MEAT PUPPETS - "Up On The Sun" (1985)

 

What can you expect from a band with a name like Meat Puppets?

Actually, you can expect a lot, and that's exactly what you'll get from this 1985 album of theirs titled "Up On The Sun." 

Listen to this song, and I think you'll agree.

MEAT PUPPETS - "Up On The Sun" 

PEARLS BEFORE SWINE - "One Nation Underground" (1967)

 

New York's ESP-Disk' label was founded in 1963 and was created to promote Avant-Garde and Free-Jazz music, and eventually also started producing 'Rock' music if you want to call it that. A better description would be something like 'Not Jazz,"or 'Sloppy Folk Rock,' and out of that emerged groups like The Fugs, The Godz, and Pearls Before Swine.

The Fugs are probably the most well known, but Pearls Before Swine fronted by Tom Rapp were probably the most talented.

Top Rapp went on to have a solo career before retiring from music in 1976. He later would go to school and end up being a civil rights lawyer.

In 1967, Pearls Before Swine released this LP called "One Nation Underground." 

For the cover, they used the panel that depicted "The Last Judgement" from Hieronymus Bosch's famous triptychs titled "The Garden Of Earthly Delights."  

PEARLS BEFORE SWINE - "Uncle John" 

PIÑATA PROTEST - "Necio Nights" (2018)

 

In my humble opinion, you can never have too many Punk Rock Tex-Mex bands, and Piñata Protest is out to prove it!

Unlike the awesome Carne Asada, these guys ARE a real band! 

PIÑATA PROTEST - "DUI" 

CANDYPANTS - "I Want A Pony" (2000)

 

I guess it's time to lighten up some, so here's a hilarious, catchy, and  incredibly foot stompin' tune by the band Candypants from their self-titled album in 2000.

I think it's perfect, and why this fantastic band only ever had one album, I will never understand!

 

 

This is the greatest spoiled rotten kid's song since Jimmy Boyd and Frankie Laine's annoying 1953 hit "Tell Me A Story."

 

CANDYPANTS - "I Want A Pony"

THE MOTHERS OF INVENTION - "Freak Out!" (1966)

 

Sixty years later, and this groundbreaking album by The Mothers Of Invention is just as fresh as it ever was, and there's a song on this album that has a message that still sends shivers down my bones!

 "Well I'm about to get upset from watchin' my TV, been checkin' out the news until my eyeballs fail to see, I mean to say that every day is just another rotten mess and when it's gonna change, my friend Is anybody's guess."

 Even though this song was written about the Watts Riots back in 1966, the message conveyed is still as strong as ever, and maybe even more so. 

"Who could imagine that they would freak out in Minnesota? . . ." 

THE MOTHERS OF INVENTION - "Trouble Every Day" 

TRINI LOPEZ - "Lemon Tree" (1965)

 

It's probably not hip or cool to like the music of Trinidad Lopez, III, aka Trini Lopez, but back in the early 60's he made some real feel-good music that was needed back then. I'd probably listen to the radio again if they started playing music like this today.

In the late 1950's, William Holt wrote this song. It was inspired by the Brazilian song, "Meu Limão Meu Limoeiro," that was originally written in 1930. 

In 1965, this version by Trini Lopez made it to number 20 on The Billboard Hot 100 charts. 

TRINI LOPEZ - "Lemon Tree" 

 

 

List Songs, Part Four - "California Girls"

 

Rich here. You might not think of The Beach Boys as a band that would engage in lyrical list-making. But they actually recorded a few songs that were comprised of lists, such as "Busy Doing Nothing," in which the singer lists the directions to his house and all the steps he takes to call up his girlfriend on a pay phone, and "I Went to Sleep" in which the singer lists all the things he did that day before going to sleep. 

 

Both are fairly minor songs in the Beach Boys catalog, but one of their most popular and famous songs includes a list of the girls the singer finds attractive in every part of the country before saying he wishes they could all live in California, where he lives. 

 

(An aside: "California Girls" was a big step in Brian Wilson's musical evolution as the first 20 seconds of the song is comprised of an instrumental passage that has nothing to do with the rest of the song before seamlessly transitioning into the romping rhythm of the rest of the song. It was a perfect example of a song with two movements, the kind of thing that Brian would refer to as his "Teenage Symphonies to God.")

THE BEACH BOYS - "California Girls"