Midnight Confession

Yep, way back to 1965 by the Grass Roots.  When I was in high school in the late 70s, a friend of mine had a mix tape 8-track of bands like the Grass Roots, Lovin Spoonful, The Rascals and others.  It also could have been one of those commercials that ran on TV all the time in those days that unheard of record label was trying to sell one hit wonders that they did not make enough money on.  They would package a good song with two or three ok songs and six or eight lame songs.  These commercials were played at night before the test pasterns came on a midnight or whenever. 

I remember dragging main street on a buck of gas in my 1966 Chevy Impala, all six thousand pounds of it with no shocks and nine miles to the gallon.  Five loops through town was about 50 cents worth of gas, 1 gallon in those days.  We would stop to pick up girls and offer to drive them around with the line "Gas, Ass or grass!"  I do not remember getting any ass or grass but I do remember running out of gas a few times.  About eight or nine high school kids could quite comfortably fit in a 66 Impala.  Hell, we traveled 40 miles with six guys in football uniforms, three cheerleaders and a trainer (with a big orange cooler in the trunk full of cool-aid) in a 68 LTD with no rear window.

I loved to sing that song at the top of my lungs, "when I tell all the world that I love you",  not while anyone was around.  Singing those songs in 1975 was like watching Little house on the Prairie.  You just did not reveal that kind of thing not with The Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton and others pumping out hard rock legends.  My friend with the mix tape, Kari was ok with it though.  My eight track player ate that tape about 1981.  I tried to repair the tape but I had lost the touch.

Jumpin

Jumpin at the Woodside

This is a Count Basie tune that was popularized to me on the Gong Show which was a TV show created by Chuck Barris  and we will go into that some other day.  The Woodside hotel, according to Wikipedia  was located on Seventh Avenue at 142nd Street in Harlem (and has since been demolished) and apparently it was jumpin.  This tune was first played in 1938.  Count Basie is well known for many great songs and performances. I first heard The Count as I call him on the Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson in the 60s and 70s..

I encourage you to listen to the Gong Show version by Milton DeLugg and the Count Basie version.  Because I have Zero, Zip, Nada musical ability, I am truly mystified by different musical interpretations.   I remember the first time I heard the original acoustical version of "Something" by George Harrison while a member of the  Beatles or the other versions of "Layla" played by Eric Clapton, it sent my mind into a twirl because I now had to accept that just because I liked something and thought it was the best way to do something, now there is other ways of doing things which are as good or possible better. One potential fact about these two examples, Something and Layla, it is rumored these songs are about the same woman at different time in her life and with different men in her life.  Down the rabbit hole we go.

Jumpin at the Woodside was also part of the Hitler youth movie "Swing Kids" in early 1990s.  This is a great movie that did not get enough play in the day especially if you like swing/big band music and history stuff.

In roundorium, this song does get stuck in your head looping around all day.

Enjoy

Down Under

Down Under

Ok, so I was getting in the car this morning and this song from  Men At Work "Down Under" popped into my head.  I was concerned again because usually songs start the instant I wake up.

Generally I like this song, it was catchy and a new sound from the Australian invasion of sorts even though there have been some very successful sounds prior to the early 80s.  The BeeGees, Olivia Newton John, the Cowsills, not the Cowsills.  They are too happy anyway.  There was Rescuers Down Under, a tremendously entertaining Disney animated feature and lots of Australia stuff going on.

The Land Down Under as I called it, not to be confused with he Land Before Time, Land of the Lost or Land HO was played six or seven times an hour when it first came out as American capitalism requires.  Paraphrasing Alexander Hamilton, "you must beat the horse long after he has given up to the ghost:."  Even with all that airplay, I still did not know the correct words until I did some research for this blog.


Also, I am going to try to figure out with HTML how to add a little sound bite of the songs.  It is possible I assume. 

We are Go Houston

I have been trying to physically get into my blogspace so I could start blogging again.  It has been a password/device/handshake kind of problem which to me is just frivolity and not needed security but I guess some people care about those things.  I do not.  The problem was that the verification thingy was using a phone number to contact me that did not exist.  Also, it was a google account crap and I am one of the original Yahooligans from the 80s and I never really had a google account that I know of.   I was being asked to view some photos on a google site and a login code was sent to me and I used it to get into google and from there I found my way to my account and changed the phone reference no. 

One of the interesting things that goes on in my brain is that practically every morning just as I wake up, a song starts going off in my head.  It could be a song I like or a song I do not like.  It could be jazz, rock, pop from the 60s or saints preserve me! a Christmas song.  It is always a different song than the previous day.

I plan on sharing that with you.  I know that is not a very good reason for you to rush to my blog every day so I will try to spice it up.

There are some days, interestingly today of all days there was no song, and there is not one now and since I could use yesterday's song, which I know there was one because I remember thinking, I will try to log on to Remediation Basket Monday morning.  It is Monday morning and I am in, no without aggravation but I am in and I have a device blah blah blah so hopefully there will be a song tomorrow.