As usual in most music documentaries, the sync of music, band incarnations, and footage doesn't always align (especially at 82'10") correctly, but it's a good primer nonetheless: Don't miss the priceless clip of soft machine's inscrutable Mike Ratledge demonstrating his non-stop note technique on the Lowery organ, Peter Gabriel in an oversized flower ruff, and everyone looking young and vegan-thin.

"Success is buried in the garden of failure," says ex-Yes keyboardist Rick Wakeman, in a postscript to time where a band could title side one of a double LP "The Revealing Science of God" and get away with it. Have the major corporate record labels been so bold to release such unhesitatingly arty and brave music since that era? Or at least as indulgent (and greedy) enough to release redundant triple LPs like Yessongs and Welcome Back My Friends....?

Among the many talking heads, Robert Wyatt ("We thought we were a pop band. We were always trying to make normal records; they just didn't come out like that."), Wakeman (who amusingly calls prog the porn of the music industry), and ex-Yes/ex-King Crimson drummer Bill Bruford emerge as the wittiest.

Musing on the advent of punk, Bruford notes "a permanent tension in rock music between the three chords and the truth merchants - you know, 4/4 and three chords - and the other people like me who say, 'What if we added a fourth chord and put it in 5/4?' There are always people like me messing up what these people think is pop music."

Prog fanatics may grouse about a few omissions. Aside from The Nice, here's no hint of other coeval rock-classical hybrids such as Deep Purple's Concerto for Group and Orchestra; Pink Floyd remains but a spectral presence; and a couple of other cult groups, namely Henry Cow and Gentle Giant, merit more than a mention. Also, the post-1980 era was more than a coda for the 70s proggers to go pop; anyone remember Marillion or Spock's Beard?

An oddly chosen and almost incongruous snippet of "Shhh/Peaceful" from the Miles Davis LP In a Silent Way underscores the closing montage and hints at a concurrently expanding interest in form and electronics in jazz, but that's another documentary altogether...

Robbing a bank is as simple as putting pen to paper. Here are actual demand notes used in successful and unsuccessful unarmed bank robberies - - accompanied by a photo of each robber and appended with details about the robbery itself.

My favorite note so far:

I have a gun in my bag.
Give me $5,000 please.
Thanks a bunch.

This is where you come in. Present your favorites in comments and fill me in on what I’ve missed over the last 16-17 years. YouTube links are welcome (however, you must register for your links to work).

Sanford & Son (composed by Quincy Jones; sampled by Diplo for M.I.A.’s “URAQT”; converted into a Baltimore club joint and remixed at least a few times)

Barney Miller (composed by Jack Elliot and Allyn Ferguson)

Dr. Who (composed by Delia Derbyshire [of White Noise] and Ron Grainer)

The estimable Vodka Twist will be spinning at the next Studio 66 night ('60s mod, psych rock, soul, Brit pop, acid jazz, international pop, go-go dancers) Sat. Nov. 7 at Lo-Fi. Also on the bill: Phoenix's the Love Me Nots, the Fucking Eagles, DJ Chrispo, DJ Gort, and DJ E-Z Action.

h/t: Greg Vandy!

Operating out of the New Jersey suburb of Haledon, the Feelies sounded like the Velvets if they’d never met Andy Warhol, never did any drugs stronger than caffeine, never owned a black leather jacket, never considered adding viola to the mix, and never asked a stunning female Euro model to sing for them. In other words, the Feelies were a de-glamorized Velvets, a less citified Velvets, a Velvets excluded from Manhattan’s art-world glitterati. And, despite those hindrances, they sounded like a million bucks in hard-earned change.

Now, through the good graces of Sony Music, Purdie's classic LP Soul Drums is being reissued Oct. 13, with eight bonus tracks cut in 1969, including a raging cover of Booker T. & the MGs' "Time Is Tight." Guaranteed, you've heard snippets of this album lifted for countless hiphop and dance-music tracks, but the songs themselves are worth hearing in their entirety. They're straight-up party funk, with some soulful Latin-jazz touches occasionally creeping in, all recorded in glorious analog in 1967.

Purdie has been one of the most in-demand session players in music history, providing rhythms for James Brown, Steely Dan, the Beatles, Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Quincy Jones, David Axelrod's many projects, Gil Scott-Heron, Herbie Mann, Hall & Oates, Last Poets, and many more. In the liners, no less a studio maestro than Pete Rock said, "Bernard Purdie is the most incredible drummer that I've heard outside of the drummers in James Brown's band. He is the most influential drummer of our time, including in hip-hop."

