Stone Monuments: 50 States of Sly

Sly & The Family Stone - Family Affair (EN extended remix)

We'll kick off the BBQ weekend and holiday dance party with a very necessary memorial to an irreplaceable cultural figure.

I've been working on this thing, so I could say I came up with something worthy of today's icon. I think I succeeded, but then I just spent days manually making all the tunes in it the same volume, so I might be a little judgmentally compromised right this second.

When he passed away at 82 this past June 9th, he left a legacy that will define, animate and tower over everything that will come after, like a looming shadow of light.

When Sly and the Family Stone first hit in 1967, their advent literally altered the DNA of music from the first note.

Of course he hadn't come from nowhere. He had a degree in Composition from SF State and a very popular radio show on KSOL-FM in San Francisco well before he became, arguably, the first modern Rock Star.

But when the band hit, at the height of Summer of Love hysteria, it turned a regional Bay Area figure into a global superstar that helped redefine and recalibrate the whole paradigm of popular music.

To repeat the umpteenth cliché about how No One Had Ever Seen Anything Like This Before, that bands didn't typically have multigender and multiracial makeups prior to these guys, is beyond the obvious.

Everything about them -- not just their appearance -- was totally unprecedented, principally the way they pretzeltwisted James Brown's New Bag and the multicolored psychedelic pastiche then prevalent in Pop into something irresistible in its Sunny Soul Funkness, which could break your hips and blow your mind at the same time.

There's no overstating Sly Stone's importance to the All Of Everything, and most of it's been said a million times even before he died.

Like, for instance, this compilation of covers of his tunes that came out -- just weeks before he left us, in what must surely be the most timely reissue promotion in music business history -- on the swell Ace label over in the UK. It features a 22-track compendium of some of the many versions of Sly and the Family Stone classics by other artists: tribute takes of his tunes that have made their way into the world since the mid-1960s.

Of course, once my mania mind gets a hold of an idea such as that, it will only be a matter of time before I jinn up a rejoinder to it that's 3 times as long and features even weirder and more obscure choices, some of which are/were harder to find in lossless form than the narrative illusion formerly known as American Democracy.

So anyway... if you want me to stay, I'll be around today. Happy 4th of July, and here goes your holiday weekend Party Mix in 3....2...1...

