>Redskin Rock

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Furthermore, here’s The Redskins, funked up leftwing punks, who wanted to ‘walk like The Clash, talk like The Supremes’ with their single Unionize. This was released on their own label CNT, which as everyone surely knows is the name of the anarcho syndicalist union who helped prop up The Popular Front government in Spain in the 1930s (despite being anarcho syndicalists, and therefore being against government and believing that the workers should rule themselves for their own benefit) and who armed the workers in the defence of Spanish cities against Franco’s military fascist coup.

Sorry to be a history bore. The music’s worth it.

Unionize

>One Out, All Out

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Today, I shall mostly be on strike. And attending a cochlear implant appointment.

There Is Power In A Union

>Row, Fisherman, Row

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…which is here- Fisherman, lead track from Heart Of The Congos by The Congos. Utterly sublime vocal reggae from the golden tonsils of Cedric Myton and Roy ‘Ashanti’ Johnson. This is from a 1996 Blood And Fire re-issue which included a second disc including a 12″ mix of Congoman which I may get round to at some point. Looking at the tracklist it’s difficult to know where to begin with so many standouts- The Wrong Thing, Ark Of The Covenant, La La Bam Bam, Congoman. If you haven’t got this album, go get it and fill a hole in your life/record collection.

Fisherman

>If A Fish Would Keep His Mouth Shut He’d Never Get Caught

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Heart Of The Congos by The Congos, from the year two sevens clashed, is one of the great vocal reggae albums, with predictably great Lee Perry production. I can’t believe I’ve never posted anything from it. This is Fisherman Style, where The Congos are aided by U Roy, who chats all over Fisherman, showing some sympathy with the fish. This was done for a re-versioning project for Blood And Fire in 2006 where a variety of past and present reggae artists had a go at doing something new to the source track. Frankly, I’m not sure why anyone thinks they could improve on the original but this is pretty good. But this will probably send me in only one direction…

Fisherman Style

>Funky Kingston

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It was roasting hot at 10.15 on Sunday night. I sat in the darkening garden with Toots and The Maytals’ Funky Kingston drifting through the kitchen window. It was one of those fleeting but near perfect moments. Now, a day later (at the time of typing) it’s clouded over and looks like rain. Thirty six hour summer. Sing it Toots.

Funky Kingston

>You Can Look But You Better Not Touch

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A top Mod doo wop floor filler from 1959, Poison Ivy by The Coasters. Written by Lieber and Stoller it’s been covered by numerous others including The Rolling Stones, Manfred Mann, The Dave Clark Five, The Hollies and The Lambrettas. And you get a picture of Uma Thurman as well.

Poison Ivy

>Friday Night Is… Gospel Night

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No rockabilly this week- I’ve drawn a blank in quiffed up inspiration. Instead I present a beautiful blues gospel song from 1968 from Shirley Ann Lee. Pared down, recorded in a shed production, muted guitar, some rudimentary percussion and a wonderful vocal. Recommended. While sitting on your porch sipping spirits and a mixer.

By the time this is posted I’ll be in Northampton, where The MPS Society are having a family conference. We spend the weekend seeing children who look like, walk like, talk like our own I.T., talking to families who have similar issues to us, moan about disability services and cuts, listen to consultants and professionals tell us the latest, and and then get drunk and cut some rug after the Saturday night dinner.

There’s A Light

>Friday Garage

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It’s Friday morning- how about some garage rock to shake you through the last day of the week? The Human Beinz, from Youngstown Ohio, were one of a multitude of garage rock bands in the mid 60s. Their best known song is Nobody But Me, featured here before, a song also remixed by Pilooski. This song, Every Time Woman, is from their 1968 album Evolutions and has given up some of the souped up r ‘n’ b, tailfeather shakingness for a sound that suggests they might have spent some time listening to Mick ‘n’ Keef.

You can’t beat a fish eye lens can you?

Every Time Woman

>My Magpie Eyes

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The Queen Is Dead is twenty five years old this week, which makes this piece of UK indie twenty six years old. The Loft were signed to Creation in the days when Creation was all about shambolic guitar bands. Up The Hill And Down The Slope rattles along, chasing it’s own tail for most of it’s four minutes, while singer Pete Astor declares his ambitions (‘My magpie eyes are hungry for the prize’) and asks to be given a shot at the world (‘please don’t say no, once around the fair, so I know’). The Loft would implode in 1985, splitting up onstage, which seems like a pretty spectacular way to go out. Pete Astor would go on to form The Weather Prophets (also on Creation), and write several minor classics, Almost Prayed for one. Neither Up The Hill And Down The Slope nor Almost Prayed of these will be remembered like The Queen Is Dead but that doesn’t mean they ain’t no good.

Up The Hill And Down The Slope

>Where Have You Been All My Life?

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One of Bagging Area’s favourite records from last year was Pilooski’s ten minute re-edit of Nora Deans’ Angie La La (or Ay Ay Ay as it’s sometimes called). Here’s the original, written by Duke Reid, a spooky, trippy, psychedelic reggae song with a ghostly but sultry vocal and tropical birds squawking and flapping about. It’s very odd, very brilliant and sticks in your brain for days. The internet turns up almost nothing about Nora Dean. She was born in 1952, she recorded several solo songs and as part of vocal reggae groups, and was born again in the late 70s. None of this matters- just listen to this bizarre and bewitching record.

Angie La La