Boogie Woogie Blues, like the term, is fun. Boogie Woogie. Shit, the term makes me smile. Say Boogie Woogie fast 5 times….now tell me you ain’t smilin’. If you do I’ma call you a damn liar.

Boogie Woogie is fun to say. Boogie Woogie blues is fun to hear. Boogie Woogie blues make you hafta dance. Hillstomp is Boogie Woogie Blues. They remind me of a more light-hearted version of Shake Hands With Shorty era North Mississippi Allstars, back before the Dickinson boys started getting too serious. Hillstomp makes you wanna dance. My dog has been looking at me like I’m an idiot for the past three days while I roam around the house with the disc on the CD player. My dog can not dance and she does not like when I try to dance with her but the Boogie Woogie insists that we dance. She lacks thumbs….she doesn’t get it. You, on the other hand (ba-da crash), ain’t got that luxury.

If I lived in the Portland area, I’d make a point to see this band on a regular basis, but I live in Florida, so I must listen to the disc and listen I do…often. In fact, often enough to add their current release, The Woman that Ended the World, to the ninebullets Essential Listening list. Fear not you fellow Oregon deprived citizens of the other 49 states, Hillstomp apparently has a live cd coming out some time this summer, and I bet it’ll be fun. ‘Til then, Boogie Woogie to these tracks:

Hillstomp - N.E. Portland 3 A.M.
Hillstomp - Shake It
Hillstomp - Momma Told Pappa

Hillstomp’s Official Site, Hillstomp on myspace, Buy The Woman that Ended the World

Ordinarily this would not warrant mention on ninebullets but our new editor reminded me of a certain Dead Milkmen song last night. So, Charles Nelson Reilly died earlier this week at the age of 76 and ninebullets. net offers tribute in the form of song:

Serrated Edge by the Dead Milkmen

Up on the hilltop where the vultures perch,
That’s where I’m gonna build my church,
Ain’t gonna be no priest, ain’t gonna be no boss;
Just Charles Nelson Reilly nailed to a cross.

I don’t piss, I don’t shit, I’m gettin’ no relief,
People shake their heads in disbelief.
GO!

Just me on a hilltop with 15 girls,
In a Nelson Reilly orgy that’ll make your hair curl.
I don’t piss, I don’t shit, I’m gettin’ no relief,
People shake their heads in disbelief.

Yeah, Charles Nelson Reilly, he’s our man,
He can’t heal the sick with the touch of his hand,
He can’t walk on water, can’t make wine flow;
Just another B-actor on the late late show!

I don’t piss, I don’t shit, I’m gettin’ no relief,
People shake their heads in disbelief.
GO!

Just me on a hilltop with 15 girls,
In a Nelson Reilly orgy that’ll make your hair curl.
I don’t piss, I don’t shit, I’m gettin’ no relief,
People shake their heads in disbelief.

Note: Yesterday I was stranded out in the world with no internet connectivity at all. At first, it was nice and I was really productive at work. Then the boredom set in (engineering is a very boring occupation) and the frustration about not being able to do any reef tank research turned to irritability which became depression. By the time I was back home and with internets I was despondent and listless and thus did not post anything yesterday. Fortunatly all of my problems can be cured by my good friend Jim Beam and today is a new day. Let’s get on with it shall we.

The other night the wife and I were watching this documentary, Lipstick & Dynamite, Piss & Vinegar: The First Ladies of Wrestling. The soundtrack to the documentary was awesome, and I wish I would have written down all of the songs when the credits rolled, but I did catch the one I was most interested in. It was the song “2 Days Smug and Sober” by a singer named Carolyn Mark. I downloaded it the next day, and according to my last.fm profile I listened to it 10 times in 2 days. I have since ordered a few of her cds and am currently waiting for the mail like a kid at Christmas. Until I get them and post reviews, I’ll offer you these songs that I’ve been listening to daily. For those of you that jumped all over the Holly Golightly material you should give these a listen.

