1 November was the 60th Anniversary of the first thermonuclear blast known as Operation Ivy Mike – 10 megatons set off on Eniwitok Atoll.
[h/t Soylent Green]
Papa Strutts was on the flagship USS Estes, and said that although they were miles away, the shock wave blew out all the light bulbs on the ship. He’s an official member of The Glow In The Dark Society.
Zippo tricks were a necessary evil growing up, at least they used to be a million years ago when we’d flip the cap on the downstroke and flick the wheel coming up, on our jeans. A quick 1-2 flourish. Zippos rock.
And that’s about as silly a performance of pure funk that I’ve ever seen. The Ohio Players, introduced by Helen “I Am Woman” Reddy in 1975.
That’s about all I can take for tonight. Have a great weekend, folks.
Serge Gainsbourg singing “Chez Les Ye-Ye.” Serge is Pee Wee Herman on sopors. He rocked, but not as much as Pierre Cassel whose shoes became glued to the floor during the video. Cassel’s son is a rapper named “Rockin’ Squat.” Go figger.
Personally, I think Robert Johnson was/is overrated, and his fame is due to his recordings covered by British rockers of the early 60s.
Yeah I know, Blasphemy. Johnson got picked, while others, like Papa Charlie Jackson were overlooked. I’m not an authority on musical anthropology, so take it for what it’s worth.
Jackson’s “Airy Man” showed up on a Yazoo Records album that the Missus gave me years ago. The chords were unusual, and the liner notes said this:
“Airy Man Blues,” a work in the key of D, illustrates Jackson’s most complex blues picking in the uptempo idiom at which he and very few other bluesmen excelled. Two fingers play melody and harmonies with support from a thumb which is quite steady within several different patterns. Often he executes complex or seemingly impromptu runs on three or more strings. The basic chord changes are:
D, D, G7, D; G, D, E, A/A7; D, D, G7, D; G7, D, E/A7, D. In the break he changes to B, B7, E, E7, A, A7 D/D minor, D.
Despite the length of these phrases and the comedy of his lyrics, the song is well within the basic blues idiom, lacking in all essential ragtime qualities except speed.
So I looked for a live vid of Papa Charlie Jackson, but instead found a cool tribute by “Gnarlemagne.” It works.
With that we’re out. Have a great weekend, folks and be back here tomorrow for more inane entertainment.
The Capuchin Monkey experiment is classic. Full video here, and it’s worth watching. Frans de Waal‘s joke about OWS is wrong, but the rest is good IMO.
Good God are these guys scary monkeys. One errant gust of wind at that height would blow ’em away. [via]
The Specialsonly had one album, but it put Ska back on the map for pop music. The late Amy Winehouse did a horrible cover of the song.
Let’s see. How do we wrap this up on a positive note? Got it.
The Specials Live in Glastonbury 2009. With that we’re out of here. Be back here for Real Gangster Time tomorrow for more inane fun.
“If you want to go to heaven when you D.I.E.,
Put on your collar and a T.I.E.
If you wanna scare a rabbit out an L.O.G.,
Just make a little sound like a D.O.G.”
That’s Furry Lewis playing slide on “Kassie Jones,” a song he recorded in 1927. The video is from 1968. A few years later Joni Mitchell met with him and recorded “Furry Sings The Blues” in tribute.
Lewis despised Mitchell’s song and demanded she pay him royalties. “She shouldn’t have used my name in no way, shape, form or faction without consultin’ me ’bout it first. The woman came over here and I treated her right, just like I does everybody that comes over. She wanted to hear ’bout the old days, said it was for her own personal self, and I told it to her like it was, gave her straight oil from the can.”
Belton Sutherland was a Mississipi Delta bluesman. There is no Wiki article for him and little other information about him on the internest. There’s no entry for him in Lawrence Cohn’s “Nothing But The Blues” either. Sutherland was filmed in 1978 by Alan Lomax at Maxwell’s Farm, near Canton Mississippi.
“…Lomax rounded up folks even he hadn’t heard of, like Mississippi bluesman Belton Sutherland–a master musician who appeared during Lomax’s session with another singer and asked to ‘try’ the guitar.”
Where do we go from here? I’m not gonna post Boy George, and the Utoobage offering of a band called “The Chameleons” held little interest for me. Oh wait. I got it.
The Lounge Lizards, 1988, “The Voice of Chunk.” This experimental group never quite hit, but they had a point. Some might axe me, “Bunk, do you really like this crap?” and my emphatic response is, “No, but at least they tried.”
Tacky Raccoons 