separate Ways was a standard) in the racks (including budget tribute LPs - 'insert name here' sings Elvis). Regular radio play for hits from the fifties to the seventies, while Live via Satellite gave a white-suited Elvis the aura of a rock 'n' roll astronaut.
But more than this, his influence was at the core of popular culture: from ginger quiffed, crepe-booted Teddy Boys to prime-time impressionists - whether comic (Freddy Starr) or musical (Alvin Stardust, Cliff, Les Gray) and any number of white suited popsters The Osmonds, showaddywaddy, The Rubettes. At the more respectable end of R.O.C.K Bryan Ferry and Bowie both lent heavily on Elvis' legacy...
An indicator of Presley-power is: long before I had any real awareness of The Beatles, Stones or in fact who any of Rock's heavy-hitters were - Elvis seemed - to me anyway - like an untouchable international idol with a seemingly god-like presence and super-hero stature, revered across the world - while other rock and rollers had come, copied, gone or been forgotten. For perspective, thumb through David E. Stanley's The Elvis Encyclopedia and you'll find Clapton and Led Zeppelin desperate to get an audience with Elvis..
Should you (and you really should, as it's his 80th birthday this year) fancy coming as close as possible to The King, book yourself a trip to Elvis at the 02. It houses the largest collection of Elvis' items ever to appear in the UK, all imported from Graceland and overseen by Priscilla Presley.
Items that include.....
The Heartbreak Hotel Acetate
Dress down casual Elvis-style
The American Eagle suit cape
Front detail
Suits you
68 Special 'Trouble' outfit
A gift from Ali
The Vegas Room
A defining performance is, of course the 68 Special - where you could lucky dip any clip for pure-brewed musical-boom. Although this medley, with Elvis in full flight, revisiting his Rock 'n' Roll back catalogue with a renewed and unrelenting energy is explosive.
But for the essence of Elvis - this outtake is the key to his magic as I wrote a few years back..
' While the offstage boffins were making technical tweaks and possibly 'checking levels' between takes, Elvis asks for his guitar, kicks off the riff for 'Baby What You Want Me To Do' the orchestra jump in, start jamming and the audience go wild'
If you're a Bookfacer - you can see the full set of my Elvis 02 pics here
If you're not busy or bustling about at a works do, school nativity, panto, carol service or some last minute, late night shopping - why not point yourself in the direction of Chance Radio from 9 tonight as Piley and I do our last Radio Podrophenia run out of the year - and our first (live) Christmas edition...
Piley's doing a lucky dip from his Christmas box, while I'll possibly be playlisting tracks by Elvis, Clarence Carter, Ella Fitzgerald and Big Tiny Little. A huge thank you is due to all at Chance for taking a punt on us this year, our guests for joining us in the Podrophonic bunker - and of course all the board regulars, our silent listeners and podcast downloaders. Speaking of which..
Last week's edition featuring the legend that is Roman Jugg is grabbable here. Standby for a full hour of tunes and chat on Naz Nomad, The Phantom chords, Marc Almond and The Damned..
He's written two garage classics, but who is he and what are they - find out in Podrophenia
Elvis, Madonna, Bowie and Blondie are just some of the glittering legends and heavy-hitters NOT appearing in the latest edition of Podrophenia. But pod-pickers, listen in and lend an ear as Piley and I lay bare, unwrap and unearth the low-level source material supplying these high flyers with smash hit songs and singles. All is revealed in Podrophenia 10. Along with Piley's tale of a tooth-brightening, eye-widening electric enema.
With only five tunes a'piece something had to give, so Superstar got the 11th hour bounce from my Podropheniaplaylist. Mainly famous as a Carpenters classic (with retweaked lyrics sleep with you swapped for be with you) the original versh can be found tucked away on Delaney and Bonnie B Side - a gorgeous serving of blue-eyed soul.
I saw him live once. I say live, it was actually Elvis's James Burton era band gigging to festival sized footage of him (in fact it's back this year). But like any soundstage size show (this was Docklands arena), after a few songs the moving dots on stage blend away and it's all eyes on screen. Build in some song introductions, jokes and band intro's from El' himself and we were captured by the Presley spell, forgetting he hadn't, at any point, actually arrived in the building.
It's become overlooked/forgotten/rewritten, but if you grew up during the seventies, Elvis was literally everywhere. Resuscitated and resurrected by the 68 Special he ascended from cultural icon to omnipresent overlord: new hits in the charts, old hits in the parents record cabinet, poster magazines, pocket money priced (50p) tribute albums and films on TV,.
By 1970 The Beatles were a bitter, bearded broken band, and a roots level Rock 'n' roll revival started in the late sixties had set in (inspiring McLaren and Westwood to open their first shop Let It Rock). Elvis was 'now'. In widescreen. With his 2001 intro and space-age stage-wear, he towered like a white giant telegraphing his style and substance to low-level pretenders and high-end contenders: Freddie Starr, Alvin Stardust, Les Gray, The Osmonds, Evel Knievel even Bowie's early glam banging was Elvis influenced.
I was at my aunt's hairdressers in Salisbury, when the news broke that he'd died . It hit me like a blow to the solar plexus. Elvis had seemed untouchable and eternal.
So forget the silly sightings, the tackery and tribute acts, the Burger King with a cheesy film portfolio - the clunkers in the catalogue are easy targets. Instead, remember the essence of Elvis for his 75th Birthday...
