Category Archives: Fun Stuff
Dementia 5
When I was a kid, I saw this, the strangest, trippiest, outright psychedelic episode of the Spider-Man cartoon, and it quickly became a favorite of mine (which probably explains some things about me) –
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2fuxnh
It turns out it wasn’t actually a Spider-Man episode… it was a recycled version of Rocket Robin Hood, with Spider-Man painted in place of one main character while the other character was deleted. Essentially one cartoon costumed up as another.
Knowing Ralph Bakshi was involved in both explains much of the trippiness.
Rocktober Final Friday
Friday Night, 12:30 AM EST
The final Friday Night Videos of 2015, with a triple threat of evil –
Jon Spencer has teeth that are long and a pentagram on his palm –
Concrete Blonde has the ways and means to where the vampires live –
Alice In Chains, born into the grave –
Rocktober – The Dark And Stormy Night Rises
“Everything comes back down to Batman, in the end.” – Donal Graeme
It’s dark and will likely be raining tonight, apropos for the night before Halloween.
A sequel was attempted…
..but ultimately not produced.
The phrase “It was a dark and stormy night” comes from the 1830 novel Paul Clifford, written by Sir Edward George Earle Bulwer-Lytton, and was picked up years later by Peanuts cartoonist Charles Schulz, who gave the line to aspiring author Snoopy as part of that decorated WWI Flying Ace’s ongoing efforts to be published.
The novel began thusly –
“It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents – except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.”
Sounds like the setting for Gotham. Or a metal video game.
Schulz had Snoopy write out his novel, starting with the famous line and building from there, and can be read it its (short) entirety here.
In 1981, writer Len Wein and artist Walt Simonson did something fun for the 500th issue of Detective Comics, where Batman originated, by doing a remix of sorts of Snoopy’s novel, presented in its (also short) entirety above.
Somewhere along the line, Charles Schulz did a drawing for DC Comics artist Carmine Infantino, who drew Batman in the 60s –
Rocktober – Don’t Pay The Ferryman (And A Very! Important! Sponsor Message!)
Going back to the early 80s to unearth an MTV staple of the day – Chris DeBurgh’s “Don’t Pay The Ferryman,” a vaguely spookish song with allusions to Charon about a man crossing the water who is warned by mysterious voices not to pay that vulgar boatman.
And now a brief word from our sponsor –
Full demented episode here.
Rocktober – Rock, Peanuts, Travers
Sorry, no Lizard or Spock.
As Charlie Brown says every Halloween, “I’ve got to rock!” So here’s the “Peanuts” theme as interpreted in rock style by Pat Travers.
Rock, Paper, Scissors, Linus, Smiths
Peanuts and music have a long history together, as this station has show in in the past, primarily with 80s British bands. Now someone has gone and created a Tumblr called This Charming Charlie, combining the subtextual angst Peanuts comics with the hyperdepressive lyrics of The Smiths, creating a singularity of suicidal bleakness, speaking to all of us through it’s universal symbolism of nihilsm.
Hilarious, is it not? In a bleak, anti-depressant sort of way.
Yes, well. But at least it’s borrowing from one of the finest bands to ever stride across the Earth, and this station is proud to bring it to you. We hope you appreciate it.
Saturday Night Studio – Postmodern Jukebox
So where do you go to find pop hits from the last several decades covered in the style of swing and jazz standards from a bygone era? Postmodern Jukebox has that niche, uh, covered.
For example, check out this vintage jazz cover of “Lovefool” by the Cardigans –
I don’t know about you, but I’ve waited 25 years for an “Old Jack Swing” cover of New Jack Swing stylists Bell Biv Devoe –
Electronic Dance Music song “Lean On” done in the style of 70s Stevie Wonder? They got that –
…and it’s good. Far better than the original.
It might seem a bit naive to attempt covering a Talking Heads melody in vintage 40s swing style, but I guess they must be having fun. I liked it.
I have to wonder what urban, cosmopolitan feminist-y types think of PMJ’s cover of “Blurred Lines” – all the alleged rapiness with that bluegrass sound that makes the Tumblrinas teeth grind. Bonus points for a woman singing it. [Extra double bonus: listen to it at 1.25 x normal speed]
There’s also an instrumental keyboard mashup deep in the archives titled “Call Me Al, Maybe.”
This is how they remind me of how they polished an unpolishable turd with some Motown sound –
Lastly, one that sort of fits their bailiwick even before they covered it… I always liked this Fiona Apple song, but this cover suits it perfectly. Fiona should have done an alternate version in this style, because she was born sing in this style –
Thanks to my wife for discovering this.
