Retro & Vintage – Page 74

Saturday Matinee – Nick Offerman, John Edmark & Phi, HST & Roy Buchanan

I’ve never seen a single episode of “Parks & Recreation,” but this advert featuring actor Nick Offerman is mildly amusing [via]. It doesn’t go far enough IMO. Someone tell Nick that I’d be happy to outline a horror story based upon actual events.

John Edmark creates some amazing stuff using the irrational number Phi, laser cutters and strobes [via].

“Buy The Ticket, Take The Ride” is a 2006 documentary about rogue reporter Hunter S. Thompson, narrated by Nick Nolte. Thompson was an amusing unhinged journalist who set the standard for inserting himself into every story he ever covered.

Gotta have at least one music vid, and we haven’t posted any Roy Buchanan in a while, so there you go.

Have a great Memorial Day Weekend, folks, and please take the time to remember what it’s all about.

Miss Arrowhead 1952

[Found in here, via here.]

Saturday Matinee – St. Paul & The Broken Bones, Booker T. & The M.G.’s, & The Knitts

Wow. I haven’t heard stuff like this since the Blues Brothers promoted it. Okay I have, but not as far as you know.

St. Paul & The Broken Bones does retro soul / R&B, with a sound that is pure Stax/Volt from the Big O days. They’re from Birmingham, not Memphis, and I’d post a direct link to their website, but it froze up my computer twice (you’ve been warned).

Let’s continue our stroll down Soul Street, shall we?

Booker T. & The M.G.’s were about as close to the center of the Soul Circuit as anyone. (Members of San Francisco’s CCR were in the wings during this performance taking notes).

Okay, let’s jam the gears. How many influences can you cover in one song?

Bunkessa volunteers at a local radio station occasionally, and The Knitts showed up to play live in-studio. The band is getting a following, have some tours lined up (and they know she has a Class B license).

Have a great weekend, folks. See you back here tomorrow for more fun stuff.

Saturday Matinee – Steve ‘n’ Seagulls, Little Feat & Buddy Guy

Steve N’ Seagulls is a band from Finland that records bluegrass covers of various heavy metal groups (including AC/DC) and they’re entirely awesome.

Little Feat was (and is) an underrated band that didn’t get as much attention as they deserved, despite Jimmy Page’s endorsement. Here they are with Emmy Lou Harris and Bonnie Raitt on backup vocals playing their 1973 hit “Dixie Chicken.” Great swamp rock. (Check out the lead-in to their 1979 album “Down On The Farm” for a grin.)

The embedded title says it all, but the vid starts late and cuts off too soon. Jimi Hendrix studied the masters, including Buddy Guy.

Buddy Guy ~~paid tribute to~~ complimented both Hendrix and Cream at the Byron Bay Blues Fest in April 2014.

Have a great weekend, folks, and don’t forget Yo Mama Day.

John Logie Baird’s Contribution To The World: The 1926 Televisor

The eerie image … shows the first image to ever be transmitted onto television. The year was 1926, and Scottish inventor John Logie Baird had successfully broadcast his business partner’s face through an apparatus he dubbed “the televisor”, which was of course the early version of all television sets today.

I’m guessing that’s a still from a 16mm test film, or perhaps it wasn’t animated at all and it was just a flickering image transmitted to a small (3.5″ x 2″) video display.

Another source includes this commentary:

One staff member quoted [the Editor of the London Daily Press] as saying: “For God’s sake, go down to the reception and get rid of a lunatic who’s down there. He says he’s got a machine for seeing by wireless. Watch him – he may have a razor on him.”

Following his demonstration in 1926, Baird developed colour TV and brought out the world’s first mass produced television set in 1929.

[Top image and caption found here; 2nd image and cap here.]

Saturday Matinee – Tito Puente, Mickey Hart & Todd Rundgren

Pure percussion by Tito Puente e Los TropiJazz All Stars. I could listen to this stuff all day.

Decades ago (in college) we attended an off-campus house party that seemed to have a live band. I asked the host about it and he replied, “That’s the Rhythm Section. They’re in the basement.” So I went downstairs and found people taking turns on vinyl trash cans, bottles, cans, buckets, with wooden dowels and spoons, and it all sounded great as it morphed, non-stop. No electronics, just ~~stoners~~ people grooving on impromptu syncopated rhythms.

Micky Hart‘s Planet Drum project got my ear as well. Hard to say what musical instrument came first, the bone flute or the drum. I’d guess the latter, because you can bang on anything to create a tempo, and everything else is secondary. (Vocals don’t count unless you’re talmbout Hollerin.)

Then of course there’s this RetroSka classic:

Have a great weekend, folks. We’ll be back here tomorrow whether you like it or not.

El Dos de Mayo y General Grouchy

By 1808, Spain had had just about enough of French Imperialism and Napoleon‘s occupation armies, and there was a bloody rebellion in Madrid that lasted for days (and led to The Peninsula War).

Francisco Goya was commissioned for paintings to commemorate the rebellion of Dos de Mayo a few years later in 1814.

Oh, and BTW, General Grouchy was a real dickhead.

Messerschmitt 1950

messerschmitt-1950

Barely five years after Germany’s unconditional surrender in WWII, and they were still in business.

[Found here.]

Saturday Matinee – Bovine Spring, Biergarten, Man In The Woods & James Cotton (1935-2017)

Vandaag was het weer groot feest bij boer Brandsma in Bolsward! Na 5 maanden mochten de koeien weer voor het eerst naar buiten!

Springtime in the Netherlands and the cows are released from their winter shelters (via) and THIS is definitely related.

Proof that German cattle know what a Biergarten für Rinder sounds like.

This creepy short animation was a student project from 2014 [via].

We lost J. Geils recently, but I completely missed the news of one of the greatest harmonica players I ever heard. James Cotton (aka “Mr. SuperHarp”) passed away at the age of 81 on 16 March 2017 in Austin Texas. Cotton recorded “The Creeper” in 1968. It predates Richard “Magic Dick” Salwitz‘ 1971 recording of “Whammer Jammer“, falsely accredited to “Juke Joint Jimmy”.

Here’s James Cotton at his finest, and having fun with it, too.