Boogie Chitz

During the fall of 1972 David Bowie jumped into a onesie, got the red mullet shaped-up and unleashed his Ziggy Tour on America. The October 20th show from the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium was broadcast live by LA radio station KMET and was passed around for years as a bootleg before it got the official release treatment in 2008. This hour-fifteen set is the sound of an awesome rock band discovering their powers in real time. As good as a live album gets.

Person Pitch COULD have been an artsy folk LP piece of trash. But thanks to the mysterious hero who stole Panda Bear's beloved acoustic guitar at the Lisbon Airport in 2005 - it didn't. Instead we were blessed with a Mangina Electronica masterpiece and one of the best 'by yourself' listens in all of recorded music history. Beethoven you can snort adderall to.

An arrogant Satan attempts to manifest one more hit vocal pop record before the decade is over and uses the goddaughters of Latin jazz vibraphonist Cal Tjader as his messengers; Genesis is a wonderful quick listen for the crate diggers.

Before Nick Cave became the legendary gothic grinch we continue to love to present day he was in a shrieking drug band with his college friends called The Birthday Party. They lasted five years but my God what a mess. On their way to the finish line they cranked out one final record called Junkyard - basically a giant musical temper tantrum crafted into a ten-track scuzzball masterpiece. One of the coolest albums of the 1980s.

Eric Clapton puts the theory that he is 'God' to the test by attempting the fulfillment of two prophecies: 1) become the coolest AMERICAN guitarist in the game and 2) nail his best friend's wife. He would succeed at both - and ruin quite a few lives in the process. But not OUR lives - no - we get one of the best double albums ever recorded. Our lives are even better because of his mania. Thanks Eric...I mean Derek.

For over twenty-five years The Verve has been designated as 'the band with the guy with the face that did Bitter Sweet Symphony.' But there is always more to discover. You see - there was an Enya before and after Orinoco Flow; the Baha Men were once Baha Boys; and The Verve's first album A Storm in Heaven is an absolute psychedelic guitar odyssey. Can't wait to get thru it so we can play a nip of Bitter Sweet Sympfff.

Analog Africa is granted access to the Radio Mogadishu archives by vault guardian Colonel Abshir Hashi Ali and commence compiling a mind-blowing collection of funky oddities from Somalia's Golden Age of Music.

Hard work and tireless genital thematics kept Poison consistently near the crest of Hair Hunx Mountain - but they reached the actual peak with their second album - Open Up and Say...Ahh! It capped off Poison's incredible 1988 - one of the best individual band years in the entire Hair Hunx Dynasty. A pair of American classics are on Poison number two and you'd be surprised to learn they actually picked-up some indie cred along the way.

The tireless Cheap Trick’s second album In Color is loved by classic rock fans, critics and music historians alike - but hated by the band. They thought the producer Tom Werman did them dirty - polishing up their sound behind their back - which he did. But too bad - it worked. Underrated classic released a year before this pairing of two oddballs and two hunks became big in Japan.

Zebby Tembo was the drummer for Zamrock legends Ngozi Family - very true - but he also wrote his own songs. My Ancestors was the first of two known Zebby solo albums - recorded in 1976 during the same time his main band was crushing faces and melting underpanties all over Lusaka. A bare bones stoner Zamrock classic.

The Damned were at the forefront of British punk - a party band providing dark comedic relief to a scene often fueled by inner rage. But two years in and they were done - burned out and looking to do something else. So The Damned broke up - for like a minute. With names like 'Rat Scabies' and 'Captain Sensible' what else could they do but rock and roll? Nothing. The re-energized band reformed in 1979, dropped Machine Gun Etiquette and never stopped knockin' socks off. Absolute classic.

It took a traumatic event for young Robin Pecknold to realize he possessed the gift of the Mangina Majestica. Only a few years later he turned that haunting memory into an unforgettable mangina band. Shore is Fleet Foxes at their catchiest and most tightly-tucked.

The Mac Attack's Mirage Tour concluded in October 1982 and the cranky gentle-rockers were clearly ready for a hiatus. While grandma-haired Lindsey Buckingham and the rest of the Mac sulked, Stevie Nicks made new friends and cranked out The Wild Heart - the energetic follow-up to Bella Donna. Stevie Nicks at her peak here - right before she quit coke and started wearing the Mrs. Doubtfire outfits.

