This is a band called "Beirut." Their music reminds me of Europe in the years after the war, when Henri' and I drank wine in the cafes of Paris as we hunted down Nazis hiding in public as bakers, accordianists, and sommeliers. We need to get more of us with ukuleles to gather together to create our own counter-factual music, because we don't do anything else anyways. C'est La Guerre!
I really like the "Athens sound" that emerged during the early eighties. Once R.E.M. made it, everyone and their brother who even remotely had a band in the greater Athens area was signed to a record deal. A lot were kinda ho-hum, but a few were interesting in their own right, although never attaining the level of their rapid eye movement peers.
Guadalcanal Diary was one that captivated me when I was in high school, and I can't honestly explain why. This video is pretty blaise by today's standards, but it is still a really rockin' song:
Likewise, Dreams So Real had some great songs on their debut album. This one, the title track of their debut, was a favorite of mine of theirs:
Rough Night In Jericho - Dreams So Real
Enjoy!
If you liked the last stuff with the keyboards, you'll love this! Or, perhaps, not. Long before Devo did their devo thing, there was Kraftwerk. In some ways, I suppose they could be seen as a Teutonic Devo, although, it is more probably that Devo is an American Kraftwerk. With their hypnotic music, lyrical discussions of robots in German, and snappy makeup and outfits, it makes me want to get a really skinny tie, shave my beard, slick back my hair, and move in a jerky manner. Isn't that cool? Seventies Germany rocks - so unemotional and mannequin-esque. Just like me!
Enjoy!
I took piano lessons. I was never really into them, mainly because we played Sound of Music songs for our recitals. However, there has been something in me lately that can't get enough of synthesizer sounds in music. I would love to have a Moog or Prophet-5 in my apartment, to make rumbling analog synth-pop type music. As a result, I offer some of my favorite keyboard songs here, for you, the viewers of the Veeb!
This first is from Genesis, off of their self-titled album, with a scary song called "Mama."
While that is indeed ominous, here is a really bizaare and scary video from a Swedish keyboard band called The Knife, with their hit "We Share Our Mother's Health." I am not sure what I have witnessed here, but fear that it has sent me over the edge into psychic distress...
But, their latest album was not so great, mainly as it seemed to be a retread of many of the ideas from the album before. And, very peculiarly, I have been noticing the Lips' music accompanying different commercials. A lot of them. As I lay on my sofa, troubling deaf heaven with my bootless cries and cursing my intestinal fate, I saw a commercial for Kraft Salad Dressing that had Flaming Lips' music as its soundtrack. I thought it was a fever dream. But, I saw it again today and am saddened.
I realize that their music is their's to do with as they wish. If they want to shill for salad dressing, then they should should shill for salad dressing - I would rather hear them than yet another commercial with Katrina and the Waves "I'm Walking on Sunshine," after all. But, there is just something disconcerting about how music so quickly departs from being sublime to being subservient to the capitalist juggernaut. I'm still going to listen to the Flaming Lips, to be sure, but this whole episode has given me pause. What is next? The Sex Pistols' "Pretty Vacant" used for a Tampax commercial?
Indeed, I just don't understand the notion of a rock and roll hall of fame. I thought that rock music was supposed to be about rebellion, danger, and confrontation, things that seem antithetical to an institution that celebrates these artists 25 or more years after they have long ceased being rebellious, dangerous, or confrontational. The people that were true rockers are dead or in a mental institution. Not that I am encouraging hedonism a la Jim Morrison, but didn't these people get into this business for the immediacy of the music at the time they started doing what they did? Doesn't having a Hall of Fame go against this notion?
To be sure, as a historian, I am all about exploring and celebrating the past. But rock and roll's past doesn't seem suited to having a bunch of stuffed shirts decide that Iggy Pop, for example, should be given a black tie ceremony at 200 dollars a plate, with Cuban cigars and brandy, to celebrate how rebellious he was - isn't the music enough of a legacy? Which brings me back to Madonna - what is so great about her? The fact that she was consistently a media whore who so-so sang her songs? That she confronted American sexual mores by walking around naked and kissing women? That she won an Oscar? How is that rock and roll? I don't get it; I don't get it one bit...
