These are a few leftover CDs that didn't seem
to relate with anything else I wanted to talk about at the time.
They've been in my stack for a while, and deserve mention.
Ancient Tones and
Death Knells
The High Strange Drifters is a
collaboration, and their sole produce is the marvelous Ancient Tones and Death
Knells. They don't have a web site, but they do know their
music. The songs on the CD originated as Broadside Ballads, and
their origins go back to the British Isles of the 16th Century, if
not earlier. If you're at all into Celtic Folk, or Folk in general,
you'll recognize many of these songs. But The Drifters do the
celtic songs with a distinctly country flavor. It
works.
The Cuckoo has been covered, in one form or
another, by groups ranging from Steeleye Span to Peter, Paul and Mary.
The cuckoo is a symbol
of conjugal love for the Greek Goddess Hera. In later
mythologies, and in these songs, its as a symbol for unfaithfulness
(a man raising a child not his own) and relating to the concept of a
woman's parts as the cuckoo's nest and the man being a cuckold. The
High Strange Drifters make it a song about a woman with older lover
(I think) in a modern country style using banjo and melodica.
Similarly,
Gypsy Davy is around, in one form or another, from Planxty to Koerner, Ray and
Glover. It's about, usually, a lowlife commoner (gypsy
referring to wanderer, black jack referring to the tar of
shipbuilding; low status positions without money or hope of
advancement) who sweeps a fine young girl from her rich husband (and
newborn child) into the feral carnality of life on the run. The
husband chases after them, and kills them both. (As opposed to some
versions of The Gypsy Rover, where the daughter is unmarried
and the stranger turns out turns out to be a prince). Here presented
as country swing, complete with slide guitar.
Streets of
Laredo is part of a long history of songs that go back to British
sailors and The Unfortunate Rake (bringing back syphilis,
perhaps) and up to St. James Infirmary (while the precise
hospital of song hasn't been identified, it's most likely associated
with the poor and dying). A good recording of related songs is The
Unfortunate Rake: A Study in the Evolution of a Ballad from the
Smithsonian Folkways collection. The Strange Drifters reach back to
Sailor Cut Down In His Prime. In this version, the sailor is
dead and the "flash girls" (prostitutes) are bemoaning his too-early
death while they carry his coffin to the grave. A very country
arrangement with British slang. The cut ends with a dialog from The Treasure of The
Sierra Madre...
... for Buffalo Skinners about a
very hard plains winter in the states. A dark country rock version
of a standard. Another dark song, from 17th century British maritime
lore is The Golden Vanity about the captain's betrayal of an
heroic crewman. This one sounds like a sea song, yet feels more
country than celtic. Folkies will recognize Mattie Groves,
Barbara Allen, Sam Hall and the rest, and will
appreciate the well-designed but non-traditional
arrangements.
Ancient Tones and Death Knells is a
brave and successful achievement. A must for any serious collector
and a major addition to any library. iPw (iPod worthy) for many
listenings.
The songs that
would appeal to me are mostly only okay. Running With Bigfoot
is decent punk, and they do a decent cover of the Billy
Bragg tuneA New EnglandThe World Contact Day spoken cuts,
which intro and outro the CD, are appropriately alien and
stfnal.
Still, for me the best cuts are a theme, a science
fiction song and a cover. Ghoulies Are Go! might almost have
worked on The
Banana Splits. A children's ghoulish punk song:
You're a
punk and you're a kid
Doesn't matter what you did
You can
keep our records hid
You're a Groovie Ghoulie
yeah
50,000 Spaceships (Watching Over Me) is a
simple but effective punk/hard rock dance with a good instrumental
break. Singing The
Blues was first recorded in 1956 but covered by several people,
and the Ghoulies punk version works pretty well; imagine the Ramones
channeling early Elvis.
