When David Byrne picked up a Tom Zé LP in a Rio record shop 25 years ago, he had no idea he was embarking on the beginning of an enduring and provocative musical, educational and personal relationship that would last into the 21st century and help to spread Zé’s reputation all over the world. That album, Estudando o Samba, was the first of the iconoclastic tropicalismo singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist’s “studies” albums that provocatively explored Brazil’s various musical traditions. It was followed by Estuado o Pagode (2005), and finally, Estudando a Bossa: Nordeste Plaza (2008), the latter of these gets its first North American CD issue on October 5. To celebrate this fateful anniversary, Byrne’s Luaka Bop imprint will release Studies Of Tom Zé: Explaining Things So I Can Confuse You, a hand-numbered limited edition triple 180 gram LP collection of Ze’s three “studies” albums (Estuando o Samba was released as Massive Hits by Byrne with a different cover and it’s the American release that is presented in the set).

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As we close out our feature on 40 of the first 100 singles/EPs released on Rough Trade (see parts one and two), it’s very important to note that the same span of time involved nearly 40 albums, including Cabaret Voltaire’s Red Mecca, the Fall’s Grotesque, Pere Ubu’s The Modern Dance, the Raincoats’ The Raincoats, Stiff Little Fingers’ Inflammable Material, Swell Maps’ Jane from Occupied Europe, This Heat’s Deceit, and Young Marble Giants’ Colossal Youth. And once the 100th single was released, there was hardly any looking back. Along came the Smiths, the Go-Betweens, Aztec Camera, the Dream Syndicate, Violent Femmes, and on and on. The label is the subject of a new book, Document & Eyewitness: An Intimate History of Rough Trade.

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These Rough Trade singles, released from late 1979 through 1980, originate from a disparate group of people and run through a broad range of subjects: the anxiety of growing up, the flaws of capitalism, the silliness of trend-hopping, the wonder of photocopying, the pains (and joys) of breaking up, and the end of the world. (There’s also a preferable alternative to James Brown’s “Living in America.”) This phase of the label was even more fruitful than the stretch covered during the first part of our feature, as it involved no less than six songs that should be part of any post-punk starter kit.

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In early 1976, a record shop called Rough Trade opened in London’s Ladbroke Grove and soon became a haven for punk and reggae fans. Almost exactly two years later, the shop’s founder, Geoff Travis, initiated the Rough Trade label with a single by France’s Metal Urbain. The label was as accomodating to its artists as the shop was to its patrons, and the extended reach of its collectivist spirit allowed for the financial support and distribution of several other independents. 30 years later, through numerous ups and downs and releases from artists as disparate as Cabaret Voltaire, the Fall, Robert Wyatt, the Smiths, A.R. Kane, and the Arcade Fire, the label — as well as the shop — continues to thrive. Despite its successes since the post-punk era, the label’s first 100 singles and EPs, released within a short frame of five years, represent one of the most remarkable runs in music history. We’ll talk about 40 of those first 100 small-scale releases in chronological order. Here’s part one of three.

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Booker White (his name was misspelled as Bukka on the label for “Shake ‘Em on Down” when it was issued on Vocalion in 1937, and it stuck) turned his vigorous guitar style, heavy voice, and considerable songwriting abilities into 20 classic blues tracks between 1930 and 1940, all of which are absolutely essential to any blues library. White was not a delicate player or singer, falling into the Charley Patton/Son House school of Delta blues, slashing and pounding on his guitar (usually a National Steel, which could cut through any juke joint din) while he growled out ragged, raspy vocals.

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Three Lobed Recordings and Fina Music have joined forces to assemble a sprawling, ambitious benefit project Honest Strings: A Tribute To The Life And Work Of Jack Rose. This massive collection includes covers of traditional material and original words and music inspired by his example . Forty artists participated in the project, which is over six hours long. Given the length, the album is only available as a digital download for the extremely nominal price of $15! All proceeds go to Rose’s family. To listen to music from the record, get more information, or participate in the memorial by purchasing it, go to the Fina store here. The complete roster of participating artists is below, and each song can be heard on the Fina site.

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Jamaica’s Augustus Pablo took what was essentially a child’s toy — the melodica — and turned it into something else again. The exotic, eerie, slightly Far Eastern and delicately mournful sound that Pablo coaxed from the instrument soon became a staple of Jamaican reggae and dub releases in the 1970s. Given his reticent nature, though, and his tendency to avoid the limelight, Pablo never achieved commercial stardom (if indeed that was ever even an aim of his) and while his influence on modern Jamaican music is immense, he actually only had one hit on the island, his 1971 single “Java,” which single-handedly ushered in the so-called “rockers” style. He did session work with seemingly every musician on the island, though, and he understood how to nurture musical talent when he ran across it, particularly as a producer. Few Jamaican musicians (aside from maybe Yabby You) pursued the dark, lonely beauty of the minor keys with Pablo’s focused devotion. “East of the River Nile” and “King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown” (itself a restructuring of “Cassava Piece”) are recognizable anywhere, and are as haunting as they are influential and pervasive. But Pablo was no melodica savant. He could play countless other instruments, including guitar, piano, organ and xylophone, and he had a singular vision for the possibilities of Jamaica’s reggae and dub rhythms. It just so happens that along the way he revolutionized what you could do with a melodica. Pablo was very cool.

Keith Moon’s 1975 solo album Two Sides of the Moon has been described as “the most expensive karaoke album in history,” and even as that, it was a colossal failure, the perfect expression of drunken self indulgence, and it was so fascinatingly bad that it has assumed a certain cult status. But make no mistake, it was a horrible album on all counts made by a brilliant drummer who chose barely to play drums on it (he appears behind the kit on only three tracks) but instead chose to sing, even though he was tone deaf by his own admission. The presence of seemingly every musician then in LA at the sessions, an impressive list that included Dick Dale, Spencer Davis, Bobby Keys, Rick Nelson, Harry Nilsson, John Sebastian, Ringo Starr, Joe Walsh, and countless rumored others, failed to redeem Two Sides of the Moon. Even taken as kitsch, it sucked.

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