Episode # 11: The Wolf Mob

In this episode we play some haunting instrumentals and also some beautiful songs that have singing and words in them.

Episode 11:






Tracklist:

Revelation (Prologue) - The Jimmy Castor Bunch
For The Turnstyles - Neil Young
In My Black Lace - Jeri Simpson
Blue Flame - Gene Ludwig
Like This - J. Dilla
Pretty Ballerina - The Left Banke
Alright, OK, You Win - Mikki Wilcox
Harry Lime Theme (from the Soundtrack to the film "The Third Man") - Anton Karas
Navajo Joe - Ennio Morricone
-Some russian shit Mikey played that I can't write down the name of because it was in a totally different alphabet (they got a whole different alphabet over there)
Love is Blue (L'amour est bleu) - Jeff Beck
Lansana's Priestess - Donald Byrd
Joanna - Serge Gainsbourg
I'm Good, I'm Gone (Demo) - Lykke Li
Lights Brightly Shining - The Rightly Sew
Mean Jean - Andre Williams
Milton Henry - Gypsy Woman
I found a Love - The Falcons
Chicago - Graham Nash
Compared To What - Gow Dow Experience
I can go down - Jimmy Powell & The Five Dimensions
(intermission - talky talky talky))
Scratch My Back - Slim Harpo
The Boy Who Cried Wolf - KMD
I Have Been - There Are Some Who Call Us Tim
Over the Mountain, Across The Sea - Johnnie & Joe
Dark Side - Shadows of Knight
Promises - Eric Clapton
Poor Monn - Canned Heat
Kalimba Song - Duke Bootee
Sixteen Tons - Merle Travis
Dankeshoen - Wayne Newton
Sweet Lucy - Michael Hurley
Smokin Cigarettes - The Golden Earings
Your Ol Lady - The Isley Brothers
See If I Care - Ria Bartok
Cleopatra - The Precisions
Action Speaks Louder Than Words - Chocolate Milk
If I were President - The Pharcyde
Doo Rags - Nas
(Talky Talky Goodbye)
The Creator Has A Master Plan - Pharoah Sanders

Who Brings a Gun to a First Date?

Seriously.
I mean.
If you worked for UPS, you'd go home and change out of your uniform before dinner, right?

I took this picture mad surreptitiously.

And, yes I don't know for sure it was a first date.

But they had that first-date vibe going on. Look at her body language. Arms crossed. Not quite sure about this guy yet. He did all the talking. She waited at the table while he ordered from the counter.

I can't talk to a person with a gun strapped to their waist as if I don't know they have a gun strapped to their waist. It's just hard to get completely comfortable with the gun being there.


David Peel was this 60's Lower East Side Hippie-type who wrote songs about smoking pot and being from the Lower East Side. But Some of them are pretty cool and you can see a direct line through his sound to the New York punks of the late 70's/early 80's. He was down with John & Yoko who produced his third album and later he founded Orange Records which put out such acts as G.G. Allen & The Jabbers



or download the song here

Chances With Wolves: Episode #10

Some said it wouldn't last.
They tried to write it off as a fad, a passing mania.
But here we are.
Our Super Spectacular Tenth Anniversary Episode !

On this week's Episode we get a letter from a Sweedish Hemmendorf, Mikey Palms goes to Fantasy Baseball Camp and We play JOINTS. MAD JOINTS.

This might be my favorite show since the Pilot.
Take a chance:


Episode 10:






Tracklist:
( Into )
Here Comes The Sun - Nina Simone
Oh Great God Of Power - Ragni, Rado & McDermont
Celestial Blues - Gary Bartz
It - The Excelsior Spring
( A Letter From The Mailbag )
It's A Man's Man's World - The Voltage
Alcohol - The Kinks
The Bottle - Gil Scott Heron
Don't Drink That Wine - N.W.A
White Houses - Eric Burdon & The Animals
White Room - Joel Grey
I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts - X
The Heel - June Carter Cash
Two Time Slim - Snatch & The Poontangs
The Original Way - Boogie Down Productions
Life Is Too Short - Too $hort
Just A Little Bit Longer - Tyrone Ashley's Funky Music Machine
( Intermission )
Don't Think Twice - Frankie Vali
Streets of Baltimore - Gram Parsons
Summer Nights - Marianne Faithful
Summer Breeze - Main Ingredient
Summer Breeze - The Isley Brothers
Summer Breeze - Jackie Mittoo
Ain't Got The Love - The Ambassadors
Talkin' Hava Negeilah Blues - R. Zimmerman
Like A Rolling Stone - Phill Flowers & The Flower Shop
Blackenized - Hank Ballard
My Cherie Amour - Roland Kirk
Bummer in the Summer - Love
Celebrate The News - The Beach Boys
Louie Louie - Julie Loundon
Barack Obama - Cocoa Tea
Hong Kong - Screamin' Jay Hawkins
Anyway The Wind Blows - Syl Johnson
Les Fleur - Minnie Ripperton
Wolves - Dead Prez
Seize The Time - Elaine Brown
( commerical Break brought to you by Balentine Beer )
Mecca - Gene Pitney
I'm Wishin' - Lorez Alexandria
( Goodbyes )
My Way - Nina Simone

The Blackout

I have a new 45 single out.
It has two songs.
One's about drinking too much. The other's about the pursuit of happiness.
They're based on real true life events and ideas.
The beautiful cover art was done by my friend Raina Hamner

You can buy the 7" for 5 bucks (plus S&H) &/or download the MP3's for Free.

Free Download at: illerthantheirs.com

or

at my myspace: myspace.com/krayo




The Blackout



b/w

Cherry Lime Rickey




DOWNLOAD THE BLACKOUT & CHERRY LIME RICKEY


pretty cool.

-KRAY

Jealousy

Jealousy is a useless emotion.
Most emotions, even anger or fear, are necessary, at times helpful, emotions.
Jealousy is made of pure poison. In small doses it can be merely a irritant - like the poison of a mosquito bite.
But in larger amounts it can spread and self-perpetuate, slowly seeping into your whole body.
In recent years I've tried to have relationships free of jealousy - and come close - but we were never quite able to rid ourselves of it completely.
It tends to "rear it's ugly head" as the expression goes.

My friend Sahara Marina Borja wrote me an email a few days ago saying that she had to keep fast-forwarding Episode Six to hear Donny Hathaway's version of "Jealous Guy".
So this post is for Sahara, whose interests include writing playfully cryptic emails to her friends and walking around San Francisco taking beautiful photographs.

It's a John Lennon Song.
It's about Yoko.
It describes perfectly that feeling of regret after you've let that jealous bile build up in your throat - and done something mean or petty - out of hurt.
Has anyone out there not been there?

Donny Hathaway was a beautiful man.
He struggled with depression all his life though.
And in 1979 he fell to his death from the window of the Essex Hotel where he had been living.
Apparently he had removed the glass pane and jumped out.
Tragic.

More recently he's been credited by Ms. Amy Winehouse as one of the reasons why she doesn't need to go to rehab.
"There's nothing that you can teach me that I can't lean from Mr. Hathaway"

It may be that soul is born out of pain. And it is this knowledge of personal pain which allows certain people to sing to us in such a vivid vital way.


Anyway.
Enjoy.
And be careful kids. Don't eat any green m&m's and remember as Fat Joe Says: Jealous One's Envy & Jealous One's Still Envy



or download it here

Ronnie Mathews R.I.P.

It took me a minute to post this...

When I was a young, my older sister had a friend who spent a lot of time at our house. Part of the reason (aside from the fact that they were like sisters themselves), was that her father was a touring musician who spent a lot of time on the road. As a kid, that was all I knew.

Her father was Ronnie Mathews. He was a jazz pianist who played with Max Roach from 1963-1968, and with Art Blakey as one of the original jazz messengers. In his twenties, he toured internationally and recorded with Freddie Hubbard, Lee Morgan, Roy Haynes and Elvin Jones, and later played with the likes of Dexter Gordon, Johnny Griffin, TS Monk & Roy Hargove.

Serious business.

I got to know Ronnie as I got older, though not as well as I would have liked. I do want to thank him though, for always taking the time to talk to me about what he was doing, and for taking a genuine interest in what I was up to creatively.

When I heard he was sick, my first thoughts went to his daughter and her family. I have been somewhat lucky in that I haven't had extensive personal experience with the passing of those closest to me. So to Ronnie's family, my heart goes out.

