Every Power Pop Record Ever Recorded!

Wait a minute...didn't Robert Klein do a bit along those lines? 😎

K-tel Presents -- Every Power Pop Record Ever Recorded! Exactly that! We drive a truck to your house!!!

But seriously folks: Attentive readers will recall my posting a few months ago about I Wanna Be a Teen Again: North American Power Pop of the '80s, the 3CD box set coming out on Cherry Red Records and featuring the likes of (among others) Cheap Trick, The Bangles, The Go-Gos, Rick Springfield, The Shivvers, The Smithereens, Phil Seymour, Dwight Twilley and...wait for it...The Floor Models (a band featuring some guy whose name rhymes with Sleeve Nimels on bass).

Well, the thing got released today, so what are you waiting for?

You can buy the package (which I'm told includes amazing photos and terrific liner notes) over at Amazon HERE or -- if you're as pissed off at Jeff Bezos as I am -- directly from Cherry Red over HERE.

As you can imagine, I'm kinda around the moon over this; I only wish my two departed bandmates Andy Pasternack (our 12-string ace) and Glen "Bob" Allen (our beloved drummer) had lived to see it.

In any event, I want to thank everybody over at Cherry Red, and especially fab gear Aussie publicist Dave Laing, who got us the gig.

But more to the point -- I'm dying to know what any of you guys think about the set. So get the hell over to one of those links and snag a copy!

Now, people!!! 😎😎

And have a great weekend everybody!!!

PS: And in other amazing news, if you're in the Los Angeles area in August, there's a preview screening of the forthcoming documentary The Power Pop Movie -- as a benefit for The Wild Honey Foundation -- at the Foundation's backyard amphitheater (heh). The festivities happen at 7 PM Pacific time on August 17th; complete details -- including directions on how to get there -- can be found over HERE.

Aforementioned attentive readers will recall that said film includes lotsa yakking about the music -- its history and meaning -- by the past and present proprietors of this here blog, i.e. NYMary and that Sleeve Nimels guy...

...as well as interviews with various notables including the late Eric Carmen and the guys in Shoes, plus assorted journos, critics and fans like Friend of PowerPop© Brett Milano and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon. I've seen an essentially finished cut; let's just say that director Justin Fielding has done an absolutely brilliant job of capturing the essence of the genre.

So, Angelenos -- be there or be square!!!

P.P.S.: Now that I think of it, I've got an album AND a movie coming out.

Have I mentioned I'm having a pretty good year? 😎😎😎

Thursday's Cartoon Chuckle(s)

Okay, I couldn't resist these two. For obvious reasons.

Big -- and I mean BIG -- news coming tomorrow.

Repeat When Necessary. Seriously -- Like Repeat When Necessary.

Oh. My. God. 😎

From his just released new album Face of 68, please enjoy ex-dB/Continental Drifiter/power pop deity Peter Holsapple and "That Kind of Guy," aka the funniest song I've heard since I don't know when.

A word of advice: There's no lyric sheet that I can find, so it's probably best to play this one really loud or under the headphones or both, so you don't miss a word.

And at the risk of giving anything away, let's just say that if you can listen to the verse comparing the merits of Dick Taylor and Mick Taylor in the Rolling Stones without getting convulsed, you need to have your meds adjusted.

BTW -- have I mentioned repeat when necessary? 😎😎

Okay, How Come I Never Got the Memo on This One?

From 2003, please enjoy "Otto Bob" Palindrome "Weird Al" Yankovic and the funniest and/or most brilliant Dylan parody ever seen/heard by sentient mammalian eyes/ears.

Seriously -- I find it incomprehensible that I had not encountered that previously until sometime last week.

Also, may I repeat -- "Otto Bob" Palindrome. Just in case you didn't get the song/video's central joke. 😎

And oh yeah -- that hilarious and brand new power pop song I teased you guys about yesterday will go up tomorrow. Scout's honor. 😎😎

Monday Cartoon Chuckle(s)

Heh. Also hah.

Actual music stuff -- including the funniest piece of brand new power pop I've heard in ages -- resumes on the morrow.

Annals of Record Company Shit-Weasels (An Occasional Series): Special "When Philistines Walked the Earth" Edition

And speaking of The Kinks, as we were Wednesday, here's some Kinks music (and the story behind it) you may not know, but should.

Let's start with the music. From their 1991 EP Did Ya on Sony, please enjoy the winsome title track....

...and a killer live version of the band's 60s classic "Gotta Move."

And now for the story. As I said, you probably don't know either of those tracks (and the EP they derive from). For this dubious distinction, we have one person to thank -- then head of Sony Records Tommy Mottola, aka Mr. Mariah Carey.

What happened was The Kinks got signed to Sony prior to Mottola assuming the reins of the company; all of a sudden Grunge happened, and the totally-respectful-of-artists Mottola basically told his subordinates -- who the fuck is responsible for these over the hill/past their sell date/dinosaurs being on my label? Oh, and by the way, we'll promote this Kinks EP and anything else these fossils give us on the same day that frozen yogurt goes on sale in hell.

