max abelson's super groovy music video spectacular

i’m taking my horse mask, rain jacket, pet cat, and my...

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 17:49:34 -0400

i’m taking my horse mask, rain jacket, pet cat, and my fishing boat, and i’m going on my first vacation in months. be back next week…

#157: roxy music - mother of pearl (1976)don’t pay too...

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 15:43:00 -0400

#157: roxy music - mother of pearl (1976)

don’t pay too much attention to the first two minutes of the song, which i’ve never been crazy about (focus instead on bryan ferry’s mustache and maybe his hands too, the best hands in show business), but afterwards comes something that could have only been written while bryan ferry was frolicking in the indian ocean on a drug binge with a gaggle of sixteen-year-old girls.

“you are my favorita/ and a place in your heart, dear/ makes me feel more real,” is the nicest thing a scary mustachioed man has ever said.

#157: chantal goya - tu m’as trop menti (from masculine,...

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 10:19:00 -0400

#157: chantal goya - tu m’as trop menti (from masculine, feminine trailer) (1966)

some poor interviewer once asked jean-luc godard if masculine, feminine was about youth, and the director said: “no, it’s more a film on the idea of youth… let’s say that it speaks of youth, but it’s a piece of music, a concerto youth.

if that (spectacular) sentence holds true, then that makes the film’s trailer, with its wildly cherry-cheeked song by masculine, feminine’s starlet (and real-life pop star) chantal goya, a symphony youth.

god, tu m’as trop menti burrows so far into your mind you won’t even realize the trailer includes a man stabbed in the gut, brigitte bardot, a stolen matchbook, a prostitute in white, and non-sly breast-touching. so far today i’ve watched it six times, and it’s 10:19am.

#156: chantal goya - le mysterieux voyage de marie-rose...

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 07:42:00 -0400

#156: chantal goya - le mysterieux voyage de marie-rose (1985?)

oooooooooh boy. it turns out that ms. goya’s post-godard work wasn’t as classy as masculine, feminine. the rabbit here is just like those david lynch bunny costume scenes, except way fucking scarier. (scary like this).

and why is there a gun? and why are the tree’s eyes blinking like that? and why does the readheaded boy laugh at snoopy’s accident but rub the panda so lasciviously? and what about the evil fox? he’s so very evil.

#155: gorillaz - bill murray (2005)in celebration of his...

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 10:58:00 -0400

#155: gorillaz - bill murray (2005)

in celebration of his official new-found bachelorhood, here’s the greatest dub song ever written by a cartoon band about a 50-something actor.

#154: bill murray, the rza, the gza - delirium (from coffee and...

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 09:07:00 -0400

#154: bill murray, the rza, the gza - delirium (from coffee and cigarettes) (2003)

not to go overboard on jim jarmusch clips, but, “word, bill motherfucking murray, it’s crazy.”

#153: grandaddy - a.m. 180 (aka rocket like a hurricane)...

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 12:06:00 -0400

#153: grandaddy - a.m. 180 (aka rocket like a hurricane) (1997)

besides implicitly endorsing cat-on-dog violence, flipping vans after fighting with your friends, giving beer to children, giving tuxedos to asians, wearing a monkey suit and beating office-workers up, and being an invisible drummer, which are all things i dislike, the video to a.m. 180, grandaddy’s best song (better than the stuffed-animal nature anthem, and just slightly better than jed’s other poem) is a complete work of wholesome perfection.

#152: irma thomas - it’s raining (1962) (from down by law,...

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 12:03:00 -0400

#152: irma thomas - it’s raining (1962) (from down by law, 1986)

jim jarmusch, the man who can make dancing alone in a black and white kitchen to a tape cassette of screamin’ jay hawkins’ i put a spell on you the saddest thing in the world, makes roberto benigni waltzing quietly with his (real-life) wife to new orleans r&b—while tom waits and john lurie look on angrily—the sweetest, softest two minutes in film history. god bless down by law.

