Keeping you guys in the loop of what's hip is my job and this placemarker, that isn't the right word, for the Beatles Rock Band site is cool. The audio loop must be a little ditty they recorded, you'll hate this, some Forty Years Ago!
Hat Tip: hannahighpoint
I love the New Yorker, my parents always subscribed, I admit the cartoons were my major focus. Van Morrison was in NYC last week and the New Yorker did a piece on him:
Van Morrison
Lakeside Lounge, on Avenue B, is known for many things: close quarters, cheap drinks, a photo booth, but most of all for its jukebox, which is full of raw R. & B., country, and early rock and roll. Last Monday afternoon, a short man in his sixties wearing oversized sunglasses and a black fedora cocked his ear toward the speaker overhead. “Joe Turner,” he said. “Big Joe.”
The song was “Honey Hush,” a No. 1 R. & B. hit in 1953 for the Kansas City blues shouter. The man was Van Morrison, the Irish singer and songwriter, who was in town to play a pair of shows that week at the WaMu Theatre, at Madison Square Garden. The concerts were recitals of an old record, the 1968 album “Astral Weeks.” But Morrison wanted to talk about even older records. “There was a place in Belfast called Atlantic Records,” he said, his accent strong, his speaking voice lighter than his singing voice. “They imported the stuff from here, actually: jazz records and blues records. I’d go with my father from when I was three.”
Joe Turner had stopped coming out of the jukebox. Now it was the founding fathers of rock and roll, in quick succession: Jerry Lee Lewis singing “Sixty Minute Man,” Chuck Berry with “Tulane,” Bo Diddley’s “Dearest Darling,” Little Richard on “Rip It Up.” Morrison acknowledged each song with a nod. He looked slimmer than he has in the past, and he had long red hair of a hue reminiscent of Sumner Redstone. He sipped tea from a mug, and his press agent brought him a bagel with tuna salad. “The first Little Richard song I heard was ‘Tutti Frutti,’ ” he said. “No, it was the one from the movie ‘The Girl Can’t Help It.’ Little Richard was doing rhythm and blues, but with horns,” Morrison went on. “It was different than Elvis Presley, and so I preferred it. Why would you like Elvis if you had the real stuff? I also preferred Carl Perkins and Gene Vincent. Vincent was different. He was rock and roll, dangerous.”
Morrison mentioned Wynonie Harris, the ribald singer of the late forties and early fifties known as Mr. Blues: “I heard one of his on the radio, on a daytime show. Someone probably played it by accident.” He held forth on Leadbelly: “He did everything from children’s songs to cowboy songs to show tunes.” He talked about the blind harpist Sonny Terry (the first record he ever bought was one of Terry’s), the powerhouse vocalist Bobby Bland, and the skiffle pioneer Lonnie Donegan. When someone grouped Donegan with other practitioners of “pre-Beatles rock and roll,” Morrison pulled up short.
“That’s a cliché,” he said, adjusting his sunglasses. “I don’t think ‘pre-Beatles’ means anything, because there was stuff before them. Over here, you have a different slant. You measure things in terms of the Beatles. We don’t think music started there. Rolling Stone magazine does, because it’s their mythology. The Beatles were peripheral. If you had more knowledge about music, it didn’t really mean anything. To me, it was meaningless.”
You know me, always looking for a way to put a positive spin on adversity. For all us Music Lovers it is great news:
In times of economic stress, great new styles and movements emerge in American popular music. Below is a chart I’ve put together to illustrate my point. Interestingly, frivolous pop excess gets swept away as well when we get serious about the artists we want to listen to in tough times.
