This live Schoolhouse Rock cuts out after a minute or so, sorry.
Jack Sheldon provided that perfect railcar voice (suck it, Boxcar Willie), and opened for Lenny Bruce, and played trumpet for jazz artists of the 1950’s and eventually Merv Griffin.
I Am Everything
Hell yeah, I’m in! Anything more cringe than Pat motherfucking Boone singing “Tutti Frutti?”
Produced by Bungalow Media + Entertainment for CNN Films and HBO Max, in association with Rolling Stone Films, director Lisa Cortés’ Sundance opening night documentary LITTLE RICHARD: I AM EVERYTHING tells the story of the Black queer origins of rock n’ roll, exploding the whitewashed canon of American pop music to reveal the innovator – the originator – Richard Penniman. Through a wealth of archive and performance that brings us into Richard’s complicated inner world, the film unspools the icon’s life story with all its switchbacks and contradictions. In interviews with family, musicians, and cutting-edge Black and queer scholars, the film reveals how Richard created an art form for ultimate self-expression, yet what he gave to the world he was never able to give to himself. Throughout his life, Richard careened like a shiny cracked pinball between God, sex and rock n’ roll. The world tried to put him in a box, but Richard was an omni being who contained multitudes – he was unabashedly everything. Directed by Lisa Cortés, LITTLE RICHARD: I AM EVERYTHING is produced by Robert Friedman, Cortés, Liz Yale Marsh and Caryn Capotosto and Executive Produced by Dee Rees.
No Band, No Problem
When I was at college my band broke up and I started playing solo. I ended up coming by a loop pedal and loved the freedom it gave me. Over the year I’ve added more instruments and effects to my rig as I’ve needed them and my sound output has naturally grown with it. I make a lot of noise for one man.
Funke and the Two Tone Baby. Enjoy some stomp.
Don’t Ask Me What I Want It For
I know it’s probably verging on blasphemy for some when I say I’m really digging Giles Martin’s new stereo mix of Revolver. Thinking very seriously of grabbing it on vinyl.
Looking For Something Spooky To Watch?
First two episodes available today, with two more added each night through the 28th. 75 on Metacritic, I’m in!
Guillermo del Toro – the master of horror – presents a collection of unprecedented and genre-defining stories that will challenge our traditional notions of horror.
Guillermo Del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities is an anthology of sinister stories, told by some of today’s most revered horror creators – including the directors of The Babadook, Splice, Mandy, and many more.
Nice Song Ray
When you’re ignorant, everything is new and exciting.
I had no idea that Mr Davies wrote this tune until I learned it in the episode of Waterloo Sunset, which just dropped. It’s awesome.
As are the Pretenders live in London.
When You Hustle, You Gotta Have A Hard Shell
La Cathedrale Engloutie
Claude Debussy’s “The Sunken Cathedral” is based on a myth involving, well, a sunken cathedral off the coast of Brittany. The beautiful princess of a prosperous coastal town named Ys had an affair either with Satan or one of his many lieutenants on earth (as beautiful princesses tend to do). As punishment, the town was destroyed by sinking into the sea along with most inhabitants. Local legend held that on certain days you could hear the bells of the cathedral of Ys ringing from below. On other days, it was believed to rise briefly to the surface. Debussy begins by representing both waves and the ringing of the cathedral bells. As the cathedral rises, chanting monks and priests emerge, culminating with the great organ at 2:25: a brief emergence of a grand, underwater zombie Mass of the damned. Then it all sinks again until we just hear the bells. Near the end, the great organ melody makes a muted reappearance from the murky depths.
Beautifully creepy stuff here, with the obsessively perfect Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli looking like he’s playing this from deep within his castle in Transylvania. (He actually never lived in a castle in Transylvania, but for a while he did live in one near Brescia).
Pear Cider and Cigarettes
2017 Oscar-nominated animated short by Robert Valley. You may have seen his stuff here and there already; I became aware of him on Netflix’s Love Death + Robots. The real mind-blower is that he does all of this in Photoshop, which must take FOREVER.
This Is Weird, For Many Reasons
… but mostly because Welles is an opinionated genius and world-class hater. It’s hard to imagine him being a talk show host who could get guests comfortable.
Throw in Andy Kaufman, and I’m not sure what I was expecting. I was pleasantly surprised. It’s clear that Welles had watched Taxi, and had thought about it in some depth.
“I want to know why it is that you go and wrestle with people, when you can act so well.”