My bad.  I’ve gone and done it this time I simply forgot to do a music night post.

In that vane please post videos that you have not remembered in a long time.

Let’s start our with Memories from Cats.

Well folks it might be still over a month away technically but it’s hot down in Georgia.  Sometimes I don’t think we would have a Spring, save for the rainy days.   So kick back and enjoy your frozen PGD (Pink Girly Drink) and share some summertime toons.

My favorite summertime song the George Gershwin original.  Several versions I could findliday – Bluesy

Janis Joplin – Folk Rocky

Ella Fitzgerald – Jazzy

Jill Scott and George Benson – Duety

Kathlene Battle – Operay

Sarah Brightman – Divinely

I’ll leave you with the quintescential music for a Summer night.  Ein kleine nachtmusik.

Please share your summertime favorites.

In honor of the elections in Great Britain they will garner the music night theme.

Per usual with any topic that covers the Beatles they own the first selection.

The Beatles – Let it Be

Led Zeppelin – Immigrant Song

Rolling Stones – Sympathy for the Devil

U2 – Bloody Sunday

Since it’s the day after April Fools day I thought songs about fools and humorous topics would be a good theme for music night.

For the third week in a row a Beatles song is the best place to start.

The Beatles – Fool on the Hill

Evanescence – Everybody’s Fool

Led Zeppelin – Fool In The Rain

Diane Birch – Fools

The Republican Anthem

Can you believe this fool was president for eight years?

The poster children for compassionate conservatism.

OK I admit I got caught with my pants down this week and forgot it was already Friday but that’s because it was a very good week worthy of celebrating.

CELEBRATION!  Sorry for the opening ad what a buzz kill.

We are the Champions!

Get the Party Started!

I’m So Excited!

What’s a dance party celebration without the dancing kitty.

(with apologies to Klaus Voormann)

Aw, two of my favorite subjects brought together, The Beatles, and animals (not The Animals, sorry Eric Burdon)! I remember reading a review of The White Album in Rolling Stone Magazine’s 10th anniversary issue opining that not since Aesop’s Fables, or Toba Sojo’s rabbit and frog scrolls of the 11th century, had animals commingled their lives with humans so revealingly. Although that might be a bit of a stretch, it is certainly part of the legendary Liverpudlians’ charm and appeal that they spiced up their repertoire with such whimsical oddities as “Octopus’ Garden” and “Hey, Bulldog!” More so than other bands of the time, and perhaps before or since, they were fabulists at heart, and that is a key part of what has made them so endearing and enduring.

Dylan was cleverer. Hendrix rocked harder. Pink Floyd was weirder. And the Stones were just plain badder! But The Beatles captured the energy of their time better than any of their manifestly talented rivals. With titles such as “Magical Mystery Tour” and “Come Together”, they seem to have clearly, almost mystically, understood and embraced their roles as cultural guides through a period of mystery and excitement and wonder. The times were fraught with peril, but The Beatles, accompanied by their animal familiars, were charging out in front, wanting to hold our hands as they guided us on a journey that included herbs, gurus and revolutions.

So, here then, is my tribute to the Fab Four and their four legged (or eight tentacled, etc.) companions. Fans will have fun picking out the songs the critters are culled from, and will also be aware of what is about to befall poor Edgar Allan Poe!

First order of business, KHIRAD is the winner of the first Planet Pop Quiz.  There were two people that got “A’s” because both answered the bonus question correctly but alas one person got 1/2 more questions wrong than the other.  Thanks for all those who participated. I know many of you are cringing in a cold sweat but there will be others.  The answer key is at the bottom of the post (there were so many good detailed answers that I used some of your answers for the answer key).

By the end of the 80′s music had become commercial and had a distinct tone of compliance to the new world order of greed is good and the notion that capitalism defeated communism.  Then came the post cold war angst of the 90′s when the comfort of having a common enemy seemed to disappear.  Everyone could see something big was wrong with our society but in the early 90′s rebels did not have their cause as of yet.  Musical genres like grunge, rap, alternative and industrial mocked the culture of compliance and made statements that our current way of life was wrong in so many ways.  From globalization to unending military interventions and our failure to even to try to address the problems in the inner cities anymore, our problems within the global society were smoldering.

