The Pixies - The Purple Tape

In March 1987, Boston based group Pixies ventured into their first studio experience: they recorded seventeen songs in the Fort Apache Studio's, Boston. Eight of these songs later formed their first official release; Come On Pilgrim. The other nine tracks were never released although they were later reworked by the Pixies into new recorded versions, that appeared on releases as Doolittle and Trompe Le Monde. In 2002 these eight tracks were released and now you can hear the whole thing as it must have been: The Purple Tape. 
1. Brick Is Red
2. Caribou

3. Vamos
4. Isla De Encanta
5. Ed Is Dead
6. The Holiday Song
7. Nimrod's Son
8. I've Been Tired
9. Broken Face
10. Build High
11. Rock A My Soul
12. Down To The Well
13. Break My Body
14. I'm Amazed
15. Here Comes Your Man
16. Subbacultcha
17. In Heaven

Sexy Sax Man

After the spoonguitarman, I thought it'd be appropriate to post the sexysaxman too...

Hannes Coetzee- Spoon Slide Guitar

This is a clip I ran into a couple of years ago and it always makes my day when I see it. No further comment...

Bob Marley & The Wailers - KSAN/Record Plant, San Francisco, 1973

After being dumped from a tour supporting Sly & The Family Stone, allegedly for outperforming the main act, Bob Marley & The Wailers played a couple of shows in San Francisco when they were asked to play an in the studio performance for KSAN FM radio station. Most of this session, recorded on october 31, 1973, later turned up on the Talkin' Blues album, but this is the whole session. To me this session is the peak as far as reggae in general and The Wailers specifically go. Recorded live in the studio, you can hear great musicianship, wonderful harmonies, funky as hell guitars and organ and a solid drum & bass fundament. The reggae text book. Skank!

1. Rastaman Chant

2. Bend Down Low

3. Slave Driver

4. Can't Blame The Youth

5. Stop That Train

6. Burnin' & Lootin'

7. Kinky Reggae

8. Get Up Stand Up

9. Lively Up Yourself

10. Walk The Proud Land

Moondog Jr. - Introducing Demo

As promised earlier, hereby I present to you something pretty special, 'cause it's very hard to find. Simultaneously being a composer/singer/bass player for dEUS, Stef Kamil Carlens had "his own" band: Moondog Jr. (actually formed before dEUS was). They released their debut album Every day I Wear A Greasy Black Feather On My Hat) in 1995, and some time before they demoed a lot of the songs that turned up on this album. This was the tape they handed over to record companies to get a deal. A lot of the songs on the debut sound as if they were recorded in a living room, and in fact, they were, in the drummer's living room to be exact. 

A couple of songs (Cachita, The Ricochet, Love Is A Heavy Brick and  Ice Guitars) were later re-recorded in a proper studio for the album. The original versions can be found on the Introducing Demo. The other songs on the ID are also different than the album versions which led to my conclusion that they must have re-recorded these songs in Jespers' living room after getting a record deal (I know, kind of a bold statement). Anyway, without further ado: The Introducing Demo! And as a bonus, I included the B-sides from the two EIWAGBFOMH singles.

1. TV Song
2. The Ricochet
3. Love's A Heavy Brick
4. Ice Guitars
5. Jo's Wine Song
6. Moondance
7. Cachita
8. Blues For Sammy
9. Shall I Let This Good Man In?
10. Moondog
11. Jintro & The Great Luna (Band Version)
12. Moondance (Disneyversion)
13. Habibi Ouldi
14. Ice Guitars (Acoustic)
15. Tiddlywinks

1-10 Introducing Demo
11-13 Jintro & The Great Luna CD single
14-15 TV Song CD Single

Guillermo Portabales - El Carretero

One of the most powerful singers I know and also one of the best guitar players. Guillermo Portabales plays El Carretero (made famous by Ry Cooder and his gang) and this video even features some moving pictures of the master himself. 

And this song is even more hauntingly beautiful, one of my all time favorite songs, must have listened to it more than a hundred times:

Let the summer come again!

The Jesus And Mary Chain - Psychocandy

My God, this album is from 1985, so it's almost 26 years old. If you don't now it, and if you like beautiful songs with a rough edge, do yourself a favor and take it now. This album is drenched in reverb and distortion, but underneath all the noise are songs that will enchant you with their pure beauty. I think The Velvet Underground meets Phil Spector is a comparison much used. I didn't listen to any other albums by the band after this (don't know why though) but this has stayed an album I returned to every once and a while, and that never stopped to amaze me, jaw dropping style. Smell the noise!

1. Just Like Honey
2. The Living End
3. Taste The Floor
4. The Hardest Walk
5. Cut Dead
6. In A Hole
7. Taste Of Cindy
8. Never Understand
9. Inside Me
10. Sowing Seeds
11. My Little Underground
12. You Trip Me Up
13. Something's Wrong
14. It's So Hard

Music From Breaking Bad

OK, so this series (no HBO, but Mad Men's AMC) is truly a-ma-zing. I dived into three seasons in barely two weeks and I just couldn't stop watching. It's depressing, most of the time dead serious and not funny at all, but it's so well written and played, so real and interesting that I can't imagine people not liking it. One of the great things about Breaking Bad must be the soundtrack. I made a compilation of a 4 disc compilation someone else on the web made (the original soundtrack is only one disc). The songs go from mexican fiesta songs, via lounge tunes and classical music to hip hop (My Rims!) and so on. Ready or not, Heisenberg!

