Sorry to get all political this morning, but these people are absolutely beneath contempt.
From yesterday's Huffington Post:
Republican senators sound increasingly unlikely to try and block Elena Kagan's confirmation to the Supreme Court, but in the meantime they've focused some of their attention on an even more difficult target: former Justice Thurgood Marshall, a civil rights pioneer and the first African-American to sit on the high court. Marshall's name came up 35 times during the first day of Kagan's confirmation hearings.
There's "no doubt he was an activist judge," Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Klingon) said of Marshall on MSNBC Monday. "Let's admire the man for the great things he did, but let's not walk over and wipe out the things that really didn't make sense as an obedient student of the practice of law." The Salt Lake Tribune tracked Hatch down after Monday's hearing to ask if he would have voted for Marshall, the man who successfully litigated Brown v. Board of Education not long before he joined the Supreme Court. "Well, it's hard to say," was Hatch's response.
Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, likewise decried Marshall as "a well-known liberal activist judge" in his opening remarks during the hearing.
"Well, it's hard to say."
Well, actually no, it isn't. So by way of a heartfelt personal response, please enjoy brilliant power pop wiseacres Something Fierce and their 1990 tribute to the great man -- "Poetic Justice Thurgood."
Specifically, why his distinctive drum fills sound so, er, distinctive.
I don't know where or when that was recorded, but apparently it's been widely bootleged. In any case, I thought it was worth sharing, and frankly I'm a little amazed that I never knew the guy was left-handed.
My old chum Dave Immer is seriously irked about some recent court decisions granting the rights of individuals to corporations. And the consequent disastrous impact on what laughingly passes for our democracy. As well he should be.
But enough of my yakking -- here's Dave himself, to say it in his own inimitable way.
Dave's a rather frighteningly talented multi-instrumentalist/producer/engineer/songwriter kind of guy; back in the day, he twiddled the knobs for some of those Floor Models songs I've been inflicting on you of late, but don't hold that against him. In any case, you're doubtless more familiar with his work on the original Ghostbusters soundtrack; he's the co-author (and I believe singing backup) on this little ditty.
In any event, to the above rap I can only add -- right on.
Well, it's Friday, and you know what that means, Yes, my Oriental top hat containment dome specialist Fah Lo Suee and I will be heading off to...well, it's a secret, actually, but it involves the blood of Catholic babies and a new recipe for Wheat Thins.
But perhaps I've already said too much.
That being the case, and since things will be a little quiet around here till we return, here's a fun little project for us all:
Best or Worst Post-Elvis Pop/Rock/Soul Song Either Referencing A Song (or Songs) or Having the Word "Song" in the Title!!!!
Self-explanatory, I think, and no arbitrary rules whatsoever, you're welcome very much. And apologies if we've done something like this before, but of course as you know I'm senile.
"Stayin’ up for days in the Chelsea Hotel/Writin’'Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands' for you." Right, Bob. You didn't actually write that song, hopped up on the goofballs, in the hallway of a Nashville studio while the highly paid session guys waited for you to finish it.
What a fricking liar.
7. Edward Bear -- Last Song
"This is the last song I'll ever sing for you..." I don't know what the woman in question had to say when she first heard this piece of crap, but I hope it was "God, I fucking hope so." Incidentally, the following excerpt from Edward Bear's Wiki entry -- The band is a favourite of Quentin Tarantino, who feels the band should be regarded as "The Beatles of Canada" -- is the single most terrifying thing I've ever read.
6. Buddy Holly -- Peggy Sue Got Married
"You recall the girl that's been in nearly every song..." The greatest sequel in pop music history, I think; this is the version overdubbed in stereo by The Fireballs in the early 60s, and it's one of my favorite things ever.
5. Tone Loc -- Funky Cold Medina
"And like Mick Jagger said/I can't get no satisfaction..." I think we all know the feeling, my friend. This remains one of the last truly great frat-rock (in the 60s sense) records, incidentally, although at the time it came out, nobody seemed to notice its obvious lineage.
