Podcast

House On Fire No.4 by House On Fire on Mixcloud

You can listen from this page or follow the link to mixcloud.com and listen from there. I hope you enjoy it...

Tracklisting

1. Mini-Skirt And Go Go Boots - Lloyd & Glen - 2:35
2. Talk To Your Daughter - J.B. Lenoir - 2:45
3. Don't Cry No More - Bobby Bland - 2:29
4. I Want To Hold Your Hand - Al Green - 2:16
5. Radar Eyes - The Godz - 2:11
6. Lovefingers - Silver Apples - 4:12
7. Baron Saturday - The Pretty Things - 4:02
8. Ubu Dance Party - Pere Ubu - 4:50
9. Final Request - Josef K - 2:23
10. She's Like Heroin To Me - The Gun Club - 2:36
11. Zanzíbar - Toundra - 4:55
12. Cold Hard Times - Lee Hazlewood - 2:23

Song of the Day No.56

Get Down

by War (All Day Music, 1971)

The second album after Eric Burden departed mid-way through a European tour sees the band reaching the cusp of success that their next album will bring. Even so, All Day Music brought the group more success than they had achieved under the name Eric Burden and War producing their first Top 40 hits. The absence of Burden's improvised lyrics meant the band moved over to a more funk orientated sound than ever before, the band, however, still had a tight grasp on their own improv/jam-band style that can be seen in the three six minute-plus track timings.

'Get Down' on the other hand employs a more traditional song structure and runs in at under four minutes. Not overly angsty or mean in its design, the music forms a light-hearted and crisp funk base for the biting politically orientated lyrics to get the juices flowing. “Early in the morning, before you eat your breakfast, you got to get down” provides the choral hook that does, well, make you want to get down. As the umpteen members of War all urge various institutional figures to get down over the bubbling funk groove, the togetherness it brings makes this song feel like a protest song that has fallen off the protest song map.

AR

Song Of The Day No.9

Long After Tonight Is Over

by Irma Thomas (Various Best Of/Greatest Hits)

This originally unreleased Burt Bacharach penned Imperial single starts with the scraping and tapping of a güiro plus the pinging of a common-or-garden bell. The Soul Queen of New Orleans starts by singing about a more innocent time when she didn't exactly know what her lips were for. A rumble of drums marks the entrance of the backing singers, the chorus and the raising of a notch in the canon of Thomas' vocal prowess. Further notches are to be raised as the song progresses with the Soul Queen's voice outshining the harmonies and the accompanying strings easily. The strings, along with the prominent drums, provide a good platform for the song with the strings often mimicking the power of brass while retaining the intricacies more typically associated with string instruments.

Irma Thomas' career has now spanned over fifty years and today she is still making records. She won a Grammy in 2006 for Best Contemporary Blues Album bringing her some overdue recognition after undeservedly not achieving the commercial success of Diana Ross or Aretha Franklin in the sixties.

AR