Let’s see what happens when your host (me) has nothing to say, and instead it’s open mike night. Step right up, speak your mind, tell a story, sing a song, whatever.
4/13/2025
Anything goes #23
27 responses to “Anything goes #23”
-
Thanks for your weekly obit column: It told me that Clem Burke died this week. Yeah, Clem was the drummer for Blondie and, just as much as Ms Harry, gave the band that sound that transcended disco and recalled rock and roll. Clem always said that one of his favorite drummers was Earl Palmer, a classic rock and roll studio drummer who is quietly on many of your favorite R&R songs not so quietly. Clem was the reason I acquired a couple of Blondie albums, and the reason they went for a pretty penny when my ex wife sold them. Here he is behind Ms Harry creating a lovely frame for her singing portrait. . .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TU3-lS_Gryk
Dead too young at 70, Clem Burke.
jtb
-
That’s a fine rockin’ song, better than I’d thought at the time it was popular, and the video shows lots of Clem power on the drums.
Other than that, disappointingly ordinary visuals of rockers jumping around. Do bands not make actual videos any more? Such a kickass song deserves a moviemaker’s video.
-
Doug, it’s your fault for living into the post rock era. I’m not sure what bands are active these days that would merit a video, but most of them are Rock bands who somehow survived the Rock era. Bands like They Might Be Giants are semi-retired — and you best read the personnel list of the bands you do go see or view on video, because they’re likely to contain one or two of the original bandmates: perhaps the conga player and the flute blower. In some cases, there are three versions of the same band with various members of the original fronting different bands, but all playing the same songs. If you want to find them, they’re likely playing in Reno which has become a dangerous town: both for the muggings and the bad music. Reno has become a joke of a town: The last event I watched there was a stop on the Woman’s Professional Bowling Association – outside. A sandstorm sprang up and the women keglers were having a little problem making their shots hook. It was a decade ago and the last time Reno was short of hookers.
John
-
Is this the post-rock era? I hadn’t heard that before, seems harsh but maybe true. There are probably still bands making great rock, but they’re in garages or tiny venues. They sure ain’t on the radio.
Had some lovely car trouble in Reno once.
-
Here’s a link to a three minute read on the decline of key changes in rock songs after 2000 or so. Just one indicator that we’re done with creative songwriting. Ain’t it grand?
https://flowingdata.com/2022/11/22/decline-of-key-changes-in-popular-music/.
Rock became grunge, then went away. I have a radio of sorts in my car of sorts. There’s an “oldies” station that plays songs that are tolerably listenable. Other than that, I might as well listen to my engine block leaking water. At least it keeps pretty good time.
John
-
Hip-hop killed rock’n’roll? Wow. I’ve never been a fan, but I wouldn’t have guessed bloody murder.
-
-
You cranked you car in Reno
Just to watch it die?jtb
-
I don’t think it’s harsh at all. Just descriptive. The accompanying key change stat is one of many quantitative pieces of analysis that drive home the point. “Not Rock” doesn’t necessarily mean inferior, although in this case it does happen to be inferior. People made a lot of money in the Rock era, just sort of accidentally. Now they’re trying to do it on purpose. It’s harder to do on purpose.
John
-
Sometimes I say people have gotten stupider, but I don’t really believe it, and I hope creative people haven’t gotten less creative. What seems likeliest to me is that Money is more firmly in control than it was some decades back, so anyone who wants to innovate is deemed unlikely to rake in the bucks, and this less and less likely to have a platform.
Zat make sense, or am I full of it?
-
People have become less curious. That’s not linear — it runs in cycles throughout the three thousand years of human culture that we know something about. Familiar with the Dark Ages? That was a megacycle of complete lack of curiosity. People worshiped the past and distained the future. I don’t know whether your AM radio dial is the right channel on which to receive insight on the human condition, but the American presidential election might be. In an 80 year period — 80 years out of 3,000 years of documented history and 20,000 years of opportunity, we invented wide-spread electrification, telephony, movies, atomic and nuclear weapons and powerplants, radio, television, automobiles, home appliances (washers, dryers, stoves, microwaves, hair dryers, long list . . .), space travel, weather satellites — make your own list. This has been a burst of creativity that will be called The Creative Age if anyone is around to call it anything at all. And we will be present near the end. You didn’t think this party was going to last forever did you? Our creation, the greenhouse gasses, will put the brakes on this creativity so fast that whoever is left will be thrown through the windshield. And no invented ambulance will come.
johnthebasket
-
Hmmmm. Great stuff accomplished in the Creative Age, but what have the creatives done for me lately?
I like to think people are still being creative, but that for whatever reason it’s not trickling down to folks like you and me. The COVID vaccine is the last scientific breakthrough that meant squat to little people, to my knowledge, but there’s a lot beyond my knowledge.
If we’re talking about science instead of music, science takes funding, and Trump is ending that, so we’re, what, headed back to the Dark Ages but this time with smart phones? Man, I can’t wait to be dead.
