2009-10-31

Bill Jenkins - There Is No Lord Up There


Artist: Bill Jenkins

Song: There Is No Lord Up There

Album: Life (1995)

Billy Jenkins is a blues guitarist, composer.

Band-leader, composer, (one-time rehearsal room manager) teacher and guitarist, Billy Jenkins is now in his fifth decade of music making which began with rehearsals in his parent's basement. Billy's early musical experiences were shared with best friend Bill Broad, who he introduced to the music of Frank Zappa, Velvet Underground and Sonny Rollins. They parted ways at 18: Billy heading off "to be a musician"and Broad changing his name to Idol, with the ambition "to be a star".

American readers will be baffled by him; but he is, along with the Princess Royal and Walthamstow dog stadium, one of our national treasures.' Penguin Guide To Jazz On CD

When I was five or six
my grandma fell down a flight of stairs
when I was five or six
my dear grandma fell down a flight of stairs
I knew there and then
that there is no Lord up there

When I was eight or nine
my big sister got attacked
when I was eight or nine
my big sister got attacked
so when Jehovah come selling religion
I sell the blues right back

I had just turned twelve
when some bastard stole my bicycle
I had just turned twelve
when some bastard stole my bicycle
blood drain from my face
heart like an icicle

Yes there is no Lord up there
ask my Grandma, my sister or my bike
yes there is no Lord up there
ask my Grandma, my sister or my bike
yes there is no Lord up there

OH NO...........!

When I was five or six
my grandma fell down a flight of stairs
when I was five or six
my dear grandma fell down a flight of stairs
I knew there and then
that there is no Lord up there

When I was eight or nine
my big sister got attacked
when I was eight or nine
my big sister got attacked
so when Jehovah come selling religion
I sell the blues right back

I had just turned twelve
when some bastard stole my bicycle
I had just turned twelve
when some bastard stole my bicycle
blood drain from my face
heart like an icicle

Yes there is no Lord up there
ask my Grandma, my sister or my bike
yes there is no Lord up there
ask my Grandma, my sister or my bike
yes there is no Lord up there

OH NO...........!

2009-10-30

Lynn Miles - It's Hockey Night In Canada


Artist: Lynn Miles

Song: It’s Hockey Night In Canada

Album: Chalk This One Up To The Moon (1991)

Canadian singer/songwriter Lynn Miles, who is known for her plaintive singing and melancholy muse, is often compared to the likes of Shawn Colvin and Lucinda Williams. The Ottawa native entered Carleton University with the intention of studying music, but soon dropped out to write songs and perform at the bars and coffeehouses of Canada's capital city. She independently released a self-titled debut and Chalk This One Up to the Moon in the early '90s. Her song "Remembrance Day" ended up being featured in a Canadian Armed Forces video that depicted the losses of war and was televised nationally. In 1996, Miles released Slightly Haunted on Philo Records. The effort ended up as a year-end Top Ten pick in Billboard Magazine. (New York Times critic Jon Pareles has also praised Miles' forlorn songcraft.) Miles moved to Los Angeles in 1997 and the following year released Night in a Strange Town. Around that time, she also did a guest vocal on fellow Canadian Fred Eaglesmith's Lipstick, Lies & Gasoline album (on the track "Drinking Too Much"). For 2001's Unravel, Miles reunited with longtime collaborator, guitarist Ian Lefeuvre. ~ Erik Hage, All Music Guide

(…) Featuring a dozen of her compositions, Lynn's sophomore album Chalk This One Up To The Moon was released on CD by Snowy River in 1991. Recorded at Sound of One Hand Studios in Ottawa, Bill Stunt, who worked for the Canadian Broadcasting Commission, produced the disc.While her debut set hinted at a songwriterunder development, Chalk This One Up To The Moon provided ample proof that Lynn possessed an exceptional talent for marrying thoughtful lyrics to memorable, hook laden, melodies.
"It's Hockey Night in Canada" was written from the perspective of a girl growing up in Canada, where ice hockey takes over the airwaves and the minds of men from October till May. My father was a hockey coach. The song is about memories I have of walking home through the snow and seeing television sets glowing blue in living room windows.
more


