An Old love To Wish The '00's Bye Bye

'Bout Time Indeed

TPM:

In an unusually direct and aggressive blog post, White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer today criticizes former Vice President Dick Cheney for his constant critique of the administration's national security policies.

Pfeiffer wrote, "it is telling that Vice President Cheney and others seem to be more focused on criticizing the Administration than condemning the attackers."
Pfeiffer said that in his statement to Politico today Cheney makes a "clearly untrue" claim that Obama doesn't realize we're at war.

"I don't think anyone realizes this very hard reality more than President Obama," Pfeiffer wrote, detailing the times Obama and his top advisers have used the term.

"The difference is this: President Obama doesn't need to beat his chest to prove it, and - unlike the last Administration - we are not at war with a tactic ("terrorism"), we [are] at war with something that is tangible: al Qaeda and its violent extremist allies. And we will prosecute that war as long as the American people are endangered," he wrote.

Another key graf:

To put it simply: this President is not interested in bellicose rhetoric, he is focused on action. Seven years of bellicose rhetoric failed to reduce the threat from al Qaeda and succeeded in dividing this country. And it seems strangely off-key now, at a time when our country is under attack, for the architect of those policies to be attacking the President.

And a little MSM help

Forgot One!

This was a nice 'get-reaquainted' work

More On That Nothing More To Say

Andrew hisself:

In some respects, the right, however unhinged, understands the importance of what Obama has accomplished more than the purist, whiny left.

Yes, this first year is marked more by the miracles of what didn't happen - a Second Great Depression, a Second 9/11, an Israeli strike on Iran, a banking collapse, a health insurance reform failure - than what did. And yes, Obama is on notice that, whatever the enormity of the mess he inherited, the opposition has no sense of responsibility for any of it and will blame him for everything and anything. All he has going for him is the American public's ability to see through the dust and fury to the realities beneath.

And Obama is changing those realities. More than most seem to currently grasp. This is liberalism's moment - its most fortuitous since 1964, its chance to prove that government is indeed needed at times, as long as it knows its limits, and the balance of the American polity needs active, intelligent government action now. What Obama is doing is trying to cement this new liberal era in the conservative institutional structure of American government.

Against massive, unrelenting, well-moneyed, ideologically manic opposition - and a fickle, purist, prickly liberal elite in his own party.

Well, no one said it would be easy.

Turkey Of The Decade

Rolling Stone calls this the #2 album of the year. In fact, it is probably the worst album that I paid for this DECADE.

Why is demonstrated, ably, here:



Is there any doubt that this was the worst decade ever?

Sadly, Yes

Rude Pundit reviews the decade:

1. Fuck off, Al Gore. If you wanted to pinpoint a single reason that this decade has sucked the hair off monkey balls, you would have to pick the moment that Al Gore decided to be a pussy and give up on the 2000 election. In what should have been a slamdunk of an election, Gore ran away from the Clinton legacy and into a tight race with an inbred Mongoloid. It's not just his stupid-ass decision to want a recount in isolated places in Florida instead of the whole state or his legal team's stupid-ass argument before an already-tilted Supreme Court. It's that if he had wanted and asked, the power was within a single Senator to stop the certification of an election he knew was fucked. It was as if Gore didn't want to inconvenience anyone at that moment, thus maintaining a Democratic pattern that exists to this day. Sure, he's done a great deal of good in "raising awareness" as a glorified spokesmodel for global warming. But do you see any major action occurring to, shit, stop global warming? You know how you could have actually accomplished some of those green goals, Al? By being fucking president.

Nothing More To Say

via Andrew

Quote For The Day

"The denizens of the left blogosphere consider themselves the Democratic Party's base. But they are not. For Democrats, as opposed to Republicans, the wing is not the base; the legions of loyal African Americans, union members, Jews, women and Latinos are. In the end, the sillier left-village practitioners are stoking the same populist exaggeration—the idea that Washington is controlled by crooks and sellouts—that conservative strategists like Bill Kristol believe will bring the Republicans back to power. The perversity of this is beyond comprehension," - Joe Klein.

Album Of The Decade

Pete Townshend's true children.

