Good morning, rude boys and girls. Just a wee bit o’ Madness to help you start your week off on the right foot…then the left foot… then the right foot…all the way to school:
I’d actually never seen this extra silly extended version of the “One Step Beyond” video before stumbling across it on YouTube recently. Now I’m reveling in a full-on personal 2 Tone revival. Must. Stop. Skankin‘. (I’ve already kicked the cat twice.)
Join me in looking like a right fookin’ idiot getting that sluggish blood pumping with an assortment of rocksteady beats beyond the jump. Oi!
The oldest known folk song of Japan is called Kokiriko-Bushi. Villagers in secluded Gokayama used to perform it in honor of local Shinto deities.
A wonderfully daft electro-pop wizard who goes by Omodaka came up with the idea to revamp the song with chiptune vocals and Stevie Wonder-isms. He then handed the track over to the equally wonderfully daft animator Teppei Makki, sick who made the following video. It features a breakdancing marionette skeleton cutting a rug with a dexterous disembodied hand and assorted Residents reminiscent eyeball-headed women at the cosmic discotheque. Enjoy:
Proto-emcee Slim Gaillard, the great grandaddy of flow.
In 1941, a musical comedy farce called Hellzapoppin’ made the jump from stage to screen. It’s a very silly film (about a film within a play about a film), rather sanitized in comparison to the original anarchic revue (which featured little people, clowns, trained pigeons, and Hitler speaking in a Yiddish accent). There isn’t much of a plot and many of the jokes are corny even by 40s standards. The premise wasn’t nearly as successful on celluloid as it was on Broadway. Still, Hellzapoppin’ has two invaluable things going for it: an appearance by sainted Slim Gaillard, and the most impossibly freakin’ insanely amazing Lindy Hop dance sequence ever filmed, courtesy of a fearless troupe called Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers. Behold o’rootey:
It’s Monday morning again. Drag yourself up from that Ambien fog with some wholesome, manly arena rock:
(Broken link updated.)
Fuck a bunch of Flashdance. 1984 belongs to Billy Squier and his no-holds-barred performance in the “Rock Me Tonight” video.
In all seriousness, I give this man infinite kudos for venturing waaay out of his comfort zone. Shame on all the repressed homosexuals who renounced him at the time. Take into account the concupiscent gender confusion of those hazy days. Times were a’changing for classic stadium rockers. Let no one cast a stone at Budokan Billy for trying to scramble aboard big hair metal’s bandwagon, for who among us has not been seduced by some unfortunate 80s trend, either in their unquestioning past, or the ironic now? (Not I, says the girl clad in fluffy mohair legwarmers.)
This dance is a good dance. A dance of reckless abandon, vulnerable and radiant. On this dour Monday morning while the coffee brews and the sun beats down upon my satin sheets, I will do your dance, Billy Squier, and do it right.
(Wearing elbow pads, of course. With the shades drawn.)
Good morning. Get back to work. Oh, by the way, GIANT UNDERPANTS!
How could even the most veisalgic or seasonal affective disorder-suffering among us remain mopey after viewing this?
As a matter of fact, Paul Reubens always said that Pee-wee’s Playhouse wasn’t written for children so much as for hungover college students. Nonetheless, back in the day I was about as big a Pee-wee fan as any pre-pube could get. That clip’s got to be one of my top ten most cherished all-time TV moments. No, seriously.
We all know what happened to that poor man back in 1991. Got caught in an adult movie theater –apparently with his pants down– was arrested for “indecent exposure” and immediately vilified by the media. Reruns of his recently canceled show were quickly yanked off the air. Overnight, our beloved Pee-wee was reduced to a sniggering punchline. Does anyone else remember Reubens’ first public appearance afterwards on the MTV music awards? His sad-eyed “heard any good jokes lately?” delivery prompted cheers from the supportive crowd, but watching at home, I was in mourning. We all knew a death knell had been sounded.
This vengeful cult classic starring our beloved Vincent Price has got it all. Art Deco by way of the 70s. Clockwork orchestras. A creepy, yet relentlessly stylish assistant named Vulnavia. (Yes, I said Vulnavia.) Bats. Bees. Deadly frog masks. A killer musical score by Basil Kirchin. Rat-induced plane crashes. Unicorn impalement. (Yes, I said unicorn impalement.) And the list goes on.
Perfect Day of the Dead fare. Watch at your peril.
By the way, if anyone wants me to name my secondborn after them (my firstborn shall be called Vulnavia, natch), all they have to do is give me an original mint condition copy of this poster:
