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Tilda Swinton to play Bowie in biopic.
It worked for Cate Blanchett.
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Created on a Mac, while listening to an iPod.
You can try to emulate him, but you’ll never replace him.
Rest In Peace, Steve Jobs.
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AFRO SHEEN HAND AND BODY LOTION AD (1972)
Bath & Body Works has nothing on Afro Sheen. Especially in the world of television advertising.
Afro Sheen was one of Soul Train’s biggest sponsors throughout the 1970s, dropping cosmetics ad spots throughout the iconic music program’s syndicated hour-long time slot. Afro Sheen’s product line was predominantly geared towards hair care, but also dipped a toe into hand and body lotions.
Considering the magnificent, adventurous hairstyles worn by African American youth in those days, I’d say Afro Sheen is a stone gas, honey.
Here’s one of Afro Sheen’s body lotion ads, from 1972, featuring two kids with mesmerizing naturals so crisp you could buff your nails on ‘em.
Eddie Murphy’s Coming To America’s got a running Soul Glo gag that’s more-or-less an update of the glorious Afro Sheen advertising campaign.
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Roberto Alomar. Beta testing the iPhone 5. Hall of Famers get all the cool gadgets first.
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JOSE BAUTISTA in “THE HIT MAN (2011)
This is cute. Not only can he hit, José Bautista can out-act most of the celeb stiffs that guest-host Saturday Night Live.
Nice work by MLB.com, casting “Joey Bats” as a goombah right out of The Godfather or The Sopranos. The way he Hulks out on the offending baseball is pretty much in keeping with the whole the madder José gets, the stronger José gets motif that’s led to some of his most spine-tingling mashes of the past season-and-a-half. (Hint to pitchers: don’t throw inside. He might do this.)
Hey, no one’ll ever supplant Dave Stieb as my favourite Blue Jay of all-time, and perhaps George Bell’s spot as my favourite Jays hitter is secure as well. But Bautista’s been a thrill to watch at work, the best thing to happen to Toronto sports in many a year, and an inspired little clip like this only adds to the fun.
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From Wikipedia:
“Despite having a population of only 104, the village has become famous for its name in the English-speaking world. Its road signs are a popular visitor attraction, and were often stolen by souvenir-hunting tourists until 2005, when they were modified to be theft-resistant.”
There’s also a Facebook group.
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MORRISSEY - Paint A Vulgar Picture (1997)
Something appropos for Record Store Day, non?
One of the ironic frontrunners for musicianly self-mythologizing - right up there with The Who’s oft-quoted “hope I die before I get old” trope - Mozzer’s exhaustive checklist of music industry plaints first appeared as The Smiths’ career crumbled apart in the summer of 1987.
And, as we all know now, after a few years’ worth of generous solo releases and freshly exhumed Smiths ephemera (a few collectible B-sides on last-gasp singles, and 1988’s live Rank LP), everyone concerned began cynically bleeding nerdy acolytes dry with one unsuitable reissue after another. A thousand years later, there still hasn’t been an official remastering program, and it wasn’t until a late-2010 bootleg bonanza that fans were able to get excited about mouldy oldies again.
Hard-won cynicism aside, “Paint A Vulgar Picture” is a good song with a typically original lyrical conceit, and whenever I think of another boardroom-initiated, major label industry concept, these are the verses rattling ‘round me ‘ead.
Ladies and gentlemen, even at his most artless, our greatest modern poet:
Re-issue! Re-package! Re-package!
Re-evaluate the songs
Double-pack with a photograph
Extra Track (and a tacky badge)
and
Best of! Most of!
Satiate the need
Slip them into different sleeves!
Buy both, and feel deceived
The version linked above is from Morrissey’s 1997 Maladjusted tour.
I can take or leave Record Store Day. I pay full price for about 160 full-length albums a year, so one day’s worth of hack promotion and limp fist-shaking does as much for me as Earth Hour. If you feel guilty about the way you go about your acquisition of music, just as you may about your energy consumption, do something about it all year long.
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Q-FEEL - Dancing In Heaven (Orbital Be-Bop) (1982)
Unsurpassably sunny ’80s cheese with a chorus you’ll be singing at the bus stop tomorrow. I’m looking into local karaoke joints that may have it in their database.
This is about as idiotically chipper as new wave ever got, barring occasional Motown-styled throw-downs like “Tenderness” and “Walking On Sunshine.” Amazing bassline, quality vocals, and a tremendous telegraphing chorus that’s all-earworm, all-fluff. The Buck Rogers backing girls know the score. Slow, slow, quick, quick, slow.
Q-Feel were a blink-and-you’ll-miss-‘em studio outfit thrown together to compete in the 1982 Eurovision Song Contest, where this earworm of a tune finished a measly sixth-place in the British pre-selection process. That’s where this clip comes from, by the way: the A Song For Europe television special.