Last night I was asked for my choice for album of the decade.

WHAT album sums up the Bush era better?

What album does it this freshly, this innocently, this ragefully without ever resorting to twee, self-conscious, constipated, shoe-gazing 'Now-that-I've-got-Garage band-I'm-never-leaving-my-mom's-house ' 'innovation'?

Classic American song structures, vision, melody and SWING.

Magnificent playing too, no, Mr G Baker?

Bruce who?

Some Of What We Liked

'09 was not the revelatory year that '08 was for GT12, but there was lots of stuff that you need to hear.

Little Need For Literacy

A chart for a decade characterized by the tyranny of the unschooled and lazy. Click in it to enlarge.

The Good Old Days

I am a man from another era ....

2009

A Stupid year ends a stupid decade

Try JibJab Sendables® eCards today!

What We Got For Christmas

And A Cookbook!

March 2006

Everything was in place

The Classic

RRRROWR

BRUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCE!

Ain't Xmas without this

It's A Wrap

Sully looks at the year in Obama. Andrew has always seen BHO as the Roadrunner to the GOP's Wiley Coyote. Here's the whole post 'cuz after today you won't hear much from me until Monday.

My own view is that 2009 has been an extraordinarily successful year for Obama. Since this is currently a minority view and will prompt a chorus of "In The Tank!", allow me to explain.

The substantive record is clear enough. Torture is ended, if Gitmo remains enormously difficult to close and rendition extremely hard to police. The unitary executive, claiming vast, dictatorial powers over American citizens, has been unwound. The legal inquiries that may well convict former Bush officials for war crimes are underway, and the trial of KSM will reveal the lawless sadism of the Cheney regime that did so much to sabotage our war on Jihadism. Military force against al Qaeda in Pakistan has been ratcheted up considerably, even at a civilian cost that remains morally troubling. The US has given notice that it intends to leave Afghanistan with a bang - a big surge, a shift in tactics, and a heavy batch of new troops. Iraq remains dodgy in the extreme, but at least March elections have been finally nailed down.

Domestically, the new president has rescued the banks in a bail-out that has come in at $200 billion under budget; the economy has shifted from a tailspin to stablilization and some prospect of job growth next year; the Dow is at 10,500 a level no one would have predicted this time last year. A stimulus package has helped undergird infrastructure and probably did more to advance non-carbon energy than anything that might have emerged from Copenhagen. Universal health insurance (with promised deficit reduction!) is imminent - a goal sought by Democrats (and Nixon) for decades, impossible under the centrist Clinton, but won finally by a black liberal president. More progress has been made in unraveling the war on drugs this past year than in living memory. The transformation of California into a state where pot is now more available than in Amsterdam is as remarkable as the fact that such new sanity has spread across the country and is at historic highs, so to speak, in the opinion polls. On civil rights, civil marriage came to the nation's capital city, which has a 60 percent black population. If that doesn't help reverse some of the gloom from Prop 8 and Maine, what would? And, yes, the unspeakable ban on HIV-positive foreigners was finally lifted, bringing the US back to the center of the global effort to fight AIDS as it should be.

Relations with Russia have improved immensely and may yield real gains in non-proliferation; Netanyahu has moved, however insincerely, toward a two-state solution; Iran's coup regime remains far more vulnerable than a year ago, paralyzed in its diplomacy, terrified of its own people and constantly shaken by the ongoing revolution; Pakistan launched a major offensive against al Qaeda and the Taliban in its border area; global opinion of the US has been transformed; the Cairo speech and the Nobel acceptance speech helped explain exactly what Obama's blend of ruthless realism for conflict-management truly means.

The Beltway cannot handle all this. And that's why they continue to jump on every micro-talking-point and forget vast forests for a few failing saplings.

But when you consider the magnitude of shifting from one conservative era to one in which government simply has to be deployed to tackle deep structural problems, the achievement is as significant as his election year.

