Richard Wayne Penniman (December 5, 1932 – May 9, 2020). He was black, gay-drag, extremely flamboyant and he played raw assed rock'n'roll in the heart of the 50s US south. If that's not PUNK, then what tha fuck is it?! Without whom...

 

Various Artists - "Copy Cats, The Originals" (WAIL TAPE 03)

Johnny was a very cool person. Even as a kid. He knew his shit about how to get dressed to kill and of course he knew where's a cool song when he heard one. From the New York Dolls days to the Heartbreakers and the later solo period, his mind about music was always on the right track, chemistry couldn't kill this. A steady diet of Rhythm and Blues, Rock & Roll (even Surf) was always there. That's why Johnny was such a cool motherfucker throughout his sort passage on this world. He wasn't a cool cat, he was born a real cool cat.
The "COPY CATS" LP with long time friend, Patti Palladin was perhaps the last cool thing he'd done. A set of "oldies" toons (hahaha, I hate the term, fuck it, this is the devil's music man), when most of them were totally forgotten and "uncool". He was a revivalist in its purest term. Not unlike what the Chesterfield Kings did back then or the Tell Tale Hearts, but instead for the Nuggets comps and the USA garage teens' 45s, Johnny and Patti look on the basis of rock & roll music (OK, they have gone for Sky Saxon and The Seeds but no "Pushing Too Hard" here, sorry folks). They picked on Elvis for instance, but they were so ahead of their time to chose not a Sun Records song or a hit but a forgotten piece of motherfuckerness from a movie, man!!! I mean, who else did that except maybe for the Cramps? They chose the King of the New Yawk streets, Dion. They could have chose a well known Little Richard or a Chuck Berry hit or even a more smart ass one but fuck no, they went for Screaming Jay Hawkins' voodoo shit or The Chamber Brothers!!! Anyway, I guess you get what I'm trying to say, right? So here's the easy way to hear them originals all gathered up for you listening pleasure.

Till next time, faithfully yours

Mihaleez

Various Artists - "Summer Stomps VOL. I" (STOMP TAPE 01)

Heeeeeeeey!!!

Whassup? Hope this letter (erm...post) finds you all you guys and gals pretty well! I know, it seems a little bit like I totally dropped this space but as you can see for yourself I'm not. I'm just having no time at all for posts and wanking, at least as Ι used to fool around the previous years. Anyway, here I am. I told you before that I'm gonna show up from time to time and that it's going to happen anytime my mojo is coming back to me. It's almost end of the summertime and I'm still here in the big city due to many-many obligations. But the time has come, man and next Friday hopefully I'm gonna leave Athens for vacations and that was a reason enough to make a new digital 'mixtape' to celebrate the occasion! It's been done real quickly. The procedure was once again based on the formula of "not so much thinking, man", so I just drove myself through my stuff picking out/bringing out whatever my eye was catching and thought I wanted to be in and ripped the shit outta them. The usual WTS faves, you know - 60s garage punk, frat, rhythm and soul, rhythm and blues, real rock & roll basically. Anyway, hope you like it and whether or not have already set yourself to the summertime mode, these toons I think will fix your mood. Till next time (whenever that is), keep the rocks rollin'!

Cheers,
Mihaleez

Rock & Roll Never Dies, so Fuck You!!! Here's to Uncle Lemmy...

Sinatra 100 and the revenge of Rock & Roll!!!

Sinatra hated rock 'n' roll so naturally I should have hated him back, right?! I won't! He was Dino's best pal, and you know what, I LOVE DINO!! He was also a very sharp male and I dig sharp males very much man, especially now in a world full of metro-sexual creatures!!! Rock and roll revenged him anyhow with this little song, he-he... Listen to it and hear the the man struggle with all these flim-flams and bim-bams!!! Great fun and groovy toon!!! 100 years from the birth of legend? Yes!

PS: Special thanks to The Hound for learning me so many things, this song included! I wish this blog was still around...

The Rolling Stones - "Street Fighting Man" b/w "No Expectations" (7" Single, DECCA - 1966; Italy MONO mix)

Greetings to y'all people. Quite busy nowadays so you're lucky, I'm not gonna fiddle your precious time with my stupid blah-blahs. So, here's another great offering by my buddy outta Paris, France in a glorious MONO mix (and quite different from the well known in STEREO), à bientôt!!!