#151: tom zé - brigitte bardot (1973)listening to early-70s...

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 16:14:42 -0400

#151: tom zé - brigitte bardot (1973)

listening to early-70s tropacalia and watching late-60s french bombshells is probably what jesus does all day up in the clouds.

it’s slightly disconcerting to listen to a song mr. zé wrote about ms. bardot in 1973 while watching footage of them cavorting around five years earlier, but by disconcerting i mean heavenly and hypnotic.

image #38: that’s not an eye on the cover of tom...

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 13:24:00 -0400

image #38: that’s not an eye on the cover of tom zé’s todos os olhos; it’s a marble, square in the tuchus. and that apparently was a “jab at the brazilian dictatorship’s office of censorship.” really. (this is why the military used to arrest tropicalia stars and put them in solitary cells.)

#150: elvis presley - return to sender (1962)any musical number...

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 17:05:00 -0400

#150: elvis presley - return to sender (1962)

any musical number featured in a film called girls! girls! girls!, and any song that uses the united states postal service as a plot device, and any film clip that begins: “doctor livingstone! somehow this isn’t how i imagined the big reconciliation,” and any early elvis presley song that features the baritone saxophone stylings of bobby keys, who later played with the rolling stones and once threw a television off a 10th floor hotel balcony with keith richards, is okay by me.

ps. this is video #150. whoa.

#149: fatboy slim ft. david byrne & dizzee rascal - toejam...

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 11:30:00 -0400

#149: fatboy slim ft. david byrne & dizzee rascal - toejam (2008)

first of all, music videos are the new pornography.

secondly, why did fatboy slim just release an incredibly good song? is it 1998? the last time i listened to fatboy slim i was getting ready to ask lauren berkovitch to the laurel south summer camp social. (she said yes).

thirdly, david byrne is the only man alive who can begin a song with, “i was asking new york city, ‘do you like my clothes?’”

fourthly, i can’t understand a fucking word dizzee rascal ever says.

#148: gillian welch & david rawlings - caleb meyer (1998)my...

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 10:47:00 -0400

#148: gillian welch & david rawlings - caleb meyer (1998)

my sister, brother and i saw emmylou harris play town hall last night, which was heavenly, but not as absurdly, cosmically, heavily heavenly as when we saw emmylou play with gillian welch and david rawlings four years ago.

second to shooting smack with a band of guitar/troubadour prison escapees in a tuscaloosa barroom during the herbert hoover administration, they’re the closest you’ll get to pure old time glory. the observer once said they have “a meditative stream of yearning and heartache one might have thought impossible in the era of frappuccinos and instant messaging.” amen.

come to think of it, the observer also once said that if you could through the first four songs on a particular emmylou harris album without getting bowled over by feeling and “without being a total emotional wreck, i envy you. i congratulate you on your cold-bloodedness. you are immune to emotion. welcome to the sociopaths’ hall of fame.”

#147: the cure - the lovecats (1983)maybe it’s not as...

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 10:57:08 -0400

#147: the cure - the lovecats (1983)

maybe it’s not as immediately cool as the cure’s crispy, punky, no-lipstick early songs about existentialist novelists and taps that drip-drip-drip, but the lovecats has to be the most romantic song recorded during the whole reagan administration.

british people really do have a way with words: “we should have each other to tea/ we should have each other with cream/ then curl up by the fire/ and sleep for awhile/ it’s the grooviest thing/ it’s the perfect dream.”

#146: john lennon - crippled insisde (1971)speaking of phil...

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 09:13:00 -0400

#146: john lennon - crippled insisde (1971)

speaking of phil spector, i think i’d rather listen to the cokey, crispy, screamy, boozy solo albums he produced for john lennon in the 70s than some shiny happy beatles albums. and i’d rather listen to the last ten seconds of crippled inside than almost anything in the universe.

truly, the greatest thing in the world happened to me just now:...