By the time the Isolar Tour ended in May 1976 David Bowie was sick of his family and friends (yuck) hassling him to stop snorting his beloved Raoul. Get out of my face.

His plan was simple: tell everyone he was gonna clean out in Germany to throw them off his trail and then escape to Paris - where he can continue to snort drizzugs, bang black women, wear Nazi World War II regalia and just be David Bowie in peace. He would need some assistance in completing his mission though - so the first move was to...

The Who at their beautifully shambolic live peak. Pete Townshend had one goal as the new decade began - release a live Who album capturing all those new Tommy songs in their superior raw form. Well Pete threw a temper tantrum when he discovered that everything recorded from the previous year was unusable. After his fit, composure was found - and The Who booked two shows in February for the sole purpose of getting a live LP out of them. The magnificent Live At Leeds was the result - and there is not one Tommy song in the original...

Pega Monstro are Portuguese sisters Júlia and Maria Reis - and that's it. Unless you count Rodrigo Rodizio as an actual member. The Reis girls quickly became leaders of the Lisbon rock scene fifteen years ago - especially after founding Cafetra Records and providing an outlet for their friends' groups to release music. But friends don't matter when a masterpiece needs to be made - and in 2015 Pega Monstro left Portugal for London to unleash the Alfarroba. And we thank them for that.

The Bushman of Limpopo was an awesome Pop Africanus singer who cranked out over forty records during his lifetime. This while also earning three college degrees and a career in labour law that rivals his success in the music game. With Modjadji the Rain Queen helping assist his destiny Steve Kekana overcame blindness, nasty Belgian monks and other assorted obstacles to live a life of black radiance. Nomsa Ntombi Yami was the Kekana's second album - classic Mbaqanga - released a few years before South African music blew up on a global scale.

An overlooked chestnut from 1970s New York City fixture Garland Jeffreys. Good guy and relentless overachiever facing challenges like - having a fanbase more famous than him and - the constant bullying from his best friend's older brother Roy. A solid neck-to-nut worth the time.

The Paisley Underground bands of Los Angeles were keeping garage rock revivalism on full blast out west in 1984. But on the east coast Monoman and Lyres were doing it alone in Boston. Heavy on passion, lite on precision - Lyres' debut LP On Fyre is a skipless stomper that was recorded in a flurry of single takes into one microphone - let us bask in the oneness of Monoman.

Not the brightest bulbs in the offseason tanning bed - but Jacksonville's 38 Special stumbled into genius by polishing up their southern rock frame for 1980s MTV consumption with album four - Wild-Eyed Southern Boys - butt rock for the BEDAZZLED jean short.

Tireless synth-funklordz Chromeo had one goal in mind as they crafted Business Casual, their most presentable LP - make keyboard songs so infectious that even Michael Jackson would guest sing the hooks if heard - Follow the Rockwell Aesthetic.

Never happened - but Chromeo are still awesome and the most reliable summer music festival late-night set artist in the game. When it's 2am in the Legionnaire Tent and you're putting glow sticks in your mouth and doing bumps of K off the backside of a frisbee, Chromeo is probably on that stage.

Two roughs boys escape the high school tyranny of panty-masked Principal Montoya and form overachieving garage rock band Twin Peaks. Wild Onion is one of a handful of solid LPs they put out in a half-decade span before disappearing.

During June of 1973 - the year the Grateful Dead got really good at being the Grateful Dead - the band played a weekend run at the gigantic RFK Stadium in the nation's capital. On day two the Dead went for nearly five hours - exploratory jams out the wazoo - including a third set sit-in by a couple of Allman Bros. The show was recorded by famed LSD manufacturer and group benefactor Owsley 'Bear' Stanley - and then dusted off fifty years later for official release by the musical gravediggers at Rhino Records.

Barely out of their teens Carmelo and Michelangelo La Bionda of Milan established themselves as competent ballad authors for other Italian singers. But after a trip to Munich in 1977 the boys took their action to the dance floor and became pioneers of the emerging Italo-Disco scene. The ★ Collection is a fifteen track German compilation documenting the La Bionda brother's time spent under the glitter ball during the turn of the decade. Viva la Bionda!

During the 1970s the Doobs were everyone's older brother's THIRD favorite band with their sassy motorcycle riffs and church-ready harmonies. First five LPs with the core original lineup before Michael McMuffin joined are all decent - none are stank. The second one - Toulouse Street - is my overall favorite but we'll nip from the rest of the pack as well.

