Category: Music

Have Yourself a Glam Christmas

Denro notes that in England it’s been a holiday tradition in recent decades to get snockered and sing-scream “Merry Xmas Everybody”, by the 70’s British Glam Rock band Slade. You’ll find it in part 8 of this video, the finale to the stellar Christmas 1973 edition of Sir Jimmy Savile’s “Top of the Pops”, posted on YouTube by one of its best members, NYrainbow.

The new “Doctor Who” series features a Christmas episode every year, including one that will premiere Christmas night…

… and a couple of the past installments of Who have included bits of “Merry Xmas Everybody”.

[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/2010/DEC/DoctorWho.flv 512 288]

The Head Monkees

One of my most memorable movie-going experiences was in the early 80’s, when I saw “Head” for the first time. Denro and I were at a little art cinema in Cambridge, Massachusetts, called Off The Wall, that later succumbed to the ascendancy of VHS. “Head” is the cult favorite with the pre-fab four, The Monkees, that picked up where their TV show left off. This clip from the movie has the superb “Porpoise Song”, by Goffin-King.


The Monkees – Porpoise Song (From Head)

Robbie Leff pointed out this 1968 interview with The Monkees talking about “Head”, in surprisingly good quality that looks as though it could have been recorded yesterday.

Petulant Glenn Gould’s crush on Pet

Almost four years ago I posted Classical pianist Glenn Gould’s 1967 audio essay on Petula Clark. Today, the Wall Street Journal features a write-up on music-related TV documentaries, and in noting the upcoming PBS program “Genius Within: The Inner Life of Glenn Gould”, Nancy deWolf Smith says, “… it is clear that his crush on Petula Clark and many other diversions made bearable the isolation his artistry demanded.” Gould’s love letter to Pet, in the form of a musician’s analytical critique, is in an MP3 that I’m happily hot-linking from WFMU. It takes a few minutes for Gould to get to the point, but he gets there.


[audio:http://ubu.wfmu.org/sound/gould_glenn/Gould-Glenn_The-Search-for-Petula-Clark_1967.mp3|titles=Glenn Gould: The Search for Petula Clark]

Fixing Mariah Carey’s thighs

I see that Mariah Carey has announced she’s going to have a baby. Last year I posted Carey’s delightfully retro video from 1994, of her modern classic, “All I Want for Christmas Is You”, which looks like this on YouTube…

… making Mariah at 24 look like she had the thighs she has now, pregnant at 40. But I can fix that. Hmm… It looks to me as if there may be three basketballs in this picture. 😉

[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/2010/DEC/MariahCareyChristmas.flv 480 370]

Prue Bury in Astrid’s new book

I have Astrid Kirchherr – a retrospective, a new book that’s a companion to Astrid’s exhibit at the Victoria Gallery and Museum in Liverpool, that runs through the end of January. I am very pleased to see that the book includes a photo with my dear friend, Prudence Bury.

Lon Van Eaton and Friends

I’m hoping Santa will bring me the new Best of Apple Records compilation. It includes ‘Sweet Music’, a track from ‘Brother’, Lon and Derrek Van Eaton’s album on Apple that certainly deserves a CD release. The credits for ‘Brother’ include many familiar names — George Harrison, Klaus Voormann, Ringo Starr, Jim Gordon (drums), Phil McDonald (engineer), and Clive Arrowsmith (photos).

Tonight, Lon Van Eaton will be appearing in his home state of New Jersey, at The Record Collector.

It’s nice to see that Apple Records has added a web page about Lon and Derrek.

Lon & Derek Van Eaton

Lon and Derrek van Eaton were one of the last acts signed to Apple Records and the first to record at the newly built Apple Studios. The brothers had previously been in a band called Jacobs Creek, who issued one self-titled US album on Columbia Records in 1969.

After that band split up, Lon and Derrek made a demo of ‘Sweet Music’, which they sent to Apple in New York. John Lennon heard it and was impressed. George liked it too, and it was George who called the van Eatons to ask if they would like to record for Apple.

A couple of quibbles. They’re inconsistent about the spelling of “Derek” vs. “Derrek,” and ‘Sweet Music’ is cited as the demo that was sent to Apple’s New York office. Apple’s original promotion for Lon and Derrek says they submitted a home recording, and based on the liner notes for ‘Brother’, the song would have been ‘Warm Woman’. Here’s that recording.

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/2010/DEC/WarmWoman.mp3|titles=Warm Woman|artists=Lon and Derrek Van Eaton]