Various - Original Seeds Vol.2: Songs That Inspired Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds (@256)

I'm not used in satisfying requests, but this time there were many that asked for this one, so here it is. The older post with Vol.1 can be found here

Tracklisting:
01-Harry Belafonte - Did You Hear About Jerry
02-Tom Waits - Way Down In The Hole
03-Fred Neil - A Little Bit Of Rain
04-Gang Of Four - Love Like Anthrax
05-Bob Dylan - Sara
06-Tim Rose - Hey Joe
07-The First Edition - Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Is In)
08-Elvis Presley - In The Ghetto
09-Nina Simone - Plain Gold Ring
10-The Stooges - Loose
11-Leadbelly - Looky Looky Yonder..Black Betty..Yellow Women's Door Bells
12-Hoyt Axton - Double Dare
13-Lou Reed - Perfect Day
14-Alice Cooper - Street Fight

download link: here (includes scans where the link between each track and works by Cave is explained)

Tuatara - Trading With The Enemy (1998) (@256)

Henry the Brave

Kudos to Henry, the grumpy old tuatara, aged... 111, that became a father recently (I've named him Henry the Brave for obvious reasons), while in captivity, in New Zealand. We read from National Geographic: "The centenarian tuatara, was thought well past the mating game until he was caught canoodling with a female named Mildred last March—a consummation that resulted in 11 tuatara babies. Henry was at least 70 years old when he arrived at the museum, "a grumpy old man" who attacked other tuataras—including females—until a cancerous tumor was removed from his genitals in 2002, said Lindsay Hazley, tuatara curator for the Southland Museum and Art Gallery. Tuatara are indigenous New Zealand reptiles that resemble lizards but descend from a distinct lineage of reptile that walked the earth with the dinosaurs 225 million years ago, zoologists say."













The story of "Henry the Brave" reminded me of the supergroup (well, sort of) that took its name from Brave Henry's species. With members comprising, among others, Peter Buck from R.E.M., Barrett Martin from the Screaming Trees and Justin Harwood from Luna, one wouldn't imagine that the outcome would be a cerebral blend of worldbeat with free jazz. The uploaded album is their second one, and my personal favourite from their discography.

album review link: here

download link: here

Jimi Hendrix Experience - Electric Ladyland (1968) (@256)

There are two (bad) reasons for uploading an Experience album. The first one is the news I read about the demolition of the house where Jimi Hendrix spent some of the years of his youth (from the age of 10 to13) and where he first discovered music. The house is across the street from the site where Hendrix is buried. I strongly believe that such places of high cultural importance should be preserved, regardless the contractual implications or their condition. It seems that the city body didn't bother enough to save this landmark site.
The second reason is the death of the drummer of Jimi Hendrix Experience, Mitch Mitchell on November 2008. No further comments could be done for one of the most important drummers of the 60's other than the following (by Richie Unterberger in allmusic). "Mitchell was not a mere sideman to Hendrix, but an important collaborator. Always changing rhythms, never predictable, he was also flexible enough to bounce off and respond to Hendrix's own original solo lines. (...) Ultimately, Mitchell was the musician with whom Hendrix had the most important and sustained creative relationship out of the many people he led or supported, both onstage and on record."

album review link: here

download link: here (link removed)

Anvil - Metal On Metal (1982) (@256)

Anvil was an early 80's speed metal band who paved the way for groups such as Anthrax, Megadeth, Slayer and Metallica. While all the latter (more or less) burst into stardom, Anvil sunk to obscurity. So, it was quite a surprise to read about a documentary for Anvil. Its title is (obviously) "Anvil!: The Story of Anvil", and its first screening took place at Sundance Film Festival in 2008. Many viewers, even if not heavy metal fans, talked about one of the best music documentaries for years. The film will eventually get a distribution in the US this spring.
So, get ready for a film about the good ole 80's heavy metal. You know that with the long curly hair (that became sparse over the years, but they are still long and curly...), the s&m black leather stripes on bare chests, the arrow-shaped guitars, the beer-belly headbanging audiences, the classic metal sound. Most of all, get ready for the story of two guys that remained devoted to what they'd loved, no matter the difficulties of any kind. Aaah, I tend to get sentimental sometimes.

