Brevity is the Soul of Wit

Saw a piece in one of the papers yesterday asking whether current teen sensations The Jonas Brothers deserved to be mentioned in the same breath as The Beatles.



Uh, no.

The Boy Looked at Johnny

Caught Patti Smith: Dream of Life the other day, and what a pleasure.

"Eleven years in the making, commercial-photographer-turned-documentarian Steven Sebring’s impressionistic account of poetess/punk rock icon Patti Smith is insufferable, endearing, pretentiously arty, bracingly direct, humorless, hilarious, oddly distant and strangely touching, but always compulsively watchable—in other words, a fabulous contradictory mess, much like Smith herself..."

You can read the rest of my review here.

Bottom line: If it's playing in a theater anywhere near you, pounce.

Weekend Listomania (Special Masculin Féminin Video Edition)

Well, it's Friday and you know what that means. Yes, my Oriental rentboy amanuensis Hop-Sing and I are off with Senator John McCain (R-wrinkly whitehaired dude) on a cross country roadtrip; we're attempting to set the all-time mileage record for driving with uninflated tires.

Which means that posting by moi will likely be sporadic for a few days (and the damage to my liver incalcuable).

But in the meantime, here's a fun project to tide us all over:

BEST POST-ELVIS POP/ROCK SONG WITH THE WORD "MAN" OR "WOMAN" IN THE TITLE!!!!!!

You guys rarely play by the rules, so let me simply say anyway that songs with the titular words "boy" or "girl" are clearly inelegible (with the exception of the number four entry below, for obvious reasons).

Okay, here's my totally top of my head Top Six:

6. Smashing Pumpkins -- Enter Sandman



Yes, I needed an excuse to work Billy Corgin into the list for like the fifteenth time. But I have it on good authority that Smashing Pumpkins did in fact cover this, even if there's no video evidence. You can Google if you don't believe me.

5. Deep Purple -- Woman From Tokyo



Were these guys the worst dressed major band of all time or what?

4. Urge Overkill -- Girl You'll Be a Woman Soon



From the Pulp Fiction soundtrack, obviously. These guys took a load of shit back in the day for not being sufficiently ironic when covering Neil Diamond. You know what? It's a great song...unironically.

3. Black Sabbath -- Iron Man



This clip is better than the Robert Downey movie. I'm not kiddingabout this!!!

2. Gene Pitney -- The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance



I prefer the John Otway version, but this will do in a pinch.

And the bestest ever song with man or woman in the title, it's not even close so don't bug me already, is obviously --

1. Peter and Gordon -- Woman



At the height of Beatlemania Paul McCartney gave this to P&G under a pseudonym, the idea being to see if it would be a hit even if nobody knew it was written by a Beatle. Sure enough, it was, although if memory serves the secret didn't stay secret for long.

Awright then -- what would your choices be?

[Shameless Blogwhore: My parallel Cinema Listomania is now up over at Box Office. As always, if you could see your way to going over there and leaving a comment, an angel gets its wings.]

An Extremely Early Clue to the New Direction

Off to the city for my no longer mysterious Thursday assignation. In the meantime, from 1991, here's spawn of satan thinning-haired asshole Michael Bolton doing unspeakable things to Percy Sledge's great "When a Man Loves a Woman."

With subtitles, for our Asian readers.



As always, a coveted PowerPop No-Prize will be awarded the first commenter who divines its relevance to tomorrow's Weekend Listomania.

Tales From the Heartland

Now THIS is why you pay the big bucks to live in New York City. Oh, wait....

McCartney in Springfield? Strange As It Sounds, It Seems to Add Up
By Dave Bakke
Aug. 5, 2008

SPRINGFIELD — Name the last person you would have expected to see last weekend at the Circle K gas station on Clear Lake Avenue.

No, it wasn’t him. He’s at the White House packing for his trip to Asia. And, no, it wasn’t him either — he’s still in a cave somewhere on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

It was Paul McCartney. Or a really well-done hoax.

You probably find the story hard to believe. So did we. Especially when the witnesses claimed that Sir Paul was driving a 1989 Ford Bronco. But, you know what? It all adds up.

On Saturday afternoon, a group of Springfield guys stopped at the Circle K on their way to St. Louis for the Cardinals-Phillies game. While in the parking lot, they saw someone walk by who looked just like McCartney.

“We were getting in the car as he was walking in,” says C.J. Lowder. “I said, ‘Man, that looks like Paul McCartney.’”

The Bronco parked on the side of the gas station, not in the front. The man who looked like Sir Paul didn’t buy anything inside, but used the station, just off Interstate 55, for a “pit stop.” Nobody at the gas station even noticed him, Lowder said.

“Josh (Lowder, C.J.’s brother) said ‘Hey, Paul!’ and he said, ‘What’s up?’ with this real thick English accent, and I knew it was him,” C.J. Lowder said.

McCartney said he and his girlfriend, Nancy Shevell, were on their way to St. Louis, but not to the ballgame. He posed for a picture with the boys — besides Josh and C.J. Lowder, they included Jared Lowder (a cousin), plus Cory Neuhoff and Jeremy Judd. McCartney then spent a couple of minutes talking and left.

“He was definitely trying to stay low-key, for sure,” C.J. Lowder says. “It was just a couple of minutes. He shook all of our hands.”

“Another thing that got me,” says Josh Lowder, “was that of all the older people in the place, none of them recognized him. C.J. recognized him, and he’s the youngest one.”
Coincidentally, Decatur Celebration hosted a Paul McCartney tribute band on Saturday. Was this merely the impersonator? No. In an interview, the impersonator, Ron Starr (R. Starr?) admits he looks nothing like Paul and is much younger. Pictures of Ron Starr confirm the lack of resemblance.

