by Rodney Eric Griffith | Armour of Rod | |
I loved the phrase “quintessence of debauchery” coined to describe a 17th century porn book now at auction.
Rodney | 9:50:00 PM [permalink]Shaun the Sheep of the Aardman Animations classic A Close Shave will get his own 40-part BBC children’s show set to transmit in 2006.
Rodney | 9:44:00 PM [permalink]Martin Lewis and ICE editor Pete Howard debate the merits (and lack thereof) of The Capitol Albums in Friday’s USA Today. Incredulously, Howard—who should know a lot better by now—makes the statement “People incorrectly assume that the early British albums were entirely the Fab Four’s vision.” Yes, if you churlishly rule out George Martin and Norman Smith, as well as assorted Parlophone/EMI staffers the Beatles actually dealt with on a direct basis, unlike Alan Livingston’s underlings, who made decisions at random without any consideration for quality or continuity, let alone respect. The unerasable fact remains that the sessions for the Beatles’ first LPs coincide precisely with the tracklisting of these discs, unlike Capitol mix-ups that juxtaposed tracks on albums months out of date. That’s the vision Howard refuses to see, and I’ll choose George Harrison’s creative input over Howard’s childhood (and childishness) any day.
Rodney | 9:38:00 AM [permalink]Yeah, The Raspberries got back together tonight. No, I didn’t go. My wife mixed the first of two Christmas cakes and I wouldn’t have missed it.
Having a House of Blues in town is probably a good thing, the guest list looks pretty diverse for Cleveland so far. I just can’t justify dropping $200+ for 90 minutes of tedium waiting for the act to arrive onstage, then an overlong show where it’s impossible to relax your guard only to be faced with twin traffic hassles and usurious parking fees.
Slept in again. We’ve made a point of it over the last few years, because we both refuse to get up at 4AM to go stand in line at Best Buy or Wallgreens—why do people continue to do this when we have amazon.com and Deep Discount DVD?
Rodney | 6:21:00 PM [permalink]The BBC reports a record year for sales of recorded music: “UK record companies are celebrating their best ever year for album sales, with 237 million sold in 12 months.” This is just more evidence for those not easily convinced that Britain’s music culture is the most important one. Like I’ve reported after firsthand viewing, records are important to people there generally. People in the United Kingdom listen. In the US records are just the afterthought to the circus coming to town, stupid live shows that no one ever remembers.
Rodney | 6:17:00 PM [permalink]Slept in until after 8 (a singular occurance these days), blinds drawn. As I came out of the bedroom I saw the snowflakes falling. A light snowfall had been predicted, but they didn’t imply accumulation. Caroline wondered if someone had got the wrong holiday memo.
Rodney | 8:50:00 AM [permalink]The suits the Beatles wore on the cover of their first LP Please Please Me have sold at auction for £60,000 (=$110,000).
No, I didn’t miss the whole Virgin Mary Grilled Cheese phenomenon last week, in fact, Mighty Matt Sobek kept me apprised every step of the way up until it came out that the image on the sandwich is actually Greta Garbo’s.
Rodney | 7:00:00 PM [permalink]The shooting game JFK Reloaded is provoking angry reactions, but there’s no RockStar Games edition yet.
Rodney | 6:58:00 PM [permalink]
