Aug 032010
Mr. Moderator is out of pocket so it’s up to us to TCB while he’s gone. If you’ve got keys to The Back Office feel free to draft something up and let us know at thebackoffice[at]rocktownhall.com and we’ll publish it. Please no salicious, gratuitous excuses for sexual inuendo or soft core porn. We don’t want to get in trouble when he returns!
These cleaning ladies are thorough.
Yo, I’m here through sometime on Saturday, but have fun regardless!
How did that video come to be without being a Swiffer commercial? Bizarre.
IT WAS ONLY A MATTER OF TIME DEPT.
Wyclef Jean to run for President of Haiti:
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/Music/08/04/haiti.wyclef.presidency/?hpt=T2#fbid=aZqdmj8wCgL
Those ladies are, quite literally, the exact opposite of BTO. Did they film the band’s reflection in a mirror or something?
Wyclef’s bid for the Haitian presidency is probably just a way to set the table for his run at the inaugural President of Music position. This is a pretty terrifying thing to consider given his last decade of output and his ties to the puppet mastery of Bono.
Someone needs to either start rehabilitation on Elvis Costello right away – that hat and beard combo alone would keep him out of Rock Office, not to mention his unpopular stance on the Reissues Debate – or throw some money into a Friends of David Byrne campaign pool.
Oh-ho! Mod, I know you’ve only got a few days before you blow out of town, but I think alexmagic is onto an *ex*-cellently nerdy idea here. If you thought the World Cup Of Rock was a glorious waste of time, just think of how much work we’ll shirk when we elect our President Of Rock!
I see Rock parties forming, primaries being held, debates undertaken, endorsements sought, scandals erupting, and — finally, after months of epic goofing off — we’ll elect the leader of the Rock Free World!
This is clearly too big to launch before your departure, but I urge you to obsess over it while on vacation. I want to see you staring distractedly through the Stuckey’s plate glass window while your long-suffering wife implores you for help managing the kids. I want you to scribble mad-man’s notes in the margin of your AAA Trip-Tik, and miss your exit for the motel. I want you to promise to meet the kids down in the holidome before dinner, then fall asleep pondering the rules format for our first Great Debate. We require FOCUS.
We’ll talk soon, I’m sure. Just don’t let your vacation get in the way of the real work that needs to get done.
Your friend,
HVB (the Rock George Mason)
HVB wrote:
I agree that alexmagic’s long-held notion of electing the President of Rock is a tremendous idea. I would LOVE LOVE LOVE to see alexmagic develop it and would support him in any way to push along the campaign. No joke. I’ve told alexmagic, just as I’ve told many of you the same thing, that he’s capable of raising the game of this place. I BELIEVE IN ALEXMAGIC. I BELIEVE IN YOU. Don’t wait for me to make this happen! Running a political election may be out of my wheelhouse, but you know I can support any efforts you make.
I will be checking in, I can assure you. I’m obsessed. In the coming week, however, I will be cruising through the desert in my dirty, purple tie-dye t-shirt, screaming at the top of my lungs. If I’m lucky I will commune with The Indian. I intend to come back a better version of myself, and I hope to be able to say the same thing about each of you:)
D’oh! I have no idea how that video got up there sir.
Just read a review of a book called “I Hate New Music”. Some excerpts:
“With such an inflammatory title, it’s easy to imagine how this one goes: lamenting the death of rock ‘n’ roll (which, it’s decided, happened in 1976) and presenting a manifesto for reform in the face of limp-wristed charity gigs, live LPs and any non-double-album lasting more than 45 minutes.
The label is a little misleading, however. Rather than hating new music…the book mourns the death of rock, with chapters splintering away to launch blistering, if sometimes easy, attacks on Bono, band reunions and, most baitingly, Sgt. Pepper. It seems [author] got lost under the vitriolic working title and the book skips over music history, flitting to band-centric anecdotes without much structure.
Most importantly, however, [author] is a superb critic. While it’s easy to launch low jabs at Bob Geldof and get lost in hyperbole, he perfectly toes the line between opinionated, stinging condemnation and genuinely funny ranting without getting carried away. The content can often seem deliberately provocative, but that just adds to the appeal.”
