Category: Music

From Russia With Love

Last night’s Jeopardy! game had the clue, “It’s the only James Bond film with a country in its title.” The incorrect response by a contestant was, “To Russia With Love.”*

Putin should give up his invasion of Ukraine and declare peace in the name of Messer Chups.

 

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* Harrison Whitaker is one of the stronger J! players to appear on the show. He lost yesterday to someone who seems very unlikely to win a second game. We’ll find out tonight.

Update: Daily Doubles to the rescue, for a second come from behind win.

What if We’d Been Beatless?

“I say in speeches that a plausible mission of artists is to make people appreciate being alive at least a little bit. I am then asked if I know of any artists who pulled that off. I reply, ‘The Beatles did’.” – Kurt Vonnegut, 1997

I’ve always been as much amazed as amused by the British comedic thread running from the Goon Show with Peter Sellers, to the Beatles, then to the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band and Monty Python.

Michael Palin has said there wouldn’t have been Monty Python without the Bonzos. Would the comedy troupe have existed if the Beatles hadn’t first changed the world? Palin talks about what the Beatles made possible for others in their wake, in this 2012 interview.

Return to Downtown and Back to Mono

Andrew at Parlogram talks about one of the most significant Pop records of all time. Petula Clark’s “Downtown”.

It was a record that everyone of all ages loved hearing. This video of “Downtown” was made by somebody who knows his Sixties-era mono-mix 45 rpm singles. He played it with a mono Ortofon cartridge.

Andrew demonstrates the difference a quality, lateral-tracking mono cartridge can make for purists of original, mono-mix Sixties records.