I remain, in other words, extremely bullish on the guy. There is a huge amount to come - finding a way to bring down long-term debt, ensuring health insurance reform stays on track and reformed constantly to control costs, turning the corner on non-carbon energy, reforming entitlements, finding a new revenue stream like a VAT, preventing Israel from attacking Iran, preventing Iran's coup regime from going even roguer, withdrawing from an Iraq still teetering on new sectarian conflict, avoiding a second downturn, closing Gitmo for good, ending the gay ban in the military ... well, you get the picture.

Change of this magnitude is extremely hard. That it is also frustrating, inadequate, compromised, flawed, and beset with bribes and trade-offs does not, in my mind, undermine it. Obama told us it would be like this - and it is. And those who backed him last year would do better, to my mind, if they appreciated the difficulty of this task and the diligence and civility that Obama has displayed in executing it.

Yes, we have. And yes, we still are the ones we've been waiting for - if we still care enough to swallow purism and pride and show up for the less emotionally satisfying grind of real, practical, incremental reform.

No Surprise Award

Aerosmith singer Steven Tyler back in rehab

Aerosmith singer Steven Tyler has entered rehab for the second time in as many years, he said on Tuesday, after his estranged band mates went public with their concerns about his health.

Tyler, 61, said in a statement to People magazine that he was receiving treatment at an undisclosed facility for pain management and an addiction to prescription painkillers resulting from 10 years of performance injuries.

"With the help of my family and team of medical professionals, I am taking responsibility for the management of my pain and am eager to be back on the stage and in the recording studio with my band mates," he said.

Aerosmith has a history of drugs, debauchery and divisions and Tyler's announcement is the latest development in an unusually public soap opera that pitted him against his colleagues of 40 years. The feud, centered in part on Tyler's plans to record a solo album, threatened to derail one of America's most successful rock bands. But Tyler's statement indicated that he was ready to come in from the cold.

"I love Aerosmith; I love performing as the lead singer in Aerosmith," he said. "I am grateful for all of the support and love I am receiving and am committed to getting things taken care of."

Aerosmith was forced to cancel a disastrous summer tour after Tyler fell off the stage mid-song and broke his shoulder. Several shows already had been scrapped when Tyler injured his leg. His colleagues expressed little sympathy, instead attacking his behavior and suggested he was back on drugs.

In May 2008 Tyler entered rehab, saying he needed a "safe environment" to deal with worse-than-expected pain after a series of foot surgeries.

"He has a well documented history of drug abuse and I find myself very suspicious," guitarist Brad Whitford told Reuters last month. "I haven't seen him do this or ... have any personal knowledge but the isolation is very typical of addictive behavior and his -- what I call -- irrational behavior."

My Hero

Someone who understands the importance of coffee

Man With Knife In Chest Calls 911, Orders Coffee

WARREN, Mich. — A man who walked into a Michigan diner with a 5-inch knife stuck in his chest ordered a coffee and complained only about the cold weather.
The 52-year-old man, who has not been identified, called a 911 operator in Warren on Sunday night to ask that an ambulance be sent to Bray's, an eatery in neighboring Hazel Park.

He said he had been stabbed during an attempted robbery half a mile away, then walked to the restaurant and called 911 from a pay phone.

On a recording of the call, the man gives a vague description of his attacker before saying, "I'm gonna sit down at Bray's 'cause they got a chair and it's cold out here."

Restaurant employee George Mirdita tells The Detroit News the man calmly ordered coffee.

Police said Tuesday that the man is recovering

20 Years On, A Little Less Joyous

U2 in '07 chooses to remake a signifcantly darker christmas vison.

A Fine One

Getting Closer

That's All You Need (Mr JK will get it)

There better be a real DVD release someday.

Ronnie Wood, Ian MacLagen and Kenney Jones reunited without Rod but with Bill Wyman on bass and Mick Hucknall belting out a great Stay With Me in aid of the PRS For Music Members Benevolent Fund on October 25th 2009, along with Paul Carrack (on Cindy Incidentally), Andy Fairweather-Low (Ooh La La), plus Kiki Dee, Chris Difford, Georgie Fame, Rick Wakeman and loads of others. At the end the show's host Feargal Sharkey brings on PRS chairman Ellis Rich to dosh out an Icon award to the band.

Words Matter

Why we should worry about Glenn Beck:



This may be a hoax but the mouth-breathing southern cousin-fuckers take this shit seriously

Think Progress makes a great catch on C-SPAN this morning: Someone calls in while Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) is answering the lines, practically in tears because Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) missed this morning's procedural vote on health care.
He was apparently concerned that -- after following Sen. Tom Coburn's (R-OK) instructions to pray that someone couldn't make a manager's amendment vote Sunday night -- his prayers for Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) to die struck the wrong senator.

"Our small tea bag group here in Waycross, we got our vigil together and took Dr. Coburn's instructions and prayed real hard that Sen. Byrd would either die or couldn't show up at the vote the other night," the caller said.

"How hard did you pray because I see one of our members was missing this morning. Did it backfire on us? One of our members died? How hard did you pray senator? Did you pray hard enough?" he continued, his voice breaking.

Inhofe was at the Sunday vote, but missed another procedural vote this morning.
Barrasso didn't really respond, but reassured the caller that Republicans didn't need Inhofe there today. For the record, Inhofe is still quite alive and plans to return to the Senate for later votes this week.

We've Been Way Too Humane This Week

Mr Dan's Favorite

I Can Wait No Longer

HCR

Yes. We. Can.

We have been so tired of Politics and teabaggers and the depths to which some of this country has sunk....

But this weekend we got a bill and as the year ends, I want Andrew to sum things up.

Jon Cohn gets down to specifics:

A family making $50,000 will have to make serious sacrifices to find $10,000 [the amount you're likely to spend for an insurance policy under the new law]. But it’s better--light years better--than finding $25,000 or more [the amont you'd have to find without the new law]. It’s potentially the difference between having to give up your home, get an extra job or declare bankruptcy. Just knowing the bills that could come will be the difference between getting care you need--and skipping it, at grave risk to your health.

I keep waiting for this obvious fact to sink in. What Obama has done is force the existing system to insure 30 million more people at a modest cost, and to include a swathe of (still-insufficient) varieties and strategies of cost-control. This is huge - the biggest first year achievement of any president since Reagan. If you consider that he did this while also managing the steepest down-turn in decades, revamping America's image in the world, preventing a banking implosion, and prosecuting two unresolved wars in the face of almost deranged opposition, it's pretty damn impressive.

This seems clearer to me after a break from the Intertubes. Maybe others will feel the same way after the hols.

and

Ezra notes how the final bill is remarkably similar to the plan Obama outlined in his campaign. If you recall the mandate debate in the primaries, it's moved a little to the left, although the death of the public option moved it back again a little to the right. I certainly regard the passage of the health insurance reform bill to be another victory of strategy over tactics. In his first year, Obama will have achieved something that no previous Democrat had managed: universal health insurance. This will be spun away by some. And maybe the infuriated left-liberals and the angry right-oppositionists will get some temporary respite from that. But guess what? He did it. It was as grueling a victory as the one in the primaries, and took even longer. But it was a victory, a substantive, enduring legislative victory the like of which no president has achieved since Reagan.

It will have to be tweaked, as Reagan's tax cuts were. But like that first year triumph, it will last. For good or ill. And unlike tax cuts announced as pain-free, this was a clearly budgeted, deeply difficult, legislatively complex operation. The only Pyrrhic part of it is the GOP's celebration of its opposition. Their glee is premature.

OK Barry, DADT in 2010.

Dickens

"You are my home"

Last weekend's Show Tune-o-Rama introduced you (probably) to Alun Armstrong. I mentioned his participation in the Royal Shakespeare Company' s 9-hour long production of Nicholas Nickleby.

My VHS copy of Nicholas is one of only 4 works in my tape library that I have replaced with DVD format. At $150 a crack for each edition, I hope you get a feel for how valuable it is.

It is still the most magnificent theatrical experience I've come across ... and I never saw it live.

Here are two clips that let you see where Alun Armstrong first drew attention for playing awful people as well as giving you ten minutes of Dickens heaven, as wintery and spirited as "Christmas Carol."

You also see a young Roger Rees, later of "Cheers" and "The West Wing", playing the idealistic yet volatile title character. David Threlfall plays, achingly, "the drudge, Smike".

