Rockin' The Lord's Prayer

Not only the first Australian recording to sell over a million in the U.S., this rendition by Sister Janet Mead also brought the gospel to the top of the Australian charts in 1974. (This is the second top ten smash in history by a nun, though Sister Janet's story is a far happier one than Sister Smile's. Sister Smile did have the distinction of blocking Louie Louie from going to #1.) Here, The Prayer limbos somewhere between post-Psychedelic folk and a kind of Broadway gospel cum proto-Disco. (I love that she chose the Anglican version with its use of the awkward forgiving trespasses wording. It kind of drops like a mouthful of whipped frappé which doesn't happen in the more musically streamlined forgiving debtors version.) 

Anyway, it's much better than anything you're going to hear on a Christian rock station today. (Not that I'd know firsthand...)



And then there's this: My kind of flava and more than a wimple's-full of subtext:



Knocking on Heaven's door/ Who's that knocking on my door/Let me in! Let me in!/Ding-a-ling/Ding-a-ling/Ding-a-f**kin'-ling-a-ling

There's More to Dudley

For those who don't know, the Most Excellent* Dudley Moore (d. 2002) was known in the U.S. primarily as an actor and comedian with a few hit movies and several tall girlfriends. His comedic work on British telly in the '60s was legendary and would influence at least one other similarly inclined outfit, Monty Python.

*While not knighted, the Queenie did pin him with the honor of Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire.

Larfs aside, Moore was also a musician with some mad skills. In fact, music was where he began his professional career at age 14. In college studied the organ on scholarship and would play with his own jazz trio for many years. The career that he would be famous for began while working as a musician, producers noticing his impeccable comedic timing. He was soon pulled from the stool to go toe-to-toe with British comedy's "leading light" Peter Cook.

But as you'll see here, Moore also knew his way around a long hair tune and could put the feather to an otherwise dour Schubert lieder. See here as he "plays with himself":

AladDon Sane, Etc.

Some things dredged up from the interwebs:

Stranger still, there was once an America where you could buy this album at Kmart for $3.57.

The peanut butter reference is apt. See why here: 

Not all shitty local bars are the same, of course: I've lived in the New York's East Village and done my time at Spaceland so I may be a little jaded. 

Jimmy Page's record collection:

Lemmy and Samantha Fox: There may be a perfectly good reason for this I just can't imagine what it'd be.

The possibilities of Tarantino doing Sesame Street

Tropical is the name of the band, the tune is The Greeks, and the vid (another "Director's Cut") was directed by a French team called Megaforce. Here's some perspective and info from Pitchfork. 

You're going to be carrying these images around in your head for a while.

These Are What Subversives Look Like?

 World renowned subversives and Putin critics Pussy Riot seen here awaiting trial in a cage. 

So, this unassuming three represent a threat to a world nuclear power? 

In that way they're not so unlike that black seamstress who refused to give up her seat on the bus or the Tunisian street vender who protested by setting himself on fire to began a multi-nation chain reaction. It's awesome how much power can be wielded within the relatively small human scale of big ideas. As Ghandi proved, one person's idea––in his case, non-cooperation––can be a weapon sufficient for destroying an empire when transferred through enough bodies. Below is another small idea, here projected through loud voices and loud guitars, laid at Putin's trembling feet by the three women above. He's right to tremble. 

Let's hope there are more ideas to come.

Anyway, this is what Pussy Riot sounds like. The language is Russian but the attitude is clear. Go sistas.

An update to their story in their own words, here: People fear us because we're feminists.

So Much Closer than MTV

Sepia-toned delights abound: a frustrated monkey bound on a crucifix, disembodied and mounted animal parts, some female nudity, levitation, a setting of implied rough sex at the slaughterhouse, and a Brothers' Quay style steampunk aesthetic––a style reminiscent of the French film Delicatessen that would've preceded this by three years and a film that hipsters like Reznor would've surely been aware. 

Closer was director Mark Romenak's vision (he was best known as the director of One Hour Photo with Robin Williams) and this was his full-flavored Director's Cut of the 1994 song of the same name, AKA the I Want to F**k You Like an Animal song. 

If you caught a version of this back in the day when MTV was still MTV, you can be assured it wasn't this one.

As Long as Someone Is Doing It

Avant-garde music is sort of research music. You're glad someone's done it but you don't necessarily want to listen to it.

Brian Eno