Carolyn Mark - 2 Days Smug and Sober
Carolyn Mark - You’re Not a Whore if No Ones Paying
Carolyn Mark - Hot Dog! That Made Him Mad

Until now I had never heard of Carolyn…turns out she is the “other corn sister”. I had heard of The Corn Sisters, but not being a big Neko Case fan, I never bothered to check them out. If the 2 cds I ordered pan out to be as likable as I am anticipating, I’ll have to get that Corn Sisters cd, as well. Other than that, all I know about her I learned from her bio and her Wiki entry:

Carolyn Mark is a Canadian alternative country singer-songwriter. She has recorded both as a solo artist and as a member of the duo The Corn Sisters with American colleague Neko Case. Previous bands she has been in also include the Vinaigrettes, Showbusiness Giants, the Fixin’s, and the Metronome Cowboys. She has also provided backing vocals on recordings by The Buttless Chaps, Greenfield Main, Neko Case and Frog Eyes. She is known for her onstage antics and powerful voice.

I got the day off so the wife and I are dragging the dog out to the beach for a day of fishing, grilling and beer drinking. You need to get off the internets and get out there for the beginning of summer.

For today here is a pretty funny video someone sent me the other day. Lyrically, it’s not really work safe.

Who: Stand Back with Nervous Turkey & Blind Buddy Moody
Where: Dave’s Aqua Lounge (10820 Gandy Blvd. St. Petersburg, FL 33702)
When: Saturday night @ 9:30
Cost: $6.00

I got Stand Back’s EP in the mail a few weeks ago and have been listening to it on a pretty regular basis since it showed up. Local to Saint Petersburg, Stand Back is Joel Tatangelo (guitar/vocals), Joey Canfield (drums) and Thomas Stevenson (bass). They play what I would call a guitar-oriented version of rocking barroom blues, music meant for dancing and drinking.Recorded in one afternoon in Pinellas Park’s Zen Studios, I was surprised to find that all 6 tracks on the EP were originals. I had heard somewhere that the band was only 6 months old, but I found the songs to be much more mature than that. When I spotted this show on their myspace page a few weeks ago, I marked it on my calendar, since I have always wanted to go to Dave’s and I really wanna see these boys live. IMO, blues riffs are the best riffs for late night drinking, so if they come off as good in person as they do on the EP, I expect to become a regular at their St. Pete shows. You can check out the mp3’s below and more tracks on their myspace site, and I’ll bet by the end you’ll be dancing in your seat.

Playing with Stand Back is a band called Nervous Turkey. Honestly, I had never heard of them until a myspace bulletin started circulating this week about one of their guitars being stolen. The material on their myspace page has left me intrigued to say the least, especially the track Too Late For Romance. They kind of remind me of Chicken Legs Weaver, but more groove oriented. Check out their myspace site and see for yourself.

Rounding out the bill is a band called Blind Buddy Moody. I have never heard of him and can’t really find anything about him on the internet, outside of a mention on a Bluegrass site, but lord knows there ain’t nothing wrong with Bluegrass.

All in all it looks like it could be a nice little night of filthy-nasty-dirty-blues and rock with a little funk thrown in for the ladies. So, to quote Stand Back, “Let’s raise a glass and shake our asses”.

I hope to see a few of y’all out.

Stand Back - King Snake Crawl
Stand Back - I Hope You Freeze

When I started typing this post I had no idea but today is Bob Dylan’s 66th Birthday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY BOB.

This morning I was sitting here listening to the new cd, Two Bottles Of Wine by Jason Webley and Reverend Peyton. At the end of the cd is a cover song that I instantly recognized as Old Crow Medicine Show’s, Wagon Wheel. Only, it’s labeled as Rock Me Mama (Bob Dylan Cover).

huh?

I am no Dylan expert but I thought if Wagon Wheel was actually a Dylan cover I would have known by now. This seemed like a job for Google. After a little looking I found this explination from OCMS’s Keith Secor:

“It’d be my pleasure to dispel the myth and rumor about the song Wagon Wheel, or “Rock Me Mama” as Bob Dylan himself called the song when he recorded it down in Mexico in 1972 for the soundtrack of Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. This song was not released, and it was not finished either, this is a demo of a practice session of him, Rob Stoner, and a couple of gals doing the chorus over and over again while the bass player learns the bass line. That’s what I heard on a German bootleg about nine years ago in high school. And I wrote the lyrics to the song because I loved the chorus so much and I sung it in my head for maybe a year straight, and then just penned what I penned, which is something of an autobiographical story about just wanting to get outta town, gettin outta school, and just wanting to go play music. It’s sort of autobiographical like that. But yeah, it’s sort of a Bob Dylan co-write with about 25 years inbetween.”

