Sweet Music And Rock Bands From Around The World

Sweet - Great band, funky history:

DUELING SWEETS: 

NOT SO FOXY, CAN HARDLY RUN ANYMORE

The 1st Is Approaching: Soon - My "Welfare Check Day"

Alright, it's 3AM and I just woke up for no reason - an hour ago. Great. 

A cup of coffee, to wash down a 88 cent TV dinner, and here I am, violently disagreeing with Soundgarden's Kim Thayil about bandleaders, but completely understanding when it comes to Smashing Pumpkins' Billy Corgan:

“If you’ve got a band where one guy calls the shots, that’s a band that’s going to suck. Because the guy might have bad thoughts in his head. Well I just came out of sobriety and I’ve got this idea for a rock record, I just married my third wife and I have this new idea for a rock record.”

I've told you, you gotta watch the multi-spouse thing, because - like gays trying to be straight or straights "experimenting" with being gay - that's a give away you don't know what's going on, and people notice these things. That's why Kim mentioned it. 

I also like that he compared it to those "inspired" by quitting drugs. They always become defensive assholes, too. (You ever been around somebody who just started?) 

Fuck, if Soundgarden hasn't always sounded like somebody taking a dump, Kim Thayil would be my hero.

Is Richard Dawkins a dick? 

 Well, I know he has one, anyway. And somebody running a church, or school, apparently played with it and little Dickie Dawkins doesn't care. 

Compared to most people, I think that makes him more "odd" than anything else, don't you?

“Mitt Romney just bought a black grandchild, straight cash dawg.”

Along with all the other hilarious (and "resentful") comments received, surrounding news Mitt Romney's got an adopted grandchild, a black conservative found time to make a fool of himself by writing "with the taxes the Romneys pay, they already have adopted an entire city of ignorant black people." 

Really?

That's news to me - and without the Mormon "church" around us?

Too bad the country couldn't have gotten a guarantee, on that deal, when he ran for president:

Instead of getting kicked out of this place, I might have been moving into Mitt's already,...

 

It's Not Spiritual And It's Not Hippie - It's American Music

I wouldn't call it this - because The Spiritual Danger of Being Bored to Death ain't been my problem - I'm an artist.

My issues are much more fundamental - To be or not to be? What does it mean to be? Will I be allowed to be? That kind of thing.

And by the way, doesn't Foreigner look good?

   

 I remember "Urgent," hilariously reframing the Dirty White Boys as a New Wave band without style, back-in-the-day.

They were, momentarily, traitors to the culture (as we were recently reminded) "the sort of thing we loathed at the time and called 'disco.'"

I wasn't part of the "we" in that quote, for various reasons, but mostly because I can't count how many times I was set upon (sometimes violently) for enjoying music's evolution back then. If you want to know what it was like, imagine the reaction Dylan got for going electric, but following you around for more than a decade. 

   

 The future had arrived without warning, in synthetic form - and finally featuring rhythm - and machines! But, by welcoming it, I was the bad guy.

   

 Like it was my fault Led Zeppelin had one of the only drummers in Rock who thought (what we now call) a Rap beat was actually important - and who didn't think he practiced to, either, play metronome or occasionally express how "crazy" he was.

   

The larger culture waited for Talking Heads' eventual invitation, to join in what David Byrne called "changing my shape," and the rest of us called a party. We'd have to wait a little while longer.

   

 Of course - once the party officially got kicked off - where the future was heading didn't make many folks happy, either, so there was conflict again. 

You could say, from 1977 to 1987, it was pretty much open warfare - with me in the middle - until my "side" brought the walls down.

Since then, I don't have to remind you, there's been a few times when we've all had reason to contemplate ending it.

   

 But, like I said - it was because of the unwarranted hostility to change - not because it stayed boring,...

 

I've Heard These Guys Are Fans Of Mine (& I'm Theirs)

Movies Will Get You Real High (If Not, They're Downers)

Only The Crack Emcee Presents Rock Like It's A Drug

Fuck putting your mind to sleep with meditation:

SHAKE YOURSELF AWAKE!

When The Monkees' Mike Nesmith Tried Conjuring Cool

Michael Nesmith wrote the rarely heard "Daily Nightly" (so he's sitting behind the group, looking smug, in sun glasses) while Micky Dolenz sings and plays one of the first MOOG synthesizer's ever recorded on a Pop song. Fun fact:

That was Micky's MOOG, and it was only the third one ever sold,...

Help My Uncle Irwin Find Info On Producer Tom Wilson

I just got an email from my "Uncle Irwin" - Irwin Chusid, above, a friend and one of the resident genius' over at WFMU - that reads as follows:

Record producer Tom Wilson died of a heart attack 35 years ago on this date. He was 47. Who was Wilson? In 1954 this lanky Texan graduated cum laude from Harvard, where he served as president of the Harvard Republican Club. Over the next 14 years he produced the first two albums by Sun Ra, the Velvet Underground, and the Mothers of Invention. He produced Dylan's second, third, fourth and fifth albums (including Bringing It All Back Home). Although he didn't produce Dylan's sixth, Highway 61 Revisited, he did produce one track: "Like a Rolling Stone." He took an obscure acoustic track from Simon & Garfunkel's commercially failed debut album (which he'd produced) and, without the approval of the artists, overdubbed a rock band. That recording, "The Sounds of Silence," was released as a single in 1965, went to #1 on the charts, and helped launch the "folk-rock" boom. Despite his association with early Dylan, S&G, and Pete Seeger (another artist he produced), Wilson reportedly didn't even like folk music. He produced early albums by saxophonist Eddie Harris, pianist Cecil Taylor, and Soft Machine's debut. His discography veers from John Coltrane to Dion; from the Clancy Brothers to Hugh Masekela; from Donald Byrd to Eric Burdon; from the Blues Project to Nico; and from Gil Scott-Heron to Connie Francis. There were many more.   

