O is also for "oh."
As in: "Mom, do you think the United States will crumble under the weight of its own stupidity?"
"Oh, probably."
Things are getting scary. Also, Halloween will soon be upon us and as our regular reader knows, that means the arrival of this, our 6th annual Typing Monkey Halloween Frenzy.
We'll do our best during the next four weeks to show you cool pictures, videos, links to good reads and other fun stuff. ("Uh, how is different from what you normally do?") Because it will all be Halloween themed stuff, that's how. Geez!
Get yourself a cup of something, grab a donut, and enjoy this mash-up from Go Home Productions, still the best mash-up DJ around. He made a video for this one, and it's gone from his YouTube channel, but some enterprising young person called kliz9 posted it again.
Hurry! You'll miss your bus!
Showing posts with label British Invasion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label British Invasion. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 1, 2013
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
We'll be right back after these messages.
Stones Throw Records has always been about more than rap and hip-hop. Beats and rhymes are the taste-making label's bread and butter, but over the course of 17 years, label founder Chris Manak (aka Peanut Butter Wolf) has judiciously stretched beyond his backpacker music base, and not just via re-issued funk and soul sides.
To whit: Singer Anika just released her self-titled LP via Stones Throw. Anika sounds as if it could have been recorded by a German no-wave outfit in 1979. Chilly synths and thin drum machines sharpen the edges around Anika's disaffected voice, but instead of cutting, the music flickers and echoes like a weird daydream.
She proves what a great songsmith Ray Davies is [as if that needed proof beyond The Kinks -- ed.] by running his lonely waltz "I Go To Sleep" through the damp Berlin basement of her style, turning the lyrical ache into numb recitation while retaining the sweetness of the melody via snatches of barroom piano.
And because Stones Throw seems to be in the spirit of '79, after the Anika video plays you may also enjoy The Lions' "Roll It Round" (authentic Two Tone-ish reggae with a dub wash) and Chrome Canyons' "Generations" (analog synth/library soundtrack) -- which should start up in the video player automatically. If not, check them here and here, respectively.
The Typing Monkey may not be up on Homeboy Sandman or Jonwayne, but it's not like Stones Throw isn't giving us anything else to love.
To whit: Singer Anika just released her self-titled LP via Stones Throw. Anika sounds as if it could have been recorded by a German no-wave outfit in 1979. Chilly synths and thin drum machines sharpen the edges around Anika's disaffected voice, but instead of cutting, the music flickers and echoes like a weird daydream.
She proves what a great songsmith Ray Davies is [as if that needed proof beyond The Kinks -- ed.] by running his lonely waltz "I Go To Sleep" through the damp Berlin basement of her style, turning the lyrical ache into numb recitation while retaining the sweetness of the melody via snatches of barroom piano.
And because Stones Throw seems to be in the spirit of '79, after the Anika video plays you may also enjoy The Lions' "Roll It Round" (authentic Two Tone-ish reggae with a dub wash) and Chrome Canyons' "Generations" (analog synth/library soundtrack) -- which should start up in the video player automatically. If not, check them here and here, respectively.
The Typing Monkey may not be up on Homeboy Sandman or Jonwayne, but it's not like Stones Throw isn't giving us anything else to love.
Saturday, July 28, 2012
We'll be right back after these messages.
ABC get the shaft, at least here in the United States, when it comes to recollections of 1980s music and specifically, the second British Invasion. Singer Martin Fry ["F-R-Y" -- ed.] was the heterosexual, soulful, and ultimately more fun, predecessor to Morrissey -- all dry Noel Coward wit but clearly ready to charm a lady after the show.
Their '85 LP How to Be ... a Zillionaire! aimed squarely at that decade's crass consumerism, but coated the pill in tasty danceable pop boosted by some impressively huge synth-bass sounds. Plus, "Be Near Me" is one of the best calls to romance of '80s pop. FACT.
The sort-of title track from Zillionaire! has a fun animated video, that looks like a lost episode of Jem. To the dancefloor!
How To Be A Millionaire by SirCumstance
Their '85 LP How to Be ... a Zillionaire! aimed squarely at that decade's crass consumerism, but coated the pill in tasty danceable pop boosted by some impressively huge synth-bass sounds. Plus, "Be Near Me" is one of the best calls to romance of '80s pop. FACT.
The sort-of title track from Zillionaire! has a fun animated video, that looks like a lost episode of Jem. To the dancefloor!
How To Be A Millionaire by SirCumstance
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Not Too Dear
On June 18, 2011 Paul McCartney turned 69. And based on recent news that he's getting married again, The Cute One isn't at all worried that somebody will still need him, still feed him, well beyond 64.
Say what you want about Macca. The songs he wrote with The Beatles, even some of the post-Beatles compositions, are solid enough to be molded and reformed by other performers and work just as well. Surely that's the mark of good songwriting.