Various Artists

Let Me Hear It from You

50 States of Sly & The Family Stone

1968-2024

01 Rabbits & Carrots - La Gente de Diario (Everyday People) (1970)

02 Bettye LaVette - Thankful N' Thoughtful (2012)

03 Alessi Brothers - Hot Fun In the Summertime (1979)

04 The Reverend Shawn Amos feat. Denise Carite - Don't Call Me Nigger, Whitey (2024)

05 Earthworm - Loose Booty (2021)

06 Charles Earland - Sing a Simple Song (1970)

07 Paul Haig - Running Away (1982)

08 Afro-Cuban Band - Life and Death in G and A (1975)

09 Jimmy Stone - Family Affair (1972)

10 Scar, CeeLo Green & Big Boi - (You Caught Me) Smilin' (2006)

11 Diplomats of Solid Sound - You Can Make It If You Try (2003)

12 The Pastels - Everybody Is a Star (2003)

13 Philly Cream - M'Lady (1978)

14 Wade Marcus - Thank You Falettin Me Be Mice Elf Agin (1971)

15 Dillard-Hartford-Dillard - The Same Thing (1977)

16 Go Mod Go! - Underdog (2021)

17 Tony! Toni! Toné! - Stand (1995)

18 SFJAZZ Collective - I Want to Take You Higher (2019)

19 The Bar-Kays - Dance to the Music (1970)

20 Arusha - Life (2007)

21 Billy Paul - Everyday People (1970)

22 George Howard - Africa Talks to You 'The Asphalt Jungle' (1998)

23 Bobby Powell - Into My Own Thing (1971)

24 West Street Mob - Sing a Simple Song (1982)

25 Soul Searchers W.G.R. - Love City (1970)

26 Caesar Frazier - Runnin' Away (1972)

27 The Charlatans & The Chemical Brothers - Time For Livin' (1995)

28 Etta James - If You Want Me to Stay (1998)

29 S'Express - Hey Music Lover (1989)

30 Byron Lee & The Dragonaires - Don't Call Me Nigger, Whitey (version) (1970)

31 Steven Bernstein's Millennial Territory Orchestra - Skin I'm In (2011)

32 Little Sister - Somebody's Watching You (1970)

33 Bobby Hutcherson - Family Affair (1971)

34 KC & The Sunshine Band - Thank You (1983)

35 Prince - Poet (Mace2TheO soundcheck edit-EN remux) (1985)

36 Woody Herman - Sex Machine (1969)

37 Sa-Ra Creative Partners - Just Like a Baby (2009)

38 Bobby Broom - Stand! (2001)

39 Sounds of Blackness - You Can Make It If You Try (1997)

40 Jiro Inagaki & His Friends - Loose Booty (1975)

41 Syunsuke Ono - Thank You for Talkin' to Me Africa (2012)

42 Eric Burdon & The Animals - I'm an Animal (1968)

43 The Meters - Sing a Simple Song (1969)

44 Turkuaz - Babies Making Babies (2018)

45 Kool & The Gang - I Want to Take You Higher (1971)

46 Maceo Parker - In Time (1990)

47 Material - Let Me Have It All (1982)

48 The Nineteenth Whole - You Caught Me Smilin' Again (1972)

49 Quinteto Academico - Let Me Hear It from You (1968)

50 Jazz Crusaders - Thank You (1970)

51 Sly & The Family Stone - Family Affair (EN extended remix) (bonus track) (1971)

Total time: 3:45:04

disc breaks go after Tracks 18 & 36

3CD compendium of cover versions of songs by Sly & The Family Stone

intended as a companion/rejoinder to the 2025 Ace Records compilation Everybody Is a Star: The Sly Stone Songbook

selected, assembled, sequenced & remastered by EN, June/July 2025
1.36 GB FLAC/direct link

I mastered my thing to play at essentially the same volume as the Ace CD, so if you get that one you can plug them together and enjoy the full Family Stone songbook experience on Sly shuffle play. Heck, I even remixed a full, longer playout version of the original Family Affair, straight from the 16-track stems. Who says I don't bring the favors to the party?

I'll be back with more July beyond Sly in a few days, but I wanted to brew this up in his honor, to thank him for letting me be myself. Again.--J.

3.15.1943 - 6.9.2025
dance to the music

Cloud Chamberlain

 

PARTCH Ensemble - Cloud Chamber Music


The last post for June is here, celebrating a figure I've always admired.

Long ago I got to see a performance of his music, performed entirely on his own instruments, and it was a life changer for me.

Born in 1901, he spent 73 years doing the thing his own way, with not a trace of compromise in evidence.

Perhaps the most iconoclastic musical personality of the 20th Century, he abandoned traditional Western tunings and instruments and opted to create a vast, vibrant universe of his own without those millstones around his proverbial neck.

Maybe it was that he was out and gay in the 1920s. Maybe he was a Gamelan Master reincarnated. Maybe he was just a mad visionary. Maybe it was all three, and/or more.

His instruments get played all over the world -- I bet he'd love that -- what with this PARTCH Ensemble group keeping his spirit alive like they do.

To describe the music of Harry Partch in words is nearly impossible, so I won't try. OK, maybe I'll try just a little.

To say that he created his own palette and his own canvas is a wretched understatement, something I'm not known for I know.

If I had to say what it was, I'd say it was Just Intonated Hobo Pastiche... almost like miniature operas narrated by the itinerant and populated with the totally individuated timbres of Cloud Chamber Bowls, the Kithara and all his other, otherworldly gear.

When I was his age in that picture, I got free tickets to see a performance of the Harry Partch instrument set -- this was back in the 1980s, before there was a dedicated group taking Partch music all over the world -- in downtown NYC, and I did not hesitate.

I don't think I ever thought about music the same way after that evening.

Speaking of evenings, here's that very same PARTCH Ensemble storming Los Angeles' tremendous REDCAT theater space a little while back, armed to the teeth with Chromelodeons galore, and those Spoils Of War.