Many artists responded with unguided angst at least early in the decade that became focused like a laser beam with bands like Rage Against the machine later on in the decade.  The 90′s produced the best music since the 60′s and 70′s because music reflected this angst in our society like it did those previous decades.  There were too many excellent artists to name from that period but some of the best were Nirvana, Red Hot Chili Pepers, NWA, R.E.M., Public Enemy, Pearl Jam, TLC, Rage Against the Machine, Nine Inch Nails, Soundgarden, Bush, The Offspring, Aaliya, Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg, Dave Mathews Band, The Chemical Brothers, Tu Pac, Green Day, Biggie, Radiohead, Beck, Lauryn Hill, Missy Elliot, The Beastie Boys, A Tribe Called Quest, Alanis Morissette, The Verve, Tori Amos, Garbage, Esthero, Alice in Chains, Tool, U2, Korn, The Smashing Pumpkins, Phish, The Crystal Method, Guns N’ Roses, Primus, Bjork, PJ Harvey, Jane’s Addiction, Coolio, Stone Temple Pilots, The Fugees, The Roots, The Black Crows, Live, 311, Sublime, Sheryl Crow, The Pixies, well you get the idea.  I know I’m probably leaving off one of your favorite artists, because there were so many great artists during that decade.

Some of my favorite songs from that time are listed below.

Probably the song that best marked the grunge movement of the decade.

My favorite Rap song of the decade.   Get me some gin and juice with my mind on my money and my money on my mind.

On of the great things about the 90′s is the way musical genres’ fused together creating great new music.

Perhaps the most soul touching songs of the decade was from TLC.

On of my favorite albums of the decade was the “Miseducation of Lauryn Hill” and this was my favorite song and the video was inspired as well.

Fighting with trolls on HP this song from the Offspring always came to mind.

Probably the best protest band of the decade Rage Against the Machine with “Testify” and “Killing in the Name of”.

Answer key to the Pop Quiz:

1.) Who is Ruckusium and what comic strip and later animated series did that name come from and why?

Clarence Thomas – Uncle Ruckus (born 1939) is a fictional self-hating African American white supremacist from the comic strip and animated television series The Boondocks. An overweight, homely man with a glass eye, he enjoys disassociating himself from other African Americans as much as possible, and is outspoken in his support of what Huey calls the “white supremacist power structure.”

2.) Who is Birtherbillium and why is that name appropriate?

Rep. Bill Posey – Leading political figure in the “Birther” Movement – “billium” could mean his birther “bill” that he presented or his name?

3.) Who are Pimpium and Hoium?

Pimpium is James O’Keefe and Hoium is Hannah Giles of the famous ACORN pimping scandal.

4.) Who is Goebbelium and what is the historical reference?

Orwelium – Frank Luntz. Reichsminister of Propaganda. Often misattributed with Hitler’s and Lenin’s quotes about the big lie.

5.) What group uses the seal shown in Vigilantium?

The Minuteman – Border vigilante group

6.) Who is Gedfedjobon and where did he say to deserve that name?

Sen. Chuck Grassley, (R-IA) – He said if you want quality coverage, “go work for the Federal government.”

7.) Who is Johnous and what did he do to deserve that name?

David Vitter. Associated with DC Madame. (Rape victim confrontation might’ve been good too.)

8.)  Who is Homophobic and why is she properly named?

Virginia Foxx. Called Matthew Shepard hate-inspired murder as a hoax with his mother present during debate over eponymous act for hate crime legislation.

9.) Who is Xenophobon and why does the name fit?

Sheriff Joe Arpaio – Extreme “Xenophobic”, which is the fear or hatred of foreigners, such as him going after illegal aliens.

10.) Who is Hypocritium?

Michelle Malkin – Hyper critical of Obama and Democrates, totally obsessed with anything to do with ACORN.

11.) Who is Hefooledum and what magazing is that naked image of him from?

Scott Brown – Picture from 1982’s Cosmopolitan Magazines “America’s Sexiest Man”.

12.) Who is RIPdemium and what group does he represent?

Who is James Bopp, Jr. – Represents Focus on the Family/works as legal advisor to Citizens United/Started The Madison Center for Free Speech

13.) Who is Orwelium and what pseudo documentary did he create that the right and left use to attack Obama?