I can think of no greater gift for you all:





And - I can't help myself - a bit more that gives you a glimpse of some more stage-craft and the fabulous, fabulous Edward Petherbridge playing Newman Noggs.

You will thank me.

Why God Created Punk: The Christmas Roots

Don We Now ....

Yes this blog's very name is a play on the greatest mockumentary line of all time. Yes, Social Distortion is still the most reliably satisfying band in my rotation and, yes, I JUST DON"T GET all this lip syncing and Vegas-sy dance numbers that the kids call pop music performance these days.

But....

In-between these 10 minutes that changed the world on Feb 9, 1964



You saw future Monkee Davey Jones making his debut on Ed Sullivan



This will be one mother of a post celebrating great Theater Music.

In other words, It's Holiday Show-Tune-Queen Weekend.

Don't worry! These are the picks of a man whose life was defined as much by dreams of playing "The Low Spark Of High-Heeled Boys" in a late night club somewhere on Cape Cod as by having had to delve into the depths of the 3rd act opening monologue from Our Town. (The Stage Manager talks about the dead, telling us that the dead lose interest in the living and in earthly matters. He says that “everybody in their bones knows that something is eternal,” and that the dead spend their time waiting for this eternal part of their selves to emerge.)

Before 2/9/64 these were the two top records in my collection:

Friends, you may have noticed over the years my interest in, shall we say, 'civics'. Is it surprising that the first Broadway production I ever saw was a road company of '1776' (starring Joel Grey as John Adams). Years later, when I moved to Chicago I built a long lasting friendship with a man who loved the work as much as I (and, for you Rockers out there, He WAS IN THE AUDIENCE the night Patti Smith broke her neck falling off a Florida stage). Years after that Mr Dan and I took intrepid Bass Player and BF Mr JK to a local production of 1776 and he loved it just like us.

You will too. And if you are losing heart after this long summer of HCR, take heart. It's Always Been Like This



Yes that was the voice of KIT from Night Rider

Here KIT discusses the future of America with The White Shadow and a famously Black Listed Actor



The South has always been a problem (that's 'the old guy' From Northern Exposure)



And war is always about the death of some one's child.



While we are on the subject of things never changing ... I used to read 'Candide' once a year just to remind me that mankind has always been foolish. The fact that the work led to some stunning comic opera songs just doubles the pleasure.





And, as comedy is truth made palatable, a timeless lesson that all we need is to take care of what we can as best as we can.



Sweeney Todd was the first Broadway album that I can recall being reviewed by Rolling Stone. How can you take Metallica or Slayer seriously (let alone Mastodon) after Sweeney?



I saw that production after living with Sweeney for 25 years. It still terrified.

Name me anything in the rock oeuvre that so brilliantly melds beauty and horror as this scene from the original Broadway production.



It was Sweeney that brought me back to the theater.

It's creator kept me there with this exploration of the loneliness and ecstasy of making art.



When I've felt failure or frustration, Sunday also has 'been there' for me. "Look at all the things you've done for me"



How about some grand gestures?

Les Miz was grand. Heroic. Funny. And just breathtaking to listen to. I'm a real sucker for the melodic jumps in this:



GT12's been a big Alun Armstrong since our days of continually watching all 9 hours of the Royal Shakespeare Company's Nicholas Nickelby. A great grotesque..



In another era, Judy Garland woulda covered this ... and thank Buddha that in this era Barbra Streisand did not.



I think that we all would like someone to sing this about us



If you do not want to 'join us' at the end of this song ... well, as Mrs. Landingham would say "I don' know if I want to know you"



The follow-up to Les Miz re-told 'Butterfly'. Two beautiful, and timely, examinations of the side-effects of American adventurism:





Puccini proved even better source material for Jonathon Larson, who gave us a musical where a Fender Telecaster is a supporting player. Heaven.



This may be my favorite love song of all time. It certainly helps that it's two men. This is for, well ...



I saw first saw Rent a few months before my mom got sick. It helped. I think now so many people when I watch this next scene. Right now, my 'avid' friend Jon, who has shared many of his life-stories with me this year, comes to mind. I know that he was able to help answer the questions posed in 'Will I'. Thanks to him. And then there's that contemplation of a change of scenery....



