According to PetulaClark.net, Pet appeared on “Captain Kangaroo” in 1976. I looked through a book about the program my sister Jeanie Beanie gave me for Christmas some years back, and I found this.
Petula was 43 in this picture, and looked 30, while Keeshan was only 48 or 49, but looked 65.
Prue Bury with Beatles band Los Brandys. Hold your mouse over the picture…
Most serious comic book fans — that’s not a contradiction in terms — have read “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay,” by Michael Chabon, who won a Pulitzer Prize for the novel.
More recently, Chabon has a book of essays that I have not yet read, called “Manhood for Amateurs: The Pleasures and Regrets of a Husband, Father, and Son.” Terry Gross interviewed Chabon about the book a few months ago.
[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/2010/JAN/FreshAirMichaelChabon.mp3]Most serious music fans know the name of critic Ben Fong-Torres, who was portrayed in the movie “Almost Famous.” Yesterday, he commented on something Chabon said in one of his essays.
He [Chabon] recalled a visit to a doctor’s office when he was 4, in downtown Phoenix. His mother promised a restaurant lunch afterward as a reward. He heard “Downtown” over the radio in the office. “Things will be great,” Petula Clark sang, and Chabon has never forgotten. “When I hear Petula Clark on the radio now,” he wrote, “I feel this wave of something old and powerful flowing through my chest and my belly, a bodily remembering of that crucial early-childhood compound of anxiety and the promise of a treat.”
With the release of OK GO’s new Capitol album, “Of The Blue Color of the Sky,” EMI, the eminent UK music company, is telling the band their videos on YouTube — like the new one, “This Too Shall Pass” — can’t be embedded on other sites.
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In 2006, OK GO made a big splash on YouTube by dancing on treadmills for their song, “Here It Goes Again,” that I have to assume helped make money for Capitol.
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Seems to me that EMI is applying the same faulty logic that Disney used in the early days of VHS, when it refused to allow their movies to be rented, rather than sold at retail. The comparison isn’t exactly comparable, because there was money to be made in both transactions. Once again I point out that the first printed warning of the coming age of digital downloaded music was made by Stewart Brand in 1972.
Maybe EMI is thinking that banning embedding will give them time to decide what they can do to generate a revenue stream from streaming videos, like those featuring the Lily Allen, Britain’s leading bad girl of Pop music, who resides on the Beatles’ original label, Parlophone.
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Is Lily any worse than a United States Senator who posed nude for Cosmo in his buff youth, and whose wife was once in a racy music video herself? Isn’t the Brown family only slightly less shallow?
When the Beatles appeared in America, I was puzzled. My big sister had a book with the Lennon Sisters in an imaginary adventure, like Nancy Drew would have. Was John Lennon related to the Lennon Sisters, who were regulars on the Lawrence Welk Show?
Well, other than the fact that the Lennon Sisters were singers, they had no connection at all to John Lennon, of course. By the mid-sixties their lovely, ultra-sanitized harmonies were considered out of date, but as the decade moved swiftly to the psychedelic era, they did what they could to keep up with the times. In 1967 the Lennon Sisters released “On the Groovy Side,” produced by Snuff Garrett, who had helped Gary Lewis have a string of hits. They look like they’re wearing matching paisley maternity dresses!
D.F. Rogers spotted a copy of this LP in a record bin, and he noticed that one of the songs is “I Love,” written by Lia Pamina’s favorite singer-songwriter, Margo Guryan. Good catch, Denro!
[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/2010/JAN/ILove.mp3]
The Hippie spirit lives on in the resolutely independent artist Milli Moonstone! This post has been a long time coming, because I first mentioned Milli two years ago, when I spotted her MySpace page.
Milli Moonstone is Emily Edmonstone, a British singer-songwriter and environmental activist. Milli is an eclectic chameleon, and she defies conventional description. Here, in the intro video to her site, she’s Emily, down-to-earth and matter-of-fact…
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… and in this video for her song “Lose Myself,” she’s the playful, free-spirited Milli.
A few months ago, Milli Moonstone put out an EP CD that I ordered, but I can’t imagine she made any money off of me, shipping it to Boston from London. Now Milli has an 11-song album you can download from Amazon.com. Listen to the samples, and you’ll know Milli’s her own genre of music. “Lotsa Money” would go well with belly dancing, and “Good Goodbye” is about the end of a romance, but it could almost be taken as a death scene, saying goodbye to life itself. For contrast, there’s “Over,” which is lovely and powerful. My favorite track is the wild “Flashbacks.”
Last September, Milli was interviewed by Nikki Bedi on BBC Asia.
[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/2010/JAN/MilliMoonstoneBBC.mp3]During the interview Nikki plays Milli’s song “New Day,” which prominently features a sarongi. I’ll embed the song here, down-converted, so it won’t sound as good as the original, because I want you to buy it.
[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/2010/JAN/NewDay.mp3]I think there’s a CD version coming of “Lose Myself,” but it can be downloaded right now, so why wait? I realize that a lot of people are sending their extra money to help provide relief to Haiti, but if you have $9 US to spare, please buy Milli’s album. (Note: I make no money at all from anything related to DogRat.com. This site is a hobby and an expense, and that’s the way I want it.)
