Satisfaction - The Rolling Stones

In the early morning hours of May 7, 1965, in a Clearwater, Florida motel room, a bleary-eyed Keith Richards awoke, grabbed a tape recorder and laid down one of the greatest hooks of all time: the opening of "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction."  Just three days later, the Stones took the song into the Chess studios in Chicago and completed it on May 12 after a flight to L.A. and an eighteen-hour recording session at RCA.

40 yrs. later, the song is ranked near the top of many greatest rock hits lists.  Rolling Stone (which ranks it #2 on their list of "500 Greatest Songs of All Time") wrote this about the song: "That spark in the night...was the crossroads: the point at which the rickety jump and puppy love of early rock and roll became rock."

A performance in 1965, one of the earliest known recordings of a Stones live concert.

Glastonberry 2013

In the Days of Chicken Little

From the video description on YouTube: Alice Barker was a chorus line dancer during the Harlem Renaissance of the the 1930s and 40s. She danced at clubs such as The Apollo, Cotton Club, and Zanzibar Club, with legends including Frank Sinatra, Gene Kelly, and Bill "Bojangles" Robinson. 

Although she danced in numerous movies, commercials and TV shows, she had never seen any of them, and all of her photographs and memorabilia have been lost over the years. 

With the help of Mark Cantor of http://jazz-on-film.com we finally our hands on three "Soundies" Alice appeared in, and were able to show them to her for the very first time. She had never seen herself in motion in her life!

Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Jan 27, 1756 - Dec 5, 1791) began composing at the age of five.

He began decomposing shortly after he died.

Shoot, Yeah!

The National Anthem...

An ode to the 2nd Amendment.

First Video on MTV

Video Killed the Radio Star by The Buggles was the first music video shown on MTV in the United States at 12:01am on August 1, 1981.

99 Red Balloons

Played on real red balloons.

I loved the song 99 Luftballons by Lena when it came out in the mid-80's. It was an anti-nuclear weapons protest tune, but I liked the song more than I did its message.  I used to read a lot of action novels and the phrase "the balloon has gone up" is often used to mean that trouble is quickly coming. 

The origin of the phrase isn't clear, but I believe it's from one of these examples at Grammar-Monster.com:  

Once the balloon has gone up means when trouble is here or in a period of trouble.

The term once the balloon has gone up derives from the First World War. Whenever enemy activity was expected, observations balloons would be released to monitor the enemy troop movements. As a result, the raising of these balloons, which were visible to all, soon became a sign of pending enemy action.

A Competing Theory

The term when the balloon goes up refers to the large barrage balloons which were raised on steel cables above British cities during the Second World War. The idea was that enemy bombers would keep away from the cities, fearing that the steel cables would slice through their wings. Therefore, when the barrage balloons went up, it was a sign for a city's inhabitants of a pending air raid.

I'm Not Happy

I used to love this song...

...the first thousand times I heard it.

100 Amazing Bass Lines

Pretty cool video, but at least a couple of the RHCP (Red Hot Chili Peppers) attributed tunes are remakes of other group's songs.

99 Luftballoons - Nena

From Wiki: "99 Luftballons" (German Neunundneunzig Luftballons, "99 balloons") is an anti-nuclear protest song by the German band Nena from their 1983 self-titled album. An English version titled "99 Red Balloons" written by Kevin McAlea was also released after widespread success of the original in Europe and Japan. The English version is not a direct translation of the German and contains a somewhat different set of lyric.

Happy Without Music

Clever video that edits out the music of Happy by Pharrel Williams.

Gold - John Stewart

There were other videos, some in concert and on TV, but this had the best sound quality of the several I viewed/listened to. I've always liked this song, love the back beat and also the story it tells.

Reading about John Stewart, I was surprised to learn he was once a member of The Kingston Trio and the songs he had written, namely Daydream Believer.

That's Stevie Nicks singing backup.

