Do The Robot - Bo Diddley

Don't worry, it isn't a sappy 'Are Friends Electric?' style electro muse on artificial intelligence, it's our old friend Bo Diddley, three chord Rodomont and leading practitioner of rocking rap and Rhythm 'n' Braggadocio from an age when gangster meant Jimmy Cagney. He's going, as ever, for the lucrative fad dance dollar; doing the robot with his signature 4/4 shuffle that's about as robotic as an Etch-a-Sketch. 'The Robot is easy to understand. You ain't got a thing to do but move your feet and your hands.' Thanks, Bo. That'll really catch on. I won't bother with those tango lessons now, will I?

It's true that, lyrically-speaking, Bo Diddley was as self-obsessed as your average Kensington socialite, but his lyrics always displayed a sly rustic wit. Compare 'I walk 47 miles of barbed wire. I wear a cobra snake for a necktie. I got a brand new house on the roadside, made from rattlesnake hide' with today's R'n'B stars boasting about owning a Land Cruiser more suited to a prep school car pool (and you can have that rhyme for free, 'Homes') and jewelry that even Liberace would consider a tad fruity.

Do The Robot is from Bo's 1969 London Sessions, an album that found him dabbling in psychedelic blues, Sly Stone style funk, reggae beats and which featured another version of his theme song, 'Bo Diddley' - this time with back-up vocals from what sounds like the St Winnifred's School Choir.

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Franco Nero - Johnny Lover & The Destroyers

The dusty machismo, gun play and slapstick nihilism of European Westerns from the sixties and seventies and their quirky, echoey soundtracks had a huge influence on Carribean culture; from Jimmy Ciff's anti-heroics in The Harder They Come to countless reggae songs shamelessly cashing in on the steely-eyed personas of actors Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef and 'Django' star Franco Nero, name-checked here by Johnny Lover.

It's a good, shuffling tune, but coming from a band called Johnny Lover & The Destroyers anything less than a new Mystery Train, White Lines or Sign O' the Times is going to be a bit of a let-down. In a similar way, many Spaghetti Westerns were over-hyped by quixotic titles that promised a lot more than they delivered...

'Get the Coffin Ready', 'God Is My Colt .45', 'Minute to Pray, Second to Die', 'On the Third Day Arrived the Crow', 'What Am I Doing in the Middle of a Revolution?' (for the record, a poor copy of Sergio Leone's 'Duck, You Sucker'), 'Ruthless Colt of the Gringo', 'Fighters from Ave Maria.'

I got into West Indian music late, having ignorantly assumed that the headache-inducing steel drum band was essential to it's creation. I was wrong; steel drums belong only in the Blue Peter studio, or maybe in the ace instrumental break to Carrie Ann by the Hollies. Eh? Yes, quite. Help.

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Manifesto & Book News

If it's ever been on K-Tel or Ronco, it's in. If it features hand claps, cow bells, syrupy orchestration, walls of sound, wrecking crews, sha-la-las, toothy teen idols, candy-based metaphors for carnal acts or lyrics about hugging, squeezing and rocking all night long, it's in.

No dice



> Martin Lampen (latest book news, contact details and other stuff)

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