Roy Brown *Rockin' at Midnight*

       Roy Brown, Rockin' at Midnight(Deluxe Records),  number 10 on the Billboard 1950 Jukebox play chart. (BILLBOARD)

       It's funny how songs were talking about "rock" while not themselves being rock songs.

Wynonie Harris *All She Wants to Do is Rock* (1946)

This song, Wynonie Harris's *All She Wants to Do is Rock* was 15 on the 1950 Billboard year-end Rhythm and Blues Chart. (BILLBOARD 1/14/50) 1950 was the fourth year that Billboard had a chart.

D/Wolves

D/WOLVES (BAND CAMP)
D/WOLVES (MYSPACE)
D/WOLVES (SAN DIEGO READER 3/31/10)

SHOWS
05 15 CHE CAFE (SAN DIEGO, CA.)
06 02 CHE CAFE (SAN DIEGO, CA.)
06 03 ISLA VISTA HOUSE PARTY (SANTA BARBARA, CA)
06 04 MOMMA BUZZ CAFE (OAKLAND, CA.)
06 06 PDX BURGERVILLE (PORTLAND, ORE.)
06 07 SEATTLE HOUSE SHOW (SEATTLE WA.)
06 13 MCWORLD (SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA)

Italian Vogue Has An English Edition

     I actually became aware of the fact that Italian Vogue was going to be publishing in English starting in 2010.  How amazing is that?  They don't speak English in Italy, Italian Vogue.  But now it's happening and they are writing about the Dum Dum Girls in language that sounds translated from Italian  (bold text maintained from origina.l)  I like how Italian Vogue has hoped on the Indie Music bandwagon. Wait till someone tells them about Best Coast.  Did you know they Italian Saturday Night live with fake Seth Meyers?   (ITALIAN VOGUE IN ENGLISH)

     Dum Dum Girls [...] the Californian band which is competing to become independent band of the summer, a title assigned to Phoenix last year.

   It's an almost perfect album, with an alternation of melodic songs with powerful rhythms. Similar to their style, which we could define as "Victorian Sixties": they match mini skirts with patterned stockings and ruffles, bobs with cloche hats from the 1920s. All strictly black.

       If you cannot go and admire their clothes at a concert (their European tour will last for the whole month of May, followed by the American West Coast in June), have a look at their blog. It's very well-done and documents, with pictures and videos, their life out of the stage, making the band even more hip.

      According to the website The Hype Machine, which quantifies the interest of the Internet world for musical events, Dum Dum Girls are among the most discussed bands in April. More than talking about them, you should listen to their new album I will be, which is amazing. 

CAPTURED TRACKS BAND GERMAN MEASLES PLAYING SAN DIEGO FRIDAY

GERMAN MEASLES (CAPTURED TRACKS)(MYSPACE)
THE BEETS (CAPTURED TRACKS)(MYSPACE)
CHRISTMAS ISLAND
DJ MARTIN ORDONEZ
TOWER BAR ON FRIDAY NIGHT

COME ON OUT AND FORMULATE AN OPINION ON ONE BAND OR ALL BANDS.  DJ MARTIN ORODONEZ SPINS SENSIBLE MUSIC FOR HAPPY PEOPLE.  WIERDOS: BRING YOUR AWKWARD PLASTIC BAGS OF VINYL RELATED EPHEMERA FOR CONVERSATIONS NEAR THE BAR ABOUT YOUR BAG.

Temper Trap and Florence and the Machines

 

Temper Trap Sweet Disposition

   Here is my entire experience with Temper Trap before five minutes ago:

   My wife was talking about Coachella to a co-worker and he was telling her how excited he was to see Temper Trap at Coachella and we were both like "Temper Trap?!?!"  and the answer is yeah "Friendly Fires?" "Snow Patrol?"  Columbia Records?  Yeah.   They have been on the new artist chart for 30 weeks almost.  If you get to 30 months on a billboard chart- any chart- that is sales success.  Their hit record Sweet Disposition and I think you can just fairly say, "If you dig Snow Patrol and Hobostank... check this s*** out."    Sweet Disposition is def. THE hit here. Melbourne Australia which is cool but not enough. What's up with Australia misfires? Modular Records?  What happened to the follow-up Softlighties record?  LP2?

   As long as you are discussing Temper Trap you might also mention Florence and the Machine.  Check out her single "Drumming Song" (EMBEDDING DISABLED LAME)  This record was released the same week as Temper Trap, except by Universal instead of Columbia.  oh and Florence and the Machines debut lp was produced by James Ford.  So 29 weeks ago....  That would be an lp released in mid October.  That must be a special week/time of the year.  Right now Florence and the Machines is 12 and Temper Trap is 11.  I dunno does Florence and the Machine have a hit?  I don't see it on the radio.

   It's hard to ignore the coincidence that these are both major label lp releases of foreign artists with established success in their home market.  What else can you say without being mean or stupid?

Book Review: The Supremes by Mark Ribowsky

The Supremes
by Mark Ribowsky
published 2009
by De Capo Press

     My friend Mario Orduno of Art Fag Recordings lent me this book.  He and I often talk about the history of popular music.  Not so much the recent stuff.  I think probably his greatest direct influence on me is a focus on music created before 1967.  Something definitely changed after 1967... for the worse... I think.

     The Supremes are an act that took advantage of many of the changes that were sweeping popular music in mid 60s even as they retained a look and sound that set them apart from the love generation.  It's hard to tell the story of the Supremes without telling the story of Motown.  The real weakness of the music industry as it existed in the early 60s was in their handling of black artists.   Tastes changed ahead of society, and the world that created Motown and the Supremes was a segregated world where Whites held all the cards and Blacks were left to pick up the scraps.

    In the early 60s, Berry Gordy was a hustling young man from a wealthy black family in Detroit.  When he started Motown, famously borrowing money from his family, he wasn't the only one with a record label.  His sisters had record labels, too.  Motown started in 1960 and so had the Supremes...under a different name (the Primettes).  It took Motown a year or so to sign up the Supremes, pick them a new name, etc.  Then it was a couple more years before the Supremes really broke... 1963 really.  During that period, Gordy didn't lose the faith.  The Supremes, of course, wrote none of their songs.

     The rise of the Supremes is from an era before artists had artistic control.  Diana Ross may have been an outsized diva, but she didn't even have access to her own bank account. In that regard, it's hard to ignore the character of Berry Gordy and the role he plays in Supremes, both for better and most assuredly for worse. The Gordy/Ross relationship dominates the Supremes story, literally to the detriment of everyone else in the entire book.  Almost half the book involved Gordy scheming to get Ross out of the Supremes so that she can fly solo.

    Why are people so stupid?  Why was Berry Gordy so obsessed with one artist?  Here's a fact about Motown:  In 1966 Motown had 200 artists under contract.  Only 4 made money.  What is it about turning art into commerce that can make even successful men look stupid?  Like so many other men who succeed in the area of turning art into commerce, Gordy was a man working an area of the market where the big boys were pretty clueless, working in a geographic area with strong local networks and with artists and collaborators who were pliable and financially ignorant.  Right time, right place, right product.  The Supremes were that product.

    The Supremes rose, and fell- there was conflict, tragedy and some reconciliation, but through it all everyone involved seemed to lack even a modicum of self reflection about their situation.  Maybe that's why the art was so great:  Because they were just doing it, not sitting around, talking about it all day.  Great art is unself-reflective art.