Hair - The Cowsills

Today in history: The Broadway musical Hair debuted in 1968; the movie was released in 1979. Several of the soundtrack songs hit the charts; this was the title tune:

Hey Mami - Josh Turner

Featuring Sam Helferich

Not my favorite video from young Mr. Turner, but one of the most interesting, using a phone app for overdubbing.

Valerie - Steve Winwood

I was listening to an online classic rock station earlier when this song came on; while listening to it, I thought "That sounds an awful lot like Call on Me by Eric Prydz!". After reading about both songs, I found that Prydz had indeed sampled from the Winwood tune and had presented the tune to Winwood and (from Wiki) he was so impressed with what Prydz had done, he collaborated with him and re-recorded the vocals to fit the track better

Harp Twins

At first I thought it might be a Harry Potter parody that appeared on my YouTube recommendations, a video of Hedwig's Theme done on harps...by twins, no less. I watched it and even though it was obvious it wasn't an expensive, professionally done production, it still was entertaining. (even if you're not a fan of the harp, what's not to like about the HP theme...and two pretty young girls? Well, I guess if you hate HP and are female yourself....)

I checked out their channel - Camille and Kennerly - and subscribed, mostly because of this video. I've seen all kinds of covers of their music, but I've NEVER seen an AC/DC tune done on harps.



Like that? Check out their rendition of Don't Fear The Reaper. That song fits the harps a little better than Highway to Hell, JMO....although Sweet Child O' Mine is pretty darn good, too. They not only do covers of rock classics, they also did a great job on Scarborough Fair and Ghost Riders In The Sky, showing that harps can sound good in any genre of music.

Androgynous Taste in Music

You Like Music that Everyone Likes

When it comes to music, you tend to listen to artists that men and women like equally. Your taste in music is rather broad, and you like a little bit of everything. You love music! Of all the types, you are the most likely to know what will please a crowd. Your playlists are legendary. You listen to all music with an open mind. You don't care what genre it is... or how mainstream it is. You just notice if you like it!

Do You Listen To Music Like a Man or a Woman?

incredibox

An auditory delight, incredibox might very well be the best time waster we've featured so far.

It's not hard to do, just "drag, drop and listen!" as the intro will show you.  A cute detail is, when you're dragging the sound effect/beat/melody/chorus/voices to each guy, you will see his eyes follow the symbol as you drop it onto his chest.  After you get done with assigning a sound to all seven guys, sit back and enjoy the tune you've created.  Mute any as you like for a different result or hit the "shuffle" button to change the overall effect (when it gets rid of one guy and adds another) or remove sounds.  It also has a feature that allows you to record the sound you like and send it to someone.

incredibox

Banana & Man

Did you know humans share about 50% of DNA with bananas?

On a related note, I thought about adding several different things to this trivia post; my first thought was to post the dancing banana "Peanut Butter Jelly Time" video, but that was too annoying. You're welcome.  I then thought I might want to post "Venus" by Bananarama, but that doesn't have a thing to do with bananas other than in the group's name...and besides that, I've been planning on doing a post about that cover and the original song.  Then I remembered that a Beetlejuice II movie is in the works, so I settled on this scene from the first movie:

Introducing Josh Turner

It was in my YouTube recommendations - a video of some kid named Josh Turner doing the Dire Straits "Sultans of Swing".  I probably would have ignored it except that's one of my favorite songs.  Still, I thought twice about clicking on the video because I'd seen other covers of the tune and wasn't at all impressed...however, I certainly was impressed with Mr. Turner's version.

I then watched many other of his videos and was even more impressed;  he often does other covers with a few of whom I suppose are some of his friends and sometimes accompanies a few young ladies (who also impress me with their vocal talent) on the guitar and sings harmony.  I'm not sure what-all instruments he plays, but I've so far seen him play guitars, both 6 and 12-string as well as a mandolin.  I suspect he can play several other musical instruments.

So, here's introducing Josh Turner...if you don't already know who he is.  I predict a bright future for this talented young man.



Josh Turner YouTube Channel

The Wikidrummer

Exploring the effects of reverberation