Whistle While You Work - Music With A Lilt To Lighten Crime Fighting

In the comments of the previous Whistling selection, SSteve asked "What makes a man whistle?"  I put it in my own words here. It is a question that is short and the answer is wide. 

Unless you accept the obvious answer: Various Reasons. That is, that there are lots of ways to which an artist gets to include whistling in a song.  The ‘kunstfluiter’, an artist whose signature modus is whistling, shows his art.  Often we hear whistling in movie/tv themes where my guess would be: drawing attention. 

Also in movies there is great variety. The G B & U is for me a proud whistle. ‘Turks Fruit’ by Toots is a carefree live, being young, being in love, riding a bike and blissfully unaware.  Fritz Lang, in his 1931 movie M, uses the whistle as a wolf in sheep's clothing. The child does not know what horror awaits, but we, the viewers, recognize the whistle.

In lots of blues/folk music one would be happy to have strings to the guitar, and whistling adds something where the harmonica, cheap as it is, is unavailable or unpractical.  Often whistling lifts the mood, makes it feel that life is easy. 

There is a Dutch song in which the singer is annoyed by "that stupid song", that will not leave his head. And he sings: You whistle, hum or sing along willingly or not, you'll get mesjogge by that stupid song.

Everyone picks their own reason to whistle as part of a song. You can also ask, why not more often?  We have seen here the la-la-la, and sha-la-la.  We can ask why the word-less sounds like Great Gig In The Sky and The War Song (same singer Clare Torry) and seek more examples.  Sex sounds like Chakachas and Man.  The wordless vocal part in A Day In A Life, humming in Wand'rin Star.

Trying to stand out, or as I call it, re-inventing a wheel. Like "Hey, I know something original, add a whistle."  There are also ways of destroying a song. Introducing a band during a song, or public participation (Hey-ey  Hey-ey, Ho-oh, Ho-oh, Hey Hey Ho Ho aaaaaaaaaaah).

This selection now. It starts with one of my favorites Triggerfinger, a heavy duty band who made an unexpected cover with a lovely whistle. When you love power rock trios, listen to this band's other work.

The unification of this diverse selection through whistling works a treat here.  Recent recordings of oldies such as Georgie Fame together with the Einstürzende Neubauten and The Ex. The Humor of Frank Pahl with the serious Elvis Costello.  Björk and The Pixies or the joyous rendition of Peggy Sue.

There are Vic Chesnutt, Billy Bragg, Edwyn Collins, and (for me till now unknown) Steven Page, who namechecks Linda Ronstadt.  Another great song is The Heads with Andy Partidge, I don't know how I got to get it, I'm glad I did.  And the set is finished by the French Zaz and I like to hear more French whistling.  Enjoy this set of 90s/00s and some 10s. 

Syncopated Musings From The Nineties

Our regular visitors might have noticed my interest in instrumentals, as I posted about it 3 times (& Jonder once!) in the past. 

However, the focus of these collections was mostly on tracks from the seventies and eighties...

What triggered this post was me looking for any kind of artwork I could (ab)use for my ongoing Art For Art's Sake cartoon series. 

I noticed Chris Ware's artwork and liked it a lot. 

To my surprise, he had done a 1995 cover for a band's vinyl 45 I had never heard of before: 5style or Five Style. 

A quick check via YouTube revealed it was a quirky rocking instrumental that made me sit up...

This in turn, made me think of other rock bands from the nineties which primarily focused on instrumentals: Pell Mell, Friends of Dean Martinez, and Tortoise. 

A band I'd never heard of before, but working along similar lines, was Cul de Sac. 

Another band whose output is mainly vocal, Calexico, occasionally released some cool instrumentals as well...

This shouldn't be a surprise; band members Burns and Convertino used to be in Friends of Dean Martinez!

They eventually released a full instrumental album, "Toolbox", in 2007!

Just to be sure, I looked around the web to see if there was anything similar released, either officially or on any blog, but I found zilch.

Therefore, I'm happy to present you with this 'syncopated' collection from the nineties for your listening pleasure!

