Category: Videos

Saturday Matinee – Giant Isopods, Claymation, The Swamp, Jolly Boys, Lady Day & Satchmo

Giant Isopods! Yay! [via]

Sure, it’s amateur Claymation, but it kept my attention for the pure and simple oddness of it all.

Talking Heads were one of the premier punk bands out of CBGB’s, even though the punk genre (gawd I hate that word “genre”) was coopted by others who trashed it and gave it a bad name in the late 70s.

The Jolly Boys sing Amy Winehouse’ “Rehab” [via]. I gotta find out more about these guys.

Let’s see. Got four videos up, and since five is ideal for subliminal reasons, let’s roll one more for the road.

Awesome combination of Lady Day and Satchmo.  Have a great weekend, folks, and we’ll be back tomorrow.

Saturday Matinee – Big Mama Thornton, The Doors, John Lee Hooker & JLH jr.

Big Mama Thornton blows harp, and now it’s got scars, too.

Now I don’t generally like mashups, but this one is kinda cool, mixing John Lee Hooker with the Doors, cranking “Road House Blues.” (Nixing Jim Morrison’s vocals would have been better though, but that’s just my opinion.)

Here’s John Lee Hooker from 1980’s Montreal Jazz Festival with “Roll Me Like You Roll A Wagon Wheel.” Pure boogie.

John Lee Hooker Jr. has been performing for a while, also, but only as a frontman.  This is about the best I could come up with on short notice.

[Whoop! I almost forgot! We’re gonna announce the Contest Wiener tomorrow, so be back here for the confetti and horns, and bring your own water balloons!]

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.

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 – 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.

Saturday Matinee – Handel, Ibexspeak, OC Fair Fail, Redbone, Cooder & Beefheart


Handel’s Messiah [Tip o’ the Tarboosh to Savage.]

Argument with an ibex. No subtitles needed. [via]

Interview with ice sculptor at Orange County Fair 2010.

Haven’t had any Leon in a while. When he was on the Tonight show, he didn’t know what Diddy Wah Diddy meant… or so he claimed.

Ry Cooder covered Diddy Wah Diddy, too.

Here’s Captain Beefheart’s version of a different  Diddy Wah Diddy, and with that we’re out until tomorrow. Have a great weekend folks.

[Update 7 August 2010 – Forgot to add that The Fabulous Thunderbirds did a great cover of Bo Diddley’s “Diddy Wah Diddy.” Couldn’t find a video for either versions.]