-the Ramones sing “Happy Birthday Mr. Burns”, after which Burns orders "have the Rolling Stones killed" -Homer yells at Bachman-Turner Overdrive to play “Takin’ Care of Business”, then later, “get to the ‘working overtime’ part!” -the Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show theme -Fat Tony calls a radio show to threaten Homer, then requests “Radar Love” ... and Homer sings along! -the theme from “The Sting” plays as Homer relates how in the 70s, on a visit to New York City, he was robbed, chased by pimps, had garbage dumped on him by Woody Allen … “and that’s when the CHUDs came at me”
Since the 1950s, rock 'n roll and parents have had a little trouble getting along. There's been concern about a perceived loosening of morals and traditional family structure, and less respect for authority. But there had never been a concerted effort to actually attack the musicians and the labels who produce the music.
That changed in the mid-1980s. Mary "Tipper" Gore, wife of Sen. Al Gore (D-TN), along with their daughter Karenna, was shocked to hear sexual references in Prince's "Darling Nikki". Along with Susan Baker, wife of U.S. Treasury Secretary James Baker, and other "Washington wives", they formed a committee, the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC), to lobby the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) to adopt album content stickers, outside lyric sheets, restrictions on sales to minors, and to reassess the contracts of artists with "objectionable" music.
On September 19, 1985, the Commerce, Science, and Transporation Committee of the U.S. Senate held a hearing on labeling records, and 3 musicians offered testimony. As expected, Dee Snider of Twisted Sister and Frank Zappa declared their opposition to the PMRC's proposals. Zappa was particularly pointed in his criticism of the PRMC's "ill-conceived piece of nonsense". In a discussion with committee member Senator Gore, Zappa voiced his concern about a hidden agenda, that even without a new national law, there were parts of the country where laws or regulations would be passed that would take his place in raising his children as he sees fit:
I want them to grow up in a country where they can think what they want to think, be what they want to be, and not what somebody's wife or somebody in Government makes them be.
In a surprise to many, country/folk singer-songwriter John Denver also objected to censorship. He recalled that some radio stations had banned "Rocky Mountain High" due to misinterpreting his lyrics. He offered that:
Discipline and self-restraint when practiced by an individual, a family, or a company is an effective way to deal with this issue. The same thing when forced on a people by their government or, worse, by a self-appointed watchdog of public morals, is suppression and will not be tolerated in a democratic society.
Unfortunately, a few weeks before, the RIAA had caved in to pressure from the PMRC and other groups and agreed to put a simple "Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics" label on select albums. This led to a refusal by some retailers to carry these records. The following year, the Dead Kennedys were unsuccessfully prosecuted for the use of a poster included in their album Frankenchrist. In 1990, a store clerk in Florida was arrested on obscenity charges for selling a copy of a 2 Live Crew record. The controversy over racist, violent, and misogynist lyrics, particularly in rap and hip-hop, continues to this day.
UPDATE: My post on the XPN MMMM site can be found here
One of my favorite things about summer is the variety and abundance of tasty, fresh vegetables and fruits. Jersey tomatoes are awesome, and I'm looking forward to driving down to the wilds of South Jersey pretty soon and hit some local roadside stands, farmers markets, and even the occasional house with a table and a few baskets set up out front.
It came as no big shock to me when I read about a study claming that nutritional content has been dropping in crops. Published in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition, it compared U.S.Department of Agriculture data from 1950 and 1999 for 13 nutrients in 43 crops. The results showed that two of five vitamins have declined, and protein content decreased by 6 percent.
The researchers think that perhaps intensive agricultural practices intended to increase crop yields and disease resistance have resulted in nutritionally-deficient harvests.
As a way out, perhaps farmers can substitute older seed varieties or develop new ones which maximize nutrition without sacrificing too many of the other gains that have been made.
XPoNential is finally over! I am not very tired, just a bit wiped out by being busy with volunteer duties for 4 days, catching some great music, and getting sunburned. Oh well!
I was happy to see and hear all the bands I wanted to; as it turned out, the mystery guest who substituted for Bob Mould on Friday afternoon was Philly local G. Love. Maybe he took the ferry over! Jesse Malin suffered a back injury, so Rhett Miller, a favorite of the ladies, subbed for him on Sunday.
