Various Artists - Bill McClintock Mash-Ups, Volume 5: 2023-2024

I'm more convinced that ever that Bill McClintock is a twisted genius. Back in February 2023, I posted four albums containing mash-ups created by McClintock and posted on YouTube. Since then, I've been waiting for him to post enough new songs for a fifth volume. Here were finally are.

If you heard and liked any of the first four volumes, you should definitely like this. For those who don't know what I'm talking about, there are a lot of people who have made mash-ups, combining the recordings of two songs to hopefully create something new and interesting. But in my opinion, McClintock is the master of this technique, and his soaring YouTube views are evidence of that.

I've mentioned in the past that McClintock has pretty much single-handedly created a new genre of music, "soul metal," by combining soul songs with heavy metal songs. The resulting mash-ups are fascinating. In my opinion, many of them could be big hits in some bizarro alternate universe. I'm not even much of a heavy metal fan, but I don't think you have to be to enjoy these.

This album is an hour and four minutes long.

Note that, as with the other albums in this series, the track list is rather unusual. The song titles are the titles created by McClintock that often jokingly combined the titles of the source material. Then in brackets are the names of the original songs, with "vs." in between them. Then for the artist names in paranetheses, I've put both artists who created the source songs, with "vs." between those names as well.

01 Wake Me Up Before You Go Go to the Grave [Wake Me Up Before You Go Go vs. Children of the Grave] (Wlam vs. Black Sabbath)
02 More Forgiven Today than Yesterday [The Unforgiven vs. More Today than Yesterday] (Spiral Starecase vs. Metallica)
03 Shake Your Dude Thing [Shake Your Groove Thing vs. Dude Looks like a Lady] (Peaches & Herb vs. Aerosmith)
04 She's Got the Sentinel [She's Got the Look vs. The Sentinel] (Judas Priest vs. Roxette)
05 Could You Be a Freak on a Leash [Could You Be Loved vs. Freak on a Leash] (Bob Marley vs. Korn)
06 I Was Made for Boogie Wonderland [I Was Made for Lovin' You vs. Boogie Wonderland] (Kiss vs. Earth, Wind & Fire)
07 Let's Get Bleeding [The Bleeding vs. Let's Get It On] (Five Finger Death Punch & Marvin Gaye)
08 Freeze Frame City [Freeze Frame vs. Detroit Rock City] (J. Geils Band vs. Kiss)
09 Superfools [Supernaut vs. Chain of Fools] (Aretha Franklin vs. Black Sabbath)
10 Take the Soul Power Back [Take the Power Back vs. Soul Power] (James Brown vs. Against the Machine)
11 Dirty Deeds Around the Christmas Tree [Dirty Deeds Done Dirty Cheap vs. Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree] (AC-DC vs. Brenda Lee)
12 Still Coming Undone [Coming Undone vs. Feel it Still] (Korn vs. Portugal. The Man)
13 Unchained Love Machine [Unchained vs. Love Machine] (Van Halen vs. Miracles)
14 Squareboys from Hell [Square Biz vs. Cowboys from Hell] (Teena Marie vs. Pantera)
15 Celebrate Both Worlds [Good Times vs. Best of Both Worlds] (Van Halen vs. Kool & the Gang)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16651266/BILLMCCLNTCKMSHPS2023-2024Vlum5_atse.zip.html

The cover is basically the exact same as the previous four in this series, with only a bit of the text and the background color changing. That's because I was lucky to find any photos of McClintock at all. Note that when it came time to post this album, I noticed that I used the exact same color, yellow for the backgrounds to both Volumes 3 and 4 in this series. That was mistake. So I just changed the color of Volume 4 to orange. If you put all five covers together in order, it makes a nice rainbow effect.

Elle Cordova & Toni Lindgren - Sunday Mornings with Elle & Toni, Volume 15: 2023-2024

Since 2020, I've posted the Sunday Mornings album series of cover versions by Reina del Cid and Toni Lindgren. But since I posted the most recent album in this series (the 14th!), the main singer-songwriter in this duo, Reina del Cid, decided to change her stage name to Elle Cordova. That was her real name all along, and "Reina del Cid" was just a nickname. Of course, that's her right, and I want to respect that, just as, say, "John Cougar" turned into "John Cougar Mellencamp" and then finally "John Mellencamp." 

