The Golden album
(Via Deface Value)
Folk feelings
I was fascinated by this letter from (in lieu of interview with) the singer Cass McCombs, which led me to this song, "County Line," well worth a listen, not least for some surprising/familiar/great Lennonish inflections.From the letter:The greatest art of any era comes from anonymous sources. The Folk who sacrifice themselves by passing on what has been taught to them so that it will live. In this sense, the future is Folk. We must not sell out our Past, but teach the Future. This is how I relate to influences, that Bob Marley, Kurt Cobain, Jerry Garcia, John Lennon, Darby Crash, Merle [...]
"Love"
What do you think? I could listen to Priscilla Ahn sing the phone book. (I like her cover of VU's "Afterhours," found about 5:30 into this vlog post.)(And remember her cover of "Julia"?)
People who hate the Beatles
Nyah! My 2c: People who hate The Beatles should really be hating all the musicians that came after The Beatles. It's not James Joyce's fault that nobody's topped Ulysses in that form, nor is it The Beatles fault that Revolver still kicks ass when it comes to the three-minute rock song form. I like Amy Mann, but my being bored with The Beatles doesn't make her music better than theirs. It just makes me bored with The Beatles, and especially receptive to something else. It's a drag, but there it is; maybe it was a coalescing of talents that hasn't [...]
Anyone remember this?
"Weird Al" Yankovic recorded a parody of this song in late 1981 called "Pac-Man", during the height of the game's popularity.—Wikipedia
Socal Dullbloggers: Beatles on the Pier!
The Beatles in LA, 1964. The Santa Monica Pier has just turned 100, and as part of a summer-long music series, they're running a three-day festival of all things Beatle. Sound-alike bands, booths, hints of karaoke, they say there are movies...all on the Pier, which is gorgeous and great fun. I really hope this tradition takes root. I cruised by the venue yesterday, and talked to some very nice memorabilia vendors ("Flip Your Wig" game, anyone? Yours is worn out by now, I'm sure) and Gillian Lomax. Gillian used to run the news department of our local "Breakfast With [...]
Norman and Goldman and Sentimentality
Why pick an Isley Brothers song for the title? Yesterday evening, I was perusing Shout! and, as ever, thought it was a really great, fluid, surprisingly no-nonsense large-grain history of the group. Well, maybe "really great" is a bit much, given the book's anti-Paul bias, but it's still wonderfully written, and was essential in its time. If you were a Beatles fan in the early 80s like I was, Shout! was the companion volume to The Compleat Beatles. I'm looking forward to comparing it with Davies, as soon as I can lay my hands on that book. (It's not really [...]
Best of What’s Left of?
The bottom of the bottom of the barrel? Or something better than that? Recently I ran into a problem that I thought the Beatles hive-mind here at Dullblog might be able to solve. My wife and I were driving to a party at a friend's house; the last time we'd met this friend, he'd discovered I was a Beatle freak. In the course of the conversation, he'd asked me the following question: after the Anthology series, what good stuff is left? Being lazy and easily distracted, I pointed him to the "Beatles Anthology Outtakes" set. But surely we could improve on [...]
Gratuitous yet agreeable mention
ED PARK • "I don't believe we've even halfway explored the world of salads yet—that would be like asking the Beatles in the 1960s if they'd run out of songs!" —Jamie Oliver, Cook With Jamie