Few bands in rock ‘n’ roll history have faced as many charges of selling out—back when the term meant something—as The Clash. Even before they’d released their first record, they were accused of killing punk rock by signing to major label CBS. And 1985’s Cut the Crap, the final Clash release (hardly a Clash record at all by any true fan’s measure) has more or less been seen, rightly or not, as a money grab. For a band who stood in solidarity with working people and revolutionary leftist movements, The Clash walked a delicate line between financial success and political credibility.
Most critics date the end of the band well before that hated final album, made without guitarist Mick Jones and longtime drummer Topper Headon. As Rolling Stone writes, “The Clash came to a rather sad ending in May 1983,” when they accepted a $500,000 offer from Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak to headline the ‘New Wave Day’ of a massive festival in San Bernardino, California.
By this time, Headon had been kicked out of the band for drug problems, replaced by 23-year-old Pete Howard, “and Mick Jones and Joe Strummer were barely speaking.”
By the time they got to San Bernardino, California for the festival, they were in complete disarray. Things got worse when they learned fans were paying $25 to attend the show. They had been told previously that prices would be set at $17, and shortly before they went onstage, they held a press conference. The band announced they wouldn’t go on unless Apple gave $100,000 to charity. It was chaos. Some later claimed the real cause of their rage was the knowledge that Van Halen were getting a million dollars for their set.
Arriving onstage two hours late, under a banner that read “The Clash Not For Sale,” they played an angry set of songs, between which Strummer taunted the crowd. He opens with a sneer: “Alright then, here we are, in the capital of the decadent U.S. of A. This here set of music is now dedicated to making sure that those people in the crowd who have children, there is something left for them later in the centuries.” It’s an odd statement, announcing Strummer’s sense that The Clash were leaving a legacy, and that they were exiting the cultural stage.
Despite their rage, they still walked away with half a million bucks. Four months later, Mick Jones was out—the San Bernardino concert would be his last with the band—and The Clash, as the world had known them, were effectively dead. As a swan song, it’s a hell of a show, infighting and lineup changes aside. See the whole thing above (except “London Calling,” which cuts off midway through). It’s maybe a shame they didn’t retire the name after this performance, however. Though Strummer and bassist Paul Simenon toured with three replacements as The Clash in the years to come and, writes Dangerous Minds, “did a few things worth remembering between 1984 and 1986,” in most people’s minds, that part of the band’s history is best left out of the official record.
It’s not my favorite Marlene Dietrich gem on the internet. No, that would be her temperamental screen test for The Blue Angel (1930). But it’s still a precious find. Above, we have an audio clip featuring Dietrich, one of the towering movie stars of early cinema, playing the musical saw. Andrea James writes over at BoingBoing: “Dietrich always wanted to be a classical musician. Since her cabaret act and film career left little time for her to do the required practice, she played the musical saw instead. Throughout World War II she wowed USO audiences with the novelty.” And that’s what we get a taste of here. In other clips available on Youtube, you can find Dietrich playing her “singing saw,” and again playing the musical saw on the radio, circa 1945.
It seems like nearly everything that’s ever been recorded eventually makes its way to Youtube—at least for a while. From historic speeches by Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. to the rambling conspiracy theories of obscure basement dwellers, you can hear it all. One particular phenomenon in recent years is that of the “isolated track,” the vocal and individual instrument recordings from well-known songs, usually taken directly from the master tapes. We’ve featured many of these, from famous drummers like John Bonham and Stewart Copeland to bassists like Sting, Paul McCartney, and Queen’s John Deacon.
Today, we bring you isolated tracks from some of rock ‘n’ roll’s most celebrated guitarists, and we do so in full anticipation of a slew of outraged “What about so and so!” comments. So to pre-empt some inevitably hurt feelings, bear in mind that the selection of isolated tracks online is—despite Youtube’s many riches—rather limited. We’re working with what’s available here. And if you don’t see your Joe Pass or Bonamassa—two guitarists I greatly admire—or any other jazz or blues players, it’s because we’re focusing specifically on rock guitarists.
That said, let’s begin with what is arguably the most recognizable guitar line since Jimmy Page’s work in “Stairway to Heaven.” You’ve heard the intro to “Sweet Child O’ Mine” an uncountable number of times—played beautifully by Slash and his talented imitators, and badly by struggling students in music stores. But have you ever really heard what the premier 90s rock guitarist is doing in the rest of the song? Once Axl Rose starts wailing, it’s a bit hard to listen to anything else. So take six minutes and play through the entire isolated track above. It’s a pretty stunning mix of delicate arpeggios, punchy overdriven rhythms, and, of course, the soaring sustained lead lines and wah-wah madness we know from those oh-so memorable solos. OnStage magazine has a nice little breakdown of Slash’s technique and tone. For a very thorough dissection of the exact rig he used in the studio to make these sounds, check out this article.