Read here about the whole story, as explained by the film's director Sacha Gervasi, a former Anvil roadie-turned screenwriter (for The Big Tease and The Terminal).
Read here for a (rhapsodic) review by James Rocchi.

The trailer...


album review link: here
Update: When I was writing this post I didn't find a review of this album in allmusic, from where I usually take the review links. Some weeks later though (on May, 14), I noticed that Metal on Metal was hailed as album of the day there, hence a relevant review had been written. Not bad... not bad at all for Anvil.

download link: here (mirrorcreator) or here (rapidshare)

Miriam Makeba - Her Essential Recordings: The Empress of African Song (@256)

Makeba remains the most important female vocalist to emerge out of South Africa although she was exiled and banned from her country for more than 30 years. Mama Africa, as she is often called, helped bring African music to a global audience in the 1960s.
She made her debut with the, already famous in her country, Manhattan Brothers in 1953, a group that blended ragtime, swing and doo-wop with African choral and Zulu harmonies.
By 1956, at the suggestion of her record company and along with her career as a singer for the Manhattan Brothers, she formed the all-female vocal group, the Skylarks. The group's influence was drawn from groups such as the Boswell Sisters and the Andrews Sisters but also from traditional melodies of South Africa. Ragtime, gospel and traditional jazz were fused with local rhythms and vocal harmonies to end up in a series of irresistible recordings.
Her appearance in the American documentary film "Come Back Africa", which had been shot covertly about conditions under apartheid, played a key role in her life. Miriam was invited to attend its premier at the Venice Film Festival in 1959, and she didn't return to South Africa for the next 31 years. The turbulence that her decisions caused to her relationship with the apartheid regime forced her to remain abroad, which resulted in the revocation of her passport, forcing her into exile. The devastating "Miriam's Goodbye to Africa", her last recording with the Skylarks, proved to be prophetic.
Her first solo recordings effortlessly combined folk, pop, and jazz idioms with her South African roots. Her collaboration with Harry Belafonte during the first half of the 60's was a very fruitful period of her career. Their duet (in Swahili) for "My Angel", about a Kenyan man too poor to marry his sweetheart, is a song that really stands out from that period. It is worth pointing out that Belafonte based his famous Banana Boat Song to the traditional song Kutheni Sithandwa, which she had sang while in the Skylarks. Major hits followed with "Click Song" and "Pata Pata". The latter, Makeba's signature tune, entered the top 10 of the US pop charts in 1967; it was the first time an African artist achieved that.
After her marriage with the Black Panther member Stokely Carmichael in 1968, she was evidently blacklisted by promoters in the USA and many of her concerts were cancelled, while her recording contract with RCA was dropped. After the couple's "escape" to Guinea, Miriam's career became more low-key with only sporadic releases throughout the years.
Following Nelson Mandela's release from prison, he, as a personal admirer, asked her to return. Her return in December 1990 followed a triumphant concert in April 1991, her first in her homeland for more than thirty years.
Miriam Makeba passed away on 9 November 2008.

As for the upload, although this collection is considered as one of the most consistent someone can find about her, one has to shuffle a lot to follow the chronological order of the songs. Thus, I have rearranged the sequence of the tracks, based on the year of release of each song.