I know what you are thinking, the author must be RTH’s own E. Pluribus Gergly. And it well may be, but if so he’s going under the pseudonym of Dave Thompson.
That critic sounds familiar. Thanks for the tip, Al.
HVB: I think a President of Music election would be a very worthwhile project, but I have to admit that my interest in following it through would be entirely dependent on finding someone who can photoshop a post-Pere Ubu picture of David Thomas into the KANE campaign poster from Citizen Kane. If we can’t make that happen, we don’t deserve strong leadership.
This video seems to be, if I may be allowed the phrase, to be a case of over-egging the pudding. I mean, come on: as if BTO weren’t sexy enough on their own.
A few days ago we were talking about artists releasing albums of re-recordings. I’m finding this is an even more prevalent fad than I initially thought. The Black Crowes just released a two-CD set of acoustic versions of their old songs. More ambitiously, Suzanne Vega is in the process of recording and releasing four individual CDs worth of re-recordings. However, these CDs are organized thematically. I found an interview where she basically said she’s doing this because all of her albums are out-of-print. I guess she is implying that it is easier — and more financially sound — to re-record the songs than to try to convince her former multinational that reissues are worthwhile.
Here’s the interview. She also takes aim at the anti-Mitchell Froom crowd (regarding his production sound, not their marriage and divorce).
http://gothamist.com/2010/02/09/suzanne_vega.php
I have I Hate New Music. I think it’s supposed to be a tongue in cheek kind of thing, but either he isn’t a good enough writer to make it that way, or he deep down really thinks this old crap is AWESOME.
From Appendix Two – The Top 100 Classic Rock Songs:
1 – Stairway to Heaven
2 – Won’t Get Fooled Again
3- Hotel California
4 – Bohemian Rhapsody
5 – American Pie
The book should be titled I Hate Rock Music if you ask me.
MOCKCARR, TAKE NOTE DEPT.
Yo, mockcarr, and all others interested in recapturing their college youth through the rediscovery of long-lost vinyl pop/surf/punk: I just found a site where you can download the entire “Daze Of Corndogs and Yo-yos” by Ten Foot Faces.
I just watched “The Party” tonight, for about the 100th time, and was reminded again of how amazingly great the Mancini-penned theme song is. I was pleased to rediscover that the 10-F-F do a killer instrumental version of the tune on this LP — which is generally fine besides. Anyhow, here’s the link:
http://www.mediafire.com/?nz2bmnt4zvg
Enjoy!
HVB
I LIKE Mitch Froom production, but thanks to Oats, I went back and looked at one of my favorite albums by Ms. Vega, “Nine Objects of Desire” and just now realized that it was produced by him. THAT explains a lot of things…esp. if it was the beginning of their relationship.
Methinks the moderator should allow “the backoffice” more posts if they are of this high quality!
Thanks for the back-upronbo11!
Looking for some help. I’m working on a design right now and I need to find an image that I think exists as an album cover. It is of a woman standing at a urinal, facing forward as if peeing like a man and guy next to her with a WTF expression on his face.
I thought it was Foreigner’s Head Games but that has a woman squatting over a urinal.
Anyone? Beuller, Beuller, Beuller, Beuller,…
POLITICS — NO, WAIT, MAKE THAT MONEY — MAKES FOR STRANGE, ER, BEDFELLOWS DEPT.
http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20391620,00.html
I’M 16 ALL OVER AGAIN DEPT:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/13/AR2010081306140.html?hpid=artslot
DIRT DEPT:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1302966/Maccas-meltdown-The-inside-story-marriage-cost-McCartney-24m-destroyed-him.html
That Mike Campbell story is really cool.
Yep, read that one in the Post this morning. One of my favorite guitarists.
THAT REALLY SUCKS DEPT.
Power-pop talent Will Owsley takes his own life. Don’t know when this happened, just found out. Sucks!
http://addictedtovinyl.com/blog/2010/05/01/r-i-p-will-owsley/