Before the mighty Slash, the most influential rock guitarist was without a doubt Eddie Van Halen, whose signature maneuvers and technical innovations completely changed how rock and metal guitarists approached the instrument. Van Halen, writes Ultimate Classic Rock, “virtually single-handedly re-invented the entire rock guitar lexicon with his blend of tone, technique and sheer musicality.” He did it two-handedly also, more-or-less inventing two-handed tapping, “a technique in which Van Halen uses the fingers of his right hand to fret notes on the neck of the guitar, which allows him to phrase passages very rapidly without the limitations of a pick.” You can hear several examples in this list of top 10 Eddie Van Halen solos.
Just above, in the isolated guitar track for “Panama,” hear an often unremarked aspect of Van Halen’s playing—his exceptional rhythm work. Punctuated with gritty slides, dives, and bends, and the song’s familiar three-note riff, Van Halen’s rhythms are extraordinarily fluid, musically expressive, and commandingly dynamic. His solo work here is subtle—not nearly as flashy as in so many other songs—but that allows us to focus all the more on how brilliant his rhythm playing really is. Like Slash, Van Halen had to compete with a ridiculously flamboyant singer, and like Slash, he often emerges as band’s real main attraction.
Play “Free Bird,” man. No, I won’t. Well, not the whole thing. But listen to that solo, all 4 plus minutes of it, above, played by Allen Collins. Lynyrd Skynyrd’s three-guitar attack of Collins, Ed King, and Gary Rossington may have seemed extravagant, or just plain indulgent, but it served an important purpose: duplicating the album recordings perfectly onstage. Bandleader Ronnie Van Zandt “was such a stalwart and stickler for perfection—so much so that everyone was supposed to play more or less the same solos they did on the album,” writes the blog One Week//One Band, “because that’s what the audience came to hear.” Collin’s screaming solo—number 3 in Guitar World’s top 100—came about by chance, as did the entire song, in fact, pieced together impromptu by the band during rehearsal. But why does “Free Bird” never, ever seem to end? Rossington has the story:
… We started playing it in clubs, but it was just the slow part. Then Ronnie said, “Why don’t you do something at the end of that so I can take a break for a few minutes?” so I came up with those three chords at the end and Allen played over them, then I soloed and then he soloed… it all evolved out of a jam one night. So, we started playing it that way, but Ronnie kept saying, “It’s not long enough. Make it longer.”
On the studio version, “Collins played the entire solo himself on his Gibson Explorer.” Says Rossington, “He was bad. He was super bad! He was bad-to-the-bone bad… the way he was doin’ it, he was just so hot! He just did it once and did it again and it was done.” And there you have it.
If this list didn’t have any Clapton on it, I’d probably get death threats. Luckily we have an isolated Clapton track, but not from a Clapton band. Instead, above, hear his guest work on the George Harrison-penned and ‑sung Beatles’ song “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” from 1968. In a previous post on this masterfully iconic recording, Mike Springer described Clapton’s technique and gear: “For the impression of a person weeping and wailing, Clapton used the fingers on his fretting hand to bend the strings deeply, in a highly expressive descending vibrato. He was playing a 1957 Gibson Les Paul, a guitar he had once owned but had given to Harrison, who nicknamed it ‘Lucy.’”
I’ll admit, I grew up assuming that Harrison played the leads in this song, an assumption that colored my assessment of Harrison’s playing in general. But while he’s certainly no slouch, even he admitted that this was better left to the man they call “Slowhand” (a nickname, by the way, that has nothing to do with his playing). Typically humble and understated, Harrison described to Guitar World in 1987 how Clapton came to guest on the song:
No, my ego would rather have Eric play on it. I’ll tell you, I worked on that song with John, Paul, and Ringo one day, and they were not interested in it at all. And I knew inside of me that it was a nice song. The next day I was with Eric, and I was going into the session, and I said, “We’re going to do this song. Come on and play on it.” He said, “Oh, no. I can’t do that. Nobody ever plays on the Beatles records.” I said, “Look, it’s my song, and I want you to play on it.” So Eric came in, and the other guys were as good as gold–because he was there. Also, it left me free to just play the rhythm and do the vocal. So Eric played that, and I thought it was really good. Then we listened to it back, and he said, “Ah, there’s a problem, though; it’s not Beatley enough”–so we put it through the ADT [automatic double-tracker], to wobble it a bit.
It’s the wobble, I think that made me think of Harrison, but now listening to it again above, pulled from its Beatley context, I just hear Clapton.
Just above, we have a guitarist most people have probably never heard of. But for certain 90s music fans and players, myself included, John Squire was an unsung hero of a British band many felt deserved more attention than Blur and Oasis combined. I’m talking about The Stone Roses, Madchester colleagues of bands like The Happy Mondays and The Chameleons. Although the scene as a whole thrived on sixties-revival dance grooves with harder drugs, Squire stood out for his quiet self-confidence, second career as a painter, and bluesy, Hendrix-inspired playing. I learned by heart his outro solos on the band’s barnburner “I Am The Resurrection,” a wickedly inventive bit of work that anyone who knows the band knows well.
