Today is International Clash Day

[Machine Head]

I had a coach in youth sports who made it to the show.

He told me some of the best players he ever played with or against didn't make it there.

Didn't mean that he was a better player or more talented than them, they just didn't make it there.

 

[PCLoadLetter]

Maria McKee.

Picked up one of her solos, have to give it a spin tonight.

Maria McKee trivia...

Feargal Sharkey, the lead singer of The Undertones, put out a solo record in 1985. The first single was an absolutely great song called "A Good Heart." It was written by Maria McKee when she was 19.

Also, her half-brother was the guitarist in Love, one of the great underrated bands of the 60s.

 

[Machine Head]

I was late to Love, have some now.

bubbler alert, I think

I'm finding lots of stuff I've missed throughout the years.

I like it, something from now or then that moves me.

 

[PCLoadLetter]

I was late to Love, have some now.

bubbler alert, I think

I'm finding lots of stuff I've missed throughout the years.

I like it, something from now or then that moves me.

Same here. I've always been a music guy but there's so much great older stuff out there that I never found until now.

Just in the past year, Fela Kuti. Sun Ra. Seventies-era Temptations and Four Tops.

 

[Machine Head]

That's the deal, we all have spaces that can be filled in.

It's a huge reason that keeps me tethered here, the music threads.

 

[Neutral Corner]

That's the deal, we all have spaces that can be filled in.

True that. For instance, I don't know squat about Lone Justice, The Long Ryders and Rank & File. I'll be doing some poking around in their work.

On the other hand, maybe y'all have not heard Ry Cooder's soundtrack to "The Long Riders", or even of Ry Cooder at all. It evens out over time if you are willing to listen. I'd bet good money, knowing nothing, that that's where the band took their name from.

 

[Machine Head]

Ry Cooder did good stuff

 

[PCLoadLetter]

True that. For instance, I don't know squat about Lone Justice, The Long Ryders and Rank & File. I'll be doing some poking around in their work.

On the other hand, maybe y'all have not heard Ry Cooder's soundtrack to "The Long Riders", or even of Ry Cooder at all. It evens out over time if you are willing to listen. I'd bet good money, knowing nothing, that that's where the band took their name from.

Hit up Spotify and check out the first Lone Justice record - the one with "Ways to be Wicked." The big song for The Long Riders was "Looking for Lewis and Clark." For Rank & File it was a song called "Rank & File."

I need to listen to Ry Cooder's solo work. I'm familiar with a lot of his session and band projects but haven't heard much of his own stuff. (I had high hopes for Little Village, the band he formed with John Hiatt, Nick Lowe and Jim Keltner. They only did one album and even they thought it sucked. It did have one great song called "Don't Think About Her When You're Trying to Drive.")

 

[Neutral Corner]

Ry Cooder did good stuff

Still does. His most recent album came out last year. The first time I heard him was playing mandolin on "Love in Vain" on the Stone's "Let It Bleed" record. 1969. 53 years ago now. Jesus.

"Paradise and Lunch" is a good place to start if you don't know him, although there really isn't a typical Cooder record. He's done folk, Americana before it existed, blues, country, slack-key Hawaiian guitar, all sorts of stuff. He was also responsible for "The Buena Vista Social Club" if you remember that.

The movie "Crossroads", with Ralph Macchio - the final guitar duel, "head cutting", that was Ry playing with Steve Vai.

When I say that he was playing Americana before it really existed, I mean that his first two records had a bunch of Woody Guthrie and old traditional folk tunes. This is from his second album, in 1972.

 

[Machine Head]

Yeah, I heard some of his new stuff on the local NPR station. I liked it.

On a podcast, I think? Marc Maron's he mentions what an influence he was on Dylan at one point, I could be mistaken..

 

[Neutral Corner]

I know that he has played with Dylan from time to time, and that Dylan has sat in on a concert or two. I think "influencing" Dylan is a stretch.

 

[Neutral Corner]

This is an old Woody Guthrie tune.

I have only been lucky enough to see him once, when Randy Newman premiered "Good Old Boys" at Symphony Hall in Atlanta, and he was simply amazing. Him, two guitars, a mandolin and a banjo.

He told a story about how early in his career he found a bottleneck that he used to play slide. It fit him perfectly and he became really attached to it. He kept it in a little velvet bag, and played with it for years. He sort of fetishized it.

He finally dropped it and broke it - and he said that it was an incredible relief not to have to worry about it any more. He went out and bought half a dozen slides and never looked back. I thought it was funny as heck - his delivery of the story was several light years better than mine.