Well there you go. As the late great Chris Thomas used to say, “That’s why you get up in the mornings. You never know what you might learn.”

Does anyone have a copy of that Dylan bootleg? I would really love to hear it. If you do please contact me.

Old Crow Medicine Show - Wagon Wheel
Jason Webley w/Reverend Peyton - Rock Me Mama

edit: Thanks to the overwhelming response from the folks over on Expecting Rain we can now hear the Dylan bootleg.

Bob Dylan - Rock Me Mama 

Finally. Here is another cover I found by the band Against Me!:
Against Me! - Wagon Wheel

I’m not gonna sit here and tell you I was ever a gigantic Skinny Puppy fan. Truth is, up until The Process came out there wasn’t a Skinny Puppy album that I could listen to from beginning to end. I liked the club hits well enough, but outside of that, I had no use for Skinny Puppy. As you might imagine, this was complete blasphemy in the goth/industrial scene but it was what it was. Then in ‘96, The Process came out and I “got” Skinny Puppy. As luck would have it, most Skinny Puppy disciples hated the release. After The Process the band dissolved and over the years I moved away from the industrial scene, sold or lost The Process, and basically forgot about the band….and eventually the entire genre.

The other day I was in my local record store and I see that they have a Skinny Puppy cd at the listening post. I assumed it was a greatest hits collection, hoping to listen to Killing Game, only to see it was a new release. So I figured WTF? I was in there looking for a reason to spend 20 bucks anyway. This was as good as anything else so I picked it up along with a used copy of Last Rites so I could hear Killing Game. I really wasn’t expecting to like this cd as much as I do. I suspect it works like this, if you hated The Process you are not gonna like this cd, and if you were into The Process then you are gonna “dig it.” It seems to me that they took the more accessible direction they were heading in with The Process, made it more electronic and meshed it with what Nivek was or is doing with ohGr. Mythmaker would make for a perfect jumping in point for people who have always heard of, but never actually heard Skinny Puppy. It has kind of rekindled my interest in a genre I long ago quit paying attention to.

Editor’s note: This is the first post I’ve edited that got my blood flowing. Yeah, I admit, I’m a huge SP fan. They were before my time, but I did manage to see them live after they regrouped several years ago. I drove all the way to Atlanta and then Jacksonville to see ohGr, and was able to meet both Nivek and cEvin Key backstage thanks to my girlfriend knowing the right people. I loved the work ohGr did with KMFDM, and what cEvin did with Download. I liked The Process. Then I moved on. I’ve listened to Mythmaker several times and it’s not a bad album. I honestly like The Process more, maybe out of sentimentality. Still, when I listen to SP now, I always go back to VIVIsect VI. I LOVE that album. It’s full of all the horror and frustration at the sickness in the world, fueled by heroin, and breathes an intensity that few albums in the genre have ever managed to achieve. It could also be called the beginning of the end for SP. Three albums followed VIVIsect VI; Rabies, Too Dark Park, and Last Rights in 1991, all brilliant in their own way, complex, and not for the faint of heart. The band imploded with the death of Dwayne Goettel in 1995 and from complications in the recording of The Process. Their defining years behind them, a reconciled Ogre and Key released a somewhat disappointing The Greater Wrong of the Right in 2004. Mythmaker may in fact be a great jumping in point for a remarkable band, but to a true SP fan you can’t help but miss the down and dirty sound of those past albums.

