What May 19th means...

Due to a late night at work I didn't make it to the Hey Rosetta!/Diamond Doves show last night. But I do plan on catching Hey Rosetta! the next time they are back in New York and you need to catch Hey Rosetta! when they come to your town.

Yesterday was the 19th of May and there is a musical holy trinity that was born on the 19th of May.

The first of this holy trinity that has a birthday on May 19th is Grace Jones. And without the edgy influence of Grace Jones, Madonna would have been some flash in the pan 1980's dance singer and Lady Gaga would still be a brown haired NYU Tisch school grad named Stefani Germotta singing Vanessa Carlton type songs at the Bitter End while wearing a dress from Old Navy.



The second of the May 19th musical holy trinity is the Godfather of Punk Joey Ramone. Yesterday would have been Joey's 60th birthday. Jesse Malin did a really great Q&A with the Village Voice blog about his memories of Joey, you can read that here.



The last of this holy May 19th musical trinity is the Father of Punk Rock Pete Townshend. Without him there would have been no Joey Ramone and a lot of other musicians i.e everyone from Joe Strummer of the Clash to Eddie Vedder, Guided by Voices and even Nicole Atkins!

I've often said that Townshend is the reason why I wanted to get into rock music.  As a teen I played guitar because of him and as an adult I keep reminding myself that I need to pick up the guitar again!

Anyhow when  I was about 14 years old I decided that I was going to write to Pete to tell him how much he inspired me and invite him to my mom's house on Long Island for some of my mom's cooking and to jam a little. So I sent off this letter and I had my sister take a picture of me with my used Fender Standard Telecaster doing my best Pete windmill pose and below is the response I got back from Pete himself!

If I'm ever lucky enough to meet the man face to face I will ask him if he remembers getting a letter from a 14 year old dork from Long Island who thought she was going to grow up to be the female version of him.

Check it out: White Mystery and Nobunny

It is well known in this blog that my favorite form of music is garage punk. One band that totally satisfies my craving for garage punk is  Chicago's White Mystery, White Mystery is made up of a brother and sister who play guitar and drums and whose last name just so happens to be White..before you get any ideas that White Mystery is nothing more then a White Stripes knock off I can assure you they are not! White Mystery's sound is much more rooted in lo fi garage punk compared to the White Stripes more lo fi blues sound.

 Miss Alex White, who looks like British actress Helena Bonham Carter's red headed punk sister plays guitar and sings lead with such gusto in a voice that is very reminiscent of some of the 1960's garage rock goddess, while brother Francis Scott Key White (also a red head) plays drums and sings harmony with wild abandon sorta like Animal from the "Muppet Show".

Check out the clip for White Mystery's song "Power Glove".



Moving on to one of my favorite half human - half rabbit  garage punk/bubble gum rockers Nobunny, take a listen and look at the clip for his song "Somewhere New". Seeing Nobunny live is an quite the experience if he comes to your town I highly recommend going to see him.

Tapeheads a movie to Netflix

Last night I watched on Netflix instant a film from the late 80's called "Tapeheads". "Tapeheads" stars a very young John Cusack and Tim Robbins as two slackers who start a video company. Their goal is to make innovative videos for RTV ,a parody on MTV..you see way back in the day MTV actually played music videos, broadcasted concerts and had music based programing, music videos were actually a pretty big deal  in the 80's and for most of the 90's.

Anyhow the film's two young heroes start out small and film stuff like funerals,chicken and waffle restaurant commercials, videos on spec for bad Euro trash bands and a presidential candidate's garden party.

It is at  the garden party the two leads meet the hottest rock reporter on the scene Samantha Gregory (played by Bing Crosby's daughter Mary), Samantha is there because she knows this candidate has a secret and she will try anything to expose him. The candidate's secret is that he has a fairy princess fetish and before the garden party he and one of his dominatrix make a tape and the dominatrix runs out with the tape in the middle of the party and puts it in the knapsack of Tim Robbins character. Little do our two heroes know they are in possession of this tape.

When Samantha Gregory finds out that they have this tape she uses her influence to get the boys a job directing a video for the hot hair metal band the Blender Children. Punk God Stiv Bators has a cameo as the lead singer of the Blender Children. When the video shoot goes all wrong and they get fired, the two leads find themselves drinking a bar where they run into their childhood idols soul duo The Swanky Modes played by Sam Moore and Junior Walker. Before they can buy their idols a drink The Swanky Modes frustrated with their career and the band on the stage (which happens to be Fishbone) the Swanky Modes run out of the bar and at that moment on the bar TV the boys learn that the Blender Children have been killed when a meteor hits the Greek theater where the band is playing that very night. Samantha calls them to ready the video they did for the Blender Children for a RTV video premiere rather then use the footage they have the boys decide to use the funeral footage they have for the Blender Children's song. The video becomes a huge hit and makes our two heroes the hit of the music scene. I won't give away the rest of the film but let's just say the rest of the plot involves that tape, satellite hook up and a Menudo concert.

Besides Stiv Bators, Sam Moore and Junior Walker there are lots of interesting cameos in "Tapeheads" from people like; a pre plastic surgery, pre Kurt Courtney Love, Mike Nesmith, Ted Nugent,Jello Biafra as an FBI agent, Weird Al and Jessica Walter (aka Lucille Bluth), bubbly 60's actress Connie Stevens and football player Lyle Alzado who plays Cusack's father.

"Tapeheads" is a fantastic and satirical look at the state of the music industry and technology in the late 1980's, well worth watching on Netflix instant. The soundtrack for "Tapeheads" is pretty rad too lots of original music written for Junior Walker and Sam Moore but also lots of 80's new wave chestnuts from Devo and Fishbone.

Hey Rosetta and other things

I'm really excited to be covering Hey Rosetta and Diamond Doves show at The Mercury Lounge on Thursday 5/19.

Hey Rosetta's music is mellow but yet takes you on the highest highs in best way possible and on the prettiest of lows and most of all makes you feel all good when you listen to it. And Diamond Doves are just so dang good!

Below is the clip for Hey Rosetta's song "Yer Spring" off their album "Seeds".



And cause I was having such a blah cynical weekend and usually when I have those types of weekends I listen to a lot of Frank Zappa. Being in that type of mood makes me totally appreciate Frank Zappa's genius even more so then do and Zappa is one of my all time favorite musicians. This is one of my favorite Zappa songs "Broken Hearts Are For Assholes" off of "Sheik Yerbouti".