I Said, B*tch You Ain't Gonna P*ss In The Car!

Believe me, it's tough to pick out the "best" Richard Pryor tracks to upload, as many of the stuff I have is so good it's rough having to decide which ones would be the most apposite for uploadage.

Today I decided to go with a trio of tracks from the "Wanted: Live In Concert" album, which was an album of material that was based off of stuff said in the Live in Concert movie, but the movie and album were recorded in different places on different nights. I know this as I have recently seen the movie. Admittedly, it wasn't bought but instead downloaded, but… The three tracks are all related to each other and it's a topic that may sound surprising, but it deals with nature and the woods. Richard ends up talking about going into the woods with his pops as a kid and it led to him going off on several different tangents; from an unlikely source of humor, Pryor, as typical, gave a raucous performance. Enjoy all the three tracks (presented in proper order).

Richard Pryor-Nature (3.22 MB, 128Kbits/second)

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=D2HYKM11

Richard Pryor-Things In The Woods (2.95 MB, 128Kbits/second)

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=6NCVHGQC

Richard Pryor-Deer Hunter (2.78 MB, 128Kbits/second)

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=U8OT75WQ

Tuesday I'll be back, but this time I will upload a hard to find Richard Pryor album, along with some streaming video links.

...And It's Deep, Too!

I decided to do something a little different for the next week or two; instead of uploading songs, I will instead put up either albums or sketches from albums from some comedy legends. I know, it's not exactly music, even though at places like Amazon.com, spoken word albums are grouped in with music and more importantly, in the past you used to have musical artists perform either before or after a comedy routine. For example, in the movie "Richard Pryor: Live In Concert," Patti LaBele performed before Richard's set. You don't see her in the movie but the producers acknowledged her in the beginning of the film.

Ever since Richard Pryor passed away in late 2005, I have been looking for albums of his to buy, but except for "… Is It Something I Said?", the only ones you can find are compilation albums, which is great and all and they are rather comprehensive, but if you don't want to buy a 9 CD box set, then the best bet for you who want to start off with much of his best material right away is "The Anthology (1968-1992)", a 2 CD set of 26 tracks. It's what I bought; it's a great deal. There are also live concert movies out there to get. Awhile back I got a 2 DVD set of his concert movies "Richard Pryor: Live on the Sunset Strip" and "Richard Pryor: Here And Now". The former was marred by obvious editing throughout where you see people laugh but it's obvious that they aren't laughing at the joke or comment that you just saw seconds earlier; it's so jarring and unneeded that it's distracting, although the material was still great; the latter was marred by asshole hecklers, but there was still some classic material.

But, there is a whole world of material out there that you can get via P2P services like Kazaa or MP3 Rocket, which is what I used to find a lot of tracks.

I'll start off, though, by posting a track from the aforementioned Anthology set, as an enticement for you to purchase it, as it's a must-have; Pryor just may be the funniest comedian of all time. He certainly wipes the floor with many of the current "popular" comedians out there, such as Dane Cook, Jim Norton, or David Cross.

Picking just one track is difficult but I decided to go with one where you can easily see his genius, so I went with a track from the record album version of "Richard Pryor: Live on the Sunset Strip." This is "Hospital," where he talks about the infamous incident where he burned himself after a night of freebasing. He doesn't say it in the track, but later it was made clear that the incident was a failed suicide attempt. Obviously, it's a sad and tragic moment, and yet he made it hilarious in a 10 minute dialogue where he talked humorously of the incident and his long recovery process.

Richard Pryor-Hospital (9.38 MB, 128Kbits/second)

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=VY5NRTYW

On Sunday I'll upload some harder to find tracks for y'all.

Since You Been Gone

No, I'm not talking about the Kelly Clarkson song, although both that and the song I'll be uploading today are catchy pop-rock tunes. The song I'm talking about here is Since You Been Gone, a tune written by British musician Russ Ballard, who has written several songs that you'd know but would be shocked to know were written by the same man, including the Frida song "I Know There's Something Going On," the song "New York Groove," a song covered by KISS's Ace Frehley, and "Liar," covered by Three Dog Night; that's a good collection of tunes, even though almost no one knows who wrote the tunes.

The band Rainbow, which literally changed their lineup before they released each album, was around in the 70's and 80's and their cover of this song was one of their biggest chart hits. It was from their 1979 album "Down To Earth" and this was during their pop-rock phase. Throughout their history they had several different sounds, due to their ever fluctuating lineup. They at first sounded like early Deep Purple (understandable, as DP guitarist Richie Blackmore founded the group) then they changed to pop-rock then ended in the 80's with a heavy metal sound. I've heard this song on the radio before, but it's on rare occasions, especially down here in Florida. Thus, you may not have heard this catchy nugget before, making it a great pick for this blog.

Rainbow-Since You Been Gone (4.58 MB, 192Kbits/second)

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=21O6CTP9

I'll be back on Friday with a different type of upload.

Happy Memorial Day, Everyone

Since the latest post on the blog, I had been wondering about which song I should put up for Memorial Day today (and I hope everyone has had and will have a nice Memorial Day weekend). I was stumped, but then I browsed through the surplus of songs I have on my computer and noticed that there was a song I have called "Ice Cream", by the British band New Young Pony Club. I only heard the song once, on the Orlando hipster station Real Rock 104.1, and I thought it was catchy enough to download, so that's what I did. Now, many think that Memorial Day unofficially signals the start of the summer, and what else is better for the summer than a cone or dish of ice cream? Hey, I sort of made the song fit today! I didn't think I could even do it… anyway, you may find this rock-electronic song to be catchy also.

