What more is left to be said about Elvis? I'm just going to post a bunch of my favorite songs, ones you don't hear every day, from various stages of his career.
... but it's never too late to celebrate the former wrestling champ's undisputed contributions to the world of song.
Hogan, born Terry Bollea, turned 64 on Friday Aug. 11.
Happy birthday, Hulkster.
Here are some of the top tunes from his cherished and influential 1995 albumHulk Rules, I like the first review on the Amazon page by critic Crazy Mofo.:
I dedicate these songs to my Hulkamaniac cronies Chuck and Scott who love Hulk Rules nearly as much as I do. Keep training, taking your vitamins and saying your prayers, boys!
Let's start with this anthem.
This next one, "I Want to Be a Hulkamaniac," shows Hogan's mad skills as a rapper.
If you can listen to this one all the way through without weeping openly, you're a tougher Hulkamaniac than me.
Finally, as a bonus, here's Hogan's official entrance song, "Real American."
If you like this, you might enjoy these other wrestling music posts:
Sunday, August 13, 2017 KSFR, Santa Fe, NM Webcasting! 10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time Host: Steve Terrell 101.1 FM
Email me during the show! terrel(at)ksfr.org
Here's my playlist :
OPENING THEME: Let It Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
This Land is Your Land by Sharon Jones
All You Fascists by Billy Bragg & Wilco
Nazi Punks Fuck Off by Dead Kennedys
New Blue Mercedes by Drywall
Statue of Liberty by New Bomb Turks
America the Beautiful by The Dictators
Mighty Man by James Leg
Strange Days by The Darts
See That Girl by Lynx Lynx
Dream Dream Dream / Remember by The Mekons
The Curse by Chivalrous Amoekons
Get Happy by Simon Stokes
He's Frank (Slight Return) by The Monochrome Set
Lucid Nightmare by The Black Lips
High Maintenance by Left Lane Cruiser
This is Hi-Fi by Mission of Burma
I'm A No-Count by Ty Wagner
Don't Be Afraid of the Dark by The Sonics
Never Enough Girls by The Sloths
Riot on Sunset Strip by The Standells
Life on the Dole by The Molting Vultures
Muscle Man by Ty Segall
What Happens When You Turn the Devil Down by The Mystery Lights
He Did It by Detroit Cobras
Jammed Entrance by Thee Oh Sees
Reasonable World by The Blind Shake
When You're Smiling / Sheik of Araby Medley Louis Prima
Can't Seem to Make You Mine by The Seeds
Copernicus by Afghan Whigs
More Rooms by William Bell
Swamp Woman by Johnny Dowd
No Stars by Rebekah Del Rio CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis
Friday, August 11, 2017 KSFR, Santa Fe, NM Webcasting! 10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time Host: Steve Terrell 101.1 FM
Email me during the show! terrel(at)ksfr.org
Here's my playlist :
OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens
Lead Me Astray by Jayke Orvis
Bad Example by Pistol Annies
Tunafish Every Day by Southern Culture on the Skids
Dangerous Times by The Imperial Rooster
Freddy Lopez by Joe West
Poor Old Heartsick Me by The Knitters
Them Stems by Chris Stapleton
Rainbow Stew by Jason Ringenberg
This Will Bring You Back by Carolina Peanut Boys
Mamas Don't Let Your Cowboys Grow Up to Be Babies by Dale Watson
I Wish You Knew by Dale Watson & Ray Benson
That Truck by Texas Rubies
Busy City by Rhonda Vincent
Church Fire by Eagle Rock Gospel Singers
You Ain't Dolly (And You Ain't Porter) by Ashley Monroe & Blake Shelton
Big Zombie by The Mekons
The Sad Milkman by Sally Timms
Elevator by Whiskey Charmers
Dr. Bartender by Lara Hope & The Ark Tones
Reckless by Eilen Jewell
I Feel So Good by Dave & Phil Alvin
All of My Dreams by Panama Red
You Got the Light by Bobby Bare
Walkin' in LA by Steve Earle with Johnny Bush
May the Bird of Paradise Fly Up Your Nose by Little Jimmy Dickens
Weakness by Margo Price
Get Rhythm by Little Richard
Midnight Train by David Rawlings
You're Dreaming by The Cactus Blossoms
Fare You Well My Little Annie Darling by Bonnie Prince Billy & Nathan Salsburg
Single Girl by Sandy Posey
Strong Armed Robbery by Emi Sunshine
Dancing With the Women at the Bar by Whiskeytown
Rainbows and Ridges by Blaze Foley CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets
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A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican Aug 11, 2017
When The Mekons first emerged as a young, brash, ragtag, loose-knit art-school punk-rock band in Leeds, U.K. in those golden late ’70s, I bet nobody who heard or saw them — or even the band members themselves — ever envisioned that in 2017, hundreds of people from many nations would answer the band’s call to “destroy your safe and happy lives before it is too late,” and gather in rural England to celebrate the band’s 40th anniversary at a three-day music festival.
