Here’s a rare Sonny and Cher video from Jim Laspesa’s newly launched Bubbling Over website. Jim gives us the background on the video:
The Sonny & Cher clip is from a 1968 Murray The K TV special “Sound Is Now.” The music in the video is the backing track for Sonny and Cher’s song “Little Man.” Clip was likely cut as between-song filler for the TV special.”
I wonder if this was shot on Sonny and Cher’s renaissance faire themed Malibu estate?
Jeannine Riley, Pat Woodell and Linda Kaye Henning from Petticoat Junction & Sheila James of Dobie Gillis make an appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show (March 22, 1964) as The Ladybugs covering The Beatles “I Saw Her Standing There.”
In his introduction, Sullivan refers to The Beatles as “our stars The Beatles,” as though he invented the Fab Four. No question he helped launched their success in the States, but, with or without Ed, The Beatles’ world domination was predestined.
“If it goes any further it might as well be rock and roll”
Kevin Saunderson on the the mutation of house and techno into “rave”.
Here’s an interesting little adjunct to the rave documentaries I have been posting recently - this is not a full length doc like the others, but a much shorter news-type item for what was presumably a youth culture show. It is interesting for a number of reasons - it’s cataloging the emergence of “rave” as a defined type of music as represented by acts such as SL2 and The Prodigy, and that kind of music’s growing popularity. In fact, the clip features an interview with a 19 year old (!) Liam Howlett, bemoaning the lack of radio play of rave music, despite it regularly reaching the upper reaches of the British charts. Ironically, it was The Prodigy who were charged with killing rave music by turning it into novelty records of the likes of “Charly Says”. In this clip rave-based dance music is referred to as “techno”, even as a Detroit-based techno pioneer such as Inner City’s Kevin Saunderson criticise the new music for lack of “soul”. At a time when dance culture in the UK was moving from the overground to the underground it is interesting to see the schisms opening up that would split it into many different categories:
Have you seen the new BBCThree comedy series The Pranker yet? Starring Nickelodeon UK kid’s show host Ross Lee—who appears to be wanting to break out of that field in a big way, as you will see—it’s one of the funniest, darkest, sickest “hidden camera” prank shows I’ve ever seen.
The Brits have always done this sort of thing the best because they’re more willing to take it to its logical, mean-spirited conclusion (witness the inspired genius of Marc Wootton’s My New Best Friend series, for instance). The Pranker, like Kayvan Novak’s brilliant Fonejacker/Facejacker series, takes the Candid Camera format to new comedic heights. The below clip is just one of many from the first episode I could post here. The Pranker had the wife and I in hysterics from start to finish. I highly recommend it.
Skip along four years since “A Trip Around Acid House (which I posted yesterday) and you can see the changes which had occurred within the UK’s dance scene. By 1992 raves had become massive outdoor events attracting thousands of punters, they had been cracked down on heavily by the police, and promoters had begun to put on licensed raves with professional security, a police presence and mandatory drug searches to minimise trouble and maximise profit.
BBC North’s Rave follows the set up, running and aftermath of one of these very large (but legal) outdoor raves, and highlights how attitudes had changed between 1992 and 1988. The moral panic surrounding acid house and ecstasy culture had peaked by this point. The police were aware that this new outdoor dancing movement was not something that was going to go away any time soon, so rather than trying to stamp it out they instead focussed on regulating it. It’s interesting to see the individual police officers interviewed in ‘Rave’ and their opinions on the culture - unnerved by the “spaced out” demeanour of the participants, but also very aware that they are not violent and cause very little trouble. There were still the supposedly “moral” campaigners who saw the trend as entirely negative, of course, and campaigned to have any event of this nature shut down due to the supposed dangers of drug “pushers”. The inability to compute that people were taking drugs of their own free will, combined with the relatively harmless effects of those particular drugs, give these campaigners distinct shades Mary Whitehouse. It’s all about looking good rather than engaging with reality.
By 1992 the music had now morphed too - four years on from the happy-go-lucky spirit of acid house (with its sampling of different genres and its embracing of the Balearic scene) the music is more streamlined, and beginning to form more regimented genres like techno and rave itself. DJ Smokey Joe does a pretty good job of describing the difference between the German and Belgian strands of techno in this show:
This cover of Donovan’s “Catch The Wind” really works for me. It’s a straight ahead, honest and heartfelt version of Donovan’s ethereal folk tune. Buck puts some Bakersfield twang into the song that gives it a bit of barroom melancholy that would go down nicely with a shot of Jim Beam and a Bud. From Buck’s 1966 TV show.
I used to own one one of those Buck Owen red, white and blue guitars. Buck’s was custom made made by Mosrite and later mass produced by Gibson. I owned the Gibson model. I think I bought mine at Sears.