"Cheers!" Pure Genius: 20 page Pub Rock spectacular! (Mojo Magazine, Issue 30 - May 1996)

That's a hugely influential 20 page piece (at least for me) on MOJO Magazine dated back in May 1996 (just a month before my school graduate...wow) and it's written by the exceptional drummer of The Kursaal Flyers and The Records and now an even cooler music author (among them of course the No Sleep Till Canvey Island book), Will Birch. Back then of course (again!), no internet blah-blah-blah, so this more or less (more!) became my guide and source for quite many beloved (till now and ever) bands and gangs. From Dr. Feelgood, Nick Lowe and Eddie & the Hot Rods, to the Count Bishops, Graham Parker and Ducks Deluxe, this is probably the best effort ever committed on paper about punk rock's true and unsung forefather and  gatecrasher. It's the story of Pub Rock served up just in time (Saturday night)... Raise a glass to the regulars!

Goosebumps... The 1st Elvis Presley acetate recording, transferred to digital. (Video)

King Elvis' 1953 unripe SUN recordings of "My Happiness" and "That’s When Your Heartaches Begin", digitally transferred for reissue by Jack White’s Third Man Records. 

In January 2015, it was announced that the first ever Elvis Presley recordings (I'm pretty sure, any visitor of this space knows perfectly well the legendary story for the supposed Gladys' birthday present, am I right..?) had been sold for the amount of $300,000! The buyer as it turned out was the once upon a time White Stripes main man, Jack White. So, Jack met with legendary music archivist Alan Stoker (son of the original Jordanaires member Gordon Stoker BTW, a cool coincidence at least...) at the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville, TN to have this rock n roll top notch rarity, digitally transferred for a Third Man repress for the masses, trying at the same time not to lose the feeling and the soul that makes these two songs both haunting and breathtaking! Check out the following footage of Alan Stoker and Jack White as they make the transfer and peel back the label to discover a very special surprise (at least for me)!!! Rock and Roll goosebumps...

Little Richard and Buster Poindexter (David Johansen) to present Grammy for the Best New Artist... (1988)

 

See the full Video 

"Roll Over Chuck Berry" by Greil Marcus, Rolling Stone No35 - June 14, 1969

Many thanks to original sharer
Click Images to Enlarge

Various Artists - "Mihaleez's Rockin' Blues" (WAILCD 01)

 

Hey there! Is it already 'next year'? I guess so... 
And I guess as well that there's no better way for a first post than a handmade White Trash Soul party CD, right? I know it's been a while since the last WAX thing and it's been a little longer since a Greasy Soul and a Dirty R&B comp courtesy of yours truly have landed to your hard disks but you know, the lack of personal time, the work, blah-blah-blah... 
I'm sure some of you notice that I didn't used the "we" pronoun, right? That's because JP wants to make a pause for a little and I didn't blamed him to tell you the truth. There's a time when you want to do other things but I have to testify also his bitterness for the lack of comments on our posts. I mean for me it's OK, I don't care if someone wants to tell thanks or something else cause I'm doing it for my soul self satisfaction first, even if this sounds a little egotistical but I do understand JP's side cause it's always great to see how people reacts on your thoughts and posts...
Anyway, I want to thank him one more time for everything he did for WTS all these years and they were A LOT as you know. Keep the rocks rollin' buddy!
On our subject, WAIL it's the new WTS subsidiary. And since WAX was a baby that belongs to both of us I thought it was proper to use another trademark and logo. For the R&B/Soul sect of our tribe, I'm dead sure, everyone understands that I drew inspiration (aka ripped) Ace Record's idea from "Gaz's Rockin' Blues" well known compilation!!! I'm not cocky enough to put myself on the cover so my beloved Young Jessie took proudly place in it!
The procedure was the well known. No second thoughts or deep diggin' for THE obscure track even though I'm sure for some of you some toons may be 'obscure'. I was having a ball myself and what I wanted to listen that very moment, was being ripped too for your listening pleasure. Don't know if it's gonna work for you, but for me it was a blast!
You can have a preview in case you wanna know what's what by clicking the back-sleeve up there (I made it look like a long play - don't know if I succeed it was the first time without JP's magic hands). As usual share and dance freely! No fuckin' bootlegging's allowed!! This is strictly made by fan for fans shit!!!

Cheeers
Mihaleez

 

A Celebration... Rockin' and Rollin' with Ian and Bobby!!! The Rolling Stones - "Welcome to New York" (LP, Trademark of Quality {Bootleg} - 197?) and Small Faces - "Small Faces" (LP, Immediate {Original MONO press} - 1967)

R.I.P. Ian McLagan (12 May 1945 – 3 December 2014)

It's been a rough couple of days for the world of Rock & Roll... You really need me to tell you who Ian McLagan was?