8-Bit Operators, a collective of musicians who use the sound chips from the Nintendo Entertainment System, Speak & Spell and other similarly low-tech electronic devices, to make music. Two years ago they made a compilation of Beatles covers called I Want to Hld Yr Handheld, Vol. 1.
Like their previous tribute to Kraftwerk, it's a wildly uneven mix but then somebody such as poke-1,170 (aka Julian van Aalderen) puts it all together and knocks out a version of "When I'm 64" that makes perfect sense delivered in the cutesy bleeps and bloops of an old home video game console:
If that embed isn't showing up, here's a link. You might as well also lend an ear to Sloopygoop's take on "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" and Bubblyfish's reading of "Piggies" that gives the Walter/Wendy Carlos treatment to a song that was already tonally close to A Clockwork Orange.
Say what you want about Macca. The songs he wrote with The Beatles, even some of the post-Beatles compositions, are solid enough to be molded and reformed by other performers and work just as well. Surely that's the mark of good songwriting.
8-Bit Operators, a collective of musicians who use the sound chips from the Nintendo Entertainment System, Speak & Spell and other similarly low-tech electronic devices, to make music. Two years ago they made a compilation of Beatles covers called I Want to Hld Yr Handheld, Vol. 1.
Like their previous tribute to Kraftwerk, it's a wildly uneven mix but then somebody such as poke-1,170 (aka Julian van Aalderen) puts it all together and knocks out a version of "When I'm 64" that makes perfect sense delivered in the cutesy bleeps and bloops of an old home video game console:
If that embed isn't showing up, here's a link. You might as well also lend an ear to Sloopygoop's take on "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" and Bubblyfish's reading of "Piggies" that gives the Walter/Wendy Carlos treatment to a song that was already tonally close to A Clockwork Orange.
Friday, October 8, 2010
Happy Birthday John
John Entwistle would have turned 66 on October 9. It's not up to us to speculate how he felt sharing a birthday with another, arguably more famous, John. What we will do, and encourage all of you to do, is pick any old song by The Who and pay special attention to The Ox's bass playing -- rarely imitated, never duplicated.
And in keeping with the season, play the clip below to see and hear old Thunderfingers taking a lead vocal turn on his composition, "Boris the Spider" during a 1975 performance by The Who in Houston, TX.
[Courtesy of EmVisconti]
Scumps to Mr. Entwistle!
[Image courtesy of Wiki Media Commons]
And in keeping with the season, play the clip below to see and hear old Thunderfingers taking a lead vocal turn on his composition, "Boris the Spider" during a 1975 performance by The Who in Houston, TX.
[Courtesy of EmVisconti]
Scumps to Mr. Entwistle!
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Where You Been At?
The Typing Monkey is back, and we mean it this time. Nobody was worried really, and you didn't ask, but we moved the TMI headquarters to a location we are contractually obligated to call URB, or for the black-ops division, "The Beach." And no, it wasn't easy. Out: the forest lair. (We'll miss you.) In: sub-basements and fiscal year 2011.
Now then, we'll spread some words around shortly. But it's a holiday weekend and inbetween racing personnel-transporters down the empty TMI corridors and rotating the canned chili, we've been watching this video re-edit of The Beatles cartoon synched to Leftside Wobble's remix of "Tomorrow Never Knows."
[courtesy LeftsideJM]
Tasty freedom.
Now then, we'll spread some words around shortly. But it's a holiday weekend and inbetween racing personnel-transporters down the empty TMI corridors and rotating the canned chili, we've been watching this video re-edit of The Beatles cartoon synched to Leftside Wobble's remix of "Tomorrow Never Knows."
[courtesy LeftsideJM]
Tasty freedom.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Bein' Happy
January 21, 2010 marks two years of Typing Monkey blogging. We're going over the budget for the fiscal year in order to make sure we can keep this thing going.
The Who
Yeah The Who did Tommy and Quadrophenia. But this little one-off indicates that perhaps John, Pete, Keith & Roger missed out on an opportunity to do their own silly adventure in the style of Help! or A Hard Day's Night.
In the meantime:
The Who
"Happy Jack"
[courtesy: coldhearted06]
[courtesy: coldhearted06]
Yeah The Who did Tommy and Quadrophenia. But this little one-off indicates that perhaps John, Pete, Keith & Roger missed out on an opportunity to do their own silly adventure in the style of Help! or A Hard Day's Night.
Bonus entertainment!
A fellow called "Seanbaby" has a Website with various pop culture remembries. It's arranged nicely and easy to navigate, even if the majority of it is lost on us. He does however, have a page dedicated to those Hostess advertisements from the back pages of comic books in which superheroes fight crime by handing out fruit pies. [Accompanying text is PG-13, and not terribly clever. But you can't beat those high-quality scans. -- ed]
Friday, April 4, 2008
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