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Music harder and as pop as Rock of Ages hair metal in ’86 — ’89, not quite making the cut.
Whiskey as opposed to peppermint schnapps.
A live version for local television kills here.
A lens popped out of my specs and was lost in the sand in front of them in Asbury the same year. Dancing. Ask my ex-wife.
If you weren’t there at ground level …
On the “Rock of Ages” movie, from the Chicago Tribune, excerpted:
Oh, that something Satanic might actually have crawled into “Rock of Ages” at some point. When Tipper Gore formed the Parents Music Resource Center, she wasn’t gunning for Quarterflash and REO Speedwagon, just two of the whitebread bands whose songs are featured here. It’s akin to making a movie about people trying to suppress gangsta rap, and then filling the soundtrack with cuts by PM Dawn and DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince.
Whether you have fond memories of songs like “I Want to Know What Love Is” and “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” or you’re inclined to change stations when they pop up on the radio, the karaoke versions offered up by “Rock of Ages” are ear-punishers.
It’s a movie that passes off mainstream pop as being somehow dangerous, reaching its crescendo at the end when, after rejecting a New Kids-ish boy band, “Rock of Ages” delivers its thunderous climax with Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’,” a song that’s been so castrated by pop culture that it’s a grade-school sing-along.
This is what the reviewer means …
Saw Journey perform it. The band was never much of an example of testosterone in stadium rock but even they couldn’t have imagined how Glee would amplify its sissy quality for the sake of stirring nerds into a frenzy of panty-wetting.
Can you tell which of these Broadway renditions is the most wuss? It’s hard.
From 1971 to 74 Bob Welch played lead guitar for Fleetwood Mac. After being dismissed in the turnover that brought in Buckingham/Nicks, the band quickly attained multi-platinum success. That must have smarted.
Welch subsequently put together Paris, a power trio that recorded two obscure and unsuccessful albums. The debut was Welch’s bit take on Led Zeppelin heavy mysticism and it is an enjoyable listen, particularly if you’re a fan of unsuccessful Seventies hard rock barrel-scrapers. Like me.
After Paris disbanded Welch returned to pop as a solo act and met with chart success.
I liked these records, too. Welch combined a supple hard rock style that worked superbly on his solo albums. Although his famous single solo work came as the Seventies closed, Welch was quintessentially Eighties, confirmed by the live bits where he is joined onstage by Stevie Nicks.
Dead by suicide, according to the wire. Regrettably, death by one’s own hand seems to be a slight trend among classic rock lead guitarists this year.
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Post a link to the UK’s ‘Bloody Nora,’ a ‘head-banging granny’ into pub heavy metal. But it was too lame.
Headbanging Grannies — apparently common on YouTube.
Which, do you think, is the best of the worst? There’s an official DD Blog No-Prize in it for you.
Gilbert Gottfried once hosted a cheap late night horror movie show. The best I can remember from it were his introductions to “Flesh-Eating Mothers.”
Did you know the full movie is on YouTube? So is Rabid Grannies.
There’s even a Granny Tranny fad. You were warned.
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Another great Dick Destiny Occupy rockabilly/blues jam, “The National Anthem” youtu.be/4qcRuxq0YCQ
— OccupyMusicians.com (@weoccupymusic) May 29, 2012
The National Anthem merits sharing. Period. It’s concise, accurate, funny and has a snappy rhythm track. It includes Lindsay Lohan, anthraxer Bruce Ivins’
rare vanity country single only to be had here and Professor Schnitzel. (“I’m a nudist!” and “Everysings all riiiight!”)
“The best startlingly real and truthful electric folk rock song this year!” — Joe Morgansternly, The Weekly National Standard Journal & Politico Review
On a side note: Have you noticed everything the celebrities and chosen few (SNL and television/movie stars slumming at Funny or Die, comic strips at DailyKos chosen by Tom Tomorrow, Bill Maher, etc) is always posted everywhere? But that everyone else not connected to this select network — and there are many — go nowhere. That’s the power of social networking.
Good for the famous in the culture of lickspittle, everyone else, not so much.
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“[Unintentional comedy] thrives; indeed writers are hardly needed to invent outrageous events.”
Tom Cruise as a 20-30-ish rock star singing Bon Jovi, propped up by AutoTune, shirt off, a fake tattoo on his tit. Intended — Hollywood Strip rock action. Result — closer to Al Pacino in “Cruising.”
And Paul Giamatti, the perpetually melancholy wine snob slob in Sideways.
Soundtrack music by ringers performing not-quite-authentically-right hair metal band hits you’re still buried under.
A trailer that makes the eyes water from the smell of dogshite.
Chainsaw Rally — remixed and put to YouTube found, some of it famous, some infamous. Everything you need to know about Ted Nugent in a bit over two and a half minutes.
And, yeah, he really did feel the bite of a jaggedy chain years ago.
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TP & the Heartbreakers at the New Orleans Jazz Festival. Making a big noise.
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Featuring the Reverend Billy Sunday from 1929. If you find the original on YouTube you’ll hear Sunday justify wealth as religiosity, claiming Abraham was worth some totally ridiculous fortune in US dollars. This country has always had people who equate money with virtue and the lack of it with a corrupted soul and poor character. And they’ve never been responsible for one blessed good thing in the nation’s history.