World Contact Day is a good
CD, and punk rockers may like it more than I did. The Groovie
Ghoulies aren't Angry Punks, they're trying to be Scary Punks. The
CD is from 1996, and would probably be on the edge of Goth if it were
darker. Keep the cartoon cover in your mind as you go to garage
sales; if anyone gets the prices listed, it will be well worth your
time. And give a listen before you sell it off.
Pyramid Scheme is an okay song about Egyptian
mummies. "If you'll be my sarcopha-girl, I'll be your sarcopha-guy.
Mummy Love! Dreaming I'm Driving is a fast rocker about
dreaming, with some eerie laughs. Robot Arm is a love song
from a robot. "See the lovely things my IQ can do for you."
Whirligig is a good country instrumental that'll keep your
toes tappin'. You can guess who Soledad O'Brien is about.
Meanwhile, they need a girl with very strong arms, like Mrs. Neil
Armstrong to romance on the moon. No, it doesn't make any sense,
but you can dance to it.
Not all of Mr. Neutron Loves
You works, but enough of it does that I'll put out a qualified
recommendation. Several of the songs are iPw, and there are some
songs I can play on Shockwave Radio.
Channukkah bonus recommendation:
A Very Charlie Brown Holiday Collection
Fighting The
War On Channukkah means enlisting the help of the US Post Office.
Classics like the animated tv special A
Charlie Brown Christmas help spread the word of peace and
religious tolerance from the Judeo-Christian perspective. Being the
Post Office, they can bend the rules a little. A
Very Charlie Brown Holiday is a CD available only in post offices
or through the USPS web site. It's not even listed on the web site printed on the
album. It's a very nice album, with the best cuts being the very
familiar Vince
Guiraldi jazz from the 1965 tv show. Indeed, the whole CD seems
to be mixed cuts from various Charlie
Brown CDs. Charlie Brown Christmas CDs, I should point
out. No Channukkah, Kwanzaa or Feast of St. Stephens songs here, no
siree. Still, in the spirit of religious tolerance, a perfectly
reasonable stocking stuffer/Channukkah gelt to pick up while you're
waiting on line to mail those presents. If you have other Charlie
Brown CDs, this will be redundant. If not, this is a decent
compilation.
CBS opens the nigh with a RERUN'How I Met Your Mother', followed by a RERUN'The Class', then a RERUN'2½ Men', followed by a RERUN'CSI: The 2nd One'.
Scheduled on a FRESHDave are Frank Caliendo as John Madden, Ben Stiller, and Rodrigo & Gabriela.
Scheduled on a FRESHCraig are Edward Norton, Jenna Fisher, and Ming Tsai.
NBC begins the night with a FRESH'Deal Or No Deal', followed by the SERIES PREMIERE'Identity', then a RERUN'Studio 60'.
Scheduled on a FRESHLeno are Samuel L. Jackson, Nick Thune, and Scott Weiland.
Scheduled on a FRESHConan are Patricia Heaton and Tony Bennett.
On a RERUNCarson Daly (from 9/12/06) are Jason Statham and Whitney Cummings.
ABC starts the night with a RERUN'Wife Swap', followed by a FRESH'Supernanny', then a FRESH'What About Brian'.
On a RERUNJimmy Kimmel (from 11/22/06) are Regis Philbin, Jay-Z.
The CW offers a RERUN'Everybody Hates Chris', followed by a RERUN'All Of Us', then a RERUN'Girlfriends', followed by a RERUN'The Game'.
Faux has a RERUN'House', followed by a RERUN'Bones'.
MY has a FRESH'Wicked Wicked Games', followed by a FRESH'Watch Over Me'.
A&E has 'CSI: The 2nd One', another 'CSI: The 2nd One', and the movie 'Flight 93'.
AMC offers the movie 'Sweet Dreams', followed by the movie 'Three Men And A Little Lady', then the movie 'Down And Out In Beverly Hills'.