Alex Jones – The movie was “The Obama Deception”

14.) Who is Blood$ium (aka Bloodmoneyum) and what infamous corporation did he found?

Erik Prince & Blackwater/xe

15.)  Who is Puristium and why is he related to RIPdemium in this case?

Glenn Greenwald, supported Citizens United v. FEC on first amendment grounds.  While I agree with Greenwald on most legal issues he’s even using a Republican defense to back this terrible ruling.  He’s using the logic that the campaign finance laws don’t make much difference and are not enforced enough which is the same logic the right wing uses against gun control legislation.

Bonus Question:  What yet undiscovered particles make up Huckaboson?

The Higgs Boson is the God Particle

The 80′s was not my favorite decade of music but there were some great bands and musical genres.  The Police, The Clash, The Cars, Michael Jackson, AC/DC, Public Enemy, Rush, the Pretenders, , The Eurythmics and Annie Lennox, Prince, Talking Heads, Peter Gabriel, N.W. A., Dead Kennedy’s, The Cure, Modern English, Simple Minds, B52s, Depeche Mode, Bon Jovi, Van Halen, Def Leppard, Motley Crew, Stevie Ray Vaughn (who deserves a post of his own some day), and other bands created great music in the 80′s.  Well maybe not great music but music that makes me sentimental for my college years anyway.  The genres popular in the movies ranged from punk, early techno (new wave), psychedelic funk, ska, heavy metal, hair metal bands to early Rap.   I got the idea of doing a music post on the 80′s because I watched the begining of “Purple Rain” and forgot what a great performer Prince was.  Unfortunately Prince blocks his songs on YouTube and DailyMotion because I wanted to start off with a video from him but I’m sure you will remember most of these songs.

The Police and Sting’s later solo work was probably my favorite from the 80′s.

One of my favorite songs of all time “Melt with You”.

Pour some sugar on me in the name of love.

I played the hell out of The Pretenders album with this song.

Some of my favorites where the rock ballads like “Wanted Dead or Alive”.

The oldest old school Grand Master Flash “Rappers Delight” a must listen.

Everyone click to “Express Yourself” the right way with N.W.A.

By far the biggest star of the 80′s was Micheal Jackson who displayed his amazing talents on perhaps the biggest album of all time. Rest in peace Micheal.  This is my personal favorite from the album.

I thought I’d tackle the very serious issue of climate change by penning a Hank Williamsy, cry-in-your-beer c&w love song about it. As for the quality, you’ve heard of The Basement Tapes, right? Well, think of this as a whatever is below the basement tape. The great musicianship should be attributed to my buddy, Guy (not THE Buddy Guy, my friend Guy, who provides the stunning guitar work). Lyrics and singing can be blamed on yours truly. 

Note: There is no ferret in the picture, just arctic critters, so you can spare yourself the search.

Warmer Than My Heart

Cherry trees in Tokyo are blossoming in March

New Yorkers in January picnic in the park

I read you letter late last night and sat there in the dark

every place it’s warmer than my heart

Moscow in the winter is like Paris in the spring

I wonder why in old Shanghai the birds have come to sing

in Berlin I saw you girl in your brand new boyfriend’s car

every place it’s warmer than my heart

(refrain)

we’re told that we must heed the warning

or life as we know it could well come to an end

but I’m hoping that global warming

will melt your heart and bring you back, back to me again

businessmen pay scientists to say it isn’t so

on the slopes skiers hope for just a little snow

if you want to cool things down, I know the place to start

every place it’s warmer than my heart

The climate crime rate’s going up just like the mercury

the way you cooled our romance down seems like a crime to me

we had a good thing going till you blew it all apart

now every place it’s warmer than my heart

07 Warmer Than My Heart2~FS

Save for live music, first there was radio and recorded analog music.

Then after decades digital music came along and has changed the way we experience music forever.

There are just an unbelievable, at least when I was young I could not imagine, number of ways we receive music these days including; cable TV, satellite TV and music radio, internet music radio, the torrents,etc.  Even the devices we listen to music on these days, i-pods, cell phones, media servers offer such a wide array of music listening possibilities.