R.I.P. Robert Henry "Bobby" Keys (December 18, 1943 – December 2, 2014)

"Bobby went down in a tub of Dom Perignon. Bobby Keys, so the story goes, is the only man who knows how many bottles of it it takes to fill a bath, because that’s what he was floating in. This was just before the second-to-last gig on the ’73 European tour, in Belgium. No sign of Bobby at the band assembly that day, and finally I was asked if I knew where my buddy was — there had been no reply from his hotel room. So I went to his room and said, Bob, we gotta go, we gotta go right now. He’s got a cigar, bathtub full of champagne and this French chick in with him. And he said, fuck off. So be it. Great image and everything like that, but you might regret it, Bob. The accountant informed Bobby afterward that he had earned no money at all on that tour as a result of that bathtub; in fact he owed. And it took me ten goddamn years or more to get him back in the band, because Mick was implacable, and rightly so. And Mick can be merciless in that way. I couldn’t answer for Bobby. All I could do was help him get clean, and I did."

— Keith Richards

 

Chuck Berry - "..Berry Is On Top" (LP, Chess - 1959) {US Mono Original Pressing}

On the 18th day of the past October, Chuckster the man, the legend and the rock & roll himself touched the 88! He's just a year younger offa ma favorite team, he-he! Anyway, there's no reason at all to repeat ourselves or any other old cliché about HIM but there's always a good reason for a Chuck Berry post, right? RIGHT!
So, the other day JP mailed me he was busy ripping stuff a friend of his, gave him (btw, many thanks JF!!!). I asked about it and responded among others with this CLASSIC. For a minute the selfish lil' devil on my left shoulder told me to keep it for own pleasure (I mean, it's in fuckin' MONO!!!!) but the angel on the other side reminded me that we 're on a mission from God, so I gave up the idea (I'm Elwood, I always wanted to be Elwood but that's another story). To cut a long story short, this was Berry's third Chess long play - but technically an all the hits at this point gathering plus some more.
The great late Cub Koda once said "If you had to sweat all of Chuck Berry's early albums on Chess (and some, but not all, of his subsequent greatest-hits packages), this would be the one to own."
So what are you waiting for Chrissake? 

The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion! - "Orange" (CD, Crypt - 1994)

Ahhhhh, The Blues Explosion! Still much controversy about them, right? OK right from the start, I dig them and I dig them A LOT! They're in many ways responsible for the younger generations to turn their heads into black music again (rock & roll, blues, funk, soul etc). And they were awfully sexy once upon a time... Actually just as sexy and raunchy will get black music, which is again, A LOT! Hmmmm, come to think of it, actually ONLY black music is sexy but anyway, I think you got it!

So, purists are fuckin' jerks - period! They always were. They're nazis in everything and their thinking is similar if not the identical to those bastards but life and art luckily had taught us that without mixing bloods, no wonder's going to happen and those stupid "purists" attacked/accused the Blues Explosion in the beginning at least, for not being "authentic". Andre Williams, R.L. Burnside and Rufus Thomas though had no problems as history proved just like Bo, Muddy or Chuck had no problems for the Rolling Stones back in the 60s.

Nevertheless I'm still scratching my head in oddity with this record... I mean, is sooooooooo brilliant but quite extremist as well for people like Tim Warren, don't you think (here as you can see for yourself in the original Crypt jacket and not the lame aluminum of Matador!)? With "Orange" the Blues Explosion added scratches and dance beats to their "Meters going Stones having James Brown and Lux Interior" formula with an enormously marvelous end result! Still fresh, neat and funky as fuck as it was 20 years back when at first came out... This is Blues Power!!!

Nevermind The Strypes, Here's The 45s!

These 45s fellas are from Carlisle, England and they wore their influences quite proudly on the jacket and the title of their latest EP, "Teenage Depression"! Right?! Tanked up, high octane R&B - the way legendary outfits like Eddie and The Hot Rods and Dr. Feelgood reminded once to the world with mod suits, mop-top haircuts and incredibly good playing for mid teens (all members reportedly are 16)! Great to see young lads pickin' up on rock & roll, instead of corporate precast shit! I mean, GREAT!
Anyway, don't know if there's a 'competition' with The Strypes or something, I guess the media are always in search of such 'rivalries' but I tell you this, if you dig the Ireland's finest you're gonna lose your mind with the 45s! No wonder why Wilko Johnson got them under his wings... As far as I know, they only have two singles on their backs (both great I've download them and they're on a loop in my iPod since) I'm waiting for the "Depression" EP to come one of these days on ma doorstep (use the link on the right to order yours) but I'm still in search of their first one double A-Side killer, "It Ain't Over / Devil of a Woman". White Trash Soul approved combo, can't wait really for a gig and a proper full release!

