Small Music Bars in Tokyo

Here's my on-going list of small music bars in Tokyo. They all have amazing vinyl collections and are small enough that the bartender is also the DJ. If you only check out one of them, go to Little Soul Cafe. It's directly across the street from Jet Set Records.

 Little Soul Cafe in Shimokitazawa

JBS (Jazz, Blues, Soul) in Shibuya

Bar Soul Stream in Shinjuku Sanchome

ZAPP in Ikebukuro

BtoB in Golden Gai

Here's a list of jazz bars that someone else put together.

Bar Soul Stream in Shinjuku Sanchome

Favorite Live Recordings

In general, I despise live recordings. I just don't like how they sound. Here are some albums that I'll admit are exceptions:

Bill Evans, "Waltz for Debby"
Donny Hathaway, "Live"
Jimi Hendrix, "Band of Gypsies"
Curtis Mayfield, "Curtis/Live!"
Townes Van Zandt, "Live at the Old Quarter"

And a couple of runners-up (only because I've only listened to them a few times each):

Sam Cooke, "Live at the Harlem Square Club"
Bill Withers, "Live at Carnegie Hall"

Tiki Bars

Consider this a work in progress.

El Tiki (Buenos Aires)

Frankie's Tiki Room (Vegas)

Tiki Athens (Athens)

Tiki Ti (First Visit) (LA)

Tiki Ti (Second Visit) (LA)

Frankie's Tiki Room

Frankie's is one of the best nouveau tiki bars that I've heard of, along with Tiki Athens, which I just went to a month or so ago.

Tiki Ti

An earlier view.

Little Soul Cafe

15,000 soul records on the walls. Highly recommended. Perhaps my new favorite bar in the world.

LA Movie Night (Summer 2010)

Here are the movies we watched:

Beverly Hills Cop (6/29/10)
Detour (7/4/10)
Into the Night (7/13/04)
American Gigolo (7/20/10)
Point Blank (7/25/10)

My Christmas Presents to YOU!

OK, here are two criminally-out-of-print-in-the-states records that you would do well to seek out, because they are both classics.

First, Gwen Guthrie's Padlock EP. Guthrie was an R&B backup singer with a fairly undistinguished career when she somehow got a chance in the early 80's to record an EP at Chris Blackwell's famous Compass Point Studios. Reggae superstars Sly & Robbie, who were then at the top of their game, played on and produced the initial recording sessions. At the time, they were the darling of the rock world, producing records for everyone from Bob Dylan to Mick Jagger. (It doesn't get much better than their version of "Baltimore".) After Gurthrie recorded her vocals with Sly & Robbie in Jamaica, the resulting tracks were sent to NYC to be mixed by Larry Levan, who was then also at the top of his game. Levan was the most prominent DJ and producer in NYC's garage music scene, producing dance records for NYC labels West End and Prestige. (His classic songs include the dub version of NYC Peech Boys' "Don't Make Me Wait" (which, strangely, isn't on YouTube), Taana Gardner's "Heartbeat" (sampled by many, including De La Soul and Ini Kamoze), as well as his remix of Arthur Russell's "Is it all over my face".) Between Guthrie's vocals, Sly & Robbie's playing and production, and Levan's mixing, the Padlock EP is a fairly unique combination of 80's R&B, dub reggae, and proto-house.

Second, Lefty Frizzell's Songs of Jimmie Rodgers. After recording a series of hit singles, Frizzell was given the chance to record an album, which was a new idea at the time (the LP being a new technology). He chose to record a tribute to his childhood idol, the great Jimmie Rodgers. I vaguely remember reading somewhere that the record executives didn't like this idea, since they thought of Rodgers as passé. But the resulting record proved them wrong. Frizzell's versions channel the essence of Rodgers' style to an amazing degree. Some of them, in particular, Frizzell's version of "California Blues", seem to distill the essence of Rodgers' own songs, even moreso than Rodgers' own versions. And I think Frizzell's version of "Treasure Untold" is probably one of the most beautiful love songs of all time.

Documentaries About Los Angeles

Blue Neon Light: Michael Connelly's Los Angeles (2004)
Chicano Rock! The Sounds of East Los Angeles (2009)
East LA Interchange
Great Streets: Sunset Blvd (PBS) (2000)
Inventing LA: The Chandlers & Their Times (2009)
James Ellroy: American Dog (2006)
James Ellroy's Feast of Death (2001)
Laura McKenzie's Travel Tips: Los Angeles
Los Angeles Now (2004)
Los Angeles Plays Itself (2003)
Los Angeles Street Cars: The Final Years (1992)
Los Angeles: The Early Days
Los Angeles: Video Postcard (VPI) (1989)
Los Angeles: Video Visits (1989)
Modern Marvels: Los Angeles (2006)
The New Los Angeles (2005)
Pacific Electric Vol. 2: Remembering The Red Cars (1998)
Rescue Me: Los Angeles' Skid Row
Reyner Banham Loves Los Angeles (BBC) (1972)
Shotgun Freeway: Drives Through Lost L.A. (1995)
The Towers (1957)
Video Visits: Lights, Cameras, Los Angeles
Visual Acoustics: The Modernism of Julius Shulman (2009)
Wonderland (1977)

Marina Car Wash

I love this painting. It is hanging on the wall of the "viewing platform" of the Marina Car Wash, on Lincoln Blvd. in Venice.

Greenbrier Bunker

When trying to imagine what underground bunkers are like, these are the sorts of pictures that I like looking at the most.

"The Apartment" Postcard

Moses

It's been too long since I posted a picture of Moses. I took this photo last week, after Moses and I went on a walk around one of my favorite places in DC, the Franciscan Monastery and Gardens.

Ouch!

From a 1957 article summarizing a 1887 debate that was pivotal in establishing Franz Boas as a central figure in anthropology:

"The opinions [Boas] expresses may justifiably be characterized as anti-scientific ... We belabor this point for we have so often heard of the rigor Boas brought to ethnology from his sojourn in physics. We are unable to see wherein he exhibits this rigor."

Marginalia

In the margin of my 1957 printing of Peter Geach's Mental Acts someone has written "It has been suggested that 'rouge', 'rot, and 'red' are not co-extensive."

There was a time when you could say that kind of stuff and get away with it.

Classic Beats and Riddims

How awesome is it that the following songs have been so influential in hip hop and reggae?

In hip hop, The Shadow's 1960 recording of "Apache" (which was inspired by the 1954 Burt Lancaster movie of the same name), was covered by by a studio band put together in 1972 by Michael Viner (as the result of the unexpected success of his score for the B movie "The Thing with Two Heads"), which was then adopted as a semi-official B Boy anthem by hip hop DJs in the Bronx (such as Grandmaster Flash) in the late 1970's, before being sampled countless times since then, by everyone from Nas to The Roots.

In reggae, Bert Kaempfert & His Orchestra's equally mellow "An African Beat" has had a similarly wonderful influence on reggae, as more than one well-researched YouTube videos demonstrate.

Google Search

Here's what happens when you search for "Eskimos". I hope this means that people will get it if I make a joke about the number of Eskimo words for blue in the title of a talk I'm planning to give.

Michael Mann Mug

Last time I checked out Etsy, I came across some paintings based on Michael Mann's films. This time I came across this mug, based on Mann's "Thief".

Goodbye, Sweet Friend

I lost one of my favorite pens this week, on the subway. (I had taken this photo of it just last week.)