Below is The Reformed Broker’s Bad Economy = Great Music
| Era | 1930’s | mid to late 1970’s | late 1970’s to early 1980’s | early 1990’s | 2001 -2003 |
| Economic Problem | The Great Depression | Stagflation | Hyper-Inflation, Recession | S&L Crisis, Recession | Tech Bubble Burst, Enron, 9/11 |
| New Musical Movement | Delta Blues | Punk | Hip Hop | Grunge | Garage |
| Artists We Got | Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, Memphis Slim, Leadbelly, Son House | The Ramones, The Clash, The Sex Pistols | Kool Herc, Grandmaster Flash, Afrika Bambaataa, Sugarhill Gang | Nirvana, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Temple of the Dog, Alice in Chains | The Hives, White Stripes, The Vines, The Strokes |
| Nail in the Coffin For | Jazz Orchestra | Corporate Rock | Disco | Hair Metal | Boy Bands |
| Say Goodbye To | Al Jolson, Jelly Roll Morton, Cole Porter | Foreigner, Styx, Boston, Kansas | KC and the Sunshine Band, The Bee Gees, The Trammps | Cinderella, Def Leppard, Warrant, Skid Row, Whitesnake | N’ Sync, Backstreet Boys, 98 Degrees, O Town |
So the lesson here is that yes, everything economically sucks right now, from jobs to taxpayer abuse to stocks to real estate. That said, every negative data point brings us closer to the death of a Backstreet Boys and closer to the emergence of a Kurt Cobain.
So chin up and keep the ipod playlist current, we’ll get through this!
I have all the Counting Crow's albums so Put that in your iPod and play it:
Your Taste in Music Can Reveal How Smart (or Dumb) You Are
Text Size 
Virgil Griffith,
popularly known for the Wikipedia Scanner that detects where the
Wikipedia edits are coming from, maintains another very interesting
project that maps musical tastes of college students with their
intelligences levels (determined by their SAT score).
The x-axis represent the SAT score while the colored boxes indicate the music genre and the artist / composer.
Fans of Lil Wayne’s music scored the lowest in SAT while listeners of Beethoven’s work were among the highest scorers. The full chart is available at Music That Makes You Dumb.
To come up with this chart, Virgil used Facebook to determine the "Favorite music" at different colleges in US and then combined it with the average combined SAT scores of students from these colleges. He has done a similar exercise for books as well.
The musical taste vs SAT score chart maps the 133 most popular (out of 1,455) favorite music from 1,352 schools. In terms of music genres, it follows like this - Soca < Gospel < Jazz < Hip Hop < Pop < Oldies < Raggae < Alternative < Classical < R&B < Rap < Rock < Country < Classic Rock < Techno in increasing order of SAT scores.
During the Grammy telecast we learned Delaney Bramlett passed away late December. Now his contribution to rock and roll and the folks he played with is enormous. The NY Times obit captures the facts but the feel of that era and the music of that time evokes rich and textured memories of freedom and boundless potential that you can still feel, lo these years later:
Mr. Bramlett’s most famous compositions included “Groupie (Superstar),” which he wrote with Leon Russell and which became a hit for the Carpenters but was also recorded by artists as varied as Woody Herman, Vikki Carr, Sonic Youth and Usher; and “Never Ending Song of Love,” covered dozens of times by the wide-ranging likes of Charles, Herbie Mann, Patty Loveless and the Osmonds.
A revered sideman as a guitarist who was adept on slide guitar, Mr. Bramlett became a rock star himself in the late 1960s when he fronted a band with his wife at the time, Bonnie, to whom some sources give co-writing credit on “Groupie (Superstar)” and “Never Ending Song of Love.” Their touring act became a Who’s Who of rock ’n’ rollers.
Delaney & Bonnie & Friends, as the band was known, at various times included Mr. Russell, Dave Mason, Rita Coolidge, Duane Allman and most notably Mr. Clapton, who met the Bramletts when they opened for his own band, Blind Faith, on a 1969 tour. Mr. Clapton wrote in his autobiography that performing with Blind Faith after Delaney & Bonnie warmed up the crowd “was really, really tough, because I thought they were miles better than us.”
Watching the Grammy's last night I realized Norman Whitfield died. Who's he, a creator of sound and music unmatched who shaped the soul of many a young man.
He was born in Harlem in 1943. In his memoir To Be Loved, Motown founder Berry Gordy remembers the young Whitfield as a tall, shy man who earned a living in his teens as a hotshot pool player. A junior figure at Hitsville, hungry for his big break, he hung around the studio watching more established producers such as Holland-Dozier-Holland at work. After writing hits for Marvin Gaye, the Marvelettes and the Velvelettes, he wrested creative control of the Temptations from Smokey Robinson in 1966 with the success of Ain't Too Proud to Beg.
