Jimmy Wray & The Shreveport Boys "Little Bo Peep"

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Jimmy Wray & The Shreveport Boys
Rockin` in Louisiana
vol. 2
compilation LP
(White Label Records, 19??)

Time for a little hometown pride, y'all.

I was born in Shreveport, LA and spent the first 181 months of my life there, i.e. fifteen years plus a month. While I lived there, I was not aware of any local music at all. Sure, I went to see bands, but only big, out-of-towners. The closest I came to seeing a local band was seeing Hot Sauce open for Styx on January 1, 1977. Hot Sauce were from Dallas, TX, a three or four hour drive away. About all I remember is the guitarist wore a silver leather jacket and had a very long, coiled red guitar cord. That and they were terrible, and I wanted them to go away.

Oh, and I also saw Bliss, from Tulsa, OK. I was told years later that Bliss opened for the Sex Pistols in Tulsa, and I've just confirmed that they did, about six months before I saw them. Wow! The main things I remember about them were the singer had HUGE, frizzed out hair and they played a metal version of The William Tell Overture. When I saw them, they opened for REO Speedwagon and Rainbow. My friend Marshall and I were there to see the latter, and left after the former's first, crappy song.

Anyhow, local music from Shreveport? Sure, we had the Louisiana Hayride, a hugely influential country music showcase and radio show, but that was about it, to the best of my knowledge. Aside from that, the only group I know of from my hometown is avant garde lunatics The Residents, whom I featured here several months ago.

So, now that that's out of the way . . .

When I saw this Dutch LP, the title immediately grabbed my attention. I flipped it over, and noticed the artist for three tracks on side two was Jimmy Wray & the Shreveport Boys. Luckily, the store where I saw it is very cool about playing things for customers, and it sounded pretty good. The remaining tracks on that side are just credited to Jimmy Wray, by the way.

Who is Jimmy Wray, aside from the handsome young man in the pictures? Let's ask the liner notes, shall we?

The second side of the LP contains only unreleased material by the mysterious JIMMY WRAY. Nothing is remembered of him in the studio except that he worked hard and the reasons for not issuing any of his material is long forgotten. Why though is left for you to decide. As his recordings demonstrate he was yet another cat who tried his heart out without any resultant recordings being issued, that we know of anyway.

Perhaps it might have something to do with him singing about scoring cocaine (in a different song) a decade or so before Lou Reed was singing about waiting for his dope dealer? Regardless, the above is the entirety of what the compilers of the LP chose to share with us. Most of the material on his side of the record is original, but this song is my favorite, and it pops into my head all the time, and it's a cover. I've tried researching it to find out more about it, but to no avail. It's credited to Mills/Eskew. Knock yourself out!

The Residents "Satisfaction"

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The Residents
Satisfaction
7" single
(Ralph Records, 1976)

So, I'm back!

I've decided to start doing the occasional (or maybe frequent) (it's my blog–you can't stop me) theme week, starting today.

So . . .

This week's theme is Lightning's (that's me) favorite guitar solos. 'Cause, like, I'm a guitarist. Of sorts. Well, I own several guitars. Sometimes I even touch them.

First out of the box has one of my favorite solos and also happens to be my favorite cover song of all time. I bought this as I was easing into punk rock in my 17th year, and it was an ear opener, all right. Up until then, I'm not sure I'd ever heard anything so gloriously ugly. The guitarist on this charming piece is Phil Lithman, better known as Snakefinger. I can't remember where I read this, or who wrote it, but it's a perfect description: Snakefinger plays all the wrong notes in all the right places.

I've flagged this as both USA/Louisiana and England for a good reason. Firstly, The Residents are originally from Shreveport, LA, as am I. Secondly, Snakefinger is a Brit, and he's the soloist. So there. He was formerly a pub rocker in the UK, btw. His playing and singing with Chilli Willi and the Red Hot Peppers is not the sort of thing that would lead one to expect . . . this.

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I cheated on the cover for this one. The pictured cover is the original 1976 issue, which was something like 200 copies. I ripped this from my 1978 repress, which was 30,000 units, allegedly.

MC Trachiotomy "Ma Baby"

MC Trachiotomy
Robot Alien or Ghost
CD
(Anal Log/Rhinestone Records, 1999)

I found this in the $1 bin at one of my fave local music emporiums several months ago. How could I possibly pass up something that strange looking? And strange it did, indeed, turn out to be! There are beats, and vocalizations, and noise, and samples ranging from various tunes from Queen's News of the World to medical information on the color of normal urine. Today's song is actually one of the more coherent pieces.

He followed this with the slightly more musical ...w/Love from Tahiti. After that, it gets sketchy. He mentions stuff on his MySpace that I've not been able to find, and some stuff seems to have been partially released. The latter being a seven song EP with Quintron called Rowdy Life. It was announced as a limited edition 12" EP from New York Night Train Recordings, but I can find no evidence that it was actually released in that format. My copy is a CDR that I found in a bargain bin a few weeks ago at another of my favorite local record shops.