One Night of Sin Not my favourite 50s track, but worth cataloguing for it's original deviant lyrics and rarity value..
Stranger In My Own Home Town Energised by his 68 comeback the Elvis in Memphis albums are rootsy rock 'n' roll meets Memphis soul - although for my money the 90s remixes beat the original releases
It's Only Love Alternate - Take 9 From The Essential Elvis, Vol. 4 is a selection of undubbed masters from the the early seventies. The 90 second intro eavesdrops on studio banter*, vocal harmony try outs and riff rehearsal before this live take
A King size selection of Elvis treats can be grabbed here..
Watch for the improv vamped up ending at 1:04 Pure magic.
Recommended reading - of course the Guralnick biogs should be ticked off at some point. But well worth tracking down are
Can you believe it - the busiest day ever on the blog last Friday with double the daily hit rate and it's all down to Brenda Lee! Of all the tunes and tracks posted and popped on the blog it's Brenda's 'Walk A Mile In My Shoes' that got picked up by Hype Machine sending a stackload of extra traffic this way. Typically it's the Torero Brass Band and this Bardot picture that draws in the drifters and anonobods - so following on from the Brenda's (is anyone called Brenda anymore?) WAMIMS cover here's a Bob Andy's reggae flavoured rework and as bonus Billy Childish's moonstomping version of the Dads Army theme which you may have seen on some recent TV ads
Every Friday is Funky Friday on Planet Mondo, and this week brings you an Elvis special to mark his 72nd birthday earlier this week.
First up a couple of youtube treats.
"Man That's Dirty"
This outtake from the '68 Special is the absolute essence of Elvis and crackles with magic. While the offstage boffins were making technical tweaks and possibly 'checking levels' between takes, Elvis asks for his guitar, kicks off the riff for 'Baby What You Want Me To Do' the orchestra jump in, start jamming and the audience go wild.
PS - Does anyone know what model of guitar Elvis is cranking? - I'm stumped.
"Some a y'all never been down south too much"
Bill Belew who did 'wardrobe' for the '68 Special, also created Elvis's jumpsuits. This is one of his earlier, less fussy designs and a style later reworked by The Osmonds, Evel Knievel David Bowie and possibly the crew of Moonbase Alpha. Elvis delivers a true blue eyed Soul stomping, Vegas vamp version of 'Polk Salad Annie'.
A duet of 'Polk Salad Annie' performed by Tony Joe White (its composer) with Johnny Cash is here if you fancy a peep.
This hidden sizzler from Elvis has everything you want from a fatback track - funky keyboards, a shout of "Hot Damn" and double tempo drums on the home run. Elvis - I Got A Feeling In My Body(Take 1).mp3
Written by Gamble and Huff, the masterminds behind the The O Jays, The Three Degrees and The Sound of Phildelphia 'Only The Strong Survive' is a Northern Soul nugget with Elvis sounding exactly like The Six Million Dollar Man on the spoken intro. Elvis - Only The Strong Survive.mp3
Hurrah for the 8th of January. "Why the 8th of January?" they chorused.
It's the birthday Of Elvis Presley and David Bowie of course. But as well as sharing the same date of birth there are several other Elvis/Bowie connections, here are 8 of them....
1) Bowie is quoted as saying "Elvis was a major hero of mine. I was probably stupid enough to believe that having the same birthday as him actually meant something."
2) Both had tragedies with their brothers - Elvis' twin Jesse, died at childbirth. Bowie's half-brother Terry, was a schizophrenic who committed suicide in 1985.
3) They were both comic book fans - Elvis's hair and capes were inspired by Captain Marvel, and both used a 'Shazam' style lighting strike symbol - Elvis for the 'Taking care of Business' logo, Bowie for Aladdin Sane.
4) Bowie's manager Tony DeFries styled himself as a 1970s Colonel Tom Parker (Elvis's notorious cigar smoking Manager) a factor in Bowie signing to RCA also Elvis's label, and the DeFries Mainman Management logo being designed to look a cigar band.
5) The Kubrick Link - Elvis's seventies shows started with "Also Sprach Zarathustra" from '2001: A Space Odyssey'. During the Ziggy period Bowie used the 'Clockwork Orange' version of Beethoven's 'Ninth Symphony' for his intro' music.
6) Apparently Bowie wrote Golden Years for Elvis but recorded it himself after Presley turned it down.
7) The 1972 Thailand reissue of 'Space Oddity' featured as Elvis's 'Fool' as the B-side.
8) They've both recorded Beatles covers which are still in the vaults;
Elvis - Lady Madonna ( with Elvis seemingly 'effing and jeffing' around the 'make ends meet' line).
Bowie - Penny Lane (with an extremely flaky accent on 'customer').
Instead of adding to the flood of anniversary facts, theories and opinions about Elvis on the ‘net - I’m going let the music speak for itself, by listing 5 tracks (and the albums they come from) which really capture the essence of Elvis for me
This the version where Elvis bump-and-grinds himself into TV history. Stunning. Can you imagine how shocking this must have been back in the black and white 50’s?????
Elvis in full funk mode. And there’s country, folk and acoustic - all recorded at Stax studios. He may be a bit wobbly on a couple of tracks. But, Good Time Charlie’s Got The Blues, and For Ol’ Times Sake are his best ballads ever.