Tracklisting:
part1: Makeba as a member of the Manhattan Brothers and the Skylarks
01-Tula Ndivile (with the Manhattan Brothers)
02-Baby Ntsoare (with the Manhattan Brothers)
03-Live Humble (with the Skylarks)
04-Mitshakasi (with the Skylarks)
05-Makoti (with the Skylarks)
06-Sophiatown Is Gone (with the Skylarks)
07-Orlando (with the Skylarks)
08-Uyadela (with the Skylarks)
09-Intandane (with the Skylarks)
10-Kutheni Sithandwa (with the Skylarks)
11-Holilili (with the Skylarks)
12-Uthando Luyaphela (with the Skylarks)
13-Hush (with the Skylarks)
14-Inkomo Zodwa (with the Skylarks)
15-Miriam & Spokes Phata Phata (with the Skylarks)
16-Miriam's Goodbye To Africa (with the Skylarks)
part2: Makeba in her solo career
17-Kilimanjaro (1960)
18-Zenizenabo (1960)
19-Ntyilo Ntyilo (with Hugh Masekela) (1960)
20-Umqokozo (1960)
21-Ngola Kurila (1960)
22-Thanayi (a.k.a. Nomalungelo) (1960)
23-Liwa Wechi (1960)
24-Nagula (1960)
25-Carnival (1960)
26-Love Tastes Like Strawberries (1960)
27-In The Land Of The Zulus (Kwazulu) (1965)
28-My Angel (Malaika) (with Harry Belafonte) (1965)
29-Click Song No.1 (1966)
30-Mas Que Nada (1967) (2003 version)
31-Amampondo (1967)
32-Pata Pata (1967)
33-Samba (1974)
34-Mama Ndiyalila (1974)
35-Talking & Dialoging (1974)
36-Teya, Teya
37-Jolinkomo (live in Paris, 1977)
38-Isangoma (Witch Doctor) (1978)
39-Mbube (The Lion Cries) (1978)
40-Chicken (Kikirikiki) (a.k.a. Sekusile) (1979)

album review link: here

download link (part1 - Makeba as a member of the Manhattan Brothers and the Skylarks): here
download link (part2 - Makeba in her solo career & covers, info etc): here

Closed Zone - Salt of this Sea

Two essential additions to this post.

Closed Zone (2009)


Salt of this Sea (2008)

Various - Original Seeds Vol.1: Songs That Inspired Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds (@256)

Mojo's past issue (n.184/ March 2009) had Nick Cave on the front cover. Is this because Cave has entered the vintage category of artists from which Mojo and Uncut select their front covers, or is this a transition for the magazine to artists that emerged after the late 70's? Anyway, the article about Cave was nothing less than brilliant, and came along with a premium cd with Cave's roots and collaborations. It reminded me of an older release (which is uploaded here) with the same concept; Johnny Cash and Scott Walker are included in both compilations, which is also the case for Tupelo Blues by John Lee Hooker, Katie Cruel by Karen Dalton, and Long Time Man by Tim Rose. Most of the songs of this release have been covered by Cave, while the rest inspired him to form new songs. For those that will find this interesting, there is also a vol.2 of the same series.

see also here for a very informative list of the songs that Nick Cave has released/ performed throughout his career up to 2001.

Tracklisting:
01-Tim Rose - Long Time Man
02-Gene Vincent & the Blue Caps - Cat Man
03-Leonard Cohen - Avalanche
04-Karen Dalton - Katie Cruel
05-Sensational Alex Harvey Band - Hammer Song
06-Tom Jones - Weeping Annaleah
07-The Loved Ones - Sad Dark Eyes
08-Scott Walker - The Big Hurt
09-John Lee Hooker - Tupelo Blues
10-Lefty Frizzell - The Long Black Veil
11-Johnny Cash - The Folk Singer
12-Odetta - Another Man Done Gone
13-Blind Willie Johnson - I'm Gonna Run To The City Of Refuge
14-The Edwin Hawkins Singers - Oh Happy Day
15-Gerge Gainsbourg & Jane Birkin - Je T'aime... Moi Non Plus
16-Isaac Hayes - By The Time I Get To Phoenix

download link: here (includes liner notes where the link between each track and works by Cave is described)