But I thought it would be strange to have some albums posted under the name "Reina del Cid and Toni Lindgren" and other albums under the name "Elle Cordova & Toni Lindgren," so I've just finished renaming ALL of their previous albums. That meant renaming all the songs and changing all the cover art. It was a pain in the rear, but now it's done. So you may well want to redownload all the previous albums, to get with what hopefully will be the permanent name going forward. Note also that they're calling their Sunday morning postings "Sunday Mornings with Elle and Toni," so that's what I'm using as well.

With that out of the way, let me get to this album. That's not much to say that hasn't been already said about previous albums in this series. As usual, it's all unreleased cover versions taken for the duo's YouTube page (which, by the way, is now simply called "Elle and Toni"). Most of the time, just the duo performs on the songs, with occasional extra guests. But for three of the songs, it's just Toni Lindgren, who is stepping up as a lead singer slightly more often.

This album is 48 minutes long.

Here are the original artists for each song: 

01 Never Going Back Again - Fleetwood Mac
02 Clay Pigeons - Blaze Foley / John Prine
03 Your Smiling Face - James Taylor
04 Cuckoo's Nest - traditional
05 Brand New Key - Melanie
06 Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under - Shania Twain
07 Wonderful World - Sam Cooke
08 After Hours - Velvet Underground
09 The Big Rock Candy Mountain - Harry McClintock
10 Somewhere Over the Rainbow - Judy Garland
11 Will You Love Me Tomorrow - Carole King / Shirelles
12 Cruella de Vil - 101 Dalmations (movie soundtrack)
13 Gentle on My Mind - Glen Campbell
14 Ripple - Grateful Dead
15 You Never Can Tell - Chuck Berry

Here's the usual song list:

01 Never Going Back Again (Elle Cordova & Toni Lindgren)
02 Clay Pigeons (Toni Lindgren)
03 Your Smiling Face (Elle Cordova, Toni Lindgren & Kent Nishimura)
04 Cuckoo's Nest [Instrumental] (Toni Lindgren)
05 Brand New Key (Elle Cordova & Toni Lindgren)
06 Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under (Elle Cordova & Toni Lindgren)
07 Wonderful World (Elle Cordova & Toni Lindgren with Nataly Dawn & Lauren O'Connell)
08 After Hours (Elle Cordova & Toni Lindgren)
09 The Big Rock Candy Mountain (Elle Cordova & Toni Lindgren)
10 Somewhere Over the Rainbow (Elle Cordova & Toni Lindgren)
11 Will You Love Me Tomorrow (Elle Cordova & Toni Lindgren)
12 Cruella de Vil (Elle Cordova & Toni Lindgren)
13 Gentle on My Mind (Elle Cordova & Toni Lindgren)
14 Ripple (Toni Lindgren)
15 You Never Can Tell (Elle Cordova & Toni Lindgren)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17363708/ELLECRDVATNILINDRN2023-2024SndyMrnngswthEllTniVlum15_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/RJymKbrW

The cover is a screenshot taken from the video for "After Hours" on this album.

Robyn Hitchcock - Syd Barrett Birthday Tribute, The Chapel, San Francisco, CA, 1-6-2024

Egads! Here's something that's actually from 2024 already. (I write this in February 2024.) It's a Robyn Hitchcock concert that took place last month. This one is special, because it was a one off tribute concert for Syd Barrett, the original leader of Pink Floyd. Barrett was born on January 6, 1946, and died in 2006. He would have been 78 years old on the day of this concert had he lived longer.

Instead of mostly playing his original songs, as usual, Hitchcock stuck to singing nothing but songs written by Barrett. Barrett led Pink Floyd, but only briefly. He left the band after their first year of big success, which was 1967. Tracks 4, 15, 20, 21, 22, 24, 26, 37, and 39 are Pink Floyd songs from when Barrett was the lead singer and main songwriter. The rest are either banter tracks or songs from Barrett's brief solo career, which petered out around 1970.

The first six songs were done in solo acoustic style. Then other band members began to gradually join in. By the song "Dominos," the full band was on stage. It was a small band, with just three musicians supporting Hitchcock, but they rocked pretty well for the rest of the concert.

Hitchcock has been heavily, heavily influenced by Barrett for his entire career. I previously posted an entire album of him doing solo acoustic versions of Barrett's songs over the years, which you can find here:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2019/09/robyn-hitchcock-acoustic-syd-barrett.html

Furthermore, he's done previous Barrett tribute concerts. I have one from 2007 that I'll probably post here someday. But this is the most thorough tribute I've seen from him yet, with some songs that he'd never performed before.

