How Bruce Thomas Came Up With That Glorious Bass Riff

As Thomas tells The Peverett Phile blargh …

The riff wasn’t totally spontaneous, it was sort of contrived [from riffs] I’d been listening to at the time. It’s kind of weird. If you listen to “The Price of Love” by the Everly Brothers, you’ll get the rhythmic pattern.

And if you listen to “You Gotta Lose” by Richard Hell & The Voidoids, you put those notes to the riff you get “Pump It Up.” It’s a hybrid riff.

Then I was left with a half a bar so I added “You Really Got Me,” which was one of the best songs ever written. So, that was it.

I love this shit. Everybody rips off somebody – some are just more creative about it than others.

MAD’s “Punk Rock Group” Of The Year

I’ve posted this here and there before. Deal with it.

Holy Shit, This Game Looks Good

I returned to console gaming last year after acquiring my son’s never-used PS4. I’m pretty picky about what I play, but I quickly realized that anything Naughty Dog releases will be top notch. I bought The Last of Us Remastered at Target on a whim and I couldn’t put it down. After that, it was The Last of Us: Left Behind, Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End and then Uncharted: The Lost Legacy.

Rumor has is that The Last of Us Part II is coming sometime next year.

Can’t. Wait.

The “5th Ramone” Speaks

Great interview with Monte Melnick on the Please Kill Me blargh. If you don’t feel like reading the whole thing, here’s the best part.

PKM: There’s a great story in your book that takes place in a Texas gas station.

Monte A. Melnick: My favorite story. This was early on. We were driving through rural Texas, driving five or six hours, and we pulled into a gas station to get some gas, and there was a little store there too, so they all pile out of the van, looking like zombies. They were staggering around because they were seven hours in the van. So they’re in the store looking at stuff, and I come in to pay for the gas and the lady says “It’s sure nice of you to take care of these retarded boys.”

How Do You Sleep?

This is pretty fucking cool.

New & exclusive 2018 Raw Studio Mix video with never-before-seen footage.
The IMAGINE Raw Studio Mixes place you in the centre of Ascot Sound Studios with John Lennon and The Plastic Ono Band all around you. No reverb or echo, no effects, no strings, just live, unvarnished and raw. Available in stereo and exclusively in 5.1 Surround Sound in The Ultimate Collection Box Set.

Imagine you are at the Lennon’s home, Tittenhurst Park in Ascot, England. It’s night. It’s the last week in May in 1971 and you are their special guest, sat in a chair in the very center of the their recording studio, Ascot Sound Studios. John Lennon is sat in front of you, teaching the musicians one of his latest compositions. He is talking and singing and playing the same wood-finish Epiphone Casino electric guitar he played on ‘Revolution’. A bearded George Harrison is in front of you, to the right, playing electric slide on John’s pale blue Fender Strat. Just behind you and to your right, Rod Lynton with Ted Turner from Wishbone Ash are strumming chords on twelve string acoustic guitars, and directly behind you to the right, John and George’s old friend Klaus Voormann is playing his deep hand-painted Fender Precision bass. Behind you to the left, Alan White (who would later join Yes) is playing his Ludwig silver sparkle drumkit, and in front of you to the left, John Tout from Renaissance is playing chords on the Steinway upright piano, and to his right, Nicky Hopkins is improvising on the red-top Wurlitzer Electric Piano, literally days before he leaves for Nellcôte to play on Exile on Main Street with The Rolling Stones. You are listening to the band playing ‘How Do You Sleep’ and all the hairs are standing up on your arms.

For the Raw Studio Mix of ‘How Do You Sleep?’ (Takes 5 & 6) In the Imagine Ultimate Collection Box Set on Blu-Ray Audio Disc 2, the 5.1 Surround Sound positions are:
Front Centre – John Lennon: electric guitar, vocal
Front Left – Nicky Hopkins: electric piano
Front Right – George Harrison: electric slide guitar
Surround Left – Alan White: drums
Surround Right – Klaus Voormann: bass

About ‘How Do You Sleep?’ by John & Yoko
excerpted from the 120 page book in the Imagine Ultimate Collection Box Set

John: Somebody said the other day ‘It’s about me’. You know, there’s two things I regret. One is that there was so much talk about Paul on it, they missed the song. It was a good track. And I should’ve kept me mouth shut – not on the song, it could’ve been about anybody, you know? And when you look at them back, Dylan said it about his stuff, you know, most of it’s about him. The only thing that matters is how he and I feel about those things and not what the writer or the commentator thinks about it, you know? Him and me are OK. So I don’t care what they say about that, you know? I’ve always been a little, you know, loose. And I hope it’ll change because I’m fed up of waking up in the papers. But if it doesn’t, my friends are my friends whatever way.

Mort Drucker Interview

Fantastic.

One of the most innovative, inspirational and imitated artists in the history of cartooning, Mort Drucker has illuminated the pages of MAD Magazine since 1956 with his brilliant movie and TV caricatures. His Time covers hang in the National Portrait Gallery and he holds an Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from the Art Institute of Boston. In 1987, the National Cartoonists Society awarded him the profession’s highest honor, the Reuben Award for Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year.

In 2015, he became the inaugural recipient of the NCS Medal of Honor. To mark the occasion, the NCS created a commemorative video. Filmed at Mort’s home studio in Long Island, New York, the legendary artist talked to his friend and fellow cartoonist John Reiner, the artist on the hugely popular features The Lockhorns, Howard Huge and Laugh Parade.

In a warm and enthralling conversation, the pair reflected on Mort’s path from his teenage days as a comic book assistant artist to his rapid ascent to the pinnacle of the profession, and discussed the attention to detail and quest for cartooning excel;;once that haas been the hallmark of Drucker’s illustrious career.