PARTCH Ensemble
REDCAT 2023
Roy and Edna Disney CalArts Theatre
Los Angeles, California USA
6.16+17.2023

01 Cloud Chamber Music (1950)
John Schneider - Adapted Guitar III & voice
Derek Stein - Adapted Viola & voice
Nick Terry - Bass Marimba
Tim Feeney - Cloud Chamber Bowls
Alison Bjorkedal - Kithara I, Deer Hooves Rattle & voice
Erin Barnes - Diamond Marimba

02 Amateur California Prune Picker (Kyle Gann, 2022)
Erin Barnes - Diamond Marimba
Daniel Corral - Spoils of War
Dustin Donahue - Bass Marimba
Tim Feeney - Cloud Chamber Bowls
Aron Kallay - Chromelodeon
Derek Stein - Adapted Viola
Nick Terry - Gourd Tree

03 The Wayward, Part One: Barstow - 8 Hitchhiker Inscriptions from a Highway Railing Near Barstow, California (1941/68)
1. Today I Am a Man   
2. Gentlemen   
3. Considered Pretty
4. A Very Good Idea 
5. Possible Rides
6. Jesus Was God In the Flesh
7. You Lucky Women
8. Why In Hell Did You Come?
Erin Barnes - Diamond Marimba
Alison Bjorkedal - Kithara I, Deer Hooves Rattle & voice
Daniel Corral - voice
Aron Kallay - Chromelodeon
John Schneider - voice
Derek Stein - voice
Nick Terry - Boo
Alex Wand - Surrogate Kithara & voice

04 The Wayward, Part Two: San Francisco - A Setting of the Cries of Two Newsboys On a Foggy Night In the Twenties (1943/55)
Alison Bjorkedal - Kithara I
Aron Kallay - Chromelodeon
John Schneider - voice
Derek Stein - cello
Nick Terry - voice

05 The Wayward, Part Three: The Letter (1943/55)
Alison Bjorkedal - Kithara I
Dustin Donahue - Bass Marimba
Tim Feeney - Canon & voice
John Schneider - voice
Derek Stein - cello
Alex Wand - Surrogate Kithara & voice

06 The Wayward, Part Four: U.S. Highball (1943/55)
Erin Barnes - Diamond Marimba, Spoils of War & voice
Paul Berkolds - voice
Alison Bjorkedal - Kithara I & voice
Dustin Donahue - Bass Marimba & voice
Tim Feeney - Cloud Chamber Bowls, Canon & voice
Aron Kallay - Chromelodeon
John Schneider - Cloud Chamber Bowls, Canon, BloBoy & voice
Nick Terry - Boo & voice
Alex Wand - Surrogate Kithara & voice

07 The Wayward, Part Five: Ulysses At the Edge of the World (1955/62)
Erin Barnes - Diamond Marimba & voice
Dustin Donahue - Bass Marimba & voice
Tim Feeney - Cloud Chamber Bowls
Dan Rosenboom - trumpet
John Schneider - voice
Nick Terry - Boo & voice
Brian Walsh - baritone saxophone

08 Three Dances (1952)
1. Samba: A Decent and Honorable Mistake
2. Heartbeat Rhythm: Rhythm of the Womb/Melody of the Grave
3. Afro-Chinese Minuet: Happy Birthday to You!
Erin Barnes - Diamond Marimba
Alison Bjorkedal - Kithara I
Tim Feeney - Bass Marimba & Canons
Dustin Donahue - Bass Marimba
Vicki Ray - Chromelodeon
John Schneider - guitars & Canons
Derek Stein - Adapted Viola
Nick Terry - Cloud Chamber Bowls & Bass Marimba
Alex Wand - Canons

Total time: 1:16:14
Track 08 is a bonus track from REDCAT, Los Angeles CA 6.14.2024
all compositions by Harry Partch unless otherwise noted

audio extracted from a series of 4K, Super HD YouTube videos @ The PARTCH Ensemble YT channel 
spectral analysis is lossless past 20k, making this equivalent to a preFM source
converted to 16/44 CD Audio, edited, tracked & remastered by EN, June 2025
375 MB FLAC/direct link

That will do it for me for June. I'll return July 4th to drop the heaviest Stone ever, right on your heads.

