You Got to Go Through It to Get to It

from the LP Release Yourself, Warner Bros. Records, 1974



Back in the mountains after a week by the beach, and as luck would have it, while I was in Florida I ran into an acquaintance from my wild youth who was full of updates on people I haven’t seen in over 15 years: people with kids, people who are dead, people who haven’t changed an inch, and people who have transformed beyond all sense of recognition. This particular girl, I’ll call her D, was tending bar at a great seafood joint that we happened to hit up one last time on the day we were leaving, and for the zillionth time in my life I was duly rewarded for my nosiness, “…so, did you grow up here?” After leaving, there was a very sudden and unyielding torrent of emotion that burst forth briefly, the sharp pangs of a life cut short so many years ago, locked away in the prime of my youth; there is just no getting over some situations I suppose. That being said, the title of this burner by Family Stone bassist alum Larry Graham (seen levitating on the LP cover) & his troupe of funkateers pretty much sums it up, “…you got to go through to get to it, you can’t stop at what you got…” Sly Stone used to quote this line long before this album was released, but I’m not entirely sure he coined the phrase; whatever the etiology, it works for me as an appropriate mantra for the new year ahead, which is sure to be an interesting one. Be safe out there my brothers & sisters, party responsibly, but don’t forget to have a good time!

Pega a Voga Cabeludo

from the LP Os Brazões, RGE Records, 1969



Although I tend to be highly critical of most American “music” publications these days, Wax Poetics is one very extraordinary exception to that ire, a magazine so thoughtfully put together that I would probably spend twice what they charge for copies of it---yes, it’s that good. A couple of months ago they produced an entire issue dedicated to Brazilian music, specifically from the ‘60s & ‘70s. Of all the albums I wound up purchasing in its wake (for real, if you are a lover of music, don’t ever open the first page unless you are ready to be buying some music that same night), this long player by Os Brazões drifts hazily to the top of the pile, in my humble opinion anyways. They backed Gal Costa on her psychedelic freakout of a self-titled album (sometimes known as Cinema Olympia), and if you thought it couldn’t get any better than that, it DOES!!! Anyone who smokes marijuana must own this album, go buy the CD reissue right now, I’m serious. Their mix of Brazilian undertones and rhythms, acid skronk fuzz guitars, trippy Sgt. Pepper-esque effects, and 4 part melodies has kept me floating above the ozone for weeks now. Seriously people, BRAZIL

Acid Raindrops

from the LP Or Stay Tuned, OM Records, 2002



“When the stress burns my brain just like acid raindrops, maryjane is the only thing that makes the pain stop; just let the music take over your soul body & mind, kick back, relax, one time and you will find…” The People’s are composed of MC’s Double K and Thes One, both hailing from Los Angeles; their brand of sample-laced, laid back beats matched with chill and heartening lyrics run against the grain of what one might expect coming out of L.A. Both of these guys have impeccable rhyming abilities, creative vocabularies without sounding nerdy, and the chorus above is still one of the catchiest flows I’ve ever heard; the only reason I wound up getting turned onto these guys was because of the record label they were on: OM records typically deals in house music, but is a trustworthy label for any lover of beats.

Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue

from the LP Ramones, Sire Records, 1976



So I’m down here visiting my folks for the holidaze, and I gotta admit, sneaking around and getting high inside your parent’s house is every bit as fun & exhilarating now as it was when we actually lived with them as kids; granted, dad knows I’m a confirmed head now, and the threat of getting locked up in rehab doesn’t loom over my dazed head the way it used to (thankfully...), but there is just something about the whole process: stuffing a bunch of fabric softener sheets into an empty toilet paper tube and putting a single sheet over one end, standing atop the toilet lid in an effort to be as close to that little vent thingie as possible, holding your hits in extra long so there is less smoke to exhale. Frankly, one doesn’t have the time to get high as much as usual when your playin cards and shootin the shit with your folks all day, so my tolerance drops, which always makes for a giddy and all-around stronger stoning; something about being baked in this house also leaves me more prone to getting an enjoyable case of the giggles, a stoner luxury mostly reserved for novices. The last time I lived with my parents was over 15 years ago now, but a part of me still feels like I never left (once I am down here visiting anyways), and I suppose the fact that I was a snotty, sneering teenager when I was living with my folks last, it’s probably that adolescent spirit which imbues the tone of the stone. I hope everyone is enjoying a good holiday season, be that Xmas, Chanukah, Ramadan, Tet, Kwanzaa, or for you atheists out there, celebrating the birth of baby Santa. Peace ya’ll!

