I love Christmas, and that’s real. I’m taking next week off, and because of that, I’ve got a double-stuft sack of Christmas goodies for all y’all. So sit back, pour yourself a drink or whatever, and enjoy this special episode sprinkled with Christmas magic (which is what I’m calling the surgery-related stories that I tell during this one. No great write ups about the music this week, I’ve got too much mirth and merrymaking to do, you see, but listen to the show and let it become your guiding star this season.

Here’s what we’ve got this week:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Google Podcasts | RSS | More

THRILLS – An assortment of deeep cut party starters!
SPILLS – I make a huge mistake partway through the show!
CHILLS – Enjoy me being flustered for like 10 subsequent minutes. Grey Temples 36 has got it all! But that’s ok. No chance of fun without risk of failure!

Starting out this week we’ve got Eddie Spencer. A Montego Bay born, Toronto transplant, Spencer moved to Toronto with his ska band, the Shieks. Right here we have his Sam and Dave-chanelling 1968 b-side, You’re So Good to Me. Following that we have Canada’s Jackie Shane. A groundbreaking transgener artist, people with far more insight than me have written a lot about her, but she was doing this way back in the early 60s. Here we have her 1963 single, Comin Down. Next up are the Jackson Sisters, no relation to those other Jacksons, but this tune is more than a little Jackson 5-sounding. Here we’ve got Why Do Fools Fall In Love from 1976. Keeping with that theme, here’s We’re Two Fool in Love, released by Dyson’s Faces in 1975. This was a band opf revolving musicians headed up by Clifton Dyson, younger brother of Ronnie Dyson, most famous for singing the lead vocals on cast recording of the song Aquarius from the musical Hair.

Next up is Jamie Lidell and Enough’s Enough, this fantastic track is – oh, I ejected the cd. That sucks…

Well, how about a song from Grey Temples fave, jazz flautist Bobbi Humphrey? Yeah! That’s the ticket! Home-Made Jam from her 1978 album Freestyle featured Stevie Wonder seriously honkin’ on bobo (which is the cool way to say “playing harmonica”).

Getting a little soft rock, with a touch of white-boy reggae, not something that would normally grab me, but Nite People by J. Michael Henderson is just too good. I really know next to nothing about this guy. I think I saw a picture of him once. He had a beard.

Next up is the incredible I Believe in Miracles by Italian singer Mark Capanni. Released in 1973, it didn’t make much of an impact until it was covered a year later by the Jackson Sisters, who we played earlier in the show!

Time to take one of Grey Temples many trips to Brazil!

Starting out we’ve got the one-two punch of Lemos E Debétio with their song Morro Do Barraco Sem Agua (1974) followed by a favorite of mine, Quero Pouco, Quero Muito (1983) by Filó Machado.

Moving ahead a few decades, we’ve got El Guincho and his song Bombay from 2023. This has been a long time fave of mine, except for a few years after I found out that it was featured in one of the Fifa videogames and I stopped listening to it for a hwile, because sometimes I can be an insufferable snob. This guy is also a pretty big-time producer now, having worked extensively with Rosalia, he’s also done production for Charli XCX, FKA Twigs, Björk, and more.

Hey hey! New Brunswick mega-talent Jon McKiel, how do you do?? Here we’ve got Still Life from his 2024 album Hex. If you haven’t heard it, do your duty!!

Oh man, Caroline Rose, Feel the Way I Want. Has this been my favorite for the past 5 years? Probably! This is a big time summer song for me. If you ever see me riding my scooter, dancing, shirt unbuttoned and flapping, with just a whisper of ass crack showing, this is the song I’m listening to.

Getting back into a disco/boogie groove, we’ve got the Universal Robot Band and Wanna Be Your Lover. Those backing vocals on the chorus are friggin’ tuff! Then we have the Jacksons (yes, those Jacksons) with Wondering Who from their 1980 album Triumph.

Which leads us into a party centrepiece, Laugh/Love/ Fuck by political hip hip group The Coup. There’s nothing I can say about this song that comes even close to the lyrics. Get amped. Then a track by my personal all time favorite MF DOOM, Rhymes Like Dimes. Listen, I can’t even start with DOOM, he’s the best. He’s the most interesting. He’s everything you want.

Finishing up with a little Canadian Rock, first off we’ve got Get Your Priest On by Hot One. This band features long time CanCon hero Emm Gryner. Towering Rock Action! And the, finally, Jon Epworth and the Improvements with Static Reciever. We’re definitely going to hear more about Jon Epworth on Grey Temples. An east coaster, he’s my favorite kind of mega-talent – the underrated kind!!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Google Podcasts | RSS | More

Grey Temples is officially surfing the information superhighway (once a week, because as we all know the internet is terrible, but probably necessary in the grand scheme of things, like a lamprey eel).