Whitfield's big chance came when Holland-Dozier-Holland stormed out of Motown in early 1968 in a row over profit-sharing. Inspired by Sly and the Family Stone's wild arrangements, he wrote the hard-driving, socially aware Cloud Nine with lyricist Barrett Strong (who is himself currently recovering from a stroke) for the Temptations. Despite Gordy's reservations over its perceived pro-drug message, it changed Motown overnight. Suddenly, topical comment and audacious psychedelic arrangements were on the agenda, and Whitfield-Strong were on a roll: Ball of Confusion, Papa Was a Rollin' Stone, War and Smilin' Faces Sometimes all smouldered with tension and paranoia befitting the era of Vietnam, Nixon and the Black Panthers. War actually sounds like war;Ball of Confusion is indeed a ball of confusion.
Whitfield's rise was down to a cocktail of talent, ego, luck and, most of all, persistence. If he thought something was a hit, he would keep pushing until it was. Gordy refused to release versions of I Heard It Through the Grapevine by the Miracles, the Isley Brothers and Marvin Gaye. Undeterred,
Whitfield gave the song to Gladys Knight and the Pips, who made it Motown's best-selling single to date. The following year, Gordy finally succumbed and Gaye's version was even bigger. This was a classic Whitfield strategy. War was recorded by the Temptations before Edwin Starr, and Papa Was a Rollin' Stone was tried out on Whitfield's pet group the Undisputed Truth prior to the Temptations.
But success corrupted the once-shy outsider. A demanding egotist in the studio, he worked the Temptations into the ground. On the cover of their last album together, 1973's Masterpiece, his own picture loomed larger than the band's. That year he left Motown to set up Whitfield Records but his only subsequent major success was Rose Royce, who released the likes of Car Wash and Wishing on a Star, and he retired from music in the early 80s.
Whitfield's motives are still unclear - was he truly passionate about social change or just a canny hitmaker who sensed the mood of the times and catered to it? Either way, he changed the landscape of soul. Thanks to him, songs could pass the 10-minute mark, use every studio trick available and speak to the concerns of a tougher, angrier black America. He paved the way for classics such as What Going On and Innervisions within Motown, plus hard-hitting political statements by the likes of the O'Jays and the Isley Brothers outside of it.
The critic Greil Marcus remembers friends who pulled their cars over the first time they heard Papa Was a Rollin' Stone and sat "waiting, shivering, as the song crept out of the box and filled up the night". I'll be doing something similar tonight.
SO it is Sunday, some great stuff upcoming tonight the Grammy’s. Oh how we love the Grammy’s I still have it stuck in my head when Stevie Wonder started playing the opening chords to ‘You Haven’t Done Nothing’ and the crowd just lit up and went nuts!
Anyone out there remember that? Though there are no longer the stars or emotion of that era it’s still pretty good drama beamed live across the world so if you have the time check it out!
There is even a Pre-Show Webcast:
I have been a Mac Snob for awhile but after buying my Tablet PC a little less so. So this is just too good to pass up:
"I was obviously distraught," says Sirois, whose Zune contains his music collection, wedding photos and home-made videos.
"I'm just miserable without it," says Katy Bertoldi, a 35-year-old accountant in Baltimore who has stored 3,500 songs and a couple hundred personal photos on her Zune. "It's personal. I'm upset right now."
"If this isn't fixed soon, Microsoft should compensate its customers in some manner," she says.
By late afternoon, Microsoft spokeswoman Katy Asher said the company had isolated the issue to a bug in the internal clock driver related to the way the device handles a leap year.
The company said the issue should be resolved over the next 24 hours as the time change moves to Jan. 1, 2009. The internal clock on the Zune 30GB devices will automatically reset Thursday at 7 a.m. ET.
Owners of 30GB Zunes should allow the battery to fully run out of power before the unit can restart successfully. Ensure that the device is recharged, then turn it back on, Microsoft said.