Crosseyed & Painless

from the LP Remain In Light, Sire Records, 1980



Synergy is a very real thing, not just in the ramblings of psychedelic casualties or the adventures of Jem & the Holograms (they’re truly outrageous… truly, truly, truly outrageous), it exists both around us and inside of us---yes, even when you’re not using drugs. Synergy basically mirrors the axiom about there being some things which, as a group, exist much more successfully or wholly than the separate parts do alone, that something happens when the right ingredients are mixed together which could not be achieved without that combining of variables; I would argue that synergy is very much at work across this seminal album by art rockers the Talking Heads. Sure, it would be easy to just go along with the mostly accurate consensus of this record ultimately being the result of the band’s then-new obsession with African music, specifically afrobeat and highlife from Nigeria; the problem with that is, had David Byrne, Tina Weymouth, Jerry Harrison & Chris Frantz merely locked themselves inside a studio somewhere in NYC listening to Fela records and recording an album, we most assuredly would not have wound up being blessed with the majesty which is Remain in Light--- quite frankly, Tina would have probably wound up smashing her bass over Byrne’s head and we might not have had an album at all! Instead, there were a lot of moving parts which congealed to deliver this LP, among them being: recording the music in the Bahamas after Tina & Chris had enjoyed a vacation away from everybody, using Brian Eno as a producer again, as well as leftover influences from the excellent My Life in the Bush of Ghosts which Eno & Byrne had recently completed together, and the genre-based influences were widespread beyond just afrobeat (although, admittedly, its influence is perhaps most apparent), including hip-hop, early Funkadelic, gospel music, & all sorts of Caribbean stuff like calypso, biguine & reggae. The band disclosed in an interview with Mother Jones magazine that, due to tensions previously getting so high, they had crafted this whole album as a musical jam session without any lyrics being written first as an attempt at, “…sacrificing our egos for mutual cooperation…” This fact really explains and underscores the clear division you can hear between the earthy, organic music and the heady lyrics; even though they roll out in a stream of consciousness, Byrne’s words seem to reflect upon the band’s evolution, “…lost my shape, tryin’ to act casual; can't stop, I might end up in the hospital… changin' my shape, I feel like an accident; they're back, to explain their experience… isn't it weird, looks too obscure to me; wasting away, that was their policy… there was a line, there was a formula; sharp as a knife, facts cut a hole in us…” Although they never were best pals again, or anything resembling that (probably not even to begin with anyways), this purposeful re-evaluation of the way they recorded music together bought us all a couple more great Talking Heads albums after this, things which might very likely have never materialized had they not burned down the house, as it were. For fans, you must check out the youtube clip of them playing this song live in Rome in 1980: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6g8lFmsCXhg&feature=related
Set your face to ‘OMFG’ and enjoy!

Stankydankytripaliscious

from the LP Aquemini, LaFace Records, 1998



If you’ve ever had the experience in which the time between Thursday & Saturday evening melts into one bleary-eyed whole, then you’re well aware of the importance of having some good, chill tunes handy on Sunday afternoon. I was heavily involved in the rave scene still when this album dropped, and this track was definitely one of everybody’s favorites for the afterglow; it can be tricky to find those tunes which tenderly bring one back to earth, yet still manage to stimulate the mind. Outkast handle the task without a glitch here, opening with a quick drumroll that bursts into the mighty hook which we ride along through the whole track; a chorus of “Damn’s” pretty much sum up the reaction of the listener properly, particularly if you are stoned when hearing this for the first time---that’s all you can say, “Damn!” Just as your ass settles a little deeper into the groove of whatever seat you are occupying, the horns blow, and blow the fuck on oh great and wonderful messengers of brass and wind. There is a brief intro, sung by a friend of theirs, before we get into some real glutinous, southern-fried spoken-word; I could listen to Andre and Big Boi roll on that twang all day long: Andre “…as the plot thickens, it gives me the dickens…I’ve never been there; well perhaps once, but, I was so engulfed in the ‘Old E’ I never made it to the door, you speak of hardcore…lulls lukewarm lullabies in your left ear, competing with ‘set it off’ in the right; but it all blends perfectly, let the liquor tell it…it’s just my interpretation, of the situation…” Big Boi “…the way she moved reminded me of a brown stallion horse with skates on, ya know, smooth like hot comb on nappy-ass hair…her neck was smellin’ sweeter than a plate of yams with extra syrup; eyes beaming like four karats a piece, just blindin’ a nigga, felt like I chiefed a whole ‘O’ of that presidential my heart was beatin’ so damn fast…can’t gamble feedin’ baby on that dope money, might not always be sufficient…go on and marinade on that for a minute…” The soggy, humid air of Atlanta, Georgia in the summer permeates every inch herein, and you almost get the feeling that this is actually the fastest the band can play; I mean, when it’s that hot and wet, and you’ve been smoking mad trees, it’s hard to even move! So, take a moment to thank god, allah, buddah, science, energy, whatever for the invention of central air, grab yourself something chilly to sip on, and let these cats lay it all down for you.