4. The Pogues -- And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda
Folkie Eric Bogle's often-covered anti-war classic. The Pogues version seems to be regarded as definitive, or at least as definitive as these things get, and with good reason.
3. John Lennon -- How Do You Sleep?
"The only thing you done is 'Yesterday...'". I still say this is a very nice piece of music let down by an embarrassingly bitchy lyric. Seriously, if John was that pissed he should have picked up the phone and spared the rest of us the temper tantrum. IMHO.
2. Fountains of Wayne -- Peace and Love
Because, you know, we like to have something recorded in this century. Plus, this inspirational verse:
Lying on the floor Just playing my guitar Trying to find the chords for "Just The Way You Are"
Heh.
And the Numero Uno Eskimo Club bottle of a song just has to be...
1. The Guess Who -- When the Band was Singing Shakin All Over
A rather dispiriting ode to their first hit, the kick-ass cover of the same Johnny Kidd and the Pirates song later immortalized by The Who. From their even more dispiriting 1975 album, and I mean so dispiriting that even a rabid Guess Who fan like myself was relieved that the band packed it in immediately after.
Incidentally, if you don't get the Eskimo Club bottle metaphor, I'm old enough to be your grandfather.
But alrighty then -- what would your choices be?
[Shameless Blogwhore: My parallel Cinema Listomania -- theme: best or worst performance as a Nazi by and actor or actress -- is now up over at Box Office. As always, it would be an act of great kindness if you could see your way to going over there and leaving a comment, despite the clunkiness of the new commenting system. Thanks!]
Fron 1962, and the soundtrack to the cinema classic Girls! Girls! Girls!, please enjoy the King, the incomparable Elvis Presley, and his immortal ode to my all-time favorite hors d'oeuvre, the haunting "Song of the Shrimp."
I've actually never seen Girls! Girls! Girls!, or at least I don't think I have; with a lot of the in-decline Elvis movies, it's pretty difficult to keep them etched in your memory, if you know what I mean.
In any case, the song in question first came to my attention on the conceptually interesting Elvis bootleg Elvis' Greatest Shit, which I have written about here on an earlier occasion or two. And of course, given the on-going tragedy in the Gulf, "Song of the Shrimp" now takes on a metaphorical and emotional heft undreamed of by anyone connected with the original recording.
And as always, a coveted PowerPop No-Prize will be awarded the first reader who glean's the song's relevance to the theme of tomorrow's Weekend Listomania.
I've been meaning to post this one for ages. From Michael Penn's 1996 album, which would be worth having if for no other reason than the unbelievably cool The Prisoner homage on the cover, please enjoy the gloriously melodic "Me Around."
As you can hear, it's a seamless mix of Face to Face and Revolver era Kinks/Beatles, and I think it's a fricking little pop masterpiece. Endlessly inventive, too; the way the guitar riff starts to walk on the last verse, and then those off-in-the-distance "wah doo dah" vocals that sneak up on you...the whole thing just knocks me out.
Seriously -- I figure if you make just one record as good as this one over the course of your lifetime, you pretty much deserve immortality. On the other hand, the the guy gets to go home at night to Aimee Mann, so the hell with him.
My review of the remastered (and expanded with bonus tracks) version of The Rolling Stones masterpiece Exile on Main Street leads off the music section of the current edition of The Magazine Formerly Known as Stereo ReviewSound + Vision. At better dead tree periodical racks now.
Unfortunately, absolutely nothing from the issue is available on the mag's website, so you'll have to buy the issue to read my senile ramblings.
In any case, the shorter version is: I like what the Stones have done with the place. And here's my favorite of the bonus tracks -- an early alternate take of "Soul Survivor," sung by Keith Richards with just the right mix of on-the-nod nonchalance and nasal passion.
Fun fact: If I don't get hit by a bus or something and keep writing for S+V (assuming it stays in business) until 2012, I will have been contributing to said rag, more or less continually, for 40 years.