Zune Pass subscribers may need to sync the device to a PC to refresh the rights to the subscription content.
The software giant offered customers further updates on the website.
The puzzling problem generated hundreds of complaints on the Zune-related websites and Microsoft's support forum. Some Zune users, citing the timing of the malfunction on New Year's Eve, are calling it the Y2K9 bug.
"What's really surprising is that this came out of nowhere," says Harvey Chute,. author of Zune for Dummies, says none of the other versions of the Zune — the 4, 8, 16, 80 and 120GB models — were affected.
Though the Zune commands just a smidgen of the portable digital player market, Microsoft shipped more than 1 million of the 30GB models between its November 2006 debut and when it was discontinued a year later.
Many Zune 30 users call them "little bricks" because of their shape and weight, with equal parts affection and derision.
Sam Moore of Sam & Dave a classic soul group speaks to Don Imus about how disappointed he is in the movie Soul Men
Although always a source of great debate, what may or not be the best song from Motown.
A song that has stood up over the years and still gives me chills when I hear it is the Miracles, Track of my Tears. The opening guitar riff, Smokey's voice and then the mix of strings and horns build as that falsetto pleads and wails. Damn!
If you haven't seen it, in the movie Platoon the best scene in that movie except for Sergeant Elias's scenes, when the soldiers sing and dance to that fantastic falsetto of Smokeys.
That is next to the early Mariah Carey videos but that is for another time.
A true classic
When a commenter caught my eye with this I was thinking Richard Petty, not Tom. But I dig Tom Petty and no doubt Favre so if you are in the Big Apple this summer check this out:
An Official Selection of the Midtown International Theater Festival and pending acceptance into the New York Fringe Festival, “I Love You, Petty, and Favre” is a heart warming and heart breaking love story about a Wisconsin couple that spans 25 years. The main character, Brian, is an obsessed Packer fan, so much so that he marries a girl named Brett. Brett in turn, has her own obsession with music, mainly that of Tom Petty. Sports fans will certainly enjoy this play, particularly those that love Brett Favre. In a hilarious and memorable scene, Brian takes his 3 year old son and 5 year old daughter to their first football game. In another, Brett fulfills Brian’s fantasy by throwing on the pink jersey of his favorite player and putting on a “show”. A touching and funny story about love, football, and music, it is a show that that anyone can enjoy.
“I Love You, Petty and Favre” runs July 14th – August 10th. Tickets and official showtimes soon to be available.
Blue will be the color but hopefully not the tone as Kevin Love faces off in NCAA Sweet Sixteen and Michael Waltrip avoids the walls of Martinsville.
Turns out Kevin's uncle is Mike Love of the Beach Boys and of course everyone knows Mikie's brother.
So the Blue of the Bruins and the Blue of NAPA will be the colors to wear and root for this fabulous weekend! 'Wouldn't it be Nice'
Don Imus has been extolling this article from Matt Tiabbi on Mike Huckabee which below is an excerpt that will draw you to click for the whole thing in Rolling Stone Magazine:
"I'm glad you're here," he told me. "I finally get to tell someone who cares about Keith Richards."
Before I could respond, Huckabee plowed into a long and very entertaining story — one that included a surprisingly dead-on Pirates of the Caribbean-esque impersonation — about how Richards and Ron Wood got pulled over for reckless driving while on tour in Fordyce, Arkansas, a million and a half years ago, in 1975. Richards ended up getting a misdemeanor conviction — an injustice that stood for thirty-one years, until Huckabee, a would-be rock musician himself, stepped in and pardoned Richards last year.
"It's a long process, pardoning," Huckabee said, placing a hand on my shoulder. "It takes a lot of paperwork. And the funny thing is, people said to me afterwards, 'Governor, you'll do that for Keith Richards, but you wouldn't do that for an ordinary person.' And my answer to that is always, 'Hey, if you can play guitar like Keith Richards, I'll consider pardoning you, too.'?"