Some of the best sources of music I have found on the web besides the obvious like YouTube and DailyMotion are as follows:

Live365.com (Thousands of independent online music stations with every genres of music you can imagine.  I play live365 stations almost every day on my media servers that are attached to my entertainment systems.)

Pandora Radio (Where you can set up your own online radio station based on specific artists and musical genres.  I love my Pink Floyd and Yoko Kanno stations for example.  This is an app on my phone as well.)

Video2MP3 (An incredible web based tool that takes YouTube videos and converts them to MP3.  I already took a bunch of videos people have posted over time and collected them and burned a couple CDs with them.)

Playlist.com (Another unbelievable site where you can set up your own play list from hundreds of artists and thousands of songs.  Sometimes I set up my play and just listen all day long when I’m online.)

BBC Radio (My favorite online radio site not just for music but for news, comedy and mysteries as well.  Kalima turned me on to their programming.)

These are just a few of my favorites mostly because they are all free to use.  Sure they all have ads and sponsors but so few sites do and they are a minor inconvenience.  I’ve excluded many mainstream and all pay sites because they tend to have more limitations and ties to corporate interests.

Here are a few videos I’ve converted to MP3s to get us rolling.

“Elvis Presley is the undisputed King of Rock and Roll. He rose from humble circumstances to launch the rock and roll revolution with his commanding voice and charismatic stage presence. In the words of the historical marker that stands outside the house where he was born: “Presley’s career as a singer and entertainer redefined popular music.”

http://www.rockhall.com/inductee/elvis-presley

I always wanted one of these suits…

http://www.elvis.com/

ADDENDUM: 

Even though I called the Friday music thread “Planet Dance Party” to celebrate the start of 2010, consider this a free form music thread where anything that strikes your fancy goes.

A funny story about the last band Republica.  My wife and I saw them in an alternative club called “The Milk Bar” in Jacksonville.  It was a small crowd because it was during the week and we were within 6 feet of the band and speakers.  I swear our ears were ringing for months.  The lead singer was tiny but she had the biggest ears.  She looked like Minnie Mouse.

WHILE you may still be preparing your lunch, other regions in the World are celebrating the new year already, among which are Tonga, Samoa, Japan, the Philippines, eastern Russia, Australia and New Zealand, to name but a few.

So it’s hight time for you to shift into hight gear, get dressed, get your supper ready, get out the drinks and get seriously tipsy just in time to celebrate the demise of the past, exhausted and tired old year – and welcome the birth of a new, young, hopeful, energetic and – perhaps – better year for all mankind.

May all wars end, may all fools lean to understand and may the coming year prove, that hope CAN bring change.

I love you guys and chicks. Take good care of yourself in 2010 and, time and means allowing, take good care for one another, too.

Auld Lang Syne

Good luck, good love, good food and good wine to all you wonderful bloggers out there in the blogosphere (less Trolls!) from the big, bad Mogamboguru!

The “Oldies But Goodies” Friday night at PPOV post last week got me recollecting about a neat thing that happened this summer. It was something that showed me how music can speak through the generations – when you least expect it to.

I was downtown with my daughter and her Mexican friend,”Anna,” whom we were hosting during the summer. It was one of my first real, actual days off in a couple of weeks.

I had barely seen my daughter all summer, for myriad reasons. It was turning into her “lost summer.” She was having the time of her life – without me being much a part of it. She went to an astronomy camp in Arizona for a week, along with “Anna,” who came up from Monterrey (the two of them had been chatting for nearly a year via an astronomy Web site), then the two of them attended a science day camp at the local university, which entailed field trips to dig for artifacts at a ghost town and to a famous dinosaur museum in Bozeman. Thank God she’s smart enough to get scholarships to these camps, because otherwise, we could never afford them.

Anyway, we had also stumbled unexpectedly into a house out in the country. It happened with extreme short notice, and it meant making a major move with almost no preparation time. It was very stressful. I had to ship my daughter and Anna off to my sister’s in California for two weeks while we made the move, because we felt they would’ve been neglected while we were harried with moving. They spent a week at a beach house with a heap of cousins, went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, the California Academy of Sciences, and she celebrated her 9^th birthday – without me – at the Santa Cruz Boardwalk, while we pulled our muscles and tweaked our backs moving furniture and gave ourselves migraines dealing with utility companies and our old Fascist property manager.