Unfortunately, the follow-up to their 1989 self-titled debut, 1994’s The Second Coming, was critically shunned and almost ignored by former fans. Unfortunate timing, I’d say. Jack White and the Black Keys had yet to make blues rock cool again, and the band had mostly moved from playing like the Byrds to playing like the Yardbirds. Just above from that unloved second and final record, hear Squire’s isolated playing on “Love Spreads,” a song second only to “Driving South” as the band’s most potent appropriation of the blues. Squire, in my book, is a criminally underrated guitarist who did some of his best work on a criminally underrated album.
Finally, some excellent guitar work by a guitarist I love, playing with a band I don’t. But as much as I may dislike the Red Hot Chili Peppers songs, I stand in awe of their mind-blowing musicianship. While bassist Flea gets most of the attention, their longtime on-again, off-again guitarist John Frusciante is just as much, if not more, of a standout player. A musical prodigy, Frusciante—who replaced Hillel Slovak after the latter’s 1988 overdose—joined the band at just 18 and completely transformed their sound overnight with, writes Rolling Stone’s David Fricke, “Hendrixian force.”
In RHCP’s once inescapable ballad—“Under the Bridge”—he concocts a “poignant Beatlesque melody” joined with funk licks and chorus-drenched chordal phrases. Frusciante plays with a distinctive personality that’s instantly recognizable, whether it’s with the Chili Peppers, The Mars Volta, Duran Duran (!), or his own totally oddball solo records. An always unpredictable musician, his once amateurish experiments with electronic music have grown into full-blown acid house that sounds nothing like John Frusciante. Great stuff, but I hope he picks up the guitar again soon.
So yeah, I could have included isolated tracks from Dimebag Darrell or Jake E. Lee, brilliant guitarists both. And lots of people seem to like those Avenged Sevenfold guys, though it ain’t my cuppa tea. But this list is just a sampling and doesn’t pretend to be complete by any stretch. If you happen to find some isolated guitar tracks online that you think our readers should hear, by all means post them in the comments.
The U.S. government’s so-called “War on Drugs” predates Richard Nixon’s coinage of the term in 1971 by many decades, though it is under his administration that it assumed its current scope and character. Before Woodstock and Vietnam, before the creation of the DEA in 1973, the Federal Bureau of Narcotics—headed by “America’s first drug czar,” Commissioner Harry J. Anslinger, from 1930 to 1962—waged its own war, at first primarily on marijuana, and, to a great degree, on jazz musicians and jazz culture. Anslinger came to power in the era of Reefer Madness, the title of a rather ridiculous 1938 anti-drug film that has come to stand in for hyperbolic anti-pot paranoia of the ’30s and ’40s more generally. Much of that madness was the Commissioner’s special creation.
Like so much of the post-Nixon drug war, Anslinger staged his campaign as a moral crusade against certain kinds of users: dissidents, the counterculture, and especially immigrants and blacks. According to Alexander Cockburn’s Whiteout: The CIA, Drugs, and the Press, Anslinger’s “first major campaign was to criminalize the drug commonly known as hemp. But Anslinger renamed it ‘marijuana’ to associate it with Mexican laborers,” and claimed that the drug “can arouse in blacks and Hispanics a state of menacing fury or homicidal attack.” Anslinger “became the prime shaper of American attitudes to drug addiction.” And like later despisers of rock ‘n’ roll and hip-hop, Anslinger’s hatred of jazz motivated many of his targeted attacks.
Ansligner linked marijuana with jazz and persecuted many black musicians, including Thelonious Monk, Dizzy Gillespie and Duke Ellington. Louis Armstrong was also arrested on drug charges, and Anslinger made sure his name was smeared in the press. In Congress he testified that “[c]oloreds with big lips lure white women with jazz and marijuana.”
“Marijuana is taken by… musicians,” he told Congress in 1937, “And I’m not speaking about good musicians, but the jazz type.” Although the La Guardia Committee would refute almost everything Anslinger testified to about the effects of smoking pot, the damage was already done. (Anslinger’s prosecution of jazz musicians, particularly Louis Armstrong—paralleled that of another power-mad, paranoid bureaucrat, J. Edgar Hoover.)
Anslinger did not simply dislike jazz. He feared it. “It sounded,” he wrote, “like the jungles in the dead of night.” In jazz, “unbelievably ancient indecent rites of the East Indies are resurrected.” And the lives of jazz musicians “reek of filth.” And yet, writes Johann Hari in his book Chasing the Scream (excerpted in Politico), his campaign largely failed because of the jazz world’s “absolute solidarity” in opposition to it. “In the end,” writes Hari, “the Treasury Department told Anslinger he was wasting his time.” And so, “he scaled down his focus until it settled like a laser on one single target—perhaps the greatest female jazz vocalist there ever was,” Billie Holiday.
Anyone with even the most cursory knowledge about Holiday knows she had a drug problem in desperate need of treatment. And, of course, Holiday wasn’t addicted to a relatively harmless substance like marijuana, but to heroin, which—along with alcohol abuse—eventually lead to her death. Yet, as Cockburn writes, Anslinger had “hammer[ed] home his view that [drug addiction] was not… treatable,” but “could only be suppressed by harsh criminal sanctions.” Accordingly, he “hunted” Holiday—in Hari’s apt description—sending agents after her when he heard “whispers that she was using heroin, and—after she flatly refused to be silent about racism.”