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 17:38:00 -0400

truly, the greatest thing in the world happened to me just now: tom wolfe phoned to talk about that interview i did with aby rosen (who basically called the writer an anti-semite). tangerine-flake streamline tom!! kool-aid pump-house bauhuas our hosue mauve glove mau-mauing wolfe!!

i told him that “the first tycoon of tean,” his essay on phil spector from 1964, is one of my all-time favorites. (it’s on my facebook profile, so, yeah, it must be true.) then he asked if he could tell me a phil spector story, and this is what came out of tom wolfe’s mouth and through the telephone and into my ear:

“we were having coffee or something to drink, i forget, at 2 a.m. at the plaza hotel. phil had this long hair, down to his shoulders—he’s a very strange looking guy—it’s, well, anyway, this was before longish hair was everywhere, it goes back. i could see at this table nearby, there were two couples, i remember, they were older people, at least in their 60s, they’d whisper at each other and look at phil and whisper at each other. finally this lady, tanked, comes over to phil and says, ‘alright, sonny, what’s your problem?’ and he said, ‘premature ejaculation, what’s yours?’ he didn’t bat an eye! he came back with it so fast.”

yes yes yes yes yes yes yes. then i told mr. wolfe about that amazing leonard cohen/phil spector ‘i love you’ quote, and mr. wolfe laughed, and then we said goodbye, and then i sort of wept with glee.

#145: lee dorsey - working in the coal mine (1966)lee dorsey,...

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 11:23:00 -0400

#145: lee dorsey - working in the coal mine (1966)

lee dorsey, once a prize fighter named kid chocolate, was the funkiest motherfunker to ever make funky new orleans pop.

devo played his songs, the beastie boys reference him, and for some reason jools holland made this video in 1985, 20 years after dorsey recorded working in a coal mine, four years after devo did their creepy new wave cover, and one year before dorsey died.

and the little film proves that lee dorsey, even a year away from death, was so funky that he made air-shovelling look cool.

#144: r. kelly - trapped in the closet, chapter...

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 15:59:00 -0400

#144: r. kelly - trapped in the closet, chapter 15 (2007)

NOT GUILTY! now i’m going to go celebrate r. kelly’s acquittal the only way i know how: watching the genius episode of trapped in the closet that features bonnie ‘prince’ billy as a mustachioed policeman.

from the wire report: “kelly dabbed his face with a handkerchief and hugged each of his four attorneys after the verdict—not guilty on all 14 counts—was read. the grammy award-winning singer had faced 15 years in prison if convicted.”

#143: sigur ros - gobbledigook (2008)it’s a new sigur ros...

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 11:34:00 -0400

#143: sigur ros - gobbledigook (2008)

it’s a new sigur ros song! the video is (sort of) by the nude-loving hip photographer ryan mcginley! there’s nudity! a lot of nudity! the song is beautiful! it sounds like animal collective with less echo! anything written about the song should probably have a lot of exclamation points! there are la la las! very fast percussion! the new album is called með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust which means with a buzz in our ears we play endlessly! koogidelbbog is gobbledigook backwards!

also am i crazy or does that opening acoustic guitar riff sound like that bad dave matthews band song tripping billies? why do i remember the dave matthews band? they were awful! this song is great! nudity! lots and lots of nudity!

#142: nick cave & the bad seeds - stagger lee (1996)in...

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 15:19:00 -0400

#142: nick cave & the bad seeds - stagger lee (1996)

in 1959, when lloyd price went on american bandstand to sing his smiley version of the 19th-century folk song stagger lee, classy dick clark thought the nice normal listening audience wouldn’t handle the song’s murder story, so lloyd had to take the death out.

luckily a few decades later the world got nick cave, that oft-mustachioed vessel of vamped-up, ominous, insomnious fury, who did his version of stagger lee on british television—without taking out probably the dirtiest line in the history of the world, which begins with “i’m a bad motherfucker” and finishes with something about children that would probably make dick clark throw up in his mouth.

i really wish i was the bad seeds bandmember playing the maracas in the background.