Cocaine & Rhinestones: Okie from Muskogee

Here is “Breaking Down Merle Haggard’s “Okie from Muskogee” from Cocaine & Rhinestones. It's a lesson in nuance and narration.

---

‘Just This One Time’ by Jimmy Webb

Here is “Just This One Time”. Robert Francis first showed me this song, but the more cleaned up yet equally brilliant Glenn Campbell version. This version’s messiness hits me harder. I love schmaltz when it's a little ugly. When the saccharine is honest and the corners aren’t smoothed and the cracks show. Ringo’s reverb drenched drums explode their way through the song like meteors hitting Jimmy Webb’s raw plea. This is the kind of song that’s soaring over-the-topness speaks to the romantic side of me.

---

24-Hour Invada Records playlist

Here is Warren Ellis’s 24 Hour Invada Records playlist. Over the pandemic, this kept me going for a few days when I was living alone in a basement studio apartment in Madison, Tennessee, trying my hardest to stay sober and waiting for my hair to grow back after I had shorn it off after running out of things to do

---

ESG’s 1981 self-titled EP

Here is ESG’s 1981 self-titled EP.

I was going through my father’s record collection in Germany when I was 19. First I saw “You’re No Good” listed on the cover and assumed it was a band covering Dee Dee Warwick’s classic. I then saw that this was produced by Martin Hannett (Joy Division, New Order) and there was a thank you to Tony Wilson (Factory Records). I put the needle onto the 12 inch record and what came out was the slowest, sludgiest, minimal, funk groove I had ever heard. I danced like some goth caveman to that first side of the vinyl, invited my friend “Cowboy” James over to get high with me and dance some more. He was as astounded as I was that we had never heard of this dirge-y kraut-y call and response incantation. After months of listening, I played it for Adam Gunther who informed me that this was an EP and meant to be played at 45rpm. I had been listening at 33 ⅓. .

---