It's hockey night in Canada
There is a blue glow in every window
And I am walking home alone again
In the freshly fallen frozen snow

With my heart beneath my duffle coat
My dreams turning to icicles
I wish there was a sunny summer sky
And I was cruising on my bicycle

And I would wait
For all the lights to change to green
And I would race right through
And take it down the afternoon avenue
That's what I would do
But there's just these skating rinks
And the boys always get their way
It seems like it's hockey night in Canada
Almost every single day

They are clearing my street again
Trying to deny the season
And I want so much to disagree with them
But they refuse to hear my reason

There is a zamboni of sorts in all our souls
And the streets of old Montreal are cold
Equal ice time is all we need
To catch our breath and build our speed

And we would wait
For all the lights to change to green
And we would march right through
And take it down the afternoon avenue
That's what we would do
But there's just these skating rinks
And the boys always get their way
It seems like it's hockey night in Canada
Almost every single day

2009-10-29

Lauryn Hill - Every Ghetto, Every City


Artist: Lauryn Hill

Song: Every Ghetto, Every City

Album: The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill

Lauryn Hill has minor references to youth on a BMX bike and bike theft in this song by Hill gone solo from Fugees and Wyclef Jean.

review

I was just a little girl
Skinny legs, a press and curl
My mother always thought I'd be a star
But way before my record deal,
The streets that nurtured Lauryn Hill
Made sure that I'd never go too far
Every ghetto, every city and suburban place I've been
Make me recall my days in the New Jerusalem
Story starts at Hootaville grew up next to Ivy Hill
When kids were stealing quartervilles for fun
"Kill the guy" in Carter park
Rode a Mongoose 'til it's dark
Watching kids show off the stolen ones
Every ghetto, every city and suburban place I've been
Make me recall my days in New Jerusalem

You know it's hot, don't forget what you've got
Looking back,
Looking back, looking back, looking back
You know it's hot, don't forget what you've got
Looking back
Thinking back, thinking back, thinking back

A bag of Bontons, twenty cents and a nickel
Springfield Ave. had the best popsicles
Saturday morning cartoons and Kung-Fu
Main street roots tonic with the dreds
A beef patty and some coco bread
Move the patch from my Lees to the tongue of my shoe
'Member Frelng-Huysen used to have the bomb leather
Back when Doug Fresh and Slick Rick were together
Looking at the crew, we thought we'd all live forever

You know it's hot, don't forget what you've got
Looking back
Thinking back, thinking back, thinking back
You know it's hot, don't forget what you've got
Looking back
Thinking back, thinking back, thinking back

Drill teams on Munn street
Remember when Hawthorne and Chancellor had beef
Moving Records was on Central Ave.
I was there at dancing school
South Orange Ave. at Borlin pool
Unaware of what we didn't have
Writing your friends' names on your jeans with a marker

July 4th races off of Parker
Fireworks at Martin stadium
The Untouchable P.S.P., where all them crazy niggers be
And car thieves got away through Irvington
Hillside brings beef with the cops
Self-Destruction record drops
And everybody's name was Muslim
Sensations and '88 attracted kids from out-of-state
And everybody used to do the wop
Jack, Jack, Jack ya body
Nah, the Biz Mark used to amp up the party
I wish those days, they didn't stop
Every ghetto, every city and suburban place I've been
Make me recall my days in New Jerusalem

You know it's hot, don't forget what you've got
Looking back
Welcome back, welcome back, welcome back
You know it's hot, don't forget what you've got
Looking back
Thinking back, thinking back, thinking back

Thinking back, thinking back, thinking back
(To end)

2009-10-28

Bob Dylan - Buckets of Rain


Artist: Bob Dylan

Song: Buckets Of Rain

Album: Blood on the Tracks

A tender folk ballad with dobro guitar and a suggestive stanza by a master singer-songwriter with an unrivaled resume of over 700 songs. If you consider Blood on the Tracks in its historic period, a wistful Viet Nam War perspective didn’t much fit into surrounding disco craze, but it was Bob’s best album in years.

