IMHO, absolutely priceless.
I should add that, in other jaw-dropping Willie news, he will be (sit down please) opening for none other than The Who in Bethel NY on May 28.
This is not as unpreceded as it sounds -- Willie toured Europe as the opening act for The Who in 1980 -- but still. How cool?
And here's my favorite track -- a glorious one-man version of the Left Banke's always delightful "Walk Away Renee."
Ronnie's been releasing this sort of stuff, beginning in the pre-CD era, for as long as I've known him, which is going back to our late 70s days in the Village. But this current album is just spectacularly good.
Hey -- get yourself over to Amazon and stream the damn thing already, won't you? You'll thank me.
That said, it was an exhausting couple of days, and I'm spending the next 24 hours a) crashing and b) frolicking with hookers 'n' blow.
See you on Wednesday with a gorgeous new song by a long time friend of PowerPop.
Flexi-discs were all the rage in the late 50s and early 60s; The Magazine Known as Stereo Review did several, including an absolutely hilarious parody of baroque music -- authored by Glenn Gould -- entitled "So You Want to Write a Fugue?". I should add that I had that Mad disc for years and played it obsessively when it first came out.
PS: Yeah, yeah, I know I promised on Friday to post a bad song referencing what had happened to my foot recently, but I figured that would have been self-indulgent even for me.
...sings the lead vocal on "Holy Man," a Dennis Wilson solo track left unfinished at the time of the Beach Boys legend's tragic death.
Being a Southern California surfer dude himself, I guess Hawkins kind of related to Dennis. In any case, a beautiful job (originally released on the 2008 Sony reissue of Wilson's 1977 masterpiece, Pacific Ocean Blue).
As of this writing, we don't know the circumstances or causes of Hawkins' passing; all we know is that now both of them are gone. And as I usually say in these circumstances, this death shit is really beginning to piss me off.
Had a hellishly awful day, but check us out on Monday, and all will be explained. Plus I'll be posting a song by an artist you never for a minute expected would be featured on this here blog.
In the meantime, I couldn't resist posting the above.
Have a great weekend, everybody!!!
I mean, seriously -- that could have been done by Jean Cocteau or Salvador Dali.
I have a friend who might know what the problem is, and hopefully regular posting will resume soon.
Damn, this is frustrating.
The song itself is probably best known for being featured in John Waters' Hairspray, which is one of the best movie dance sequences of the last few decades, but the above -- which was I unaware of until last weekend -- just knocks me out.
I should add that the two dancers are named Joan Darby and Joe Cash. The question now before the court is whether the sobriquets were adapated by the late Darby Crash, lead singer of the legendary LA punk band The Germs, for his more familiar nom de rock.