Lou Reed, singer and songwriter of reknown and infamy, is coming to Knoxville at the end of April. Who knew that our back water burg would rate a guy like that? I got great seats to see him and will be able to say that I saw him when I talk to my grandkids (Did you really, Grandpa?). Of course, I didn't get to see him all drugged out and homosexual-acting as in this video:
Besides Lou, though, there are a few other bands that are coming this way that I am excited about as well. Pere Ubu will be playing here Easter evening, and X from Los Angeles will be in Asheville in May. Who knew that the big guns would end up in Knoxville and the surrounding environs, besides Kid Rock and Kenny Chesney? Looks like I will need to be giving more blood plasma to see 'em all!
Seriously, will someone tell me why they don't make movies like this anymore? I realize that the 1970s amped up the excess in rock music to the point that punk HAD to happen, but this movie celebrates the theme of excess to such an excessive level that it seems almost comfortingly, orgiastically cathartic. Maybe the GSHA band could perform inside a building that's being imploded!
By the way, I HAVE TO SEE THIS MOVIE! THE TRAILER ALONE MADE ME CRAZY! WHAT A NAME FOR A MOVIE! Enjoy!
But, in addition to the cookin', there is the rockin'!
Today is the first day of the rest of the fiscal blogging year that is the Variegated Brainstem!
Today is the day that one year ago the future of the world was set into motion!
Today is the day that one year ago a iron gauntlet was hurled into the face of humanity!
Today is the day that one year ago people began to realize again that MUSIC IS REVOLUTION!
Today is the day that one year ago a humble graduate student with nothing better to do took considerable time from his studies to bore the world with his acid casualty observations!
Ladies and Gentlemen, it is our extreme pleasure to welcome you to:
VARIEGATED BRAINSTEM, YEAR TWO: THE RECKONING
Enjoy!
For some reason, I was thinking about traveling recently, especially those travels back in my youth. My sister, who shares my whacked sense of humor for things a bit askew, used to listen with me to tapes on our Realistic tape recorder on many family trips throughout this great land of ours. We would be in the back of the station wagon with the seat down, un-seatbelted of course, drawing on old computer print-out paper from my dad's office and reading comic books and playing Simon and Merlin and card games, all the while listening to Bible stories narrated by Burl Ives and various other tapes my parents had to make us tolerable during the trip. I don't know if she remembers, but we used to giggle and giggle in evil glee at some of the songs on a compilation tape of oldies that my parents had. There was "Que Sera Sera" sung by Doris Day. Mitch Miller did "The Yellow Rose of Texas." But, the one that really got us cackling was "Hey, There (You with the stars in your eyes)," sung by Rosemary Clooney, George's aunt. The way it was recorded, she would sing the chorus (Hey there, you with the stars in your eyes...) in one channel and then speak a reply in the other channel (Are you talking to me?). This was too funny for the both of us, and we would laugh and laugh and laugh and hyperventilate and laugh and laugh and eat some Trix cereal and laugh and laugh and rewind the tape and listen to this again and again and laugh and laugh and laugh until we were at the beach or West Virginia or wherever we were going. This video I have posted is probably from a Karaoke machine, so it has no pictures. However, I think that you will agree, as my sister and I believed and still believe, that this remains either very funny or very disturbing. Maybe even both! My sister has since gone on to be an amazing mother of four (I am her oldest) and I hope that she will one day pass this song on to her other kids as some sort of legacy that will either slightly scar their psyches or make them continue to enjoy drawing pictures of purple dogs and orange trees.
Enjoy!
Having recently admitted my love and secret shame of MOR seventies soft rock, I have been, as I often do, hyper-looking at and listening to videos and songs of this genre. I must be OCD when it comes to music, because I get fixated on something like "sunshine pop" and then, for 3 or 4 weeks, can do nothing but download and listen to this type of music. And, as before, my new obsession has become seventies soft rock, and I have been sucking this stuff down like an opium addict. HOWEVER, this video by the band Exile has kinda creeped and freaked me out.
I don't know what it is. Maybe it's the disembodied lips on the wall and on the floor. Maybe it's the lead singer's rough androgyny that makes him/her look like a man, then a woman, then a man in such a way that makes me wonder if he is a demonic entity - the dance gyrations don't help. Maybe it is the singluar theme of the lyrics, which proclaim that the only focus of the protagonist will be to get his baby and kiss her all over, all over, all over, again and again - not that I am against kissing or kissing all over, for that matter, but the band's singleminded focus on this particular activity make me wonder if there might be tentacles and spinal fluid sucking involved. Maybe it is the fact that the band is, in my opinion, WAY to into their music, as if they are heralding a new age of utopian revolution or that their music rocks in a similar way as, say, the Ramones. Maybe I'm just overanalyzing it, but you have to admit that they don't make bands like this anymore, which might be a good or a bad thing depending on how you look at it. Either way, enjoy!
