The Flobots understand the power of music on the masses and they use this power wisely. I recently joined them at fightwithtools.org. It’s a great place to meet music-loving, peace-minded activists of all ages. Come join and add me as a friend.
Buy music by the Flobots on iTunes.
New York Daily news published an article titled Rapper behind ‘Roxanne’s Revenge’ gets Warner Music to pay for Ph.D on August 23, 2009.
Watch Roxanne’s Revenge on YouTube.
It’s a great story of how persistence and determination paid off for Shanté. Despite the fact that the record company tried to stiff her out of all her royalties, they couldn’t find a way to deny the clause in her contract that stated they would pay for her education for life.
The result, Shanté got a PhD in Psychology at Cornell to the price tag of $217,000 and now she’s using her education and rapping/hip hop skills to help urban African-American’s express their angst through non-traditional counseling methods. She helps clients to “unleash their inner MC and shout out exactly what’s on their mind”.
Read the entire article at NewYorkDailyNews.com.
This week’s song is about going out and having a good time. You can watch the video here or see a much cleaner version on YouTube.
Buy I Gotta Feeling by Black Eyed Peas on iTunes
The song of the week is brought to you by Michael Zampelli, former owner of Southern California punk rock icon, Zed Records. For almost 30 years, this mecca of punk and alternative music kept Southern California enthusiasts adequately supplied with unique, original and innovative music.
Currently, Zampelli manages a hockey fan message boards at www.letsgokings.com with thousands of subscribers. He takes photos for the LAist and the LA Derby Dolls. Each week he will contribute a song with a theme, a message and a beat. Enjoy and stay tuned.
Catch a glimpse of behind the scenes lifestyles of underground musicians on $5 Cover this weekend on MTV. The first three episodes air tonight (Friday, May 1) on MTV at Midnight EST. Amy LaVere is the first musician featured in the series. Her video “Killing Him”, highlights a song about a woman who kills her unfaithful lover in a fit of rage.
Sample lyrics
He said he’d give her the sun and the moon
Now all she has is this 8×8 room
Killin’ him didn’t make the love go away
$5 Cover is a fictional series about actual musicians in midtown Memphis. All the musicians play themselves in a semi-fictionalized, dramatic narrative created by Craig Brewer, the Director of ‘Hustle and Flow’. The episodes are 6-8 minutes long, each featuring a song from one of the musicians.
For the entire month of May, MTV will simultaneously release three episodes a week on TV and on www.mtv.com/fivedollarcover.
The documentaries, $5 Cover AMPLIFIED, unlike the fictional series, offer a slower-paced, experimental, and intimate view into the actual creative lives of the featured musicians. The first three of twelve pieces are already available for viewing. You can see Amy LaVere’s behind the scenes video now. It includes her shooting a gun, telling a stories about her first gun experience and lamenting about ‘love gone wrong’ and the tendency of women to ’sell out’ to please their man.
The song of the week is brought to you by Michael Zampelli, former owner of Southern California punk rock icon, Zed Records. For almost 30 years, this mecca of punk and alternative music kept Southern California enthusiasts adequately supplied with unique, original and innovative music.
Currently, Zampelli manages a hockey fan message boards at www.letsgokings.com with thousands of subscribers. He takes photos for the LAist and the LA Derby Dolls. Each week he will contribute a song with a theme, a message and a beat. Enjoy and stay tuned.
I was vegetating in my recliner letting my mind wander when a memory of Soul Train seized me. I used to watch Soul Train every single Saturday morning of my childhood in the 70’s. I always wanted to be one of the dancers who was up on the second story. Usually that means you had some serious groove.
To the best of my knowledge, I never saw Barack Obama on Soul Train, but who knows, maybe I did. Reportedly the man with boogyin’ down the Soul Train at about 3:25 is the one and only President of the United States, Barack Obama. Check it out for yourself and see what you think.
Today I had the opportunity to sit in on a History of Rock class taught by Jim Simmons at Long Beach City College. It was a lot of fun and I learned a few things. For example, I didn’t know that the Monkees were a 100% fabricated band. They were chosen during open casting call and judge’s decisions were based more on acting skills and appearance than musical talent.