Robots

from the demo OK Calculator, self-released, 2002



This track is surefire proof that the Brooklyn crew of art freaks known as TV on the Radio are, indeed, not hipster trash with their heads stuck up their own asses (as some retarded critics have accused them of being); frankly, there are plenty of annoying little things about this group’s music, so if all you can come up with is the fact that their tunes are challenging and trendy people like them, and this becomes your rationale for declaring them (not just their fans) vacuous scenesters, you suck at your job as a music critic and are, most likely, a douchebag. That being said, these cats are also not defining a new zeitgeist or re-shaping modern rock music the way that some ass-kissers would like us all to believe. This demo is what got them signed, and as a whole it almost comes off like an ever-so slightly smarter & more electronic version of early Ween recordings, all over the map stylistically and sarcastic to a fault. The first time I heard this song I laughed so hard that I spit my drink out, “…I could not help but noticing, all these robots fucking in the middle of the mini-mall…robots fucking in the car wash…robots fucking in the middle of the Jay-Z video…pictures of Oprah Winfrey fucking robots for sale, on ebay...sold, to the highest quitter…” Just because an artist is intelligent doesn’t make them condescending, and TV on the Radio’s wry brand of postmodern deconstruction is just fine with me!

I Look Around

from the LP Emergency Third Rail Power Trip, Zippo Records, 1984



Making music that harkened backwards about fifteen years during a decade that worshipped all things new and futuristic was sure to keep a band from large scale success; now, having the luxury of 25 years worth of hindsight, it’s clear to me that had these guys released this LP a decade later, they probably would have been signed to Elephant 6 records and become celebrated indie darlings---as it was, however, they released this incredible album to little acclaim, lost their lead guitarist & songwriter David Roback (the same dude who went on to back & write for Mazzy Star in the ‘90s), and broke up after dropping just one more studio album. Everything about this song simply shimmers: the vocal harmonies, the dual guitars, taught bassline & crisp drumming, trusty tambourine. This track, and much of the album, easily stands alongside The Byrds’ more psychedelic stuff, yet found itself too late for the original party, and too soon for the full-fledged revival. Not too mention, one of the most hauntingly beautiful album covers of the whole decade!

King

from the LP Signing Off, Graduate Records, 1980



I know, I know, most of the pop-friendly tunes this band has pumped out over the years are the pure definition of selling-out, but you are just going to have to trust me on this one: if you are a lover of roots reggae music, this entire debut album by UB40 is essential listening, just know it! The band members, all born and raised in Birmingham, England, named themselves after the “dole” papers which some of the guys were busy filling out themselves at the time they came together: Unemployment Benefit, Form 40. Being that this is their first album, the level of musicianship and singing found on every single track here is simply mindblowing; this song was their first single, and what a dubwise masterpiece to lead with! Once you listen to this album in full, their sound’s undoubted influence on later-day superstars like Sublime becomes staggeringly clear.