But that’s what just happened. And I was there.
Where were you?
The Mekonville festival took place from July 28 to July 30 in Suffolk, northeast of London. The bill featured The Mekons — both the current musicians (a lineup that has been relatively stable since the mid-1980s) and the original 1977 crew — as well as various bands involving Mekons members (Jon Langford’s Men of Gwent was a highlight), solo spots by Mekons Sally Timms and Rico Bell, as well as friends, family (4DGs, which is made up of Mekons singer Tom Greenhalgh’s young children), and assorted allies of the group.
About 90 percent of the people I know gave me blank stares when I told them I was going to England for a Mekons festival. That’s not surprising. The group has never had a really big hit. They haven’t even been on a major label in a quarter century or so. How many bands these days have eight members — including three or four lead singers — and feature fiddle, accordion, and oud?
The Mekons sprang out of the punk world, but they went on to incorporate elements of folk and country music, reggae, and other sounds. Whether they are playing an original rocker, some mutated sea shanty, or a Hank Williams song, The Mekons don’t sound much like anyone else.
Langford shines!
The 2017 Mekons played a set on each day of the festival. Their magical Friday night performance spotlighted the band’s (relatively) best-known songs like “I Have Been to Heaven and Back,” “Beaten and Broken,” “Millionaire” and, of course, their hard-driving battle cry, “Memphis, Egypt” (“The battles we fought were long and hard, just not to be consumed by rock ’n’ roll”), which they played during all three of their sets.
The band did a couple of newer songs the first night, including “Simone on the Beach,” sung by Timms, one of the more rocking songs from their latest album Existentialism (for my money, the best Mekons album of this century so far), along with their latest single, a slow, dreamy “How Many Stars Are Out Tonight,” which features Greenhalgh on lead vocals and his kids singing backup on the choruses.
This set could have been marred by the sound problems, as the amps for some of the instruments went off several times. But the band just made a joke of it and plowed through like pros.
Saturday afternoon’s performance, which took place on the festival’s smaller second stage, had been billed as an acoustic set, but wasn’t anything close to an “unplugged” show. As one band friend explained: “They just used smaller amps.”
With the exception of “Memphis, Egypt” there were no repeats from Friday’s set list. The best songs here included Timms’ signature “Ghosts of American Astronauts,” “The Olde Trip to Jerusalem” — one of the group’s most intense latter-day rockers — “Sometimes I Feel Like Fletcher Christian,” performed in a mariachi-influenced style, and the rowdy “Big Zombie,” in which Bell’s accordion drives the almost Cajun-sounding tune.
But the highest-energy number was a take-no-prisoners version of “Where Were You?” in which The Mekons were joined on stage by their road manager, emcee, and sometimes singer Mitch Flacko.
Chalkie wails!
Later that night on the main stage there was a punk set by the original 1977 Mekons. Langford (switching from guitar to drums) and Greenhalgh were joined by singers Andy Corrigan and Mark “Chalkie” White, guitarist Kevin Lycett, and bassist Ros Allen (who had her back turned away from the audience during virtually the whole show).
I knew this was going to be good, but I had no idea that these guys would be this good. They ripped through their early songs such as “32 Weeks,” “Never Been in a Riot,” and, once again, “Where Were You,” this time with lead vocals by Chalkie and Langford pounding his drums as if he were auditioning for a spot with The Surfaris.
The grand finale Sunday afternoon started off with the current Mekons, but eventually they were joined on stage by the original Mekons and later by Bonnie Prince Billy, aka Will Oldham (a longtime devotee, who on Saturday night performed a solo set of songs written or inspired by the Mekons) for songs including “Curse” and “Beaten and Broken.”
Following a couple of country covers (“Help Me Make It Through the Night” and Hank Williams’ “Lost Highway”), Mekons past and present as well as other musicians who had performed at the festival took to the stage for one final rousing, messy, ridiculous “Where Were You?” with Mitch and Chalkie sharing lead vocals.
The Grand Finale
As a wise critic wrote just a couple of years ago, “It never fails to frustrate me that no matter how I’ve tried to spread the word about this wonderful musical collective of visionaries, rebels, and oddballs — and how writers far more talented and influential than I have tried to do the same — The Mekons’ audience never seems to rise beyond the level of small-but-rabid cult.”