Skinny Puppy - politikiL
Skinny Puppy - jaHer
Skinny Puppy - pedafly

Skinny Puppy - Killing Game
Skinny Puppy - Dig It

Skinny Puppy’s Official Site, Skinny Puppy on myspace, Buy Mythmaker

Here are some videos of the Skinny Puppy hits thanks to youtube. Nostalgia for old school fans or a quick history lesson for SP newbies….enjoy but be warned, some of these these are not work safe and probably not for the weak of stomach:

This is the original video for Worlock:

This is the original video for Testure:

This is the original video for my second favorite Skinny Puppy song ever, Smothered Hope:

and finally, the video of my favorite SP song, Killing Game:

I added 2 shows to the ninebullets.net calendar that I am pretty excited about:

First:

Who: Shooter Jennings
Where: State Theater
When: Friday, July 13
Cover: $12 adv. / $15 d.o.s.

The last time he came to town I was out of town. This time I’ll be there! While I thought Shooter’s first cd, Put the O Back in Country, was a flop I really enjoyed his follow-up, Electric Rodeo, and I can not wait to see him live.

Shooter Jennings - Hair of the Dog
Shooter Jennings - Put the O Back in Country
Shooter Jennings - Little White Lines

Second:

Who: Tech N9ne
Where: Jannus Landing
When: Saturday, August 18
Cover: unknown

Tech-freakin-N9ne! He played Orlando when I was in Colorado this winter. I figured I had missed my one and only chance to ever see Tech. Plus, this show is within walking distance of my house on a Saturday night……shiiiiiiiitttttt…You know you’re gonna hear more about this show.

Tech N9ne - The Industry is Punks
Tech N9ne - Slacker
Tech N9ne - I’m a Playa

Well, the annual “Fat guys from Florida try to ride up mountains” tour went off with nothing more serious than bruised egos and sore muscles. If anyone is counting: 16+ hours in a car, 25+ miles ridden, 10,000+ calories burned and 5 asses kicked by the mountains. I was not driving so I did not bring any music along for the road trip. We did stumble upon a nice little radio station in Atlanta, Dave FM 92.9. When left to my own vices the only over the air radio I hear is sports talk radio so I am generally out of the loop.

I was surprised to find that Amy Winehouse is getting so much airplay. I knew she was popular in the gossip blog world but I figured that was over her weight loss and did not think she was actually getting noticed by the general public. I was wrong. I have had the Winehouse cd for quite awhile and have thought about writing about it from time to time. I like it well enough but it never excites me enough to wanna spend much time on it. Bill Maher described a Norah Jones cd as “a disc for fat, pasty, aging white men to fuck their wives to”. One could probably describe the Winehouse cd as a cd for fat, pasty, aging art school dropouts to get drunk on red wine fuck their ex-girlfriends to”……or something like that. It is a fine disc and has some songs I like well enough on it but it isn’t a disc a ever go clamouring for.

Amy Winehouse - Me and Mr. Jones
Amy Winehouse - Rehab

We did manage to log a couple of hundred miles with Tupac’s, The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory cd acting as a soundtrack. It has probably been 5 years or so since I have listened to this cd and the nonstop string of post-humus releases made me forget just how much I enjoyed that release. Somewhere along the way I decided that one of my projects once I got home would be to make an Tupac comp for my car and maybe do up a Tupac post for  ninebullets. A little info on The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory from Wiki:

The album presents a stark contrast to previous works. Throughout the album, Shakur continues to focus on the themes of pain and aggression, making this album one of the emotionally darker works of his career. Shakur wrote and recorded all the lyrics in only three days and the production took another four days, combining for a total of seven days to complete the album (hence the name). The album was completely finished before Shakur died and Shakur had complete creative input on the album from the name of the album to the cover which Shakur chose to symbolize how the media has crucified him. The album debuted at #1 and sold 663,000 copies in the first week.

Tupac - Blasphemy
Tupac - Hail Mary

The mountain was a challenge and I am not sure I can say I met and conquered it. The first day we were there we did a 6 mile trail that was almost all uphill. I wanted to die and I needed to die but I did get to the top eventually. All the way playing the song “Always the Hard Way” by Terror over in over in my head.

Now I am home, body trying to recover and mind trying to get back into the grind. Sorry for the live journal-esque post but I thought it would be a nice break from the normal ninebullets.net fare. There are pictures of the trip thanks to the wife….Regular mostly impersonal music postings to resume tomorrow.