Don't miss out on Harry Partch -- born this day back in 1901 in where else but Oakland, California, and 124 today -- though. He will put you in touch with your inner Dreamer That Remains.--J.

6.24.1901 - 9.3.1974

To Surf with Love

The Mermen - Pull of the Moon

We'll tuck this in at the end of International Surf Day, which is the first full day of summer this year.

These guys were one of my favorite bands immediately after moving to The Bay Area in 1993.

I can't pinpoint exactly where or when I was introduced to their stuff, but I know it was sometime right after I got to SF, from whence they hail.

Did I see them live somewhere, The Haight Street Fair maybe? I know a very close friend of then was way into them, but I am not totally sure it was he who hipped me to The Mermen.

It doesn't really matter, because one way or another I have loved them for over 30 years.

I have a special soft spot for the original trio, the one that made those initial records like Krill Slippin' and Only You.

Way back when, before any of these things were quite so easy to acquire, I had a whole folder of shows, that someone had given me somewhere. I remember them being in the WAV format; this was before bit torrents and so forth made weird music easier to get than herpes in a whorehouse.

I long ago lost that folder, but fortunately these things are, crass metaphors aside, easy to get now. There are dozens of Mermen shows all over the Internet Archive, from all points in their (still active, mostly under another name "The Shi-Tones" lol) career, and all the ones I remember having before such things as an Internet Archive existed seem to be among them.

What do The Mermen do? Well, play the sample song up top, it's super indicative. But if I had to verbalize it, I'd say they play a kind of Spaghetti Westernized, instrumental Surf Rock, but with an accent on the atmospheric and not the jangly, sunny Jan & Dean mode that can get so irritating so fast.

So more the Mystery of the Sea... the melancholic menace rather than the infinite idyllic is emphasized. All filtered through a melodic sensibility halfway between Morricone and Hank Marvin on the Rickenbacker Scale. Does that make sense? It better, because surf is once again up.

The Mermen

To Surf with Love

Live In the SF Bay Area

1997+98

01 Foghorns/guitar intro

02 Ocean Beach 

03 To Be Naked and French Is Always Hard 

04 The Silly Elephant Who Stomped to Tea

05 Sponge Cookie

06 Joni Mitchell's House 

07 Peach Walk 

08 Drivin' the Cow 

09 Sway

10 introduction

11 Quiet Surf

12 Varykino Snow

13 Emmylou Rides Clarence West Then South

14 100-Foot Lemon

15 With No Definite Future and No Purpose Other Than to Prevail Somehow

16 Dragonfly 

17 intro/Curve

18 Pull of the Moon

19 Miki's Lush Beehive

20 Abalone Daze

21 Honeybomb/Jack the Ripper

22 Splashin' with the Mermaid

23 Slipping the Glimpse

24 Raglan

25 Adventures In Paradise

26 Slo Mo HVO

27 Casbah/Latina

28 The Whales Are Coming & Boy Are They Pissed

29 untitled new song

30 The Goodbye

Total time: 3:03:37

disc breaks go after Tracks 09 & 19

Tracks 01-09: Beach Party @ The Presidio, San Francisco CA 10.10.1997 onstage mics

Tracks 10-22: Todos Santos Plaza, Concord CA 6.10.1998 soundboard + onstage mics

Tracks 23-30: The Edge, Palo Alto CA 6.25.1998 soundboard + onstage mics

Jim Thomas - guitar

Allen Whitman - bass & guitar

Martyn Jones - drums

segments of three of the last concerts of the original lineup of the SF Bay Area institution, The Mermen

assembled, retracked, edited for dead air & song repetition, in some instances remuxed/rebalanced, and all remastered by EN, May & June 2025
1.1 GB FLAC/direct link

As we can see, I sort of composited three sets of the original Mermen at their Poseidon peak in the '90s, so I could cram all my favorite sardines of the original band into the same tin. I'll be back on Tuesday with yet more less-than-fresh catch, for it's those well-worn, antiquated obscurities from the recessed reefs of the forgotten century that can often provide the deepest flavor. All this, provided total, Idiocracy-induced thermonuclear war has not wiped out any vestiges of civilization by then. Until that time, get Into the West, catch a wave and start your summer with The Mermen!--J.