Just as interesting to consider is the number of classic artists whose initial efforts don’t merit inclusion here (ymmv, of course): The Beatles, the Kinks, the Rolling Stones, Captain Beefheart, Black Dice, Animal Collective, Tim Buckley, Stevie Wonder, Curtis Mayfield, My Bloody Valentine, Primal Scream, etc.

Contribute your ideas in comments, if you’re so inclined.

*Indicates an album’s first track after what I consider an insignificant “Intro.”

Neu!- “Hallogallo” (Neu!)

Kraftwerk- “Ruckzuck” (Kraftwerk)

Funkadelic- “Mommy, What’s a Funkadelic?” (Funkadelic)

Hawkwind- “Hurry On Sundown” (Hawkwind)

Can- “Father Cannot Yell” (Monster Movie)

Roxy Music- “Remake/Remodel” (Roxy Music)

The Velvet Underground- “Sunday Morning” (The Velvet Underground & Nico)

Jimi Hendrix Experience- “Purple Haze” (Are You Experienced)

The Who- “I Can’t Explain” (I Can’t Explain 7”)

M.I.A.- “Galang” (Galang EP)

Public Enemy- “You’re Gonna Get Yours” (Yo! Bum Rush the Show!)

Mercury Rev- “Chasing a Bee” (Yerself Is Steam)

The Move- “Night of Fear” (single)

LCD Soundsystem- “Losing My Edge” (Losing My Edge 12”)

Lymon and his group The Teenagers are best remembered for the 1956 hit "Why Do Fools Fall in Love"— a song repeatedly appropriated by white artists that remained more successful in its original incarnation, a rare feat at the time that numbers among their many coups as an integrated group in a very racist America.

Check out this golden, vintage (and completely unscripted) clip from their first national television broadcast. Watch how his nervousness during the stilted dialogue flips to complete panache when he breaks into his trademark falsetto croon. Man, rock and roll has gone downhill since.

* Actual lyric; was in fact the original title of the song.

SF-based Water Records has done its typically excellent job in reissuing some Battiato titles, including the all-time classics Pollution and Fetus. I found the latter CD yesterday in the Queen Anne Easy Street’s 99¢ racks (?!), replacing my lost copy with exceptional frugality (the original LP surely sells for three figures on eBay).

This reissue includes liner notes by Jim O’Rourke and a fine remastering job. The songs on Fetus are concise and profoundly poignant, with wrenchingly emotional vocals that seem to be the special domain of Italian male singers. Battiato’s glorious hooks come adorned in nuanced, sumptuous textures and the record’s entire atmosphere is suffused in momentousness. This guy was on a magnificent creative roll in the first half of the ’70s, so you should scoop up anything he did during that period.

In 1977 during the brief run of the Richard Pryor TV Show, the Pips came on to perform two numbers WITHOUT Gladys Knight. They just sang the backup parts and the camera would zoom in on an empty microphone whenever Gladys Knight was supposed to sing. One of the funniest and most original things I've ever seen.

FishHead33 is right: It is funny. (And the close-ups of Gladys' abandoned mic are hilarious.)

Thanks for the heads-up, MetaFilter.

However, three of this atheist’s favorite songs ever carry strong religious overtones: Pharoah Sanders’ “The Creator Has a Master Plan,” Prince’s “The Cross,” and the Bee Gees’ “Every Christian Lion Hearted Man Will Show You.” And that, god damn it, is one of music’s most insidious powers: to enrapture you even as it peddles lyrical ideas that you cannot abide. (Gays who love homophobic dancehall artists—there must be at least a few—can perhaps relate.)

Take The Stone Roses debut.

Add twenty years.

Hear what sounds like what just might be, even now, the greatest record in the history of the world.

If you're Silvertone, the band's original label, you also want to dip into the well all over again. Manchester's The Stone Roses have a bad history with Silvertone, full of profit-stealing, splatter-paint terrorism, and career-destroying legal battles, and the label's used any excuse, from remix albums to shuffle-the-tracks compilations, in order to milk the music for all its worth.

The album's been re-packaged more than God.

At least this time, however, it feels a little more genuine. The original band members seem to somewhat approve of this 20-year look back, promoting it for the last couple of months, against tradition. The actual re-issues are excessive and interesting as well, if only affordable if you model your life after the old man in Monopoly.

First, on top of all the press coverage, there's a new web-site and a couple of anniversary podcasts. An official one, which includes interviews with lead singer Ian Brown, Peter Hook, Noel Gallagher, Brian Cannon, Clint Boon, and Bobby Gillespie. And otherwise, which includes interviews with bassist Mani, original producer John Leckie, and the Manic Street Preachers.