So what's it all about?



On a lighter note, Mr Dan and I are big fans of the absolutely charming 'Forever Plaid'. I'm not terribly happy with my You-Tube choices but, after you watch this you'll know what I'm talking about when I say "I played Perry Como both times."



OK. Let's finish up with the real stuff...

I say Dame Kiri's the greatest soprano of our time. Remarkable tone that is creamy and never harsh, great control of all registers, beautiful and warm on stage. C'mon, who sounds better?



And finally: my favorite aria, my favorite soprano, my favorite emotion

Dove sono i bei momenti Where are the lovely moments
Di dolcezza e di piacer? Of sweetness and pleasure?
Dove andaro i giuramenti Where have the promises gone
Di quel labbro menzogner? That came from those lying lips?
Perchè mai, se in pianti e in pene Why, if all is changed for me
Per me tutto si cangiò, Into tears and pain,
La memoria di quel bene Has the memory of that goodness
Dal mio sen non trapassò? Not vanished from my breast?

Purer and Purer

We should not be surprised that the John Birch Society will be a sponsor of CPAC next year.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Highway to Health - Last Tea Party Protest of the Year
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

Preview Post

After Christmas GT12 will review what we liked this year in music.

This highlight seemed more fitting for the pre-holiday weeks.

One of the greatest of all American Bands

What We're Listening To Right This Minute

Fuck Yeah!

Oh My Soul

Bruce, Ireland and Hope

Sad Phony Ex-Psuedo-Hipsters Forced To Sing Christmas Carols Out Back Behind Their Folks House

The visuals sum up the entire Blondie experience

The Kennedy Center Honors Are Soooo Gay

Christmas Memories

Perhaps you can imagine how important this song is to me....



And ...



And

DING!

24: The War On Christmas

GT12 Tackles A New Christmas Mystery

"Is this a joke or what?"



We don't know. But We Do Know .... that this is a Mitch Miller Song.

"So What?" you ask.

Consider

Miller served as the head of A&R (Artists and Repertoire) at Mercury Records in the late forties, and then joined Columbia Records in the same capacity in 1950. This was a pivotal position in a recording company, because the A&R executive decided which musicians and songs would be recorded and promoted by that particular record label.

He defined the Columbia style through the early 1960s, signing and producing many important pop standards artists for Columbia, including Patti Page, Frankie Laine, Johnnie Ray, Ray Conniff, Percy Faith, Jimmy Boyd, Johnny Mathis, Tony Bennett, and Guy Mitchell (whose pseudonym actually was based on Miller’s first name), and helped direct the careers of artists who were already signed to the label, like Doris Day, Dinah Shore and Jo Stafford, to just name a few. Miller also discovered Aretha Franklin and signed her to her first major recording contract. She left Columbia after a few years when Ahmet Ertegun of Atlantic Records promised her artistic freedom to create records outside the pop mainstream in a more rhythm-and-blues-driven direction.

Miller also was responsible for not pursuing certain artists and tunes: he disapproved of rock 'n' roll, and passed on Elvis Presley and Buddy Holly, who became stars on other labels. (He had offered Presley a contract, but balked at the amount Presley’s manager, Colonel Tom Parker, was asking.) Despite his distaste for rock 'n' roll, Miller often produced records for Columbia artists that were rockish in nature. Songs like "A White Sport Coat (and a Pink Carnation)" by Marty Robbins, and "Rock-a-Billy" by Guy Mitchell are just two examples. In 1961, Miller was instrumental in getting Bob Dylan signed to the label, working on the recommendation of colleague John Hammond.

Consider

Mitch Miller HATED rock and roll music. During his career as an executive and producer at Columbia Records he supported the signing of Bob Dylan because folk music was sweeping the country at the time, but that’s as close as he got to a electric guitar and drum kit. He eventually lost his job at Columbia due to his refusal to sign acts that teenagers were buying.

