Thread Of Time #2

In the first Thread Of Time (our compilation flashback series), we presented an all-American affair, while this time around we bring you a compilation of rarities from across the pond. The absolutely stellar Echoes From The Wilderness came out in 1998 on the Paranoid label — also responsible for the equally great Purple Pill Eaters and Voyage Through The Sugarcube comp LPs — and featured "Sixteen UK R&B Freakbeat Trippers." The only thing truly "trippy" about this compilation is the title; expect cut after cut of monster freakbeat and distinctly British r&b from a bunch of mostly go-nowhere, mid-'60s mod groups, the most well-know being Jimmy Winston & His Reflections (fronted by the ex-Small Faces organist), The Untamed (produced by great Shel Talmy), and The Herd, which launched the career of Peter Frampton. The compilation was released in a very limited-edition on vinyl (sans any liner-notes), and was later released on CD with an incomplete track-listing... A real must-own and essential listen for any connoisseur of 1960s sounds!

Dig: Echoes From The Wilderness (track-listing via 45cat)

Dig: Thread Of Time #1: Tougher Than Stains

Quote Of The Week

"You are outside life, you are above life, you have miseries which the ordinary man does not know, you exceed the normal level, and it is for this that men refuse to forgive you, you poison their peace of mind, you undermine their stability. You have irrepressible pains whose essence is to be inadaptable to any known state, indescribable in words. You have repeated and shifting pains, incurable pains, pains beyond imagining, pains which are neither of the body nor of the soul, but which partake of both. And I share your suffering, and I ask you: who dares to ration our relief? We are not going to kill ourselves just yet. In the meantime, leave us the hell alone."

Étude In Black

  

Rest In Peace

Questions And Answers

"What do we mean by saying that existence precedes essence? We mean that man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world — and defines himself afterwards. If man as the existentialist sees him is not definable, it is because to begin with he is nothing. He will not be anything until later, and then he will be what he makes of himself. Thus, there is no human nature, because there is no God to have a conception of it. Man simply is. Not that he is simply what he conceives himself to be, but he is what he wills, and as he conceives himself after already existing — as he wills to be after that leap towards existence. Man is nothing else but that which he makes of himself. That is the first principle of existentialism."

From Existentialism Is Humanism, 1946

Mr. Songbird

From the beautiful, perfect ache of "Waterloo Sunset," to character sketches like "David Watts," "Dedicated Follower Of Fashion" and "A Well Respected Man," to stomping anthems like "I'm Not Like Everybody Else," to the absolutely god-like The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society LP; Ray Davies pretty much always got it right... Happy birthday Ray, thanks for all the great music!

Quote Of The Week

"Intellectual despair results in neither weakness nor dreams, but in violence. It is only a matter of knowing how to give vent to one's rage; whether one only wants to wander like madmen around prisons, or whether one wants to overturn them."

A Coney Island Of My Mind #8

Photograph by Lee Greenfeld © 2011

In Summer

Oh, summer has clothed the earth
In a cloak from the loom of the sun!
And a mantle, too, of the skies' soft blue,
And a belt where the rivers run.

And now for the kiss of the wind,
And the touch of the air's soft hands,
With the rest from strife and the heat of life,
With the freedom of lakes and lands.

I envy the farmer's boy
Who sings as he follows the plow;
While the shining green of the young blades lean
To the breezes that cool his brow.

He sings to the dewy morn,
No thought of another's ear;
But the song he sings is a chant for kings
And the whole wide world to hear.

He sings of the joys of life,
Of the pleasures of work and rest,
From an o'erfull heart, without aim or art;
'T is a song of the merriest.

O ye who toil in the town,
And ye who moil in the mart,
Hear the artless song, and your faith made strong
Shall renew your joy of heart.

Oh, poor were the worth of the world
If never a song were heard,—
If the sting of grief had no relief,
And never a heart were stirred.

So, long as the streams run down,
And as long as the robins trill,
Let us taunt old
Care with a merry air,
And sing in the face of ill.

From The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar

A Gallery Of Cool, Take Six

Edison "Edson" Arantes do Nascimento (aka Pelé)

Marianne Faithfull

Ian Brown

Lauren Bacall, Humphrey Bogart, and Marilyn Monroe

Crisis

Brian Jones

[ Previous Galleries Of Cool: 1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 ]

Quote Of The Week

"I love America more than any other country in the world and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually."

Thread Of Time #1

There was a time when the only way to find elusive and obscure '60s tracks was via the world of underground LP compilations, lovingly compiled and released by die-hard vinyl collectors. (Or hunting and shelling out big bucks for original 45s.) This was all kick-started of course by the officially released, Lenny Kaye-compiled Nuggets, and followed by must-own comp series like Pebbles, Back From The Grave, Rubble, Mindrocker, Chocolate Soup For Diabetics, Garage Punk Unknowns, Incredible Sound Show Stories, Ugly Things, Teenage Shutdown, Diggin' For Gold, Fading Yellow, and so on.

As time has moved forward, eBay, and boss reissue labels like Norton, Sundazed, and Crypt have made getting your '60s fix as easy as a click online... In honor of the days of "the hunt," A.I.T.A gives ya the first of our Thread Of Time flashback series, spotlighting long out-of-print, essential 1960s punk and psych compilations. Kicking things off is the all-killer, no-filler Tougher Than Stains, released in 1995 by "London Fog Records" (who may have also been responsible for the excellent Chosen Few comp series). As the title implies, this one is all snot, fuzz, and stomp, with nary a solo or forth chord in sight. It's also a real rarity in that many of the included tracks have still yet to see official reissue in any format... Dig in, and enjoy!

Quote Of The Week

"When I contemplate the accumulation of guilt and remorse which, like a garbage-can, I carry through life, and which is fed not only by the lightest action but by the most harmless pleasure, I feel Man to be of all living things the most biologically incompetent and ill-organized. Why has he acquired a seventy years life-span only to poison it incurably by the mere being of himself? Why has he thrown Conscience, like a dead rat, to putrefy in the well?"

Life Is Too Short

Benny Spellman

Rest In Peace

"Benny Spellman, the vocalist whose double-sided recording of "Fortune Teller" and "Lipstick Traces (On A Cigarette)" is an enduring classic of New Orleans r&b, died Friday in Florida after a long illness." ... Story continues here: Benny Spellman Dies (nola.com)

Dig: Benny's Louisiana Music Hall Of Fame induction

Download: "If You Love Her" by Benny Spellman

Buy: Fortune Teller - Golden Classics (CD)