Hep cats & kittens

Q: What do you call a guy who hangs around a bunch of musicians?

A: A drummer!

Sorry!

I'm snowed in in somewhere north of Milwaukee in a quaint little town called Port Washington, where I've spent the last 4 working days dinking around at a newspaper and publishing house. I was supposed to be in Mankato, MN, at 9:30 am tomorrow, so I'm thankful that the snow spared me the six-hour drive there (and back).

So, I'm sitting in a hotel room with little to do (aside from more work, or post about the AMAZING but under-attended Knitters show I saw at the House of Blues on Friday, or seeing the Ramsey Lewis Trio in the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Unitarian Temple on Saturday) than mine YouTube for grooviness.

In what might be one of the best lip-synching performances of 1983, here's The Three O'Clock on MV3, playing "With A Cantaloupe Girlfriend":



The Three O'Clock again, this time ruling on "Sorry". Lead vocalist Michael Quercio went on to join various incarnations of Game Theory, and lead guitarist Louis Gutierrez joined Mary's Danish:



Here's the definitive edition of the late, lamented band Game Theory, led by pop genius Scott Miller. This one's from their LP Big Shot Chronicles. I highly, highly recommend their Real Nighttime and Lolita Nation LPs. Real Nighttime's available on Amazon, if you can swing the 25 clams it'll set you back.



Julie Ritter, David King and Louis Gutierrez of Mary's Danish perform a live acoustic version of "Dodge City."

Holiday Travel

I have to drive from Chicago to Appleton, WI, and then on to southeast Minnesota on Wednesday -- so of course, the forecast calls for the first snow accumulation of the season. At least on the eastern leg of the trip. Being in a glass-half-full kinda mood, we only have 30 days until the hours of daylight start getting longer. So, we have that going for us. Which is nice.

To celebrate, here's 8-year-old Johnny R. of the Bolts covering my favorite Jayhawks tune. Awesome:



And here are the Bolts as a group, all 9-years-old as of August -- in another song about the sun:

Wednesday dinner in Indy

Age-Defying Protein Pancakes, courtesy of the Aristocrats:

Praise the Lord, the parking lot is full of pancake eaters. America loves pancakes, and I love America.

Belated Halloween post

My apologies to my thousands of readers for whom these may have prevented the loss of life or limb for your children on Halloween. Please review in 51 weeks.

Part One. Watch as a perfectly creepy witch costume devolves into a completely uncool wreck of reflective tape and "beautiful princess" costume over the course of 11 minutes:



Part Two. I'd be pouting, too! Abernathy Family members, note what time it is at 1:37 in. Time to party!



As an added public service, I'm including this 1955 educational film on how to spot pervs:



And be sure to check your candy carefully! You wouldn't want to wind up in San Francisco, the murderer of a hot dog who had a wife and seven children.

Tonight's Halloween Post

Yeah, I know the last two were probably way too long.

This one is mercifully short and lysergic:

Bobby's all right. He's a natural-born poet. He's just out-of-sight.

I know it's utterly predictable, and therefore lame, but what would a good Halloween soundtrack be without Bauhaus doing "Bela Lugosi's Dead"?

Before we get to it, however, here's a vid I saw 20-some odd years ago and have longed to see since. Through the magic of youtube, here's Bauhaus's amazing take on the T. Rex classic, "Telegram Sam":


OK, let's compare and contrast that with the original:


With that, we're kind of veering away from Halloween music, so let's get back on track with T. Rex doing "Jeepster." What? Yes, of course, it's Halloween music! Listen to the very last line -- "Girl, I'm just a vampire for your love -- and I'm gonna to suck you!" Not to mention that part about your vibrations burning off my feet...


Whew. On to the main event -- Bela Lugosi's Dead. Remember the opening scene in The Hunger? If I ever made eye contact with Catherine Deneuve from across the bar while she chain smoked and french inhaled like that, you can bet I'd let her rip out my throat and suck the life out of me. Besides, walking the earth Undead for eternity would be infinitely cooler if one got to do it hanging around with Bowie:


And to refresh your memory, here's the first ten minutes of The Hunger:


If you've time, here are a couple of bonus tracks. Oh, to be the cream...

All We Ever Wanted


Kick in the Eye

Don't go on the patio!

You better beware...



The B-52's are every sci-fi/monster movie you ever watched on a Saturday afternoon; the wild pool party Robbie and Chip threw when they got ahold of some beer and pot while Steve Douglas was on a business trip and Uncle Charlie was out getting his hemorrhoid lanced and Ernie was locked in his bedroom practicing the Mashed Potatoes; finding Jackie O's blood- and brain-spattered dress at a thrift store and then getting drunk and throwing up all over it because your boyfriend is with someone else; getting secret messages from the aliens on the staticy tv in the waiting room at the dog groomers; the twin threats of instant vaporization by atomic bomb and the slow wasting away of AIDS.