October 21 2015 Day
Amazon Prime is promoting Back To The Future Day all over their site, with a huge banner video on top of the pages, and streaming all 3 movies for free. I decided to watch Back To The Future II, partly because I have only seen it a couple times (less than the third, and far less than the first), and because it’s the movie which centers around today’s date.
A few random thoughts…
Alternate 1985 Biff looks strikingly like Donald Trump.
I forgot how good some of the special effects were. Absolutely outstanding for the, uh, time.
Doc’s shades. Metal awesomeness.
I want to hang out at the 80s Cafe.
Double Bonus Sakamoto Night Studio – Akiko Yano
J-Pop night’s unexpected (even by me) surprise encore does science! and research.
So this post about Vanilla Mood earlier tonight included the song “Harusaki Kobeni,” which is a rather poppy song. At the time, I did a quick youtube search to find the original by Akiko Yano but had no idea what I was reading since all results came back in Japanese, and I’m too lazy an internationally famous nighttime DJ like myself doesn’t have time to mess with that sort of thing.
Enter wdydfae, who commented –
The song apparently goes back to the early 80s and was sung by Akiko Yano, backed by none other than Yellow Magic Orchestra, the milestone techno fusion band. It was quite a thing at the time.
During his research he discovered a post about the song on a site called Kayo Kyoku Plus, which explains that the song is about “enthusiastically admiring the cherry blossoms.” Enthusiastic is an understatement.. the song is so ferociously upbeat it makes last week’s relentlessly cheery songs seem like dirges –
The song was such a hit that it was used in a commercial for Kanebo Cosmetics –
So very 1981.
The writer of the KKP site relates an apocryphal story…
I found out a rather interesting piece of trivia that I’m still not totally convinced about. Yano has had professional relationships with a wide variety of Western artists ranging from Janis Siegel of The Manhattan Transfer to Thomas Dolby.There is the famous line in Dolby’s biggest hit, “She Blinded Me With Science” in which he sings, “Good heavens, Miss Sakamoto! You’re beautiful!”Apparently, Yano had been observing the recording of the song, and Dolby was referring to her, since she had been married to YMO’s Ryuichi Sakamoto（坂本龍一） at the time. This is according to J-Wiki, but at another site, Miss Sakamoto is supposed to refer to their daughter, Miyu（美雨）, who is now also a musician but was only around 1 year old when “Science”came out. Not sure if this is true or not…just throwing it out there.
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x11lvw_thomas-dolby-she-blinded-me-with-sc_music#tab_embed
Studio Bonus – Saturday Night Shodan
Bonus Studio on what seems to be turning into J-Pop night. Sort of.
From The Weekly Constitutional –
If you are anything like me, you have more than once found yourself sitting alone in your room listening to Steely Dan cover bands while lamenting:
“If only a group of chinamen would form a group devoted to doing spot on covers (except for the accent) of the Steely Dan classics…”
Well friends, your wait is over… Coming at you from Japan, here’s Steely Shodan…
Rather surreal hearing him sing “the shine in your Japan, the sparkle in your China.”
Here’s their version of “Kid Charlemagne” –
Donald Fagen of Steely Dan hears them for the first time –
And here’s some balls-out awesome –
No flies on them.
The band is a near perfect replica with a slight Japanese twist, and the singer looks like a streets-of-Chiba pimp or one of the gangsters in Black Rain, making him perfect for the, uh, less than cheery lyrics that Walt and Don are notorious for. It’s like Steely Dan crossed with Blade Runner.
Saturday Night Studio – Vanilla Mood
I first discovered this band 5 or 6 years ago. Then forgot about them.
“Day By Day” with Yui on violin, Mariko on cello, Waka on flute, and Keiko on piano, although Emilee has apparently sat in for Waka at times.
It’s a catchy enough tune, kinda reminds me of the Corrs a little.
They did some more classical sounding pieces like this and this, and did a cover of Volare because apparently any non-rock band is required to play it, much like how federal law required all West Coast 70s bands to have Michael McDonald sing backup vocals on at least one track per album. Beatles covers work much the same way.
These pretty women* also included Roy Orbison in their cover catalog…
This one sounds like the intro to some late 60s/early 70s comedy-variety show –
And speaking of late 60s/early 70s American television –
* Hey, I don’t write the show, I just use what the program director gives me.
nightskyradio 