I then started to think about his legacy as a musician. He has been proclaimed by music writers and fellow musicians as on of the most underrated artists of his generation. About a week before his passing, I attended a benefit concert for him at Sweet Rhythm. It was an overwhelming turnout. So many great musicians and friends came through, it was quite astounding. Ronnie passed away roughly a week later.

So it goes.

Rest in peace Ronnie, you are missed.


Ronnie with Art Blakey, Elvin Jones & Sunny Murray

"Monk's Dream", with Johnny Griffin, live at the Village Vanguard, 1981


Ronnie Mathews (as I knew him) at the Thelonious Monk Tribute Concert

Happy 4th of Juleezee

I had a beautiful day today so far.
It's 5:41 pm
The date is july 4th 2008
I was hungover in manhattan. Woke up on a friend's couch.
Went outside and was wandering around. This guy handed me a sheet of newsprint advertising a fourth of july sale at J&R.
I thought: what I need is a nice digital camera. Since my old one got ruined in the flood.
So I walked over to J&R.
I bought a digital camera.
I walked across the Brooklyn Bridge.
Went down by the water.
Took this picture of this patriotic barge.

I wrote a song a while back where I say: "I'm a patriot of Brooklyn/ I pledge allegiance to New York/ the rest I can't really vouch for."

Which, in truth, I cribbed from the great Henry Miller. Who wrote once:

"I am a patriot-of the 14th Ward Brooklyn, where I was raised. The rest of the United States doesn't exist for me, except as idea, or history, or literature."

I feel similarly.

It's hard to have any one unifying feeling about such a large, diverse, ever changing, land mass. It seems odd to me, to feel pride about so much that has nothing to do with us.

I do love the flag though. It's just a really nice design. I like the colors. Word to Betsy Ross.
But I know, in the end, this country belongs to big oil men and their ilk. And not to me.

but as Abner Jay says:

"Folks, don't worry about energy crisis because Standard Oil, Shell, Gulf, Mobil, Texaco, Aamaco, Esso, Sunoco, Exxon, Nixon, Standard Oil, General Motors, Chrysler, George Wallace, & Ford is not the backbone of America. The Backbone of America is a mule and cotton."

We took a Chance with this song back in Episode 3.
I love Abner Jay and will be chancing more of his beauts in the near future. So stay tuned.


Press play to Listen

Download: The Backbone of America Is A Mule and Cotton - Abner Jay

Chances With Wolves: Episode #9

On this Episdoe Kool Kear tells us the secrets of his cleansing fast. And I play the Biz Markie version of the Schoolhouse Rock song about "energy" witch is very apt considering our current global energy crisis.

Episdoe #9:





Playlist

We Travel the Spaceways - Sun RA
(Interlude)
I've got drugs - The Frogs
Nehanda & Cream - Masta Killa
For da Brothers - Kool G Rap
Never Gonna Stop - Linda Clifford
Don't Talk To Strangers - Mr. T
5:55 (Black Ghosts Remix) - Charlotte Gainsborg
Rocky Racoon - Lena Horne & Gabor Szabo
Bad to Me - Billy J. Kramer & The Dakotas
Energy - Biz Markie
I Shook the World - Bobby Sox & The Blue Jeans
Pot Smoker's Song - Neil Diamond
Dark Continent Contribution - Bill Justis
You'll Never Leave em - Freddie Scott
A Day In The Life - Chocolate Snow
Summer - War
National Anthem of the Moon - Bruce Haack
King of The Gypsies - Johnny Thunders
Hard Times - Baby Huey & The Babysitters
Sunshine Superman - Neil Merriweather
Sunny Goode Street - Donovan
Nobody Knows Why The Butterfly Died - My Kind Of People
(Interlude)
Billericay Dickie - Ian Dury
Wolves - The Accidental
Just Another Day - Brian Eno
True Love Will FInd You In The End - Daniel Johnston
Take Yo' Praise - Camille Yarbrough
Family Vacation - Luke Temple
I'm Chief Kamanawanalea - The Turtles
Long Time Jerk - The Clash
Wolves & Leopards - Dennis Brown
Can U Feel Me? - Saafir
Riding In My Car - Woody Guthrie
Street Hassle - Lou Reed