Then there are the five original singles, put out once again, but only on vinyl and with unreleased, untitled tracks, all ultimately collected in a new set with guitarist John Squire's artwork.

Elephant Stone
[July 6th]
"The Hardest Thing In The World' & "Untitled 1"

Made Of Stone
[July 13th]
"Going Down" & "Untitled 2"

She Bangs The Drums
[July 20th]
"Standing Here" & "Untitled 3"

Fools Gold
[July 27th]
"What The World Is Waiting For" & "Untitled 4"

One Love
[August 3rd]
"Something's Burning" & "Untitled 5"

Of course, there's also the album, re-mastered by John Leckie and Ian Brown, and re-packaged next month by a madman.

Special Edition
[1 Disc]
Original album.

Legacy Edition
[2 Discs, 1 DVD]
Original album, demos, unearthed track, and a DVD of the band's historic Blackpool show.

Collector's Edition
[3 Discs, 3 LPs, 1 DVD, 1 USB, 12" Slipcase]
Original album, demos, unearthed track, Blackpool DVD, three heavyweight vinyls, videos, b-sides, behind-the-scenes, new 48-page book, 12"x12" art-prints, and a lemon-shaped USB of ringtones, backward tracks, and more.
Complete Tracklisting

Now, on the one hand, all of this is monstrously out-of-control, the sort of music fetishism that leads to bad ideas, sacred cows, and vicious-label victory. On the other, if any debut could be justified to have a capitalizing avalanche of anniversaries — with all of its massive attitude and legendary melodies, its effortless wash of belief, abstraction, acid house, and beautiful, extraordinarily classic British pop — it'd be The Stone Roses.

There are also rumors of a reunion.

John Squire has already issued a painting as a response, which states, in simple hand-writing, "I have no desire whatsoever to desecrate the grave of seminal Manchester pop group The Stone Roses".

Yeah?

Perfect.

Release date for both The Feelies re-issues on Bar None: September 8, 2009

Both albums will be issued in original sequence with download cards included in each package that will give purchasers access to bonus tracks as well as the original albums. The band felt that the original records functioned as discrete works on their own that should not be compromised with additional tracks not part of the original sequence, hence offering bonus tracks thusly

Crazy Rhythms CD/LP reissue track listing:
Side One:
1. The Boy With The Perpetual Nervousness
2. Fa cé-La
3. Loveless Love
4. Forces At Work
Side Two:
5. Original Love
6. Everybody's Got Something To Hide (Except Me And My Monkey)
7. Moscow Nights
8. Raised Eyebrows
9. Crazy Rhythms
*** NOTE: Their cover of "Paint It Black" was left off the reissue as
per the band's request. A&M added it without the band's permission
and it was a recording from the late 80s with a different line-up than
what was the "Crazy Rhythms" line-up.

Crazy Rhythms bonus tracks:
1. Fa cé-La [single version] - originally released as a 7" on Rough Trade.
2. The Boy With The Perpetual Nervousness [Carla Bley demo version]
3. Moscow Nights [Carla Bley demo version]
4. Crazy Rhythms [Live] - From the 9:30 Club (Washington D.C.),
recorded March 14, 2009.
5. I Wanna Sleep In Your Arms [Live] - From the 9:30 Club (Washington
D.C.), recorded March 14, 2009. Modern Lovers cover.

The Good Earth CD/LP reissue track listing:
Side One:
1. On The Roof
2. The High Road
3. The Last Roundup
4. Slipping (Into Something)
5. When Company Comes
Side Two:
6. Let's Go
7. Two Rooms
8. The Good Earth
9. Tomorrow Today
10. Slow Down

The Good Earth bonus tracks.
1. She Said, She Said - originally on the "No One Knows" vinyl EP on
Coyote Records through Twin/Tone Records (US). Beatles cover.
2. Sedan Delivery - originally on the "No One Knows" vinyl EP on
Coyote Records through Twin/Tone Records (US). Neil Young cover.
3. Slipping (Into Something) [Live] - From the 9:30 Club (Washington
D.C.), recorded March 14, 2009.

Download cards will be included in each respective CD & LP reissue.
The full album + bonus tracks will be included on each. Domino will
be the hosting site for the downloads as they have the rights to the
albums outside the U.S. & Canada.

Bar/None's LP reissues were mastered by Andy VanDette at Masterdisk in NYC
www.masterdisk.com
Pressings will be handled by Rainbo Records and will be 180 gram
www.rainborecords.com

Original tapes were unfortunately not found. Andreas Meyer from Tangerine Mastering used
digital files for both.