They also wrote some of the sexiest and most danceable songs ever.

Some say she's from Mars:



Where ya taking me, Devil?



I don't know...I feel like something's happening:



Lots of trouble:

Scary Mary

Be afraid...be very afraid...

Double Dutch

Who, me?

No thanks -- I'm content to just sit here on my lard-ass and watch:

I cloud nine when I want to

From the Music Scene -- a weekly series on ABC, circa 1969/70. Here's Sly & The Family Stone singing a medley of their hits:

Everyday People
Dance to the Music
Hot Fun in the Summertime
Don't Call Me N*gger, Whitey
I Want to Take You Higher

Check out the girl singing along with "county fair in the country sun" at 3:58 -- woohoo!

Incidentally, I saw the "Family Stone" this summer at a Taste of Minnesota, and they were so hot they nearly burned the place down. Sly wasn't there, but Rose was, and she's still a fox at 60. I had her autograph my shirt.

Monday Dinner Special

Tonight's Special:

Porky-Tater

I like mine well done.

Working on a building

The Rev. Louis Overstreet testifies:

Rev Louis overstreet - Working on the building
Uploaded by le-pere-de-colombe

Blog post of the month

So far:

Hatesexy

OK...maybe this one, too:

Perry Bible Fellowship

Then and Now

Then


Now

OK, so the guy wanging on the guitar with the ballpoint pen isn't exactly Eno (or even Phil Manzanera), but it still sounds pretty cool.

Best. Video. Ever.

Miss Brown to You

Confession time: Anita O'Day gives me the Woodiest of the Woodies. Scha-wing. There's that lazy, smoky, heroin-tinged voice...the effortless scatting...the band knowing how to kick it, but still lay back and be the coolest of cats...

Here's Miss O'Day singing "Sweet Georgia Brown" and "Tea For Two" at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival -- obviously while she's riding the white horse. It starts out a little shaky -- she has a little problem with the stairs -- but then look out -- bam! She's got you flipped into a hammock and is swinging you in the hot afternoon.

Sadly, Miss O'Day passed away November 23, 2006.

This ain't no foolin' around

The Great Iraq Swindle:

How is it done? How do you screw the taxpayer for millions, get away with it and then ride off into the sunset with one middle finger extended, the other wrapped around a chilled martini? Ask Earnest O. Robbins -- he knows all about being a successful contractor in Iraq.

From Rolling Stone #1034

An interesting two hours

If you have them to spare:

Zeitgeist: The Movie

New comment on Rebuttal to a comment

The votes are coming in, and it's Pig-Pile On Peter.

I'm finding all kind of evidence that my opinion of fancy-pants englishman dancing could be misplaced. And someone else might have nailed it when they suggested it was a white boy thing.

Let's look at a few vids, then mix 'em up and see what we get.

Here we have James Brown doing The Skate (perhaps from the T.A.M.I. Show? Shindig? Can someone with a better memory help me out here?), along with a roomful of watusi dancers trying to keep up:



Here we have the Jackson 5 with Michael Jackson borrowing from James Brown and taking it up several notches with the Pop 'n' Lock:



I guess both of those put englishman dancing to shame. Well, let's try a little experiment. Let's take some englishmen and toss them into an all-American setting with plenty of dancing:



Hmm. Apparently the entire crowd dances better than the englishmen band (but they're still cool as ice). Mitigating factor, though, is Hef -- hitting on the whammy bar. Erase another point for the Americans.

OK, let's try the same setting with an American band:



Wow. Once again, the rock stars don't dance very well, but look closely at about 1:43 into the vid, just to our right of Barbie Benton. Notice the gentleman in the mauve jacket, striped pants and awesome white go-go boots. Watch for awhile...watch...

Did you see it? There! Christ on a bike! If that isn't Jesse Jackson shaking his booty like a wild man to the Devil's music, I'll eat my hat. Still, I guess the song IS about the Garden of Eden and all...

Well, that was a fun little experiment. Thanks to dissenting commenters for raising my consciousness and expanding my horizons!

Now let's flash-forward a few years. Reagan is president, and what do we get? Mere words cannot describe. Let me try anyway:

Take the rotting corpse of the young, rockin' Elvis, dress him in skin-tight black leather pants pulled down to barely cover his pubes and butt-crack, stuff a mic in his mouth like a ball-gag and give him a guitar-playing girlfriend with a perpetual sneer on her face. Germinate them in a sleazy Sacramento trailer park; soak in a beer-covered floor at CBGB, and let fester in the pale glow of a B-horror movie at 3 am; take that oozing mess and toss it in the rancid spunk of a B/D/S/M peep show booth in Los Angeles. They are as American as a moldy slice of apple pie and your stepmom coming home drunk and vomiting all over the shag carpeting and naugahyde.

Aww...let's have a look:

Does anyone know where I can get a pair of pants like that?