Category: Music
The Replacements – Go
Mad Season – I Don’t Wanna Be a Soldier
Peter Thomas Sound Orchestra – The Big Boss Intro
From Screenrant.com…
The Big Boss was Bruce Lee’s breakout role and the movie that started him down the road to becoming a martial arts superstar. Directed by Lo Wei, it was the first of five kung fu movies that Lee made between 1971 to 1973. Lee starred in The Big Boss a few years after his show, The Green Hornet, ended.
In the 1971 Hong Kong film, Lee plays a young martial artist who goes to work at an ice factory with his cousins and becomes embroiled in a conflict with a local gang. For a while, Lee’s character tries to avoid fighting due to a vow that he made to his mother before her death. However, the events of the movie test his devotion to his pacifist lifestyle. Finally, he makes the hard decision to go against his beliefs and help his family fight off the villains. The movie culminates in an exciting showdown between the hero and his nemesis, portrayed by Han Ying-chieh.
The Big Boss marked a huge turning point in Lee’s career. While Lee was living in Los Angeles, his goal was to become a Hollywood star, but he was unable to find a studio willing to take a chance and cast him as a lead in one of their movies. During a trip to Hong Kong, Lee discovered that he had become famous there thanks in large part to reruns of The Green Hornet. It only aired for one season on ABC, but it was received rather well in Hong Kong because of Lee’s performance as Kato. Many in Hong Kong referred to it as “The Kato Show.”
The extra attention Lee received helped him enter into a negotiation with Shaw Brothers, the biggest studio in the kung fu movie industry. Feeling that the amount that they had offered him wasn’t enough, Lee turned down an opportunity to make movies with Shaw Brothers. Afterward, an appearance on a Hong Kong variety show caught the attention of Raymond Chow, a former Shaw Brothers producer who had left the company to form his own studio, Golden Harvest. Chow, having been impressed by Lee’s talents, convinced him to sign a three-movie deal.
After signing a contract with Golden Harvest, Lee was cast in The Big Boss, but not as the main character. Originally, it was James Tien who to have top billing. That changed though, when The Big Boss dropped Ng Kar-seung as its director and replaced him with Lo Wei. The director change led to Tien being relegated to a supporting role, and Lee becoming the star. The decision ended up being a winner for both Bruce Lee and Golden Harvest, as the movie proved to be a major success at the Hong Kong box office. It was followed up by more hits like Fist of Fury, Way of the Dragon, and Enter the Dragon. The Big Boss of course is far from Bruce Lee’s most famous film, but it’s a solid martial arts story and an important part of his legacy.
Hodges, James, Smith & Crawford – Nobody
Hodges, James, Smith (& Crawford) are one of the last great 70s girl groups to be compiled. The reason for the strange billing is that they were formed in 1970, had a release as Hodges, James & Smith, then as Love ‘N’ Stuff. Ex-Motown starlet Carolyn Crawford joined in late 1971 for two singles before departing amicably in late 1972, leaving Pat Hodges, Denita James and Jessica Smith to continue as a trio.
The early 45s are excellent and have long been admired, but the tracks found in the vault are superb and make this a must-buy for lovers of the girl soul group sound. Highlights include the two M’Pingo 45s when they were a quartet and the unissued dancers ‘Wishful Thinking’, ‘What Made You Think’, ‘Nothing Special In You’ and the sexy ‘In My Fantasy’. Pre-release plays of these at the 100 Club and on On-liners have been very well received indeed.
The girls were also great purveyors of powerful ballads such as in ‘Baby My Love Is Showing’, ‘I’m A Woman’ and ‘Never Meant To Be’. The songs and production are from Mickey Stevenson, Clarence Paul, Ronnie McNeir, Leon Ware, Ernie Shelby and other talented musicians from the Detroit and Los Angeles scenes of the early 70s.
Writers Rudy Calvo and A. Scott Galloway have conducted new interviews with Mickey Stevenson, Pat Hodges, Carolyn Crawford and Ronnie McNeir to tell the full story in the CD package. Carolyn Crawford has also supplied the only known photos of the group as a foursome.
Ady Croasdell – Ace Records Site
Other great stuff – Check out ACE RECORDS.
