Saturday Matinee – Lindy Hop Showdown, The Wrecking Crew, Tommy Tedesco & The Memphis Group

Pure awesome. Girl in the stripes gets my vote [via].

“The Wrecking Crew” recorded some killer stuff, and you’ve likely never heard of them because they weren’t named  “The Wrecking Crew” until 1990. Their peak years were 1962-73 when they worked with Phil Spector. They weren’t a solid unit as the musicians came and went, but the music WAS solid, no matter who was sitting in at the time.

Tommy Tedesco, one of the greatest session musicians ever, was a member of the post-defacto-named Wrecking Crew. Tedesco was one of those rare people who, if told something was a musical instrument, could play it flawlessly.

Now about “The Memphis Group.” Steve Cropper, Duck Dunn, Al Jackson & Booker Jones provided the backup for some amazing recording artists, but you already knew that.

Have a great weekend, folks and we’ll see what happens tomorrow.

The .Gif Friday Post No. 514 – Tree Trimming by Hand, Tree Trimming Trapeze, Brute-Force Tree Trimming & Hand Trimming by Tree

[Found here, here, here and here.]

Lizard Dance with Jazzhands

No photoshoppage needed.

[Found here.]

Another Great Christmas Idea – Elmolester

[Found here.]

Vote for Bobby!

[Found here.]

Christmas at the Proctologist’s Office

[Found here.]

Some Assembly Required Hot Links

Here’s a nice collection of jazz artists with short bios.

Singer, songwriter, performer and actress Norah Jones was born Geetali Norah Shankar. Her half-sister is Anoushka Shankar. Their father is Ravi Shankar.

See what I did there? Gonna do it again.

The French term is mèche sur le front (wick in the front) or un épi (an ear of corn); German, it’s ein Werbel (vortex or whirl); in Spanish, chavito, mechon (tuft) or remolino (swirl); In Danish, it’s hvirvel i håret (whirl in the hair); Afrikaans, kuif (crest); Polish kosmyk (strand). The English term for an unruly spiral of hair is “cowlick” and it first appeared in 1538 according to this site.

I’ve had cowlicks all my life, and in recent years the one on the right gave birth to another that migrated to the left side of my forehead. Now I have Dagwood Hair.

Bob McFadden provided the voice for Dagwood Bumstead in a forgettable cartoon, and had a successful career as a voice actor. He also worked with Rod McKuen (credited as “Dor”) to record the classic song “Beat Generation” in 1959, covered in 1980 by Richard Hell & The Voidoids (“Blank Generation“) and re-covered in 1986 by The Beat Farmers.

Tommy Smothers nailed Johnny Carson.

Here’s what’s happening in Japan.

[Top image found here.]

 

 

Saturday Matinee – Werewolf Diskdrive, Justin Johnson & Buckethead

I really don’t know what to make of this, but it somehow seems appropriate given the fires in California. Reminds me of early Devo vids. [h/t Bunkessa]

Justin Johnson amazes me. Plays lead, rhythm, bass and chorus at the same time on a 4-string cigar box slider. One of the commenters on the Utoobage posted “I’m convinced this guy is f***ing Buckethead,” and others agreed, so let’s roll with that.

“I was eating it, and I put the mask on and then the bucket on my head. I went to the mirror. I just said, ‘Buckethead. That’s Buckethead right there.’ It was just one of those things. After that, I wanted to be that thing all the time.” –Buckethead

Yeah, that’s a hella nice jam despite the silly visual gimmicks. Brian Carroll rocks.

Then here comes this guy.

Have a great weekend, folks. Be back here tomorrow for more stuff.

 

The .Gif Friday Post No. 513 – 3 Plants. I go first.

[Found here, here and here.]

We Remember- 7 December 1941

Correction. WAR was declared upon U.S. by Japan by the unprovoked attack, and the U.S. responded.

Dad always stamped his letters with this: