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Live at Other Music: Richard Hawley (Episode #7)


Episode lucky number seven in the Live at Other Music series features an intimate evening here at the shop with the incomparable Richard Hawley. Anybody who made it out that night in early December knows that it was bitterly cold outside, we were battling extended technical difficulties with a buzzing p.a. during soundcheck, and Richard, in the midst of a nationwide tour supporting his haunting Lady's Bridge album, had developed a pretty wicked case of rock and roll road cough. What they also know is that when Mr. Hawley steps on stage, all worries and problems seem to fall away, and he gave a heart-stopping performance that transported the room of haggard New Yorkers to his hometown of Sheffield, England and beyond. Hawley comes off like a performer and showman from another era, singing his ballads and telling his stories as if nothing mattered but the music and the audience. That night, just two guitars, one voice, and achingly beautiful emotion.

Sadly, Other Music Digital is not at this time able to carry downloads of Richard's three excellent albums, as his label Mute Records is a subsidiary of major-label giant EMI, and at this point they do not work with little fellas like us. Our NYC shop and mail-order site, however, do carry the catalog on CD, so click on over if you're old-fashioned like that, and we'll set you up right.

Thanks, Josh

Watch earlier episodes of Live at Other Music with Celebration, Vampire Weekend, The Clean, Tinariwen, No Age, and St. Vincent

This Week's Featured Downloads

The Druids of Stonehenge
The Druids of Stonehenge
Sundazed
$5.99
Listen & Buy

Whoa! Totally savage 1966 attack by these snot-nosed Columbia and Syracuse students. With snarling, Jagger-esque vocals, these takes on a variety of rhythm & blues classics ("Baby Please Don't Go," "Who Do You Love," "Bald Headed Woman" etc.) would make even Bo Diddley proud, and are right up there with the Pretty Things, the Who, and the Yardbirds (all of the whom the band opened up for as the house band at Ondine, one of New York's hippest joints in the mid-'60s.) For lovers of Nuggets and Pebbles, Druids of Stonehenge are mandatory.

-Andreas Knutsen

The Del-Vetts
The Del-Vetts
Sundazed
$5.99
Listen & Buy

Seminal '60s sounds from the Windy City courtesy of Sundazed. From fuzz-drenched punkers ("Last Time Around" is a monster!) to moody downtempo numbers, a killer version of party classic "Little Latin Lupe Lu," and the advertising-disguised-as-rock-n-roll workout of "I Call My Baby STP," the Del-Vetts might've existed in relative obscurity at the time, but it certainly wasn't because of a shortage of quality tunes. If only their jingle for Brach's chocolate-covered cherries was included. Get on it!

-Andreas Knutsen

Incredible Bongo Band
Bongo Rock
Mr. Bongo
$9.99
Listen & Buy

It's the record that everyone feels a connection in arcane and mysterious, yet universal ways. The drum -- vibration, communication -- speaks loud and clear, its message understood yet untranslatable. If it speaks to you, you move. Which is why, in 1980 at the age of 3, I could be found dancing around my room to "Bongo Rock" on my Fisher-Price turntable (which I had on a K-Tel compilation album called Dynamic Sound), just as people 15-20 years my senior were doing in the Bronx, in the nascent years of hip-hop. All I knew is that it sounded remotely like a groovy version of the theme to "Dallas," and I wore that record down 'til the needle skidded across the surface. Why, then, didn't I pick up an OG copy for $11 back when I was a teenager, knowing full well what it was and that I'd never see one again for less than triple-digit sums? Mysteries, all, yet I keep coming back to this group and their albums, as have so many others -- if for no other reason that within is the codex for all of hip-hop, particularly within "Apache;" freestyle, drum 'n' bass, breakdancing, graffiti culture: the alpha and omega of the break incarnate. And maybe because these are just plain fun records to listen to!