BBC -
[2:00 pm] As Time Goes By - Episode 7;
[2:40 pm] Are You Being Served - Hoorah For the Holidays;
[3:20 pm] Keeping Up Appearances - Episode 7;
[4:00 pm] The Avengers - Have Guns Will Haggle;
[5:00 pm] Footballers Wives - Episode 9;
[6:00 pm] BBC World News;
[6:30 pm] Cash in the Attic - Mayhew;
[7:00 pm] The Benny Hill Show - Episode 4;
[8:00 pm] Whose Line Is It Anyway? - Episode 16;
[8:30 pm] Whose Line Is It Anyway? - Episode 5;
[9:00 pm] The Eleventh Hour - Episode 3;
[10:30 pm] Leave No Trace - Episode 3;
[11:00 pm] Whose Line Is It Anyway? - Episode 4;
[11:30 pm] Whose Line Is It Anyway? - Episode 5;
[12:00 am] The Benny Hill Show - Episode 5;
[1:00 am] The Eleventh Hour - Episode 3;
[2:30 am] Leave No Trace - Episode 3;
[3:00 am] Trust - Episode 1;
[3:00 am] Trust - Episode 1;
[4:00 am] Trust - Episode 2;
[4:00 am] Trust - Episode 2;
[5:00 am] Trust - Episode 3;
[5:00 am] Trust - Episode 3;
[6:00 am] BBC World News. (ALL TIMES EST)
Bravo has 'Inside The Actors Studio' (Eddie Murphy), 'Six Feet Under', and another 'Six Feet Under'.
Comedy Central has 'Scrubs', another 'Scrubs', an old 'Jon Stewart', an old 'Colbert Report', 'Mind Of Mencia', 'South Park', 'Scrubs', and another 'Scrubs'.
Scheduled on a FRESHJon Stewart is Gov. Tom Vilsack.
Scheduled on a FRESHColbert Report is Jack Welch.
History has 'Modern Marvels', 'UFO Files: UFOs In The Bible', 'Engineering An Empire', and 'Lost Worlds'.
IFC -
[06:15 AM] People I Know;
[08:00 AM] Short: Life Lesson;
[08:25 AM] Keep The River On Your Right: A Modern Cannibal Tale;
[10:05 AM] The Widow of Saint-Pierre;
[11:55 AM] Beyond Rangoon;
[01:40 PM] People I Know;
[03:25 PM] Keep The River On Your Right: A Modern Cannibal Tale;
[05:00 PM] The Widow of Saint-Pierre;
[06:50 PM] The Son of the Bride;
[09:00 PM] Crossing Delancey;
[10:40 PM] Total Eclipse;
[12:35 AM] The eMusic Dozens: Indie Local;
[12:45 AM] December Media Lab Results;
[01:00 AM] Crossing Delancey;
[02:40 AM] The Son of the Bride;
[04:50 AM] Total Eclipse. (ALL TIMES EST)
Sir Elton John (R) and his partner David Furnish arrive in costume for the reception following the civil partnership ceremony of British television and stand-up comedian Matt Lucas and his partner Kevin McGee, in central London December 17, 2006.
Photo by Toby Melville
Recordings of four songs by a 12-year-old girl who later became Judy Garland did not sell at auction on Sunday when bidders failed to reach the required minimum bid.
The two acetate records have not been heard in public and are believed to be the first made by Garland, who was born Frances Gumm. She shot to fame after starring in "The Wizard of Oz" at age 16 in 1939, and was 47 when she died in 1969 of a prescription drug overdose.
Bidding at Bonhams & Butterfields in Hollywood reached $22,500, which was short of the required minimum. The recordings, including "The Good Ship Lollipop," had been expected to fetch $30,000 to $40,000.
Cable television rates keep going up while prices for other communications services are going down, says the nation's chief communications regulator, and he blames local governments for blocking competition.
On Wednesday, the Federal Communications Commission is scheduled to vote on whether to make it easier for competitors to obtain cable franchises.
FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, in speeches over the past few weeks, has said local franchise authorities at times "obstruct and in some cases completely derail" new attempts to bring video competition to an area.