THE ALBUM’S FINAL SONG, bucket full of rain, seems conciliatory in tone. The simple brief lines help Blood on the Tracks end of a positive note, and there’s even a bit of imagistic language – little red littlered bike – that resembles william carlos williams famous poem “The Redwheelbarrow”. The concluding word are shooting: “Life is sad...”

Dylan said about lp “You’ve got yesterday today and tomorrow all in the same room”

From Michael Gray’s excellent book, the Bob Dylan Encyclopedia, about Buckets of Rain (from Blood on the Tracks):

The closing track on the Blood on the Tracks album, this is an immensely likeable, modest song of barbed sanity ACUTO BUON SENSO. A blues- structured work, it also neatly NETTAMENTE METTE INSIEME conflates other old song titles within its lyric, as when Dylan sings


‘Little red wagon, little red bike / I ain’t no monkey but I know what I like’.

In a genre so riddled ENIGMATICA with sexual innuendo INSINUAZIONI and double entendre as the blues, it’s sometimes hard to know whether a phrase or a line belongs in the nursery ASILO NIDO or the porn shop, and this is a good example. One long-term Dylan collector was told years ago that the phrase ‘little red bike’ was a blues term for anal sex: which certainly puts a different perspective on Dylan’s lyric. But it is not a common blues term: there isn’t a single ‘little red wagon’ in Michael Taft’s Blues Lyric Poetry: A Concordance.

‘Little Red Wagon’ is, however, a recording by the pre-war blues artist Georgia White, and by a happy coincidence the very next track she laid down at the same session is called ‘Dan the Back Door Man’.

I’ll never hear that song quite the same again.

From the official Bob Dylan lyric site:

Little red wagon
Little red bike
I ain’t no monkey but I know what I like.
I like the way you love me strong and slow,
I’m takin’ you with me, honey baby,
When I go.

Buckets of rain
Buckets of tears
Got all them buckets comin' out of my ears.
Buckets of moonbeams in my hand,
I got all the love, honey baby,
You can stand.

I been meek
And hard like an oak
I seen pretty people disappear like smoke.
Friends will arrive, friends will disappear,
If you want me, honey baby,
I'll be here.

Like your smile
And your fingertips
Like the way that you move your lips.
I like the cool way you look at me,
Everything about you is bringing me
Misery.

Little red wagon
Little red bike
I ain't no monkey but I know what I like.
I like the way you love me strong and slow,
I'm takin' you with me, honey baby,
When I go.

Life is sad
Life is a bust
All ya can do is do what you must.
You do what you must do and ya do it well,
I'll do it for you, honey baby,
Can't you tell?

2009-10-24

Nada Surf - Whose Authority


Artist: Nada Surf

Song: Whose Authority

Album: Lucky (2008)

Nada Surf's new Jonathan Krisel-directed video for "Whose Authority," from the forthcoming Lucky, stars Michael C. Maronna, who you should all remember as the elder Pete from The Adventures Of Pete and Pete. Classic. Here, instead of dealing with his pain-in-the-ass kid brother or doing those sensitive wise-beyond-his-teenage-years voice overs, he's working as a bad-ass bicycle messenger delivering packages around Manhattan after leaving his Brooklyn crib. En route he disrupts pigeons, chats with other two-wheeled friends, kicks over traffic cones, knocks on buses, and narrowly escapes collisions with taxi doors before heading back over the Wiliamsburg bridge and calling it a day. Yes, home to that cool place MTV told us about. Gosh we hope Kyp says hi this time.

review

“There are some particularly luminous moments here, including the back-to-back punch of "Whose Authority"” - Allmusic

Everyone’s right and no one is sorry
That’s the start and the end of the story
From the sharks and the jets to the call in the morning

Everyone’s right and no one is sorry
That’s the start and the end of the story
From the sharks and the jets to the call in the morning
And life is just bits anyway

Look alive see these bones
What you are now, we were once

Try as they might, no one’s immune to
Misfiring and acting on the wrong clues
And thinking it’s time to redo redo

I feel rain in the movies and the talk before the screen lights
I hear strings in the park
I don’t like to call her right unless its too late at night
I mostly just think in the dark

Look alive see these bones
What you are now, we were once
But just like we are
You’ll be dust
And just like we are
Permanent

You were too tired to eat
Too hungry to sleep
Just imagine the speed
It’s just what you need

Look alive, you see these bones
What you are now, we were once
And just like we are

You’ll be dust
And just like we are
Permanent

The lights in the city are more or less blinking
Which side of the story decides what you’re thinking
We’re a moans and cold faces
We’re squinting, we’re hurrying
We take inventory
We’re digging, we’re burrying

Do you remember when the lines blow?
Do you remember when it failed
Do you remember when we went to your house?
Remember ringing the bell?