While I can engage in music snobbery with the best of them, dropping Yo La Tengo and Joy Division references while I hold my nose at the regular pablum that constitutes modern radio, I have always had a soft spot (secret shame?) for the lighter end of the rock spectrum. Apparently, I am not alone, as I chanced upon a group of videos by a bunch of guys from California detailing the untold stories of the creation of what they term "yacht rock" - the Kenny Loggins, Michael McDonald, Steely Dan, Doobie Brothers type of music that dominated the airwaves of the late seventies and early eighties. These videos are brilliant and provide a wonderful take on this hidden history that so clearly needed to be told. This is the first episode, entitled "What a Fool Believes;" hopefully you will tear up and laugh out loud at the same time, like I did. We should have done this kinda stuff with the GSHA...
Enjoy!
People like to suggest, sometimes, that I am some sort of acid burnt wacko, a persona that I, sometimes, encourage perhaps. However, if youtube had been around when I was doing chemical alterations to my psyche, THIS kind of video would have made me a prime candidate for a rubber room and arm and leg restraints. Hell, it's freaky enough WITHOUT drugs; I couldn't imagine watching this already out of my mind! Of course, I have watched it repeatedly today!
You know me - I like all sorts music, high brow and low brow. But this video just makes my bowels and nads hurt with an unimaginable horror - no wonder punk music needed to happen and happened when it did! "But, wait," you might say, "I thought you liked bands like the Osmonds!?! Aren't they similar?" I won't quibble on that point - both bands are somewhat of the same ilk. HOWEVER, the Osmonds were musical geniuses, a Mormon Beatles, if you will. They mined the depths and heights of our emotions and imaginations, making this world a better, kinder, and stronger place. They played their instruments AND danced AND sang AND smiled AND all the while searched for ways to end world hunger, fight Communist Aggression, and pursue the race to land a man-made vehicle on Mars. The band in this video, on the other hand, was so obviously only in it for the money - how else do you explain someone voluntarily playing this kind of garbage and doing so in public on television? For the joy of the music and the ability to entertain? HELL NO! Money, pure and simple, is the source of this horse manure! So, go tell "the Man" to honk on bubba for foisting crap like this onto us! Enjoy!
Here is a way to blow some time that I discovered recently on a variety of blogs, such as this one and this one. It is a way to create a fake album cover for a fake band that you make! Follow these instructions and you will waste a ton of time, giggling, sighing, or wishing that these bands existed. If you dream it, they will come to your house and rock!
Your band name comes from a random Wikipedia article and your album title comes from the last 4 words of the last quote from a random quotation and your album art is the third on this page of random Flickr photos.
Martorell - they're a zeitgeisty tour-de-force that combines the post-punk intensity of Joy Division, the dual lyricism of Bernie Taupin and Lou Reed, and the full-on feedback assault of the Jesus and Mary Chain, all nicely piled up together in a sunshine pop and vocal-harmonizing wrapping of the Osmonds. Check them out this spring on tour, if you can. Enjoy!
Hello, loyal viewers! The Veeb has issued its first soundtrack CD, entitled Make the Madness Stop. It contains a variety of psyche-skewing songs for your musical aggrandizement. Tracks on this first of several collection include:
1. Stereo Phase Test - Man Or Astroman (01:04)
2. Magic People - The Paupers (02:45)
3. At The Mountains Of Madness - HP Lovecraft (04:58)
4. I Put Spell On You - Arthur Brown (03:45)
5. The year of the sun - The Gordian Knot (03:02)
6. my mind - The Misunderstood (02:35)
7. Spiral Galaxy 28948 - Hawkwind (03:47)
8. Through My Eyes - The Creation (03:07)
9. Lysergic Bliss - Of Montreal (04:04)
10. I'm A Nut - (01:02)
11. Bottle Of Wine - Fireballs (02:11)
12. Cup Of Jesus - Joel R. Cooper (02:26)
13. Sardinia - Alabama Sacred Harp Singers (02:14)
14. I live for the sun - The Sunrays (02:28)
15. Laughing Stock - Love (02:32)
16. A Chicken with Its Head Cut Off - The Magnetic Fields (02:42)
17. The Third Eye - The Dovers (02:17)
18. Happy - The Sunshine Company (01:58)
19. Trouble - Lindsey Buckingham (03:49)
20. Me - The Brain Train (02:25)
21. Groovy Summertime - The Love Generation (02:24)
22. White Cat Heat - The Godz (02:12)
23. Something In 4/4 Time - Daryl Hall (04:27)
24. You Keep Hanging up on My Mind - Wendy & Bonnie (02:59)
25. Watch out for Me Ronnie - Yo La Tengo (03:02)
26. Some People Never Know - We All Together (04:21)
plus a secret or too!
