Dangerous Minds pal Michael Simmons writes:

I just read and reviewed a well-researched, interesting book about Hendrix’ musical development called Becoming Jimi Hendrix by Steven Roby and Brad Schreiber, just pubbed to coincide with the 40th anniversary of Jimi’s death on September 18th.  Roby & Schreiber will be at Skylight Books in LA on September 17th

They mention Jimi’s appearance in 1965 on a Nashville TV show with a duo called Buddy & Stacy as part of the Crown Jewels, Little Richard’s back-up band.  Lo and behold, it’s on YouTube.  Dig the guitar!

The song is called “Shotgun” and the TV show, televised on Nashville’s Channel 5 WLAC-TV, was called Night Train. Apparently, this is the oldest known footage of Jimi Hendrix playing guitar. Considering who they’ve got in their backing group, campy Buddy & Stacey seem pretty comical doing their little routine.
 

 
‘Scuse me while I miss this guy (LA Weekly)

Highway Chile Takes the Night Train (Brown Eyed Handsome Soul)

 
Credit where credit is due: Our man in the Whitehouse throws down the undeniable truth about mosques and Muslims.

‎“We don’t differentiate between them and us. It’s just us.”
 
via Glenn Greenwald’s Twitter feed

 
I love this kid. I loooooove this kid.

 
Traffic, minus Dave Mason, perform “Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush” in 1967 on German TV’s The Beat Club.

 
There looks to be an interesting film screening coming up this weekend in Austin, TX. A lesbian couple went “undercover” as a man and wife at a local evangelical church and their documentary, Faith of the Abomination is the result. The screening at the South Lamar Alamo Drafthouse as part of the Austin Gay & Lesbian International Film Festival on Sunday at 2:30 p.m.

From an article in the Austin Statesman:

Their mission was to go undercover with Melton posing as a man to see if the couple would be treated differently as a heterosexual couple in ministry. They aimed to stay 6 months. It was successful, Nguyen said. “We loved them and they loved us,” she said. “The leadership took us in right away. They told us secrets they hadn’t revealed to their board of directors. Spiritually, we were able to connect with them because they didn’t have the stumbling block of what we looked like and what our spirits were. We became close with them, they took us out for private luncheons. We ministered in their church. It was the spirit in us that they connected to, not the packages.”

The couple became a part of the church for about four months, they said. They decided that they would reveal who they were and told the congregation that they were going back to Vietnam. “We told people how much we loved them and thanked them for their love,” Nguyen said. “We told them that we were two lesbian ministers of God, and the bodyguards started to rush us and the pastor called them off. He knew cameras were on him. I told him, ‘God is Love, we are not abominations. God created me, God loves my people. We’re here for a reason.’”

As scared as they were about their revelation, they felt like it was necessary to come out publicly so that the church would know what had happened to them and who they really were. That was September 3, 2006. Their emails and phone calls to the church have not been returned, they say. They hope one day to move back to Austin; perhaps after the premiere of the film here on Sunday.

 
Via Christian Nightmares

 
Fascinating think piece about advertising in the 1960s (and a little beyond) from Century of the Self documentarian Adam Curtis that sheds some interesting light on the actual historical Madison Avenue figures that certain characters from Mad Men seem to be based on.

For instance, although the deeply complex and anxious Don Draper character was obviously invented, there were certainly men in advertising during the era whose accomplishments and attitudes towards their craft might be seen to have an influence on how Draper is drawn, to wit, Rosser Reeves, legendary chairmen of the Ted Bates agency and pioneer of television advertising.

In his book, Reality in Advertising, Reeves delineated the concept of the USP or unique selling point. The idea was to condense the products’ benefits into as direct a statement as possible and then carpet-bomb the population with the advertising campaign so that this message penetrated the mass consciousness

Reeves’ favourite slogan was the one that he—and Don Draper—came up with for Lucky Strike: “It’s Toasted.”

If you are a fan of the series, Curtis’s essay is a must read:

Other than Herta Herzog there were few women in high positions in Madison Avenue. But then Shirley Polykoff rose up because she invented the phrase for Miss Clairol hair colour bath - “Does She, or Doesn’t She?”

Polykoff is the model for Peggy Olsen in Mad Men. She was a junior copywriter at Foote Cone and Belding and she was convinced that women should be allowed to be what they wanted to be - and she expressed that through a series of adverts for Clairol.

Clairol’s products allowed women to colour their hair themselves at home for the first time. But there was widespread social disapproval - only “chorus girls” coloured their hair. Polykoff broke that. For Nice ‘n Easy, Clairol’s combined shampoo and colour she wrote - “The closer he gets, the better you look”.

And then for Lady Clairol - which allowed you to become a platinum blonde for the first time - Polykoff wrote one of the greatest slogans ever:

“If I’ve only one life, let me live it as a blonde”

This campaign was running when Betty Friedan was just finishing The Feminine Mystique. She was so “bewitched” by the slogan, and its message, that she went out and bought some Lady Clairol and bleached her hair.

Madison Avenue (Adam Curtis Blog)
 

 
Thank you, Michael Backes of Los Angeles, California!

 
It’s the Squarepusher guy’s new “band” Shobaleader One, but he’s not allowed to tell you their names, alright ? You know, the guy can say whatever he wants as long as he continues to be this generation’s Jaco Pastorius . Great video too, as always.
 

 
Thanks Gonzi Merchan !

 
Via The Museum of Idolatry

 
The original Raquel Welch photo can be found here.

Get off the cross, we could use the wood

 
Jazz legend Miles Davis gave very few television interviews. Notoriously prickly to begin with, Davis also had a colorful way of expressing himself as readers of his autobiography can attest to—a sentence consisting of a single word (“Bitches!”) gets the point across—a quality that perhaps didn’t lend itself so well to the medium of television.

However, Miles Davis was interviewed by Bill Boggs on his television show Time Out in 1986:

“I have been told by people over the years that this was an historic interview. ‘Do you ever remember Miles Davis being on a talk show?’ Apparently not too many people do cause they keep telling me this is unique. How’d it happen? Well the entire long form story is part of my play ‘Talk Show Confidential,’ but the Cliff Notes version is: I ran into Miles when I was in a restaurant in Los Angeles. Actually, he came to my table and said hello. ‘That Midday was like my Today show,’ he told me in that raspy voice. It turned out he’d been watching me for years and said, ‘I always wanted you to interview me.’ So the way this whole thing happened was he asked me what I was doing and I told him I had a show in Philadelphia called ‘Timeout’ and he basically said let’s arrange to do it. And about a month or so later, there he was. I was not pleased that the producers of the show chose to add other guests. It should have been just Miles and me for the entire hour. But they were afraid he wouldn’t carry the ratings-small thinking, in my opinion, since his appearance on the show made headlines and was discussed before and after on local radio. Anyway, the charming Maurice Hines, an old friend joins in as do some young trumpet players-which sort of worked..See for yourself..Miles Davis circa 1986 in Philadelphia.” -Bill Boggs

 
Via Pathway to Unknown Worlds/ Thank you Steven Daly of New York City!