Feb 112013
 

“We Are Young,” the big hit song from fun., isn’t that bad. I can handle the kidz digging it. It’s upbeat. It’s hopeful. It’s over the top in a way that Queen already got me used to hearing and at least appreciating in my youth. I heard an interview with the band last year, and I could stomach that as well. They seemed like nice guys.

Beside some other song my younger son likes by them that sounds like Paul Simon’s “Cecilia” I’d never heard another lick of their music nor seen them perform. While flipping channels last night I stumbled across their performance on the GRAMMYS. This is all I watched of last night’s GRAMMYS.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xxfh5y

The band’s collective Flock of Seagulls Look was not appealing to me, but I could laugh about it. I’m not one to spot poor pitch, but I felt the singer was way sharp on a number of notes. Earlier yesterday I heard U2’s “New Year’s Day” on the radio and thought to myself, “For as frequently as I’m subjected to hearing this song and for all the emotion Bono is exuding I should like this song just a little by now.” I find “New Year’s Day” completely boring, but at least Bono seems to hit his notes. Whatever, it wasn’t like the fun. singer hitting his notes would have made this Styx-like song any better.

The one thing I could not get beyond was the singer’s clam-digger jeggings. Come on, man, that’s a bad Look! I hate the ’80s. I’d like to punch that entire decade in the face.

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Feb 112013
 

It’s become commonplace now at giant events like Super Bowl halftime shows and awards shows to see an artist perform to an audience of a couple hundred beautiful, enthusiastic, coordinated fans-for-hire doing what I call cheer-syncing (or crowd-syncing), a term I propose adding to our RTH Glossary. Sometimes the camera pulls back to show the crowd rushing the stage as they are set free from their holding pen. In the case of The Rolling Stones’ 2006 halftime show the cheer-syncing professionals were actually enclosed in a pen within the band’s stage. Talk about a captive audience.

Everyone is beautiful. Everyone’s got their hand raised to the heavens, like they’re in a Pentecostal church. There can’t be that many Pentecostal churchgoers at televised rock performances, can there?

How far back does this practice of hiring an audience to crowd the foot of the stage and essentially pee their pants in unison does this practice go? Was this idea spawned after choreographed rock performances in Jesus Christ Superstar and Tommy? No one really cheers like that do they? How often does an audience actually rally around a performer the way they do on these televised spectacles?

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Feb 102013
 
ohmycchord

Where’s this episode of The Brady Bunch been all my life?

The above photo reopens my childhood adoration of Marcia Brady. There was nothing special between us, like the bond I felt with my first TV crush, Room 222‘s Karen Valentine. I didn’t choose Marcia; she demanded my adoration, as she did the adoration of any red-blooded American boy of my generation. Even though Jan would make a late run for my pre-teen affections, Marcia was perfect in that unattainable way drives boys to master the fingering of a C chord or some other skill in vain effort to rise above.

This image came to me courtesy of Robbie Rist‘s Facebook page. Only Greg got to play guitar on the show. Not Robbie’s Oliver. Not Marcia. Guess our little heads would have been blown had they let her strap on an SG.

Have you come across a shocking photo of a non-musical celebrity playing an instrument that you previously had no idea he or she played? Share it here. Thank you.

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Feb 092013
 

Before the big heart day — I thought I would share this little number called “Tape Your Wife to the Ceiling.”

Here’s another kind of anti-valentine song from Tom Petty.

A personal aside: The biggest rock band in the Twin Cities in 1980-81 was not Husker Du or The Replacements or Prince. It was a large ensemble group called The Suburbs, who had a couple of minor hits (“Music For Boys”, “Love Is The Law”), a 1-record major-label deal, and then kind of faded away into local lore. The ‘Burbs packed ’em in — I saw them outside at Navy Island in St. Paul with R.E.M. — and R.E.M. wisely opened for these guys, because the ‘Burbs were always a tough act to follow. (That concert is also memorable because I saw some of my sister’s 14-year-old friends at the show, which freaked me out, because I was an old man of 19.)

Personal aside II: Petty’s “Long After Dark” is due for a critical upgrade.

So, anyway, what’s your favorite anti-Valentine song?

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Feb 092013
 

You know you’ve been waiting for this one! The People have asked for a decision on this, and we will work together to supply the answer—once and for all!

What’s the greatest white Afro in rock? It can be natural or the result of a perm, but no wigs! It can be an artist’s running Look or a 1-time affair. The nominees and the RTH People’s Poll follow…after the jump!

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Feb 082013
 

I’m not sure exactly where I heard this tidbit of George Harrison lore but half-assed Googling indicates that it comes from his autobiography. He said something to the effect that in The Beatles song I Want to Tell You, penned by Harrison, that he wished he had reversed the lyric,

But if I seem to act unkind
It’s only me, it’s not my mind
That is confusing things

to be something more like

But if I seem to act unkind
It isn’t me, it’s just my mind
That is confusing things

I admit that I could be butchering this story but I’m pretty sure that I have the gist of it. It stuck with me because I used to think that about that part of that song before I heard Harrison thought it too. It’s kinda obvious isn’t it? “Me” is so much more than “mind.” Anyhoo… Here is the only version I could find where it is sung by Harrison in this reversed way.

Unfortunately it is a pretty crappy version of the song,  IMHO. It doesn’t help that Eric Clapton, I think, is part of this performance as well. Feel free to Pince Nez me Townsfolk.

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