Friday, September 04, 2015

Tales From the Mystic East (An Occasional Series): Special Hello, Budokan! Edition

From 1965, please enjoy the incomparable Ventures and their killer (heh) live rendition of Richard Rogers great ballet tune "Slaughter on 10th Avenue." (Certainly, the Japanese audience is having a terrific time.)




Actually, there's some dispute about whether anything on this album was actually recorded in concert -- in Japan or anywhere else, for that matter -- but whatever its provenance, I think we can all agree that the music on the CD is about as good as instro-rock gets.

Have a great weekend, everybody!

11 comments:

Shriner said...

Love me some Ventures! My dad had about a dozen+ Ventures albums and I devoured them growing up. I'd be surprised if any other guitar players of a certain age didn't as well...

steve simels said...

Couldn't find my copy of the CD -- it's here somewhere -- so I'm not positive that this track is supposed to be one of the Japanese shows or not.

Mea Culpa if it isn't.

MJConroy said...

"In reality all of the tracks were recorded at Western Studios in Hollywood and then the audience was dubbed on afterwards." - See more at: http://acerecords.co.uk/the-ventures-in-the-vaults-volume-4#sthash.c7hoEk6R.dpuf

pete said...

I love that Ventures drummer Mel Taylor is the brother of Canned Heat bassist Larry Taylor.

steve simels said...

I did not know that, Pete.

FD13NYC said...

Yep, definitely a good album by them.

Anonymous said...

Took 'em way too long to be inducted into the Hall of Fame. Mel Taylor died before it happened. Unforgivable. One of the most kick-ass drummers of all time.

I've seen these guys about thirty times since the Sixties. Last time was in the 1990's when Taylor was still alive and in the band. It was McGee, Wilson, Bogle and Taylor. Nokie Edwards showed up and guested on a bunch of songs. They weren't bad for geezers.

Don't like that they medley-ized Walk Don't Run with Perfidia and Lullaby of the Leaves for the On Stage (sic) album. I've never been much of a fan of medleys anyway. Fuck, the Everly Brothers used to do that medley crap too and it always pissed me off.

I used to deal in CD's of the import variety during the early 1990's as a sideline. Many of which were "Live Imports" which is what you told the authorities bootlegs were. Handled a lot of Japanese stuff too. During that time Toshiba issued five 4-CD boxes called The History of the Ventures (v.1, v.2 etc). They sold real well in SoCal and I kept a set for myself. It's more shit than you'll ever need, but very well done. These were followed by three Japanese box sets of live Ventures.

I wanna hear Caravan with a drum sola!


Dirty martini mornin' to ya. We're heading for Swami's.

VR

Anonymous said...

what will you have, and with whom (in detail, please)?

Anonymous said...

Actually, Steve, that could almost be a topic for a future Listomania: "Top Ten (or whatever) LPs Billed As "Live" But Which Really Aren't".

J. Lag

Anonymous said...

Weren't nearly all "live" albums tweaked with back in the day? Bootlegs and jam bands are the only honest, warts and all, live releases. That Stones EP is pretty raw too.

BTW, Swami's is not an eatery, but a surf destination in Encinitas. Too bad the surf is only kinda up. Like some inadequate men already are on the fourth go round. But I digress.

Oh well, Cat Power and Willy Mason oughta be good tonight after Bentley's Steak and Chop House. .... Surf and turf with our usual triad since you asked. We are beach bums, all. And Lou's Records is close by.

Visual aids:

http://i1282.photobucket.com/albums/a535/VanessaStone/Swamis/swamis%20encinitas_zpsskdzbknm.jpg

http://i1282.photobucket.com/albums/a535/VanessaStone/Swamis/91bf67bf-421f-4464-887a-c7940443811a_zpsgjkk7pj8.png

http://i1282.photobucket.com/albums/a535/VanessaStone/Swamis/f0709f14-9b9e-4e18-887d-7cbc00bcea55_zpszlkz0c6z.jpg

Gotta run. Don't be a sourpuss:-)

VR

Anonymous said...

Nokie Edwards is in my top five guitarists of all time. If you watch any video of the band from Japan check out his guitar breaks. He makes these sounds that are just wild. Just little bendy things and interesting runs but damn.
DannyGuam