Music: July 2006 Archives

Yes, children -- this was probably one of the earliest punk bands (along with Iggy and the Stooges) and they came out of Detroit in 1964 (as did Iggy). The band featured Wayne Kramer (guitar), Michael Davis (bass), Rob Tyner (vocals), Dennis Thompson (drums) and Fred "Sonic" Smith (guitar).

This music insists on being played LOUD. It is the musical equivalent of the sound the stamping presses made at the Ford Rouge Plant.

The performance is from the Grande Ballroom in 1968 January, 1969, and is definitely not Woodstock-friendly, even though it has edited out the coda wherein Rob Tyner exhorts the crowd to "Kick out the jams, motherf***ers!" We used to get a tremendous thrill out of that when we heard it on Detroit underground FM radio back in the day.

The wigglin guitars girl
The crash of the drums
Make you wanna keep-a-rockin'
Till the morning comes

Let me be who i am
And let me kick out the jam
Yes, kick out the jams
I done kicked em out !!!

...with bandmates Keith Richards, Eric Clapton and Mitch Mitchell. Check out the pre-performance interview of John by Mick Jagger. From Rock n Roll Circus, December 1968. (Who's sitting onstage with the black sweater over their head?)

Much has been of Johnny Depp's homage to Keith Richards. But they've got nothing on George Harrison...

He had a pretty brief career although his legacy was substantial. No one really knew the nature of his mental illness (I've heard schizophrenia and even Asberger's). His mates loved him and took care of him for the rest of his life, faithfully sending the royalty checks.

And maybe he found some peace at the end, maybe not.

MSNBC:

[In later years,] he reverted to his real name, Roger Barrett, and spent much of the rest of his life living quietly in his hometown of Cambridge, England. Moving into his mother's suburban house, he passed the time painting and tending the garden...He was a familiar figure to neighbors, often seen cycling or walking to the corner store...

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way

Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain
And you are young and life is long and there is time to kill today
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun

Wikipedia:

The original lyric for this perennial George M. Cohan favorite came, as Cohan later explained, from an encounter he had with a Civil War veteran who fought at Gettysburg. The two men found themselves next to each other and Cohan noticed the vet held a carefully folded but ragged old flag. The man reportedly then turned to Cohan and said, "She's a grand old rag." Cohan thought it was a great line and originally named his tune "You're a Grand Old Rag." So many groups and individuals objected to calling the flag a "rag," however, that he "gave 'em what they wanted" and switched words, renaming the song "You're a Grand Old Flag."

Click the link below and you can hear one of the earliest recorded versions of this song as performed by Billy Murray and recorded February 6, 1906.

It's a Grand Old Rag

UPDATE (and HT to Cory): ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive director Stephen Worth sez,

[Billy] Murray actually did do cartoon voices. He was the original voice of Bimbo in the Max Fleischer Talkartoons, and his voice is featured in quite a few Bouncing Ball cartoons. We have one of them posted on the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive Project Blog. Mariutch (1930).