Tuesday's Music-Themed Cartoon Chuckles and Photo-Funny

Okay, I groaned at the McCartney one too. 😎😎😎

Encounters with Greatness (An Occasional Series): Special "Dueling Senior Citizens" Edition

So my BFF (and longtime bandmate) Allan Weissman is vacationing in Europe (along with his charming wife) and they were briefly (i.e. just to connect to a train to London) in Paris the other day. A town where they actually had been, longer, on a few previous occasions, one of which you will hear about in the absolutely charming and romantic song below (written and sung by Allan, of course).

That just slays me, and it is with some regret that I confess I didn't play on it. But as I said, we've been doing music together off and on since 1965, when we made our first foray into a professional recording studio with another of Al's songs and came out with this (I think pretty damn good for kids) Beau Brummels-influenced number.

That's me doing the Hammond organ and meant-to-be Vince Guaraldi-ish piano solo. BTW, have I mentioned that Al is an absolutely brilliant singer/songwriter and bassist?

In any case, I bring all this up because Al has a birthday coming up on Tuesday, which makes him one day older than me, a fact that he never fails to remind me of around this time. And I just wanted to give him a big long overdue shout-out here, which this now officially is.

Hey Al -- it's been a gas!!! Here's to many more years of it, my friend!!! 😎

PS: Here's the true story of a song we kinda co-wrote (i.e., I came up with the lame riff) and first recorded in 1967 in Allan's basement in Teaneck, NJ (aka the Paris of Tri-State Metro Area). No audio, alas, but it's pretty funny all the same so enjoy!!! 😎😎

La Fin de La Semaine Essay Question: Special "Sing Along With 'Bitch'!" Edition

Okay, I'm too lazy to write a lame joke by way of the traditional intro at the moment, so let's just get -- directly and inexorably -- to the subject of the business at hand. To wit:

...and if you were somehow trapped in a sleazy karaoke bar and you were kinda drunk and wanted to sing along with a Rolling Stones song it would be...???

Discuss.

No arbitrary rules whatsoever, so just go for it. I should add, however, that today's post was inspired by accidentally discovering an instrumental-only track of one of -- IMHO -- the coolest Stones songs ever. Which I was planning, for the longest time, on going into the studio and overdubbing with a pathetic vocal by yours truly. Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed. 😎

And which song woould that have been? See below.

Alrighty then -- what would YOUR choice(s) be?

And have a great weekend, everybody!!!

Songs I'd Forgotten Existed, Let Alone Loved (an Occasional Series): Special "Yeah, Yeah, I Know -- It's Purple and Swims in the Ocean" Edition

I dunno if you guys heard any of Trump's rally yesterday, but let's just say that a) he was significantly more incoherent than usual and b) this song, which I hadn't heard in a million years, seemed suddenly relevant. 😎

The song, BTW, is off the Grape's 1971 attempted comeback album, which I found seriously disappointing when it was new, but I gave it a cursory re-listen while getting ready to post today and it seems to be better than I realized in my callow youth. I'll do the research and get back to you. 😎😎

Hey -- I'm a Three B's Kind of Guy From Way Back

Okay, everybody's doing this over at Facebook, so I figured I had to.

And don't give me any shit about this -- it's supposed to be the records that influenced the young you the most, not a list of the All-Time Greatest Albums Ever, which is totally different.

BTW, the song above goes out for my friend Nelson Bragg, who knows why. 😎

Tuesday's Music-Themed Cartoon Chuckles and Photo-Funny

I confess, I've been that dude-watching-your-band-play guy. 😎

Cinema Notes From All Over: The Golden Age of Comedy

So I saw the new documentary on Martin Mull (on Netflix) over the weekend. It's really terrific, but it was not what I was hoping for, i.e. lotsa laffs. I mean, yeah, it's mostly that for sure, but by the end it's turned into an unexpectedly deeply moving meditation on loss and intimations of mortality.

I was a huge Mull fan before he made it big on TV with Fernwood Tonight, and several of his albums (including the live record below) were among my most-played of the early '70s. Obviously, the guy was a genius satirical songwriter.

The film, of course, covers all that plus excerpts from the movie and TV work (the stuff with Fred Willard is beyond hilarious), his live club act (I saw him at the old Reno Sweeney's in Manhattan, and it was the funniest comedy show I've ever witnessed in person) as well as his totally seperate career as a painter, which was how he really identified himself, and with good reason.

But I wasn't prepared for the heaviosity; there's a scene toward the end where he and his musician/songwriter wife duet on a lovely and poignant song of hers that reduced me to a puddle of tears. Not exactly what I wanted on a Saturday night.

In any event, Who is Martin Mull? is a really impressive piece of work, and I highly recommend it.

La Fin de La Semaine Essay Question: "It's Quarter to Three, There's No One in the Place Except You and Me" Edition

Okay, since we're a day late (and a dollar short as well, come to think of it) let's skip the usual intro banter and get directly to the business at hand. To wit:

...and your favorite post-Elvis pop/rock/soul/folk/whatever album by a (in most folks estimation significant artist) that is way less well known/regarded than it should be is...???

Discuss.

Mine? As will come as no surprise to longtime readers it's this...

...which I am currently grooving to on a pristine vinyl reissue I snagged on-line late last summer.

In case you're not lucky enough to know it, the short version is that it's a collection of Sam's personal favorite blues, soul and gospel songs, recorded for Cooke's own label with the cream of Los Angeles session guys as his backing band, the whole thing designed to sound like the coolest live late night jam session in a smokey bar of all time, and boy does it ever. For reasons known only to the Lord, it went out of print amost immediately after it first appeared in 1963, and despite a CD reissue in the 90s, to this day it remains without question the greatest album by a major artist that most people don't know ever existed.

Alrighty then -- what would YOUR choices be?

And have a great weekend everybody!!!

Do You Remember the Great Folk Scare of the Early Sixties? Man, That Shit Almost Caught On!

Damn, this Welles kid has really got the stuff.

I've been saying it a lot lately, but one way you can tell we're living in truly disturbing times is that all of a sudden the folk music is getting good again. 😎

In any case, a new edition of the Weekend Essay Question goes up tomorrow -- sorry for the scheduling glitch.

Self-Indulgence Alert: Fifty Years of Moody Black-and-White Photography of Me!

From 1969...

...and from 2019.

In case you were wondering, the first pic is a frame cap from a pretty darn good student film shot at C.W. Post College featuring my then band God (what we were thinking?) at the height of the alleged counter-culture. The one on the bottom is from The Floor Models reunion show in this century, which officially marks the last time I will ever be glimpsed jumping up and down on stage.

You can watch the entirety of the film -- which is quite an amazing period piece, and only twenty or so minutes long -- over at YouTube HERE. The Tube also has very nice video excerpts from the Flo Mos show, but I'm too lazy to post the links. 😎

[h/t Laura Giantonio}