Look, I think we’d all agree that our beloved Moderator does an admirable job keeping this place thoughtful, and pleasant, and positive, and — well, you get the idea. Here’s what I say: While Mr. Mod is half a world away, let’s take this opportunity to make Rock Town Hall as snarky, combative and generally unpleasant as possible! Fuck yeah (fist pump)!
I’ll get the new, stomach-churning version of Rock Town Hall off to a nauseating start with this perormance by British one-hit wonders Our Kid. Filmed on Top of the Pops in 1976, here they are with their UK hit “You Just Might See Me Cry.” Pretty good, huh?
Think you can top that level of awfulness? Now’s your chance to try. Mod unwisely left me with the key to the No-Prize closet, so I can reward as many people as I want for their tasteless contributions to the general badness I hope to promote. Let your churning stomach juices be your guide! Let no worm-eaten corpse go unturned,and no hopeless, hair-less reunion go unexamined. Let there be smarm! Let there be cheese! Let there be offense!
I look forward to your responses.
HVB
A premature storming of the faculty building? I’m still here! Have your fun with the Shitstravaganza, but don’t come crying to me when you’ve reached the end of the snark and you wimper of the memories of my healing insights on the Beach Boys et al. Seriously, though, I only one thing of you as you stir the pot the way only you can do it: Please use one space after punctuation marks (periods, colons, exclamation points), not two. That’s one of pet peeves from a career as an editor. Now get to work! I’ll try to do my part to challenge the crap you find!
I see your annoying Brit kids and I raise you: Donny and Marie performing Silly Love Songs with Sonny and Cher. I’d never seen this before and if you’d told me it existed I’d have said you were lying. Eccolo!
Link, you say? You want the link? I got your link. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OsOLE9tt24
Ay-yi-yi! What’s especially painful about that is the fact that — as written — the original has one of the best cheese-tastic outchoruses in the history of AM radio. Why the effort to “improve” on the original?!
I believe this clip features some of the worst dancers ever collected for one lip-synched rock performance.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L53aTgZ8B3Y
Shiny fringed shirt half-unbuttoned. Collar out to there. Tight shiny bell-bottoms. Groovy with-it moves. One thousand watt smarmy smile. Hair that could withstand a nuclear attack. Obvious lip-synch. Go-go girls. Plus one of the most mindlessly-lobotomized happy hits of 1970. I win.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJOuTr0BXb4
Oh, I dunno. Some of those chicks are hot!
Certainly, but don’t let their hotness distract you from the stated task at hand. Are you really that weak?
When Bobby Sherman and Peter Noone mated they produced John Davidson.
Terry Hall looks like he’s having anything but fun as Fun Boy Three performs their version of Our Lips Are Sealed.
http://youtu.be/rqQT3oKA3v8
The (pre?) goth girls in the band are a scary touch. I know he co-wrote it, but lighten up, man.
Enjoy the oh-so-funny banter of Mike Love and John Stamos http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTQ-F52cevw
Ugh.
I actually like Fun Boy Three’s two albums, but they don’t seem to be the most charismatic group live, do they?
SpinalTap was a fake documentary, not an instructional video. What in God’s name were they doing to that poor song?
I think I did a post once on Stamos in the Beach Boys. What in god’s name does he get out of his association with them? He can’t sit in with the Goo Goo Dolls or some other band his own age?
Two words: older women.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Vmvg0zeg-o
What would John think?
Going French on us, Mod?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentence_spacing
Generation X playing “Your Generation” on Marc Bolan’s TV show is in my top ten of all time bad rock moves. How on earth do you square playing that song with being introduced by Marc Bolan? Do you think you’re being ironic? Because the only reason you do that is not to stick it to the man, but to sell records, which makes you just as careerist as Bolan, but without the balls to admit it. It also means that you’ll inevitably do something like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsthP5AONzc
And here is Gen X in all their sell-out glory: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xT2KRZz4G0s
In preparing pieces for publication, I’ve been trained to edit for one space after punctuation. The typesetter spaces things as the journal’s style demands. It’s much easier to run a Search and Replace for two spaces down to one space.
SEARCH: ##
REPLACE #
There are times I wish I could leave my 1-space training at the office, but I inevitably remove extra spaces from people’s posts. I love you all, but extra spaces give me the willies. Then, with all my focus placed on such important matters, I do things like stick an h in the name of The Who’s bassist’s surname.
It’s not a matter of French or otherwise. I’ve been preparing technical reports for 25 years and modern word processors work best with single spaces between sentences, particularly when you’re using proportional fonts.
Better or worse than Aerosmith’s version?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_Z8k5ChsX8
Better or worse than that Across the Universe movie, which I’ve never seen?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJJ7Vjzplcw
It would be a stretch to call me a Beatles fan, but that last clip? No band deserves to have that happen to their music, except that I’m guessing the Beatles/associated rights-holders had to approve it, so it’s their own damn fault.
MJ: worse, but not entirely horrible. That other thing is downright weird, which I realize is probably the point. I really, really, really want to know what the plot of that theatrical experience is.
Now THAT is a No-Prize winner! Truly awful.
Just wanted to let you all know that Chuck Klosterman has answered Alexmagic’s call for SWLABRmatics.
http://espn.go.com/espn/grantland/story?id=6674439&view=full