But man, if there was a representative episode of Grey Temples to start with, this is a gooder. Entrenched firmly in the 1970s, this episode is a symptom of my imagined nostalgia for a slightly crappy decade I didn’t actually have to live through.

Kicking off with a ripper of a tune from Crabby Appleton from their 1970 self-titled album, we’ve got Try. Bongo solos, organ freakouts, you can’t go wrong. Then we slide into some tasty lickz, as we call them in the biz of community radio with Canada’s own Chilliwack and their Canadian super hit, Lonesome Mary. Call your Grampy and tell him it’s time to boogie to a song he hasn’t heard in 30 years! Moving to some pub-rock, we’ve got Brinsley Schwartz and their 1974 tune Trying to Live My Life Without You. As I mention on the show, this band featured power-pop legend Nick Lowe, and this song is from the album that features the original version of (What’s So Funny Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding later made famous by Elvis Costello (who was produced by Nick Lowe). Finally, we’ve got the soft rock band Australia, from Australia, and the song Knowing That You’re There. This is a wonderful little obscurity that was featured on the great Follow the Sun compilation put out by Anthology and put together in part by Mikey Young from the band Eddy Current Suppression Ring (and other bands, but that’s the one I know).

Getting a little more psychedelic, we move on to Alexander “Skip” Spence with Little Hands from his 1969 album, Oar. Born in Windsor, Ontario, Spence was an early member of Jefferson Airplane and Quicksilver Messenger Service, he was most famous for being a founding member of Moby Grape. Who in turn, in my younger years, were most famous for being the favorite band of Mr. Van Driessen, the hippie teacher from Beavis and Butthead. Spence wrote his one and only solo album while institutionalized after attacking one of his band members with an axe. Even after this, the band continued to support Spence as they could, as Moby Grape had a more relaxed policy around axe attacks than I would have, personally. Then staying in the psychedelic folk realm (and sounding more than a bit like the aforementioned Jefferson Airplane) we’ve got Lily & Maria with Everybody Knows, from 1968. Moving ahead a few decades, we’ve got one of my favourite modern psychedelic bands with Melody’s Echo Chamber and the tune Pyramids in the Clouds. With a song name like that, you know it’s gonna be good! Melody’s Echo Chamber hail from France and are the solo project of Melody Prochet. She just released a new album! This song isn’t from it! Finally, in this set we have D.R. Hooker with A Tormented Heart from his 1972 private press album, The Truth. I recommend looking up the artwork for this one. Dude straight up styled himself to look like Jesus from a commemorative plate, but with a guitar. Really crazy keyboard sounds on this one, especially for an independently released album from 1972. The guitar line on the verse is sick on this one.

Next up, some Jonathan Richman (and the Modern Lovers) with Abdul and Cleopatra. If you don’t know the first Modern Lovers album, get on it! If you don’t like it, keep listening, because you’re wrong! Then we move on to Mike Lennox and a song from his one and only single release, 1968’s Images of You. Mike Lennox was a Canadian lad who mainly worked as a radio DJ in England leading up to the release of this track. Eventually Mike moved back to Canada and became, like, a regular dude. Finishing off this set, we’ve got a campy tune produced by noted studio lunatic Joe Meek. Houston Wells and The Marksmen were one of England’s first country bands, but this song North Wind doesn’t have a whole lot in it you’d mark as country in the modern sense, but hopefully it inspires you to blast off into outer space on a rocket you’ve named “Trigger”.

Winding up, as I often like to, with a few instrumental tunes. Starting off with Kleopatra from Salah Ragab & Cairo Jazz Band, this was originally released in 1974 by the Arab Republic of Egypt Ministry of Culture, this song features a lot of instruments that will sound familiar, but used in pretty unfamiliar ways, plus the sound of what I assume is a hookah being smoked. Salah Ragab went on to do some work with Sun Ra in later years. Moving on, next we have Canada’s Badge Epoque Ensemble and the song Lujon. And finally, Who Knows When, from cinematic soul jazz maestros, Glenn Fallows & Mark Treffel. I have no grand story to tell about either of these songs. Vibes is vibes.

Finally, wrapping up as always with some Canadian punk (or punk adjacent) we have Protest the Hero with Heretics & Killers. If you’re not familiar with the band, they put out an EP to start, and everyone who heard it seemed to generally like it. Then, they released Kezia, the album this song is from, and absolutely blew the doors off. I can’t stress enough how mind blowing this album was at the time. Put out by a bunch of teenagers who had clearly been OBSESSING over their instruments in a way that only a teenager can, they put out a prog metal punk album that still has few equals. And they’re still putting out great music.

Til next time,

JW

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Google Podcasts | RSS | More