The weather was near-perfect, much better than one would expect of Philadelphia in late July. Our volunteers did a great job, which certainly made our job much easier. I got to hang for a few minutes with some (but unfortunately, not all) of the boardies who showed up. All in all, it was a great time. But now ... off to sleep!
Aside from a few puffs about 10 years ago, I was never a smoker. Maybe it was seeing what cigarettes did to my grandfather (died of emphysema), or how my dad still smokes a pipe. Or maybe it was these classic PSAs that I remember so well.
Back in the early 1970s, there was the classic "Like Father, Like Son":
Twenty years later, actor Yul Brunner's advisory was released after his premature death from smoking:
XPoNential, the WXPN summer music festival formerly known as the All About the Music Festival (and the Singer-Songwriter Weekend before that), opens tonight at Wiggins Park in Camden, New Jersey. There are 4 big days of music this year (up from 3 the last few years); tomorrow is a Y-ROCK oriented lineup of bands. This is the first year I will be a Key Coordinator. I'm so psyched for being able to contribute more as part of the team. The weather forecast is looking good: sunny, low humidity, and breezes off the Delaware River. I've got my fingers crossed that we have no repeat of the lightning, wind, and torrential rain from last year!
Tonight's show opens with Slo-Mo, featuring Mic Wrecka, and also includes James Hunter, with funk masters Tower of Power finishing things off. Tomorrow, I'm planning on seeing Cracker, the mystery guest substituting for the injured Bob Mould, and the Fratellis, one of LRC's favorites. Saturday, I'll be happy with just seeing the Cat Empire. Sunday brings Philly local fave Dr. Dog, Kids Corner perennial Ernie & Neal, the Smithereens, and Marc Broussard (who we saw at a Free at Noon concert, which blew us away).
It's a good thing I took Monday off from work-between our volunteer duties and running into fellow volunteers and boardies, it's going to be a tiring few days!
In the late 1970s, John Travolta was a rising star who seemed to have the world as his oyster. As the white leisure suited-disco king Tony Manero in Saturday Night Fever, his style and enthusiasm catapulted him to the status of a pop culture icon. He danced, of course, to one of the best-selling movie soundtracks of all time; the Bees Gees at one time had 5 songs in the Billboard Top 10 simultaneously. In 1978, he danced opposite Olivia Newton-John in the 50s tribute Grease, further confirming his position. In Urban Cowboy, in 1980, his two-stepping, as well as 10-gallon hat, is credited with leading to a boom in pop country music (and for a while, in mechanical bulls at country music bars).
But after that, he turned down the lead in An Officer and A Gentleman to reprise his role as Tony Manero in the Sylvester Stallone-directed Staying Alive. After he ended the film (which flopped) with his "strut", it was easy to think that his dancing days were done; aside from acting with a talking baby and Kirstie Alley, some very forgettable films followed.
In 1994, in Quentin Tarantino's masterpiece, Pulp Fiction, he appeared as veteran hitman Vincent Vega. Assigned to watch Mia (Uma Thurman), the wife of his boss, Marsellus, they go to a 50s retro diner, Jackrabbit Slim's, and enter a dance contest.
You have to see this: wearing dark suit, bolo tie, slightly bloated, and with long, stringy black hair, Travolta (as Vega) is all about being cool, but is trying not to flirt with Mia. But with them twisting to Chuck Berry's "You Never Can Tell" (a #14 Billboard hit in 1964), their attraction is apparent. It was an incredible, terrific moment of abandon, and to be perfectly honest, I think it had what many people wanted to see again: Travolta dancing (even if it was the Batusi). Ain't it cool?!
It is a terrific soundtrack!
The moment:
"You Never Can Tell" was renamed "C'est la Vie (You Never Can Tell)" by Emmylou Harris, and was a hit for her on the country music charts in 1977:
UPDATE:This, my first MMMM Guest Blogger post, can be found on XPN's site here.
MMMM stands for the Most Memorable Musical Moment, the theme for the latest 885 countdown by Philadelphia's WXPN-FM. Starting today, listeners are invited to submit lists of 10 music moments that are historically important and/or personally significant. The lists are to be compiled by the station into a workable list of 885 moments, the top 100 of which will then be put in a final playback order by a listener vote in September. The special MMM website the station is developing for the countdown will be chock-full of lists, links, posts, and photos.
