I’m not entirely sure H.R. Giger would have approved of this, but I must admit this Xenomorph cookie jar is pretty darn badass-looking. The price isn’t too crazy either. For around $45.00 you could own of these puppies through ThinkGeek.
I dig it.
via Boing Boing
Free is one of those bands who most people know from just their two hits singles “All Right Now” and “Wishing Well” and pretty much nothing else. Both tracks still receive much radio airplay and can usually guarantee gents of certain age will be air guitaring once the solos start. But for all the acclaim and enjoyment of these singles, little is ever said about how truly tight this band were live or how groundbreaking they were, setting down a style of music for other bands to follow.
Free were a hard rock and blues band consisting of Paul Rodgers (vocals), Paul Kossoff (guitar), Andy Fraser (bass) and Simon Kirke (drums). They were all young teenagers when they first started gigging in different bands. Through the guidance of legendary blues man Alexis Korner the four like-minded youngsters came together to form a group in 1968. The youngest was fifteen (Fraser). The eldest were eighteen (Rodgers, Kirke). Korner dubbed the band “Free” and so they were born.
Free spent long hours rehearsing until they were almost telepathically in tune with each other. They gigged everywhere—no place was too lowly or too small—from boozer to club to proper theaters. At a time when music was shifting from psychedelia and flower power to blues and rock, Free were a part of a new generation of bands that were ringing in the changes.
In 1968, they released their debut album Tons of Sobs—a good and powerful blues album that sounded as if it was recorded in one goose-bump, adrenaline-pumping take—with amazing interplay between Rodgers’ vocals and Kossoff’s guitar. However, it did little to raise the band’s profile. However, live they were getting the attention they hoped for and a legion of dedicated fans started turning up at their gigs.
In 1969, Free released their eponymous second album, which didn’t do as well as expected (it should have sold shedloads). It was during this point there was early signs of division within the group as Rogers and Fraser formed a songwriting partnership which dictated the direction and style of the band. It left Kossoff and Kirke feeling isolated and a tad mutinous. Guitarist and drummer considered dumping Fraser and replacing him with Mott the Hoople’s Overened Watts. Kossoff also considered joining another band and auditioned as guitarist for The Rolling Stones. While Fraser and Rodgers wondered if they should form their own band. However, this was all temporarily forgotten about with the massive success of their next album Fire and Water—a stunning record which also contained their biggest hit single “All Right Now.”
Continuing under the writing partnership of Fraser and Rodgers, Free began to create a powerful, seminal white blues/hard rock sound that other bands would have greater success in copying. They found a steady pulse in Kirke’s drumming and a prodigiously talented guitarist in Kossoff. Free gave a star performance in front of 600,000 at the Isle of Wight Festival and were considered by many in the music press to be the future of rock. They had broken the American market and were seemingly on the verge of greatness.
But a fourth album Highway, also released in 1970, failed to follow-up on the success of Fire and Water. This together with disagreements between Rodgers and Fraser, and Kossoff’s serious drug problem, caused the band to temporarily split. The NME reported:
With their current single ‘My Brother Jake’ standing high in the UK charts, Free have disbanded!
The decision to break up was taken during the group’s recent Australian tour and now the various members are planning new bands.
Announcing the split, a spokesman said: ‘The boys felt they had achieved as much together as they possibly could within their existing framework. They have now decided to pursue individual careers..’
It was thought Kossoff and Kirke would stay together and assemble a new group. While Rodgers and Fraser would form their own bands. A live album—recorded at Sheffield and Croydon’s Fairfeld Hall—was planned for release but no further singles.
As fate would have it the release of a live album in 1971 proved to be yet another big hit and personal disagreements were soon resolved and the band released their fifth album Free At Last in 1971, which put them back in the Top 10. Free At Last is a dark, brooding, deeply felt and powerful album considered by some critics as a plea by the band for Kossoff to get off the drugs. During its recording Fraser allegedly kidnapped Kossoff in an attempt to get him clean—it didn’t work.
When it came time to tour and promote the album, the reality of Kossoff’s drug problem meant he was “physically incapable of performing.” Arguments flared between Fraser and Rodgers and the band split—this time with Rodgers and Kirke staying on as Free. The band’s last success was their sixth album Heartbreaker which charted big in both the UK and US and gave the band a final hit single “Wishing Well.”
Keeping reading after the jump… it’s Free…
Nick Reinhart of the experimental rock/jazz/ambient combo Tera Melos and well-regarded session bassist Juan Alderete de la Peña decided to chain together 100 effects pedals to see what it would sound like.
If you want to do this at home, you will immediately realize that, in addition to the shortfall in effects pedals you might have, you also don’t have nearly enough cables. So the video starts with them unboxing a bunch of Mogami cables.
In order to conduct the experiment, it was necessary to perform an incantation of specific runic phrases, such as “Radical Delay,” “Thrashmaster,” “Mantic Flex Pro” (signed by Adrian Belew!), and “Twin Cam Chorus.”