Recruiting a black agent, Jimmy Fletcher, for the job, Anslinger began his attacks on Holiday in 1939. Fletcher shadowed Holiday for years, and became protective, eventually, “it seems,” writes Hari, “fall[ing] in love with her.” But Anslinger broke the case through Holliday’s viciously abusive husband, Louis McKay, who agreed to inform on her—something no fellow musician would do. In May of 1947, Holiday was arrested and put on trial for possession of narcotics. “Sick and alone,” writes Hettie Jones in Big Star Fallin’ Mama: Five Women in Black Music, “she signed away her right to a lawyer and no one advised her to do otherwise.” Promised a “hospital cure in return for a plea of guilty,” she was instead “convicted as a ‘criminal defendant,’ and a ‘wrongdoer,’ and sentenced to a year and a day in the Federal Women’s Reformatory at Alderson, West Virginia.”
After her release, Holiday was stripped of her cabaret license, restricted from singing in “all the jazz clubs in the United States… on the grounds,” writes Hari, “that listening to her might harm the morals of the public.” Two years after her first conviction, Anslinger recruited another agent, a sadist named George White, who was all too happy take Holiday down. He did so in 1949 at the Mark Twain Hotel in San Francisco—“one of the few places she could still perform”—arresting her without a warrant and with what were very likely planted drugs. White apparently “had a long history of planting drugs on women” and “may well have been high when he busted Billie for getting high.” (See the declassified case against her here. Her manager John Levy is erroneously referred to as her “husband” and called “Joseph Levy.”)
A jury refused to convict, but Anslinger gloried in the toll his campaign had taken. “She had slipped from the peak of her fame,” he wrote, “her voice was cracking.” After her death in 1959, he wrote callously, “for her, there would be no more ‘Good Morning Heartache.’” For her part, though Holiday “didn’t blame Anslinger’s agents as individuals; she blamed the drug war,” writing in her autobiography, “Imagine if the government chased sick people with diabetes, put a tax on insulin and drove it into the black market… then sent them to jail…. We do practically the same thing every day in the week to sick people hooked on drugs.”
Many jazz musicians, but especially Holiday, paid dearly for Anslinger and the Federal Bureau of Narcotics’ “war on drugs.” Hari documents the “race panic” that underlay most of Anslinger’s actions and the egregious double standard he applied, including a “friendly chat” he had with Judy Garland over her heroin addiction and kid gloves treatment of a “Washington society hostess,” in contrast to his relentless prosecution of Holiday. His persecution of Holliday and others was accompanied by a propaganda campaign that demonized “the Negro population” as dangerous addicts. As Hari points out, Anslinger “did not create these underlying trends,” but he promoted racist fictions and manipulated them to his advantage. And his singling out of cultures and groups he personally disliked and feared as special targets for vigorous, prejudicial prosecution helped set the agenda for anti-drug legislation and cultural attitudes in every decade since he decided to go after jazz and Billie Holiday.
You know Steve Albini as the pioneering founder and frontman of such disturbing post-hardcore punk bands as Big Black, Rapeman, and Shellac. You also know him as the in-demand producer of albums by such excellent artists as the Pixies, Nirvana, Cheap Trick, Mogwai, The Dirty Three, The Breeders, P.J. Harvey… the list goes ever on… Albini’s role as a producer—of bands both high profile and totally obscure—is legendary in rock circles, as is his curmudgeonliness, exacting personal standards, highly opinionated commentary, and exceptional musical taste.
You may not know, however, about Albini’s exceptional culinary tastes, as documented on his food blog, “Mariobatalivoice: What I made Heather for dinner.” Maintained between 2011 and 2013, the running commentary chronicles Albini’s attempts at dishes such as “Li-hing-rubbed torpedo with weird huauzontle and diced peppers” and “aged short ribs with fennel on saffron potato puree.” From the looks of things, Albini is a fine cook, as well as decent food photographer—if those are his photos. His blog description suggests they may be the work of Heather (that is, his wife, Heather Whinna).
A photo of Saffron Potato Cashew Pancakes from mariobatalivoice.
Albini’s also a very entertaining writer. No surprise there, “as anyone who’s seen his back-in-the-day fanzine rants can attest,” wrote Tom Breihan at Pitchfork in 2011. Typically understated and idiosyncratic, Albini writes, “I don’t give quantities or exact recipes because I eyeball and taste everything like anybody who cooks a lot…. We’re not ninjas. Also, some of this food may not turn out that great, so replicating it would be pointless. I have also successfully cooked for our cats.” Nonetheless, even without proportions and exact steps spelled out, “if you cook, you should be able to figure out how to make any of these meals.”
The name, he tells us, “comes from the way I bring [Heather] food in bed and present it to her using an imitation of Mario Batali’s voice from TV.” You’ll probably find your own brand of presentation, but all of the dishes look both challenging and totally worth the effort. To read about Albini’s adventures in the culinary exotic, check out the archives of his now-dormant food blog here.
Charlie Watts’s first love has always been jazz. While his Rolling Stones band mates spent their youth listening to the Blues, Watts listened to Miles Davis and John Coltrane. And something about that seems to have stuck. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards defined what a rock star should look like in the late 60s – disheveled and flamboyant. Watts always seemed to carry himself with a jazzman’s sense of cool.
Back in 1960, when he was working as a graphic designer and doing drumming gigs on the side, Watts found another way to show off his love for jazz. He wrote a children’s book. Ode to a Highflying Bird is about alt sax legend Charlie Parker, rendered in doodle-like fashion as a bird in shades. The hand-drawn text details Parker’s life story: “Frustrated with what life had to offer him in his hometown, he packed his whistle, pecked his ma goodbye and flew from his nest in Kansas City bound for New York.”
The book was originally done as a portfolio piece but, in 1964, after Watts became a member of the Stones, the book was published. As Watts recalled, “This guy who published ‘Rolling Stones Monthly’ saw my book and said ‘Ah, there’s a few bob in this!’”
This wasn’t the only ode to Bird that Watts made over his long career. In 1992, his jazz band, The Charlie Watts Quintet, released an album called From One Charlie… which, as the title suggests, pays homage to Parker and his other bee-bop gods. “I don’t really love rock & roll,” as he toldRolling Stone magazine. “I love jazz. But I love playing rock & roll with the Stones.”
A few old copies of Ode to a Highflying Bird can be found on Amazon and on Abe Books.
Jonathan Crow is a Los Angeles-based writer and filmmaker whose work has appeared in Yahoo!, The Hollywood Reporter, and other publications. You can follow him at @jonccrow. And check out his blog Veeptopus, featuring lots of pictures of badgers and even more pictures of vice presidents with octopuses on their heads. The Veeptopus store is here.
Yes, it’s been over 20 years now since Nirvana played their last show, and if you’re old enough to have been there, go ahead and take a moment of silence to mourn your lost youth. Given the relative paucity of raw, authentic-sounding guitar rock these days, it’s tempting to romanticize the nineties as halcyon days, but that kind of nostalgia should be tempered by an honest accounting of the tedious flood of grunge-like also-rans the corporate labels released upon us after Nirvana’s mainstream success. In a certain sense, the demise of that band and death of its leader marks the end of so-called “alternative” rock (whatever that meant) as a genuine alternative. After Nirvana, a deluge of growly, angsty, and not especially listenable bands took over the airwaves and festival circuits. Before them—well, if you don’t know, ask your once-hip aunts and uncles.
And yet, there is another narrative—one that holds up the band as rock redeemers who broke through the corporate mold and, like the Stooges or the Ramones twenty years earlier, brought back authentic anger, danger, and intensity to rock ‘n’ roll. That Nirvana became the corporate mold is not necessarily their doing, and not a turn of events that sat at all well with the band. Their last show, in Munich, 1994 (see it in part above), “was anything but immaculate,” writes Consequence of Sound, a fact “almost tragically fitting.” As if presaging its leader’s decline, Nirvana’s final concert went from strained to worse, as Cobain’s voice faltered due to bronchitis, and the venue temporarily lost power. “Undeterred, they continued acoustically, but ended up cutting what would’ve been the seventh song, ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit,’” the track that launched a million grunge garage bands three years earlier. With tongues in cheeks, they open—at the top—with The Cars’ “My Best Friend’s Girl” (and a few bars of their “Moving in Stereo”). Surely both an homage to a great ‘80s band and a punk deconstruction of major label radio rock of the previous decade.
In a foreboding remark after the power went out, bassist Krist Noveselic quips, “We’re not playing the Munich Enormodome tonight. ‘Cos our careers are on the wane. We’re on the way out. Grunge is dead. Nirvana’s over.” The remainder of the tour was canceled, and Cobain went to Rome, where he overdosed on Rohypnol and champagne and temporarily fell into a coma. One month later, after a failed rehab stint, he was dead. Almost immediately afterward, a cult of Cobain sprung up around his memory—as much a triumph of marketing as an act of mourning. T‑shirts, posters, tribute albums… the usual mass culture wake when a rock star dies young. What saddened me as a child of the era is not that the band’s last tour petered out, or even that Cobain fell apart under the familiar pressures of fame and addiction, but that in death he was turned into what he hated most—an idol. But if the worshipful merch of twenty years ago seemed tacky, it was nothing compared to t‑shirts selling just weeks ago with Cobain’s suicide note printed on them. (These have since been pulled due to complaints.) And while we may someday hear the demos of Cobain’s planned solo record, we might also have been treated to something else—“our next record’s going to be a hip-hop record,” joked Noveselic. Now that would have been a novelty. Instead we got these guys.
The lists are in. By overwhelming consensus, the buzzword of 2014 was “vape.” Apparently, that’s the verb that enables you to smoke an e‑cig. Left to its own devices, my computer will still autocorrect 2014’s biggest word to “cape,” but that could change.
Hopefully not.
Hopefully, 2015 will yield a buzzword more piquant than “vape.”
With luck, a razor-witted teen is already on the case, but just in case, let’s hedge our bets. Let’s go spelunking in an era when buzzwords were cool, but adult…insouciant, yet substantive.
