Music Archive: Butthole Surfers Live in Concert 1996 (complete show)

The Butthole Surfers live in concert, Mesa Arizona, July 1, 1996.

Some might only remember the Butthole Surfers as the creators of top 40 hits like “Pepper” and “Who Was in my Room Last Night?”, but before mainstream success they were the “most twisted and depraved acts ever to bubble up from the American underground.” (source)

TRACKS

Birds
Cough Syrup
Thermador
Pepper
Ulcer Breakout
Jingle of a Dog’s Collar
TV Star
Ah Ha
1401
Cherub
Cowboy Bob
X-Ray
Out of Vogue
Hey
Space
L.A.
The Shah Sleeps in Lee Harvey’s Grave
Creep in the Cellar
Let’s Talk about Cars
Goofy’s Concern
Watlo
Who Was in My Room Last Night?

Music Archive: Luz Casal “Piensa en mi”

To set the mood for tomorrow’s 18th Street Fashion Show Summer in Spain I bring you Spanish pop singer Luz Casal’s “Piensa en mi”.

Luz Casal reached fame in the early 1980s and has remained an important figure in Spanish pop music since. She enjoyed great success with 1991′s “Piensa en mi” which was featured in Pedro Almodóvar’s Tacones Lejanos (High Heels).

Music Archive: The Specials “Rock Goes to College” Live at Colchester Institute 1979

Last night at dinner our web guy Scott Stewart drank a True Blonde Ale from Ska Brewery. The colorful can featuring the black and white checker pattern synonymous with the English 2-Tone ska revial of the late 1970′s made me remember how much I liked the band responsible for it, The Specials.

We’ve included the first three parts with links to remaining four parts of The Specials’ performing live at The Colchester Instituite in 1979. The performance was filmed by the BBC for the series “Rock Goes to College”.

Beware The Specials may induce skanking and moonstomping.

By the way, the beer was pretty good we hear.

Part 4 - Part 5 – Part 6

Music Archive: Fugazi “Turnover” (Live 1991)

Even if you don’t agree with Fugazi’s radical politics, militantly DIY attitude or provoked demeanor you can’t deny their ability to get white people dancing. This live performance appears to be in the band’s hometown of Washington D.C. – most likely at a protest against the first Gulf War. “Turnover” is the first track from Fugazi’s debut, now-classic album Repeater LP, which was released in 1990 on guitarist (blue stocking cap) Ian MacKaye’s Dischord Records. The CD version was bundled with the 3 Songs EP, thus the Repeater + 3 Songs title that appears in the album art below.

Music Archive: Jeannie C. Riley “Harper Valley PTA”

This week our kickball team (yes, we have a pretty intense kickball league here in Lawrence, KS) scrimmaged a team who call themselves the Harper Valley PTA. So I only thought it fitting…

Via Wikipedia:

“Harper Valley PTA” is a country song written by Tom T. Hall. It was a major hit single for country singer Jeannie C. Riley in 1968, and crossed over to the pop charts as well, eventually selling over six million copies as a single, making Riley the first woman ever to top the U.S. pop and country singles charts with the same song.

The song tells the story of a junior high girl (high school in the original) who is sent home with a note to her widowed single mother from the Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) of the school decrying the mother’s scandalous behavior by small-town standards. The mother decides to speak to a meeting of the PTA where she addresses various episodes of misbehavior on the part of several of its members, concluding, “This is just a little Peyton Place / And you’re all Harper Valley hypocrites.” The final line of the song sums up the action with the memorable line: “The day my mama socked it to the Harper Valley PTA”

In an interview, Hall admitted his inspiration for the song was passing by the Harpeth Valley Elementary School in Bellevue, Tennessee, not far from his then-home in Franklin. He liked the sound of the name and decided to write a song using a similar place name. He also reportedly wrote the song about Olive Hill, Kentucky where Hall grew up.

The song was later the inspiration for a 1978 motion picture and a 1981 television series, both starring Barbara Eden, playing the heroine of the song, Stella Johnson.

Other songs on the album tell more about some of the people who are members of the Harper Valley P.T.A., including Mayor Harper and Widow Jones.

Jeannie C. Riley’s recording of the song won her a Grammy for the Best Country Vocal Performance, Female.

In the 1970s, Riley became a born-again Christian, and started to sing only gospel music; she renounced the song, and has not performed it since. She titled her 1980 autobiography From Harper Valley to the Mountain Top, and released a gospel album in 1981 with the same title.

The song made Riley the first woman to top both Billboard’s Hot 100 and the U.S. country single’s charts with the same song, a feat that would go unrepeated until Dolly Parton did so with “Nine to Five” in 1981.