The Traitor

from the LP Man-Child, Columbia Records, 1975



Well, just finished off the last of my grading for this semester, and although that is indisputably reason for celebration, something about the process of assigning people letters for achievement (or lack there of) always makes me feel like a sellout; I can so clearly recall my tumultuous years in high school, saying aloud more than once, “…if I was the teacher, I’d just give everyone A’s and let the kids get high in the classroom…” or some such infantile blabber, so passionate about the “us vs. them” distinction inherent to teachers and rebellious youths. For some reason though, rather than concentrating on all the palpable flaws that one can find with my juvenile proposition, as soon as I enter those final grades into the appropriate boxes all I can focus on is a mental apparition of me at 15, one eyebrow raised, eyelids heavy with disillusionment, shaking my head in disapproval. So who gives a fuck, right?! Why should anyone give two shits about what some naïve, idealistic, angsty younger version of themselves thinks about the way you conduct your life today? I mean, we’re bloody functional members of society now, we learned a lot of our lessons the hard way---and anyways, some puffed up teenager just couldn’t understand… okay, I just threw up a little bit in my mouth writing that last bit there, but I think that sums it up quite properly. In some quasi-Jungian way, when I send off my students’ grades at the end of every semester, I am, in that moment, everything I hated as a young boy: judge, authority, evil grader of lives; yet, even though we all know living well in the modern world requires a lot of philosophical compromise, in these moments that logical fact provides no solace. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining; I have never been more fulfilled with another job in my entire life, it’s true; however, I’d be a rotten liar if I didn’t admit that some small part of me still seeks to break the rules, dose the water supply, as it were. Herbie Hancock never stopped shaking things up, to the ire of lame jazz purists, but to the endless glee of heads the world over; Paul Jackson’s funky bass drives this number along, but it’s Herbie’s crazy synthesizers and keys that always elevate things into another dimension. So, am I a “traitor” for giving students the grades they earned instead of just passing everybody right on through? Of course not, but I doubt I’ll ever get fully used to it, just the same.

Obert a la Llum

from the LP Music Has the Right to Children, Warp Records, 1998



These guys are a very special group for me; they evoke sensations and trains of thought inside my mind that I rarely experience outside of ingesting psychedelic substances. Taking their name from the very nature films which inspired their musical direction (documentaries by The National Film Board of Canada), Michael Sandison and Marcus Eoin are actually from northern Scotland. They began self-producing cassettes as teenagerss in the mid ‘80s, but it would be another decade before most of the world was able to start getting their hands on this incredibly distinctive and awe-inspiring music. Due to their reclusive lifestyles and general unwillingness to give many interviews, they have risen to near-mythic status among many adoring fans; to be sure, if you do a google search for “Boards of Canada” and “hidden meanings”, you will find all sorts of whackjobs insisting that the duo are, in fact, a cult, or belong to one, or some such paranoid nonsense. Both of them have a good-natured attitude about such stuff when asked in the few interviews they’ve given, but insist that cults, and religion in general, are just some of their curiosities which inspire their music, but not actual endeavors. It’s a challenging thing to put into words, the way this song and much of their musical output makes me feel---it’s almost as if you are in an IMAX theater, or a hot air balloon, investigating glaciers out where people don’t live. The vintage analog synthesizers & equipment used is integral to the bucolic and pastoral affect they create, and those of us in a certain age group will instantly recall the sound effects from such TV shows as 3-2-1 Contact, the Electric Company, even the sounds which accompanied that glorious spiraling rainbow of lights that capped any cartoon by Hanna Barbara in the ‘80s. Maybe that is exactly what makes their music so pleasurable and trance-inducing for me: they invoke the unyielding curiously and wonderment of childhood so well that you almost drift backwards in time…like a spool of Super-8 film, at times playing in slow motion and other times flying through time lapse, your life drifts in front of your mind’s eye, in that place where memories and dreams intersect, twisting into a whirl of surreal yet organic familiarity and recall. Extra points for the tripped out cover photo.

Let Me Ride

from the LP The Chronic, Death Row Records, 1992



As the last member of N.W.A. to emerge with a solo joint, Dre had an awful lot riding on this release: money, pride, street cred, perhaps his career; however, Andre ‘Dr. Dre’ Young had most probably always felt an added need to prove himself, having grown up with his feet in both worlds, strikingly similar to the character of ‘Tre’ in John Singleton’s Boyz N the Hood in that his mother continuously moved Dre out of the ghetto for his middle and high school years. This stood in stark contrast to Eazy-E’s childhood, and the unrelenting dissing of Eazy on this LP, money issues aside, belies an insecurity common to those who never fully paid their dues in the world which they wound up making truckloads of money rapping about; Dre has since admitted in interviews that his entire “gangsta rap” image was not autobiographical at all, but based upon characters he’d known over the years--- shit, he doesn’t even write his own raps. That all being said, the motives behind Dre’s tactical perfectionism become crystalline, because with that many holes in your story, you had better fucking drop the bomb…well, the warhead did drop, and The Chronic was its name. Effectively a worshipful shine to both the sythntastic work of P-Funk alum Bernie Worrell & good weed (extra points for the Zig-Zag inspired album cover), this album turned the hip-hop world on its head, and in so doing convinced white teenagers the country over that they too could be gangsters (natch…). Seriously though, the precision with which he crafted these smoky beats is untouchable, surely the zenith of the gangsta rap genre, in my humble opinion anyways. Just as life began imitating art a little too close for comfort, with Snoop’s murder trial, increased threats from the Crips’ rival gangs, and Suge’s whole vibe, Dre dipped, which may have been the smartest move he ever made. The rest (see: Eminem) is history.