In the three and a half decades since his premature passing, no books have been written about Wilson's storied life and career. No biopics have been produced, and no American Masters profile.   

But because we have the www, there's now a website devoted to Producer Tom Wilson. Started four months ago and assembled slowly, today marks its official launch. No bells, no whistles — just Tom Wilson 1.0. Chronicles, photos, links, quotes, interviews, and the most exhaustive discography to date of Wilson's productions. We probably got some stuff wrong. Help us fix it.

You heard the man - This was a Republican. 

Now, let's make ourselves useful, and fix an injustice - GO:

PRODUCER TOM WILSON

Two More Songs: Lies And I Am By The Crack Emcee

 

 Still kicking out old stuff before I get something new going:

Click over to the YouTube channel to hear more. 

 

Cargo Cults, Black Women In Church, Restoring The 10, An Anti-Vax Preacher's Measles, And Rock's Died Again

Cargo Cults

Why Do Black Women 

Remain in the Church?

Top Ten Deadliest Cults Photo Gallery

The Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God

Texas megachurch run by vaccine-denying preacher 

battles measles outbreak which has contaminated 

21 congregation members

Rock and Roll Is Dead

Destructive Appearances

And then, every so often, I catch a glimmer of daylight:

  Millennials Hate Bruce Springsteen

Which, of course, needs to be stamped out - that's the purpose of the article. The writer, being a fan of the adulterous and multi-married Springsteen, he probably thinks, or thought, like this:

Some years ago, the man I am married to told me he had always had a mad desire to go to an orgy. Why on earth, I asked. Why not, he said.

And he'd later be divorced by that woman, who'd become admired for it, because she thinks, or thought, like this:

It would be just like the dances at the YMCA I went to in the seventh grade—only instead of people walking past me and rejecting me, they would be stepping over my naked body and rejecting me.

These are misshapen trolls, presented as our cultural heroes.

Thank goodness, not everyone's following their lead,...

 

Art Is Just A Staring Contest (So Never Avert Your Eyes)

My Life And Times By The Crack Emcee

An album featuring released and unreleased tracks from 1993-2005. I resequenced it so the transitions between various tracks make more sense, but now it's lost the original NewAge betrayal theme and sounds more like an "Occupy" or "Trayvon" blast than I'm completely comfortable with (plus some of the levels are still jarring - it's unmastered) but, under the circumstances, I guess that's the breaks. 

BTW - I've also added Hoin' For George to the end, a fan favorite, for those who've already dived in and want to again,...

Another Song By The Crack Emcee: Me & My Friends

Expand it to see the lyrics:

They're still as relevant as the day I wrote them,...

I Read The Althouse Blog Like Liberals Listen To Rush (Though It's Never As Smart, Charming, Or Credible,...)

Letting white people with no taste - or bad taste - write about music is some kind of a crime:

"'Got to Give It Up' is late 70s [Marvin] Gaye, the sort of thing we loathed at the time and called 'disco.' I listened to it today, and I probably would otherwise never have listened to it."

Why not?

Because you can't dance? Your innards are a pile of shit? No - you're tone deaf, you stupid whore! I mean, really, who's "we" Kemosabitch? All I've ever known is you and them:

THEY declared "Rap isn't music" (which shouldn't be construed as racism) but since then, despite their excellent credentials for assessing such things, Rap's taken over the business. Of course, it's importance never shows up on your blog - even when news that's got the world talking is happening right under your nose - but take my word for it, Rap's huge now.

THEY declared "Disco Sucked" - which, also, shouldn't be construed as racism. (Blacks just had to listen to this bullshit from the 80% of people known "at the time" to oppress them,...BTW - we "loathed" that.) Disco too, took over music. (Saturday Night Fever, anyone?) 

And check out the big, bad gay advocate, admitting she "loathed" what was "at the time" black gays' music of choice! 

But don't you dare think that's racism either.

Fucking losers!

And, Jesus Christ, who can forget the "the anguished bellyaching of soul music"?

Totally not racist. 

Face it:

Black people just make crap. Because we're black, see. It's the most vibrant, amazing, far-reaching, futuristic, and influential crap ever made - even The Beatles copied it - but it's still crap.

That shallow, "sexy" collection of holes, liking The Kinks - yes, I said The Kinks - or trying to make a god out of Bob Dylan, or who loves the $64,000 Jazz album (which looks like it was released by K-Tel instead of Columbia) she proves this is merely academic, as white musical forms have always been far superior, and more culturally important, than the influence of Rap, Disco, and Soul. And probably "real jazz", too.

Combined.

Personally, I've never disliked any genre of music in my life, so I'm interested how a now-classic song was "the sort of thing we loathed at the time and called 'disco.'" Because, um, Satan? Or maybe because "Got to Give It Up" was a Number One Hit on the Disco charts? Or, do you think, you and the other genius' in your Music Appreciation class made the name up? 

I don't know, I'm asking. Maybe you really don't like blacks.

Maybe you can get the anti-Disco haters who make up "we" or "them", together, and ask. If you do, you might want to start off with a question from me:

Are you fucking retarded?