Anyway, after they returned from California in mid-July, I *finally* had some time with her. I realized I had spent virtually no time with her since the end of school and I was starting to feel horribly guilty.

Now, to digress a bit so this story makes more sense. Anna’s father is apparently very wealthy; he’s some sort of bigwig executive at some Monterrey-based telecom. We kept calling him “The Most Powerful Man in ALL of Mexico.” Anna was interested in attending the Montana science camp after the astronomy camp, and he wrote me asking if we would be so kind to take her in as host parents because she got along so well with our daughter. He then asked if she could stay the summer because she was interested in going to college at Stanford or UCLA and he wanted her to experience America for a summer, and he thought Montana would be good for her, because it was rugged and old-fashioned and she had lived a pampered life and needed to see more of how the “other side lived.” The whole thing seemed a tad condescending, but I also thought it was hilarious that this guy wanted us to be a part of some sort of “sociological experiment.”

We explained we weren’t rich and didn’t have a luxurious home, and we didn’t attend church and were living together but not married, but he said none of that mattered and he repeated that he wanted her to see how working people lived. He also said he would take care of all of Anna’s  expenses. He sent us a ridiculously huge check, and after much back and forth with him because we thought the check was pretty excessive, he announced “I like you and I respect you, senor, but you WILL deposit this check. Thank you for your trouble.” Well, what do you say to the Most Powerful Man in ALL of Mexico? Finally, we talked him into letting us apply whatever was left over to charities after Anna’s expenses.

Anna arrived and the only clothes her parents had given her were fine, frilly dresses, patent leather shoes and a couple of heavy coats (Apparently, her parents thought Montana summers were cold). We realized this would never do. So, we used part of her father’s money to buy Anna a more suitable wardrobe for Montana – a couple of pairs of overalls, shortalls, shorts, jeans, t-shirts and most importantly, tennis shoes. Anna didn’t know what to think of her overalls and tennis shoes and said she wasn’t allowed to dress like a boy. We pointed out to her that all girls in Montana dressed like this and she couldn’t very well dig for ghost town artifacts in a dress and patent leather shoes. She didn’t complain about it again, and I suspect she enjoyed the freedom to be scruffy.

Anna was required to write her parents every day. I got an e-mail from her father one day about “What is this about you turning my daughter into a boy?” Sure enough, Anna had written him, saying, “they’re trying to turn me into a boy, papa!” We explained that Montana being a rough and rugged place, she had to dress for the elements and that all the girls here dressed like this (We didn’t tell him the other kids probably would’ve eaten her alive for dressing like a flower girl.). He responded, “I trust you, senor, and I like and respect you, but just remember if anything happens to my daughter, I am the Most Powerful Man in ALL of Mexico … and I will crush you.”

That was our first run-in with Anna’s terrifyingly intimidating father. We discovered that, either because of language differences or because Anna liked to embellish her stories, that many of her e-mails to her father were like this.

So, back to mid-July. I hadn’t made any plans for my day with Kiddo and Anna. We were still pretty busy unpacking and dealing with satellite dishes and getting decent phone service (never happened – 50 year old lines. Hopeless.). I took them to a carousel, but they were a little old for that and got bored pretty quick. There were starting to be long, awkward silences. While we were wandering around downtown, Kiddo was definitely starting to act like, “ … astronomy camp, Lowell Observatory, science camp, Museum of the Rockies, Monterey Bay Aquarium, California Academy of Sciences, Santa Cruz Boardwalk – wow, by comparison, dad, you rock. Yawn. DWEEB!” Again, those pangs of guilt hit. They were bored. I sucked. The Worst Parent Who Has Ever Lived had struck again. We had lots of activities planned late in the summer – some hikes and a couple of nice mountain climbs and a big trip to Glacier and Banff – but nothing for a few weeks. I simply hadn’t given it any thought of how I was going to entertain them for the time being. Then, we walked past an old, downtown theater.

And I said, “Oh, my God!”

