Today's Music-Themed Cartoon Chuckles

I particularly like the sign the Lennon figure is carrying in "Abbey Roadwork." 😎

Monday's Pleasant Surprise

From 2015, please enjoy honey-voiced chanteuse Skylar Gudasz and the Wild Honey Orchestra with a really lovely live cover of my favorite sort of obscure underrated George Harrison song.

I must confess I had never heard of the young lady in question until one of my FB buds posted the clip (which derives from a Wild Honey autism benefit in LA) last weekend; an internet search hipped me to the fact that she's got three albums out and will be doing a few live gigs in the not so distant future (including another LA show with Wild Honey in April.)

You can find out more about her -- and listen to a lot of her own music, which seems to be sort of countrified Joni Mitchell -- over at her website HERE.

Weekend Listomania: Special "Tolstoi Lives!" Edition

[I first posted a version of this back in 2008, which is so long ago it might as well have been the Pleistocene Era. But alas, its theme remains disturbingly relevant in an age when supposedly sane members of the World's Greatest Deliberative Body are creaming their jeans in anticipation of our launching yet another full scale conflict in the Middle East. In any case, I've done some re-writing, as well as adding a couple of new entries. Semper fi, bitches!-- S.S.]

BEST OR WORST POST-ELVIS POP/ROCK/COUNTRY/R&B OR SOUL SONG/RECORD REFERENCING WAR OR PEACE IN ITS LYRICS OR TITLE, EITHER DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY!!!!!!

Totally arbitrary rule: No folk music performances. I.e., it has to be a loud record with drums or something drum adjacent. Thank you.

Okay, that said, my totally top of my head Top Ten is:

10. Bruce Springsteen -- Last to Die

From Magic, which is the last really great album he made in my opinion. At the time it came out, I wrote that the shadow of the Iraq war seemed to hover over the entire record, and I stand by that assessment.

9. Vince Vance and the Valiants -- Bomb Iran

To be honest, I hate even bringing up this reprehensible piece of shit, but it's such an artifact of evil I'd really be remiss if I didn't include it. I should add that it was given a new lease on life by Sen. John McCain [R-Glad He's Dead], just one of many reasons to have hated that asshole, and that in a hideous historical irony, the guy who composed the original song -- the Regents' hit "Barbara Ann" -- on which this desecration is based was actually himself of Iranian lineage.

8. Stephen Colbert and Friends - (What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace Love and Understanding?

Sorry I couldn't find the actual video for this, which I believe is now the definitive version (the friends are Elvis Costello, Toby Keith, Feist, Jon Legend and Willie Nelson). I must say, though, the idea that a wiseguy cynic like Nick Lowe actually wrote what has become the most beloved anti-war song of our time is a bit of a mind-blower.

7. Jefferson Airplane -- Volunteers

And to think, they would go on to follow this up with "We Built This City."

6. Fear -- Let's Have a War

"It could start in New Jersey!" The great Lee Ving on vocals, obviously. If memory serves, this is the song Fear were singing on SNL when some punks in the audience rioted. John Belushi loved it.

5. Fotheringay -- Banks of the Nile

The British Army in Egypt, and absolutely heartbreaking, via the great Sandy Denny.

"Oh cursed be these cruel wars, that ever they began
For they have robbed our country of many's the handsome man
They've robbed of us of our sweethearts while their bodies they feed the lions
On the dry and sandy deserts which are the banks of the Nile."

4. Terry Reid -- Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace

The oft-covered -- Cheap Trick, Christopher Milk -- classic, but the original remains the greatest.

3. Edwin Starr -- War

I mean, I don't want to belabor the obvious, but...😎

2. Creedence Clearwater Revival -- Fortunate Son

And boy, has this one not dated one whit. Unfortunately.

And the number one song about the yin and yang of man's fate, it's self-evidently obvious and if you give me any grief about it I will come to your house with a regiment of mounted cavalry and obliterate you, is...

1. Steve Simels -- I Come and Stand at Every Door

"All that I ask is that for peace/you fight today -- you fight today."

Me doing the Pete Seeger/Byrds classic. What -- like you didn't see that coming? 😎😎

Awrighty then -- what would YOUR choices be?

And have a great weekend, everybody!!!

Songs I'd Forgotten Existed, Let Alone Loved (An Occasional Series): Special "The Bird is the Word" Edition

From 2000, and their album Odd Fellows, please enjoy North Carolina power pop legends The Spongetones and their to die for cover of Sir Paul McCartney's "On the Wings of a Nightingale."

As you probably know, the song was a minor hit for the Everly Brothers on their wonderful 80s comeback album EB 84. That version was produced by Dave Edmunds and was very much in his vein, with lots of massed acoustic guitars. The Spongetones, however, reworked the song a la vintage Merseybeat guitar rock, sounding as it might have if the Fab Four had had a go at it back in the day. As you can hear, they did an absolutely brilliant job-- the basic track recalls the Fabs circa '64 or '65, but with a lovely recreation of George Harrison's All Things Must Pass lead guitar stylings on top. I think it's a knockout.