Personally, I guzzled the spiked Kool-Aid served up by The Mekons years ago. And I took an even bigger gulp at the festival in Suffolk. I’m proud to be a member of this crazed congregation. And it was a true joy to be a citizen of Mekonville.
Mekonville Video
First here's Jon Langford's Men of Gwent
Here's the 1977 Mekons with "Where Were You?"
And what the heck, here's the entire final Sunday set with Mekons old and new, assorted friends and who knows who. (Thanks, Norbert Knape.)
Back in 1846 on this very day, President James J. Polk signed into law the Smithsonian Institution Act, which established this nation's national museum.
Congress chartered the Smithsonian Institution This came after James Smithson, a British chemist and mineralogist (and the bastard son of an English duke), donated $500,000 to the U.S. for this purpose.
James Smithson wrote a draft of his Last Will and Testament in 1826 in London, only three years before he died. He died on June 27, 1829, in Genoa, Italy, [and] was buried in a British cemetery. The will left his estate to his nephew, Henry James Hungerford, and stated that if his nephew died without an heir, the money would go "to the United States of America, to found at Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian Institution, an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge ...." After his nephew died without an heir [in 1835], Smithson's estate did come to the United States and a debate began about what this new institution would be.
Strangely, Smithson had never set foot in the U.S.
Did he feel his gift would have more impact on a young nation with only a few major educational and research institutions? Did he hope to immortalize himself in the United States in reaction to opportunities denied him in Britain by his illegitimacy? (Smithson once wrote, "On my father's side I am a Northumberland, on my mother's I am related to kings, but this avails me not.") Was he inspired by the tenets of many scientific societies of his day that held that civilization could achieve perfection through increased knowledge and public education?
To honor the Smithsonian here is an array of music videos from the Smithsonian's own record label, Smithsonian Folkways. (The Folkways label was created in 1948 by Moses Asch, a Polish-born recording engineer and folk music enthusiast. The Smithsonian acquired the label in 1987)
Let's keep this music -- and the spirit of The Smithsonian -- going!
Here's a shout song from McIntosh County Georgia.
Dave Van Ronk recorded several albums for Folkways.
Here's a little polka from Flaco Jimenez & Max Baca.
The Seldom Scene cover a John Fogerty song about Elvis.
And finally, Valerie June sings a Lead Belly classic.
On this day in 1974, President Richard M. Nixon left the White House in the face of near certain impeachment.
But by the late '80s, a merry band of rock 'n' rollers from Donaldsonville, Louisiana had begun a noble, if tongue-in-cheek, attempt to rehabilitate Nixon's image. Led by a firefighter named Kirk Paul Landry, aka "Kirk the Jerk Springstone," The Dick Nixons The Dick Nixons sang songs glorifying the 37th president.
The group in 1992 released an album called Paint the White House Black, which was produced by none other than Memphis titan Jim Dickinson. It was on Triple X Records (home of the Angry Samoans!)
Unfortunately The Dick Nixons failed to get their hero re-elected president in 1988 or 1992. But they had fun trying.
There is not much information about The Dick Nixons online and only a scattering of YouTube videos, some of which are below.
But Landry, who died in 2009 at the age of 51, was an interesting character. Besides his work in The Dick Nixons, he was a "founding moron" responsible for an event called The Shemp Festival in Donaldsonville in the 1980s, which, according to a local press account, "reaped national attention with the largest pie fight in the southern Unites States."
Sadly, Landry's career suffered a bizarre Nixonian twist. He rose to the rank as Donaldsonville's fire chief in 1992 and served in that position until 2004 when he was arrested for falsifying records. He was convicted in 2007, two years before his death.
Prosecutors said he altered fire reports to the insurance association to get a lower and better fire insurance rating for Donaldsonville. He "doubled his manpower on the fire reports he changed and added firetrucks that were not at the scene of the fires," prosecutors said. Landry’s lawyers argued that he "had no intent to defraud anybody" and that he only followed the advice of a Fire Department rating consultant hired by the city of to help get a lower and better fire rating.
He was sentenced to a year in prison but the judge suspended the sentence. Landry appealed the conviction, but a Louisiana appeals court affirmed the verdict and sentence about three months before Landry died,
Here are some songs by The Dick Nixons to commemorate this historical day.
This one's the very first Dick Nixons song I ever heard.
And here's the first part of a 1988 Dick Nixons television interview.
And here's a whole concert by the Dick Nixons on SoundCloud
On this day in 1974, President Richard M. Nixon left the White House in the face of near certain impeachment.
Sadly, Landry's career suffered a bizarre Nixonian twist. He rose to the rank as Donaldsonville's fire chief in 1992 and served in that position until 2004 when he was arrested for falsifying records. He was convicted in 2007, two years before his death.
