When Worlds Collide

The Beach Boys, sans Brian Wilson, and country singer Janie Fricke trying to announce the award for "Favorite Black Single" at the American Music Awards in 1985, the night that "We Are the World" was recorded.

Beatles Parody Bands on '60s TV Shows

• Ladybugs, "Petticoat Junction" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4en7WzQCbUk
• Mosquitoes and Honeybees, "Gilligan's Island" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rfU1sC5vK8
• Bedbugs, "F Troop" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2jgIQBzQZk 
• Four Insects, "The Flintstones" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRTNtbfiO4A
• Monkees, "The Monkees" 

People were sure right that they were just a crazy fad.

More Bagpipes Please

The AV Club on songs that actually benefit from having bagpipes.  Perhaps surprisingly, one of the songs was composed by AC/DC and is perhaps the best of their many, many paeans to the glories of rockin'.


I am disappointed, however, that Big Country did not receive at least an honorable mention for "In a Big Country."

ACC

John Feinstein has a good piece on the dilution of the ACC basketball tournament.  Yes, there's obviously some absurdity in having "ACC" legends like Derrick Coleman or Darrell Griffith (shout out to the old Metro Conference), but I still have some fondness for the tournament.  It's probably due to having grown up in Virginia and the outer DC area when the tournament still meant something.  I still remember my middle school algebra teacher checking out the school library's TV set at the end of the school day on Friday afternoon to watch the early quarterfinal games.

Bing and Bob

I've been listening to the Bing Crosby and Bob Hope episode of "You Must Remember This."  I like its summary of the "Road" movies as amazingly successful and completely mystifying in its success to modern audiences.

I was also unaware of this cringe-worthy blackface sequence from "Holiday Inn".  Egad.

Although to Bing's credit, my grandfather was one of the many GI's who loved "White Christmas" as the podcast notes, supposedly breaking down in tears when it was played upon his arrival in the South Pacific's humid summer, far from the wintry peaks of his Cache Valley home.

Understatement Is Good

Inspired by a tweet from the blogger formerly known as Kinky Paprika about AC/DC front man Brian Johnson being told to stop touring or face total hearing loss (and wouldn't the true metal response be to pursue the latter?), I happened on this lovely summary from the AC/DC wiki:

"Givin' the Dog a Bone is a song by AC/DC appearing as the fourth track on their 1980 successful album, Back in Black. On original versions of the LP, the song was incorrectly spelled on the album sleeve as "Given the Dog a Bone", but was correctly spelled on the vinyl. The song is about oral sex."

Of course, the lyrics prove that the boys from Down Under truly were the masters of the single entendre:

She takes you down easy
Going down to her knees
Going down to the devil
Down down to ninety degrees
Oh, she's blowing me crazy
'Til my ammunition is dry

Rocket 88

Thursday or Saturday marked the 65th anniversary of the recording of "Rocket 88", a rhythm and blues song by notorious wifebeater Ike Turner and his Kings of Rhythm.  The pleasant tune is the song most often credited as being the first rock and roll song.


Of course, when I think of epochal odes to the Olds 88, I think of a somewhat more recent tune -