A song of mine was used in a car commercial. At first, I refused to sell the rights to it. I hate when rock music pimps for big corporations. The ad agency who wanted to use the song told me, in so many words, that they’d create a sound-a-like version if I didn’t relent and let them use the tune. I relented. I made money. It’s the only real money I’ve ever made from my music. Do I feel unclean? No.
Despite what’s said in the ‘Music House’ video, it’s not illegal for an ad agency to create a song that sounds exactly like someone else’s. A slight change in structure is all it takes, a change most people wouldn’t even notice.
The Wojahn brothers, composers of TV jingles/music for Taco Bell, AT&T and Home Depot, made this video and I give them credit for satirizing with merciless honesty the bullshit within their own industry. Hipster commercials make me gag.
Here’s a perfect example of the faux indie band at its absolute skincrawling worst. They’re ripping off Moldy Peaches. The Freecreditscore.com Band rockin’ out:
One of the commercials that started it all after the jump…
The first video is Harry smoking a joint while talking with Patrick Hulsey in New York City in 1999.
In the second video, East Village raconteur, animator, videographer and pop culture archivist M. Henry Jones of Snakemonkey TV recalls and recreates the initial thrill of discovering Harry Smith’s work.
Far better than average documentary on punk rock and the punk/reggae connection. Researched and written by the very fine rock journalist Robert Palmer (r.i.p.), this is smart and comprehensive. Broadcast on PBS in 1995 and currently unavailable on video or DVD. Enjoy.
If you got a problem with the smell of your own nutsack or somebody else’s, here’s the towel for you.
The True Clean Towel is screen printed with a diagram that specifies what sections are for cleaning certain parts of your body so, gawd forbid, you don’t accidentally wipe your face with residual sex juice or whatever.
Body loathers rejoice!
Step out of the shower and have the confidence of knowing that you are drying your freshly cleaned face with a section of the towel which has not been used to dry ‘other’ places. Reusing towels makes sense, so why not be smarter and healthier about how you use your towel.
I’ve always thought highly of Christopher Hitchens even when I’ve disagreed with him. As he deals with his own mortality, I now find him not only brilliant and witty, I find him inspirational. In this interview broadcast the other night on Australian TV, Hitchens discusses living (and perhaps dying) with cancer and his evolution as a thinker. Even with death lurking over his shoulder, Hitchens displays an amazing clarity of mind and fearlessness - a warrior.
William Burroughs: A Man WIthin, Yony Leyser’s new documentary, five years in the making, is screening this weekend at the IFC Center in New York with special guests, Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, Hal Willner, Eileen Myles and Penny Arcade appearing, along with the director, himself.
The film, which features music from Patti Smith and Sonic Youth, is getting a limited theatrical release during the holiday season and will be screened as part of PBS series “Independent Lens” next year.
From the decade that fashion forgot, a men’s style catalog that reflects more innocent times with some questionable dress sense and a bizarre advert for “New Adam Scented & Flavored Genital Towelettes.”
The Ah Men Super Summer Catalog 1972 can be viewed here.
The campaign to Save the 100 Club continues apace with support from a host of rock musicians including Mick Jagger, who came out in support of the campaign earlier this month saying:
There’s a real need for these places - they have a connection with the past. And what is important is that you have places where bands can cut their teeth and places of a certain intimacy and size, that new bands can experiment in. There aren’t that many great places in London, or indeed any city, that you can say that about.
Jagger isn’t the only legend offering his support, Ray Davies of The Kinks has said:
Simon Cowell should underwrite the money needed to save the 100 Club, that would be a real payback. The amount of money he takes out of pop music he could put some back in. I’‘m very concerned about the 100 Club, The Kinks played there and it’s such an iconic venue we shouldn’t allow things like that to close down. Everything is being overrun by the chain stores and the conglomerates and it such a pity that the 100 Club has to suffer like that.
Other musicians including Mick Jones and Primal Scream’s Bobby Gillespie have also spoken out against the possible closure, while Brian Travers from UB40 said:
It feels like live music is being pushed out of our cities to make way for car parks and duplex apartments. You are not on your own, all over the UK small live venues are being closed down. Just last November in Birmingham, the city’s premier live music venue The Rainbow was threatened with closure as well as noise abatement orders because a private property company had built downtown duplex apartments for the upwardly mobile who now don’t like the sound of downtown and wanted to turn it into a haven of peace and tranquility, live music being the first noise they wanted to mute.
This is a much bigger issue than just a noisy musicians being told to turn down the volume, this an all out attack on the UK’s finest export, music. If we are not careful our culture will be irreversibly damaged. As you have quite rightly said pretty soon there will be no where left for young bands to learn their craft.
Steve Diggle from The Buzzcocks said:
The 100 Club is as important as St Paul’s Cathedral!
While Frank Black from The Pixies has pledged £100,000 to the campaign and Liam Gallagher wrote a letter in support saying the 100 Club is “very rock n roll” and that its a shame as he “fancied playing there with the mighty Beady Eye.”
Save the 100 Club organizer, Jim Piddington tells Dangerous Minds that £150k has already been raised, but more is needed if they are to reach the target of £500k. A fund-raising gig is to be held at the venue on Thursday, 25 November, headlined by Specials guitarist Roddy Radiation and the Skabilly Rebels, and a line-up that also includes Chas Hodges, and a selection of “very special guests” who “are also expected to join the bill”.
If interested in attending the gig or in Saving the 100 Club please check details here.
This latest gem to be excavated from that endless trove of inscrutable weirdness known as Soviet era Ukrainian TV is a small masterpiece of people’s collective comedy. I’m sure there’s a lesson to be learned somewhere in all of this. But no matter ,I’m a sucker for peppy musical numbers that involve deconstructed instruments, factories, mimes and sausages. That’s entertainment !
