Belly Dance!Playlist for
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
May 30, 2008

Hosted by Greg Lyon on FRIDAYS at 2-4 pm
on WPVM Asheville (103.5 FM and www.wpvm.org)

This show is available for listening as an archive for one week after its airing at WPVM’s Archive Page (click on the STREAM button for this show–under the letter ‘G’)

Notes:

– Yet more belly dancing! This time just one album, from 1974, featuring Joseph Karkour on nay (a flute-like instrument) and Ahmed Menaymne on kanoun (a zither instrument similar to the cimbalom or ţambal, or even the Chinese guqin, which I featured last week), among other folks.

– I’ve been listening to a considerable amount of early UFO lately, spurred on by my discovery of the video for their 1972 jammer, "Prince Kajuku," which evidently aired for some TV program or other. Super heavy, with super heavy hair.

– I cleaned up the Johnny Thunders song "I’m a Boy, I’m a Girl" for airplay. I’ve wanted to play that song for ages. It appears on his killer live acoustic record, Hurt Me, but it was originally written for Actress, the original incarnation of the New York Dolls (see the release of rehearsal recordings, Actress: Birth of the New York Dolls).

– Shaina brought in two gems today: the weird, dissonant UK folk of the Watersons doing "Souling Song" from their 1965 debut, and the priceless "Stalin Wasn’t Stallin’," recorded in 1943 by the Golden Gate Quartet, a black jubilee-style gospel quartet from Norfolk, VA, which featured the song’s writer, Willie Johnson (not the blind blues guy, or the later not-blind blues guitarist). Robert Wyatt covered the song in 1980 for a single, and it later appeared on his 1982 album, Nothing Can Stop Us. See the wikipedia article on the song for more info.

Background Music: Joseph Karkour et al. - Belly Dance! Spectacular Rhythms from the Middle East (Peters International, 1974)

Artist Song Album Label Comments New
Randy Holden Fruit & Iceburgs Population II Guitar God Music 1970, legitimate reissue 2007  
Boris Buzz-in Smile Southern Lord with Michio Kurihara *
Geronimo Medicine Man Geronimo Three.One.G L.A., 2007  
Miles Davis Rated X Get Up with It Columbia 1972 recording, from On the Corner sessions  
UFO Prince Kajuku UFO 2: Flying Beacon/Repertoire 1972, check out the video  
Richard Swift Phone Coffins Richard Swift As Onassis Secretly Canadian L.A., 2008 *
Plastic Bertrand Ça Plane Pour Moi An1 Sire Belgium, 1977  
The Black Angels Science Killer Directions to See A Ghost Light In The Attic Austin, TX, 2008 *
A Place to Bury Strangers Breathe A Place to Bury Strangers Killer Pimp Brooklyn, 2007  
The Moles Rebecca Untune the Sky Flydaddy Sydney, Australia, 1991  
Johnny Thunders I’m a Boy, I’m a Girl Hurt Me New Rose 1984  
Sun City Girls 3D Girls Mister Lonely OST Drag City soundtrack also featuring J. Spaceman compositions *
The Watersons Souling Song Frost & Fire: A Calendar of Ceremonial Folk Songs Topic UK, 1965  
John Jacob Niles The Mad Creed from the Gallows My Precarious Life in the Public Domain Rev-Ola reissue of "Folk Balladeer" album, recorded 1939-1941. John Jacob Niles was from Kentucky.  
Singer Slow Ghosts Unhistories Drag City Chicago, 2008 *
Portishead Silence Third Island UK, 2008 *
Martial Canterel Refuge Underneath Refuge Underneath Wierd Brooklyn, 2007  
These Are Powers Chipping Ice Taro Tarot EP Hoss Brooklyn, 2008 *
The Magic I.D. Feet Deep Till My Breath Gives Out Erstwhile Berlin, 2008 *
Golden Gate Quartet Stalin Wasn’t Stallin’ VA - Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition: Songs of World Wars I & II New World compilation issued 1977  
Duke Ellington A Little Max (Parfait) Money Jungle Blue Note 1962  
Sun Ra Yera of the Sun Media Dreams Art Yard 1978, new expanded reissue *
Propinquity You Don’t Have to Hurry Propinquity * Boulder, CO, 1972  

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