THROWBACK THURSDAY: Brennan on the Moor

Faith and begorrah and  Erin go braugh, it's only five days until St. Patrick's Day!

So here  is a look at one of my favorite Irish outlaw songs, the tale of a "brave young highwayman" named Willie Brennan.

Here is one version of the lyrics:

'Tis of a brave young highwayman this story we will tell, 
His name was Willie Brennan and in Ireland he did dwell. 
'Twas on the Kilworth Mountains he commenced his wild career, 
And many a wealthy nobleman before him shook with fear.

Refrain:
And it's Brennan on the moor, Brennan on the moor, 
Bold, brave and undaunted was young Brennan on the moor.

One day upon the highway, as Willie he went down, 
He met the mayor of Cashel, a mile outside of town. 
The mayor, he knew his features, and he said, "Young man," said he, 
"Your name is Willie Brennan, you must come along with me."
(Refrain)

Now Brennan's wife had gone to town provisions for to buy, 
And when she saw her Willie she commenced to weep and cry. 
Said, "Hand to me that ten-penny," as soon as Willie spoke, 
She handed him a blunderbuss from underneath her cloak
(Refrain)

Now with his loaded blunderbuss—the truth I will unfold— 
He made the mayor to tremble, and he robbed him of his gold. 
One hundred pounds was offered for his apprehension there, 
So he, with horse and saddle, to the mountains did repair,
Did young Brennan on the moor, Brennan on the moor, 
Bold, brave and undaunted was young Brennan on the moor.
(Refrain)

Now Brennan being an outlaw upon the mountains high, 
With cavalry and infantry to take him they did try. 
He laughed at them with scorn until at last 'twas said 
By a false-hearted woman he was cruelly betrayed,
(Refrain)

Although others, notably Burl Ives, had recorded it before, it's Tommy Makem & The Clancy Brothers' version from the early 1960s that introduced me to the song.

Take a listen:



According to The Penguin Book of English Folk Songs,  (edited by Ralph Vaughan Williams and A.L.Lloyd in 1959):

"This song was widely sung in the Victorian era ... William Brennan really did exist, and was one of the most famous Irish criminals of the period. It is not easy to get authoritative information about him , mainly because legend quickly obscured fact, and even his date of death is not known for sure; 1804 is most cited, but there are other references to 1809, and even 1812, and while most sources claim that he was taken by authorities and formally executed, there is also a tradition that he was killed by one of his potential victims in a highway robbery which went wrong."

The Penguin book notes that like most outlaw ballads, this song turns Willie Brennan into a Robin Hood-like character, "And many a wealthy nobleman before him shook with fear ..."

Basically it was the gangsta rap of its day.

In his cool website ... Just Another Song, folklorist Jürgen Kloss, in writing about "Brennan on the Moor" notes that 18th Century lawyer John Edward Walsh  in 1747 claimed that the children's "integrity and sense of right and wrong was confounded, by proposing the actions of lawless felons as the objects of interest and imitation."

So, for the love of God, keep this vile song away from the children!

It should be noted that in some versions, Willie's own mother denounces him for his outlaw ways: "Oh, would to God that Willie had within his cradle died.'" (In some, it's his father who makes this declaration.)

And in some versions, "modern" ones Kloss says, the ghost of Willie still rides: "They see him with his blunderbuss, all in the midnight chill."

A young Bob Dylan dug The Clancys' take on "Brennan on the Moor.

In the liner notes of Dylan;s first Bootleg Series, John Bauldie wrote: "Dylan heard them sing the song in New York and loved it immediately. He told film director Derek Bailey in 1984: `I'd never heard those kind of songs before...all the legendary people they used to sing about - Brennan on the Moor or Roddy Macaulay...I would think of Brennan on the Moor the same way as I would think of Jesse James or something. You know, I wrote some of my own songs to some of the melodies that I heard them do...' "

And a website called Bob Dylan's Musical Roots quotes Liam Clancy: "I met the young Dylan on 4th St. in the Village one morning as I was rushing to rehearsal. 'Hey Liam, hey man. I wrote a song to the tune of `Brennan on the Moor' last night. Wanta hear it man?, only 15 verses man, wanna hear it'."