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I was going to hold “Jesus of America,” a satirical tune for tomorrow when I had a video ready. But vignettes from the wire today so captured an insane meanness of American spirit there seemed no point in waiting.
From AP, on the Romney budget:
Reducing government deficits Mitt Romney’s way would mean less money for health care for the poor and disabled and big cuts to nuts-and-bolts functions such as food inspection, border security and education.
Romney also promises budget increases for the Pentagon, above those sought by some GOP defense hawks, meaning that the rest of the government would have to shrink even more
[Other cuts] include food stamps, school lunches, crop subsidies, Supplemental Security Income for very poor seniors and disabled people, unemployment insurance, veterans’ pensions and refundable tax credits to the working poor.
Based on the Romney materials, it’s impossible to project the size of the cuts to such programs. Suffice it to say, they would be controversial.
“There’s good reason why Ryan’s budget and the Romney budget don’t have details,” said Jim Horney, a budget analyst with the liberal-leaning Center on Budget and Policy priorities think tank. “If people knew what it would actually have to be done to accomplish what they’re saying should be done, it’s hard to imagine there would be widespread support for it.”
Ted Nugent has been a more interesting study. The Secret Service has not shut him up but he’s fairly obviously been crippled by it. In compensation he’s pumped out two columns, one on demonizing the poor at the Washington Times, the other attacking the Lacey Act at Human Events.
Last week, Nugent accepted a plea deal in Alaska on a Lacey Act violation, transporting an illegally taken black bear over state borders.
From the WaTimes, the very poor man-woman’s Ayn Rand:
Here’s another blazing statement of the obvious: Poor people will quit being poor when our government quits enabling, bribing, training and rewarding them to be poor. Write that down.
People can and will do amazing things when Fedzilla removes its heavy bureaucratic boot off of their throats …
The very first thing that needs to be done to eliminate poverty is to stop punishing the producers and expand economic freedom …
While we desperately need to eliminate the vast controls over economic freedom on the wealthy, we also need to eliminate the government poverty programs that enable and encourage people to be poor instead of encouraging them to be free, independent, self-reliant people.
Government causes poverty because it enables poor people to continue to make poor decisions. If we want to win the war on poverty, we’ve first got to win the war against Fedzilla, which intentionally causes poverty …
Since President Obama took office, Gibson has been raided twice by federal US Fish and Wildlife agents with guns drawn over suspicious wood. That’s right, guns drawn over wood …
Federal agents seized $500,000 worth of precious musical wood from India that is used to make Gibson guitars. The feds claim the wood was imported illegally from India, a violation of a heavy-handed law known as the Lacey Act.
Gibson has not been charged with a crime in either the 2009 or the 2012 raid, yet the special wood remains in Fedzillas clutches.
Good friend and CEO Henry Juszkiewicz fears Gibson may lose market share due to the loss of this very specialized wood.
This is the result of President Obama’s Department of Injustice run amok …
Had Gibson Guitars donated money to the Democratic Party or were members of the New Black Panther Party we can be sure that there would have been no raids with guns drawn and no wood confiscated …
The column, old news on Gibson, is meaningless unless you know that last week Nugent’s lawyers accepted a plea deal on a conviction under the Lacey Act. Nugent must be apoplectic over being tagged as serial hunting scofflaw — two convictions in two years, both stemming from hunts staged for his tv show. One might imagine his reputation to be trash among reasonable hunters, people who manage to stay out of trouble — a ten k fine’s worth — and the news.
An AP article in the Juneau newspaper indirectly explains Nugent’s predicament and why he railed against the Lacey Act without mentioning himself, by way of his attorney:
The plea agreement says Nugent illegally shot and killed the bear in May 2009 on Sukkwan Island in southeast Alaska days after he wounded a bear in a bow hunt, which counted toward a state seasonal limit of one bear for that location. The agreement says Nugent knowingly possessed and transported the bear in misdemeanor violation of the Lacey Act …
“It’s kind of embarrassing for him because he practices ethical hunting and advocated ethical hunting and gets caught up in a crazy law that none of us have heard about,??? [Nugent’s attorney] said.
Nugent’s loss of that deer hunting license through June 2012 allows 34 other states to revoke the same privilege under the Interstate Wildlife Violator Compact. Each state, however, can interpret and enforce the agreement differently.
“Now if we can just blow the head clean off the Fedzilla beast in November, this sort of government abuse will come to an end, of that I am certain,” he concludes.
Paradoxically, the investigation of Gibson was started under the Bush administration.
And now — the song —“Jesus of America.”
Jesus fed the poor with loaves and fishes
He really liked the lepers, too
Then he found the land of liberty
And America taught him what to doJesus of America said don’t feed the poor…
If you do they’ll come right to your door
They’ll end up like stray cats, shedding on the floor.
That’s what Jesus said.Wealthiness, just like Godliness
That’s what Jesus taught
Jesus of America sez guns, not butter
The rest just goes all for naughtJesus of America said don’t feed the poor
They are just too lazy, they’ll never work at all
Jesus of America sez tax the weak and sick
They’re always gonna be that way, never worth a lickSing for Jesus Lord
Jesus of America, sing praise for the best
You know our faith informs us, nothing for the rest
Wealthiness leads to Godliness
That’s what Jesus taughtRepublican Jesus, he’s our favorite guy
He believes in markets, sing praises to the sky
If Jesus said it, you know it must be true
So now it’s time to whip the poor, you know what to do!
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