The Pride of Poverty

When they busted my chops over That Summer Feeling, it sent a chilling effect through the site. So cold it got, that I’ve now lost for the first time in several mixtapes. But for what it’s worth, I’m partial to the Rolling Stones’ version of Money, but I like the original too…I wanna thank Jace the Ace Face for a brief flirtation with DC funk in the 1980s, with Chuck Brown and the Soul Searchers’ succinctly titled “We Need Money” one of the better examples on record…And finally (so soon?) I remember watching this clip of Elvis Costello when it first aired on Letterman about 26 years ago. In fact, for some strange reason, I recorded it on my ghetto blaster (built-in mic recording output from TV speaker), and kept it on an actual mixtape which is still kicking around the gaff. An embarrassment of riches this aint, but there is a pride in poverty.

The Poor Man's Rich Man Poor Man Mixtape

Money, That’s What I Want – Barrett Strong
The Poor Orphan Child – The Carter Family
We Need Money – Chuck Brown and the Soul Searchers
Bankrobber – The Clash
Fortunate Son – Creedence Clearwater Revival
Man Out of Time – Elvis Costello
Poor Paddy on the Railway – The Dubliners
Big Boss Man – Jimmy Reed
Promised Land – Johnny Allan
Sometimes I Wantcha for Your Money – The Milkshakes
I’m a Man You Don’t Meet Everyday – The Pogues
Money, That’s What I Want – Rolling Stones
Do Re Mi - Woody Guthrie

Here is a link to the winning mixtape. Check out some Japanese folkies rocking the last entry from BD’s homeboy.

Dandelion Whine: the Flowers Mixtape

When there’s no future
how can there be sin?
We are the flowers in the dustbin
--GOD SAVE THE QUEEN, 1977

When critics said the Sex Pistols were nihilistic, this must have been the line they were referring to. It's not fair. Nihilism suggests immorality, but with this couplet, John Lydon evokes something more like thoughtful exasperation, and, more poignantly, deep sadness. But at this point, you would be right in thinking: "I thought this was supposed to be a mixtape about flowers?"

A shamrock is a flower, right? Close enough. I've been looking for an excuse to put the Royal Teens, the band behind the original "Short Shorts", on a mixtape. "Sham Rock" would be one of the sleaziest grooves ever made were it not simultaneously so innocent...



Flowers grow where? In gardens -- that's where. In "Beautiful Gardens", the Cramps updated Kim Fowley's cartoon acid trip vibe featured on the last mixtape. The track here is from a cassette bootleg I bought in Camden Market 25 years ago, featuring live versions of most tunes from the Psychedelic Jungle LP...Psychedelic is also the theme of Pebbles Volume 3, the album that brought Chrystal Chandlier's "Suicidal Flowers" to my attention. While the singer featured there provides adequate back-up for Jim Morrison, the Better Sweet is an early Grateful Dead doppelganger on "Like the Flowers", featured on volume three of the Bad Vibrations compilation series.

The Flowers Mixtape

Like The Flowers – Better Sweet
The Wildwood Flower – Carter Family
Suicidal Flowers – Chrystal Chandlier
Beautiful Gardens (Live 1981) – The Cramps
BONUS TRACK: Don't Eat Stuff Off the Sidewalk (Live 1981) - The Cramps
BONUS TRACK: Primitive (Live 1981) - The Cramps
New Rose – The Damned
La Vie En Rose – Grace Jones
Rose of My Heart – Johnny Cash
Give My Love to Rose – Johnny Cash
Orange Blossom Special - Lester Flatt & Earl Scruggs
Blue Flower – Mazzy Star
Sham Rock – The Royal Teens
God Save the Queen – Sex Pistols
Apple Blossom – White Stripes
Blue Orchid – White Stripes
Pictures of Lily – The Who
Dandylion Clock - Wild Billy Childish & the Musicians of the British Empire
Psycho Daisies – The Yardbirds

Here is the track list for BD's Flowers tape.

Locked Up: the Jail Mixtape

Back in 1981, someone pointed out to me the macho cartoon aspect of The Clash, mostly in their choice of lyrical content and song/album titles. I wasn’t too interested in that kind of analysis at the time, but I filed away the information anyway. Visual image-wise, of course, they loved dressing up. Sometimes you’d see pictures of the group and they would look like bikers-- other times, they would be cowboys, policemen, soldiers, foppish dandies (is there any other kind?) -- or all of the above. That’s it! The Clash were the Village People!

I’m not sure if they ever dressed up specifically as jailbirds, but they certainly looked liked some kind of prisoners on the cover of their very first single. Some editing was required to get the Jail Mixtape to include only three Clash songs. In Jail Guitar Doors, they sang about real-life musicians who fell foul of the law, including Peter Green, Wayne Kramer and Keith Richards. Stay Free was a sweet ode to a thieving friend. Julie’s Been Working for the Drug Squad was inspired by the bust of a drug factory in Wales, IIRC.

