The Macroscope

October 1923: A young girl looking into the mouthpiece of a tuba during the National Band Festival at Crystal Palace, south London.

[Found here.]

Jectigational Hot Links

Booker-Loo, Booker T. & The M.G.’s (1967)This live recording is from the “Hit The Road Stax” european showcase tour that included performances in England, Norway and France. Steve Cropper described it:
“It was just a mind-blower. Hell, we were just in Memphis cutting records; we didn’t know. Then when we got over there, there were hoards of people waiting at the airport, autograph hounds and all that sort of stuff. I didn’t know what it was all about. That was something that happened to Elvis or Ricky Nelson, but it didn’t happen to the Stax-Volt band. It didn’t happen to Booker T. & the MGs.”

3944.

Oh My!

Old vehicles.

Floyd & Earl.

Porcupine meatballs.

For Whom The Bells Toll.

Photo shoot at the beach.

Words, Lines and Pictures.

Chuck Norris is back in the news.

Super Pixel Quest is very cool. [via]

The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner.

Top 10 Best Greek Gods & Goddesses.

Charles Grodin left us this past week. His appearance on the Hannity & Colmes Show was a classic.

[Top image from the classic educational computer game The Oregon Trail, 1990 version, and you can play it online!]


From the Archives: 1 year ago. 5 years ago. 10 years ago.


Saturday Matinee – Refrigerator Rockets, Billy Gibbons, R. L. Burnside & The Obscuritones

“…and packs an impressive top speed of 100mph.” Good God.
[Found here.]

Billy Gibbons covers R. L. Burnside. From the YouTube comments:
“Just hit play on this one and my 6 year old son immediately yelled from across the room ‘is that was ZZ TOP?!'”

R. L. Burnside was born in Lafayette County, Mississippi, learned from Mississippi Fred McDowell who lived in the next county over. Burnside and his family, tired of the life of sharecroppers, moved to Chicago in the early 50s. Subsequently his father, two uncles and two brother were murdered there. In 1959 he returned to Mississippi, was convicted for murder himself, and served time at the Parchman Penitentiary.

“I didn’t mean to kill nobody. I just meant to shoot the sonofabitch in the head and two times in the chest. Him dying was between him and the Lord.”

The Obscuritones self describe as “Close harmony and rockin rhythm. Like the Andrews Sisters singin with the Stray Cats after a night out with the Cramps.” Okay, almost, but not bad for this sextet from the UK, and their album got a decent review.

Have a great weekend and we’ll do something tomorrow for sure.

Saturday Matinee – June Foray & Bill Scott, Cliff Richard & The Shadows, Devil In A Woodpile & Green Day

“True fun, not fake fun.”
June Foray and Bill Scott were my heroes, two of the most recognizable and ubiquitous voices of my childhood. They also did the morning traffic reports as Rocky and Bullwinkle in Boston. At 02:01, Rocky and Bullwinkle introduced a Kiss song on WBCN.

Cliff Richard & The Shadows had some stiff competition – check out the Billboard Hits for 1960. Sir Richard holds the record as the only act to make the UK singles charts in all of its active decades (1950s–2000s). The Shadows were Richard’s backup band (1958-1968), and they reunited in 2020 to play their 1960 hit Apache.

Bron-Y-Aur Stomp is a Led Zeppelin cover, named after Bron-Yr-Aur, a house in Gwynedd, Wales, and based on Waggoner’s Lad, a song by Bert Jansch that appeared on his album Nobody’s Fault But Mine. Go figure. I almost forgot – Devil In A Woodpile is awesome.

Possibly the greatest Ramones cover that’s not a Ramones cover. Green Day had some great stage moves, too. Yeah, I know, it doesn’t fit in with the other vids, but it clicks with me somehow.

Good God. It’s 2:30am. I’m outta here, see you in a few.

Having a blast at the Soviet May Day Celebration 1968

[Found here.]

Tolfraedic Hot Links

Old Timey-Holler/Ditty, Leonard Emanuel, (1976) Rhino RecordsRecorded at Spivey’s Corner, North Carolina between 1975 and 1976. Back in my apartment days, if the neighbors got too noisy I’d slap Hollerin’ on the turntable and crank it up. Leonard Emanuel worked the best. Things would get real quiet…

Close call.

Chair pants.

Charles Kettering.

No painting in the house.

I’m easily amused. I like this.

A chameleon’s worst nightmare.

Um, this is kinda, ah… it’s just not right.

Mummified bats and sloth poop heaps.

For $5,400 in 2021 dollars you could buy this.

TSA scanners set off alarms due to an *ahem* anomaly. [NSFK]

[Top image found here.]


From the Archives: 1 year ago. 5 years ago. 10 years ago.


Saturday Matinee – Feeling Through (short film), John Hiatt & the Jerry Douglas Band, Cowboy Jack Clement & Jerry Lee Lewis

A homeless teen meets a deaf blind man in Feeling Through.

John Hiatt & the Jerry Douglas Band 2021. Hiatt’s been around for a long time, glad to see he’s still recording.

Cowboy Jack Clement was one of those guys who seemed like he’d be around forever, but then one day he’s gone. He played with and produced for some of the biggest names in both rock n’ roll and country music, and reportedly “discovered” (and recorded) Jerry Lee Lewis while Sun Records founder Sam Phillips was on vacation.

Yep. That’s The Killer in his heyday, and he’s still going.

Running short on post time here, but we’ll see you tomorrow for something or other.

1919 Amusement Park Ride Allows You to Die in a Sitting Position

From Electrical Experimenter magazine, December 1919:

“In the circus we are used to seeing a person “loop-the-loop” or turn a somersault in mid-air while in an automobile, the vehicle and its passengers landing right side up on a properly inclined platform, down which it glides to earth. Our artillery experts can compute with extreme accuracy the trajectory of various projectiles, both large and small, and thus it should be quite possible, with the aid of modern mechanical engineering technique, to build one of these aerial passenger rocket amusements successfully. The gun out of which is the shell or rocket, with its human cargo is shot, may be operated by compressed air, by powder, or it may be an electromagnetic gun.”

[Found here. Click the link above for .pdf of the issue.]

Tonitrophobic Hot Links

Village of Love, Nathaniel Mayer & The Fabulous Twilights (1962)Village of Love was Nathaniel “Nate Dog” Mayer‘s first hit, recorded when he was 18. After his six year stint with Fortune Records, his whereabouts were often unknown as he would disappear into the East Detroit ghettos, sometimes for years. Apparently he’d had a rough time, too – in 2009 he recorded The Puddle.


Cats on glass.

Bus recycling.

Dogs on ceilings.

Metal garden pig.

The Original Desert Bus.

Don’t worry [h/t Mme. J.].

Glorioso Albeneida, Bus Driver.

This snot was put on paid leave.

Altocumulus Lenticularis Duplicatus.

4K resolution images of the surface of Mars.

Orangutan offered to help man stuck in mud.

[Top image: Peruvian bus race, no explanation found, h/t Nate L.]


Phil bought one.


From the Archives: 1 year ago. 5 years ago. 10 years ago.


Low and Outside

[Found here.]