If only every amateur lexicographer were foxy enough to set his or her definitions to music, and creep them out like the shadow, as Calloway does above. The complete list is below.
What a blip!
By my calculation, we’ve got eleven months to identify a choice candidate, resurrect it, and integrate it into everyday speech. With luck some fine dinner whose star is on the rise will beef our word in public, preferably during a scandalous, much analyzed performance.
It’s immaterial which one we pick. Gammin’? Jeff? Hincty? Fruiting? Whatever you choose, I’m in. Let’s blow their wigs.
Bust your conks in the comments section. I’m ready.
HEPSTER’S DICTIONARY
A hummer (n.) — exceptionally good. Ex., “Man, that boy is a hummer.”
Ain’t coming on that tab (v.) — won’t accept the proposition. Usually abbr. to “I ain’t coming.”
Alligator (n.) — jitterbug.
Apple (n.) — the big town, the main stem, Harlem.
Armstrongs (n.) — musical notes in the upper register, high trumpet notes.
Barbecue (n.) — the girl friend, a beauty
Barrelhouse (adj.) — free and easy.
Battle (n.) — a very homely girl, a crone.
Beat (adj.) — (1) tired, exhausted. Ex., “You look beat” or “I feel beat.” (2) lacking anything. Ex, “I am beat for my cash”, “I am beat to my socks” (lacking everything).
Beat it out (v.) — play it hot, emphasize the rhythym.
Beat up (adj.) — sad, uncomplimentary, tired.
Beat up the chops (or the gums) (v.) — to talk, converse, be loquacious.
Beef (v.) — to say, to state. Ex., “He beefed to me that, etc.”
Bible (n.) — the gospel truth. Ex., “It’s the bible!”
Black (n.) — night.
Black and tan (n.) — dark and light colored folks. Not colored and white folks as erroneously assumed.
Blew their wigs (adj.) — excited with enthusiasm, gone crazy.
Blip (n.) — something very good. Ex., “That’s a blip”; “She’s a blip.”
Blow the top (v.) — to be overcome with emotion (delight). Ex., “You’ll blow your top when you hear this one.”
Boogie-woogie (n.) — harmony with accented bass.
Boot (v.) — to give. Ex., “Boot me that glove.”
Break it up (v.) — to win applause, to stop the show.
Bree (n.) — girl.
Bright (n.) — day.
Brightnin’ (n.) — daybreak.
Bring down ((1) n. (2) v.) — (1) something depressing. Ex., “That’s a bring down.” (2) Ex., “That brings me down.”
Buddy ghee (n.) — fellow.
Bust your conk (v.) — apply yourself diligently, break your neck.
Canary (n.) — girl vocalist.
Capped (v.) — outdone, surpassed.
Cat (n.) — musician in swing band.
Chick (n.) — girl.
Chime (n.) — hour. Ex., “I got in at six chimes.”
Clambake (n.) — ad lib session, every man for himself, a jam session not in the groove.
Chirp (n.) — female singer.
Cogs (n.) — sun glasses.
Collar (v.) — to get, to obtain, to comprehend. Ex., “I gotta collar me some food”; “Do you collar this jive?”
Come again (v.) — try it over, do better than you are doing, I don’t understand you.
Comes on like gangbusters (or like test pilot) (v.) — plays, sings, or dances in a terrific manner, par excellence in any department. Sometimes abbr. to “That singer really comes on!”
Cop (v.) — to get, to obtain (see collar; knock).
Corny (adj.) — old-fashioned, stale.
Creeps out like the shadow (v.) — “comes on,” but in smooth, suave, sophisticated manner.
Crumb crushers (n.) — teeth.
Cubby (n.) — room, flat, home.
Cups (n.) — sleep. Ex., “I gotta catch some cups.”
Cut out (v.) — to leave, to depart. Ex., “It’s time to cut out”; “I cut out from the joint in early bright.”
Cut rate (n.) — a low, cheap person. Ex., “Don’t play me cut rate, Jack!”
Dicty (adj.) — high-class, nifty, smart.
Dig (v.) — (1) meet. Ex., “I’ll plant you now and dig you later.” (2) look, see. Ex., “Dig the chick on your left duke.” (3) comprehend, understand. Ex., “Do you dig this jive?”
Dim (n.) — evening.
Dime note (n.) — ten-dollar bill.
Doghouse (n.) — bass fiddle.
Domi (n.) — ordinary place to live in. Ex., “I live in a righteous dome.”
Doss (n.) — sleep. Ex., “I’m a little beat for my doss.”
Down with it (adj.) — through with it.
Drape (n.) — suit of clothes, dress, costume.
Dreamers (n.) — bed covers, blankets.
Dry-goods (n.) — same as drape.
Duke (n.) — hand, mitt.
Dutchess (n.) — girl.
Early black (n.) — evening
Early bright (n.) — morning.
Evil (adj.) — in ill humor, in a nasty temper.
Fall out (v.) — to be overcome with emotion. Ex., “The cats fell out when he took that solo.”
Fews and two (n.) — money or cash in small quatity.
Final (v.) — to leave, to go home. Ex., “I finaled to my pad” (went to bed); “We copped a final” (went home).