New Young Pony Club-Ice Cream (4.65 MB, 192Kbits/second)

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=J37N9SZ0

I'll be back Wednesday night with my next upload.

Lit Up Like A F****** Lightbulb

I was thinking of which songs I wanted to upload for this long Memorial Day weekend. Sorry to say, but none of them are patriotic in nature or have anything to do with the military. Hey, I can't think of any good ones at the moment. I'd like to, though, as I'd love to make even more fun out of someone I used to associate with, a fellow wrestling fan (well, he isn't really a wrestling fan anymore) named David Tuthill, who had these disgusting comments to say about the military about a month ago (he's "rfudor", in case you couldn't tell). Here's his MySpace page (he's the one on the right) in case you wish to tell him personally what you think of him being such a cumstain.

Anyway… I'm not sure how I recalled the song, but amongst the vast collection of tunes I have on a plethora of burned CD's, one happens to be a live version of the Buckcherry song "Lit Up." Now this is what I like, not that bold-faced AC/DC ripoff known as "Crazy Bitch." I liked "Lit Up" as soon as I heard it, but the live version is even better. But, before I get to that, I have to mention my memory of my disbelief of the one time I saw the video for the song on MTV (remember, I rarely watch that network) and even though by that time I was already a hater of the network, even I was stunned at how they *edited out all references to cocaine.* Yes, you read that right. Let me change topics before I begin typing in a red-faced rage over what I would like to do to many of the people that work for the channel.

Oh yes, the live version and where it's from. It's actually from Woodstock '99, and the album from that weekend. It's a shame that the event was filled with much rage and hatred and thus became the antithesis of what the original festival was all about (not to mention how corporate it turned out being). I have some ideas of why it happened, but again, it's something that would turn some people off, so instead I'll mention that in this live version, they are able to swear and cuss, and it's something they do all throughout the song and also in the intro to the song, where they talk about doing an 8-ball. I think that this version has more energy and more of a kick to it, so that's why I prefer listening to this rather than the original.

Buckcherry-Lit Up (Live at Woodstock '99) (5.36 MB, 160Kbits/second)

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=PPTCB1UI

I'll be back on Monday with a new upload.

I'm Digging A Chinese Ditch

This particular blog will be an example of comparing two takes on the same song and my opinion on which one is better. The song I'm talking about today is the song "Chinese Rocks." Who exactly wrote the tune is still a matter of controversy, but what is known is that it was first recorded and released by The Heartbreakers, not to be confused with Tom Petty's backing band. Just by seeing the video to the song, everyone that appears in it, especially the blonde girl in the beginning, looks to be strung out to hell, which is perfect, as "Chinese rocks" is another term for heroin.

It was remade by the Ramones for their "End of the Century" album, most notable for the fact that it was produced, in a bizarre choice by the band, by Phil Spector. Yep, the blonde haired afro'ed (yet stylishly dressed) legendary musical producer who will forever be known for his gun-wielding ways.

I first heard the Ramones take on the song, which is technically known on their album as "Chinese Rock", on a best-of Ramones album. I liked the song, but after I heard the original Heartbreakers version via MP3 download, I suddenly liked the original quite a bit better. As other people have said, the original just sounds sleazier and dirtier-a perfect sound for a song about smack. But, you can judge for yourself which one is better.

Johnny Thunders & The Heartbreakers-Chinese Rocks (2.91 MB, 138Kbits/second)

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=P19DHBKA

Ramones-Chinese Rock (2.26 MB, 128Kbits/second)

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=7RBNBRTR

I'll upload a new song on Friday afternoon.

Honda Odyssey's Are Groovy?

I was thinking of a song to upload when I was watching TV, and a commercial for the Honda Odyssey came on; no, it wasn't the ad where they showed the interiors of a bunch of 70's shag vans and they had it set to the Foghat classic "Slow Ride." I never understood how the 70's vans were connected to the Odyssey, which is as far from being a hippie-mo-bile as you can get, but alas… anyhow, I'm not talking about that ad. Rather, it's a commercial with a bunch of trippy 70's animation and it's set to a funky song.

Well, if you don't know what the song is, it's "Give Up The Funk (Tear The Roof Off The Sucker)" by the infamous Parliament, of George Clinton and Parliament/Funkadelic fame. They are amongst the greatest funk bands of all time and even though the original Parliament slash Funkadelic (basically, Parliament was the R&B band and Funkadelic was the rock band, but that changed in the late 70's; their history is vast and complex so I won't get into it) broke apart part due to record company asses and more so due to drugs (just look at pictures of the band in the 70's, especially Clinton; you don't need a piss test to see that they vacuumed up all the drugs they could handle!), they still produced classic albums of amazing songs (such as Mothership Connection, which is where this song came from), this being their highest charting single. In the future I'm sure I'll put up more songs from George Clinton, but for now here's one tune, courtesy of it being on a national TV commercial.

Parliament-Give Up The Funk (Tear The Roof Off The Sucker) (7.95 MB, 192Kbits/second)

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=EH9U3IK5

I'll be back Wednesday afternoon with my next song.