La Fin de La Semaine Essay Question: Special "Urban Hellhole" Edition

So I originally did a version of this in 2008(!), back when the world and this blog were young, and if you had told me then that our noble republic would someday be in the hands of a demented short-fingered vulgarian with a vocabulary of approximately 700 words and the emotional maturity of a toddler, I would have suggested you were fucking high.

In any event, it turned out to be true, which is one of the reasons (i.e., I'm really exhausted coping) I've recyled it now. It also seems newly relevant, given that the aforementioned SFV is -- post his occupation of our nation's capitol -- now threatening to send Federal troops into other liberal cities, specifically including the Big Apple.

Hey -- good luck with that one, Donny. To paraphrase Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca -- "There are certain sections of New York, shithead, that I wouldn't advise you to try to invade."

Which leads us, inexorably, to the subject of today's business. To wit:

...and your favorite (or least favorite) post-Beatles Pop/Rock/Folk/Soul song/record about/referencing New York City and environs in the title or lyrics is...???

Okay, no arbitrary rules here, but if you nominate any version of "New York, New York" I will come to your house and kill you AND your family. Sorry.

Obviously, NY-themed songs are almost too numerous to mention, but in case you're wondering, my fave(s) is a tie between...

...and...

As you may recall, Fear was a band much beloved of John Belushi, and the song above holds a special place in my heart because they performed it during their legendary SNL appearance, at which they almost literally brought the house down (a story I'll perhaps retell on another occasion).

As for the Tradewinds record, hell -- what could be a more poignant existential dilemma than being the only living surfer boy in New York? 😎

Alrighty then -- what would YOUR choices be?

And have a great weekend everybody!!!

The Boys of Summer Just Seem a Little Weird

So the other day I'm channel surfing and I chanced across some ESPN kind of thingie and they were talking about an upcoming Yankees/Boston contest.

And I suddenly flashed on a song I hadn't thought about for several decades.

From their self-titled 1968 debut album, please enjoy Beantown band Earth Opera and their obviously conflicted plaint about how "The Red Sox Are Winning."

When you are gone I keep track of the time
In my diary line by line
And the past is behind
It was so long ago
When believing and beauty
Celebrated the birth
It was green, lovely green
We could fly like milkweed

But nowadays no one seems to care
They laugh at me when I ride my bike
Turn away in shame when I fly my kite

I spend my Saturdays
Alone in the mirror
Arranging my hair
In the end, what is there?
To talk of passing time
Should I turn off the TV?
Or go to the race track
And bet on the dogs
And the weather is strange
No summer this year
In the days of the war
But the Red Sox are winning

As you can tell from all of the above, these guys were very echt-late Sixties in their melding of folk-rock, psychedelia and general mishegass. I actually owned the album (and its successor, the even wiggier American Eagle Tragedy -- don't worry, I didn't buy them, but rather stole them from my college radio station). But the baseball song was the only one I played a lot; for some reason its sledgehammer irony really spoke to me at the time (Vietnam, and all that).

In any event, two members of the group -- David Grisman and Peter Rowan (who wrote the song) -- went on to much better things as members of Old and in the Way with Jerry Garcia and Vassar Clements; their self-titled LP became the best-selling bluegrass album of all time.

Meanwhile, if you want to hear more of the Opera guys, the full album can be listened to -- for free -- over at YouTube HERE.

You're welcome very much.

Wednesday's Cartoon Chuckle(s)

Heh. 😎

Your Tuesday Moment of Words Fail Me

From their 1999 album Hooray for Boobies(!), enjoy (if possible) wiseguy Pennsylvania punk band the Bloodhound Gang and the, er, interesting video for their re-imagining of The Association's 1965 classic "Along Comes Mary."

Seriously, watching that I don't know whether to laugh or cry. And that's just over how they removed the melody from the original song. 😎

I should add that the aforementioned album was actually a Number 1 hit (and "Mary" in the singles Top 10) in...wait for it...Germany. 😎😎

Take That, Joan Jett!!!

From a fascinating essay by critic Adam Gopnik in the Aug. 4 issue of The New Yorker:

With minimal ingenuity, any historical period can be made to dissolve into the ones around it. Take the rock revolution—that great shift which, emerging in the mid-nineteen-fifties and established by the mid-sixties, definitively separated the Broadway-and-jazz-based tunes that had previously dominated popular music from the new sound. The break ravaged record companies and derailed careers. In the fifties, the wonderful jazz-and-standards singer Beverly Kenney performed a song she’d written called “I Hate Rock ’n’ Roll,” and then—perhaps for other reasons, but surely for that one, too—took her own life [emphasis mine - S.S.].

