Blog Archives
Stereolab Rematerialize 2019
Stereolab is back and touring, as the groop plays Chord X again after ten years.
A recent concert from Chicago’s Union Park, about 40 minutes in length –
2018
End of another year. Hope everyone has a terrific New Year!
Added more songs to the list, including a new Steely Dan performance from this year.
Faketober Friday Night Videos – Smells Like TOTP Spirit
“Load up on drugs, kill your friends”
– Kurt Cobain, 1991Nirvana was set to perform their recent hit single, “Smells Like Teen Spirit” on the British music chart television program “Top of the Pops.” …What resulted was, and still is, one of the greatest middle fingers and live performances ever
Kurt doing his best(?) Morrissey impression. Kinda wonder what a Nirvana cover of the Smiths would have sounded like. Or vice versa.
Cranberries Singer Dolores O’Riordan Dead At 46
Lead singer of the Cranberries Dolores O’Riordan has passed away.
Dolores O’Riordan, lead singer of Irish rock band The Cranberries, died suddenly on Monday. She was 46.
O’Riordan died in London, where she was recording, publicist Lindsey Holmes said.
“No further details are available at this time,” Holmes said, adding that the singer’s family was “devastated” by the news.
The first Cranberries song that I recall hearing was “Zombie” in August or September of 1994. I kinda liked it, but it got so incredibly overplayed in such a short time that to this day I almost cringe a little when I hear it. Overplayed so much that the warehouse I worked in at the time is burned into my memory and resurfaces every time I hear the song.
They came to dominate alternative radio in the mid-to-late 90s. I was never a big fan of theirs, but I did like some of their songs.
“Dreams” was pretty good, although it was overplayed a bit as well –
“Linger” is decent enough, it’s good enough that I don’t automatically change radio stations when I hear it –
Radio stations couldn’t get enough of that one, either. the song just, uh, hung around for a long time.
But I would have to say the song I liked best was “Ridiculous Thoughts.” Don’t know why, just a catchy tune. Good opening, and she belts it out fairly well at the end, too –
Rest In Peace, Dolores. Didn’t know you well, but sad to see you’re gone.
2017
I don’t know if this will post with a December 31st date ’cause WordPress is screwy…
Hope you all had a wonderful 2017 and have an even better 2018. Here’s some music for your New Year’s Eve party!
Rocktober – Late Edition
It’s well into the month and I haven’t Rocktobered once. Things have been hectic here at the station…. nothing really wrong, just very busy. However, in the spirit of lateness, here is some late night music –
And now a word from our sponsors and totally random celebrities, including two notorious for keeping late nights –
And now an obscure import to comply with the 4 A.M. public affairs broadcasting regulations –
This concludes tonight’s Rocktobering. Late Night Sky Radio, signing off –
You Never Know Someone
Back in the late 80s and early 90s, one of my favorite comics writers was Gerard Jones. At the time, he was writing some really fun – and sometimes really different – stuff in the trio of Green Lantern-related books. He did some Batman work, which I could take or leave, and he worked on a Justice League comic (at first with a co-writer and later solo) that was pretty funny. He was clearly liberal, but he was a lot more intelligent than most lightweight armchair libs writing comics, and even went against the liberal line at times. Mostly, his work was just smarter than the usual by-the-numbers crap that was and still is being published.
His work seemed to take a dip around 1993, though, and in a few years he didn’t seem to be writing much for comics anymore, if at all. I believe part of that had to do with clashes with editorial, which was undergoing changes at the time. I saw his name again in the local newspaper’s comics page around 2000 – he was writing a Pokemon strip.
He wrote a few non-fiction books in the 2000s, but I didn’t keep up with those. I heard very little about him after that until today, when I discovered he was arrested about a week ago for possessing kiddie porn and uploading it to YouTube.
I’ve long learned to separate the art from the artist. And he hasn’t been proven guilty yet. But there are limits. I doubt I’ll ever really enjoy his work again.
Saturday Night Studio – New Year’s Eve
Have some music to rock out the old year and ring in the new!
See you in 2017!
Saturday Night Stolen
This one’s heavy on video, yo. But it’s smooth.
In 1978, the Doobie Brothers released their album Minute By Minute, containing the song “What A Fool Believes”….
…and, of course, it became a hit. So smooth.
Comare and contrast with Robbie Dupree’s 1980 single titled “Steal Away”…
…which seems to be exactly what happened here. Very suspiciously similar.
According to this site, Dupree’s song also was, uh, inspired by Eddie Money’s 1977 song “Baby Hold On.” I can kind of hear it.
Doobie Bro Michael McDonald had this happen with another song, 1982’s “I Keep Forgettin’ (Every Time You’re Near)” –
The song was sampled in 1994 by Warren G and Nate Dogg in “Regulate” [mildly NSFW]-
A completely and totally 100% absolutely true and smooth account of how this came about was related on the internet series Yacht Rock [also a bit NSFW]. And “Hollywood Steve,” the host of the show, is a real life music critic.
However, “I Keep Forgettin'” itself is heavily inspired by Chuck Jackson’s 1963 song titled, amazingly, “I Keep Forgettin'” –
McDonald’s version is sometimes listed as a cover of Jackson’s song, but there are differences. Although sharing credit with the writers of Jackson’s song, McDonald does get a songwriting credit on his version.
Michael’s old friends in Steely Dan had their own run-in with this sort of thing. From 1977, their song “Black Cow” –
…which got sampled in 1997 by Lord Tariq & Peter Gunz for their single “Uptown Baby” [you know it’s NSFW]-
The opening of the song features another sample, Amores Como El Nuestro by Jerry Rivera.
Turns out The Dan weren’t happy with Tariq and Gunz sampling the song and causing Walter and Donald some difficulties. Peter Gunz discusses it here (a little NSFW language in there).
Not long after that, Tatyana Ali released her 1998 single “Daydreamin'” (lots of apostrophes in music, apparently), where Tariq and Gunz sampled themselves sampling “Black Cow” in some kind of recursive loop and rapped on it –
“I heard Steely Dan “Black Cow” and went wild!”
Steely Dan’s Donald Fagen completes and reverses the Mobius Circuit by sampling “Uptown Baby” over “Black Cow” –
nightskyradio 