Fine dinner (n.) — a good-looking girl.
Focus (v.) — to look, to see.
Foxy (v.) — shrewd.
Frame (n.) — the body.
Fraughty issue (n.) — a very sad message, a deplorable state of affairs.
Freeby (n.) — no charge, gratis. Ex., “The meal was a freeby.”
Frisking the whiskers (v.) — what the cats do when they are warming up for a swing session.
Frolic pad (n.) — place of entertainment, theater, nightclub.
Fromby (adj.) — a frompy queen is a battle or faust.
Front (n.) — a suit of clothes.
Fruiting (v.) — fickle, fooling around with no particular object.
Fry (v.) — to go to get hair straightened.
Gabriels (n.) — trumpet players.
Gammin’ (adj.) — showing off, flirtatious.
Gasser (n, adj.) — sensational. Ex., “When it comes to dancing, she’s a gasser.”
Gate (n.) — a male person (a salutation), abbr. for “gate-mouth.”
Get in there (exclamation.) — go to work, get busy, make it hot, give all you’ve got.
Gimme some skin (v.) — shake hands.
Glims (n.) — the eyes.
Got your boots on — you know what it is all about, you are a hep cat, you are wise.
Got your glasses on — you are ritzy or snooty, you fail to recognize your friends, you are up-stage.
Gravy (n.) — profits.
Grease (v.) — to eat.
Groovy (adj.) — fine. Ex., “I feel groovy.”
Ground grippers (n.) — new shoes.
Growl (n.) — vibrant notes from a trumpet.
Gut-bucket (adj.) — low-down music.
Guzzlin’ foam (v.) — drinking beer.
Hard (adj.) — fine, good. Ex., “That’s a hard tie you’re wearing.”
Hard spiel (n.) — interesting line of talk.
Have a ball (v.) — to enjoy yourself, stage a celebration. Ex., “I had myself a ball last night.”
Hep cat (n.) — a guy who knows all the answers, understands jive.
Hide-beater (n.) — a drummer (see skin-beater).
Hincty (adj.) — conceited, snooty.
Hip (adj.) — wise, sophisticated, anyone with boots on. Ex., “She’s a hip chick.”
Home-cooking (n.) — something very dinner (see fine dinner).
Hot (adj.) — musically torrid; before swing, tunes were hot or bands were hot.
Hype (n, v.) — build up for a loan, wooing a girl, persuasive talk.
Icky (n.) — one who is not hip, a stupid person, can’t collar the jive.
Igg (v.) — to ignore someone. Ex., “Don’t igg me!)
In the groove (adj.) — perfect, no deviation, down the alley.
Jack (n.) — name for all male friends (see gate; pops).
Jam ((1)n, (2)v.) — (1) improvised swing music. Ex., “That’s swell jam.” (2) to play such music. Ex., “That cat surely can jam.”
Jeff (n.) — a pest, a bore, an icky.
Jelly (n.) — anything free, on the house.
Jitterbug (n.) — a swing fan.
Jive (n.) — Harlemese speech.
Joint is jumping — the place is lively, the club is leaping with fun.
Jumped in port (v.) — arrived in town.
Kick (n.) — a pocket. Ex., “I’ve got five bucks in my kick.”
Kill me (v.) — show me a good time, send me.
Killer-diller (n.) — a great thrill.
Knock (v.) — give. Ex., “Knock me a kiss.”
Kopasetic (adj.) — absolutely okay, the tops.
Lamp (v.) — to see, to look at.
Land o’darkness (n.) — Harlem.
Lane (n.) — a male, usually a nonprofessional.
Latch on (v.) — grab, take hold, get wise to.
Lay some iron (v.) — to tap dance. Ex., “Jack, you really laid some iron that last show!”
Lay your racket (v.) — to jive, to sell an idea, to promote a proposition.
Lead sheet (n.) — a topcoat.
Left raise (n.) — left side. Ex., “Dig the chick on your left raise.”
Licking the chops (v.) — see frisking the whiskers.
Licks (n.) — hot musical phrases.
Lily whites (n.) — bed sheets.
Line (n.) — cost, price, money. Ex., “What is the line on this drape” (how much does this suit cost)? “Have you got the line in the mouse” (do you have the cash in your pocket)? Also, in replying, all figures are doubled. Ex., “This drape is line forty” (this suit costs twenty dollars).
Lock up — to acquire something exclusively. Ex., “He’s got that chick locked up”; “I’m gonna lock up that deal.”
Main kick (n.) — the stage.
Main on the hitch (n.) — husband.
Main queen (n.) — favorite girl friend, sweetheart.
Man in gray (n.) — the postman.
Mash me a fin (command.) — Give me $5.
Mellow (adj.) — all right, fine. Ex., “That’s mellow, Jack.”
Melted out (adj.) — broke.
Mess (n.) — something good. Ex., “That last drink was a mess.”
Meter (n.) — quarter, twenty-five cents.
Mezz (n.) — anything supreme, genuine. Ex., “this is really the mezz.”
Mitt pounding (n.) — applause.
Moo juice (n.) — milk.
