You may recall a series of Bullshit On threads doubting tales of ZZ Top touring with longhorn steer, bison, vultures, goats, barnyard cats, and rattlesnakes onstage. The continuing quest to validate ZZ Top’s purported onstage livestock display for its 1976 Worldwide Texas Tour has taken a baby step forward with the following photo, provided by Townsman jungleland2. Let’s see who’s willing to shoot down the veracity of the flying bison pictured behind the band! Undeniable evidence…after the jump!
This afternoon, Mr. Royale and I are driving up to Mendocino to attend a friend’s wedding. Invariably, we have a discussion about what music we want to bring: for long drives, having just the right music ready for your Ever Changing Moods is, as you will invariably agree, very important. Can’t have too much jangle. And while Loud, Fast and Out of Control tunes can be helpful for long straightaways, it won’t work on twisty, turny Route 1. Don’t suggest that mp3 crap, or at least not yet. We haven’t found the perfect mp3 delivery system yet so we bring along good old-fashioned compact discs.
Our go-to album for a long drive is Tusk. I don’t know exactly how this came to be, but I know that we both always felt that this album was somewhat unfairly overlooked in favor of Rumours. I think it became our #1 Drive album by it’s mix of familiar radio hits, changes in tempo, Lindsey‘s string of thematically-related contributions, and the inclusion of African elements into that Laurel Canyon sound. The album’s iconic place in our driving set list was set during our honeymoon, when we were meandering all over California (and I was bugging Mr. Royale by asking him whether each particular town or hovel could be a place he would want to relocate).
This afternoon we might shake it up a bit and bring along Camper Van Beethoven‘s cover of the album. However, somewhere along the 5-hour ride, we’ll have answered the question of “What Makes You Think You’re The One?” and bring along that favorite driving album.
I check in on the ESPN cultural offshoot site Grantland on a regular basis. I don’t always agree with their writers’ points of view and I often find their pieces even more ponderous and self-involved than stuff I like to read and write, but I much prefer reading overwrought articles on subjects like sports and the arts than the short, publicist-driven blurbs that fill up too much of the media. Last week Grantland waived a tempting piece in my face:
I read that Sheryl Crow is taking a page out of the old time rock ‘n roll playbook and shifting to country music full time — complete with visits to country radio stations, right out of Coal Miner’s Daughter. It seems to be in the grand tradition of Elvis, Jerry Lee, Carl Perkins, and others to move down the dial to country after the rock hits have dried up. This summer “Hootie” grabbed an Old Crow Medicine Show song “Wagon Wheel” — a hit that is hard to avoid — so good for him.
Does anyone remember Chris Hillman’s Desert Rose Band, who a had big country hit in the late ’80s with a John Hiatt song via Nick Lowe, “She Don’t Love Nobody”?
I recall the country sheen was a little hard for me to take at the time. but I do like Chris’ nod to the Burritos with the Nudie suit.
Who’s your favorite rocker turned country — or would-be country star?
See if you can invest 10 minutes into the following clip. At 7 minutes and 42 seconds into the motorpsycho mayhem, some guy is seen sitting cross-legged in a field, playing a song on his acoustic guitar. It got me thinking: Does anyone ever look cool playing an acoustic guitar in a movie?
I’ve got nothing against acoustic guitars, mind you. Well, with one huge exception. However, as I watched this clip my mind leaped to the guy whose acoustic guitar John Belushi’s Bluto smashes without warning in Animal House. The cult leader in one of my favorite movies of recent years, Martha Marcy May Marlene, plays a creepy folk ballad on his acoustic at one point. It’s a brilliant, creepy scene in a movie loaded with them, but does he look cool playing that song on his acoustic? I think not.
Someone must look cool playing an acoustic guitar in a movie—a fictional movie, not a concert film or actual artist documentary. You tell me.
Meanwhile, you know you want more of the guy playing the acoustic guitar in the middle of that motorpsycho mayhem…
2013 is the year that my mom (who still has a flip phone and turns it off when she has completed a call) has purchased an iPod. This has proven to me the the iPod’s time of relevance has come to pass. I have used the “mom” rule successfully many times before when it comes to electronics.
I have been interested in “cloud” music for a while. I like the idea that if I ever need to hear “Baby Snakes” or “Girls With Guns” that all I have to do is log onto any computer (not even my own) and I can access MY copy of this song and play it instantly.
I am an iPhone owner, so I only just discovered the Android Market aka Google Play and the Google Play music storage feature.
You can upload 20,000 songs (not a misprint) for free and access them from the homepage of Google or gmail.
I narrowed my digital collection to 20,000 (was 4,000 over) and could not use DRM-protected iTunes files (protected .aac). I think that was maybe 30 songs. It would not accept .wav files either, but you can make them into mp3s and they work.
MOST of the files are not uploaded, they are just “recognized” by Google Play and they match it with their copy. If they can’t match it, THEN they upload it.
You can stream from ANY Android phone or tablet and from any computer, but not iphone or other devices that do not use flash.
You can burn my house down. but you can’t take my music collection!
The Instant Mix feature is pretty decent (unlike iTunes’ Genius which was pretty bad). It makes mixes based on a single song or LP. Kind of like Pandora w/o commercials and ONLY using your music.
I am so impressed by this program and it’s potential to use with BluTooth to shove my music down everyone’s throats.
