Jethro Burns, Tony Moore, Chet Atkins, Elvis Presley, Jerry Reed – BernardStreetCred Returns

“I moved to Chicago for Major League Baseball, I might leave for the same reason.” – Jethro Burns A recent communiqué from BernardStreetCred: If you spy a copy of the rather expensive magazine Fretboard Journal, there’s a lovely, long article about Jethro Burns in it. Good stories from Sam Bush and Don Stiernberg, among others. …

“Rhinestone Cowboy” – David Hasselhoff – “What the whole hep world would be doing Saturday nights if the Nazis had won the war”

Hunter S. Thompson said it best. This “is what the whole hep world would be doing Saturday nights if the Nazis had won the war.” He was demeaning Las Vegas‘s Circus Circus, but his pejoration sticks like skunk spray even more aptly to this surreal, Hasselhoff in black leathers, vid schmear. “Danke schoen” indeed. Hasselhoff …

Greil Marcus discusses new book, “When That Rough God Goes Riding: Listening To Van Morrison”

The passage below is from an interview with Greil Marcus posted on Blogcritics.org concerning “When That Rough God Goes Riding: Listening to Van Morrison“: “It is at the heart of Morrison’s presence as a singer,” Marcus asserts, “that when he lights on certain sounds, certain small moments inside a song…can then suggest whole territories, completed …

“I Never Heard a Man Speak Like This Man Before!” Song, Horror and Tragedy in Jonestown, and a Convincing Simulation of Hell

A/V script for presentation at the 7th annual Experience Music Project Popular Music Conference; Saturday, 12th April 2008, 4:00 to 5:45pm. By Tom Kipp [A/V deployed by Dan Mohr] [Slide 1: title] Just a few words of caution before I begin—much of the material you will see and hear during this presentation is disturbing, some …

The Suburbs “Cows”

From Jeffy: “These guys I did see live back then/thereabouts – The Suburbs, and i just realized that their song “Cows” must have been stewing in my head for years before i wrote a Pathetic Wannabees tune called “Bovine”!” Jeffy has found something here, an eighties video which is truly of it’s time, but still …

Music is Your Special Friend: Annual posting of “Summer’s Almost Gone” by the Doors (and Juan & Guido)

It’s time for the annual posting of “Summer’s Almost Gone,” East Portland Blog‘s guilty pleasure Doors song. And this year there are two bonuses. First, for your consideration, is Juan and Guido’s guileless jungle cover. It’s not perfect by any means, but quite comfortable overall, and almost lifelike in several important spots. And here’s the …

Tom Jones and Wilson Pickett 1970 – “Barefootin,” “Midnight Hour,” and “Hey Jude”

Above is Tom Jones and Wilson Pickett performing a Medley of “Barefootin,” “Midnight Hour,” and “Hey Jude” on This is Tom Jones television show in 1970. Below is Wilson Pickett‘s legendary studio version of “Hey Jude,” which included energetic session guitar work from a then-unknown Duane Allman. Allman’s biting, emotional, guitar work at the end …

Reimagining the Dick Van Dyke Show – Classic TV Comedy as Written by Major Literary Figures

The Dick Van Dyke Show Episodes That Should Have Been These are Dick Van Dyke Show episodes as they should have been, balls out comedy written by Dr. Seuss, Hunter S. Thompson, Ernest Hemingway, James Michener, John Cheever, Jack Kerouac, Franz Kafka, T.S. Eliot, William Carlos Williams, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, J.D. Salinger, David Mamet and …

New Book Alleges “The Fix Is In”: All Sports Outcomes Decided in Advance to Maximize League Revenue Streams

From WSJ Online: “Sometimes the outcome of a game seems so improbable that it defies belief—or easy explanation. Take Super Bowl III (1969), in which the upstart New York Jets of the AFL beat the NFL’s seemingly unstoppable Baltimore Colts. To explain the Jets’ victory there was, among much else, the abysmal quarterbacking of the …

Xerox 914 Comes of Age: 50th Anniversary of First Gluteal Photocopy

From The Atlantic: “THE MOST UNSUNG birthday in American business and technological history this year may be the 50th anniversary of the Xerox 914 photocopier. Although it was introduced at New York’s Sherry-Netherland Hotel on September 16, 1959, commercial models were not available until March 1960. The first machine, delivered to a Pennsylvania metal-fastener maker, …

It Goes to The Weight, and not the Admissibility, of The Band – The Weight is Americana Rock’s Favorite Cover

“The Weight” off The Band‘s 1968 album, Music From Big Pink has become the favored cover tune for every flavor and sector of Americana rock. Something in the loping, star-spangled bounce of the tune gives voice, meter and harmony to subtle, reassuring myths of rural America and has found appeal, not just in the land …

Jefferson v. Cuccinelli – Does the Constitution really protect a right to “academic freedom”?

From Slate: “Last week the University of Virginia decided to fight a sweeping subpoena served upon the institution in late April. State Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli subpoenaed documents in connection with five grants awarded to Michael Mann—a former UVA climate-change scientist who now teaches at Penn State. Cuccinelli is using a state fraud statute to …