Category: Music

ABBA Above All

This past week on the DVR I watched the PBS documentary The Eugenics Crusade, showing how the American Eugenics movement contributed to Hitler’s nightmare of a Master Race. Then I watched a PBS fundraiser feature, ABBA Forever: A Celebration. The two programs have a connection in the person of Frida, whose mother bore her as a German soldier’s “Lebensborn” baby, during the Nazi occupation of Norway.

Anni-Frid Lyngstad

Speaking of PBS, that’s where A Charlie Brown Christmas can be watched tonight. Quite a switch from decades of airing on commercial TV. And with that comment, this posts ticks three of my blog categories.

NSFW No More

For anyone working from home during the pandemic, everything is safe viewing at work. Luv’ was a Dutch girl group. Like K3 in neighboring Belgium, and Xuxa in Brazil, Luv’s target audience was children, but the act also had plenty to offer for the dads to enjoy. One of their songs in this medley was obviously borrowed from ABBA’s ‘Fernando.’

Colonel Klink’s Dad Conducts

This video features a Holy Grail record playing setup from the glory days of Hi-Fi. A Garrard 301 turntable and 12″ SME tonearm, both from England, and an Ortofon SPU cartridge from Denmark. The stone base is obviously new, as part of a restoration.

How much would this gear cost? The cartridge alone, the one component still in production, starts at $1000, so don’t ask. The record is from the year of my birth.