With 3 instrumentals each by these 6 American bands, you might develop a taste for more.

Whistle While You Work

Our newly appointed, official fourth Beatle, the one and only Richard, came up with another intriguing collection of tunes and wrote the following:

When I worked on Grandpa's Whistling compilations I remembered that a journalist from my hometown already had a thing with whistling in songs.

He had made a list of about 300 songs in the late nineties.

In hindsight that is remarkable when you know there was hardly a decent way to search the internet for it, and compared to now, the internet was pretty empty. 

His name is Johan Peels and he has worked with the Dutch Platenblad, amongst others. 

In that magazine he had a regular item about people's collections: De Omgevallen Platenkast (The Overturned Record Cabinet).

For that he interviewed hundreds of record collectors in The Netherlands and neighbouring countries. Two hundred of those are collected in his book Meer! Meer! Meer! (More More More).

I for one, am in it, and so is Marty from the Four One & Onlies and 'Cil from Buy Off The Bar.

 

I recently went through his list, updating and correcting and adding at will, and I have now hundreds of artists whistling in songs. 

There are full song whistlers. 

Artists like Toots Thielemans, Roger Whittaker, Jan Tromp, Bob MacGimsey, Jack Smith, Ilse Werner, etc., etc.

Here is Geert Chatrou, Wereldkampioen Kunstfluiten - Verrassend Klassiek Amersfoort

In this selection you will find a lot of the great and good. Some of the great artists are Vic Godard, Palais Schaumburg, Serge Gainsbourg, Nick Cave, Garland Jeffreys, Shocking Blue Elvis and The Beatles.

The best songs on this selection are XTC, Roger Miller (no family?) The Fugs, Q65, Non Plus Ultra and one of the ultimate whistlers Monty Python.

An outstanding performance is given by Yasuaki Shimizu. And that song alone is worth the download

Whistling that is plain sampling or signal whistling like wolf and dog whistles, or builders whistles are disqualified.
I also would like to exclude movie and tv themes as much as possible, No Good, Bad, nor Ugly!

You will not find Jealous Guy or Dock of the Bay in this selection.

When your response is of a quantity I can make some more whistling compilations.

I have enough to make a few themed ones.

And I haven't even included Jerry Lee Lewis or Sonny Burgess yet!

The Future's So Bright, We Should Be Wearing Shades

Last Sunday my old company had organized a walkathon for charity, on the island of Koh Kret.
The day before I’d assisted with setting out the routing, similar to the previous year.
It was a fun event with a 100+ people attending, finished around 11 am, and we were thinking about having a sort of celebratory drink at one of the islands’ restaurants/bars.
This time however the sale of alcoholic beverages were prohibited due to the upcoming elections.
As long term expats we’re kind of used to this but unnecessarily to say we didn’t particularly approve of it either since foreigners aren’t allow to vote anyway!
Surprisingly enough though we managed to find a restaurant that was happy to serve us beer, great!
Soon afterwards we were happily chatting, nibbling away some snacks, and enjoying our drinks, but still, something wasn’t quite right…

Problem was the background music, not too loud but still very present, old English hits, but the more ‘poppy’ ones, very popular songs here, which all of us probably had heard at least a million times before. Beloved karaoke classics like “Have You Ever Seen The Rain”, “Sutter’s Mill”, “Yellow River”, “Love You More Than I Can Say”, “Beautiful Sunday”, “Cottonfields”, etc.
By the time “Mississippi” from Dutch band Pussycat began, I couldn’t handle it any longer and politely asked if we could change the music.
‘Sure, go ahead.’ More than that wasn’t needed and a quick search through YouTube turned up ZZ Top’s “Cheap Sunglasses”, a whole different kind of music, powerful and with plenty of guts, let’s rock!
Suddenly our party became a lot more fun (& noisy I guess) and we ran through a lot of rock classics.
As our beer consumption increased dramatically the restaurant’s owner didn’t mind our group's erratic behavior…
About 2 hours later we decided to call it quits, paid the bill, and (a bit wobbly) left the restaurant.
The next few days that ZZ Top song was stuck in my head and I began to wonder what other glasses (with or without sun) songs I remembered.

