Category: Taking You Bastards To School

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“Here Comes the Night … Oh! Oh!”

I consider myself a hopeless sucker for vocal pop.  But even I have my limits.  This was produced by the once-great master of sunshine pop, Curt Boettcher.  For more on him, listen to Andrew Hickey’s excellent episode on “My World Fell Down” by Sagittarius.

Disco was an odd phenomenon.  For a year or two people couldn’t get enough, then a massive “disco sucks” reaction set in.  I struggle to think of another popular genre that lost so many of its fans so quickly and vehemently.  I also struggle to think of a genre where so many artists from other genres so spectacularly made asses of themselves trying to cash in.

There’s also an extended club mix of “Here Comes the Night” posted on YouTube, if you really must.

Fun fact (just learned from Hickey): that’s Glen Campbell singing the lead on the verses of “My World Fell Down.”

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So This Is Cool

Learned this past weekend on a trip visiting my 81-year-old aunt that my grandmother’s cousin (my first cousin, twice removed) was a songwriter in California. And that I’m named for him, by way of my dad. (Fucked up spelling and all.) Here’s one of his tunes that Bing Crosby recorded.

And here’s another that could be fun to work up as a rocker.

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40 Years Ago Today!

Dylan shows up to play Letterman with a punk band (the Plugz who later became Cruzados) and it absolutely rips. They never played with him again, but apparently had spent a month or so playing with him at his house.

A good interview with the bass player here talking about how it all went down (from a very good book about musicians who played with him).

On a side note, I saw Bob last night here in Beerville. I loved it.

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Interesting RickenBACKer History

Really interesting documentary but I would really like to have AI edit out the guy’s soul patch. Also, I didn’t know it was pronounced that way. I’ve never had the pleasure of playing a Rick guitar or bass, but I believe at least one bastard owned a bass for awhile.

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Cunk History

I’ve been enjoying this series recently.

To say Cunk is an idiot is an insult to idiots—this is a person who stone-facedly inquires whether the pyramids were built from the top down. She calls the academics she speaks to “clevernauts” and “expertists” and then proceeds to ask these befuddled “boffins” about anal bleaching in ancient Rome. In between, she characterizes the advent of farming as a product of lazy hunters, math as a “tragic invention,” sports as “theater for stupid people,” the Model T as a “truly terrible car” and missionaries as “God’s bitches.” With her pop culture knowledge far outstripping her knowledge of literally anything else, she at least nails the name of the 5-part series’ religious episode: “Faith/Off.” Through all of it—even through the show’s inexplicable “Pump Up the Jam” leitmotif—Morgan never breaks. This is stupidity at its deadest seriousness.