Reckless crowned young denim dandy Bryan Adams the surest thing in rock and roll in 1984. Ten flawlessly-constructed and produced songs void of experimentation but full of heart. Adams was at the top of his game - but SOMEONE was watching closely from three-thousand miles southeast of Vancouver.

We got a fresh one on site tonight - only a few months old. Twisted Teens make infectious New Orleans garage rock and have a pedal steel guitar player named Razor Ramone - with an e. Be cool Chico. Nuff said. Blame the Clown is their second album and you must hear.

Erasure are NOW regarded as 'homosexual pop' icons - but back when they started in the eighties no one noticed because EVERYONE was wearing spandex and sequined vests. The duo's second album The Circus is a joyous realization of destiny. Keyboardist/leader Vince Clarke had finally found the perfect front-twink in Andy Bell to sing his songs. For Andy - a dream come true - he was now in a group with THEE Vince Clarke - his hero from Depeche Mode and Yazoo.

The paradoxical Mötley Crüe hit the Hair Hunk heavens with Shout at the Devil in 1983 as Frank Ferrana gets to quit his day job and continue one of rock and roll's greatest swindles full-time.

Italian prog rock band Goblin found their destiny during the second half of the 1970's when they became the go-to musical score composers for the hot-shot horror movie directors of Italy. Goblin split at their peak but reunited (most of them) for 1982's Tenebrae - directed by their old friend Dario Argento.

Following the surprise success of their eponymous debut in 1971 the informal New Riders of the Purple Sage needed a couple FULL-time members to keep the party going - including a new pedal steel guitar player - a boutique role not easy to fill. Marmaduke had to go back in time to a quirky train tour across Canada he took part in a year earlier to find their man. Once the classic permanent NRPS lineup was set they continued to uncork records for Columbia including 1973's The Adventures of Panama Red - a deep-track dandy that sounds like the smell...

Creatively juiced by the wet-mulleted beefcakes of production team Full Force, Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam continued to pump the coffers of the Freestyle genre they helped create with 1987's Spanish Fly - a solid urban dance album in a genre generally defined by singles.

The atmospheric, echo-laden martian world of Dub is the most 'reggae-sounding' varietal of all the reggaes - and it was created by a workaday radio wireman from Kingston. King Tubbys Meets the Rockers Uptown represents Dub at it's finest - quietly released during the global boom of reggae in 1976.

In 1974 forty-five year old Cameroonian Renaissance Man Francis Bebey retired from a career as a journalist and musical director of UNESCO to focus more time on his family and the arts. He turned a spare room of his Parisian flat into a studio, bought a synthesizer, drum machine and four-track recorder - and began an early-retirement musical quest that would last thirty years. Trésor Magnétique is twenty tracks beautifully extracted from the wagonload of unused analog material Francis Bebey left behind in that glorified walk-in closet.

Ten years before transforming into a suited-DILF headed for MTV rapture - Robert Palmer along with the coolest cast of session musicians ever - cranked out a spirited blue-eyed funk winner called Sneakin' Sally Through the Alley. An amazing piece of work and yet another gift of the collaborative spirit (aka Satan).

A galley pisser and a tighty-whitey wearer meet in a record store in Athens, Georgia and form R.E.M. They begin their thirty year gentle-rock quest with Murmur - a deep-track treasure considered a Rosetta Stone to all indie-rock that followed.

Released during the height of the Grunge Hunx Dynasty - Dirt remains one of the coolest albums of the 1990s - an absolutely heroic effort by Jerry Cantrell. Dirt was Alice In Chains' brief view from the top before beginning the inevitable slalom down smack mountain.

A dispatch of wonderful garage sleaze from France made by a Boogie Chitz supergroup consisting of The Limiñanas, loose-of-mind Anton from Jonestown and Emmanuelle Seigner - the GILF wife of creepo director Roman Polanski.

Even as the musical tide was shifting from the Golden Oldies Era to the Classic Rock one in 1963, the radio was still filled with snappy sing-alongs regardless of genre. You had to go to the jazz rack for exploratory action - and even in that world the gently-cosmic lounge swing of Moon Gas is one of a kind.

Somewhere is the only release by Gum Country - a side project of the guitarist from artisanal grunge band The Courtneys. Infectious 1990s shoegaze rockery for the present day slacker - it's hard to believe an album this catchy can be so obscure. A 'blind listening' treasure to the fullest.