Garage Punk Ethics - Who needs originality when you can have Soul Power?

There's too much confusion, I can't get no relief.
Businessmen, they drink my wine, plowmen dig my earth
None of them along the line know what any of it is worth.
Bob Dylan


Garage Punk Ethics - Who needs originality when you can have Soul Power?

Take a listen...

Uploaded to youtube by ESLMusicDC. See below for tracklisting



Last week I went to see another band. A local blues band called the Blues Sherpas. A mate of mine is the lead singer and they do blues and dadrock covers by the Stones and the Stray Cats and so on.

Someone made a comment that the band wasn’t particularly original. Well, two things strike me. Firstly, it’s very difficult to be original with an art form, rock music in this case, which has been around for nearly 60 years. Should we even be looking for originality in rock music when there’s plenty of other stuff going on outside rock music that might be more creative?

Secondly, is originality really that important anyway? When people first heard Elvis, Little Richard or Jerry Lee Lewis back in the 50s were they really struck by how innovative the music was or was it the brute force, the sexuality and the liberation from emotional restraint that made an impact?

Isn’t the whole “originality” thing, when applied to something like popular art or music, really just a little disingenuous? People started applying this notion to rock / pop music back in the 60s and 70s. A bunch of middle class rock journos with recently acquired degrees deconstructed the latest Beatles, Rolling Stones or Pink Floyd albums and discovered they could earn a crust from it. This kind of thing is actually pretty easy to do and anyone can bluff their way into making themselves look cool by saying things like “Well, yes, Led Zeppelin, they stole it all from Willie Dixon, you know” or “Oasis. They were just a poor man’s Beatles, weren’t they?” while at the same time ignoring any emotional impact that the music has on people.

Originality only really started to matter when rock / pop music became big business and the lawyers got involved and suddenly any cheap two note guitar riff was “intellectual property”. Was bluesman Robert Johnson influenced by anyone? Did he adapt and rewrite already existing tunes? He was working within a blues tradition so it is possible… But do you know? Do you really care? Does it affect the way you listen to him or the manifold versions of Crossroads or any of his other songs out there?

Unless you are a lawyer or a journalist isn't it all just anecdotal? Bob Dylan took old folk tunes and rewrote the lyrics. He even rewrote the Beatles' Norwegian Wood as Fourth Time Around on Blonde on Blonde, and though admittedly that may have been a bit tongue in cheek, Fourth Time Around is NOT Norwegian Wood.

Anyway, my point is that pinching stuff from others was always the tradition in traditional folk or blues. It’s nothing new.


So maybe there isn’t anything original about the Blues Sherpas yet at the end of the show they had worked their arses off and had everyone dancing to a hard rocking version of Ray Charles’ What’d I Say? A thoroughly good time was had by all, the required emotional catharsis had taken place and we were all left shouting for more. Yea! Soul Power!

We now live in a post modern 21st Century pop culture when you can find stuff on the internet, mash it up, change it around, recreate it as something different and stick it on facebook for your friends. How is that different from itinerant folk or blues singers hearing songs and rewriting them to tell their own stories when they went from town to town in previous centuries? It’s communication. Telling a story. Making people feel good or bad or sorry or inspiring them to do something better. Soul power. The most important thing about music or art is the effect that it has on you.

How does it make you feel? What does it make you want to do next?

Tough questions eh?

"There must be some way out of here" said the joker to the thief.




Garage Punk Classics Track List
The best illustration of my point. Nothing particularly original about many of them is there? But pretty stunning rock and roll all the same..

01. The Undertakers - Unchain My Heart
02. The Kinks - I Need You
03. The Moving Sidewalks - 99th Floor
04. We The People - My Brother, The Man
05. The Sparkles - Hipsville 29 BC
06. The Sonics - Shot Down
07. The Jades - Little Girl
08. Thee Sixpence - My Flash On You
09. The Remains - Diddy Wah Diddy (Bo Diddley Cover)
10. The Henchmen - Get Off My Back
11. the electric prunes - Too much to dream last night
12. The Omens - Searching
13. the haunted - 1-2-5
14. The stoics - hate
15. The Barons - Now you're mine
16. The Pretty Things - Midnight to six
17. Teddy And His Patches - Suzy Creamcheese
18. The Music Machine - Talk Talk
19. The Syndicats - Crawdaddy Simone
20. The Cirkit-Yesterday We Laughed
21. Larry Knight & the Upsetters - Hurt Me
22. The Avengers - Caveman
23. Larry & the Bluenotes - In and Out
24. Count Five - Psychotic Reaction
25. The Wilde Knights - Beaver Patrol


More on stranger than known
Optimism, Positivity and SOUL POWER!

© D. Mainwood

The UCSC Dorm Tape 1967 - Who is the mystery singer?

This recording (see below) was posted a few days ago on youtube and is now doing the rounds on torrent sites and seems to be stirring up some interest.

The singer certainly has a pretty good voice and the story seems intriguing. Will we find out what became of her?

Here's the original taper's story;
"This is what I call The Dorm Tape 1967. The facts are simple and frankly taught me a lot about simplicity in recording (and later, photography). I heard a girl singing and playing guitar down the hall in my dorm at UC Santa Cruz. She was hitch hiking through and needed a place to crash. I liked the sound I heard coming down the hall and I decided to try recording her. So I grabbed my reel to reel Sony 350 recorder, a modest piece, and two really crummy dynamic mikes that were part of the kit. I hand held them a foot or so from the guitar and her mouth ( left right more or less) and just let her sing.

She was sitting on a dorm cot and I was standing in front of her monitoring the levels on the Sony while holding the mics. Kind of awkward. My life moved on and now 44 years later(!), I pulled it out, digitized it and decided to add it to the YouTube archive of material from my alma mater. What I learned is that simple ain't so bad: musicality counts for a lot and a lot can be done with simple equipment...and common sense. Hope you enjoy."

The original taper has apparently decided to try to locate the singer/guitarist via social media. 
More here http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/1967-homemade-dorm-recording.346756/

1. The French Girl (Sylvia Fricker, Ian Tyson)
2. I Still Miss Someone (Johnny Cash, Roy Cash)
3. Red Velvet (Ian Tyson)
4. Gospel Ship (When We're Traveling Through The Air) (Herbert Buffum)
5. Bring It On Home To Me (Sam Cooke)
6. Let The Good Times Roll (Sam Cooke)
7. Like A Baby (Jesse Stone)
8. Hangin' 'Round (Patrick Sky)
9. Lonely Girls (Sylvia Fricker, Ian Tyson)
10. Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues (Bob Dylan)
11. (*a variation of) Buddy Bolden's Blues (Jelly Roll Morton)

More on stranger than known
Fairport Convention Bouton Rouge Sessions 

Previously unheard Jimmy Page era Yardbirds live...