Spoiler: It don’t sound like Rachmaninoff.
It takes them a while to get to the full 100-pedal sound, so if you want to skip to that you can jump to about the 16:30 mark. But the setting up is pretty engaging, so I recommend just letting it play.
via FACT
When “Banana Split” was remixed in the 90s, famed French photographers Pierre et Gilles did the cover image
In 1979, a year before Kim Wilde’s similar-sounding “Kids in America” and three years before Missing Persons released “Words,” the gorgeous teenaged Belgian singer Lio racked up a multi-million-selling hit record with the infectious and cheeky double entendre “New Wave” pop smash “Banana Split.”
My French is barely high school-level proficient, but I can still figure out about how the banana has a whipped cream “avalanche.” You don’t really have to be Sigmund Freud to get this one.
Give it one listen and you’ll probably just think that it sucks—if that’s the right word here—but give it but two spins and it’ll be stuck in your head for the rest of the day, if not for the rest of your life. I’ve always had a soft spot for this record in the same way that I still love Betty Boo...
But the pretty and iconic 80s star—now 53—was no one-hit wonder and she actually has a super cool musical pedigree: After “Banana Split” (which came out when she was just 17) Lio—just Lio, like Cher—went on to work with Ron and Russell Mael of Sparks recording their rather freely translated English versions of her French hits for a Canadian-only release, Suite Sixtine, in 1982. She would also work with the Velvet Underground’s John Cale. In America, Lio was signed to the famed “mutant disco” underground label, ZE Records and married to Michel Esteban, one of the label’s founders, who also produced Lizzy Mercier Descloux.
Lio has acted in films directed by the likes of Catherine Breillat, Diane Kurys, Chantal Akerman and Claude Lelouch. In recent years, she has been a judge on the French American Idol-type show Nouvelle Star and a judge/coach on The Voice Belgique.
More Lio after the jump…
Aerosmith, “Sweet Emotion” (1981)
All albums are actually “Sweet Emotion” by Aerosmith.
I know what you’re thinking: “Sweet Emotion” is not an album by Aerosmith!
But you are wrong. All you have to do is look at gallery of album covers that can be found at the Every Album Is Aerosmith Tumblr.
I told a friend of mine about this Tumblr a few days ago; after he got home he wrote me a text saying that “Sweet Emotion” had come on the radio during his drive home.
All albums are actually “Sweet Emotion” by Aerosmith.
Aerosmith, “Sweet Emotion” (1987)
Aerosmith, “Sweet Emotion” (1979)
Aerosmith, “Sweet Emotion” (2002)
Aerosmith, “Sweet Emotion” (1980)
More sweet ‘Sweet Emotion’ after the jump…
Well these photographs are just cruel! Photographers Aaron Tilley and Director Kyle Bean teamed-up to get your anxiety into full swing for Kinfolk Magazine‘s “Adrenaline” issue. They were asked to stage a moment when something really terrible is just about to happen.
I think they achieved their goal.
Just by looking at these photos, anticipatory anxiety causes the body to release adrenaline. Even though nothing actually happens, the anxiety sets in. You suddenly start to feel squirmy and uncomfortable after but a quick glance. You can’t help it.
The rock over the matches one is driving me insane! Just catch on fire already, goddammit!
More after the jump…
A few days ago on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, Oliver revealed just how burned Donald Trump was over an old SPY magazine article from the 1980s by longtime Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter who described Trump as a “short-fingered vulgarian.” Apparently Trump was so damned upset over that particular slight that he has been sending Carter his finger tracings and photos of himself with his hands circled to prove that he wasn’t short-fingered ever since!
It’s something that must really get under his skin. Imagine President Trump meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Putin just won’t stop staring at his fingers. I think that would really wig Trump out.
Now there’s a Tumblr dedicated to Donald Trump’s tiny hands called “Short-Fingered Vulgarian.” Of course the images are ‘shopped, but you just know it’s pissing Trump off. I wonder how long it will take him to comment or tweet about it? Everyone should send it to him @realdonaldtrump.
More after the jump…
Grace Jones and Rick James at the Grammy Awards, 1983
One of my really awful guilty pleasures (I also love the band Rush, but I don’t judge and neither should you), is watching awards shows. I know, I know, they’re stupid, and that my street cred just went out to the dumpster to smoke cigarettes with Milli Vanilli. I’m okay with that.
Micky Dolenz and Michael Nesmith of the Monkees at the Grammy Awards, 1968. The band was up for two awards for “I’m a Believer” (Group Vocal Performance and Contemporary Vocal Group), but lost both times to The Fifth Dimension’s “Up Up and Away.”
It does not get much cooler than this: Alice Cooper and Stevie Wonder at the Grammy Awards, 1974
Plenty more classic Grammy moments after the jump…