Look alive, see these bones
What you are now, we were once
Just like we are
You’ll be dust
And just like we are
Permanent

The lights in the city are more or less blinking (look alive)
Which side of the story decides what you’re thinking (see these bones)
We’re moans and cold faces (what you are now)
We’re squinting, we’re hurrying (we were once)
We take inventory
We’re digging, we’re burrying

Do you remember when the lights low?
Do you remember when it failed?
Do you remember when we went to your house?
Remember ringing the bell? [2x]

Look alive see these bones [2x]

2009-10-23

Memory Tapes - Bicycle


Artist: Memory Tapes

Song: Bicycle

Album: Seek Magic (2009)


Moniker-crazed one-man-band Dayve Hawk splits the difference between his Weird Tapes project (dancey, electro) and his Memory Cassette project (hazy, wistful) with Memory Tapes (dancey, yet wistful!). After the incredible, New Order-style single "Bicycle", we now get news of the debut Memory Tapes LP, dubbed Seek Magic and out in a very limited edition September 29 via Acephale.

To start, the record is primarily being released on vinyl-- first run records will be light blue with some special "white/blue haze" LPs thrown in just in case you didn't get the idea that this shit is fucking hazy. (Pitchfork)

‘Bicycle’, the album’s first single, is a retro-minded collision of propulsive beats, layer upon processed layer of Hawk’s hauntingly soft vocals – like The Knife producing Neil Young – and a closing guitar solo, lifted straight from the grooves of New Order’s Technique, which cranks an already celestial song into some kind of dark-hearted disco supernova. more

music

2009-10-21

Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee - Bicycle Boogie


Artist: Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee

Song: Bicycle Boogie

Album: Key To The Highway, Sittin In With Sessions (2007)

music

2009-10-20

Cool Kids - Black Mags


Artist: Cool Kids

Song: Black Mags

Album: The Bake Sale (2008)

Part of the mid-2000s hip-hop movement that found kids in all-over prints rapping about their shoes and their favorite forms of transportation (which often weren't cars), the Cool Kids proved to be both an Internet and live show phenomenon. The duo of Mikey Rocks(born Antoine Reed) and Chuck Inglish (or Evan Ingersoll) met in mid-2005 after Mickey came across some of Chuck's beats online and liked what he heard. They met up in their Chicago-area homes (whereMikey was born and raised; Chuck lived in Mount Clemens, MI, about 30 miles north of Detroit, until he was 11) with the intention of making beats to sell to other artists, but soon realized their own measured, ... Read More...

The Bake Sale is the critically acclaimed EP by American hip hop duo The Cool Kids. It has sold over 50,000 copies in the U.S

review

Verse (Chuck):

I got this 89-90, Pistons champ flat/ bill black starter cap with the hologram tags/
White Mag rims, red rubber tires/
Chain, frame, pegs, grips, shift to my supplier/
Dope man attire, gimme bout an hour/
And I'll have it clicking, ticking, gliding, flying like McGuyver/
I'm a Murder Club, dope pedal rider/
Nigel said I'm good to get that ink on my bicep/
I gets, busy as a bee on my bike grips/
If I catwalk this, I walk, I can fly this/
Bitch and I'm fly, and it's tied to the side/
that's the flag that I'm flying/
Add to the fact that it all coincides with these wheels that I'm riding/
3pt Mags make you think that I'm gliding/
... Shiiiit nigga I aint lying/
I got a long rap sheet that'll say that I'm tied in/

Chorus

Verse (Mikey):