His proposal is backed by Verizon Communications Inc. and AT&T Inc., which have poured billions of dollars into rewiring their old telecommunications networks so they can deliver television programming and other services.
French composer and musician Jean-Michel Jarre is seen during a news conference before the show Water for Life in the Moroccan Sahara desert in Merzouga, Saturday, Dec 16, 2006. The concert was one of the highlights marking the end of the United Nations International Year of Deserts and Desertification and part of the UN Water for Life Decade (2005-2015).
Photo by Abdeljalil Bounhar
A clip of pop princess Britney Spears burping and talking incoherently about her belief in time travel was viewed over 3 million times to take top spot comfortably, said ViralVideoChart.com on Monday.
Live TV footage of Spears' estranged husband Kevin Federline apparently getting a text message informing him the pop singer had filed for divorce was second with nearly 2 million hits.
Seinfeld co-star Michael Richards' racist outburst was third in the 2006 chart with over a million hits just four weeks after it was first posted online.
Actress Lindsay Lohan talking less than generously about socialite Paris Hilton was fourth, while a video of Hilton crashing a Bentley claimed fifth place.
No, Jon Stewart had to emphasize this year, Stewart/Colbert will not be a presidential ticket in 2008. All in fun, of course, but there are some who get their news almost exclusively from Comedy Central's fake newscasters. Was this the year where fact and fiction tended to blur together?
In publishing, one author claimed his memoirs were valid even if they weren't literally true. In film, we laughed at the antics of a randy, offensive, anti-Semitic journalist - we knew Borat was fake, but his co-stars didn't (or did they?)
When two celebrities drew attention for truly offensive comments - anti-Semitic in one case, racist in the other - they told us it wasn't the "real them," in essence. And on YouTube, fans were crushed to learn that a lonely girl they'd come to love was just an actress playing a role.
Perhaps it's impossible to enforce a theme upon a whole year of popular culture, but it's fun to look back. Join us for a chronological journey of things that made us talk in 2006...
Former Monkee Micky Dolenz, who now also writes books, has a dislike of long-term plans so he relies on his muse to tell him what to do.
"She's this five-foot-seven blond in a satin nightdress with a nine-millimeter, semi-automatic pistol and she holds it to my head and says: 'Direct this, write that, do this, do that,"' the former singer and drummer for The Monkees told Reuters in an interview.
"It's my wife," he said laughingly. "But she doesn't really have a semi-automatic."
U.S. singer Courtney Love arrives at the pantomime styled reception for the civil partnership between British actor Matt Lucas and his long-term partner Kevin McGee in London, Sunday Dec. 17, 2006. Lucas, star of the television comedy series Little Britain, and TV producer Kevin McGee tied the knot at private members' club Home House in central London on Sunday.
Photo by Cathal McNaughton
Llamas have waited 15 years to appear in the Rose Parade. On New Year's Day, 18 of the animals and their owners will stroll down Colorado Boulevard.
Joan Selby, a member of the Llama Association of Southern California, is not sure why it took so long for parade officials to let the llamas into the parade but suggested it might have been fear of the unknown.
Paul Holman, president and chairman of the board of the Pasadena Tournament of Roses Association, said he has been told llamas had not been allowed in the parade because horses fear them and react as if the llamas were predators.
But he did his research and found a solution. The llamas will be staged in a separate area and have a spot toward the beginning of the parade, far from the equestrian units, Holman said.
X17 Inc., a Los Angeles photo agency known for its images of stars in personal or embarrassing moments, has filed a $7.6 million federal copyright infringement lawsuit against celebrity blogger Perez Hilton.
Hilton's Los Angeles-based site, PerezHilton.com, posts tabloid photos of celebs and adds cheeky captions and rudimentary doodles.
The suit claims Hilton used 51 photographs without permission, payment or credit, including images of a pregnant Katie Holmes, Kevin Federline pumping gas and Britney Spears showing her, um, assets.