Mouse (n.) — pocket. Ex., “I’ve got a meter in the mouse.”
Muggin’ (v.) — making ‘em laugh, putting on the jive. “Muggin’ lightly,” light staccato swing; “muggin’ heavy,” heavy staccato swing.
Nicklette (n.) — automatic phonograph, music box.
Nickel note (n.) — five-dollar bill.
Nix out (v.) — to eliminate, get rid of. Ex., “I nixed that chick out last week”; “I nixed my garments” (undressed).
Nod (n.) — sleep. Ex., “I think I’l cop a nod.”
Ofay (n.) — white person.
Off the cob (adj.) — corny, out of date.
Off-time jive (n.) — a sorry excuse, saying the wrong thing.
Orchestration (n.) — an overcoat.
Out of the world (adj.) — perfect rendition. Ex., “That sax chorus was out of the world.”
Ow! — an exclamation with varied meaning. When a beautiful chick passes by, it’s “Ow!”; and when someone pulls an awful pun, it’s also “Ow!”
Pad (n.) — bed.
Pecking (n.) — a dance introduced at the Cotton Club in 1937.
Peola (n.) — a light person, almost white.
Pigeon (n.) — a young girl.
Pops (n.) — salutation for all males (see gate; Jack).
Pounders (n.) — policemen.
Queen (n.) — a beautiful girl.
Rank (v.) — to lower.
Ready (adj.) — 100 per cent in every way. Ex., “That fried chicken was ready.”
Ride (v.) — to swing, to keep perfect tempo in playing or singing.
Riff (n.) — hot lick, musical phrase.
Righteous (adj.) — splendid, okay. Ex., “That was a righteous queen I dug you with last black.”
Rock me (v.) — send me, kill me, move me with rhythym.
Ruff (n.) — quarter, twenty-five cents.
Rug cutter (n.) — a very good dancer, an active jitterbug.
Sad (adj.) — very bad. Ex., “That was the saddest meal I ever collared.”
Sadder than a map (adj.) — terrible. Ex., “That man is sadder than a map.”
Salty (adj.) — angry, ill-tempered.
Sam got you — you’ve been drafted into the army.
Send (v.) — to arouse the emotions. (joyful). Ex., “That sends me!”
Set of seven brights (n.) — one week.
Sharp (adj.) — neat, smart, tricky. Ex., “That hat is sharp as a tack.”
Signify (v.) — to declare yourself, to brag, to boast.
Skins (n.) — drums.
Skin-beater (n.) — drummer (see hide-beater).
Sky piece (n.) — hat.
Slave (v.) — to work, whether arduous labor or not.
Slide your jib (v.) — to talk freely.
Snatcher (n.) — detective.
So help me — it’s the truth, that’s a fact.
Solid (adj.) — great, swell, okay.
Sounded off (v.) — began a program or conversation.
Spoutin’ (v.) — talking too much.
Square (n.) — an unhep person (see icky; Jeff).
Stache (v.) — to file, to hide away, to secrete.
Stand one up (v.) — to play one cheap, to assume one is a cut-rate.
To be stashed (v.) — to stand or remain.
Susie‑Q (n.) — a dance introduced at the Cotton Club in 1936.
Take it slow (v.) — be careful.
Take off (v.) — play a solo.
The man (n.) — the law.
Threads (n.) — suit, dress or costuem (see drape; dry-goods).
Tick (n.) — minute, moment. Ex., “I’ll dig you in a few ticks.” Also, ticks are doubled in accounting time, just as money isdoubled in giving “line.” Ex., “I finaled to the pad this early bright at tick twenty” (I got to bed this morning at ten o’clock).
Timber (n.) — toothipick.
To dribble (v.) — to stutter. Ex., “He talked in dribbles.”
Togged to the bricks — dressed to kill, from head to toe.
Too much (adj.) — term of highest praise. Ex., “You are too much!”
Trickeration (n.) — struttin’ your stuff, muggin’ lightly and politely.
Trilly (v.) — to leave, to depart. Ex., “Well, I guess I’ll trilly.”
Truck (v.) — to go somewhere. Ex., “I think I’ll truck on down to the ginmill (bar).”
Trucking (n.) — a dance introduced at the Cotton Club in 1933.
Twister to the slammer (n.) — the key to the door.
Two cents (n.) — two dollars.
Unhep (adj.) — not wise to the jive, said of an icky, a Jeff, a square.
Vine (n.) — a suit of clothes.
V‑8 (n.) — a chick who spurns company, is independent, is not amenable.
What’s your story? — What do you want? What have you got to say for yourself? How are tricks? What excuse can you offer? Ex., “I don’t know what his story is.”
Whipped up (adj.) — worn out, exhausted, beat for your everything.
Wren (n.) — a chick, a queen.
Wrong riff — the wrong thing said or done. Ex., “You’re coming up on the wrong riff.”
Yarddog (n.) — uncouth, badly attired, unattractive male or female.
Yeah, man — an exclamation of assent.
Zoot (adj.) — exaggerated
Zoot suit (n.) — the ultimate in clothes. The only totally and truly American civilian suit.
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