Category: Music

Saturday Matinee – Sparky, Linus & Lucy, Magic, Douchebags, & the Downchild Blues Band

Loni Anderson (Good God, look at that hair!) introduced a tribute to Charles Schulz, creator of Wee Folk, aka Peanuts. Today is the 60th anniversary of its debut. RIP, Sparky.

David Benoit’s version of Vince Guaraldi’s classic  “Linus and Lucy.”

Amazing magic trick [found here].

Remember when SNL was funny? Buck Henry was one of the top writers in the early days.

According to one source, “Downchild” was the band that inspired Dan Akroyd to create The Blues Brothers.

BTW, The Competition will be closed at Midnight, Pacific Standard Time, tonight, so get yer last minute entries in.

Have a great weekend, folks.

Saturday Matinee – Hot Cats

Cats and croissants. [via]

I loved the Stray Cats’ retrobilly thang, and this was one of their finest moments. (BTW,  “Fridays” was a much funnier show than Saturday Night Live IMO.)

Speaking of Eddie Cochran, here’s Gene Vincent’s  “Be-Bop-A-Lula.”

Vince Taylor beat out The Who with this cover of Johnny Kidd & The Pirates’  “Shakin’ All Over.”

And here’s one of the greatest latter day rock and roll love songs in my opinion. Have a great weekend, folks, and may you all have pleasant surprises.

It’s Me Hot, Mon

Got yer Halloween costume picked out yet? No? Well here’s just the accoutrement for you, an inflatable tam, just like the ones popularized by real Rastafarians. One size fits most, so if you’re a fathead you can’t wear it, and anyone who wears one of these is by default a fathead. Rock steady, mon.

[Found here.]

Saturday Matinee – Star Trek, Willys Jeep, The Cleverlys, Clogging, Earl Scruggs & The Chieftains

German sci-fi advertisement [Found here].

How to breakdown and reassemble a Willy’s Jeep in under four minutes. [via]

The Cleverlys’ bluegrass version of “Walk Like An Egyptian.” [via]

After the Cleverly’s drummer’s action, it’s only proper to post a video of clogging, aka, Bluegrass Flamenco. Both bluegrass and clogging are closely related to Irish reels and dancing, so…

Here’s Earl Scruggs with the seminal Irish band The Cheiftains. Nice blend, that.

Have a great weekend, folks, y’all be back here tomorrow.

Sunday Matinee – Tim, Cab, James, Etta & Dr. John

Nice groove, tip from coldwarrior.

Cab Calloway’s “Reefer Man.”

Butane James lipsynchs to his classic in front of a bunch of white kids.  Note that the footwork is not lipsynched.

Etta James was not pretty, but this song is, especially when she’s accompanied by Dr. John Rebennack, and to be fair, he’s never been pretty either.

Have a great weekend folks, what’s left of it, and be back here tomorrow.

Saturday Matinee – Jerry Lee Lewis, Joan Jett, The Blasters, Big Joe Turner

Great cover of Johnny O’Keefe’s “The Wild One.”  Here’s Jerry Lee Lewis’ version of “Wild Child.”

Although Iggy Pop did a great cover (here’s the instrumental track if you want to sing along), Joan Jett’s version is pretty good, and looky who shows up on the street.

Speaking of covers, here’s The Blasters’ 1981 version of Little Willie John’s “I’m Shakin’.” From the Wikipud:

Phil Alvin explained the origin of the band’s name: “I thought Joe Turner’s backup band on Atlantic records – I had these 78s – I thought they were the Blues Blasters. That ends up it was Jimmy McCracklin. I just took the ‘Blues’ off and Joe finally told me, that’s Jimmy McCracklin’s name, but you tell ‘im I gave you permission to steal it.”

Big Joe Turner was a great big band blues singer in the early days of rock and roll rhythm and blues. “Shake, Rattle and Roll” was his first big hit in 1954, but was coopted by Bill Haley & His Comets (who cleaned up the lyrics for the white folks).

That’s all for now, have a great Memorial Day Weekend, see you back here tomorrow.

Saturday Matinee – Buena Vista Social Club; Tito, Poncho & Celia; The Iguanas

“El Cumbanchero.” The Buena Vista Social Club is awesome. Tip o’ the Tarboosh to Rodan for reminding me of them.

Continuing with Afro-Cubano jazz, here’s Tito Puente, Poncho Sanchez y Celia Cruz, with “Quimbara.” No idea what that translates to, but I guess it’s a dance style.

This was one of The Iguanas best songs, and the video doesn’t do it justice. (Here’s the studio version w/o video. As an aside, in the live video, the bass player looks like me in my 20s, but with a better haircut. Heh.) Since The Iguanas were from New Orleans, let’s move in that direction…

New Orleans is gonna be in the news again in a couple of days, but not for the right reasons. I suggest we ignore the msm and enjoy the music instead.

Have a great weekend and we’ll see you back here tomorrow.

Nose Harp

[Found in Strider’s awesome collection of crap.]

Saturday Matinee – TUC, Fleet Foxes, Sirens, SRV & Neil with Bruce doing Hendrix doing Dylan

The Unknown Comic, LIVE! [I showed up once as The UC at a party in college, came in unannounced and ran through 15 minutes of cheap jokes, left to change clothes and toss the bag, and returned as myself. People were still asking the host “How did you get HIM to show up?”]

Bunkarina turned me on to this vid from the Fleet Foxes, a band out of Seattle.

Fleet Foxes reminded me of the soundtrack to “Cold Mountain,” but since I couldn’t find a video of the Sacred Harp Singers of Liberty Church, I’ll go with “O Brother Where Art Thou” and The Song of the Sirens.

Okay, we’re gonna break out of that deadend theme and jump to a Stevie Ray Vaughan classic, “Texas Flood.”

Here are Bruce Springsteen and Neil Young completely blowing a rock classic. “All Along The Watchtower” was an acoustic Bob Dylan song that Jimi Hendrix electrified and made a hit. Even Dylan started playing Hendrix’ version.  The lyrics make no sense, but if you reverse the order of the verses, it does. Kinda.

Have a great weekend, folks, be back here tomorrow.

Saturday Matinee – Mull, Martin, Plastics, Grisman & Garcia, King & Preston &, um, Willis

Martin Mull in 1973 gets back to his roots in the Lake Erie delta.

Martin Mull’s college roommate was Steve Martin who was no slouch on banjo.

Awesome. I can play the plastic scale, too, but putting it into a high-speed vid makes the grade.

Now THIS is really annoying, so much so that I’m not going to post it here. You’re on you’re own, and I dare you to listen to the whole tutorial.  I couldn’t do it, but I can listen through this:

David Grisman & Jerry Garcia doing B.B. King’s classic “Thrill is Gone.”

To close it out, here’s B.B. King himself with Billy Preston and, um, Bruce Willis on harp. Have a great weekend folks, and remember that most of us can play harp better than Bruce Willis, who’s got no business at all in that lineup.