Yeah, let's hear it:




For more deep dives into songs, check out The Stephen W. Terrell Web Log Songbook

WACKY WEDNESDAY: Karaoke to Frighten the Children

Before we begin, let me admit something:

I'm very thankful that nobody was recording me that fateful night about 15 years ago when I basically cleared out an after-hours party at a downtown Albuquerque bar with my karaoke rendition of "You're the Reason God Made Oklahoma."

So I have some sympathy for the poor folks who basically are the butts of the joke in all these videos.

That being said, I think these are hilarious.

Enjoy

When I first heard this song sung by Dolly Parton on a car radio in the 70s, I was so awestruck, I almost drove my car off the road. When I heard this, I wanted to drive my car at a high speed toward the singer.



I wouldn't want to hear much more of Amy, but she's got personality



This guy isn't as cute or funny as Amy, but that's o.k. He sings even worse.



I have to admit, I don't think I'd sing very well either if I was suspended over a tank full of frogs and water snakes. This apparently is some kind of weird game show in Thailand.



Go ahead try this at home!

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, March 8, 2015 
KSFR, Santa Fe, N.M. 
10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time 
Host: Steve Terrell
Webcasting!
101.1 FM
email me during the show! terrell(at)ksfr.org

Here's the playlist below


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TERRELL'S TUNE-UP: Sleater-Kinney plus The Grannies

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican 
March 6, 2015

In some alternative universe, some parallel world somewhere over some rainbow, the return of Sleater-Kinney in 2015 with an album as riveting as No Cities to Love is considered to be as big as the return of the Beatles was in 1975. (This is a separate reality, remember.)

Of course, it’s not quite like that here in the material world.

Truth is, most folks don’t value rock ’n’ roll as much as many of us used to. Perhaps Sleater really was the greatest band alive when it went on “hiatus” nearly a decade ago.

But outside of alt-rock or punk rock circles, it wasn’t and, sadly, still isn’t universally known. I’ve got a feeling that Carrie Brownstein is more famous for her co-starring role on the comedy series Portlandia than she is for her role with Sleater-Kinney.

So, for those not familiar with this important band, here’s the lowdown: This Pacific Northwest group is a trio with Brownstein and Corin Tucker on vocals and guitar and Janet Weiss on drums. Sleater-Kinney’s self-titled debut album was released in 1995, at the tail end of the Riot Grrrl scene, but S-K quickly transcended the generic girl-punk sound.

Vox recently described the group as a “left-leaning, feminism-preaching” band. Maybe that’s true, but the beauty of Sleater-Kinney is that it rarely, if ever, sounded like it was preaching. Any politics in the band’s songs were subtle and personal — no sloganeering or polemics. The group grew and actually intensified through the years, never losing its original frantic energy. It split up after its 2005 album, The Woods.

We rock ’n’ roll die-hards tend to view comebacks with jaundiced, jaded eyes, despite some good ones returning in recent years — Mission of Burma, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, and the Afghan Whigs, for example, came back with strong records. No Cities to Love is also one of the good ones: It’s an unmitigated joy.

I consider Wild Flag, the 2011 album by the group with the same name, which includes two-thirds of Sleater — Brownstein and Weiss — (as well as singer/guitarist Mary Timony, who fronted the ’90s indie band Helium) to be a precursor of No Cities to Love. Shortly before then, Tucker made a solo record she described as “middle-aged-mom” music. (As I said back then, despite my senior citizenship, I’m still not ready for “middle-aged-mom” stuff.) But in 2012, she came back with a harder edge with Kill My Blues. With that and Wild Flag, I should have known that reviving Sleater-Kinney wasn’t an impossible dream.

No Cities opens with “Price Tag” — with what first appears as a lazy, almost bluesy groove. But seconds later, the drums kick in, the beat speeds up, and Tucker starts singing urgently: “The bell goes off/The buzzer coughs/The traffic starts to buzz,” and all of a sudden we’re in the middle of the rat race, punching a timecard at a crappy job, stocking shelves and worrying. Tucker sings as if she’s being crushed by the pressure — and the music is even more anxious than the lyrics.

Similarly, the stark, muscular “Gimme Love” is about someone who was born “too small, too weak, too weird” and who is “numb from the wicked this life imparts,” while “Surface Envy” employs images of drowning, though it’s a hopeful song. In the last verse, Tucker sings, “I’m breaking the surface, tasting the air/Reaching for things I never could before.”

But all is not so heavy on this album. In fact, “A New Wave,” sung by Brownstein, who also plays a distorted, rubber-toned guitar, reminds me of The B52s. (The official video for this tune features a cartoon version of the band playing for characters from Bob’s Burgers.)

In the final chorus of “Bury Our Friends,” Tucker and Brownstein sing, “We speak in circles, we dance in code/Untame and hungry, on fire in the cold/ Exhume our idols, bury our friends/We’re wild and weary but we won’t give in.”

Here’s hoping Sleater-Kinney stays wild and never gives in.

Sleater-Kinney is coming to Albuquerque for a show at the Sunshine Theater on April 28. I’ve got my ticket. You should get yours. Visit www.sunshinetheaterlive.com/get_tagged/Sleater%20Kinney.

Also recommended:

* Ballsier by The Grannies. America needs this music. The country needs musicians like these, who aren’t afraid to dress up like nightmarish parodies of old ladies and play crazy, aggressive, funny, profane, politically incorrect, and ridiculous music.

The Grannies don’t care if they make it on network TV or get invited to the White House — or anywhere else where there is polite company. They don’t care that they’ll never play the Super Bowl — though anyone who has survived one of their shows knows the Super Bowl would be much cooler if they did.

This album is punk rock — punk rock as the good Lord intended it to sound. It’s 11 snot-slingin’, beer-spittin’, breakneck, gut-bustin’ punk rock songs with titles like “Wade in Bloody Water,” “Outta My Skull,” and “Hillbilly With Knife Skills,” And there’s a crunching cover of the Beastie Boys’ “Fight for Your Right.”

Grannies in action, San Marcos, Texas. 2014

Then there are a couple of remixes of Grannies songs, my favorite being a total re-imagining of  one of my Grannies faves, “The Corner of Fuck and You” A producer named Ben Addison used flutes, soft horns and an ultra-cheesy beat to turn the song into something that sounds like it's from some bad British swingin’ ‘60s romantic comedy

The album is produced by Seattle titan Jack Endino, who’s been behind the knobs on some of your finer grunge and punk records.




Blog Bonuses

First off, here's a live show broadcast on NPR a couple of weeks ago CLICK HERE

Here's that Bob;s Burgers video




Here are a couple of songs by The Grannies. First, an old one



Then there's this remix ...

THROWBACK THURSDAY: Gonna Murder My Baby

Pat Hare, born Auburn Hare in Cherry Valley, Arkansas, played guitar with some of the great classic bluesmen -- James Cotton, Little Junior Parker, Bobby "Blue" Bland, the late great Johnny Ace, Rosco Gordon, Ike Turner and Muddy Waters. (He played on Muddy's Live at Newport, 1960 album.)

And his playing was unforgettable.

Nick Tosches, in his book Where Dead Voices Gather, described Hare's style as "black-magic electric-guitar conjurings through overamplified distortion [that] foreshadowed those of Hendrix ..." Cub Koda, in the Allmusic Guide, called Hare's playing as "highly distorted guitar played with a ton of aggression and just barely suppressed violence ..."

Though he never got famous, Hare undoubtedly would be a darling of the blues scholars and rabid early rock 'n' roll zealots because of his musicianship.