Some were obvious, like Dwight Pullen’s rockabilly classic “Sunglasses After Dark”, Corey Hart’s “Sunglasses At Night”, but others less so; Miranda Lambert’s “Pink Sunglasses”, Inner Circle’s “Sunglasses At Nite”, etc.

Some digital digging turned up more glasses and shades related songs, including 3 unusual Japanese ones.

And before I knew I had a new collection ready for JOKONKY… 

Musically it goes all over the place, but on the whole it’s good fun, judge for yourself.

However, be sure to put on some shades while listening to this collection!

Buy Off The Bar

Here comes another Richard Dutch musical-soccer/football special!
Buy Off The Bar consisted of Michel, Marcel, Paul, and Loetje. 
The band emerged from the squatter's world of Amsterdam, but contrary to some, they did not have a militant musical punk style. 
Neither did they conform to the leather-heavy guitar rockers of those days. Their main inspiration was John Peel. 
So when they thought they were good enough, they made John Peel an offer he could not refuse. 
At this point, I might say that they put a dead animal's head in his bed, but they are such nice people that the offer was one John Peel simply could not refuse.
They offered to paint his house for free. So they did, and the first of the four Peel Sessions was a fact.

Their first release was a tape "Billy At The Bar", and a split 7” with Golden Strings. 
On their first album "It’s Up To Billy" there is a song Guitar Maffia and I’ll quote a few lines: 
Guitar Maffia of Amsterdamn, they feel important ‘cause they play in a band 
Imitating poses of Hendrix, Flower Power in 1986 
Oh what a mess we can do it better 
oh oh what a mess we don’t need any leather…… 
And that’s the true spirit “we have the fun, they have the fame” 
During their career they toured the UK a lot. It resulted in them obtaining a demo from The Buzzcocks of their unfinished song In The Back, which was promptly done by Buy Off The Bar for their 2nd Peel Session. This being the first and only Peel Session they officially released. And The Buzzcocks released their version of In The Back much later, in the 2000s.
Thus, which is the cover? 
Anyway this is a brilliant version.
Buy Off The Bar did a few other covers. The best thing they did was keeping them On Stage and Off The Records. 
From various live performances I have selected The Fall- That Man, TV Personalities – Part Time Punks, The Tights – Cracked. The latter being included on a compilation album "Pluralism D". 
Evolving in the next years, their second and last album bears influences of Bog Shed, and other great UK indie bands. 
Early 90s they quit. 
Paul, Michel and Loetje, I have no real idea how life went for them. As for 'Cil: there grew a career in DJing and writing, mostly about Ajax, the legendary footballclub from the Dutch Capital. A club where the great Johan Cruyff, Marco van Basten, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Luis Suarez, Swart, Seedorf, Bergkamp, van der Sar, Vertongen, etc., etc., had a career. 

We ('Cil and I) joked about football. Then Ajax and (my team) PSV were at the same height. 'Cil said that PSV had all the money, to which I replied:

'Ajax can buy players but it takes PSV to make a team.' Or something like that, it was over 30 years ago.

Anyway, at time of writing Ajax keeps losing to PSV.

Cheers 'Cil.

Bernard Fowler - In Good Company

It’s funny how sometimes you think you ‘found’ a new artist, only to discover afterwards that you’ve ‘known’ him for quite a few years, but somehow his name never registered…
In this case I got intrigued in Bernard Fowler after reading reviews of his 2019 solo album ‘Inside Out’, a fascinating spoken-word album featuring only Stones covers, which gave familiar songs quite a different twist.
I listened to the whole album and was very impressed, this guy knew what he was doing!