They were showing a restored 30-year anniversary version of “The Kids are Alright.” I had seen this movie once when I was in junior high school. There was a matinee starting in only half an hour. My daughter whined that she didn’t want to see a movie about a bunch of “old hippies.” (“Old hippies” is code for “you’re a nerd and a dweeb and a geek and you embarrass the bejeezus out of me.”)

“C’mon, it’ll be great,” I told her. “No, it’s just going to be about a bunch of old long-haired hippie nerds. It’ll be boring..,” she said. This is a kid who thinks any music recorded before 1998 is well, just plain stupid.

Finally, I bribed her with promises of popcorn and Dr. Pepper and Bunch a Crunch (We don’t let her eat junk food, normally, but at this point, I was desperate. I had to see this movie.). Anna was indifferent about the whole thing. I never heard a peep of complaint out of her the whole summer about much of anything, frankly.

I went through the same thing with my parents. They were big fans of Eddie Arnold, Porter Wagoner, Slim Whitman, Hank Snow, Conway Twitty, Jimmy Reeves, etc. Basically, if it was awful 60s Country and Western … they liked it. Really, the worst of the worst C&W ever had to offer. They even thought Johnny Cash was a damn hippie. To this day, I can’t listen to Country.

But, Jesus, we were talking The Who! I had *completely* forgotten how much I loved this movie. The Who were a big part of my teenage years, but after The Police, U2, Nirvana and Primus, I had kind of stopped listening to them. How many times can you really listen to “Won’t Get Fooled Again.” But, man, these guys were something back in the day, I was reminded.

Here’s what I remember most about that afternoon, the first real time I had spent with my kid in something like six weeks – when all the awesome things that she was experiencing that summer had occurred with me out of the picture. About halfway into the movie, toward the crescendo of an especially searing 1968 version of “A Quick One While He’s Away,” (It was part of a Rolling Stones Christmas special that never aired. Part of the reason it never aired is because the Who blew the Rolling Stones off the stage and the Stones were too vain to have that aired. True story.),  I sneaked a glance over at my 9-year-old and I swear, she was sitting there with her mouth half-agape watching in … absolute … unadulterated … abject … AWE ….

She had never seen anything like these guys and she was completely blown away. Oh, my God, it was funny. As soon as the movie ended, the first thing she said to me was, “I want more Who.”

“I want more Who” quickly morphed into “I DEMAND more Who!” She fell into a Whomania that lasted into the fall and lots and lots of questions about the Who and did I really see them in the old Seattle Kingdome in 1982 (yes, I did), and what was the real meaning of “Tommy,” etc., which concluded with her announcement at the dinner table one night that she thought Tommy could see and hear and speak all along, but he simply chose not to. I got her a Pete Townshend poster and we found a DVD of “The Kids are Alright” at a local funky record store. I even found a reissue of “Live at Leeds,” which I don’t think I had listened to since about 1985. She is eagerly awaiting the Super Bowl because Townshend and Daltry are playing at halftime.

After that afternoon, I also got in trouble with Anna’s father again. She wrote him one of her daily e-mails after that movie and I got an e-mail back from him, asking me, “What is this about you exposing my daughter to ‘ Ingleses locos?’”

Anna had written him that the Who were “smashing guitars and their drums and blowing things up and beating each other up and spinning their arms around and running around acting loco and they didn’t wear shirts …!”

Oh, boy. I was in for it now. I told him about the movie and how it was a very famous British rock band from the 60s and 70s and yes, they were a little crazy, but everyone had fun at the movie, and most importantly, there were no sex scenes in the movie. He said to me, “I like you senor, I trust you, but if anything happens to taint my daughter, I, the most powerful man in ALL of Mexico … will crush you.”

Well, after that, we started a new Fascist policy that we would get to read ALL of Anna’s correspondence to her father beforehand to prevent any more misunderstandings.

The upshot of the story is, my daughter is now every bit as much of a Who fan as I ever was when I was 14. Anna told her father she had the time of her life and that I was very kind and took good care of her  and did not let the “Ingleses locos” taint her and I received a gift of a huge box of Mexican cigars afterward, which were smoked with much rejoicing. And, my daughter, the latest in a line in our family of Who fanatics, is spending two weeks in Monterrey next summer with them.

So, Ladies and Gentlemen, dig The Who …

“A Quick One (While He’s Away)”