The recording is an audience boot. That's a bit of a bummer, since those usually don't sound as good as soundboard or FM boots. But in this case, the sound quality is very nearly as good. Furthermore, for all of the talking tracks, I ran them through the audio editing program UVR5 and got rid of a lot of background noise while boosting Hitchcock's voice. After that, I think that this generally sounds just as good as typical soundboard boots. 

There was a problem with one of the talking tracks though, track nine. For the first half of three minutes of talking, it's apparent that he moved well away from the microphone, because his voice was very distant compared to everything else. So I had to do a lot of extra work on that, but in the end I think you can hear most of what he's saying. That's why that one has "[Edit]" in the title.

This album is an hour and 39 minutes long.

01 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
02 Terrapin (Robyn Hitchcock)
03 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
04 Jugband Blues (Robyn Hitchcock)
05 Late Night (Robyn Hitchcock)
06 Dark Globe (Robyn Hitchcock)
07 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
08 If It's in You (Robyn Hitchcock)
09 talk [Edit] (Robyn Hitchcock)
10 It Is Obvious (Robyn Hitchcock)
11 Long Gone (Robyn Hitchcock)
12 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
13 Wined and Dined (Robyn Hitchcock)
14 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
15 Chapter 24 (Robyn Hitchcock)
16 Dominoes (Robyn Hitchcock)
17 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
18 Effervescing Elephant (Robyn Hitchcock)
19 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
20 Bike (Robyn Hitchcock)
21 Astronomy Domine (Robyn Hitchcock)
22 Lucifer Sam (Robyn Hitchcock)
23 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
24 See Emily Play (Robyn Hitchcock)
25 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
26 Vegetable Man (Robyn Hitchcock)
27 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
28 Gigolo Aunt (Robyn Hitchcock)
29 Baby Lemonade (Robyn Hitchcock)
30 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
31 Octopus (Robyn Hitchcock)
32 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
33 Rats (Robyn Hitchcock)
34 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
35 Wolfpack (Robyn Hitchcock)
36 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
37 Arnold Layne (Robyn Hitchcock)
38 talk (Robyn Hitchcock)
39 Interstellar Overdrive (Robyn Hitchcock)

https://www.imagenetz.de/amnBG

The cover is based on a promotional poster for this exact concert. All the text and design is exactly the same as the original. However, I made one big change: I used Photoshop to reduce the entire image vertically so I could get the rectangular poster to fit in a square space. I did that for everything but the central image of Syd Barrett. I kept that unchanged, but cropped some off at the bottom so it could fit the shrunken space it was in.

Rosanne Cash - Crawl into the Promised Land - Non-Album Tracks (2019-2024)

I've posted a lot of Rosanne Cash stray tracks albums in recent years. I believe I've posted nine before this one. Finally, I get caught up to the present day.

All but three of the songs here have been officially released in one way or another. Three songs, "We’re All in This Together Now," "Crawl into the Promised Land," and "The Killing Fields," were A-sides of singles not connected to any Rosanne Cash albums. "Time" is from a Tom Waits tribute album. "I've Got a Crush on You" is from a George Gershwin album. "I Am a Pilgrim" is from a Doc Watson tribute album. "Loving Her Was Easier" is from a Willie Nelson live album.

Cash has been married to John Leventhal since 1995. Leventhal is mostly a producer and back-up musician, but in early 2024, he released a rare solo album. The final two songs here are from that.

That just leaves the three unreleased songs: "Tryin' to Get Home," "Farewell Angelina," and "Crescent City." They're all from concert bootlegs. But the sound is generally close to the studio stuff.

This album is 44 minutes long.

01 Time (Rosanne Cash)
02 We’re All in This Together Now (John Paul White & Rosanne Cash)
03 Tryin' to Get Home (Rosanne Cash)
04 Farewell Angelina (Rosanne Cash)
05 Crawl into the Promised Land (Rosanne Cash)
06 The Killing Fields (Rosanne Cash)
07 Crescent City (Rosanne Cash & Lucinda Williams)
08 I've Got a Crush on You (Michael Feinstein & Rosanne Cash)
09 Loving Her Was Easier [Than Anything I'll Ever Do Again] (Rosanne Cash with Kris Kristofferson)
10 I Am a Pilgrim (Rosanne Cash)
11 If You Only Knew (John Leventhal & Rosanne Cash)
12 That's All I Know about Arkansas (John Leventhal & Rosanne Cash)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16224168/ROSNNECSH2019-2024_CrwlntothPrmsedLnd_atse.zip.html

 The cover is almost identical to the cover for Cash's "Crawl into the Promised Land." All I did was remove John Leventhal's name, which had been under Cash's, and cropped it a little.