I hit chuck on the pager yo, I'm kinda bored/
And got class til later so, open garage/
And I don't really know which way to go, I aint tryna skate it though/
And my bikes illegal, so they send for the law/
But I don't care joe, I just keep on pedalin/
Ride past shorty light skinned with no melanin/
Shirt look like somebody stuffed two melons in/
Had to stop, so I could preach like revered/
I grip on the handbrake and say "Whatup?"/
I skip on the handshakes, I'm straight. What else? /
I got two pegs on the back, and you got two legs under your skirt/
So ho, we head/
To the Dope Pedal Headquarters/
You would be there if you could/
Chuck got the red wheels and the white mags, but it's all good/
Got the gold hundred spokes like Boys in the Hood/
With the lime green frame, dollars on the bike/
Seat, handlebar grips, is the same as my Nikes/
In the mold, the gold I use for my spokes/
And the frame, the same as I use for my chain/ Out!

Chorus

Mikey Rocks and Chuck Inglish (myspace.com/gocoolkids) in their first video adventure. while GL-Joe (myspace.com/GL_Joe) directed and Jake Z (www.lookatrubbish.com) filmed it.

2009-10-19

Corinne Bailey Rea - Girl Put Your Records On


Artist: Corinne Bailey Rea

Song: Girl Put Your Records On

Album: Corinne Bailey Rea (2006)

"Put Your Records On" is a song by English soul singer–songwriter Corinne Bailey Rae from her debut album, Corinne Bailey Rae (2006). Written by Rae, John Beck, and Steve Chrisanthou, it was released as the album's second single in February and early March 2006 throughout Europe and as the lead single in North America. The track received two nominations at the 2007 Grammy Awards for Record of the Year and Song of the Year, losing both to Dixie Chicks' "Not Ready to Make Nice".

Three little birds, sat on my window.
And they told me I don't need to worry.
Summer came like cinnamon
So sweet,
Little girls double-dutch on the concrete.

Maybe sometimes, we've got it wrong, but it's alright
The more things seem to change, the more they stay the same
Oh, don't you hesitate.

Girl, put your records on, tell me your favourite song
You go ahead, let your hair down
Sapphire and faded jeans, I hope you get your dreams,
Just go ahead, let your hair down.

You're gonna find yourself somewhere, somehow.

Blue as the sky, sunburnt and lonely,
Sipping tea in the bar by the roadside,
(just relax, just relax)
Don't you let those other boys fool you,
Got to love that afro hair do.

Maybe sometimes, we feel afraid, but it's alright
The more you stay the same, the more they seem to change.
Don't you think it's strange?

Girl, put your records on, tell me your favourite song
You go ahead, let your hair down
Sapphire and faded jeans, I hope you get your dreams,
Just go ahead, let your hair down.

You're gonna find yourself somewhere, somehow.

'Twas more than I could take, pity for pity's sake
Some nights kept me awake, I thought that I was stronger
When you gonna realise, that you don't even have to try any longer?
Do what you want to.

Girl, put your records on, tell me your favourite song
You go ahead, let your hair down
Sapphire and faded jeans, I hope you get your dreams,
Just go ahead, let your hair down.

Girl, put your records on, tell me your favourite song
You go ahead, let your hair down
Sapphire and faded jeans, I hope you get your dreams,
Just go ahead, let your hair down.

2009-10-18

St. Vincent - Bicycle



Artist: St. Vincent

Song: Bicycle

Two years ago, Annie Clark’s recorded debut as St. Vincent, ‘Marry Me’, gave immediate notice that a dizzying new talent had emerged from the flatlands of Texas. Critics from all points of the cultural compass—from Pitchfork to Spin to the New York Times Magazine—were entranced by the album’s precocious arrangements and elegant lyrics, and the steadily growing crowds at St. Vincent’s live shows were astonished by Clark’s gargantuan musical chops and her magnetic stage presence. No small number of St. Vincent fans took the title of ‘Marry Me’ literally, had their hearts duly broken, and wouldn’t have had it any other way. The record was heralded as a remarkably successful entrance and Clark capped a year of international touring by winning the Plug Awards’ Female Artist of the Year. more