Tapes obtained from the band were used for the Fa cé-La [single
version], The Boy With The Perpetual Nervousness [Carla Bley demo
version] and Moscow Nights [Carla Bley demo version]. The live tracks
were recorded by their live sound engineer Andy Peters.

Insound will be exclusively carrying a limited
edition 7" reissue of the original "Fa cé-La" single. www.insound.com
Side A:
Fa cé-La (single version)
Side B:
Raised Eyebrows (album version)

Pressing for this single will also be handled by Rainbo Records.
Street date for the single is TBD.

This Autumn, Warp Records celebrate their 20th anniversary. To commemorate the event, Warp have set up a website to allow fans a voice in what appears on the forthcoming Warp 20 compilation. 10 tracks will be chosen by Warp and 10 will be chosen by fan voting. Head over to the Warp20.net microsite to make your picks.

I also highly recommend this excellent article tracing the lineage of Sheffield's music scene from Cabaret Voltaire to Warp. There's a fantastic mix of the tracks discussed at the end of the article.

The Guardian have done a great job explaining the history of the label here.

Of course, no discussion of Warp Records is complete without acknowledging The Designers Replublic. Although TDR™ no longer exist, their designs are second only to Factory/Peter Saville in completely defining the sound and attitude of the label. Be sure to take a look at this article discussing the history of The Designers Republic. Again, there's a great mix at the end so take advantage of the resources on that page.

My favorite Warp era was the 'bleep n bass' stuff like LFO, Sweet Excorcist and the first Nightmares on Wax album although Smokers Delight has probably had more plays on my hi-fi than any other Warp release.

I'd like to hear from the LineOut audience about what your favorite Warp tracks are and any good stories about the first time you heard something on the label. If you're a fan, that moment was probably etched in your brain like it was for me.

Röyksopp’s “Happy Up Here,” the first single from their brand-new Junior album, rides a sample from Parliament’s “Do That Stuff” to the extra-fluffy cloud that comes after 9. When Norwegian electronic musicians sample Detroit feel-too-good funk from the '70s, this is the special result: Röyksopp’s most gleeful cut since “Eple.”

I wish I liked the rest of Junior as much as I do “Happy Up Here,” but much of it veers into saccharine Euro-trance territory and tepid electro funk. If you like the excellent Knife vocalist Karin Dreijer Andersson, however, you can revel in “This Must Be It” and “Tricky Tricky,” to which she lends her distinctively eldritch tones. (Robyn, Lykke Li, and Anneli Drecker also contribute vocals.)

You can't rely on brilliance.

We know that.

Scotland's Primal Scream have been around since 1982, living a chaotic legend of giant ambition and false-starts, morphing and mutating throughout the years from C86 janglists to mainline rock worshipers to ecstasy-addled dance futurists and then onto paranoid dub millennialists, insane political oracles, and, with last year's Beautiful Future, their ninth album, a new brand of optimistic electronic/guitar kraut-pop.

With a band like this, you can only count on unpredictability, not whether or not they're any good.

This is why Primal Scream are brilliant.

Believers of the myth of rock, of music, Bobby Gillespie's gang are forever changing, forever trying to reorient themselves, but always while keeping intact a single, coherent thread over their years. New ideas. Identical themes. Etc.

Think two breathless classics.

1991's Screamadelica, a gorgeous, bursting, and universal indie/dance trip through the birth and butchery of British acid house culture. And 2000's XTRMNTR, where Primal Scream — with the help of Adrian Sherwood, Kevin Shields, Chemical Brothers, and more — lob an apocalyptic bomb of free-form, anti-genre sonic terrorism, hating vowels and prophesying geo-political insanity before anyone else, and ending up, staring out at the world, with one of the most furious records ever made.

There are also some more embarrassing moments, like 1989's Primal Scream, 1994's Give Out But Don't Give Up, or 2006's Riot City Blues. Which oozed from the band's more traditional rockist faults, like pus from a tumor.

Primal Scream, though, are back at it.

While 2008's Beautiful Future doesn't quite hit with as much heat as it should, its attempt to use modern guitar and dance music to both daylight '70s no wave and bring a lightness, a relevance, back to the band, is enough of a healthy and interesting sign of progress that you want to forgive everything again. The stroll of Big Audio Dynamite melody that's "The Glory Of Love" chimes in your head long after it's gone, while the upbeat, peaceful rhythm and bells of the title-track sound like the sun melting away years of shit culture. The artwork is all 'Videodrome,' like it knows something we don't.

