Got a few new 8tracks mixes up ...

This Week's Mix #41: I Must Live Until Morning from flopearedmule on 8tracks.

This Week's Mix #38: Throwing Good Love After Bad from flopearedmule on 8tracks.

Here is my most recent 8tracks. Also here, I shall talk about some of the folk on it. Isn't St. Gabriel kind of saucy looking in this depiction?

Ndidi Onukwulu
She's Canadian (now based in Paris), sings soul. I can't help but compare her voice to Winehouse but the band is not the punchy Daptone sound. A softer more folky sensibility but still very funky and cool for that. She has a new album out called The Escape under the name Ndidi O, which I think has been released in Europe and Australia but not North America yet.

Creole String Beans
On Twitter, New Orleans music mag Offbeat was listing its 2011 award recipients the other day, one of which was Creole String Beans for Best Roots Rock. I found thave been really enjoying the album Shrimp Boots and Vintage Suits. What this is, is good old fashioned SWAMP POP. What a great genre of music.

Baloji
The album is Kinshasa Succursale - African/hip-hop out of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Guy Clark tribute - This One's for Him
I generally pass on tribute albums for artists I really love, they are largely redundant to me. This one would ordinarily be no different. But it is different in feel though since most of these artists have a personal relationship with Guy, sometimes very close and going back decades and so the friends playing loving tribute to a friend vibe of it is nice and missing from the average star studded tribute which can be fairly sterile. For that reason I find it a very warm experience to listen to, because of that intimacy. Maybe my favourite moment though is Kris K's Hemingway story.

Jo-El Sonnier
One of the best indie labels going in any genre is Valcour which specialises in Cajun and Creole. An excellent thing they've done recently is digitise performances from Festival Arcadiens et Creoles from 2002 with promise of more to come.
Jo-El Sonnier is singing about Amédé Ardoin, father of both Cajun and Creole music (ie the "whiote" and "black" versions of the same music.) I recently picked up a digital copy of Tompkins Squares' Mama I'll Be Long Gone: The Complete Recordings of Amédé Ardoin , most which feature Cajun legend Dennis McGee on fiddle (for fans of the show Treme, in the episode with Davis and Annie at the Cajun mardis gras, the rituals started at McGee's grave) . His death in 1942 (November 3, remind me to post something on the 70th anniversary) was mysterious, violent and possibly racially motivated. I wish i knew what the lyrics to Sonnier's song are saying. Guess I'll have to learn French.

Rebirth Brass Band
It's almost Mardis Gras and the RBB have a new record out. It's really good, naturally.

Direct link here. Only 13 songs so some major culling but it'll do.

And who'd have thought, after all
Something so simple as rock'n'roll would save us all?

Selections from The Sound of Siam: Leftfield Luk Thung, Jazz & Molam 1964 - 1975, The Shocking Shaking Days: Indonesian Hard, Psychadelic, Progressive Rock and Funk 1970-1978, Dengue Fever Presents Electric Cambodia, Thai Beat A Go Go Vol. 1, Dengue Fever Presents Sleepwalking Through the Mekong and Let's A Go-Go! Singapore and Southeast Asian Pop Scene 1964-69

May 24! Bob's birthday! 70 years old no less!

I did an 8tracks. It's mostly covers since 8tracks rules are you can't have more than two songs by the same person. Some originals and some "tributes" too.

The picture I took at the recent Sydney show.