Consequently, nobody except the tiny group of rock critics who'd already received Did Ya in the mail ever heard it, and the Kinks were dropped by Sony soon after delivering a complete new album that Sony was obliged to release for legal/contractual reasons.

But don't worry, the story has a happy ending. Head Kink Ray Davies eventually got knighted, and his band are not only still with us, but back in the studio recording new music.

As for Mottola, he died soon after shafting the group, friendless and alone, of a terrible and painful lingering disease.

Actually, no -- the motherfucker is still alive, well, and obscenely wealthy. But a boy can dream, can't he? 😎

PS: Mottola did exactly the same thing to the great Willie Nile and his 1991 masterpiece Places I Have Never Been...

...but I'll tell you that story on Monday, along with some happier Willie news. 😎😎

In the meantime -- have a great weekend, everybody!!!

Thursday Cartoon Chuckle(s)

Yeah, yeah, I know that one has nothing to do with music, but it cracked me up, so gimme a break. 😎

Regular -- and really really snarky -- posting resumes tomorrow.

Seriously -- tomorrow may get me sued. 😎😎

Songs I'd Forgotten Existed, Let Alone Loved (An Occasional Series): Special "How Do You Say 'Up, Up and Away!' in Yiddish?" Edition

From 1979, please enjoy The Kinks and their infectious ode to superhero jealousy "(Wish I Could Fly Like) Superman."

I bring this up because a) I hadn't heard the song in years, and was delighted to find that it holds up nicely.

More importantly, however, it's because b) I'm really looking forward to seeing the Superman movie reboot this weekend.

I mean, not only is David Corenswet, the actor playing Supes, the first Jewish guy in the role ever (somewhere in heaven, the character's Jewish creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster are smiling) but James Gunn, the film's director, conceived it specifically as an immigrant assimilation story.

Which it fucking is and always was.

Plus -- they finally gave Kal-El a furry friend, i.e. Krypto the Superdog. 😎

Seriously -- I am not even remotely a fan of most contemporary comic book flicks, but this one?

Well, it's gonna piss off all the right people and in the immortal words of Paul Westerberg -- can't hardly wait. 😎😎

You'll Never Believe Why AOC is Evil Now

Okay, I realize I've been getting a little too political with my postings around here of late, and I promise to give it a rest for the immediate forseeable future, but this item is so wonderfully absurd that I simply couldn't resist. 😎

From the estimable NO MORE MISTER NICE BLOG:

Republicans in Congress are working on a massive transfer of wealth from the non-rich to the rich, so the Murdoch media empire has a mission: persuade Americans that Democratic critics of this redistribution are the real elitists. So here's a new Fox story about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez:

AOC's childhood nickname revealed amid 'Bronx girl' claims

Ocasio-Cortez's suburban-toned nickname appears to be at odds with her tough 'Bronx girl' persona

Yes, Fox is serious about this.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s tough Bronx persona is under fresh scrutiny with a resurfaced childhood nickname from her suburban upstate New York upbringing casting doubt on that publicly portrayed image....

The 35-year-old "Squad" member wrote in part on X last week: "I’m a Bronx girl. You should know that we can eat Queens boys for breakfast. Respectfully," she said, referring to the president’s upbringing in Queens as she called for his impeachment over his decision to bypass Congress in authorizing U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.

Ocasio-Cortez was born in the Bronx but moved to Yorktown – which is nearly an hour outside New York City -- when she was 5 years old and went on to attend Yorktown High School, from where she graduated in 2007.

"There, known by students and staff as ‘Sandy,’ she was a member of the Science Research Program taught by Michael Blueglass," the report states....

After high school, Ocasio-Cortez attended Boston University, where she majored in economics and international relations, per the report.

Ocasio-Cortez’s "Sandy" nickname — which carries a more suburban and preppy tone — appears to undercut her politically crafted image as a tough, inner-city fighter....

(Emphasis added.)

Really? The nickname Sandy is preppy? So back in 1973, when Bruce Springsteen was a penniless jamoke on the verge of losing his record deal, he wrote a song about a preppy? 😎😎

Words fail me. 😎😎😎

Songs I'd Forgotten Existed, Let Alone Loved (An Occasional Series)

From 1966, please enjoy The Buffalo Springfield and their semi-obscure mini-masterpiece "Baby Don't Scold Me."

The short version: That was on the original pressing of the band's debut album, but after "For What It's Worth" became a hit, it was removed in favor of the million-seller.

It's a little sloppy, to be sure, but I love it for a) the quote from "Day Tripper" at the end, and b) its ahead of its time sort of punkish folk-rock insouciance. Man, what I wouldn't have given to see those guys live.

And and oh my god -- that bridge is a work of freaking genius!!!