But how about that 1989 (or thereabouts) Bronco? Paul McCartney? One of the richest men in show-business history? Come on.

But wait. It had New York license plates. Nancy Shevell lives in New York. The vehicle at the gas station had a yellow access sticker to the Hamptons on the bumper. Both McCartney and Shevell have places in the Hamptons.

And then there is the clincher.

In November, the Web site Gothamist posted a photograph of Paul and Nancy kissing while sitting in an older-model Ford Bronco.



That is what people in the news business like to call “independent confirmation.”

“It was wild,” says C.J. Lowder about running into a Beatle at a Springfield gas station. “It was one of those things I never would have expected to see. They were super nice.

“Nobody got his autograph, it happened so fast. You could tell he didn’t want to draw a huge crowd. We talked for a while, and he said, ‘Well, I’ll let you get going to the game. Go Cardinals!’”

It’s not as if Sir Paul was playing a concert in Europe last weekend and couldn’t have been here.

McCartney’s Web site shows that his last concert was a week ago in Quebec City, and he is not on tour.

The Quebec City show was just a one-off for the city’s 400th birthday.

McCartney’s public relations manager in Britain, Stuart Bell, could not be reached Monday for confirmation of the star’s whereabouts.

At the Circle K station, manager Tim Kelley took the news of McCartney’s visit in stride. Kelley’s not the star-struck type.

But his clerk, Martie Brandon, flashed a little Beatlemania.

“Oh, my god, and I left at 2 o’clock!” she said, slapping her forehead. McCartney was seen just after 4 p.m. “If I’d have just stayed a little longer ... .”

[h/t John McPartlin]

Francisco Franco, Still Dead

I'd totally forgotten this, but did you know that when Sticky Fingers came out in Spain in 1970, the powers that be thought the famous zipper cover was obscene? But that this one, which replaced it, was absolutely fine?



I mean -- seriously, isn't that a zillion times grosser?

Additional trivia note: The Spanish censors also nixed the inclusion of "Sister Morphine," which was replaced with a smoking live cover of Chuck Berry's "Let It Rock."

[h/t Billy B]

La Vie Boheme

Saw What We Do Is Secret -- a very entertaining bio-pic on seminal LA punk band The Germs and their doomed lead singer Darby Crash -- the other day. My review at Box Office will be up on Friday, but in the meantime here's a look at the genuine article, from the wonderful Penelope Spheeris-directed documentary The Decline of Western Civilization.



Yes, the guitarist on stage left is Pat Smear, more recently of Nirvana and Foo Fighters fame.

And in Breaking News: Water Wet!

The hepsters at Pitchfork Media have declared Blondie's Parallel Lines "an undiscovered gem."

Coming tomorrow: Their review of Meet the Beatles.

"A promising debut."

[h/t John McPartlin]

Apocalypse Now

Food for thought:

The present day Disney teen idol/sex object has smaller boobs than Annette.



I'm not sure what this means, but it's the kind of thing that occurs to me when I realize that Avril Lavigne has now birthed her own cheesey rock sub-genre.

Weekend Listomania (Special The Beast in Me Video Edition)

Well, it's Friday and you know what that means. Yes, my Oriental manservant Hop-Sing and I are off to Nome, Alaska and the palatial estate of Sen. Ted Stevens [R-goniff] where we'll be putting on the dog at the annual Earmarks, Shmearmarks festival.

As a result, posting by moi will necessarily be sporadic for a few days.

But in my absence, here's a fun project for you all to contemplate:

BEST POST-ELVIS POP/ROCK SONG ABOUT SOME KIND OF ANIMAL!!!!!

Oh, and for what it's worth, there are no arbitrary rules of exclusion this time. Insects? Fine. Fish? No problem. Mythological beasts? Well, I shouldn't, but what the hell.

Okay, here's my totally top of my head Top Six:

6. Smashing Pumpkins -- Rhinoceros



Jeebus H. Christ in a chicken basket -- how many Listomanias has Billy Corgan's pretentious noggin showed up in over the last couple of months? Like fifteen or so? Sheesh. Oh well, at least he has hair here.

5. The Byrds -- Old Blue



An excellent live version of my fave track from their lovely Dr Byrds and Mr Hyde album. Clarence White rules, of course. Honorable mention: the Byrds' "Chestnut Mare" and "Bugler" (saddest dog song ever written).

4. A tie --

The Monkees -- Porpoise Song



One of Carole King's two great stabs at psychedelia (the other is "Wasn't Born to Follow," at least as the Byrds do it) and the Monkees masterpiece.

and

Fred Neil -- The Dolphins



Often covered, never bettered. Neil is pretty much the great underappreciated architect of 60s folk rock, among other interesting things.

3. Kate Bush -- Hounds of Love



I don't care if she's wacky, she's a doll.

2. Henry Gross -- Shannon



The former Sha-Na-Na guitarist's 1976 hit and a memorial for a dog owned by Beach Boy Carl Wilson. I believe that's some of the Beach Boys doing the back up vocals, actually. Okay, I know it's wimpy, but I like it a lot anyway. Sue me.

And the number one pop rock song about some kind of animal, and don't give me that "Crocodile Rock" shit or I swear I'll take a hostage is, obviously --

1. Soupy Sales -- The Mouse



Full disclosure: Great as this is, I actually bought the single for the B-side, the immortal Pachalafaka.

Alrighty, now -- and your choices would be?

[Shameless Blogwhore: My parallel Cinema Listomania is now up over at Box Office. Like it would hurt you to go over there and leave a comment? I don't think so...