Instead he released his own series of records, ‘Sing Along With Mitch’ – LPs in gatefold covers into which were stapled several copies of the lyrics to the songs on the album that could be torn out and passed around at home so everyone could, well, sing along. The ‘Mitch Miller’ sound was instantly identifiable – a very masculine male chorus, harmonica, all soaked in heavy reverb for a spacious sound. They sold in the millions, and even spawned a couple of hits, notable the ‘Colonel Bogey March’ from the movie Bridge On The River Kwai

As a record producer, Miller gained a reputation for both innovation and gimmickry. Although he oversaw dozens of chart hits, his relentlessly cheery arrangements and his penchant for novelty material (e.g. "Come on-a My House", "Mama Will Bark") has drawn heavy criticism from some admirers of traditional pop music. Music historian Will Friedwald wrote in his book Jazz Singing (Da Capo Press, 1996) that "Miller exemplified the worst in American pop. He first aroused the ire of intelligent listeners by trying to turn — and darn near succeeding in turning — great artists like Sinatra, Clooney, and Tony Bennett into hacks. Miller chose the worst songs and put together the worst backings imaginable — not with the hit-or-miss attitude that bad musicians... traditionally used, but with insight, forethought, careful planning, and perverted brilliance." (221)

Consider

there was the case of Frank Sinatra. For any number of reasons, Sinatra's career was pretty much down the tubes by the late 1940s, as were his record sales at Columbia. Mitch Miller thought he could make Mr. S. a star again via his proven formula for novelty songs, and strongly suggested that Sinatra record dreck like "Bim Bam Baby," and the truly embarrassing "Mama Will Bark" from 1951. The latter was duet between Sinatra and a then-popular, pinup television star named Dagmar. And yes, there was actual barking on the track, though not by Sinatra as is widely thought, but by a dog impressionist by the name of Donald Bain.

A few years later, when Sinatra's career was reborn as an Academy Award-winning film star and hit-maker at Capital Records, Sinatra sent telegrams to judiciary and senate committees, accusing Miller of presenting him with inferior songs, and of accepting money from writers whose songs he (Miller) had used.

Miller always said that Sinatra and other Columbia artists could not be forced to perform anything they didn't want to. Mr.S.wouldn't hear of any of it. Years later, it is said, the two physically crossed paths in a Las Vegas casino. Whomever was with Sinatra or Miller on the scene that night tried to affect a reconciliation.

"Fuck you, keep walking," was Sinatra's reply.

Consider

"The reason kids like rock 'n roll is their parents don't." Mitch Miller

And Finally, Consider:

So True

Christmas Memories

From my first Rock & Roll album, Christmas 1965. (thanks Pat for the reminder!)










I have albums and songs that, while not of the holiday variety, will always be Christmas albums because they are so tied emotionally or nostalgically to this season.

How 'bout you? What non-Christmas music is holiday-music-by-accident?
My List:

Herman's Hermits On Tour - My first Rock and Roll album, delivered by Santa 12/25/65. It was many many many many years before I learned that 'For Your Love', 'End of the World' and even 'Henry The VIII" were not originals.

Rubber Soul - Delivered by my parents ten days later on my 8th birthday. My first Beatle album and possibly the single most influential album in my life. Also, arguably, the best product ever from the suddenly no-longer-lovable-Mop-Tops.

The Beatles - First appearing in my life in 1970, defining my listening and playing for several years and then ReAppearing in '76 when everyone in my college dorm discovered it.

Fillmore, The Last Days - I will never forget watching, in both horror and stunned admiration, my mom and dad jitterbug to The Dead's version of Johnny-Be-Good on Christmas Eve, 1972.

Born To Run - Night upon Night upon Snowy-Drunken-Night driving all over the backstreets (well, back roads) of NW Ohio as Christmas lights reappeared after several years of energy-crisis driven hibernation. And then there's all those chiming glockenspiel parts....

A Night At The Opera - Well ... Weren't Freddy's multi-tracked vocal extravaganzas just our generation's Harry Simeone Chorale? And, with 'I'm In Love With My Car' we had yet another great anthem for those backroads, bongs and brews.

(text from this post originally posted 12/20/06)

Ooh La La Indeed

Well, we could see this coming, yes?

