Category: Music

The Boss isn’t boss

“Boss” was an expression in the mid-60’s, before “groovy,” that meant something was very good. The most recent equivalent is to say that something “rules.”

Whenever I reveal that I’m not a Springsteen fan, I get surprised and/or disappointed looks. What can I say? I’ve never felt a connection with The Boss, the hero of the working man. Yes, I know how dedicated he is, and sincere, and hard-working but, sorry, the feeling just isn’t there for me.

What got me in the late 70’s was Punk and New Wave, although I never lived a lifestyle even remotely reflecting the external manifestations of the rougher element of the genre. I remained purely a drug-free nerd, with the visceral, therapeutic intensity of listening to Elvis Costello’s “This Year’s Model”, in particular, being something that has always stayed with me. Here are two tunes from those days that conveyed more to me than anything I’ve ever heard by Springsteen.

The Ramones album “Road to Ruin”, with Marky taking over drums from Tommy, who helped produce, was a stunning accomplishment — this achingly heartfelt song, most of all…

…and the great “Union City Blues”, from Blondie’s ultimate achievement, “Eat to the Beat”…

Hey, you got Chuck in my Cake!

Well, that was a fun coincidence. My younger sister’s family was here today for our annual post-Christmas get-together to exchange presents. Pandora was playing on the Roku HD, and Eric had a present in his hand to give to my sister as a family gift — the first season of “Chuck” on DVD — when this song came on Pandora.

My sister’s family recognized it immediately as “Short Skirt, Long Jacket” by the band Cake, but we recognized it immediately as the “Chuck” theme from the opening credits of the show. Bismo, who introduced us to the series, had told us the tune came from somewhere else, but ya know, I never bothered to look it up, so it caught me by surprise. My sister’s family knew it only from Cake’s original version, and we knew it only from “Chuck”! One thing that isn’t in the theme is the obvious nod to “Sweet Jane” by Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground.

“Short Skirt, Long Jacket” isn’t heard in the series pilot. We all watched it tonight, and it was a big hit, as I knew it would be.

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”.

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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. 😉

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