Happy New Year, Gentle Reader(s), and welcome to the first Matador Playlist of 2025. Rather extraordinary to consider that I have now been manning the DJ booth at Ye Olde Matador Bar & Lounge off and on for 18—count ‘em, EIGHTEEN—years! Boggles the old brainpan a bit, does it not? Of course that hasn’t been 18 continuous years as there has been a couple of flies in the ointment along the way (that global pandemic thing, which you might recall, and a significant health glitch or two), but Cesar and Francisco and myself have never strayed far from one another and we remain committed as amigos, compatriots in business, music and even in film. Amazing.

I know, I know. I said that the more frequently I do these playlists the easier and faster it becomes to get the YouTube videos all lined up and posted, etc etc, and now it’s been weeks—several weeks—since my last Matador set list went online! That’s, like, the equivalent of at least a year in intrawebby/election year/news cycle time! Shameful, I admit, but there are reasons for that. Let’s call them excuses.

This missive is intended to address the myth and the mystery of three great albums of late ‘60s/early ‘70s rock n’ roll that have, to various degrees, disappeared from public circulation and from the collective sub- or un-conscious. None of them is completely gone—the original albums exist on the margins of the marketplace, on eBay and in the rarities bins of collector vinyl emporiums (emporia?) and some have been reborn in modern guise—but they remain largely obscure relics of special interest only to pathetic dorks such as Your Humble Narrator. Each one of these albums was important to me as a wee lad back home in New Orleans and I listened to each one of them countless times on my plastic close-and-carry record player back in the days before digital anything and Oranguntans-in-Chief. Ahhhh, thems was the days.   The recordings in question are ‘Live Yardbirds, featuring Jimmy Page’ by the Yardbirds, ‘Coast to Coast, Live: Overture and Beginners’ by Rod Stewart & Faces, and ‘Time Fades Away’ by Neil Young. All three of these recordings disappeared from the record stores not long after they were issued, largely due to the artists’ subsequent dissatisfaction with their quality. They languished in cut-out bins for a while, available for $1.99 or thereabouts before eventually vanishing altogether. In two of these three cases, those of the Yardbirds and Neil Young, only recently has the material been rehabilitated and reissued, nearly 50 years after the fact. As for Sir Roderick of Stewart, I suggest not bothering to hold your breath in anticipation of his following suit.

I can't recall when I first saw Michelangelo Antonioni's Blow-Up, but it was certainly on television in New Orleans sometime in the early or mid-1970s. Back in those pre-cable days the few broadcast stations that there were (NBC, CBS, ABC, PBS, and a couple of UHF channels) either went off the air after a certain hour or they showed movies with minimal commercial interruption, particularly on the weekends. I was utterly transfixed by European art cinema as a kid, thanks to my parents (who took me regularly to see films by Fellini, Buñuel and others) and the remarkably adventurous late-night presentations on local television. Considering what a ruckus Blow-Up created in the cinemas back in 1966, the version of the film that I saw on television must have been edited quite extensively, but despite the censors' snipping it still made a huge impression.

  A thousand pardons are begged of you, Gentle Reader(s), for the regrettable paucity of postage as of late. The usual distractions of travel, beisbol, work, beisbol and more travel have been in play with the addition of summertime bicycular activities, the inevitable result being that time spent wracking of the brain and pounding of the keys has suffered. Back in early June I was getting ready to add my two centimes worth of sentiment regarding the passing of the great Muhammad Ali when events such as the horrific massacre at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando and the mind boggling Brexit vote across the pond came crashing down. Next thing you know you're wallowing about in a bewildering swampy slosh of WTFs?? and OMGs!! for which there are no answers and no easy explanations. A bit overwhelming. I attended the Orlando vigil on the Santa Fe Plaza on Monday the 13th, presided over by our estimable Mayor Javier Gonzales and I felt that it did some good. It was a display of solidarity and community in the face of hate and intolerance—a display only, perhaps, but better than doing nothing at all.