Ekaterina Ivanova: Ronnie Wood Was "An Evil Goblin King"

Ronnie Wood's young Russian lover has not waited long to exact her revenge.

Days after she went home to her mother, Ekaterina Ivanova has broken her silence about their rocky 18-month relationship and pulled no punches.

The 21-year old Russian-born waitress described alcoholic Wood, who is 41 years her senior, as the 'evil Goblin King'.

She said: ‘On the day of my birthday, he woke me up with champagne and caviar, but the thing is I had a couple of glasses and Ronnie carried on drinking.

'We went to a restaurant that he’d booked, and they brought out a really beautiful cake and all the waiters were singing “happy birthday”, and he was so drunk it was really awkward.’

She went on: ‘I just don’t think he could handle it (drinking) so well

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1235508/Ekaterina-Ivanova-Ronnie-Wood-like-evil-Goblin-King.html#ixzz0ZsGvdRTI

I think for Ronnie, this song just grows and grows in pertinence

We Have Something Special At GT12 Central

One of our favorite Xmas decorations has made it to the "Bad Nativity Set Of The Day" list. We have always hoped that this would happen.

This set brings the Holiday Spirit to our bathroom:

We really should probably get this one, what with being Irish-n-all

We have been in AN ACTUAL HOUSE where this melding of religion and commerce was kept on display all year long. Without irony. Really. Is it any wonder that Three (3!!) of the owners sons studied for the priesthood and then left the church? (did you know that the oldest mass marketed Santa Toys found were, like this version, dressed in Blue? True! Blue!)

The rest are here . Don't miss the cats and the gays!

Everybody For Me

Tony and The Transfer. Now that's Christmas.

Something For Everybody ...

... to be embarrassed by

The Kids Update Us...

Gawker explains

I was two months old when the original came out. So maybe I can't relate, OLD PEOPLE. But I do know this: Fucked Up, the kid from Vampire Weekend, Andrew W.K., Bob Mould, Teagan and Sara, GZA, Yo La Tengo, David Cross, Kevin Drew of Broken Social Scene, and TV on the Radio's Kyp Malone rock the everloving cocks off of every washed up octogenarian on the original. Except for the guys from Big Country.

For you OLD PEOPLE, I will quickly explain who these mostly YOUNG "HIPSTER" PEOPLE are very quickly:

Fucked Up: Epic loud fat hairy hipsters.

Vampire Weekend: Graceland-obsessed Columbia graduate/N+1 reading hipsters.

David Cross: Comedian hipster.

Yo La Tengo: Original hipsters.

Broken Social Scene: Canadian hipsters.

Bob Mould: Geriatric hipster.

Andrew W.K.: PartyBro rock hipster.

Teagan and Sara: Hot lesbian hipsters.

GZA: Wu-Tang Clan-member, rap deemed safe for consumption by hipsters.

TV On The Radio: Only the best band in the universe, DAD.

Observe. Turn the volume up LOUD because that's how it's supposed to be listened to and you'll need it EXTRA LOUD because your ears don't work anymore:

Someone wanna tell these people that most of their cult list are pretty well-known by people over the age of 17?

Nah. More fun to see kids make asses of themselves like we did...........

Think of having to admit that you pronounced Andrew W.K. 'hip'.

Saved

Answering my own question, I do remember when music could save a person.

Today's extended lesson: Maria Mckee.

BFF Mr. SteveB Played this for me after an all-night drive and I thank him for that. The song was written for Lone Justice by Springsteen consigliere Miami Steve Van Zandt. I was reduced to a pool melted jello the first time the chorus came around.



Also from that first album (notice future 'Human Touch'-era Springsteen guitarist Shane Fontayne)



A mission statement if there ever was one. This is the song that hooked Jimmy Iovine



The Tom Petty-penned introductory single:



Maria left Lone Justice for a solo career two albums later. Her eponymous first release remains high high high on the GT12 list of landmark achievements.



And this monster: an astonishing vocal performance and a haunted Richard Thompson make you long for the chance to truly, madly deeply lose your identity in another person. (Sorry Johnny, this is a better capture than the one from Night Music)



While she has not reached her dizzying early 90's heights there are songs that should be heard.