Endless Summer Solstice

Brian Wilson - Surf's Up

The changing of the seasons brings us the end of a life extraordinary.

It makes perfect sense that his 83rd birthday -- which he missed by just a few days -- falls this year upon the summer solstice, as there will never be another musical figure, even if Delius himself were to resurrect from the tomb and sing his rendition of Good Vibrations, more associated with summertime than the unquantifiably visionary Brian Wilson.

There have been a zillion tributes, as there should be when a person of this magnitude departs the plane, so here goes one more.

Few people can lay claim to having such a multidimensional impact upon their chosen field that when the histories are written, it becomes undeniably obvious that there's their craft before them and their craft after them. The latter makes everyone ask what the heck they all thought was so great about the former, usually.

The initial, genre-defining Surfin'-era hits aside, his reputation rests primarily on two albums... one of which, technically, doesn't exist, but is considered by many to be what the YouTube documentary I just watched about it was titled: The Greatest Record Of All Time.

That's not even wrong or inaccurate to say that. It's even plausible to say that had it been issued when it was made and not abandoned in its assembly stages, it'd have fucked up the music industry so badly, all of subsequent cultural history would have been different.

It's said that when Paul McCartney received an acetate of the preceding LP, his consciousness was so altered he started to wonder what the heck he and his Moptop mates were up to... and whether or not they were any good at it. All of England agreed that it was the most revolutionary album to come from Pop music up to then, and Pet Sounds -- which was initially a commercial failure in the US -- is still one of the most beloved albums ever in Britain.

That said, Sir Paul's lucky the next one got shelved. Had he got an early pressing of SMiLE, The Beatles might have quit music altogether and gone into the actual submarine business, just to submerge and escape being outclassed by today's late, great birthday boy.

It's really one of the first and best concept albums, if you dig into it. I'm imagining it was the first one in the Pop realm to attempt the Classical pretense of different, distinct and defined movements, justifying its subtitle, A Teenage Symphony to God.

By using a journey across the USA's physical landscape to fashion a sort of Americana homage to the land, and unifying the song arc accordingly, he was able to completely recalibrate what was then considered possible not just in Pop music, but across all musics... and the thing existed only as a fleeting, shadily-bootlegged myth for a substantial period.

The thing I just watched postulated that Pet Sounds and SMiLE represent the beginnings of what would become Progressive Rock, and it wasn't lying. The daring orchestrations, the ridiculous harmonies, the zigzag chord progressions, the repeating of motifs through multiple tracks, and especially the mind-frying editing techniques on display ushered in the modern era of now as much as anything ever waxed, and nobody even heard SMiLE as it was truly intended for decades after it was made.

Mythologized forever, it was egged along by an appearance in a huge TV special of the time -- hosted by Leonard Bernstein and detailing the progression of Pop into more "serious" terrain -- of our hero playing the album's central song at the piano. This whetted the Pet Sounds-piqued public's appetite for what wouldn't fully surface until the next century, well after the dissolution of his masterwork led our hero to spiral on a well-documented, near-total psychic collapse into borderline catatonia.

Of course, pieces of it surfaced on subsequent Beach Boys albums, and the mythological proportions of SMiLE exponentially expanded. And beginning 50 years ago, bootlegs of the aborted sessions began to make the rounds, and over time fans began to construct their own versions of the unsurfaced masterpiece, exacerbating its rep as the single greatest lost album ever recorded.

It wasn't until the early 2000s that Brian Wilson -- born this day in 1942 -- finally got convinced to take a stab at completing it, on the heels of him resurrecting Pet Sounds and touring, for the first time in a long while, to near-universal adulation from audiences and critics alike.