Christie's specialist Laurence Fisher show off two light bulbs, made by Thomas Alva Edison, on display at Christie's in London, Friday, Dec. 8, 2006. The bulb is part of a collection of 23 light bulbs used as courtroom evidence on July 8, 1890 in a case between Edison Electric Light Company and United States Electric Light Company. The collection is to be auctioned in Christie's Landsmarks of Science sale on Dec. 13 and with an estimated price of 2 millions pounds (Euros 2,95 million, US$3.9 million).
Photo by Sang Tan
There's a Yule duel brewing this Christmas day. Not one, but two separate versions of "The Yule Log," one of television's oddest yet most heartwarming holiday habits, will beckon families as they open their gifts.
There's the traditional log, burning brightly since filmed by New York's WPIX-TV in 1970, and another that will air uninterrupted for 24 hours on INHD, with a high-definition picture so crisp you'll be tempted to reach for a poker.
For many years a peculiarly New York tradition, both Yule logs will now glow in most of the country.
A student from the technical science faculty at the University of Belgrade wears an oversized 100-dinar banknote with a portrait of Nikola Tesla during a masked ball in Belgrade December 17, 2006. The annual event is in it's 33rd year and is traditionally held before the new year. This year's themed event celebrated the life of Serb-American scientist and inventor Nikola Tesla.
Photo by Marko Djurica
The first Adelie penguin chicks of the season -- black fluffballs small enough to hold in the hand -- started hatching this month, and the simple fact that there are more of them in the south and fewer of them further north is a sign of global warming, scientists say.
Smaller than the more majestic Emperor penguins, the Adelies have some 193 colonies that have a total population of 2.5 million breeding pairs, said researcher David Ainley in a telephone interview from his camp at the penguin rookery at Cape Royds in Antarctica.
As the northern sea ice vanishes and penguin populations decrease, southern penguin colonies flourish as the sea ice loosens, making it easier for them to dive and fish, he said.
A member of Bulgaria's Olympic Rhythmic Gymnastic team performs during the show 'The Legend', a choreography performed along with Bulgaria's National Folkloric Ballet, in the southern Spanish town of El Ejido late December 16, 2006.
Photo by Francisco Bonilla
An art collector has paid about $2.3 million for a $1,000 bill printed in 1890, according to the auction house that brokered the transaction between two anonymous private collectors.
"This $1,000 bill is one of only two known of its type; the other surviving example is in the museum at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco," Greg Rohan, president of Dallas-based Heritage Auction Galleries, said Friday.
Rohan said that type of bank note is known to collectors as a "Grand Watermelon" because the green-striped zeros in the denomination "1,000" printed on the back of the bill look like the fruit.
The $2,255,000 price is more than double the previous record for an 1890 Grand Watermelon note. The previous record for any bank note was $2.1 million, according to the Heritage Auction Galleries.
Egyptian colossus Hapy, the symbol of Nile fertility made of pink granite is seen as part of the exhibition 'Egypts Sunken Treasures' presented at Paris' Grand Palais, in this Dec. 7, 2006 file photo. The Great Port of Alexandria was a bustling trade hub, a transit point for merchandise from all over the ancient world, until much of it sunk into the Mediterranean. Treasure hunters have long scoured the Egyptian coast for vestiges of the port, which is thought to have disappeared about 13 centuries ago. An exhibition at Paris' Grand Palais brings together some 500 ancient artifacts recovered from the port and neighboring sites by a team of underwater archeologists using sophisticated nuclear technology.
Photo by Francois Mori
You have reached the Home page of BartCop Entertainment.
Make yourself home, take your shoes off...
Go ahead, scratch it if it itches.
The idea is to have fun.
Do you have something to say?
Anything that increased your blood pressure, or, even better,
amused or entertained?
Do you have a great album no one's heard?
How about a favorite TV show, movie, book, play, cartoon, or legal amusement?
A popular artist that just plain pisses you off?
A box set the whole world should own?
Vile, filthy rumors about Republican musicians?
Just plain vile, filthy rumors?
This is your place.