Anyway, I bring all this up because the Spongetone guys are about to drop a series of new singles on Big Stir Records; I've heard the first one, "So Long," which is absolutely wonderful in a kind of McCartney/early Who sort of way, but unfortunately I can't figure out how to embed the audio, and it's not on YouTube yet. I'll keep you posted as soon as that changes.

Songs I'd Forgotten Existed, Let Alone Loved (An Occasional Series): Special "I Don't Think This Relationship Can Be Saved" Edition

From 1982 (and Stiff Records, where it belonged), please enjoy Rockpile guitarist Billy Bremner and one of the greatest New Wave singles ever -- the utterly gorgeous and emotionally devastating "Laughter Turns to Tears."

I had the Brit import pressing of this -- was there an American version? I'm not sure -- and I remember pretty much wearing it out. I mean physically, i.e. just constantly playing it over and over.

Damn, what a brilliant piece of work on every level.

I should add -- and I had TOTALLY forgotten this -- that it was produced and co-written(!) by the great Will Birch, of power pop gods The Records.

Man, there were giants in the Earth in those days. 😎

Tuesday's Music-Themed Cartoon Chuckles

"Your child constantly addresses you as 'JACK'!" 😎

Your Monday Moment of Words Fail Me

The original Byrds. Shot in live performance I don't know exactly where or when.

I don't care if it's not really synced to the music; that's the most amazing footage of them I've ever seen.

Attentive readers are doubtless aware that those guys are pretty much my fave band of all time, so it will come as no surprise that seeing that for the first time after all these years has been something akin to a religious experience for me. 😎

I mean -- wow. 😎 😎

La Fin de La Semaine Essay Question: Special "You Bastid Kids Get Off My Lawn" Edition

[I originally posted a version of this back in 2010, but for a couple of reasons -- lingering depression brought on by this week's Snowpocalypse, thinking as I have of late how sad it is that my generation had Beatles and Stones while today's yoots are stuck with Geese and Goose, things of that nature -- I decided to run it by you again. -- S.S.]

So I had occasion this week to re-read Jules Feiffer's superb 1965 The Great Comic Book Heroes, still one of the best books ever written about pop culture and one that had a huge impact on me when it first came out. Feiffer concludes it with the following paragraph; he's talking specifically about comics, but in retrospect, I now I think the point he's really making is somewhat broader.

Comic books, which had few public (as opposed to professional) defenders in the days when Dr. Wertham was attacking them, are now looked back on by an increasing number of my generation as samples of our youthful innocence instead of our youthful corruption. A sign, perhaps, of the potency of that corruption. A corruption -- a lie, really -- that put us in charge, however, temporarily, of the world in which we lived and gave us the means, however arbitrary, of defining right from wrong, good from bad, hero from villain. It is something for which old fans can understandably pine -- almost as if having become overly conscious of the imposition of junk on our adult values: on our architecture, our highways, our advertising, our mass media, our politics -- and even in the air we breathe, flying black chunks of it -- we have staged a retreat to a better remembered brand of junk. A junk that knew its place was underground where it had no power and thus only titillated, rather than above ground where it truly has power -- and thus, only depresses.

As I said, Feiffer was talking specifically about comics, but he might just as well have been talking about...oh my gosh -- rock and related pop musics, no?

And if so, the question arises -- is what Feiffer's getting at just a philistine old man's prejudice or an actually valid point?

Discuss.

I go back and forth on this, BTW. 😎

Meanwhile, have a great weekend, everybody!!!

Hey, At Least It's Not a Completely Crappy Week Now

Well, so the delightful MonaLisa Twins, who should be household names, have a cool new song up on the intertubes.

Meanwhile, bogus "musical" acts like Geese get to be on Saturday Night Live.

I don't get it. 😎

My New Favorite Band (An Occasional Series)

From London by way of Ireland, and from their about to be released debut album, please enjoy Music City and their drop dead fabulously rockin' ode to "Common Sense".

I first heard about those kids over at our friend Sal Nunziato's invaluable Burning Wood blog the other day; normally, I wouldn't try to steal Sal's thunder but I fell so hard for Music City that I really wanted to second that emotion, if you catch my drift. 😎

In any case, the whole album is just fantastic, and basically sounds like a great '80s skinny-tie pop band you somehow missed. Which is to say they seem to have been genetically bred to make music I was guaranteed to flip over.

The album -- aptly titled Welcome to Music City -- is dropping (as the kids say) over at Amazon, Spotify and the rest of the usual outlets on Feb. 27th. Apparently the only physical version of it available will be on vinyl, which frankly I am planning to enjoy immensely.

I should add that you can preview the entire album on YouTube OVER HERE; the band doesn't appear to have an official website where you can find out more about them yet, but I'll keep you posted if and when that changes.