Here’s a little little seven inch flexidisc, titled “Singing Rice-Ipes”, containing seven songs about all of the wonderful things you can make with rice, featuring soundalike singers of Johnny Cash and others. Released in 1970, it’s a curious listen, since a giant label like Columbia couldn’t entice their own roster to have at it.
3.) Cripple Creek Casserole (MP3)
5.) Blue Ridge Flap-Jacks (MP3)
Via WFMU
From Ringo Starr’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame presentation on HBO.
Yes’s first track and single from their eleventh studio album (and still great) 90125, Owner Of A Lonely Heart was released in 1983. Written primarily by guitarist Trevor Rabin, contributions were made to the final version by lead singer Jon Anderson, bassist Chris Squire and producer Trevor Horn. This was the album that, like Genesis and Moody Blues around this time, gave the veteran band an extended life and a fascinating listen still to this day.
https://youtu.be/G44p6IFpug8
Matt Damon, a lifelong friend of Howard Zinn and his family, read excerpts from a speech Howard Zinn gave in 1970 as part of a debate on civil disobedience.
Ivan Owen and his daughter threw themselves onto this idea of hooking some antique organ pipes to their front steps. The result: One confused pizza delivery driver.
https://youtu.be/d8B_fKmBDAs
Reasons why I could never be an animator. I would never think of the problem of a talking car not being able to pick up anything, nevermind the solution.
Documentary celebrating the triumph, tragedy and human comedy that was Manchester record company, Factory. Started by the late Tony Wilson, Alan Erasmus, Peter Saville and Martin Hannett in the late 1970s, it became known as the home of Joy Divsion, New Order and Happy Mondays and for creating the Hacienda club. The label pioneered Britain’s independent pop culture, creating a new Manchester and blowing a shed-load of money. The doc includes interviews with all the main players in the Factory story, and well worth watching, even if you’ve seen the great docudrama/comedy 24 Hour Party People.
One of your early triumphs was managing Elvis Presley’s tours. On one of the first concert dates, you narrowly avoided a complete disaster in Miami.
Jerry Weintraub: When I first met Elvis he said, “Don’t ever put me in a show that’s not sold out.” When I got to the first show and there were 5,000 seats left in a10,000-seat arena for the matinee. The only thing I could figure out was to take the seats out. He asked me when he came into the show, “How we doing?” I said, “Every seat is full.” I didn’t say, “Sold out,” I said, “Every seat is full.”
Via The Wrap
This infographic shows the reality of today’s music business: billions of streams, each one requiring precise metadata and tracking, that pay fractions of a cent to rights holders and even less to creators. We’re not in a transition of dollars to pennies. Today’s digital music business is collecting as many fractions of pennies as possible.
Via Billboard
One solitary record changed Bill Harrison’s life. He was a 15-year-old lad from Liverpool, walking down to his local sports centre, when he heard a bewitching sound coming from someone’s window.
“I sat on the wall to listen,” he says, “and this chap came out in a beautiful midnight blue suit and a pair of oxblood slip-on shoes with a brass bull’s head on the top. I thought, ‘This fellow’s a film star!’”
He wasn’t a film star, though. He was a seaman – one of the famed Cunard Yanks, whose journeys took them around the world, giving them access to the records and clothes you could only buy in the US. The song that had transfixed Harrison was Settin’ the Woods on Fire by Hank Williams, which the mystery seaman explained he had found in Texas. He promised Harrison that such treasures awaited him, too, should he choose to join the merchant navy.
And so began a long career at sea in which Harrison and his colleagues performed dual roles: their day jobs (in Harrison’s case, working his way up the ship’s kitchens); and the arguably more vital role of bringing back American imports with which to wow the locals. These imports included everything from fridge freezers to Wrangler jeans, but it was the early rock’n’roll, soul and blues records that would really go on to change the course of history. Sam Cooke, Fats Domino, Buddy Holly, Roy Hamilton, Billy Eckstine: all these sounds were soaked up by the local musicians who would go on to form Merseybeat bands such as the Searchers, Gerry and the Pacemakers and – of course – the Beatles.
Via The Guardian