In other words, Primal Scream haven't been to America in nearly a decade, and we had to get on a plane to San Francisco to see them before it was too late.

Tonight, you see, the inside of The Fillmore is dark. And appropriate. There's a blue satin backdrop. Low lights. A tape of the band's Irvine Welsh one-off comes on. There, silhouettes. But it begins with 1997's "Kowalski". It should always begin with "Kowalski". Evil as fuck as ever and cracked with effects, where Mani, who joined the band after the break-up of The Stone Roses, employs its central, addictive, dead-eyed bassline, fresh and alive but not full of wank, like no one else. There are strobes. It's very loud.

In comes the new stuff, which is scattered at just the right level throughout the night, from the unfortunately paint-by-numbers "Can't Go Back," but also to the two aforementioned highlights and a long, mesmerizing, strung-out "Uptown," which dissolves into 2002's "Autobahn 66" and gets an unexpected and huge response from an audience who's forced to follow their band by imports.

Bobby Gillespie's voice is a bit raw, and it can always be a bit thin, but his charisma's aged well. He wears tight trousers and a sharp, no-button jacket, and his hair is mid-length. He's intent and looks vital.

Lots of Screamadelica, too. "Moving On Up" fits surprisingly well against the new songs, and when the latter are thrown against XTRMNTR, like the hyper-volatile call-to-arms of "Kill All Hippies" or the nuclear Stooges attack of "Accelerator," the contrast is throttling.

At the end of "Pills," Gillespie shouts with everyone, "Fuck fuck sick fuck fuck sick fuck fuck sick fuck fuck sick fuck fuck sick fuck fuck sick fuck fuck sick fuck fuck sick fuck fuck."

After that it's the welcome after-rave suicide of 1991's "I'm Comin' Down" and you think everything's over, in both ways. But then Gillespie nods, looks at the crowd, and says, "Here," before the band replaces the room with 2006's endlessly enjoyable, better-than-it-should-be, mandolin-fried "Country Girl," the band's biggest chart success and the definition of a band not taking themselves too seriously.

And then, napalm. It's "Swastika Eyes". Military future disco. Backed by "MBV Arkestra". A slither of a thing. A nasty creep of a song. The one that, over about fifteen minutes, ratchets layer upon layer, loop upon loop, of brass and feedback and house and warps of terror and rage and noise, escalating itself, at last, into a fever-pitched hurricane of inescapable and ear-shattering rational collapse.

It's the sound of losing your mind.

Staggered, no one says a word or moves. Without a pause, though — no encore — you hear it already.

Those vocals. That gospel.

Would they? "Come Together"?

Cripes. Perfect. A sea of hands. This is Primal Scream. Except at their most opposite.

It's joyous. Hopeful. A soundtrack of warm revolution.

Tonight, it's what we needed. It made more sense back in the middle of acid house. And it made more sense back in November. But it'll make sense again, and we'll be lucky if Primal Scream are there to play it for us, to help us out, with all of their contradictions and brilliant unreliability.

And we'll go as far as it takes to feel this again.

Or, to be honest, it might've been like that.

If we hadn't gotten ill and had to cancel the whole trip.

Goddammit.

Sck. Fck.

Photo by ktc19.

"Who? What?" I hear you asking. Can’t really blame you. I never hear anybody talk about this piece—not in the late ’00s, anyway. But take a gander at this lineup: Nicky Hopkins (Rolling Stones; piano), John Paul Jones (Led Zeppelin, bass), Keith Moon (the Who, drums), Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin, guitar), and Beck (ex-Yardbirds/solo stud, guitar). Fuuuuuccckkk.

Extrapolating on Maurice Ravel’s “Bolero,” these Brits blow it up to an elegiac epiphany (god damn, are those guitars expressive), with a rampaging tangent that will give you headbanger’s whiplash. Beck & co. successfully arrange a one-night stand between classical elegance and rock dynamics, and the climax is one for the ages (and maybe for the aged).

(In other news, Beck will be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame April 4.)

Dude. What a song. So I got the album Painkiller, from 1990, the last record with Halford singing until he rejoined in 2005. Dude. What a record. Pure fire. I had no choice but to get my hands on a discography, and now I've got more material to sort through than I know what to do with - they've been putting out records since 1974. I'm slowly chipping away at it, discovering which records are classic (Stained Class), which are technically "classic" but aren't blowing my mind (British Steel, Screaming for Vengeance), and which I will probably never listen to again (Turbo). I'm going to wait until I've heard every Halford record before I dig into the ones with Mark Wahlberg singing. There's still so much to listen to, where should I go next?