No Agreement and With Ginger Baker Live.

You know, I don't think I've heard either of those. The one I listen to most often is Expensive Shit/He Miss Road, and also the best-of compilation that came out several years ago, The Best Best of Fela Kuti. There are a few afrobeat comps out now, Nigeria '70 and Afro Baby, I think are the names. I downloaded several comps (the aforementioned, plus Ghana Soundz, 2 volumes) around the same time a few months ago and have been listening to them on shuffle, so I can't say which is the best, but they're all fun and funky.

Oops. I meant John Lee Hooker. My bad.

Ohhhhh, ok. I was all excited about the prospect, man.

Thanks for the recommendations, y'all! I've got the Best Best, Zombie, Confusion, and Gentleman, all of which I highly recommend back to y'all. Haven't heard any of the ones y'all've mentioned, though.

There was a fantastic article about Fela in the Da Capo Best Music Writing Anthology of 2002 or 2003 (I'm fairly certain it was the one that Jonathan Lethem edited). Y'all'd probably enjoy it.

I'll look it up, Corwood, thanks! The first I really heard of Fela was when I got a job indexing a book about him several years ago, which turned out to be a really cool project. The book is Fela: The Life and Times of an African Musical Icon, by Michael Veal, and it's excellent.

Synchronicity! I just checked that out of the library last week. Been waiting for my copy of Fela: The Music Is The Weapon to come from Netflix before reading it.

I saw Bauhaus at the Orpheum in Boston last night. The band sounded amazing and Peter Murphy's voice is still as vivid as ever (whether it works for you or not, he sounds like he used). He's slowed down a bit physically since I saw them in 1998 at Harborlights (!), and they had a more interesting visual show then too, but the song selection was right on (i.e. - digging deep into the albums rather than just the hits off Galore like they did in 98, although they did some of those too).

I was pleased to see Daniel Ash don a Marc Bolan-esque top hat for the glam covers portion of the show ("Telegram Sam" followed by "Ziggy"). They also pulled out one of the Ash-sung songs from BURNING FROM THE INSIDE ("Slice of Life") which was nice, since half that album was a serious precursor to LOVE & ROCKETS. And with the version of "She's in Parties" they did, I would have been happy even if they didn't do "Bela" (which they did do, of course).

Synchronicity! I just checked that out of the library last week.

Ooh, make sure you explore the FABULOUS index. t /professional pride

Frank, sounds like a great show!

You know, I don't think I've heard either of those.

They're both on eMusic. Super-tiny of course -- No Agreement has two tracks, Live has four.

The band sounded amazing and Peter Murphy's voice is still as vivid as ever (whether it works for you or not, he sounds like he used).

Story from my high school days: Back in 1990 Peter Murphy toured with Nine Inch Nails opening. Unfortunately for him, he played Tulsa at a time when the one local "alternative" station was playing Pretty Hate Machine like it was super-glued in the CD player. So the Old Lady On Brady (newly restored and reopened) turns into this huge Trent Reznor mosh pit love fest... and then half the crowd leaves before Peter Murphy.

From what I heard he wasn't too happy with NIN upstaging him, and they didn't get re-upped as openers after that stretch of the tour ended.

But I heard all this second-hand. It wasn't like my parents would have let me cross the railroad tracks to go to a show in what was technically the "black" part of town.

Story from my high school days: Back in 1990 Peter Murphy toured with Nine Inch Nails opening. Unfortunately for him, he played Tulsa at a time when the one local "alternative" station was playing Pretty Hate Machine like it was super-glued in the CD player. So the Old Lady On Brady (newly restored and reopened) turns into this huge Trent Reznor mosh pit love fest... and then half the crowd leaves before Peter Murphy.

From what I heard he wasn't too happy with NIN upstaging him, and they didn't get re-upped as openers after that stretch of the tour ended.

I saw the same thing happen in Boston. He was not happy at all during the show (and tore someone a new one when they shouted requests for "Bela Lugosi's Dead").

Word to any Fire Engines Ignorami out there: Domino USA releases a CD comp of their tunes tomorrow! [link]

Word to any Fire Engines Ignorami out there: Domino USA releases a CD comp of their tunes tomorrow!

Thanks for the notice, Jon. Does it look like a good comp to you?