The result was even greater and more positive than those reviews, and the tour that followed -- with a huge band capable of presenting music of such complexity in a live setting -- set the world on fire as the finished thing was brought out... and turned out to be even better than the intervening four decades of anticipatory hype might have suggested.

Here it is from that tour -- performed at Carnegie Hall and broadcast by NPR -- performed to perfection to close the show after a set of equally as historic hits he had with the Beach Boys and on his own.

 Brian Wilson

Carnegie Hall

New York City, New York USA

10.12+13.2004

01 And Your Dream Comes True

02 Surfer Girl

03 Row, Row, Row Your Boat

04 Hawaii

05 Add Some Music to Your Day

06 Good to My Baby

07 Please Let Me Wonder

08 Drive-In

09 You’re Welcome

10 Sloop John B

11 God Only Knows

12 Soul Searchin’ (incl. NPR voice-over intro)

13 California Girls

14 Our Prayer/Gee

15 Heroes and Villains

16 Do You Like Worms? (Roll Plymouth Rock)

17 Barnyard

18 Old Master Painter/You Are My Sunshine

19 Cabinessence

20 Wonderful

21 Look (Song for Children)

22 Child Is Father of the Man

23 Surf’s Up

24 I’m In Great Shape/Workshop

25 Vega-tables

26 On a Holiday

27 Wind Chimes

28 Mrs. O’Leary’s Cow

29 In Blue Hawaii

30 Good Vibrations

31 introduction of Van Dyke Parks & Brian Wilson/Do It Again

32 Fun, Fun, Fun

33 Love and Mercy/NPR outro

34 NPR "SMiLE" feature by Bob Boilen

Total time: 1:41:01

disc break goes after Track 19

Brian Wilson – vocals & keyboards

Scott Bennett – vocals, keyboards, mallets & guitar

Nelson Bragg – vocals, percussion, whistles & celery

Jeffrey Foskett – vocals, guitar & hammer

Probyn Gregory – vocals, guitar, brass, Tannerin & whistles

Jim Hines – drums, mallets, saw & sound effects

Bob Lizik – bass guitar, guitar & beret

Paul Mertens – woodwinds, saxophones, harmonica & semi-conductor

Taylor Mills – vocals, power drill & leg-slap

Darian Sahanaja – vocals, keyboards, mallets & drill

Nick Walusko – vocals & guitar

with

Stockholm Strings 'n' Horns:

Staffan Findin – bass trombone

Andreas Forsman – violin

Erik Holm – viola

Anna Landberg – cello

Malin-My Nilsson – violin

Björn Samuelsson – trombone

Victor Sand – saxophone, flute & clarinet

Markus Sandlund – cello

224/48k audio streamed from the NPR website @ npr.org

converted to 16/44 CD Audio, edited, tracked -- with NPR announcer mostly removed/occasionally attenuated -- and remastered by EN, June 2025
578 MB FLAC/direct link

This show circulates in ROIOland and on YouTube from a vastly inferior, off-air FM tape -- one iteration is on a boot CD that eliminates two songs! heresy! -- that only went to a paltry 9 kHz in the spectral analysis. Fortunately, NPR hoisted a whole bunch of Brian Wilson- and Beach Boys-related stuff onto the web when dude passed away 9 days ago, and this complete performance -- maxing at about 16 kHz like an FM broadcast should -- was among them.

I took the liberty of placing the NPR feature included in the broadcast, all about the story of SMiLE, at the end, in case anyone wants to give it a spin.

So one of our ultimate Maestros -- and it's well-documented how hard a time he had, battling mental illness and the music business that guarantees it, for over 60 years -- is no more.

There's no reason to be sad, though. A long life, with all the peaks and valleys longevity ensures, that made a global impact that will resonate as long as people have ears to hear. The lifetime of Brian Wilson can never, ever die, and the melodic material he masterfully metastasized into some of the most mesmeric and lasting beauty that shall ever be will still be here, ages after all of us are long and forever gone.

And God Only Knows, in times such as these, that's enough of a reason to SMiLE.
--J.

6.20.1942 - 6.11.2025
I heard the word
wonderful thing
a children's song