Since then I have been paying more attention to Mr. Fowler and although he released only 3 solo albums, he has been appearing as a guest vocalist on loads of albums, including several in my own collection; Sly & Robbie’s 'Language Barrier', Material’s 'One Down', Jazz Passengers' 'In Love', James Blood Ulmer’s 'America - Do You Remember The Love?', and many more…
Plus he has been working as a backup vocalist with the Rolling Stones for a very long time, both in the studio and on stage!
Here’s a brief overview of his career so far.
He started singing in 1975 with the group The Total Eclipse for the album 'A Great Combination'.
In the early 1980s he provided vocals for several Celluloid Records and Bill Laswell projects, incl. Herbie Hancock’s 'Future Shock' hit album. During the later 80s and 90s he was a popular vocal gun for hire, besides the earlier mentioned albums and bands he also worked with Tackhead, Little Axe, Yoko Ono, Bootsy Collins, Philip Glass, etc.
The Stones connection started in 1985 where he contributed vocals to Mick Jagger’s solo ’She’s The Boss’ and 4 years later for the band’s ’Steel Wheels’. Besides those he also appeared on albums by Keith Richards, Ronnie Wood, and Charlie Watts…
In 2006 Fowler finally released a solo funk/rock/pop/soul album ‘Friends With Privileges’, which was followed by ‘The Bura’ in 2015, featuring a mix of reggae, blues, rock and more…
Despite such an impressive resume no compilation has ever been released, consequently this seemed like an excellent opportunity for Jokonky to correct this lack and hopefully introduce his work to our regular visitors and beyond.
Considering the huge number of artists/groups he has worked with, the most appropriate name for this (double disc!) compilation seemed ‘In Good Company’.

 

Disc 1 includes Fowler with:

Material / Beside / B-Side / Taxi Gang / Sly & Robbie Band / Jonas Hellborg / Philip Glass / Ryuichi Sakamoto / The Strange Parcels / Ronnie Wood / Stevie Salas / Jazz Passengers 

 

Disc 2 features him with:

Tack>Head / The Uptown Horns / Bomb The Bass / Herb Alpert / Doug Wimbish / Paul Rose / The Boneshakers / The Chess Project / George Lynch & Jeff Pilson + a few tracks from his solo albums

Grandpa & Grandma

Our faithful contributer Richard says:

GRANDPA

Here is the fourth and last of my series from ‘Cil’s tapes. These are mostly well known bands in their own, right now, but back in the 80s they were hard to find.

I have brought them here coupled with a selection of tunes that weren’t on these tapes. Songs from women I love. A full section on female pleasure and punk.

I will take you rapidly through it.

Big In Japan started the career of some great ones. 

The Now, The Wasps, Magic Michael, Eater, the Partisans, Patrik Fitzgerald, The Flys and The Boys might not be huge names but over the years they proved unmissable pillars on punk compilations as rare gems. (how can they be rare when so often featured)

X-Ray Spex, John Cooper Clarke, Chelsea, The Models, 999, Sham 69 and The Outcasts are also often seen on the various retrospectives.

These songs are all late 70s and form a good view of the d.i.y. attitude.

GRANDMA

Even though there are quite a few women featured on this and the previous GWT’s I also want to present an all female volume of (post)punk from the early years. With the exception of Shop Assistants.

The Sailors (Die Matrosen) by Liliput is one of my favorite whistling tunes and was the starting point for this selection, Icy Wind (Eisiger Wind) is one of my most beloved la-la-la songs.

Essential Logic were formed after Lora Logic left/force to leave X-Ray Spex and after a hiatus made Land of Kali in 2022 here punk goes instrumental

Fatal Microbes only released one single. Within their ranks was Honey Bane who made quite a few solo projects and seems to be working on a new album. She has made a Punk Goes Soul gem, presented here.

Mania D and Malaria are German and best known for the included hit Kaltes Klares Wasser

You cannot get around Siouxsie when presenting Pure punk women.

Shop Assistants were big in 1986 having John Peel Sessions, an album and a few singles and should have been big.

The Slits are among the originators of Punk AND white reggae. 

From The Slits a lot of bands emerged The Raincoats and Dee Sign being only two. Dee Sign (mostly Danish) brings you a French treat.

