David Bowie has died at the age of 69, of cancer. You may remember him as the guy who changed the direction of rock six or seven times.
I wish I had something clever to say here, but I don’t, so just read the AP’s retrospective (or Wikipedia‘s, if you’re reading this in a dystopian future where the AP’s links have gone dead) while listening to Moonage Daydream:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFDj3shXvco&w=420&h=315]
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUx1i38Rco8&w=640&h=480]
Because I hate all of you and want you to suffer as much as I have, you get a double helping of Christian glurgey WTF.
The first part is The Monkey Song, perhaps the catchiest expression of anti-evolutionary ignorance and superstition that I’ve heard.
But stick around, because then they sing The Ecumenical Movement, an ode to tribalism and dogma. The core message is “those people (both non-Christians and non-right-kind-of-Christians) don’t believe the same things I do, so I’m not even going to talk to them.”
http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/NKwlUmoiPVY?version=3&hl=en_US
The 70s flavor of the recording provides a retro flavor, like bell bottoms on a Sunday-best pantsuit.
(HT J)
It’s raining out there, so here’s a song about a rainy city at night. It’s uncharacteristically upbeat for Anne Clark:
Outside of Country music, at least. And those dogs tend not to be space travelers.
Way back when, when I was converting my tape collection to MP3, I ran across a song by legendary Genevan blues-rockers (don’t laugh) Le Beau lac de Bâle that I couldn’t recognize. It didn’t seem to correspond to any songs in the album track listings I could find. I tried googling the lyrics, but couldn’t find anything (yes, Virginia, there are things even Google can’t find).
Eventually, I stumbled upon this 45 RPM single, and learned that the mystery song was called “Hachèlème bouguille”.
You can listen to it here.
So as a favor to the next person to run into the same problem, here are the lyrics, in a form that Google can track down:
Vous vivez à sept dans un trois-pièces aux Palettes
J’attrape la migraine en y venant une fois par semaineTon frère Jean-Paul écoute toute la nuit Sex Pistols
Et ta soeur Yvette écoute du Wagner aux toilettesQuitte cette maison de fous
Tu ferais mieux de venir avec nous
On est sympa comme tout
On t’offrira tout plein de Sugus et de cachousTon père est pervers, il ne joue qu’au strip poker
Il picole en caleçon devant la télévisionTa mère tous les matins chante la messe en latin
Oui mais tous les soirs elle chante du rock dans sa baignoireQuitte cette maison de fous…
Le petit Victor fait du ski dans l’corridor
Et la petite Aline, elle est en froc dans la cuisineEt le grand Raoul qu’est dev’nu maboul à Kaboul
(Choubidoubi choubidoua)
Sur le balcon, il a une drôle de plantation
(Choubidoubi choubidoua)Quitte cette maison de fous… (bis)
Quitte cette maison de fous
Et on t’offrira tout plein
Tout plein
Tout plein
De quoi?
De Sugus
De Sugus
De Sugus
Et de cachous
Okay, I should probably have posted this in French, shouldn’t I?
Christmastime has a lot of traditions associated with it, so allow me to share one of mine.
Back in, oh, 1984 or so, my best friend in High School and I went down to Barcelona for summer vacation. Aside from the usual stuff you’d expect two teenage boys on vacation away from their parents to do, like trying to pick up girls in night clubs, smoking joints, and plotting to crash the China Crisis/Simple Minds concert, we stopped at a used record store (remember record stores? Remember records?) and picked up something called Navidades radioactivas.
It was a compilation. A Christmas compilation. A punk Christmas compilation. A Spanish punk Christmas album. Naturally, we had to have it. And until YouTube stops being the repository of all music everywhere, you can hear an approximation of what it sounds like:
http://www.youtube.com/p/E6327A69004C5C25?hl=en_US&fs=1
I made a point of listening to this every year, as a way of countering the endless barrage of Ecksmas Muzak played in every goddamn store throughout November and December, until my tape player died. I eventually converted my tapes to MP3s and have resurrected the tradition. Except that by then, online shopping had been invented, and became less necessary to put up with brick-and-mortar crap. I found out a while back that my friend also, once a year, pulls out his vinyl copy and plays it. I like that. It makes me feel that even though we don’t correspond much anymore, we’re still somehow connected.
So yeah, this is quite personal. So even if you’re listening to it now, I don’t expect you to make it to the end, unless you’re morbidly curious.
Unless you were a DJ in Madrid in the mid-80s, the only artists you have any chance of ever having heard of are El Aviador Dro and Derribos Arias (no, the Alphaville that performs Un día de diciembre is not the same band that did Big in Japan). I think Dro, who were big enough to have their own label, were trying to promote some bands they thought deserved wider recognition.
El Aviador Dro — El nascimiento de la industria: This is not the version from the LP. Apparently the track listing was changed when the CD version was released, so this is a different recording. Try to forgive the performance. It was the 80s, after all.
T.N.T. — Ratatata: a punk cover of The Little Drummer Boy. Back before we had things like YouTube, College Humor, and Boing Boing, this was considered some pretty weird shit.
Los Iniciados — El abominable hombre de nieve: This is a dark variant on Frosty the Snowman: it tells of how the children build a snowman, which then lasts all winter. Spring comes, and it doesn’t melt. Seasons come and go, and the snowman is still there. Years pass, boys grow up to be men, their children grow up and have children of their own, and still the snowman remains there, casting its unholy shadow over the town.
Agrimensor K. — Resurrección blanca: This may very well be a racist white power anthem. Sorry about that.
For anything else, Google — both its search engine and automatic translator — is your friend.