Say Anything.

I started a couple of posts after I came home from work this evening but they were so bad I had to delete them. They weren't even worthy of a spot in draft folder limbo. 

It was clear I had no inspiration and nothing to say today, so I started thinking maybe I should take the hint, skip a day and finally break my run, like I've been talking about doing for a while now. 

But then I thought of something. Everyone is probably playing Endwalker. Or at least waiting in a queue to play Endwalker. No-one's going to be reading anything I write. I can post anything I want!

Oh, boy! Let's do it! (My Luci T-shirt says that. It's good advice.)

This morning after breakfast, before I left for work, I just had time to read this news item on Stereogum, which informed me Lana del Rey had been named Artist Of The Decade by Variety magazine. I should bloody well think so, too!

I watched the embedded video. Both of them, actually. Award acceptance speeches are often odd but this one's gloriously off-kilter. I just loved it. I wonder what it means?

Do you think she's going to get a job in a bank or an insurance company? I hope not.

I can only think of one famous person who actually did that mid-career and that was the comedian Nick Hancock, who left showbiz to work as a mortgage broker. That didn't go very well. He lasted a year before quitting and hasn't really made it back into the public consciousness since, although not for want of trying.

There is, it has to be said, quite a difference between hosting a clutch of laddish TV panel games and being named Artist of the Decade by the Show Business Bible. I think we Lana fans are probably safe. Or as safe as we ever are.

Incidentally, I have discovered another Lana fan in the bookshop where I work, which makes for some interesting workplace conversations. It was a bit of a surprise because he normally favors the likes of Rammstein and only today he was waxing lyrical about the Cardiacs. Just goes to show her reach. Artist of the decade, indeed!

I suppose we could have a bit of Rammstein and the Cardiacs now, just so we know who we're talking about. For a comparison with Lana, see any number of past and future posts.

That was disturbing. I don't recommend digging into their back catalog without wearing protective equipment. Now for one of my favorites by Rammstein.

One of the tuneful ones, that was. And one of the less upsetting videos. There used to be a surprising number of Rammstein fans where I work but I think most of them have left, now. 

Okay, maybe it's time for something lighter. How about Jenny Lewis? She's always fun. Here she is, singing a song about how all you need to be happy is a puppy and a truck. It's called Puppy and a Truck. I guess that about covers it.

Hmm. That first verse is a bit of a downer, come to think of it. Still, puppy and a truck, eh? All alright in the end.

Bootlegger turn. I've never been much of a Dave Grohl fan. No, that's disingenuous. I don't think I've ever knowingly listened to a Foo Fighters song. I have an idea what I think they sound like but I don't believe in sullying my prejudices with actual facts so I've taken great care to avoid hearing anything they've ever done.

Until now. To be fair, this is just Dave Grohl, not his band. And it's a cover, not one of his band's songs. So I'm good, still. He has a book out that I keep having to pick up and look at and it seems pretty interesting plus I heard him talking in some thing I watched the other day and he seemed like a very smart, articulate guy. It's annoying when people won't conform to your mindlessly ignorant expectations, isn't it?

That just seems wrong in so many ways but I guess he knows what he's doing. I hope so, because I laughed even though I felt I shouldn't have.

Okay, if we're burning bridges... I don't have much excuse for posting this. I mean, just because sixteen million people have watched it doesn't make any of them right, does it? Except they are. It's great. I love a big singalong chorus.

 We didn't have them quite like that in my day. Oh, wait...

And... that's probably enough self-indulgence for one Sunday evening. Good thing no-one's reading any of this, eh?

Oh, hang on, I forgot. One more! I read  the excellent Craig Brown's excellent book on the Beatles recently. Are the Beatles excellent, too? I dunno. Read the book and decide for yourself. It's called "One, Two, Three, Four" and I recommend it even if you don't like the Beatles. I don't particularly like them, myself, although I find them historically and culturally fascinating. I read the book because Craig Brown is a superb collater of facts and anecdotes and a master at making mosaics that bring the past to life. 

Of course, it had the side effect of making me go look at Beatles-related stuff on YouTube, except what I really looked at was Yoko Ono. I've always liked Yoko, possibly more than I ever liked the Beatles. I've never liked John Lennon much (In the way we don't like famous people we've never met and know almost nothing about.) but he gets a whole lot more interesting (and listenable) after he got together with her. I do very much like the stuff he did with the Plastic Ono Band right after the Beatles broke up, especially the rip-roaring Live Peace in Toronto album, which I own and used to play all the time when punk was hot. It fitted right in. 

 

I liked the rock'n'roll covers but what I mostly played was side two, which is Yoko screaming for about twenty minutes. The shorter of the two songs she screams is "Don't Worry Kyoko, Mummy's Only Looking for a Hand in the Snow". It wasn't until I read Craig Brown's book that I realized Kyoko is actually the name of Yoko's daughter, who was about five years old when that performance was recorded.

Makes you think, doesn't it?

Anyway, I was looking at various versions of that online when I found this one by the unlikelily-named Tater Totz. They were some kind of side project incorporating members of well-known punk outfits Redd Kross and White Flag among others. They recorded a couple of covers albums in the late 80s, one of which also featured Cherie Curry of the Runaways. Presumably because there were several Beatles numbers among the songs they chose, they somehow ended up playing a big Beatles convention in Los Angeles called BeatleFest '88.

I have no idea what the rest of their set consisted of but the climax was this astonishingly aggressive version of Yoko's signature tune, "Don't Worry Kyoko...". Yoko is famously unpopular with most Beatles fans and her music is famously unpopular with almost everyone. As the notes provided by the curator of the YouTube channel politely put it, "this caused many of the audience to protest. The band was lead off of the property by security right after the performance."

If you read Craig Brown's book, you'll realize that sort of behavior would have been considered extremely mild by the Beatles original, German fan base and the Beatles themselves did things on stage that were far more outrageous. It's amazing what you can learn by reading.

Oh, did I inadvertently make some kind of ironic, self-reflexive point? Sorry about that.