Busy, busy, busy, folks. Sorry!
But hey, how about the surge, huh? What a difference a day can make. Cheney drops in and says everything’s going super, then overnight Baghdad is a ghost town, with everyone hiding from the expected outbreak of renewed civil war.
Only a couple of weeks after the passing of Beatles recording engineer Norman Smith, Beatles road manager and business associate Neil Aspinall has died. It would take a long time to explain Neil’s relationship and roles with the Beatles, so I won’t even try. But it’s safe to say that without Neil Aspinall, the massive Beatles Anthology project in the mid-90’s would never have gotten done.
Here’s a link to an obituary in The Los Angeles Times. If that doesn’t work, click here instead. And at this link is the BBC’s write up on Neil.
Special blog post by Eric!
Well, the Pillows thankfully were able to do a second autograph session on the Anime Boston con’s final day, when the crowds were far thinner as many failed to return, probably either due to Easter or frustration/fatigue over the madness of the last two days. The con organizers finally managed to do something efficiently: the hundred people who were allowed autographs each got a ticket that guaranteed them one.
There was a short Q&A panel immediately before, where we learned that neither the name “the pillows” nor the “Sweet Irene” mentioned in one of their songs have any real significance. When asked of what they thought of their American fans that can’t understand Japanese, they replied with “Well, we’re fans of all this American music we can’t understand!” And on their frequent use of big sunglasses: “Rock Star!”
It’s rather jarring to see how grizzled Suwao and the others have become in the eight years since the anime FLCL rocketed their popularity around the world–compare the vibrantly youthful, scrubbed-clean faces in the “Ride On Shooting Star” video to the craggy jowls, Mick Jagger hair, and flagrant unshavenness in the picture I took. Clearly this isn’t just the result of the trio having two hours of sleep in almost two days, they look exactly like this in their latest music videos. They’re getting older, the band’s had its twentieth anniversary last year. Though for all I know, this could be an intentional, gradual “image” update to coincide with that!
I bought their spectacular latest album “Wake up!” at double the list price (you have to expect such things buying Japanese imports at cons), and as you can see, it was signed shortly afterwards by all three of them! Interestingly, the only discernible signature is that of vocalist-guitarist-frontman Suwao, first from the right in the photo.
“Are you enjoy?” was an amusing bit of Engrish repeatedly shouted by them at the concert.
After yesterday’s nightmare four-hour wait to get registered at Anime Boston, today’s live concert by the Pillows made up for it. For Eric this was the highlight of the weekend, for sure. The Pillows were first mentioned way back in this post when the blog was only a month old.
Carol and I heard some of the show through the doors, and we were able to sneak in for the last two songs. The hall at the Hynes Convention Center is huge! It seats 5,000, and before some of the audience left early to beat the crowd to the merchandise table, the place was totally packed.
I managed to record the audio to the last minute of “Ride On Shooting Star,” the Pillows song that’s at the link above. This is how it sounded from outside the hall, with all of the doors closed. The show was plenty loud, and with Eric sitting in the eighth row, it was a good thing he wore ear plugs.
[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/2008/MAR/pillows.mp3]Today we waited in line four hours to register for Anime Boston! Four hours! And we were pre-registered. It’s been 35 years since I attended my first fan convention, and I’ve never waited even half that long to get a badge. I won’t get into the details of exactly how registration is being handled, but it’s completely bogus. We left the Hynes Convention Center after 8 pm, and it appeared that people were still waiting in the registration line!
The popularity of Arthur Godfrey, a recording then TV star, in the 40’s and 50’s is a mystery to me. He was on television into the 60’s, and I know of at least one friend who liked Godfrey’s easy and relaxed style; but to me he always seemed drunk, and there was something unsettling and decidedly uneasy about him that he kept hidden beneath the surface. Even feeling as I do, I was nevertheless stunned and shocked upon hearing a certain song recorded by Godfrey sixty years ago, in 1948. As much as I wanted some confirmation that my suspicions about the man were correct, I still wasn’t prepared for “Slap Er Down Agin Paw.”
This was a top ten hit! I can’t fathom who would have thought this was entertaining in any way at all, even as a novelty tune. As D.F. Rogers says in reference to this horrible song, in an intentionally ironic way, “There are just so many fascinating levels to study…”