1. Apocalypshit - Molotov
2. Negro Y Azul - Los Cuates De Sinaloa
3. Anyway The wind Blows - J.J. Cale
4. They're Going To Take My Thumbs - Holy Fuck
5. Mas Y Mas - Bronx River Parkway
6. One By One - Black Seeds
7. Without You - Sasha Dobson
8. Peanut Vendor - Alvin Tyler
9. Nariz Inquieta - Los Torrenciales De La Sierra
10. Waiting Around To Die - The Be Good Tanyas
11. Uh - Fujiya & Miyagi
12. DLZ - TV On The Radio
13. Every Kinda People - Robert Palmer
14. Finale Vivace - Amadeus Quartet
15. Beautiful Emilie - Keziah Jones
16. Nine Years - Ticklah
17. Los Pistoleros - Jonaty Garcia
18. Mango Walk - In Crownd
19. Deixa Pra La - Bronx River Park Way
20. Good Morning Freedom - Blue Mink
21. Koop Island Blues - Koop feat. Ane Brun
22. My Rims - Chops

Lenny Kravitz - Someone Like You

Lenny Kravitz seems to be an almost forgotten artist nowadays. True, he never really was of this time, with his retro style music, "copying" Hendrix and Lennon, but when I tried to find some background info on him I noticed there's not much of a following on the net (or am I wrong?). I remember when Let Love Rule came out in 1989, he single handedly brought retro into the music spectrum. With the passing of time he became less and less cool to listen to (in my peer group at least) and when "5" was released he often was described as Ikea-pop. I kept listening to his first three albums though and nowadays I still think these are amazing records. The fact that he plays most of the instruments himself is something I can relate to and the way he plays the drums is very inspiring to me. 


I like his bare to the bone style songs like The Difference Is Why and Come On And Love Me, but also his soulful songs, the rock tunes (Always On The Run and Are You Gonna Go My Way) and the more funk orientated songs like Sugar and Fear. But it's the psychedelic tracks that really blow my mind every time, like My Love and Someone Like You, a fantastic B-side from the AYGGMW period. I realized there are a couple of amazing other non-album tracks so I decided to compile them on a single album, which I baptized (wink wink notch notch) Someone Like You. There's some fantastic covers too here. Enjoy this for now, as later on I will post the album he did for Vanessa Paradis, a much overlooked and under rated album in my opinion.

1. Cold Turkey (Lennon)
2. Someone Like You
3. Ascension
4. Another Life
5. Light Skin Girl From London
6. Brother
7. For The First Time
8. All My Life
9. Deuce (Kiss)
10. Confused
11. I'll Be Around
12. Billy Jack (Mayfield)
13. Spinning Around Over You
14. B-side Blues
15. Is It Me Is It You?

dEUS - The Blimp

dEUS has been one of my favorite bands since their first album Worst Case Scenario. I've been collecting all their singles and related releases since then. I like the first incarnation of the band (with Stef Kamil Carlens) the best and I always thought they had some amazing B-sides. Today I collected them all (up to The Ideal Crash) and made this collection of those songs, including their first EP (Zea). This is really great stuff and I'm jealous of those of you that haven't heard any of these tunes, you're up for a trip! Don't be afraid to leave a comment, and enjoy!

1. Zea intro Replica
2. Zea
3. Texan Coffee
4. The Magic Of New Pop Music
5. Whose Vegas (Is It Anyway)
6. It. Furniture In The Far West
7. Let Go
8. Niche
9. Violins And Happy Endings
10. Worried About Satan
11. I Suffer Rock
12. My Wife Jan
13. Overflow
14. Difficult Day
15. My Little Contessa
16. The Tugboat
17. Thirteen (live)
18. everything Is The Same (Except No One Believes Me)
19. Sam Peckinpah' s Daughter
20. You Can't Deny What You Liked As A Child
21. There
22. Wheels
23. Meeting You

DJ BambooStick - Mixtape 5: Benzedrine

Here is one more of my mix tapes. This one was made in 2002 and it features some nice old songs as well as popular favorites by Norah Jones and Bright Eyes. The overall atmosphere is comparable to mix tape 7, but I work a lot with songs from soundtracks here, which gives the mix a nice slow tempo. It's a continuous MP3 (320 Kbps) to guarantee the flowing of the songs. This is the track list:

1. Main Title - Blue Velvet OST
2. Sunny Goodge Street - Donovan
3. Stoemp + Worst - Daan
4. Don't Know Why - Norah Jones
5. Who Put The Benzedrine - Harry 'The Hipster' Gibson
6. We Are Free Men - Bright Eyes
7. Can We Get To That - Funkadelic
8. Song To The Siren - Tim Buckley
9. Down To Earth OST
10. Sixty Minute Man - Rufus Thomas
11. Bring It On Home - Sonny Boy Williamson
12. Ocean (Pacifique) - Daan
13. Cocaine In My Brain - Dillinger
14. The Best In Me - Malcolm Middleton
15. Hollow Log - Beck
16. Down To Earth OST
17. Teenager In Love - Red Hot Chili Peppers
18. Dinner Party Pool Music - Angelo Badalamenti
19. Don't Think Twice It's All right - Nick Drake
20. Here I Go - Syd Barrett
21. Akron Meets The Blues - Blue Velvet OST
22. Slaapliedje - Krang
Enjoy!