Q-Feel signed to Jive Records and released one album in 1983. Its excellent six-minute version of “Dancing In Heaven (Orbital Be-Bop)” often crops up on ’80s comps. It’s worth a listen, because that chorus goes on forever.
The single failed to chart in 1982-83, but a remix made #75 U.S. seven years later.
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Lionel Richie missing person poster.
Don’t forget to read the tear-off strips.
Best. Flyer. Ever.
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SMITH WESTERNS - Weekend (2011)
A song about weekends to kick off your weekend.
My most-sung song last month, which means, yes: I filled the house, the shower, the car, the hallway at work, with attempts at refining the refrain should I ever have to perform it in a karaoke sing-off.
If Smith Westerns were older and English - they’re barely legal and from Chicago - I’d picture them wearing floppy hair, eyeliner and women’s blouses - which means, yes: I hear Suede and Pulp at the height of their twinkly, Ed Buller-produced, glam pop heydays.
I also hear the dazed ‘n’ confused sound of the real housewives of glam rock nation, which means, yes: this is a beckoning finger for all you Bolan, Bowie and Sweet hounds: a woozy hit of hedonistic, singalong rock spiked with wistful guitar hooks that stick like Mackintosh’s Toffee.
The whole album’s like this. Investigate!
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ORCHESTRAL MANOEUVRES IN THE DARK - Dancing (1980)
Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark long straddled the line between forward-thinking experimentalism and keen chart pop. Just because they had a mean left hook that could knock you into next week doesn’t mean they didn’t enjoy a little soft-shoe routine now and then. Or, dispensing with the boxing analogy: witness an early appearance on the BBC’s Old Grey Whistle Test, where OM chooses the debut album’s most out-there track for an all-important national T.V. appearance.
And witness Andy McCluskey’s “dancing.” Much was made of his stiff-legged sway over the years, but no amount of white man’s overbite syndrome would keep OM from popping up all over the charts for the remainder of the decade. Dance however you want, Andy. Wear your afro however you want, Andy.
There’s also a fab same-broadcast run through “Messages,” one of their great, look-ma-no-chorus pop classics (and a #13 U.K. single to boot).
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ARCADE FIRE IN THE MEDIA CENTRE, POST-GRAMMY AWARD WIN (2011)
Here we go, it’s Montreal indie band The Suburbs backstage, facing the media after their shock Grammy win for Best Album.
Here’s five minutes I’d’ve never given you had Lady Gaga, Lady Antebellum or Lady Bieber won. Not because I don’t think any of ‘em would have shown the same delightful wit. I just wouldn’t’ve cared. And while I can look at Lady Perry for a few minutes, that’s got no bearing on the terrifyingly bad music she’s responsible for making. I wouldn’t’ve watched her, either.
This has made me strangely happy.
Oh, by the way, Who is Arcade Fire?
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FIGHT NIGHT: NEW YORK ISLANDERS v PITTSBURGH PENGUINS (Feb 11, 2011)
Not much in the way of Valentine’s Day love in this marathon, fight-filled, revenge-fuelled blow-out. My lovely New York Islanders pummeled the Pittsburgh Penguins on the scoreboard (9-3) and in the alley, although the subsequent $100,000 league-imposed fine takes some of the joy out of the event.
Still, it’s always fun to hear the Penguins’ notoriously awful T.V. commentary in full flower, because as crummy as the Islanders’ actions were, the Penguins currently employ the league’s most-hated player, the concussion-dealing miscreant Matt Cooke. He wasn’t playing this one…because he’s presently suspended. For a head shot. So there’s a little dose of hypocrisy here.
A little bit of context: both teams were playing with injury-depleted rosters (the Isles have lost more “man games” to injury than any team this year; the Penguins are without their two best players), and the Isles had score-settling on mind, given that nine days earlier they’d lost two more players to fights or legally questionable hits against these same Penguins.
Anyway…do you have 17 minutes? If you’re an avowed Islanders lover/Penguins hater as I am, and you have the stomach for 1970’s-styled brawls, you may enjoy this.
It’s the most penalty-filled game in the Islanders’ 38-year history, by the way.
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THE WHITE STRIPES - We’re Going To Be Friends (2002)
R.I.P., and see y’all on the reunion tour in 2015!
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HAPPY 50TH BIRTHDAY, WAYNE GRETZKY
The greatest, most dominant athlete in the history of sport. A gentle and gracious public figure, at every stage of a life recorded for posterity from the age of 10. No chafing under the spotlight. No tawdry tabloid revelations. Just a seemingly endless list of wondrous athletic achievements. To meet him is humbling. To observe his work is thrilling. You don’t have to be a hockey fan. Just know this: he is the best ever in his field, and has maintained an old-fashioned courteousness you wish more people of distinction had. I submit he is our nonpareil Canadian. Happy Birthday, Wayne Gretzky.
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