Bicycle is the b-side of the single “Actor Out of Work”..

music

You stole my bicycle so i had to walk 20 city blocks in the rain
You took my tennis shoes so i took the train to avoid the rain
You saw me on the street you offered me a seat then when i blinked you w

2009-10-17

Ruby Jones - Bicycle Built For Everyone


Artist: Ruby Jones

Song: Bicycle Built For Everyone

Album: Stone Junkie (1971)

Singer Ruby (Starr) was best-known as a backup singer for '70s macho man rockers Black Oak Arkansas, but also issued several recordings as a solo artist as well. Born Constance Henrietta Mierzwiak in Toledo, OH, in 1949, the future rock singer got her start at the age of nine (performing renditions of Brenda Lee songs) before changing her stage name to Connie Little and forming the Phil Spector-esque Connie & the Blu-Beats. Following stints in such obscure outfits as the Downtowners and the Blue Grange Ramblers (aka BGR), the latter of which mutated into the outfit Ruby Jones Read more

Originally released in 1971 on Curtis Mayfield's Curtom Records. The album sounds like Janis Joplin crossed with Blood Sweat and Tears, fusing soul, funk and rock to great effect. Includes 'Looking Out For Tomorrow', 'Stone Junkie' and a re-working of The Young Rascals', 'You Better Run'.

2009-10-16

Erskine Hawkins and His Orchestra - Bicycle Bounce



Artist: Erskine Hawkins and His Orchestra

Song: Bicycle Bounce

Album: Tuxedo Junction (2008), 1941-1945 Classics

A talented high-note trumpeter and a popular bandleader, Erskine Hawkins was nicknamed "the 20th Century Gabriel." He learned drums and trombone before switching to trumpet when he was 13. While attending the Alabama State Teachers College, he became the leader of the college band, the 'Bama State Collegians. They went to New York in 1934, became the Erskine Hawkins Orchestra, started making records in 1936, and by 1938 were quite successful. With Hawkins and Dud Bascomb sharing the trumpet solos, Paul Bascomb or Julian Dash heard on tenors, Haywood Henry on baritone, and pianist Avery… Read more

music

2009-10-15

Bob Gaddy and Friends - Bicycle Boogie


Artist: Bob Gaddy and Friends

Song: Bicycle Boogie

Album: Bob Gaddy & Friends

Also on album: VV. AA. – Let Him Have It (soundtrack 1992)

Or V. A.: New York Blues And R&B 1949-1954

Bob Gaddy was the son of a coal miner and was born among the mining country of West Virginia. At a young age he moved to North Carolina with his family and like so many others before him, gravitated toward music from the church. He began to learn the rudiments of the piano and continued to hone his musical skills during his teenaged years. Gaddy entered the military in 1944 and there came in contact with styles of the blues. He soon abandoned his reliance on gospel music and became an accomplished blues pianist. After his military discharge he thought about relocating to California, but making the rounds of night spots in Harlem soon put those plans on hold.

At a club in Harlem, Gaddy had the chance to sit in with budding blues great Champion Jack Dupree. He played an impressive set and this led to one booking after another in area clubs and soon Bob Gaddy was a mainstay on the New York City blues scene. Two of his long time partners in music are guitarists Larry Dale and Jimmy "Wildman" Spruill. He also played for a time with bassist Al Hall and drummer Gene Moore. Bob Gaddy and his combo did a lot of backup work in the late forties and early fifties for Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry. In 1952 Gaddy had his first visit to the recording studio for the little known New York based Jackson label.The combo was labeled as Bob Gaddy & His Alley Cats and included McGhee and Terry. The songs were "I Believe You Got A Sidekick" and Bicycle Boogie" and released on Jackson # 2303. more

music

movie

2009-10-13

David Rovics - The Bicycle Song


Artist: David Rovics

Song: The Bicycle Song

Album: Make It So (1996)

David Rovics (born April 10, 1967) is an indie singer/songwriter and grassroots political protestor from the United States. His music is most accurately described as protest-folk and concerns topical subjects such as the 2003 Iraq war, anti-globalization and social justice issues. Rovics is an outspoken critic of not only George W. Bush and the Republican Party, but also figures like John Kerry and the Democratic Party as a whole. He is vocal on these subjects on stage, radio shows and in press releases.

