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Viva Schroeder

I read Peanuts over and over as a youngster. Our discussion of “Well-Tempered Clavier” triggered an old panel in my head. I couldn’t find it, of course, but seem to remember Schroeder’s involvement. It was a good springboard to look up his outstanding output.

I’m sure the classically-trained bastard among us can identify Schroeder’s enthusiastic tunes by a single measure.

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Pistols Ephemera Up For Auction At Sotheby’s

Check out all this cool stuff! By the way, that’s an Animation City single-cel composite for The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle, c. 1978 (Estimate: 1,500 – 2,000 GBP).

From The Guardian …

If Pistol, Danny Boyle’s recent TV series, was the story of a rock band, then this collection is the story of an idea: a collaborative multimedia art project in which Reid and McLaren, who met at Croydon art school, were at least as significant as Johnny Rotten and Sid Vicious. “They all brought their own unique visions and the Sex Pistols was the pot that everyone threw everything into,” Stolper says. Many of the images, ostensibly created to promote gigs and records, hold up as artworks in their own right. You could see them without having heard a note of the Sex Pistols’ music and know that they represented a radically significant moment in British youth culture. “This is all at the service of something else,” Wilson says, “and working out what that something else is is the intriguing part of it.”

Bidding opens October 10.

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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).

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Satisfaction?


After 40+ years, this still might be the strangest cover version I’ve ever heard of anything. The re-worked lyrics, where I can understand them, are hilarious. I know only two things about the Residents: they were from San Francisco, and they had a guitarist called Snakefinger. Perhaps former Bay area Bastards can add something. According to the comments, the animation is by Ivan Maximov, a Russian. I don’t know anything about him either. As far as I know, the song and animation are unrelated, but they make a perfect match. Beyond that, words fail me on this one.

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Hey, I Think I’ve Got A Live One

Billion Dollar Babies is kicking my ass today, this song in particular.

Finally got a ride, this old broad down from Santa Fe
She was a real go-getter
She drawled so sweetly “Think child, that things’ll get better”
We pulled off the highway
Night black as a widow
“Yeah, I read the Bible”
She said, “I wanna know of you”

Hey, I think I got a live one
Hey, I think I found a live one
Hey, I think I got a live one
Yeah, Yeah, think I got a live one
Okay boys

Felt like I was hit by a diesel or a Greyhound bus
She was no babysitter
“Get up now sugar, never thought you’d be a quitter”
I opened the back door, she was greedy
I ran through the desert, she was chasing
No time to get dressed so I was naked
Stranded in Chihuahua

Alone, raped and freezing
Alone, cold and sneezing
Alone, down in Mexico
Alone