Raggamuffin legend Daddy Freddy breaks his own record for rapping the most syllables in one minute on BBC TV’s Record Breakers in 1989.
Eventually Freddy broke the record four times taking it from 346 to 598 syllables a minute. First and second time in UK (in Covent Garden and at BBCs Record Breakers on BBC Record Breakers show where he appeared with the great Roy Castle) and two times in America (New York Empire State Building and in Washington).”
Freddy’s record has been broken over the years, most recently by Spanish rapper El Chojin, but Daddy still ranks number one in the world of raggamuffin.
Acid house - the sound of a Roland TB 303 getting turned up too far that can send the most loved up dancer wild with convulsions of ecstasy . A unique sound accidentally discovered by DJ Pierre and friends in Chicago 25 years ago and that can still wreck dancefloors to this very day. A type of music which for a period of time in the late 80s infested the upper reaches of the UK’s charts and spawned a youth culture all of its own. Let me hear you say ACIEEED!
I was way too young to have any first hand experience of clubbing during the acid house years, but the music and imagery still had a huge effect on my childhood brain . Who couldn’t resist the acid-washed day-glo colours, the oversized clothes, the nods back to hippie culture and the first summer of love, and chart topping tracks from the likes of D-Mob, S’Express, M/A/R/R/S, Yazz, Farley Jackmaster Funk, 808 State, Bomb The Bass and Stakker Humanoid? When I had a chance to buy my own clothes it would be Joe Bloggs, and I had quite the collection of smiley face badges for a kid not yet a teenager. My own pet theory is that disco never had the impact in the UK that it had in the States, but house music and raving had the same effect of democratising the dancefloor ten years later. A large piece of the puzzle was of course the arrival of a new drug called “ecstasy” (actually only made illegal in the UK in 1985), which when combined with the powerful filter sweeps of a TB303 can give the user incredible head rushes. It was this new drug and its implications that seemed to worry the authorities the most.
This great documentary from the BBC’s World in Action strand is like a full blown acid house flashback. Broadcast in 1988 at height of acid house fever, it follows the typical weekend rituals of a group of very young fans, tracks the working life of an illegal party promoter, speaks to some of the producers of the music and charts the the then-growing moral panic which surrounded the scene and its copious drug taking. Raving, and acid house, had a huge (if subtle) effect on British culture, bringing people together in new, democratised contexts free of class and social boundaries, opening people’s ears up to a new world of music and opening their minds to new ideas.
A Trip Round Acid House makes for very interesting viewing at a time when Murdoch Inc and News International stand accused of distorting facts to suit their own means. The program gives a fairly detailed description of how The Sun newspaper did an about face on acid house, going from being supporters of this new youth culture (even selling their own acid house branded t-shirts to decrying it as an outrage that needed to be banned (and as such sold more papers). Some of the other footage here is priceless too, and has popped up on the internet in other forms, such as the classic reaction of two old cockney dears to the description of a typical “rave”. Blimey!
While musician and rock archivist Jim Laspesa is putting together his own website, which will feature music and pop culture related clips from the past 30+ years, he’s been uploading a few gems to Youtube. Here’s a little something that is new to the Interweb: a 1980 appearance by Debbie Harry on ABC’s Sunday morning children’s show Kids Are People Too. Sassy.
Murdochgate continues unabated. After yesterday’s questioning of Rupert and James Murdoch (and the cream pie incident), today has already seen the British Prime Minister David Cameron taking part in a parliamentary debate which has been broadcast live, and is set to continue till 7pm tonight (GMT).
It’s also interesting to see a British political scandal begin to get so much attention in the American media. Of course, there are some serious ramifications for the Murdoch’s American operations (especially now the FBI are to investigate it), but so far the story has been pretty well contained to the UK. However Jon Stewart rags on yesterday’s questioning of Brooks and the Murdochs here, and it’s telling that right wing US commenters on that blog post are still trying to pass the whole Murdochgate affair off as an inconsequential “celebrity” scandal (akin to Paris Hilton’s nails getting done, apparently).
Of course, it is much, much more than that. This excellent documentary by BBC’s investigative Panorama program, broadcast on Monday, recaps all the major points, features interviews with many of the key players (including the now-deceased whistle blower Sean Hoare) and shows how the hacking of murdered schoolgirl’s phone has begun to unravel the fabric on which three of society’s four main pillars are based (the media, the police and the political system). We will see how this plays out in the long run, bearing in mind the interests that are potentially at stake here and the possible onset of scandal fatigue in the public, but judging by the bizarre twists and turns this story has taken already, it’s best not to rule anything out yet.
Parts 2-6 after the jump…
Many thanks to the diligent work of YouTube uploader NOTWPhoneHacking, whose channel contains literally hundreds of clips recorded from the British media about the NI scandal since it broke over a fortnight ago.
