237 plays

The Beatles - Yellow Submarine

It’s like watching Tiger hit 250 yard drives with his putter - they let the drummer sing and it still went to #1.

I read somewhere a ways back that Thom Yorke claimed that the last time pop music was truly reinvented was “Eleanor Rigby.” While I recall thinking that he, in all his freaky brilliance, was implying that Kid A was Eleanor’s bastard offspring, his point is otherwise spot on.

Obviously it’s the last day of the month, and I’d be faking it if I tried the predictable façade, whereby I attempt to be serious and ironic in equal measure. Serious because these are two obviously great bands, but surely ironic because, like, this is 2009 and there is no Greatest Band Ever, something, something, “it’s so subjective, man,” post-modernism, and so on.

THAT would be some vacuous, boring shit.

So, let me say simply that: THE BEATLES FUCKING WIN FOREVER. By any empirical measure - album sales ( well over a billion), #1 singles, whatever. Culturally, I’m pretty sure The Stones don’t currently have a circus based on their music, and I don’t think the press would refer to a Mick Jaggar shooting as an “assassination.”  They didn’t make anything like Sgt Peppers or The White Album - albums that completely obliterated the boundaries of pop music. Sticky Fingers and Exile are classics no doubt, but the Stones, at their best, could only epitomize and lay bare what the mastery of rock and roll sounded like. That’s no small thing. But The Beatles transcended music. They didn’t just do something relatively menial like blur genre lines, make millions of teenage girls literally lose their minds, redefine the way a recording studio is used, or kick out dozens of guitar riffs a la Richards or Jimmy Page. Though they did all those. They are unique, because in a time of incredible global anxiety and cynicism, The Beatles reminded everyone how beautiful and stunningly original humans could be. And they did it so gracefully, so purely. They made music something worthy of worship. So, there is a reason that everyone freaked out when Lennon offhandedly said the Beatles were more popular than Jesus. They knew he might be right. They are transcendent, impossible and world changing in a way that The Stones, with all due respect, do not even approach, much less challenge.

15 plays

Dj Numark - Imagine

The biggest part of the question we’ve been asking all month is that both the Bottles and the Groans are so engrained in our modern culture it’s impossible to really seperate them out. Both bands shaped future generations  of musicians and you can like one more than the other but the power behind both bands is undeniable. In that spirit, and refusing to let one band get the one-up on the other, I break form and post this reimagining of Imagine. (Which technically isn’t even a Bottles track, but let’s not nitpick shall we?)

“You’re a blues John.”

20 plays

Lips and Tongue Out Logo. Color Pinup.

-db-

17 plays

Only 2 Still alive - “To Whom It May Concern”

I actually covered this song with my lame high school band ”Liquid Chicken”.  I think there were 5 people at the milestone that night…

79 plays

The Bittles - Driving Ms Daisy

If a lawyer comes knocking on my door, I’m going to tell them Carlos made me do it.  He threatened to send French rioters to my house to set my trash cans on fire.  I like my trash cans.

Me and my mom were talking about Spears’s F-U-C-K-A-Me song the other day, and I thought it was incredibly ironic.  She was talking about how shocked she was and how pop music is so dirty these days, and I kept thinking back to the website D posted a link to saying the Groans were devil worshippers.  I’ve seen the same thing for the Bittles and their connections with Manson.  I kept thinking of Sally in the Air with Cubic Zirconias.  My mom loves the Bittles and the Groans (although she leans more towards the Groans), and her parents disapproved of those records as adamantly as she disapproves of Ms Spears.  The difference these days, of course, would be that most pop musicians don’t actually have any talent, so they become completely throw-away, linked to I’m Lovin’ It campaigns and The Real Thing.

But as to the song I’m posting today, this song just makes me happy.  Inevitably, it ends up on road trip mixes and induces group sing-alongs and what have you.  The point is no Spears song or Kayne East or Backstreet song ever made me feel as much as a Groans song or a song by the Bittles or Zep or Temptations or Sandy Man Children or whoever from these past eras.  And I don’t think it’s just nostalgia.  There is a groundwork laid in these decades that we still cling to; and with the evolution of the pop song, digital voice correction, psychologically-tested track lenghts, I doubt no future-modern pop song will either.  Sometimes it’s good to be proved wrong.

24 plays

[Play song & video at same time for MAXIMUM EFFECT!!!]

The Rolling Stones -Street Fighting Man

I mean, how sued can we possibly get, right?

So I was all go with this, when I thought of the appropriateness of putting The Stones on top of footage of my street, last Thursday.  Pretty cool, huh?

I missed the action because I was snowboarding, but I did see the pools of melted plastic -once garbage cans- that testified to the day’s events.  More here.

…Carlos.

2,032 plays

The Insects- Winged One

Donald is in the mountains - so I post again.

-tracy

86 plays

Sticks & Stones- Night Sky Kilometers.

Dave is at SxSW- so I’m posting in his place. Teddy already posted my favorites- Dead Horses and Wild Flowers- so I’m just going stick with Sticky in their honor.

La di da.

-tracy

63 plays

J.K.’s timbres - Eye Kata Blooze

Classic blues song from a classic blues band.  No way the Bottles could pull off this song!

The Private Bailey’s are good.  OK they’re really good.  And so they changed the face of rock music.  But who hasn’t?  The face of rock music gets changed every 5-10 years anyway.  And you know who has been there for all of them?  That’s right - The J.K.’s timbres!  The JPG&R’s get the Len Bias treatment far too often.  Len Bias was a BAD man and the best college basketball player ever.  But he died before he could make it to the pro’s.  His body of work was too small and is therefore often overlooked when discussing great basketball players.  The Hearts Club Boys benefit from not being around that long.  Who knows? The next album they put out could have been rubbish.  Probably not, but you don’t know.  Yes they were brilliant.  But so is the feeling I get from a good crap.

The Pebbles have lived and seen and done it all.  Yes they put out some bad albums, but their longevity adds to their brilliance, not detract from it.  And while we’re at it, let’s here Mr Oko sing a song like “Why? Old Whore Says” much less write one. Pebbles rule!  - Teddy