Okay, I was unfamiliar with Ms. Kenney and her tragic end, so as you can imagine that got my attention.

You can find out more about her over HERE; it's way fascinating, trust me -- she should be remembered for a whole bunch of cool things rather than suicide.

And here's the anti-rock anthem in question.

Seems a little extreme to me, but obviously it was a different time. In any case, I'm a fan of that whole Fifties deadpan cool girl jazz singer genre -- I adore Chris Connor, for example -- and Ms. Kenney is obviously a superior representative of same.

I should add that the above is from a 1958 live performance on the old Steve Allen show, but alas the actual video of it has not made it to YouTube.

La Fin de La Semaine Essay Question: Special "Originality is Way Overrated" Edition

Okay, the great climate change hoax NYC weather has been really kicking my ass of late, so while I'm still conscious, let's get immediately to the subject of today's business.

To wit:

...and your favorite (or least favorite) post-Elvis pop/rock/folk/soul record that sounds much more like the work of someone other than who it actually is, is...???

Discuss.

Oh, and no arbitrary rules whatsoever, you're welcome very much; as you may have gathered, I lack the energy to posit any. 😎

In case you're wondering, my fave is a tie between...

...the greatest Aretha Franklin record Aretha never recorded and...

...a bunch of bar band guys from Bergenfield, New Jersey doing the best Beatles sound-alike of all time? Who'd a thunk it?

Meanwhile, my least fave is...

U2 without the warmth? Spandau Ballet without the sense of humor? God, those guys suck. 😎😎

Alrighty, then -- what would YOUR choices be?

And have a great weekend, everybody!!!

The Kids Are (Still) Alright

So I got an e-mail out of the blue the other day including the video below and the following explanatory stuff:

Hi Steve, hope you're well!

My names Miles, but I'm emailing on behalf of my band Orchidelia. We’re a power pop group from Sheffield, England. We have just released a new single, "You’ll Never Know," but really we’re just emailing to say hello and introduce ourselves. We’re all pretty young, 20/21 [emphasis mine -- S.S.], and we love power pop so it’s great that you’re blogging about it, keeping the torch burning.

There’s not many young bands who play or write this sort of stuff, fewer who market themselves as being “a power pop band”. Most people we’ve spoke to don’t even know what it is, they think it’s a term we’ve invented. It’s a shame because there’s a timeless quality about the music, but it doesn’t seem to be connecting with a mass audience like it once did. It could all change though! But yes, we just wanted to let you know we exist, and we’d love to hear back from you!

Frankly, they had me at "from Sheffield, England." 😎

Seriously, I can't tell you charming I find the above, including the song, which is a terrific piece of earworm pop craftmanship. And the fact that they're youngsters doing stuff like that is, as you can imagine, downright inspirational in my book.

Oh -- I should add that Miles assured me the single "is out everywhere," which I assume means at all the usual streaming/download sites. So what are you waiting for?

It's True -- Clothes Make the Non-Specific Gender Person!!!

From her forthcoming album Fix the World, please enjoy power pop chanteuse extraordinaire Carmen Toth and the video for the infectious lead-off single "Pretty Dresses."

A song, as you'll hear, that has some interesting things to say about the issues of beauty and belonging.

Plus that animation just cracks me up. 😎

Toth, a Canadian who's been doing this sort of thing for going on two decades, was previously unknown to me, but after hearing the above I plan to do the research, as they say.

If you are similarly inclined, you can start to find out more about her, including where and when she's gigging in the future, over at her official website HERE. In the meantime, the album drops, as today's young people say, on October 7; I presume it will be available at all the de rigeur digital outlets, but I'll let you know more as we get closer to the release date.

Tuesday's Cartoon Chuckle(s)

Okay, both of those are kind of cheap shots, especially the first one (and I say that as a bass player). 😎

Is It Warm in Here or Is It Just Me?

Okay kids, I know I don't usually post blues stuff (for obvious reasons).

But I stumbled across this 2024 video by my long-time hero Dion (who transcends genre) and some drop-dead gorgeous friend of his (lip-synching the part sung on the actual record by Shemekia Copeland) and I just had to share. Sorry, I can only post the link -- if anybody knows how to get the video to show in blogger, lemme know.

https://www.facebook.com/OfficialDion/videos/24181836384807517

In the meantime, seriously -- if that doesn't just blow your tiny mind/make you smile from ear to ear then there's no hope for you. 😎

PS: Okay, here's the official video, with the actual Shemekia, instead of Dion's sexy friend Nicole.

Which was not supposed to be the point of today's post, but what the hell. 😎😎