Unfortunately, he's better known for something that had nothing to do with his guitar playing.

On Dec. 15, 1963, after a day of drinking, Hare at the time was living in Minneapolis with a married woman named Aggie Winje, who, Hare told a friend, was thinking of moving back with her husband. After spending sometime fighting with Aggie, Hare told a neighbor "That woman is going to make me kill her." Another neighbor called police after hearing shots fired. Two officers responded. And one of them was shot to death by Hare. Aggie had been shot also.

The other officer pumped some lead into Hare, but he survived. Aggie  hung on for nearly a month, but died Jan. 22, 1964.

According to music journalist James "The Hound" Marshall in his detailed account on an excellent site called The Houndblog: "When questioned, Hare remembered only that he was drunk and claimed to have no recollection of shooting anyone."

But to add the ultimate twist to this squalid little tale, nearly a decade before, at Sun Studios in Memphis, Hare recorded a jolly little ditty called "I'm Gonna Murder My Baby."

Yes, he did.

Behold:



The Houndblog says:

 In May of '54, Sam Phillips decided to record Pat Hare under his own name. James Cotton was scheduled to play harmonica on the session but the two got into a fist fight that day, and Cotton disappeared. Instead, Hare is backed up by Israel Franklin on bass and Billy Love on piano on the two tunes.  The first is a monstrous reading of Dr. Clayton's "Cheatin' & Lyin' Blues," re-titled on the tape box "I'm Gonna Murder My Baby," it was and still is, one of the most foreboding and ominous recordings in the entire blues canon ... Phillips chose not to release Hare's disc which would not be heard until it slipped out on a bootleg on the Redita label in 1976, and later appeared on Charley Records' Sun Blues Box in the eighties. 

Hare was convicted of murdering his baby and the cop who came to help. He died of lung cancer in prison in 1980.

He's still a resident of Rock 'n' Roll Hell, where he's currently in a band with these guys ...



R.I.P. Ella Mae Evans

 

R.I.P. Nancy Spungen

This post goes out to my old friend, Mark, who knew more about Pat Hare than I dd.

WACKY WEDNESDAY: It's Duckadelic!

For this Wacky Wednesday, here's a tribute to my favorite waterfowl, the Duck.

According to Wikipedia (which is always right about everything):

Duck is the common name for a large number of species in the Anatidae family of birds, which also includes swans and geese. The ducks are divided among several subfamilies in the Anatidae family; they do not represent a monophyletic group (the group of all descendants of a single common ancestral species) but a form taxon, since swans and geese are not considered ducks. Ducks are mostly aquatic birds, mostly smaller than the swans and geese, and may be found in both fresh water and sea water.

Ducks are sometimes confused with several types of unrelated water birds with similar forms, such as loons or divers, grebes, gallinules, and coots.

So, sorry all you loons, divers, grebes, gallinules, and coots. This ain't for you. These songs are for the ducks.

Let's start with the ultimate cartoon duck piano showdown from Who Framed Roger Rabbit?



This next one by the beautiful Carolina Cotton, makes me wish I was a damn duck!



Eddie "The Chief" Clearwater walks the duck



Nobody has really done musical justice to the duck as much as this disco classic from Rick Dees & His Cast of Idiots



OK, the next one is stretching it. It's not really about a duck. It's not really really about oysters either. It's an old traditional American square dance mutated before your very ears by the late great Malcom McLaren. It's from his masterpiece album Duck Rock. And if I were a duck, I'd love this song.



Finally, just for weirdness' sake, here's a strange little band called Purple Duck I found while messing around on the Free Music Archive  (The original video I had here disappeared, but here's another one)

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, March 1, 2015 
KSFR, Santa Fe, N.M. 
10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time 
Host: Steve Terrell
Webcasting!
101.1 FM
email me during the show! terrell(at)ksfr.org

Here's the playlist below

Like the Terrell's Sound World Facebook page

Subscribe to The Big Enchilada Podcast! CLICK HERE