Canned Heat - "On The Road Again" b/w "Time Was" 7" 45 rpm Single, 1968 (United Artists Records)

I spent my late childhood and teenage years in Topanga Canyon, and one of the bands that were attracted to that area of the world was Canned Heat.  On one level, a blues band that had a student like obsession with the blues and its culture.  Then again, a song like "On The Road Again," mainly written by founding member Alan (Al) Wilson, who wasn't usually their lead singer, and based on a blues song by Floyd Jones.  It's a stunning and extraordinary record.

For one, it's a very intimate and almost a quiet recording.  Wilson's vocals are closed mike and its eerie in its sound of loneliness and despair.  A happy-go-lucky its ain't.  The other unique aspect of the song is that there is something like a drone string instrument that runs through the entire song.  Researching the record, I found its a tambura, which is an instrument from Central Asia.  It seems that the original version by Floyd Jones also had a drone sounding instrument on his release as well.

Minimal arrangement plus the drone is an interesting relationship within the song, and also its depressive tone makes "On The Road Again" a very unique record of its time and place.  Alan Wilson died a few years later in Topanga Canyon, where they found his body in a sleeping bag by a tree outside his home.

Bluebob - "Bluebob" CD Album

Bluebob – Bluebob

CD, Album, US, 2002

Soulitude Records

Bluebob is a band, of sorts, composed of David Lynch and John Neff. I suspect, and I can be deadly wrong, that Lynch will be better known for his music. For me it is hard to think about his films without the soundtrack – and even though he chose the recording, it somehow conveys the Lynch aesthetic. Bluebob came out of nowhere and landed in the home of Tosh, and usually I have a memory of getting the record or CD, but in this case, it is totally blank.

The sound is what you expect from the Lynch world. Driving boogie-blues with the 1950's Duane Eddy meets Joe Meek guitar. But the big difference here is Neff's vocals, which almost, makes these songs sound normal. But there is also a death metal touch to the recording as well. It's a remarkable record, and in some Lynch music landscapes it s a road house bar, but the music here I think belongs to a dark forest. It's not an urban sound, but more of a 3:30 AM in the wrong part of the forest type of sound. Also it's a good record to hear by yourself. It is not sharing type of music, more of laying in front of the hi-fi by yourself, and letting the sounds bath you type of record.