Two songs with the same title and the same theme. And as different as night and day.
From 1967, please enjoy barking mad British eccentrics The Bonzo Dog Band and "I'm Bored."
And from 1979, consider if you will the irrepressible Iggy Pop and his meditation of the same name.
To be honest, I've never been able to decide which one of these I love more. Iggy's rocks harder, obviously (great guitar work courtesy of Scott Thurston, currently of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, which always amuses me). But the Bonzos track is just drop dead funny on every level.
From 1963, and written and produced by Pharaoh of the Falsetto Lou ["Rhapsody in the Rain"] Christie, please enjoy The Tammys and their thoroughly unhinged slice of girl group multi-culturalism run amok, "Egyptian Shumba."
Somebody has described the above as Phil Spector meets Sun Ra, which strikes me as a little much. But I'll say this about those girls -- they sure made quite a...well, the word racket comes to mind.
To be honest, I hadn't given much thought to Christie of late until last week's Listomania, when reader Dave nominated this hitherto unknown to me Christie gem from 1966 --
-- which includes the immortal line "A flash of suspicion, you learned a new way of kissin'." Which brought me to Christie's Wiki entry and thence to the discovery of the compilation of his girl group productions and the quite astonishing song up top.
There's more research to be done about this stuff, I suspect, but not by me, I'm afraid. Seriously, that way madness lies.
Well, it's Friday, and you know what that means, Yes, my Oriental "strokes if you got 'em" aide Fah Lo Suee and I will be heading off to beautiful downtown Ennis, Texas to attend the ceremony in which staunch British Petroleum defender Congressman Joseph Linus "Joe" Barton [R-Corporate Whore], will be presented with the coveted Biggest Asshole in the History of the World Award. Could be a hot one, obviously.
That said, and since things will be a little quiet around here till we return, here's a fun little project for us all:
Best or Worst Post-Elvis Pop/Rock/Soul Song or Record With a Lyric Referencing Jealousy (Romantic or Sexual)!!!
Self-explanatory, I think, and no arbitrary rules whatsoever, you're welcome very much.
Okay, a really obvious choice, I know. But I really liked this song (and the album its from) back in the day, and despite the annoying earnestness I've detected with benefit of hindsight, I still do. Sorry.
5. The Beatles -- No Reply
One of John's best, I think, and one of the reasons why, years later, I found his "Jealous Guy" kind of depressingly literal.
4. Lesley Gore -- Judy's Turn to Cry
Okay, here's the song's scenario. Narrator Lesley is at a party, and to spite former boyfriend Johnny (who had dumped her in a previous song) she makes out with some other guy. At which point, Johnny jumps up and cold cocks the poor dope. I hate to say it, but Lesley was really a bitch.
3. Marianne Faithfull -- Why D'ya Do It?
I don't know who the woman who was fucking Marianne's boyfriend in this song was, but I certainly hope she had an unlisted phone number and lived in a doorman building.
2. The Killers -- Mr. Brightside
These guys mostly put me to sleep, and this song, while okay, is not an exception to the rule. Still, as you know, we like to have something recorded in the current century.
And the Numero Uno ode to the old Green-Eyed Monster is...ohmigod, it's a fricking tie!!! Between...
1. Rick Springfield -- Jessie's Girl
Don't know who said it, but this really is Othello with guitars.
...and...
1. Steely Dan -- Through With Buzz
An absolutely brilliant evocation of that latenight moment when you're lying awake torturing yourself by thinking about some other guy's hands all over the thighs of the girlfriend who just dumped you. Funniest line: "Maybe he's a fairy..."
Alrighty, then -- what would your choices be?
[Shameless Blogwhore: My parallel Cinema Listomania -- theme: best and worst big budget remakes of B-pictures -- is now up over at Box Office. As always, it would show a really nice spirit on your part if you could head over there and leave a comment, despite the clunkiness of the new commenting system. Thanks!]
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