Friday, November 19, 2010

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

More Neil



Usually, I want to punch Jimmy Fallon in the face. His Neil Young impression, however, is GOLD. And that guy dressed as "The Wild, The Innocent"-era Springsteen? That's Springsteen, showing a heretofore untapped capacity for self-parody. Seriously, he should go back to that look full time. Am I right Ella?

The song, btw, is the new hot jam by secret Scientology robot Willow Smith. Nothing creepy about having your 10-year-old do a public Rhianna impression! Especially if you already have like 800 trillion dollars. She's an artist!

Friday, November 12, 2010

Neil Young and Devo


For Neil Young's 60-thousandth birthday, I think it's time to finally address the little-known Neil / Devo connection - in particular how Neil Young lifted the phrase: "Rust Never Sleeps" from Devo.

Some general background:

“It Takes A Worried Man” (available on the Pioneers Who Got Scalped anthology)

In 1982, Neil Young had the crazy-ass notion to co-direct an apocalyptic comedy film with the actor Dean Stockwell, called Human Highway. He cast Devo as nuclear garbagemen. In the film, they sing an upbeat, poppy version of the folk-festival classic “Worried Man Blues” (here slightly retitled) while they cart around barrels of nuclear waste. (The band has also been known to perform the song when they pretended to be Dove – a Christian, leisure suit-wearing opening act for many ‘80s-era Devo shows. Here’s a video of Dove in action.) The movie made it to VHS, but then faded into obscurity. Inspired somewhat by Devo, Neil Young released the synthesizer-driven album Trans… and eventually got sued for it. Apparently, everyone doesn’t appreciate devolved music.
Then we pick up the weirdness here, in special screen-shot form:

Monday, November 8, 2010

Friday, November 5, 2010

Play along with Tony and the H.B.



Check out the full article in The Onion about The Uke in Chicago including interviews with Mike and Tony about Chicago Ukulele Cabaret, Chicago Uke History from Lanialoha Lee, and a performance from Heather Smith

Monday, November 1, 2010

Games People Play



This one goes out to Adeltime.