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No matter how out of touch I'm getting, it's still fun to discover new music. And "discover" is the loosest of terms here, because it usually indicates unearthing something that, you know, hasn't been discovered yet. But I'm too old and tired to be doing much of that anymore. So I'm talking about discovering something that's been around for a while, even popularly enjoyed for a while, but has so far avoided me and my picky ears.

For instance, a couple weeks ago I heard for the first time this song "Mongoose" by Elephants Memory. I was aware of the band only because I knew they backed John Lennon on some tour(s) or recording(s) or other(s), but to my knowledge I'd never heard them before. Not even backing Lennon. (I leave most of his solo stuff the hell alone. In fact, here are the solo Lennon songs I like, in chronological order: "Cold Turkey," "Working Class Hero," "Well, Well, Well," "Gimme Some Truth" and "How Do You Sleep?" I've tried to like "Jealous Guy" but it's just too sappy. Sappiness sucks.)

So "Mongoose." 1970. Phenomenal. I recognized the opening drum bit from some hip-hop song (Jungle Brothers?) so I was probably preconditioned to like it. [Edit: It's Cypress Hill's "Latin Lingo" and Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth's "It's Like That." At minimum!] As it played on it just kept getting better, luring me in further, convincing me it could not possibly get better so I'd lose focus a bit and then get knocked over again. I'm a sucker for the way the instruments join the fray one at a time (as in "The Crunge," also hip-hop fodder). And then the groove gets going, and the harmony-like wailing (another thing I fall for—voices as instruments; I love what the Kinks and the Who used to do, and what Yo La Tengo does still, where they harmonize melodies; wonderful). And the distorted bass, and the chunk-a-chunk guitar. I'm practically melting to death as I hear the first thirty seconds of this song. And then the vocals come in, not my favorite singing voice but good and urgent and unrestrained and fucking human. And then the chorus, with a backing that tells me there were at least two black guys in the band—they pull off an all-time riff. One of those that can stick in your head all day, one you never want to forget. Plus, the lyrics (guess I picked up something here) are about finding a mongoose to exact revenge upon a cobra, or something like that. And then the baby cobras call bullshit on that and exact their own revenge. Heady shit.

Can't think of too many others that grabbed me the way this song does. Definitely "The Big Three Killed My Baby." "Touch Me I'm Sick" and, going historically backwards with that riff (skipping "I'm Sick of You"), "Happenings Ten Years Time Ago." The Stooges one that slayed me (having owned only Raw Power at the time) was "T.V. Eye," even if it's in a commercial now. Another is "There Was a Time" from the live James Brown album I pimped in one of my first posts. "How Many More Times." "Baron Saturday" (first psych-era Pretty Things song I heard). "Rebel Without a Pause." "Kerosene." And so on. These are all songs that excite me just thinking about them, just writing about them in the silent vacuum of the office this morning.

So thank you, Elephants Memory, for "Mongoose" and its glory.