Even though the ND-UCLA game was in Pasadena, Touchdown Jesus must've been looking out for us. A win, finally, a WIN, I tell you! This meant so much. I can't begin to tell you how rough this season has been so far. It just made me feel heartsick to see them keep losing, and to become the butt of jokes, and to know that they are decent kids who want to win. I hope this gives them a great morale boost, and they can build on things from here. They still have plenty of work to do, but I think we saw some positive things. I predict that Jimmy Clausen is going to be a great quarterback. Yep, I said it.
I'm watching the Colts-Buccaneers game right now (Hey, where's your Buccaneers? Under my buckin' hat. Sorry, it's a joke I have to do whenever I say or think Buccaneers.), and Dallas Clark just got hit really hard. Ouch...oh good, it looks like he's up and mobile. And now Dallas is back in the game. Good, but be careful, buddy!
Joe of Magic Smoke was kind enough to give me a "Friday blogplug." It's really nice, because it gets people I don't know to take a look at this blog, and it's always a treat to have someone new give it a read (and hopefully comment!). Joe wrote that he wasn't familiar with The Godfathers, which isn't totally surprising, because they never hit it really big in the States, and I don't think they could ever be considered "mainstream." That got me to thinking at work today about the music I like, and about how once I got into high school and college, I definitely shunned the mainstream. Cousin Shane is the same way, and we've always sought out new and interesting music. Way back when, we liked Tom Petty in the "Breakdown" days, Blondie pre-"Heart of Glass," and the fabulous B-52's long before they hit the Top 40 with "Love Shack." We used to joke that we should be A&R people for a record company!
I was listening to our MP3 player at work while I was thinking about this, and I have some great old stuff on there, some of it kind of obscure, or at least not well-known to most folks. I thought I'd write about some of my favorites every so often, and I bet I can find a video or two on YouTube! Maybe I can come up with a snappy little title (any suggestions, anyone?) for this, like Beth's Music Moment or something like that. That's not snappy, that's lame, but you get the idea. It might get some people to listen to some great bands that they've never heard of before, and that's always fun. Today I'll write about one of the bands I was listening to at work today, Big Audio Dynamite.
BAD was led by Mick Jones, the former guitarist and one of the singers for The Clash, so that gives him and any band he's in immediate credibility, in my book. BAD was not much like the Clash, though. They still had some crunchy guitar, but the other band members brought a definite reggae/dance/hip hop sound to the group. It's some very danceable stuff, but Mick also hung on to his punk sensibilities and wrote some clever and biting lyrics about social injustices and current topics. This is from one of my favorites, "Stone Thames," a song about AIDS. Remember, this was in the '80's, when AIDS was first recognized.
Heard the news about the scare in the underwear
Population's getting thin, forget the bomb, its carnal sin, yeah
Marriage up, divorce is down, who wants to fuck around
Save the rose, reject romance, Mickey Mouse don't drop his pants
Now to sexual relations better take a wife
Now that sex is death, better lead a boring life
No time for social kissing, you'll hardly raise a smile
When you think what you'll be missing, iron undies back in style
The tramp of time continues, en masse to wedding bells
But they haven't made no breakthrough to helper T white cells
Wholesale Hyper wipe out, technology against the pest
Put away those etchings, sorry baby no contest
Notches and phone numbers, collecting flesh as pelts
Stealing cancer's thunder, blows below the belt
Oh don't it make you wonder 'bout how the cards are dealt...holy cow
AIDS certainly changed behaviors. This wasn't a little bacterial infection that could be cleared up with antibiotics--this was a virus that could kill you. (Thank goodness there have been so many advances in treatment--when it first appeared, it was a death sentence. No longer.) So Mick and his bandmates were quite topical and clever with their lyrics. They were also one of the first bands that I know of who used sampling in their songs, with snippets from movies, radio broadcasts, etc. Fatboy Slim owes them a lot.
You can find more info at Amazon, including all their CD's, and listen to some of their songs. Some of my favorites are the aforementioned "Stone Thames," "Medicine Show," "The Bottom Line," "Limbo the Law," "The Big V," "James Brown," and "House Arrest." There are plenty of others I like, too, and this is the song that I first heard from them. I don't recall if it was in a movie, or if it was on MTV (Remember when they played music? That was cool.), but I loved it. Here is "E=mc²." Try to focus on the song and not Mick's teeth. Yikes.
No comments:
Post a Comment