Huckabee, who in recent years has lost 100 pounds, has the roundish, half-deflated physique of an ex-fatty. With his button nose and never-waning smile, he looks slightly unreal, like an oversize Muppet. I was so taken aback by his appearance that I checked his hands to make sure they had the right number of fingers. After the Richards tale, he went on to tell me about the band he plays bass for, and how he has jammed with the likes of Percy Sledge and Grand Funk Railroad, and how he prefers John Entwistle to Flea's slap-and-pop style of bass-playing. Ten minutes later, driving away from the fund-raiser, I caught myself thinking: Hey, this guy doesn't seem like a total dickhead. I can almost see him as president. . . .
Then I woke up and did some homework that changed my mind. But I confess: It took a little while. Huckabee is that good.
If you have a Mac and use iTunes you may want to see what this program makes of your playlists and what new music fits your tastes. ZuD would have but was reluctant to allow such an invasion, you may not mind. Let us know how it works out...
After a wild weekend of football gambling, ZuD exercises his knees before the Bookies come break them.
As a blogger I always am thinking of things held in common with browsers so I get readers and subscribers and advertisers.
But, as a Hippie, I have direct and distinct avoidance tendencies to that, that is common.
An automatic reflex to reject that that is common or popular.
So you can see how a Hippie blogger may be pulled and twisted possibly demented at times as one searches for blog post subject matter.
Before I came out of the closet as a Hippie
My common threads were sports, tech stuff, and music and I could ride those topics pretty easily as they bring great passion and joy to me.
But now that I have revealed my true stripes I am having a harder time being Joe the Jock, or Myron the geek or …. can't think of a music name stereotype.
Harry the Hippie by Bobby Womack is the song that finally awoke the sleeping hippie within me, for those not familiar, he was a mildly popular rhythm and blues, soul singer from the late sixties early seventies.
I have the track in MP3 format and Download harry_hippie.2.mp3
so you of later generations can appreciate what music played with real instruments and voices that sang and productions facilities that used vacuum tubes that glowed and hummed as they captured what real music was.
I drifted there didn’t I?
My point is the common threads that are easy if you want to gossip about Britney or rave about the Patriots or what that new TV show is going to do are all so much easier to do and that my mission and purpose, the revival, reinstating and value of hippiedom is a great challenge. So I could use your help be it in commenting to these posts or submitting your photos of what your hippie life looked like back then and what you look or live like now.
Closeted hippies live a twisted existence and we must help each other by sharing our double lives and yet preserve the core values of what it is to be a hippie.
Be proud my people, we are a dying breed of mankind and must reveal ourselves to the future generations so they can see the value and richness we abide by and possibly learn from our experience.
After concluding our Sunday night show at Lollapalooza, fans informed us that portions of that performance were missing and may have been censored by AT&T during the "Blue Room" Live Lollapalooza Webcast.
When asked about the missing performance, AT&T informed Lollapalooza that portions of the show were in fact missing from the webcast, and that their content monitor had made a mistake in cutting them.
During the performance of "Daughter" the following lyrics were sung to the tune of Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall" but were cut from the webcast:
- "George Bush, leave this world alone." (the second time it was sung); and
- "George Bush find yourself another home."
This, of course, troubles us as artists but also as citizens concerned with the issue of censorship and the increasingly consolidated control of the media.
AT&T's actions strike at the heart of the public's concerns over the power that corporations have when it comes to determining what the public sees and hears through communications media.
Aspects of censorship, consolidation, and preferential treatment of the internet are now being debated under the umbrella of "NetNeutrality." Check out The Future of Music or Save the Internet for more information on this issue.
Most telecommunications companies oppose "net neutrality" and argue that the public can trust them not to censor..
USA Todays' accounting of the incident report it was a mistake and not AT&Ts fault. To Quote:
AT&T spokesman Michael Coe said that the silencing was a mistake and that the company was working with the vendor that produces the webcasts to avoid future misunderstandings. He said AT&T was working to secure the rights to post the entire song — part of a sing-along with the audience — on the Blue Room site.
AT&T provides the cellular backbone for the iPhone. ZuDfunck hopes they are true to their word and don't purposefully infringe on anyones creative works in the future.
