max abelson's super groovy music video spectacular

online since 1738


aka "max abelson and his funktified flying fortress of youtube's best music videos"


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w. 80s
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fri. 00s


email: mabelson at observer.com


i write for: the new york observer


beck says: "mtv makes me want to smoke crack... condominiums rising above, and those videos are better than love."


tom waits says: "his wife was a spent piece of used jet trash, made good bloody marys, kept her mouth shut most of the time, had a little chihuahua named carlos that had some kind of skin disease and was totally blind."


this is what phil spector says about himself: "i'm dealing in rock 'n' roll. i'm not a bona fide human being."


this is what leonard cohen says about phil spector: "at a certain point phil approached me with a bottle of kosher red wine in one hand and a .45 in the other, put his arm around my shoulder and shoved the revolver into my neck and said, 'leonard, i love you.' i said, 'i hope you do, phil.'"


"whenever i start playing around on youtube i always end up watching that lady fall over while stomping grapes, so it's nice to have someone steer me in a more worthwhile direction." - the 33 1/3 book series' blog (on the spectacular).


bubblicious flavors that could have been good names for this blog: bursts with thunder, gonzo grape, tropical tango, lebron's lightning lemonade


brian eno songs that will make excellent book titles for my ten-volume memoir, chronologically ordered: here he comes, baby's on fire, the lost day, swanky, brutal ardour, events in dense fog, the fat lady of limbourg, some of them are old, dead finks don’t talk, what actually happened?


the smiths once said: "there's always someone somewhere with a big nose who knows."


there are no upper-case letters on this site, except for in this grammatically correct sentence: Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.


#1 favorite song on the white album: long long long


#2 favorite song on the white album: happiness is a warm gun


#3 favorite song on the white album: sexy sadie


woody allen's reasons to live: "i would say groucho marx, to name one thing, and willie mays, and the second movement of the jupiter symphony, and louie armstrong’s recording of potatohead blues, swedish movies, naturally. sentimental education by flaubert, marlon brando, frank sinatra, those incredible apples and pears by cézanne, the crabs at sam wo’s, tracy’s face."


john lennon's middle name: ono


thelonious monk's middle name: sphere


my middle name: joseph


"i ain't gotta get you to like me but i can get a person to pay attention. like, the people you're sitting next to on the plane and they're wondering why the fuck you're sitting next to them in first class, i want them to be able to ask me a question and i'll be able to start rapping to them and they don't even know it's a rap. that's how you do it, that's how you bring people into whatever you want to bring them into." - lil wayne


“you should always take the best from the past, leave the worst back there and go forward into the future" - bob dylan on barack obama


"i love songs about horses, railroads, land, judgment day, family, hard times, whiskey, courtship, marriage, adultery, separation, murder, war, prison, rambling, damnation, home, salvation, death, pride, humor, piety, rebellion, patriotism, larceny, determination, tragedy, rowdiness, heartbreak and love. and mother. and god." - johnny cash


please listen at a very high volume


see the archives for more grooviness


Creative Commons License
March 18

little feat - rock and roll doctor (1975)

why is little feat so un-famous compared to southern rock clowns like the doobie brothers? (one of my favorite parliament lyrics is: “can you imagine doobie in your funk?” i don’t quite know what that means but i like it.)

beer-bellied frat kids should be singing little feat songs, not freebird. but little feat never wrote anything that sounds good in a baseball stadium, except maybe dixie chicken.

another problem is that lowell george, the band’s singer and songwriter and insanely buttery slide guitarist—he wore a sears socket wrench on his finger—died ten years after starting the band, which is definitely what a life of heroic drug consumption will do to you. (incidentally, his old bandmate frank zappa never approved of george’s heavy habits). and then little feat continued on, which is relatively sad because they’re not very good without him.

i think the rock and roll doctor they sing about here is a drug dealer (just like the beatles’ dr. robert or the beta band’s dr. baker), but when lowell george says, “if you like country with the boogie beat, he’s the man to meet!” he could be talking about himself: “at times like this it takes a man with such style I cannot often find/ a doctor of the heart and a doctor of mind.”

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