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I missed the January 10 premiere of “Making the Monkees” on the Smithsonian Channel, but it’s being repeated this Tuesday at 8 PM ET.
Charlie Brown’s All-Stars
When I was a kid I really enjoyed playing baseball, despite the fact I wasn’t very good at it. I lost the love of the game in my teens, but I still love “Charlie Brown’s All-Stars.”
CD+G Face-off: Chris Isaak vs. Lou Reed
Eric has become a collector of defunct game consoles, and he spent some of his Christmas money on a used Sega Saturn. It’s in very good condition, with excellent construction quality, and considering it was introduced in 1995, I’m impressed by the technology.
A nifty feature of the Saturn is it supports CD+G. Today, CD graphics are found only on Karaoke discs, but originally CD+G was envisioned as a multimedia format for music. Among the very few titles that have CD graphics are Lou Reed’s New York, and Chris Isaak’s Silvertone. I own the Isaak disc, and my friend SamJay lent me his copy of Reed’s CD.
There’s no comparison. Silvertone totally blows away the graphics on the Lou Reed CD. Every song on “New York” follows the format that’s seen here in “Dirty Blvd”…
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… while each song on Silvertone has unique and creative graphics that push the limit of what can be done within the very limited CD+G format. This song is “The Lonely Ones”.
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I’m even more impressed, considering the graphics were done by John Dennis nearly 25 years ago, in 1985. I might post a couple more of these Isaak tracks.
Beat up by The Beatles
A couple of years ago I featured comedian Morty Gunty’s lead-in to The Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show from February 23, 1964. This week’s This American Life on NPR has a fascinating segment about the comedy act that preceded The Beatles, before the second set on their first Ed Sullivan Show appearance, February 9, ’64. Click here to listen to it, then watch this video, through the commercial and on to the fab boys. I’m one of those who feels what happened that evening cannot be overstated. And it wasn’t only the kids getting caught up in the excitement. Look for the grown woman in the audience.
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There are two Star Trek connections in that video. When I tell you what they are I’ll show you Davy Jones, later of the Monkees, who was also on the bill that night.
P.S. According to WordPress this is post #1500, but I actually passed that number a while ago. Unfortunately, nearly 100 posts were lost in the great database debacle in June ’07.
Horror in Belgium
I’m sickened by what happened at a daycare center in Belgium.
‘Joker’ knifeman kills children and worker in Belgian crèche
A man resembling the Batman villain The Joker killed two children and a child care worker during a knife attack on a creche in the Belgian town of Dendermonde on Friday.
This is one of those instances where I wish the circumstances of the assailant’s capture had made it possible/necessary/convenient for the police to kill him.
Boston radio’s continuing decline
Having recently lamented the demise of the Steve LaVeille Broadcast on WBZ AM in Boston, driving home tonight I was further dismayed to flip between the Boston and Providence oldies FM stations and hear the same songs. They’re both carrying a syndicated show with Tom Kent.