Domestic, no?
 
If you’re like me and want to replace your extensive poster collections with something slightly more grown-up, you may want to go with these awesome embroidery hoops of your favorite pop culture icons. They might be a bit twee, sure, but I figure this is a nice compromise between decorating like I’m still in college and actually developing mature taste in art, which frankly, sounds like a lot of work and money.

I’m common and vulgar, but I’m common and vulgar with a Bachelor’s Degree, dammit.
 

 

 
The Future Is Now!

Fairy Tales - Kin Ping Meh
Queen Of Spades - Curly Curve
A Place To Go - Embryo
China - Electric Sandwich
It All Depends - The Scorpions
Ride The Sky - Lucifer’s Friend
No Freak Out - Spermuell
Norderland - Eroc
Gammy Ray - Birth Control
Castle In The Air - Eloy
So Far - Faust
Watussi - Harmonia
 

 
Here’s one for all the synth geeks out there: keyboard maestro Jan Hammer on the BBC TV show Rock School 2 in 1987, giving some advice on how best to play the keytar, or rather, his Yamaha KX5 remote keyboard.

Learn it and learn it well, children. As Jan is careful to point out, the key to getting his trademark note-bending synth style is not about a specific kind of keyboard or synth:

it’s really not [about] a particular instrument or a particular patch, it [could be] something with a sharp attack, with a reasonable amount of sustain, that is going through some sort of distortion device or an amp. And then it’s about what you play.

Amen!
 

 
Most people only know Jan Hammer through his work on Miami Vice, but he was responsible for some brilliant music before the era of the-white-suit-with-rolled-up-sleeves.

‘Don’t You Know” by the Jan Hammer Group from 1977 is a classic break and a gorgeous tune in its own right, a beautiful slice of psych-funk that will wipe the smirk off any Hammer-doubters listening (even if it leaves his unfortunate comb over intact):
 

 
Thanks to Philip McEachen.

 
I haven’t thought about Beat Happening or Rites of Spring in ages. Mr. Cobain had very good taste indeed.

Click here to see larger image.

Via Laughing Squid

 
You know you’re getting old—gulp—when your five-year-old crush turns 80 and today is the 80th birthday of—still radiant—British pop singer Petula Clark.

An appearance by Petula Clark on The Ed Sullivan Show, This is Tom Jones or any random variety show she happened to appear on was the only “OK, you can stay up past your bedtime” excuse that my parents would indulge (because I’m sure I’d have thrown a temper tantrum or something).

Pet Clark was the prettiest, classiest woman I think I had ever seen up to that point in my life. And her songs, often the recorded in collaboration with the great British arranger, Tony Hatch, were really catchy. Oh how I loved her then. Still do. Clark has special kind of magic charisma, I think, that makes her such an all-time classic and iconic performer.

Here’s wishing Petula Clark the happiest of birthdays. In January a Facebook campaign was launched to petition for a Damehood for Clark.

“Downtown” on French TV:
 

 
More Petula Clark after the jump…

 
In celebration of Hasbro’s Mr. Potato Head turning 60 years old, here’s a Dee Dee Ramone version by Nacho Tamez.

Via Neatorama

 
And, YES, it is everything you thought it would be. And by that, I mean it is bad. So very bad. The video is a drawn out spaghetti western narrative, leading into a song that is just the offal of the 1980s.

Before he was a household name, Bill Paxton was one half of the long-forgotten 80s New Wave band, Martini Ranch, along with Andrew Todd Rosenthal. Their Holy Cow album (actually two EPs, later compiled as an album) contained a single called “How Can the Labouring Man Find Time for Self Culture,” which featured Devo’s Alan Myers and Mark Mothersbaugh (the number was also produced and engineered by Devo guitarist Bob Casale). To compound the bafflement, Cindy Wilson of The B-52’s, and actors Judge Reinhold and Bud Cort (“Harold” from Harold and Maude) also appeared on tracks.

The star-studded line-up of such a terrible project only proves what I have always suspected; Bill Paxton is a goddamn charming weirdo.

Below, the “long” version of “Reach” directed by James Cameron:
 

 
The even more 80s (as if that is possible) video for “How Can the Labouring Man Find Time for Self Culture,” directed by Rocky Schenck (who took the above PR shot):
 

 
Big up to whoever it is who has started the English Disco Lovers social group.

A retort to the extreme right wingers, the nasty English Defence League (who I am not going to provide a link to here) the EDL—Disco Division—have been recruiting members on their Facebook page, as one race and one world united under the banner of beautiful disco music. Here’s a brief blurb:

The English Disco Lovers (EDL) are a pro-disco, anti-racism group.

We aim to spoof the slogans and emblems of The English Defence League, showing them for what they really are - racist, outdated and not the type you’d invite to your disco!

Unus Mundas, Una Gens, Unus Disco (One World, One Race, One Disco)!

Recently, the EDL—Disco Division—have passed round a new manifesto, which states their aim to supplant the English Defence League as the top search result for “EDL” on Google, and to get more likes than the English Defence League on Facebook.

Here’s the manifesto, or the disco statement as it has been labeled by the group, in full. It’s well worth a read:
 

 
This is a noble and worthy cause and I tip my hat to the English Disco Lovers.

We may all be losing heart over the wonder of Facebook these days, but if you want to see the Disco Lovers achieve their goal of more FB likes than the English Defence League (they are about half way there already) you can like the group on their page. You can also find them on Twitter.

And in the meantime, here’s some classic disco with a message of social unity:
 
The O’Jays “Love Train” (1972)
 

 
An exclusive clip of the fabulous Anne Pigalle performing to a packed house at David Lynch’s Parisian night club Silencio, where she sang a selection of songs from her recent album, L’ Ame Erotique, and a some of her classic early work. Ms. Pigalle was performing at a special event, created by Diane Pernet, to celebrate the international Festival A Shaded View on Film Festival.
 

 
Bonus clips of Anne Pigalle, after the jump…
 

 
In January 1972, John Lennon and Yoko Ono told Howard Smith, a Village Voice columnist and radio personality on WPLJ FM, what they thought about the Beatles break-up and if they would ever get back together again.
 

 
Via The World’s Best Ever