The seemingly ‘big breakhthrough’ of our time is artificial intelligence, something of no use to me but of great use in squashing people like me.
-
Effective and widely tested vaccines were invented in the creative age, and I was careful to say “telephony” rather than ‘telephones”. I remain unconvinced that Trump is ending anything. Nearly half the voting population in the US voted for Trump, which was just enough to put him over the top. This is Their creation, not Trump’s. There’ve always been goofballs trying to run things — but majorities of the population weren’t voting them into the presidency. If we think of what’s changed and call it a Trump thing, mortality will take care of it, but it isn’t and it won’t. We are voting against niggers and for ice-covered golf greens.
“… the funniest thing was
When I was leavin’ the bay
I saw three ships a-sailin’
They were all heading my way
I asked the captain what his name was
And how come he didn’t drive a truck
He said his name was Columbus
I just said, “Good luck”.”BD/jtb
-
Cordially, old friend, what’s your intent in using the meanest word in the English language?
I avoid it like eating antiperspirant, which now that I’m retired I avoid wearing, too.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Debbie Harry is 79. Ain’t it funny how time slips away?
jtb
-
Probably still hot, too.
-
Not so much. You’re probably better off watching Willie Nelson sing, “Funny How Time Slips Away”. Willie is still cool, which is to say he’s still hot.
jtb
-
I think a response to an attempt to demolish the most successful democracy in the history of the world requires strong language, and there’s plenty of racism going around in state and local governments and law enforcement agencies to justify the denotation and connotation of the word. So I use it correctly, in context to be accurate and honestly to get your attention. The level of language the firefighters on the second floor of the station just before they put on their boots and slide down the pole.
John
-
Without looking it up, I don’t even remember what else you said in that comment. That word is a grenade that blows up everything else.
-
-
-
Wow, I responded to your cordial query about my use of an objectional word, and I wrote a small essay on it and it simply vanished. If it doesn’t return by tomorrow, I’ll try to do it again, but it will lack some immediacy.
jtb
-
It’s here, accidentally in a different thread.
-
-
-
Videos were paid for by record companies, taken out of the band’s share usually, so there are few videos anymore except for big spectacle pop stars.
Here’s one, from a young artist named Woz. It’s about how shitty his dad is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgSa9z9icik
His dad was the vocalist and songwriter for a ’90s band called Marcy Playground, the lyrics are pretty devastating:
https://www.musixmatch.com/lyrics/Woz-2/Child-Support
I don’t have kids. If I did, and one of them wrote this song about me, they wouldn’t have a dad. This would kill me.
-
> Videos were paid for by record companies, taken out of the band’s share usually
So the band was actually paying. Figures.
I’ve actually heard of Woz’s father, John Wozniak, and liked his “Sex and Candy,” though I’ll admit liking the video more than the song. I’m guessing that’s the song Woz’s mom heard on the radio.
Having kids and raising them decent must be the biggest, hardest, and frickin’ LONGEST task in the world. Like you, I never did it for a buncha reasons, but near the top is, I know I couldn’t have succeeded, probably would’ve bailed like Wozniak. Or worse, stayed and damaged the child. None of which is meant to sound sympathetic toward Wozniak, fuck that guy.
“Child Support” bangs, thanks for letting me hear it.
For all his work-related absences and kooky religion, my dad was pretty good compared to the average.
-
-
-
-
your lips cry out for kisses
your wondrous breasts caresses
your gluten-free pussy opens
for joyous fingers within
your aroused clit desires attention
I want to penetrate your
vegan vessel with my poetic tongue
your clothes evaporate, disappear
your wordless voice chirps with pleasure
my hunger takes you forever…-
That is poetry, sir. You’ve made a grumpy old man smile.
-
-
If the topic is worth-watching videos and/or (several comments up in the thread) worth-listening hip-hop, “We Got the Guillotine” by The Coup is old but still rocks. Yeah, hip-hop can rock.
They got the TV, we got the truth
They own the judges, and we got the proof
We got hella people, they got helicopters
They got the bombs, and we got the guillotine
We got the guillotine, you better run -
The American national election of 1876 was largely an attempt to undo the penalties assigned by the winning side in the American Civil War on the losing side. By stealing an electoral vote here and there, the South (as they liked to be called because “Confederate” brought to memory too much of “Marching Through Georgia”) restored all but personal ownership of slaves that had existed before 1860. That’s not what ALL the Trump shit is about, but it is certainly in large part an attempt to undo 70 years of hard-fought progress in personal freedoms and rights. I think my attempt to create a parallel between the 1876 election and the 2024 election is justified by the facts, the rhetoric, the actions, and the legal (and illegal) maneuvering that has transpired since election night, 2024 and since Inauguration Day 2025 and now.
Certainly the coup-de-taut nature of both events strikes more fear in the hearts of people of color than of the European-Americans living in our nation, although there is plenty of fear and hatred to go around.
John
-
We’ve got hatred! We’ve got fear!
But I’m not worried cuz I’ve got beer!
-
Comments with attachments or multiple links are held for manual approval.
Leave a Reply