Everybody's wondering what they're gonna do
Everything's a mess and folks are feeling blue
If your troubles get you down so much you can't abide
Get on that bicycle and ride

(chorus)
Yeah, get on that bicycle and ride
'Neath the sunny skies or along the oceanside
Just ride, ride, ride, ride, ride

They're doing it in Eugene, Havana and Shanghai
Even folks in Boston-town are giving it a try
Throwing out their gastanks, the clean air by their side
Get on that bicycle and ride

(chorus)

It's good for your heart and it's good for your brain
When those fluorescent lights are driving you insane
Your toes'll tingle in your shoes, when to the pedal they're applied
Just get on that bicycle and ride

(chorus)

If you're having troubles with your lovers, the tandem's made for that
You'll work together wonderfully or else you'll just go splat
Gonna shut down Main Street, make the bike paths far and wide
And get on that bicycle and ride

(chorus)

2009-10-12

The New Kings - Street Fighter


Artist: The New Kings

Song: Street Fighter

Album: Take Back The Streets (2008)

Lead by one of Toronto's loudest bicycle activist, Michael Louis Johnson, The New Kings blend of ska, swing, and rock'n'roll, add an energetic punch to a rebellious call for action.

2009-10-11

Skylark - Raining Bicycles


Artist: Skylark

Album: Raining Bicycles (1996)

Admirers of the superlative instrumental talents of accordionist Mairtin O'Connor, fiddler Gerry O'Connor and multi-instrumentalist Garry O Briain, or of the unique singing skills of Len Graham, will welcome this latest offering from Skylark. (more)

2009-10-10

Refrigerator - Bicycle


Artist: Refrigerator

Song: Bicycle

Album: How You Continue Dreaming (1995)

Lo-fi noise pop combo Refrigerator was led by brothers Allen and Dennis Callaci, who first began collaborating as teens as members of the hair metal parody band the Bux. Recording their first cassette on December 6, 1985, the Bux proceeded to issue a new tape annually on that same date five years running, with later releases pointing toward the fuzzy, fractured approach of the Callacis' subsequent work. The siblings formed Refrigerator with drummer Joel Connell in 1990, a short time after Dennis founded his pioneering indie label Shrimper; the group's debut cassette, Lonesome Surprize,… Read more

(…) Dennis and Allen are very "real" human beings, and the beauty of these songs flows from their unpretentious souls with obvious ease and lack of self-consciousness. Allen's crooning may be un-schooled, but he very effectively communicates the immediacy of a phone call from your best friend. My personal favorite is "Bicycle". The lyrics go: "Your sister's riding on her bike/Passing all the intersections/And she's got your eyes/And she looks almost like you/And she rides up on her bike". (...) The open-ended familiarity and conversational tone are fantastic. Also check out "Colton" and "Sorry State Line".

music

music

2009-10-09

Blinker The Star - Bicycle Freedom


Artist: Blinker The Star

Song: Bicycle Freedom

Album: A Bourgeois Kitten (2009)

Blinker the Star began as a one-man band in the basement of then-22-year-old Toronto native Jordon Zadorozny following a fire in his parents' music store that resulted in instruments and recording equipment being stored in his cellar. Zadorozny's music is proudly lo-fi, making use of as many low-budget effects and recording techniques as he can improvise. The songs on Blinker the Star's self-titled debut album, which was released in 1995, are the original basement recordings; Zadorozny refused to redo them in a studio for fear of losing interesting mistakes or effects he did not remember how to duplicate. Bourgeois Kitten followed in 1996; August Everywhere, Blinker the Star's Dreamworks label debut, appeared three years later. ~ Steve Huey, All Music Guide

This album is a lot more rock than the newer blinker the star albums. It has hints of nirvana in many of the songs. Kind of a later grunge album I guess. The lyrics are a little wierd (they don't really make alot of sense), but overall I like this cd. The guitar riffs are raw and the songs are catchy.