Not to toot our horns here at the VCC (Veeb Central Control), but we are pleased at how this CD flows, making everything from dish-washing to the daily commute to encounters with the rhino-hive mind something to look forward to! Drop us a line if you would like a copy. Enjoy!
Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band, as many of you know, is one of our favorites here at the Veeb. The Captain has a 5 octave vocal range and a penchant for screaming, grunting, and growling his way through electrified blues and into your heart, head, and mind. We provide for you (above) a selection from his first LP, Safe As Milk, entitled "Electricity!"
Unlike the Captain and his friends, Scott Walker started as a crooning pop singer with a group called the Walker Brothers, a popular band during the 1960s British Invasion. After going solo, Scott Walker began to sing increasingly darker and disturbing songs about prostitutes, homosexuals, communist dictators, and torture interagators, ultimately producing albums of high-pitched falsetto singing about urban decay and despair over top the sounds of orchestras, industrial noises, and metallic destruction. This video gives an example of the first type of music Scott Walker was involved with:
On a side note, I had a weird dream last night that I thought was interesting: a panther was running around my backyard, scaring black cats that were running away and jumping up in the air - which made me laugh out loud. An Eskimo ran in with a pine tree branch and wounded the panther in the side. I screamed "No, no, Nanook!" As he lay dying, the panther looked up at me and simply asked," Why?" What does this mean?
My girlfriend, due to her Snidely Whiplash-esque ex-landlord's cluelessness, was forced to find a new house and move all of her belongings within the month of December. Due to the condition of her elderly cat Missy, the feline's euthanasia was deemed the most humane thing to do, especially as a move to a new environment would most assuredly have been traumatic to the cat. So, ever the dutiful boyfriend, I helped with the burial of the remains and fashioned a headstone for her. Hats off to Missy - may you run free and poop and pee to your heart's content!
On a lighter note(!?), I saw that Britney Spears has finally lost it. I am not a Britney watcher, to be sure, but have of late been surprised at the public ungluing of someone that seemed to have it all - money, fame, a deadbeat husband, her own fragrance. The pictures of Britney laughing hysterically in the back of an ambulance, strapped to the gurney and obviously whacked out of her mind on Lord knows what kind of medication, were like watching a man give the thumbs up before jumping out of the airplane without his parachute.
This is not to suggest that Missy the Cat and Britney Spears are comparable in some metaphorical sense. But, if she isn't careful, Britney may be headed for that big kitty litter box in the sky! Only time and lots of Vicadin will tell...
I have realized that everything I have ever needed to know, I learned on Schoolhouse Rock, especially the one about the Preamble of the Constitution (professional historians may balk, but you have to let me think this for me to keep my sanity). Sing it with me!
The Preamble Song
Hey, do you know about the U.S.A.?
Do you know about the government?
Can you tell me about the Constitution?
Hey, learn about the U.S.A.
In 1787 I'm told
Our founding fathers did agree
To write a list of principles
For keepin' people free.
The U.S.A. was just startin' out.
A whole brand-new country.
And so our people spelled it out
The things that we should be.
And they put those principles down on paper and called it the Constitution, and it's been helping us run our country ever since then. The first part of the Constitution is called the preamble and tells what those founding fathers set out to do.
We the people,
In order to form a more perfect union,
Establish justice, insure domestic tranquility,
Provide for the common defense,
Promote the general welfare and
Secure the blessings of liberty
To ourselves and our posterity
Do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
In 1787 I'm told
Our founding fathers all sat down
And wrote a list of principles
That's known the world around.
The U.S.A. was just starting out
A whole brand-new country.
And so our people spelled it out
They wanted a land of liberty.
And the Preamble goes like this:
We the people,
In order to form a more perfect union,
Establish justice, insure domestic tranquility,
Provide for the common defense,
Promote the general welfare and
Secure the blessings of liberty
To ourselves and our posterity
Do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
For the United States of America...
