The Brits Just Knighted Raymond Douglas Davies!!!

From The Guardian:

Kinks frontman Ray Davies, 72, said he felt a mixture of joy and embarrassment on being awarded a knighthood for services to the arts. Despite The Kinks parting ways in 1996, Davies forged a solo career and two years ago collaborated on Sunny Afternoon, the Olivier-award wining musical based on his music and lyrics.

“This is for the people who supported my music over the years,” said Davies. “I’m kind of reluctant to collect rewards. I usually back out of ceremonies. I’m kind of a shy person.”

To which I can only add -- WHAT TOOK THEM SO FUCKING LONG?

Ladies and gentlemen, the most beautiful song written in English in the second half of the 20th Century.



Congratulations, Sir Ray.

Hey, It's Been a Rough Week or Two

Drunk Donald Trump.



I particularly like when he says that everything is "rosy dory."

Regular music posting -- possibly New Years Eve themed, but I make no promises -- resume on the morrow.

Love, Doggie Style

I hadn't thought about this song in years, but it was playing at the supermarket yesterday and I gotta say -- it blew my mind to be reacquainted with it.

Ladies and germs, please enjoy -- if that is the word -- Gilbert O'Sullivan and his 1973 hit "Get Down."

Or as we call it at Casa Simels, the most reprehensible metaphor in the history of pop music.



It also occurred to me that Spinal Tap might have been thinking about it when they wrote their immortal "Bitch School."



A subject for future research, obviously.

Closed for Monkey Business

Are the holidays over yet?

Regular tanned and ready postings resume tomorrow.

Programming Notes From All Over

Yes, ladies and germs, yours truly is going to be on friend of PowerPop Capt. Al's radio show Lost at Sea today, starting at Noon, EST.

You can listen by clicking HERE, you're welcome very much.

I should add that it will be a theme show, and here's a clue. The fabulous Cheap Perfume performing the venerable "Boys."

A coveted PowerPop No-Prize© will be awarded on air to the first reader who divines said theme. And we'll be watching our e-mail --ssimels@gmail.com -- for requests and death threats during the show.

Who Says the Contemporary Musical is Dead?

So apparently Radio City Music Hall's famed Rockettes are being required to perform -- and for most the members of the troupe, who seem to share my low opinion of the president-elect, under duress -- at the Inauguration.

That being the case, and with a hat tip to a certain Shady Dame of my acquaintance, here's my suggestion for the perfect number for the occasion.



Incidentally, I had forgotten that Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick had predicted the outcome of the election on the Jimmy Kimmel Show earlier in the year.



I gotta say, that last clip of Trump making stupid noises would be the funniest thing ever if it wasn't absolutely real.

Christmas Comes But Once a Year (An Annual Series): Part IV -- Special The Golden Age of Television Edition

From CBS TV -- originally broadcast live in 1956, but here recorded in the studio -- please enjoy Basil Rathbone (what a singer!) and "Mankind Should Be My Business," one of the big numbers from The Stingiest Man in Town.

Which I believe is the first ever musical adaption of Dickens' A Christmas Carol.



I was nine years old when this was first aired, and I remember it made a humongous impression on me. The ghosts were particularly scary, albeit not as much as Rathbone's atonal groaning in the songs. I also had the soundtrack LP, because an uncle of mine worked for Columbia Records at the time, and for some reason I played it obsessively for years.

You can actually order a DVD of the original special over at Amazon here.

I should add that the show was remade as a Rankin/Bass animated special in 1978, which is also available at Amazon if you're an insane Walter Matthau completist (he sings the part of Scrooge at least as well as Rathbone, for what it's worth).



And have a wonderful Christmas day, all. Especially you Jews -- enjoy the Chinese food.

Christmas Comes But Once a Year (An Annual Series): Part III -- In Which I'm Revealed as a Sentimental Old Fluff Edition

[I originally posted this little confessional back in 2013; I'm reposting it now not because I'm trying to make it a tradition or anything, but because Sam Anderson -- a very fine staff writer for the New York Times Sunday Magazine -- recounted an almost identical story last week; you should READ HIS VERSION HERE after mine, because his is much funnier. -- S.S.]


This is, as I have been wont to say here on many previous occasions, a very sad story, so please try not to laugh.

It also has a certain relevance to tonight's festivities, which will be revealed later in the narrative. Please be patient.

Anyway, so the other day I was in a cab heading down the West Side Highway in a snowstorm, and the driver had the radio tuned to whatever soft-rock Lite FM station they inevitably have on when they don't have WINS News Radio blasting or some guy from Queens yelling about sports.

I wasn't particularly paying attention, but suddenly some soft-rock Lite FM staple song came on, and immediately I knew three things.

1. I had definitely heard it before.

2. It was probably from the 70s or the 80s, although I couldn't rule out the possibility that it might have been more recent, and it had that whole California soft-rock vibe, which I usually detest, in spades.

3. I had no idea who the guy or the group singing it was, although I was painfully aware that when and if I found out I was gonna kick myself. Because pretty much everybody in the world, at least of a certain age, would have been able to recognize it instantly.

The truly insidious part was that there was something about the damn thing that grabbed me. Yes, the vocals had that laid-back L.A. Mr. Sensitive shtick that usually makes my gorge rise. But the tune was charming, the voicings of the harmony parts in the chorus were really quite lovely, and -- try as I might to deny it -- it was getting under my skin.

Fortunately, because of the roar of traffic, I couldn't really hear the lyrics, although one word -- "architect" -- jumped out. "Hmm," I thought. "There's a word you don't hear in a pop song everyday."

Anyway, I then went about the rest of my weekend, but I knew with an absolutely dread certainty that I was gonna break down sooner or later and look the song up on the Intertubes.

So, late on Monday, I googled "Soft Rock song with the word architect in it" and up it popped.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you...and my fingers are shaking as I type these words....Dan Fogelberg (the horror, the horror!) and his 1980 smash (which I had apparently put out of my mind, probably deliberately, ever since its original vogue) "Same Old Lang Syne."



Well. In case you're wondering, no -- I have no interest in revisiting the rest of Fogelberg's body of work, and yes, I still basically can't stand the whole genre he represents, but goddamn it -- this damn song works and it gets to me. Like I said, it's melodically quite charming, and now that I've actually deciphered the lyrics, it turns out that -- despite a certain smugness that kind of rankles -- they actually make a pretty good little short story.

And the record's not even a new guilty pleasure, to be honest, because I don't feel particularly guilty about liking it.

Sticks in my craw a bit, though.

As I said, this is a very sad story, so please try not to laugh.

Christmas Comes But Once a Year (An Annual Series): Part Deux

From last year, please enjoy my pals The Mockers and the greatest Christmas rock song of this century.

"There's No War on Christmas (When Christmas is in Your Heart)."



Seriously -- if you can listen to this song and still take Bill O'Reilly seriously, you need to have it looked at.

For more on this obviously fabulous band check 'em out at their official website HERE.

Christmas Comes But Once a Year (An Annual Series): Part I

From some time in the 80s or 90s (I have no idea which) please enjoy (if possible) my all time favorite Xmas rock record.

"Silent Night."

By Rudolf's Nightmare (produced and splendid guitar by old bandmate Lars Hanson and featuring my musical director Glen Robert Allen on drums Somebody's playing bass and singing, but I have no idea who. Hopefully, I'll be informed before the end of the week.)

In any case, why this isn't a Dr. Demento standard is beyond fucking me,.

More Xmas weird shit tomorrow.