Another classic band was Penetration with Pauline Murray. Her version of Nostalgia (Pete Shelley) and Holocaust (Alex Chilton) I love very much.

Finally there are 7 (seven) songs by Girls At Our Best. Simply because for me they are the songs that matter. Judy Evans came from The Butterflys and after GaoB made an appearance with Thomas Dolby and disappeared. There is something about these. It’s not easy to define but every time I hear them they lift me. And I guess that is what music can do. After 40 odd years still install joy in me.

The first track by Girls at our Best – Warm Girls has them shouting "Girls At Our Best" and they seemed it fit to use as the band name.

NU-DISK Colony Deluxe Edition

Vinyl records, love them or hate them, but I still have a soft spot for those black ‘groovy’ discs: the singles, extended plays, and long players… But there’s one odd format which for no particular reason I like perhaps most and that’s the 10 inch, a sort of ‘inbetweenie’!

Which brings us to record labels’ gimmicks, such us EPIC with their 1980 NU-DISK series. In their own words: WHAT A CHEAP WAY TO GET YOUR ATTENTION!

Well, at least they were honest about it…

Those NU-DISK platters were 10 inches with (at first) 4 songs each, which to be honest isn’t that much, but then again, the keyword was CHEAP, right?!

The first four were by Cheap Trick, New Musik, Propaganda, and The Continentals of which only the first one is still around (perhaps due to their CHEAP name?!)

The other three UK bands threw in the towel many years ago, but actually their music included some really neat New Wave/Powerpop tunes and therefore deserve to be heard again.

No need to say much about Cheap Trick I guess as they’re pretty well known, except for the info regarding their four tracks is misleading!

On the A side “Day Tripper” isn’t live, but was actually recorded in the studio, the crowd noise is apparently from their 1978 US Tour and “Can’t Hold On” is from the 1978 Budokan shows.

“Such a Good Girl” was recorded in 1979 and “Take Me I’m Yours” from 1980.

Another gimmick, this 10 inch was released in two versions, with different pictures of the band members on the Sides…

New Musik (Tony Mansfield, Clive Gates, Tony Hibbert, Phil Towner, & Cliff Venner) was an English new wave pop band from South London, active from 1977 to 1982. They started out as End Of The World and became New Musik in 1977, originally with musicians who also played in the Nick Straker Band. They released three albums between 1980 - 1982.

Propaganda (Gary Finch, Graham Seviro, Julian Macqueen, & Milo Lewis), UK band formed in ca. 1980. Some members were previously in The Passengers together. They released only one album…

The Continentals (Bill Holliday, Tom Doherty, & Alan Harris) came from London and were managed by Doug Smith, then manager of Motorhead. They released only 2 singles and this 10 inch… Bill Holliday and Tom Doherty also co-produced and wrote tracks for the well known UK Rockabilly group Whirlwind.

In 1980 EPIC even released a NU-DISK Colony sampler with one track each of the above bands.

Later artists that got the NU-DISK treatment were Gary Glitter (Glitter And Gold, 6 tracks), Rick Nelson (Four You, 4 tracks), Shakin’ Stevens (Shakin’ Stevens, 4 tracks), and The Clash (Black Market Clash, 9 tracks).

It was all in vain, sales were disappointing & NU-DISK ended up on the scrapheap…

Anyway, I put this Deluxe 16 track NU-DISK Colony version together for JOKONKY, so do give it a spin!

Reggae Paradise

As I still have a huge liking for roots style reggae I was wondering what happened last year and decided to take a digital deep dive.
To my pleasant surprise I found quite a few way above average tracks by familiar names such as Adrian Sherwood, Dub Syndicate, Fishbone, Manu Chao, Hollie Cook, Roots Radics, & Mark Stewart and a bunch by unknown artists: Chalart58 & Matah, Chancha Via Circuito ft. Leon Demaria, El Búho & Alex Serra, Iseo & Dodosound, Joe Yorke & Big Chip, Santa Fe Klan, Gambeat, Pachyman, Skaracha, Stick Figure, & Sumac Dub & Jardin Secret.