This fabricated band was the brainchild of Don Kirshner. Once the Monkees fizzled out, Don Kirshner went on to produce a show called Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert. I went on-line to see if I could find any video and I came across a site called Historic Films.com. I didn’t find Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert specifically but I did watch news footage of Einsten, John F. Kennedy’s inauguration, 70’s rock and anti-war/pro-peace rallies. It was a pretty fun way to spend a 1/2 hour and I’m hoping I can get a hold of some of those videos and post them here.
In the meantime, here’s a Monkees video I found on YouTube:
Some of you younger folks may have heard this song for the first time in the movie Shrek performed by Smash Mouth.
In the 80’s there was a whole mod thing going on and at that time the Monkees had a resurgence. I went to see them at the Pacific Amphitheater. I got my ticket signed by Rodney Bingenheimer (AKA Rodney on the ROQ) from KROQ it was pretty cool.
This week’s song will have you questioning your perception. I couldn’t embed the video here because of YouTube restrictions, but you can watch the video on YouTube. It’s pretty cool. The sound reminds me of 80’s UK pop like The Cure, New Order or Depeche Mode.
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Here are the lyrics. Notice how many times he says “It’s all in your mind?”:
oh oh oh oh oh oh oooah x4
It started with a low light,
Next thing I knew they ripped me from my bed;
And then they took my blood type,
It left a strange impression in my head.
You know that I was hoping,
That I could leave this star-crossed world behind;
But when they cut me open,
I guess that changed my mind.
And you know I might
Have just flown too far from the floor this time,
’cause they calling me by my name
And the zipping white light beams
disregards the bombs and satellites
That was the turning point;
That was one lonely night
The song maker says, “It ain’t so bad”
The dream maker’s going make you mad
The spaceman says, “Everybody look down
Its all in your mind”
Well now I’m back at home, and-
I’m looking forward to this life I live;
You know its gonna haunt me,
So hesitation to this life I give.
You think you might cross over,
You’re caught between the devil and the deep blue sea;
You better look it over,
Before you make that leap
And you know I’m fine,
but I hear those voices at night sometimes-
they justify my claim,
and the public don’t dwell my transmission
’cause it wasn’t televised
But, it was the turning point,
Oh what a lonely night
The song maker says, “It ain’t so bad”
The dream maker’s going make you mad;
The spaceman says, “Everybody look down
Its all in your mind”
The song maker says, “It ain’t so bad”
The dream maker’s going make you mad;
The spaceman says, “Everybody look down
Its all in your mind”
My global position systems are vocally addressed;
They say the Nile used to run from east to west,
They say the Nile used to run – from east to west.
And you know I’m fine,
but I hear those voices at night,
sometimes
The song maker says, “It ain’t so bad”
The dream maker’s going make you mad;
The spaceman says, “Everybody look down
Its all in your mind”
The song maker says, “It ain’t so bad”
The dream maker’s going make you mad;
The spaceman says, “Everybody look down
Its all in your mind”
It’s all in my mi-i-ind,
It’s all in my mind…
It’s all in my mind…
It’s all in my mind…
It’s all in my mind
oh oh oh oh oh oh oooah x8
Buy The Killers on iTunes.
Visit The Killers on MySpace and listen to their tunes for free…including Spaceman.
The song of the week is brought to you by Michael Zampelli, former owner of Southern California punk rock icon, Zed Records. For almost 30 years, this mecca of punk and alternative music kept Southern California enthusiasts adequately supplied with unique, original and innovative music.
Currently, Zampelli manages a hockey fan message boards at www.letsgokings.com with thousands of subscribers. He takes photos for the LAist and the LA Derby Dolls. Each week he will contribute a song with a theme, a message and a beat. Enjoy and stay tuned.
It’s not often you can see an entertainer with this level of talent live but it is a joy to witness the expression of an artist. It’s hard not to get happy while watching this video.
Buy Get Happy by Judy Garland on iTunes.