The story of Michael Viner's Incredible Bongo Band is a long and convoluted one, basically stemming from some music execs hitting paydirt and being allowed to run amok in MGM Records' studios, creating potent chase music for B-movie soundtracks. Everyone from Jim Gordon to Michael Omartian, from John Lennon to Ringo Starr, from Hal Blaine to King Errisson, are said to have had hands in the sessions behind the group's two albums, 1972's Bongo Rock and 1974's The Return of the Incredible Bongo Band. You'll recognize breaks all over both albums, resequenced to a slightly more favorable track order, and including two remixes unavailable on the out-of-print Strut edition -- one of the Breakers tackling "Last Bongo in Belgium" (familiar to fans of Paul's Boutique, no doubt), and one high-energy redux of "Apache" by none other than Grandmaster Flash himself. The songs are simple and catchy, almost in a library music sort of way, and the beats completely unstoppable. If you don't own this already, it will make your day/week/year.

-Doug Mosurock

Various Artists
Brazilian Beats 1
Mr. Bongo
$9.99
Listen & Buy

This compilation puts a few rare tracks up on four different pedestals, each in a different beat/buttshaking Brazilian style: 1. Carnival super-drum frenzy, 2. Jazz trios doing piano/drum crazy bossa nova, 3. Brazilian Funk, and 4. Pop-Samba-Tropicalia. Hear the Boogaloo Combo's bossa nova version of "Hot Pants Road"! Hear Tenorio Jr.'s (later 'disappeared' by the Brazilian gov't) quizzical, beautiful laidback piano and spastic drumming combo, and Trio Mocato's hyper Mutantes-style barrage of cuica, jumpy electric piano, and percussion. Also glorious and pleasing? Jorge Ben and Toquinho's perfect samba pop, and Joao Donato's muppet-like call-and-response horn samba.

-Robin Edgerton

Pharaoh Sanders
Pharaoh's First
ESP Disk
$9.99
Listen & Buy

One of the musical memories most imbedded in my consciousness is my introduction to free jazz. I had an idea of what it sounded like before I really experienced it firsthand--then a friend of mine played me a rendition of "My Favorite Things" from Coltrane's Live at the Village Vanguard Again! The song seemed loose, stretched out, and then Pharoah really let it fly. His wall of sound, flurry of notes, and cluster of squeals made this record like nothing I had ever heard before. Of course, I realized then that this was only the tip of the iceberg for not only free jazz, but Pharoah himself. Putting on Pharoah's First, his debut album and second in the ESP catalog, shows a saxophonist just starting to break into the avant-garde. This recording really swings at times, and even when it breaks into freer territory, is a surprisingly tuneful album. This may not be the devastating Sanders from his tenure as Coltrane's sideman or the African-influenced sound of his early-'70s work, but it instead manages to capture a more melodic, tuneful energy that is no less complex, made even better by the clear, well-done remastering.

-Phil Waldorf

Sun Ra
Nothing Is
ESP Disk
$9.99
Listen & Buy

Selecting pinnacles in Sun Ra's lengthy and diverse career is almost impossible -- there are literally dozens of completely essential recordings from his massive discography. But one particular peak is this 1966 ESP album Nothing Is. John Gilmore's tenor work is stellar here, full of power, yet somehow completely rich with melody. Marshall Allen's technique on "Exotic Forest" is equally stunning, as his oboe dances around an entire Arkestra's worth of percussion. This particular track shows the Arkestra at their most primitive, with a type of commune-style jam that inspired the Sun City Girls and No Neck Blues Band. Sun Ra is renowned for his work on keyboards and synthesizer, but on Nothing Is he hovers mainly around the piano, playing graceful melodies intertwined with flurries of notes in a way that is often overlooked on the more space-age sounding albums. Also on Nothing Is are the unmistakable soulful group chants that somehow makes the chorus of "theme of the stargazers" a swinging sing-along. Nothing Is condenses pretty much everything that is magical about Sun Ra's music into a convenient and compact 40-minute format.

-Phil Waldorf