Doobie Brothers. Look how they danced around on stage back then. How could such good music become so embarrassing? Fortunately most of us only heard them on FM and 8-Track and never saw their awesome stage performance.
Speaking of performances, this one goes out to Jay Leno, one of the funniest modern comedians who never had to use vulgarity to score a laugh. He’s right up there with Johnny Carson, Jonathan Winters and Bill Cosby. I never met Leno, but some friends did. Each said essentially the same thing: “Jay’s an honest nice guy, and he’s funny as hell.” That’s how I want to be remembered when I’m gone. Leno’s still alive.
Sorry, but I can’t bring myself to post any of the more recent poor quality sucky sounding live versions of “Sweet Melissa.” God bless you, Jay, and thanks for all the entertainment.
The Portuguese Man O’ War is amazing, as it’s not a single animal, but a colony of several bizarre organisms, all dependent on the others for survival. One provides transportation, one lures and traps food, one processes it, one cooks, and the other one does laundry and runs the blog.
The harmless gasbag idiot-animal floats while dangling his nasty stinging-tentacled buddies as deep as 160 feet below the surface. How they find each other and decide to hang together is a mystery to me, unless it has something to do with cheap beer, tasers and fraternity parties.
I saw one washed up on a beach when I was a kid without knowing what it was – thought it was an inflatable toy dolphin with seaweed attached. Yeah, I poked it with a stick, and yeah, I found out what the insides of a Portuguese Man O’ War smelled like, as did everyone else within a quarter mile downwind.
When the floating-gasbag idiot-animal washes up on shore and dies, it takes the other idiot-animals with him, and they can’t do anything about it because their free ride is over. Such is the life of a sycophant.
The missus informed me that there were words to that great theme, and she’s right. The closing credits for the early episodes included “The Cartwrights” singing the theme (after apparently stumbling out of a saloon/cat house joint venture in Carson City) and mounting up to pick fights with and wreak havoc on the local populace before they rode back to their fortified enclave known as The Ponderosa:
[Little Joe] I’ve got a flair for women everywhere, Bonanza!
[Hoss] BONANZA! ¡AI-AI-AI!
[All] I’m gonna call on any gal at all, she’s gonna welcome me.
[Ben] I’m not afraid of any pretty maid, Bonanza! BONANZA! When I give a kiss to any pretty miss, She’ll learn a lot from me!
[All] One for four, four for one This we guarantee!
We got a right to pick a little fight – Bonanza! BONANZA! If anyone fights any one of us, He’s gotta fight with me!
BTW, the best comment on that Utoobage link was posted by someone named 75yellowraven:
“144-441 what does that mean?”
The lyrics and acting were so laughably absurd that the clip was canned. Years later Lorne Greene sang the song with much different lyrics: Lorne Greene singing The Theme To Bonanza.
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But that’s not the weird part. The Bonanza Theme was orchestrated by David Rose, same guy who composed “The Stripper,” a number of TV theme songs, and this horrible piece of 1960s grocery aisle music:
Bet you couldn’t last the whole two-point-five minutes of that, so here’s almost a whole hour of The Beat Farmers circa 1984, featuring the late Country Dick Montana on drums, vocals, beer and belligerence.
Hope that grabs on, holds and squeezes you for this edition of The Saturday Matinee. Have a great weekend, even if you have to mow the snow.
P.S. If you ever wanted to sing along to The Chips‘ “Rubber Biscuit” we’ve got the Complete & Accurate day down sum wanna jigga-wah lyrics here.
Three-man bands have to rock, and Brownsville Station had a crankin’ hit in 1973 with “Smokin’ In The Boys’ Room” and were never heard from again (until Mötley Crüe did a crappy cover in 1985).
Ozark Mountain Daredevils‘ “If You Wanna Get To Heaven” was a hit in 1974, even though the harmonica tag could be played by a 6 year old. Hard to understand how they followed up that decent 70s country rock anthem with “Jackie Blue,” but the music industry moguls sucked big ‘ol honkin’ donkeys back then. (Come to think of it, they still do and I’ve hated pop music ever since.)
Never heard of these guys until the missus started laughing – at the audience. Hot stuff by The Bart Walker Band.
This starts out as early morning cross-country roadtrip music from The Black Lillies and it rolls from there.
Have a great weekend, folks. We’ll do something stupid tomorrow.
While looking for something else I found this, and it kept my attention long enough to post it for your upcoming New Year’s Eve celebrations. If you can figure it out, enjoy it.
I was actually looking for these guys. The Allotria Jazz Band plays early American jazz and Dixieland. You may not have heard them or of them – they’re from Munich and they’re great.
Once the camera SsTFD this is pretty good stuff. “Stairway To Heaven by the Oompah Brass. Now for something completely different.
“Jingle Bells” […] was written by James Lord Pierpont (1822–1893) and published under the title “One Horse Open Sleigh” in the autumn of 1857. Even though it is now associated with the Christmas and holiday season, it was actually originally written to be sung for American Thanksgiving.b[Via Wiki]
Bells on horses were a wintertime safety measure to prevent collisions at crossroads – snow muffled the sound of horses’ hooves, and sleighs made little noise. The subsequent title is not about jingle bells, but is a command for the bells to jingle.
“Caroline” by the Old Crow Medicine Show reminds me of the NGR. Great pickin’ with great harmonies. So let’s go there.
New Grass Revival with Béla Fleck (circa who knows) playing “Deviation.” That reminds me of the NGDB. So let’s go there. One of my favorite songs by The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band is “Some of Shelly’s Blues.” Rather than post a vid of the original recording and have you stare at an album cover, here’s a live version by John McEuen:
John McEuen, Nathan McEuen, Scott Gates, Chelsea Williams at the Coffee Gallery, Altadena, California 29 March 2007.
“There’s nothin’ so hard about the life that you’ve led”
is the best line of the whole song, written by Michael Nesmith (yeah, THAT Michael Nesmith. Check this out.)
The Spotnicks’ “The Rocket Man” (1962). Pre-Devo awesome [via].
The Specials‘ “Ghost Town.” Too much fighting on the dance floor.
Ms. Wireways (?) a Jamaican radio DJ in Southern California in the ’80s, said this was the best reggae song ever. Bad Manners’ “Sampson & Delilah” fits the bill, even though the vid sucks donkeys. Close your eyes and listen instead – it is a pretty song.
Buddy Guy is one of the last original bluesmen. Here he is, backed up by G.E. Smith who is no slouch either.
That’s it for this edition. Have a great weekend, folks, and we’ll see you back here tomorrow.
Tacky Raccoons 