Mark Lanegan & Duke Garwood – Mescalito
Kevin Morby – Harlem River
Mikis Theodorakis – Main Title “Z”
Ray Charles – Ring of Fire
Link Wray – Rumble
“Spot” Lockett Dies at 72
Glen Lockett, the in-house producer and engineer for legendary punk label SST Records who was better known as Spot, has died, former SST co-owner Joe Carducci announced. Spot had been on oxygen after his fibrosis impaired his lung function in late 2021, and, three months ago, he was placed in a hospital following a stroke, Carducci revealed in a Facebook post. Lockett died earlier today (March 4) at a healthcare facility in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. He was 72.
As the longtime in-house producer for SST Records, Spot helmed the boards for essentially the crux of ’80s American punk rock. He produced more than 100 records, many of which are bonafide classics in the punk and hardcore world and have gone on to influence artists outside of the genre. Highlights from his body of work range from numerous Black Flag staples like Damaged, My War, and Jealous Again to Minutemen’s The Punch Line, What Makes a Man Start Fires?, and Buzz or Howl Under the Influence of Heat. Spot also produced Descendents’ Milo Goes to College, Hüsker Dü’s Zen Arcade, Misfits’ Earth A.D. / Wolfs Blood, and Saint Vitus’ self-titled debut, along with additional records for those bands and others.
Born Glen Lockett in Los Angeles in 1951, Spot was raised by his Native American mother and African American father, the latter of whom was a Tuskegee Airman who flew British Spitfires. He grew up listening to post-bebop jazz, surf rock, Motown, and whatever music he could find on the AM radio. After learning to play guitar at age 12, Spot tried his hand at clarinet and even auditioned for Captain Beefheart. It wasn’t until years later, when he offered to help with a recording studio build, that he learned about the ins and outs of studio recording.
Before he became an integral part of the SST sound, Spot was a musician, not a producer. While waiting tables at a vegan restaurant, he met Greg Ginn, the future co-founder of Black Flag and SST Records, and the two started jamming together in his band. After witnessing a Black Flag show gone awry, Spot decided he wanted to work the board on their next record, a decision that would result in a lot of “head butting” and, eventually, 1980’s Jealous Again. The rest was history.
“[SPOT] spelled his name in all caps with a dot in the middle of the O,” Carducci wrote on Facebook. “He started in Hermosa Beach playing and recording jazz and he took the primacy of live jazz playing into recording bands against prevailing attempts to soften or industrialize a back-to-basics arts movement in sound. When approaching the mixing board SPOT would assume an Elvis-like stance and then gesturing toward all the knobs he would say in a Louis Armstrong-like voice, ‘This is going to be gelatinous!’”
In addition to his work as a producer and engineer, Spot was also a published photographer and freelance writer. He wrote record reviews for the Los Angeles weekly newspaper Easy Reader. During shows, Spot would carry his camera around to document punk bands, fans, and the burgeoning counterculture scene, and he began photographing Los Angeles skateboarding circles as well. In 2014, he released Sounds of Two Eyes Opening, a collection of his photography work from that era.
“First and foremost, I’m a musician and everything else I’ve ever done has been based on that,” Spot told Vice in 2014. “It’s really the basis of all language and if you’re serious about the experience of music, you learn to keep both sides of your brain open and rely upon instinct rather than premeditation. Y’know, using improvisation and gut feelings as frameworks for rhythm and composition. In photography, the viewfinder should not be a limitation—it’s merely one part of a larger vision.”
Several artists have shared tributes in Spot’s honor after learning of his death. “good people, we just lost my old buddy spotski, a terrible blow,” tweeted Mike Watt. “he recorded the minutemen’s first stuff, I go way back w/this man. brother matt took this shot six years ago when spotski came to visit our pedro town… man, this is a terrible blow. I love you spotski forever.”
“SPOT always encouraged free expression and experimentation, even as those recordings were made as expeditiously as possible,” Hüsker Dü’s Bob Mould wrote on Twitter. Mould added that the producer “was a wonderful soul who loved making music, documenting the scene, and unconditionally supporting all the projects that bear his name.”