This is going to be interesting. There's a lot more diversity than some may think exists among the XPN listenership. I expect to see people talking about genres and artists that generally don't get much airplay on the station, if at all. Who knows-maybe part of this will develope into a permanent resource,
And, each Thursday, starting this week, I will be a "Guest Blogger" on the website; that day's post here will be on the XPN site as well. From time-to-time, as this whole train rolls through the rest of summer into the October playback, I'm sure I'll have other moments that come to mind. So check back often, and leave a comment!
I've been a Phillies fan my whole life. As a kid, I would stay up late listening to West Coast games on my Walkman, go to lots of games at the late Veterans Stadium, and generally live (and mostly die) with the team as the seasons progressed from Spring to Fall. So you might think I'd a bit upset that the franchise just lost the 10,000th game in its history, the most ever. But I'm not.
No, long ago, part of me stopped caring. After Major League Baseball players went on strike in 1994, leading to the cancellation of the World Series, I vowed I would never go back to a game. I didn't exactly keep that promise, but it took 8 years before I saw the Phillies again, at Camden Yards in Baltimore.
There have been so many great memories over the years: the World Series-winning team in 1980 led by Pete Rose and Mike Schmidt, the fine pitching and timely hitting of the scrappy 1993 team ... and that's about it. Otherwise, the 125 seasons of the team have seen a lot of bad baseball.
I think this year's team has talent. Jimmy Rollins, Ryan Howard, Aaron Rowand, Chase Utley, Cole Hamels-these guys can play. I wish them well. But ...
While perusing the YouTube listings, I looked up these 2 classic TV spots for Chanel No 5 that ran in the late 1970s-early 1980s.
The first "Share The Fantasy" ad was directed by Ridley Scott (Alien, Blade Runner, G.I. Jane, Gladiator), with music by Vangelis. Truly surrealistic masterpiece, loaded with symbolism:
This "Share The Fantasy" ad from 1982 features sophisticated couple Charles & Catherine, an airplane shadow moving up the side of the Transamerica building in San Francisco, and a cover of the Ink Spots' "I Don't Want To Set The World On Fire". Love it!
In my previous post, I referenced an anti-litter TV Public Service Advertisement (PSA) for Keep America Beautiful that ran decades ago, when I was a kid. It was rather striking, following a Native American Indian as he encounters scene-after-scene of pollution and litter in modern-day (well, 1971) America. Of course, I found it in 5 seconds on YouTube.
At work today, the usual water cooler Dunkin' Donuts conversation turned to the Live Earth series of concerts held on all 7 continents on Saturday. There wasn't much I could contribute, because I didn't see more than about 5 minutes of it. The reunited Genesis was on stage at Wembley in London, and that was 5 minutes more than I needed to see.
Anyway, I've become very skeptical over the years about these big music events. Live Aid, Farm Aid, Live 8-they all seem to be promoted with the best of intentions. How could anyone be against them? Well, the Arctic Monkeys chose not to participate in Live Earth because of the "hypocrisy" of musicians, their entourages, the production staff, and of course, the audience, using valuable resources to attend these shows. I still remember the amazing swag the performers got in exchange for appearing at Live 8 in Philly 2 years ago.
I also don't like having environmental consciousness shoved down my throat. I've been deeply concerned about threats to the natural world, and human health, since I saw Iron Eyes Cody cry in that TV PSA decades ago. I recycle, I am careful about the goods and services I consume, and I drive a pretty fuel-efficient car. While I, like many scientists, have doubts about global warming climate change, I know it's important to use the planet's resources in an efficient way; I'm a good capitalist. But these are complex issues, not easily reduced to fist-shaking against "the corporations" or the Bush administration, or simple admonishments to change light bulbs. I really wonder how many concertgoers will go right back to the same old lifestyles.
Word on the street is that the TV ratings for this show were pretty low on NBC here in the USA, as well as elsewhere.
Last week, in anticipation of the opening of The Simpsons Movie, Kathy O'Connell of XPN named her Top 5 Musical Moments From The Simpsons. After 18 seasons (and counting) on the air, there could easily be 885 of them. Hers are all excellent choices, but I came up with a few more:
