Great performance by The Band, 1969. So let’s go retro to a great bluesey holler.
Janis Joplin did what other blues singers couldn’t do – get attention in the U.S in 1967. So what about 1965?
Barry McGuire gravelled his way through P.F. Sloan‘s “Eve of Destruction” without knowing what he was singing about almost 5o years ago. Turns out he may have been right for the wrong reasons, but it’s still a classic song.
If you agree with the Barry McGuire of 1965, believe that things are falling apart in 2014 and have the right to vote, please use your vote wisely… and whenever in doubt, abstain or vote NO.
Have a great weekend, folks. See you back here tomorrow for the cool stuff.
Shocking Blue had an almost invisible drummer, and here they are *ahem* playing their hit “Venus” in 1969. I never knew they were from the Netherlands until this posting.
The song’s a ripoff of “The Banjo Song” recorded circa 1963 by The Big Three (featuring a young Ellen Naomi Cohen, aka Mama Cass). They co-opted and renamed Stephen Foster’s “Oh! Susannah,” one of the most popular minstrel songs of the late 1800s. Fun facts to know and tell.
Postmodern Jukebox did a one-take mashup of their greatest covers, and it’s pure awesome.
Have a great weekend, folks. We’ve got more inane stuff in the queue.
Mercy Mercy Mercy. This jam cranks, but that can’t be Stanley Jordan on bass (or guitar, or any other instrument) despite the Utoobage description, yet someone was playing a 6-string bass…
Pete Daily‘s “Over The Waves” from 1951: Daily on cornet, Burt Johnson trombone, Pud Brown clarinet, Skippy Anderson piano, Len Esterdahl banjo, Bud Hatch tuba and Hugh Allison drums.
Red Nichols & His Five Pennies rocked your grandparents, assuming your grandparents were entirely cool and bitchin’. (Of course they were.)
Have a great weekend, folks. Be back here tomorrow for more inanity.
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.
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.
Tacky Raccoons 