They put him in a cell, they said ‘you wait here’
‘Now you got the time to count all of your hair’

Other jail songs on the tape feature more serious crimes, including at least three murders. You'll have to scroll down, though. Too clever by half with the Jail song table -- there's a big blank space and I can't get rid of it:

Song	Artist	Crime(s)	Sentence(s)
Worried Man Blues	The Carter Family	Went across the river and lay down to sleep	21 years on the R.C. Mountain line
John Hardy	Billy Childish	Murder (multiple)	Death
Jail Guitar Doors	The Clash	Deals of cocaine / gun threat / heroin possession	2 years / institutionalized / out on bail ($25,000)
Julie's Been Working for the Drug Squad	The Clash	Illegal manufacture of tablets…in their millions	10-25 years
Stay Free	The Clash	Went on a nicking spree	Three years in Brixton
Jailhouse Rock	Dean Carter	Unknown	Unknown
007 (Shanty Town)	Desmond Dekker	Looting and shooting	Probation
Folsom Prison Blues	The Huns	Shot a man in Reno just to watch him die	Life (implied)
On Parole	Motorhead	Looking for fun / forgot the reason	Forever and a day / parole
Prison Cell Blues	Blind Lemon Jefferson	Nell	Undetermined number of days
The Old Main Drag	The Pogues	Vagrancy	Beaten and mauled at Vine Street lock-up
Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos	Public Enemy	Draft dodging	Serving time in the state pen
The Auld Triangle	Ronnie Drew	Unknown	Death
Your Funeral and My Trial	Sonny Boy Williamson II	Threat of murder	None--yet
Prison Cell of Love	Werly Fairburn	Love	Love
Bad Lee Brown (Cocaine Blues )	Woody Guthrie	Blowed his woman down	Life in the penitentiary

Traditional music features heavily when it comes to the Jail Mixtape, but not everything is pure roots. There's comedy, too, from Motorhead, and from Public Enemy:

I got a letter from the government the other day
I opened and read it
It said they were suckers
They wanted me for their army or whatever
Picture me givin' a damn - I said never

For such an over the top song, I find its opening verse hilarious. Chuck D. deserves credit for inserting humor where you least expect it: there's plenty of wit dispensed throughout his otherwise often angry oeuvre.

Other stuff: I used to see Ronnie Drew around town before he passed away this year, having lived in his parish for the last while...The 80s Huns (not the 70s Texas ones) demoed Folsom Prison in Iowa...I've been to the Vine Street police station, where the protagonist of the Old Main Drag was brutalized "between the metal doors", but only to give a statement as a witness...Dean Carter's performance is the wildest on the mixtape, Desmond Dekker's the prettiest, and Werly Fairburn just has the best name.



Click here for Bob Dylan's Jail mix.

My Mixtape Brings All the Boys to the Yard

Bob Dylan has a mixtape radio show – it’s on Phantom FM here in Dublin. I like Dylan a little, and I used to love mixtapes. I can’t say I’ve been a faithful listener, but I did catch his holiday theme show last December. He played a bunch of obscuro Christmas records and spewed a surprising lot of between-song patter. Like Joe Strummer during his vanity gig as a BBC World Service DJ, Dylan seemed to be getting off on some kind of midnight hipster Wolfman Jack fantasy. It was a good show, but his shtick did get a little tiresome. Anyway, I like the choice of themes he has used for his shows (“Weather,” “Coffee”, “Trains”, “More Trains,” etc.). So I guess I’ll post my mixtapes using the same themes, and throw in some links where possible. First up is Weather.

Looks like I overlap with BD on three songs, but on two of them, it’s not the same version (see BD’s list at the end of the post)... For all those who still fail to understand that Elvis Presley was once a performer full of only innocence and no artifice, listen to him on I Don’t Care if the Sun Don’t Shine, or any other song on the Sun Sessions LP... The White Stripes are the perfect modern band for the middle aged dude who went through Led Zeppelin, Muddy Waters, Kinks, Buzzcocks and Cramps phases in the 70s and 80s... Epicycle was a band at my high school back then, and props to them for not sounding like Foreigner, whose sampled Cold as Ice chorus is chipmunkized on M.O.P.’s gangsta rap hit, the other redeeming feature of which is a truly monster bass line... Archive.org--a.k.a. the basement of the Internet--has demos from the Warlocks, the precursor to the Grateful Dead... And finally, there are times when I would agree with Youtube user prolo67, who says A Rainy Night in Soho is the best love song ever written. Shame the video features the extra slick 1991 remix (added strings and horns), not the raw, original Poguetry in Motion version.

The Weather Mixtape

300 M.P.H. Torrential Outpour Blues - The White Stripes
Four Strong Winds - Johnny Cash
California Sun - The Ramones
Keep on the Sunny Side - The Carter Family
Have You Ever Seen the Rain - Creedence Clearwater Revival
Gloomy Sunday - Billie Holiday
Life is a Breeze - Epicycle
Cold As ICE - M.O.P.
Johnny Thunder - The Kinks
Blister in the Sun - Violent Femmes
A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall - Bob Dylan
Hurricane - The Collins Kids
I Don't Care if the Sun Don't Shine - Elvis Presley
Storm Warning - Mac Rebennack (aka Dr. John)
Who Loves The Sun - Velvet Underground
Rainy Days and Mondays - The Carpenters
Early Morning Rain - The Warlocks
A Rainy Night in Soho - The Pogues

For reference purposes, here’s Bob Dylan’s Weather tape:

Blow Wind Blow - Muddy Waters
You Are My Sunshine - Jimmie Davis
California Sun - Joe Jones
I Don't Care if the Sun Don't Shine - Dean Martin
Just Walking in the Rain - The Prisonaires
After the Clouds Roll Away - The Consolers
The Wind Cries Mary - Jimi Hendrix
Come Rain or Come Shine - Judy Garland
It's Raining - Irma Thomas
Didn't It Rain - Sister Rosetta Tharpe
Raining in my Heart - Slim Harpo
Jamaica Hurricane - Lord Beginner
Let the four Winds Blow - Fats Domino
Stormy Weather - The Spaniels
A Place in the Sun (song) - Stevie Wonder
Summer Wind - Frank Sinatra
Uncloudy Day - The Staple Singers
Keep on the Sunny Side - The Carter Family