This 18 track compilation goes all across the globe and ranges from ambient dub to ska to electro borderline rhythms and everything in between, but don't worry, good vibes rule!

About the artists:

Chalart58 - Spanish DJ and musician from Barcelona, sound engineer at La Panchita Studios.
Matah - Spanish-based dub and reggae musician known for energetic, "rub-a-dub" style vocals, releasing music via La Panchita Records.

Chancha Vía Circuito - Producer, DJ/remixer and composer, from Greater Buenos Aires, Argentina, fusion of electronic music and cumbia is key factor of his music.

Leon Demaria - Reggae, Dub and Raggamuffin singer/musician of Argentinean origin based in Spain for almost two decades.
El Búho - British-born DJ and music producer, his music mixes Latin American folk rhythms with organic sounds, birdsong and downtempo electronica.

Alex Serra - Spanish musician and explorer from Barcelona, his music ranges from downtempo, soul, reggae, dub & more.

Gambeat - legendary French bassist of Radio Bemba Sound System and La Ventura, who has played with Manu Chao since 1994. He is a multifaceted artist: producer, artistic director, coach, musician, DJ, designer, and creator of his own clothing line.

Iseo & Dodosound - Spanish duo from Navarre , formed in 2014, composed of Dodosound (Alberto García Iriarte) and Iseo (Leire Villanueva López). Their style blends reggae and dub , and they have strong trip-hop influences.

Joe Yorke & Big Chip - UK reggae/rocksteady artists, Joe Yorke is a vocal talent, while Big Chip (Chip Huelin) is a producer/musician, with their work rooted in Jamaican sounds, featuring strong rhythms and dub elements.

Santa Fe Klan - Mexican singer-songwriter and rapper who featured on several songs which were highly certified by AMPROFON in Mexico.

Pachyman - Puerto Rican dedicated craftsman working in the lineage of dub reggae using vintage gear, constructing glorious walls of sound, and developing an intuitive understanding of the power of repetition. 

SKARACHA - Jamaican ska band, hailing from Kingston, this crack nine- piece unit of young bloods and seasoned professionals steps forward to revive the grand tradition of Jamaica’s ska originators, blending brand- new compositions with choice classics.

Stick Figure - American reggae and dub band founded in 2005. The group has released eight full-length albums and one instrumental album, all of which were written and produced by Scott Woodruff, the frontman and a self-taught multi-instrumentalist.

Sumac Dub - French trained violin player and compulsive traveler, enriched by multiple musical influences and largely influenced by the current electro dub scene.

Adrian Sherwood - Legendary English record producer & musician, best known for his On-U Sound label and his dub music, as well as for remixing a number of popular acts such as Coldcut, Depeche Mode, Sinéad O'Connor, Primal Scream or Skinny Puppy.

Dub Syndicate - On-U Sound's premier dub outfit and a name synonymous with the label from its inception. Emerging from the early Creation Rebel and centered around drummer Style Scott. Scott was also the rhythm force of The Roots Radics, the number one Jamaican session & live band for deep roots music.

Fishbone - California based band formed in 1979 in Los Angeles, who play a fusion of funk, metal, rock, reggae, ska, punk and soul.

Manu Chao - French-Spanish musician, songwriter, record producer and guitarist, founded the band Mano Negra in 1987, achieving considerable success, particularly in Europe. He became a solo artist after its breakup in 1995 and since then has toured regularly with his live band, Radio Bemba Sound System.

Mark Stewart - English singer, songwriter, artist and producer from Bristol, founding member of The Pop Group, and went on to front many different projects for On-U Sound and Mute Records.

The Roots Radics - Legendary Jamaican band, whose genesis traces back to Morris "Blacker" Wellington's band, the Morwells, a group that featured future Roots Radics members Errol 'Flabba Holt' Carter on bass and Eric 'Bingi Bunny' Lamont on guitar. Named the Roots Rock Band (mostly on Sky High related productions), and Lawes Rockers, before, in late 1979, the band became the Roots Radics.