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Cosimo Matassa, RIP

Cosimo with Jimmy Clanton, 1958

Sad news unfortunately run on.. Cosimo Matassa, the legendary New Orleans recording studio owner,
engineer and rock 'n' roll pioneer has died yesterday at the age of 88. A true unsung legend, Cosimo was responsible for virtually every single R&B record in New Orleans for almost three decades and it isn't far from the truth to say that without him city's R&B wouldn't have been the same!
At his J&M studios, engineered inter alios Fats Domino, Little Richard, Smiley Lewis, Loyd Price, Guitar Slim, Professor Longhair, Earl King and Art Neville! In 1955 he moved to the bigger Cosimo Recording Studio, where acquainted Alain Toussaint and Lee Dorsey. At Toussaint's (now washed up by Katrina hurricane) studios, Sea-Saint, recorded artists such Paul McCartney, The Neville Brothers and Dr. John during the 70s. I'm sure with a little google search from your side, you're gonna know why Cosimo even at this age, was a huge loss for Rock & Roll...

Wreck-ommended listening:  The Cosimo Matassa Story (Proper Box 129) 4-CD set / 2007
and the brand new one from Ace: Cracking The Cosimo Code: 60s New Orleans R&B And Soul

Rob 'Throb' Young, RIP

With grief read this morning the tragic news of Rob 'Throb' Young's death. The former Primal Scream guitarist was the original guitar hero in a band I grew up with and still has a special place in my heart. Rob was present in every zenithal Scream moment, especially on 'Screamadelica' and 'Give Out But Don't Give Up', both personal favorites of yours truly. A proper rock & roller indeed. We all gonna miss those licks and riffs...

Little Richard - "The Rill Thing" (CD Reissue, Collector's Choice Music - 2009)

Don't know why took so long to the public to figure out how cool were many Blues and R&B legends in their late 60s/early 70s comeback LPs, but I guess never too late. I was obsessed with it! The first bunch that I lay my dirty hands upon were Muddy Waters' "Electric Mud", "London Sessions" and the Johnny Winter (RIP) produced "Hard Again", about twelve years back. From then it was a non stop downhill, he-he! So, as you might guessing I'm on the other side of the river. I totally disagree with the purists or the artists themselves (like in Howlin' Wolf's 1969 Cadet "Album", for instance...). I mean, why Elvis "68 Comeback" regarded as brilliant (which is) and not Bo Diddley's "Black Gladiator" or Little Richard's "Rill Thing"? Cause both originators have tried to update their sound and for me at least, they succeeded. So, where Big Bad Bo got psychedelic funky, the Georgia Peach got swamp rock! Although Reprise (RS-6406, 1970) tried to push it as a comeback album, Little Richard was in fact 'back' many years before, cutting brilliant (though sadly unsuccessful) rhythm & soul sides for labels like O-Keh, Vee-Jay, Modern and Brunswick. "The Rill Thing" was a loan King Little Richard gave to his tribe, especially on Creedence Clearwater Revival and it was time to get the requite for this. Recorded and produced by him at (the now legendary) Muscle Shoals in Alabama, the sounds captured on tape found the real king of rock & roll in heat. His voice was mighty loud as it was on his Specialty hits and the music was greasy, swampy and funky soulful! “Dew Drop Inn” and the album's (now multi-sampled) opener “Freedom Blues” were written by Richard and long time friend, old lover and influence Esquerita (on credits shown as Esgrita!) if that says something (it does!)... The Beatles' "I Saw Her Standing There" funkified surprisingly enough by the man who gave inspiration to Lennon and McCartney partnership and although at first crabs, after two or three listens fits perfectly to the other album's tunes.

Don't know why really, this one still brings mixed emotions. I'm finding it as a truly exceptional and equal creation to this man's legacy! An album for sure drug fueled by cocaine and guilty pleasures but as well, an album of its time and place. Try play it betwixt and between "Sticky Fingers" and "Bayou Country" and you will understand what I'm saying...

Rolling Stone No.59 / May 28 ,1970 - taken from Arouse Your Passion blog