Category: Music

Rolling Sly Stone

A while ago I began working on a post about Sly & the Family Stone. I was about to return to it after seeing this item about Sly Stone in the same issue of Rolling Stone that has the Monty Python article I scanned for the previous post.

Rolling Stone, September 27, 1973

Now I’m forced to rush it out, because of the news that Sly Stone has died.

With no slight intended to the great Soul hits of my childhood (who doesn’t like ‘Funky Broadway’?), as my teenage years approached they were sounding like “more of the same.” Sly’s brand of Funk brought something new and different to Black music on the AM airwaves. These records had an infectious creativity in them that I really enjoyed hearing on the radio.

P.S. I’m cribbing this from the chat on Big Planet Noise. Bob Irwin said this a few minutes ago:

“Here are my thoughts – I’ve spent a few hours today texting and speaking with old Sony Music pals and various music biz buds about Sly. I was the caretaker of Sly’s incredible catalog for 20+ years at Sony, producing nearly all the compilations, boxsets, expanded editions, etc, etc. So, I feel very, very close to all of it. BUT – everyone is in a remarkably great mood, focusing on a zillion funny stories about Sly, laughing about various nearly-indescribable events that he was involved in, and so much more. So, we’ll get a Sly tune into tonight’s show for sure, but we’ll do a real-deal, proper tribute next week, after the dust settles a bit and I can absorb it all, really focus and have some fun…. RIP, Sly – thank you for ALL of it, Sir.”

Next Monday’s Big Planet Noise, on WFMU’s Give the Drummer stream, will be something special.

https://wfmu.org/drummer

Mind-Blowing Music

Big Planet Noise on WFMU’s Give the Drummer stream (see the LINKS section) continues to fill my Monday evenings with the sounds of original Sixties singles and albums, accompanied by lively online chat. A recent fun-raising fund-raiser reward is this delight-filled compilation, culled from cheap-o supermarket records of long ago.

Every track by these anonymous performers who never made it onto a Nuggets1 or Pebbles2 album is a treat. Here’s but one example, by the NOW GENERATION, a dreamy sounding, non-existent group that’s been rescued from certain obscurity.

Here’s one from the never to appear again HAIRCUTS. Light up your black light poster, turn on that lava lamp and burn some incense!

  1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuggets_(series)
  2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebbles_(series)

This One Goes to Eleven

So off Elon goes, leaving Washington with a black eye, both figuratively and literally. He has, what, eleven offspring? Maybe he got the idea from listening to this Zeppelin track while stoned.

Rather than taking a hatchet to government agencies and staff in an attempt at reducing government fraud and waste, wouldn’t this “radical left idea” from AOC have served the purpose better?

Ukraine!

Let’s do something to show our solidarity with the suffering people of Ukraine in their resistance to Vlad the Invader. The National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine plays music of Shostakovich, from Russia’s Soviet era.

The Concorde supersonic jet is gone, but the cool Ortofon Concorde phono cartridge series continues. Waltz #2, the second to last track, may be something you’ve heard before.