"Picture book, pictures of your mama, taken by..." Wait a minute ... this is something else? Doh!
Seriously, the HP campaign had already started winning awards by the time this Head and Shoulders one broke. Wasn't there one junior brand manager in the whole company who could raise their hand and say, "um... excuse me Mr. Bigsby... I really love this ad you put together and all, but it is just a little like the current Hewlett Packard tv ad that's been running the past year..."?
The news earlier this week that Bono and Geldof could be up for Nobel Peace Prize left me feeling vaguely unsettled and perturbed about the world. Live 8 / Aid etc notwithstanding, somehow the idea that someone I mainly remember for my own college radio faves "Rat Trap" and "I Never Loved Eva Braun" (and of course, that big ol' honkin hit that everyone else knows) being elevated to the Mandela / MLK level was not a good feeling.
Then I saw the headline on the the SXSW news digest for the day: "Indie Rockers Mock Geldof" and all felt right with the world again, or at least that little corner of it...
The dB's recorded a new version of the great Jimmy Ruffin song "What Becomes of the Broken Hearted" earlier this year, I guess as part of their reunion activities. They're now offering it as a Free Download on their site to anyone who makes a donation to the New Orleans Musicians' Relief Fund.
The band's Peter Holsapple relocated to the Crescent City, and formed the Continental Drifters, many years ago - according to the site he's doing fine, though like many other residents, he doesn't really know if he has much to go back to... He was also the source of one of the good perspectives expressed in one of the many many articles I've seen about Katrina's aftermath, from Salon.com:
"My guitar tech said yesterday, and I keep repeating it like a mantra: love people, use things. I lost things, but I didn't lose the biggest things, like my wife and family and friends."
Apparently there's this whole country line-dancing subculture in New York City that I wasn't aware of. And their achy breaky hearts are just itchin' to send some SMS messages.
Or at least, Sprint's ad agency seems to think so...
Sorry for the change in tone but...
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin interviewed on WWL TV, 9/1/05, by longtime local newsman Garland Robinette. Here's a mirror mp3 - Download nagin.mp3
"Every day that they delay, people are dying. They're dying by the hundreds, I bet you..."
Thus far it's been relatively easy for our family to resist the Evil Cultural Force that is The Wiggles. We played a few songs on sampler CD's when The Lad was littler, and he might have watched the show a few times on premium cable at his Grands', but he's remained largely unmoved by the group's relentlessly upbeat wackiness.
That said, a couple of cultural artifacts have come this way which deserve note. One is a bizarre and in some ways incredible Wiggly cover of "Walk on the Wild Side," which according to the Copy, Right? blog is taken from a (promo-only?) covers collection put together by an Australian DJ.
The Wiggles: Walk On The Wild Side mp3
And in order to avoid having to do two separate posts about the Wiggles, I might as well also put up a pretty hilarious mash-up which made the rounds a bit last fall - of the W's with "Blitzkrieg Bop" and "I Wanna Be Sedated."
Walking out of the train this morning I noticed that the New York Post and the Daily News had come up with the exact same headline for the Michael Jackson story: "Boy, Oh Boy!" (give or take a comma). Which is a little surprising 'cause the News usually goes for a more "facty" headline, but I guess they couldn't resist in this case...
Because I'm a geek, I was reminded of the first time in my memory that the tabs had the same cover headline - a much more unlikely one for a much less all-consuming story in the mid 80's, with "DRAGNET OUT FOR COP KILLER." I think there may have been a few more instances since then, but if I learned anything from John Hughes movies, it's that you never forget your first time...
Photo via Gawker cause I'm lazy...
The old aphorism about the 13th Floor Elevators was "three great chords - four great albums" - though, in fact, as every first-year garage guitarist knows, the primeval riff of "You're Gonna Miss Me" is actually four chords: E-D-A-G. But in any case, there truly is something primal about the three-chord blues progression. It's something about tension and release, the 'home' feeling of that tonic chord, who knows?
The other day Alejandro Escovedo's live version of the Stones' 'Sway' came up in the Shuffle, and got me thinking of some songs that start with a basic 1-4-5 and take it way beyond the primitive crunch of 'Wild Thing' or 'Louie Louie' (not that there's anything wrong with that), or the overplayed riffage of 'More Than a Feeling' or 'Sweet Home Alabama.' So I put together the attached playlists of songs that ride Three Chords to Glory -
Here's a Rhapsody playlist - ipodshuffle: three chords to glory, or an I-Tunes version if you prefer.
A few of the songs add a little accent or twist into the progression, but by and large they're based around the basic trinity. For sure, that "home" feeling comes through in these and many other Pete Townshend and Lou Reed compositions, as well as their inheritors like the Doves. Meanwhile the progression is a natural vehicle for a "travelin'" vibe with everyone from Merle Haggard to Cornershop; and in the Loretta Lynn/Jack White track it almost feels like it's carrying the listeners heavenward. Or, like Booker T or the Commodores, you can just use it to ride a funky groove for a few minutes.
(Unfortunately it looks like 'Sway' isn't licensed into Rhapsody, probably due to Stones publishing issues. A few of the tracks were in Rhapsody but not I-tunes.)
In some ways, this playlist is a testament to The Power of the Riff - as these artsts take one of the most elementary building blocks of rock and find different ways to infuse it with a new power and a fresh approach. The form doesn’t always have to be ground-breaking, it's what you do with it...
"OK, guys, this is a blues riff in B - watch me for the changes, and try to keep up."
Iron & Wine into 
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