music

Got no formal time to breathe
Monster rock is all for me
Perry, blackie, abductee
Make the hell feel neutral freeze
Satellite for me
Be afraid to go inside
He points to his head at me
Tells me i'm the only one
Who has got inside of me
Bicycle, go free

2009-10-08

Roots and Wisdom - Bicycles Ebulu M


Artist: Roots And Wisdom

Songs: Bicycle Ebulu M

Album: Africa Fe (1971)

another Roots and Wisdom bike-link


AFRICA FE is the second CD recorded by ROOTS AND WISDOM which is currently available through CD BABY. (The first one is BICYCLES FOR RASTAS MAYAS)

This cd AFRICA FE was recorded primarily to raise money and materials for an international cultural center for AFRICAN and MAYAN social projects in the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico. The center is currently being built near Cancun, in Felipe Carrillo Puerto, 100 kilometers from Tulum.

Even though ROOTS AND WISDOM is an African, reggae and world music oriented band led by Nigerian born musician Wisdom Ogbor, the group is based in Mexico where they regularly perform in the Yucatan peninsula and Central America. They invite you to join them for your next Caribbean vacation by e-mailing them through their website for their tour updates.

music

review

Bicycle ebulum o
ka m jebe Ogwashi nalu ugwo,
Oyoyo yoyoyo, egwu nwa Okolonji
Nkemanwuna a na anwuli
Na nwa jeko olu oyibo
Oyoyo yoyoyo, egwu nwa Okolonji o

Bicycle ebute ego
Bicycle ebute okwu o
Bicycle ebute nni o
Bicycle ebute ikpe

Eh, he he he,
Oyoyo yoyoyo.....2x
Eh, he, he, he
Egwu nwa Okolonji

Bicycle ebute Uba
Bicycle ebute Ekem
Bicycle ebute Odi
Bicycle bu Anene

Eh, he he he,
Oyoyo yoyoyo
Egwu nwa Okolonji

Nkemanwuna esie garri
nke nwa ya buta na olu oyibo

Eh, he he he,
Oyoyo yoyoyo
Egwu nwa Okolonji

Bicycle ebute iwe
Bicycle ebute uta
Bicycle ebute oshi
Bicycle ebute iwu

Eh, he he he,
Oyoyo yoyoyo
Oyoyo yoyoyo
Oyoyo yoyoyo
Egwu nwa Okolonji

Ecodin, ecodin, ecodine......3x

Obulum o, ka anyi jebe egwu
Obulu iyu, ka anyi jebe olu,
Obute ego, obute olu
Nke anyi luta, anyi ana anwuli
Obulu ife anyi leta na olu oyibo

Eh, he he he,
Oyoyo yoyoyo.....2x
Egwu nwa Okolonji

Bicycle ebulum o
Bicycle ebulu iyu o
Bicycle ebulu Elue
Bicycle ebulu Obi
Ebe anyi jene anyi ana anwuli
Anyi afuga ife we ji eme oyibo

Eh, he he he,
Oyoyo yoyoyo.....2x
Eh, he, he, he
Egwu nwa Okolonji

Ecodin, ecodin, ecodine......4x

Obulum o, ka m choba ego,
Obulu iyu, ka ichoba di
Obute ozi o, obute nwa,
Nke anyi weta, anyi ana anwuli
Obuli ife anyi kete na olu oyibo

Eh, he he he,
Oyoyo yoyoyo.....2x
Egwu nwa Okolonji

Bicycle ebulum o
Bicycle ebulu iyu o
Bicycle ebulu Joe
Bicycle ebulu Efo

Ife anyi nwete, anyi nye ekene
Unu afugo ife Chukwu weta na olu oyibo

Eh, he he he,
Oyoyo yoyoyo.....2x
Eh, he, he, he
Egwu nwa Okolonji

Ecodin, ecodin, ecodine......4x

Obulum o, ka anyi je be Elue,
Obulum o, ka anyi choba oji
Wa ebute mmanya, wa ebute nni
Nke anyi lita anyi ala garri
Ife oma we ji eme oyibo

Eh, he he he,
Oyoyo yoyoyo.....repeat