Le Fantôme

Dusted Fader Mixtape, Side B, 1997



Back in the day (how about that for a nice, overused aphorism), many a burgeoning raver’s first time wandering into a jungle room at a party proved to be exceptionally transformative; not only were the beats different from the standard 4/4 pulse of house and techno, the whole atmosphere was distinctive: murky, ghetto, tough…in general, a lot less hugging going on than in the main room---but not in a bad way. In fact, sometimes, that vibe gelled perfectly with the large clothes you were wearing and that large blunt you were sharing. The first time I consciously remember smelling Nag Champa incense (I’m sure I’d smelled it before, but it never stuck with me like it did this time) was at a rave in Atlanta, summer of 1994; I just remember rolling-strolling into the jungle area, then still in its nascent beginnings as a genre, smelling that incredible smell, hearing these hard beats…all I could do was smirk so hard my face hurt the next day and nod along. Phantom 45 hails from Chi-town and is part of the windy city’s second generation of DJ heroes; spinning records since the late ‘80s, things really started picking up for Phantom around 1991, getting in on the ground floor of a rave scene that would, later in the decade, blossom into a behemoth. Along with being a veteran, Phantom built up one of the bigger (and, in my opinion, better) collections of self-made mixtapes over the years, and his skills deafeningly graced the insides of many a car jam packed with ravers, driving ridiculous amounts of miles to get to that next party. Brian knew his audience well and walked something of a populist line, deftly straddling the jungle subgenres of darkstep and jump-up with seeming ease; he was one of the hardest working DJ’s out there, often spinning at 2 or 3 parties a week, so his popularity was earned with both skills and exertion. I fondly recall riding the bus to work in Cleveland, jamming this tape loud on my walkman, gazing at the approaching skyline with heavy eyelids, strangers bobbing to and fro as the bus did its shuck & jive, the city smells, the density, the concrete, the drunk at the back of the bus who just pissed himself… like a soundtrack to some lost epic about life in the post-apocalyptic metropolis.

Will 2 Love

from the LP Chrome Dreams, bootleg, 1976



Gathering around a fire always awakens those old memories--- you know, the ones we don’t really have but remain there all the same, shreds of specks of quarks of experience which linger inside our DNA, recalling the fathomless number of times that we hominids have congregated around the flames, encounters which have left us all permanently imprinted by both the boundless importance and startling destructive force that lies within that ginger & indigo glow. We’ve all had nights around a campfire, cans of PBR and loosely rolled nature joints, faces red with the warmth of 30,000 years; shit, sometimes a whole hour can pass without words, and yet you feel closer to those individuals at that moment than during any heated debate or lively dishing. Sometimes if I get too drunk & high (why is there no common slang term in our slacker wastoid culture for this synergistic buzz?) my mind wanders a bit, and I imagine that, at some point in the future, civilizations may very well be reduced to huddling around fires again, not as a pleasurable adult field trip but out of necessity... that’s just when I’m mad bent though, and anyway, I’ve been socialized with films like Terminator and Red Dawn, and, perhaps most of all, Logan’s Run, which has left me soft on post-apocalyptic themes, rendering my mind prone to such stoned dalliances (most recently it was Children of Men, which is fucking amazing by the way). In his standard dualistic way, Neil Young lays out a metaphorical tale of love and distance, using the mighty salmon as our animal allegory (real original Neil); however, rather than merely usurping the salmon’s lust-laden marathon upstream, he harkens back to our own distant past as fish, “…my fins were aching from the strain, I'm swimming in my sleep, I know I can't go back again…I remember the ocean, from where I came…” What makes this a truly astonishing song, lyrically speaking, is the lines he begins & ends with: “It has often been my dream, to live with one who wasn’t there.” FUCK man, how does he do that?! Musically speaking, it’s the standard Neil Young modus operandi, with some acoustic guitar gently strumming those dreamy melancholic minor chords; this version is, in my humble opinion, far superior to the one which got released on American Stars ‘N Bars, having a lot less overdubbing after the fact, and it might just be my imagination, but it seems like the you can hear the campfire crackling even clearer on this version, taken from Young’s most infamous and loved bootleg.

Speed Mixtape

Side B, 1998



When I arrived in Cleveland during the winter of ’97, this guys name was on everyone’s tongues, he (along with Thieveland vet, Sleepy C) was the pride of the local rave scene--- still is to a large degree, to those that know anyways; a true renaissance man, KC has been involved with DJing, laying beats, and throwing parties since the mid ‘90s, mainly around the metro Cleveland area but he’s spun all throughout the greater Midwest. Although I’ve seen him spin virtually every kind of beats under the sun, KC was mainly known for throwing down some of the hardest, bangin’ist, straight up menacing jungle sets you’ve ever heard, often on more than 2 turntables; up around that area, the party scene was really hitting its peak around this time, with even the most meager of flyers guaranteeing you a minimum crowd of 500 kids, and Kev was out all the time. This tape is highly representative of the prevailing sound back then: DARK AS FUCK! When it sounds like an alarm is sounding to notify human beings of impending doom, at around 6:12 into this mix, you must feel that when this stuff was being played inside crumbling warehouses on the East (see: not white) side of Cleveland, this vibration was no mere warning (see: crackhead in the alley with a baseball bat). That was what truly mirrored the ‘60s about the rave scene, apart from the rampant drug use: it was our naïve sense of abandon, playing with fire, and rather than recoiling like any rational human being, we reveled in its searing flames. Mind you, this was in sharp contrast to the Florida scene I came up in, with its cartoon characters and big smiles; no, Cleveland was more like: camo, hoods, and hat brims pulled real fuckin’ low (I’m not kidding, I actually knew some party kids by their hats alone, never having truly seen any amount of face above their tightly grinning mouths). It was a wild horse we rode, and though over a decade beyond my ass is still chapped in places, I’m eternally grateful to have been there.

Stoney Glory

from the 7” single, Dandelion Records, 1972



A long, long time ago in a land far away, I had never smoked pot before---I suppose it was around the 4^th grade that I started to get really curious; lord knows, I did my best to prepare and learn what I could about drugs in those formative years, being too young to buy it myself and too chickenshit to just steal some from my older sister. By the time middle school arrived and weed became an obtainable commodity, I had thoroughly immersed myself in all the appropriate music and literature, seeking to come off more seasoned than I actually was. I will never forget the first time I got well & truly stoned, the fucking Earth felt like it was moving under my feet, & I knew instantly that something had just entered my life which was to be synonymous with my image from there on out; so many other substances have come and gone, and though I have dried out for stretches in the past (albeit, only sometimes by choice), the bowl has never been far from my grasp. In all honesty, my relationship with cannabis is somewhat, “…instrumental to the way I look at life…”, and I’m not ashamed to admit that; I mean, there is no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, but weed comes goddamn close. It doesn’t make all your problems go away, nor your pains & ills, it just softens the edges enough to let your mind see things from other angles---well, it does for me anyway. Weed isn’t for everybody, and any doucebag pot activist that tells you otherwise is lying, as I’ve seen chicks flip their wigs on even low grade pot. For me however, and apparently for British band Tractor as well, it’s the bee’s knees!

Ain't Wasting Time No More

from the LP Eat A Peach, Capricorn Records, 1972



I love how certain songs always elicit the same physiological response from my body when I hear them: my stoned smile grows, the eyelids droop a little lower, and all my muscles relax; the Allman Brothers seem to have set about creating a discography that focused specifically on songs like that, working the groove until noodling hippies could barely shake anymore. Although they came together in Jacksonville, Florida, it’s a misnomer to consider the Allman’s merely a southern rock band, both because they incorporated many other styles of music into their prodigiously jamtastic songs, and also due to their decidedly un-redneck lyrics, “…well by and by way after many years have gone, and all the war freaks die off, leavin' us alone, we'll raise our children in the peaceful way we can; it's up to you and me brother, to try and try again…” Recorded mostly before his death, brother Duane’s inimitable slide guitar shines & along with Greg’s balmy drawl they carry much of the weight here, but I never cease to be amazed at how earthy & funky the rhythm section was, care of bassist Berry Oakley and drummers Butch Trucks and Jaimoe. “…You don't need no gypsy to tell you why, you can't let one precious day slip by; but look inside yourself, and if you don't see what you want, maybe sometimes then you don't, but leave your mind alone and just get high…” I couldn’t have put it better myself!