max abelson's super groovy music video spectacular

fine videos daily:
1960s on mon
1970s on tues
1980s on wed
1990s on thurs
2000s on fri


feat. the beatles, aretha franklin, neil young, dr. dre, will oldham, serge gainsbourg, the kinks, harry nilsson, dusty springfield, the clash, the smiths, al green, rolling stones, cat power, yo la tengo, stevie wonder, antony, wilco, elvis, talking heads, elliott smith, jimi hendrix, r.e.m., ray charles, velvet underground, the monochrome set, randy newman, cure & queen


i write for the nyo, live in nyc, am 25, please email here


"mtv makes me want to smoke crack." -beck


see the archives & a random post


"i just happen to be here, and it's okay." -caetano veloso


"sing a simple song but keep the swing strong." -de la soul


"it took me about three or four weeks to toilet train my cat, nightlife. most of the time is spent moving the box very gradually to the bathroom. do it very slowly and don't confuse him." -charles mingus


"she had a chihuahua named carlos that had some kind of skin disease and was totally blind." -tom waits


"hey there, hey now, well, you can make a pacemaker blink, yeah, easy thing, make a man's heart go bibbity bom like a gentle drum. -john cale


"i’ve still got things inside me, sad things, happy things, that people don’t know about." -loretta lynn


"after cheesecake with all of your friends and family, who's gonna front the bill? me... say you want to take first-class trips, well i want to work those first-class hips. yes i do." -r. kelly


"i'm going to boogie my scruples away." -lowell george


"i drive a rolls-royce, cause it's good for my voice." -t.rex


gotta think straight, keep a clean plate." -joanna newsom


"keep a clean nose, watch the plain-clothes." -bob dylan


"my mother used to tell me about vibrations. to think that invisible feelings, invisible vibrations existed scared me to death." -brian wilson


"i could even find it in my heart to love mike love." -belle & sebastian


"think about something else. was art tatum talented?" - shoot the piano player


"i mean every letter in the words in the sentences of my quotes." -lil' wayne


"lyrics choochoo from my mouth like locomotion." - pato banton


"i'm dealing in rock and roll. i'm not a bonafide human being." -phil spector


"at a certain point phil approached me with a bottle of kosher red wine in one hand and a .45 in the other, put his arm around my shoulder and shoved the revolver into my neck and said, 'leonard, i love you.' i said, 'i hope you do, phil.'" -leonard cohen


"they’d whisper at each other and look at phil and whisper at each other. finally this lady, tanked, comes over to phil and says, 'alright, sonny, what’s your problem?' and he said, 'premature ejaculation, what’s yours?'" -tom wolfe


"he's got a mind like a sewer, and a heart like a fridge" -elvis costello


"i bite my nails and if that fails i go get myself stoned, but when i do i think of you and head myself back home." -gram parsons


"i would say groucho marx, to name one thing, and willie mays, and the second movement of the jupiter symphony, and louis armstrong’s recording of potatohead blues, swedish movies, naturally. sentimental education by flaubert, marlon brando, frank sinatra, those incredible apples and pears by cézanne, the crabs at sam wo’s, tracy’s face." -woody allen

"where have you been all my life?" -emmylou harris


"the first time i got stoned on grass was with john paul jones of led zeppelin. we'd been talking to ramblin' jack elliott somewhere and jonesy said to me, 'come over and i'll turn you on to grass.' he had a huge room with nothing in it except this huge vast hammond organ, right next door to the police." -david bowie


brian eno songs that will make good book titles for my 10-volume memoir, in order: here he comes, baby's on fire, golden hours, brutal ardour, taking tiger mountain, events in dense fog, through hollow lands, some of them are old, everything merges with the night, dead finks don’t talk


ry cooder albums that every man should own: into the purple valley, boomer's story, paradise and lunch


#1 song on the white album (tie): long long long, happiness is a warm gun


"the only word is love." -john lennon


thelonious monk's middle name: sphere


"really, we don't want people twiddling their goatees over our stuff." -radiohead


"i love songs about horses, railroads, land, judgment day, family, hard times, whiskey, courtship, marriage, adultery, separation, murder, war, prison, rambling, damnation, home, salvation, death, pride, humor, piety, rebellion, patriotism, larceny, determination, tragedy, rowdiness, heartbreak and love. and mother. and god." -johnny cash


"the moon is clear, the sky is bright, i'm happy as the horse's shite." -the pogues


"i hope that you all out there, young, old, tall, short, fat or thin, quick or slow, no matter what kind or color or shape or person you are, if you like to make music, why, go ahead.” -pete seeger


"but chuck berry isn't merely the greatest of the rock and rollers, or rather, there's nothing mere about it. say rather that unless we can somehow recycle the concept of the great artist so that it supports chuck berry as well as it does marcel proust, we might as well trash it altogether." -robert christgau


mashable.com says about us: "you can expect the unexpected with this awesome gem. groovy." and 33 1/3 says: "it's nice to have someone steer me in a more worthwhile direction."


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September 2

#648: joseph gordon-levitt - pop tarts commercial (1991)

just before jane magazine folded in 2007, it featured zooey deschanel on the cover. “i’m always looking for school uniforms, trying to squeeze into kids’ clothing,” she said in her interview. “it’s sort of a party trick, the way i can get myself into tiny dresses.” just before domino was closed, ms. deschanel once again graced the front of one of its last issues. “bold happy colors,” her cover said, “chic storage for every room, smart makeovers & more!” and with yesterday’s announcement that paste will no longer continue, the person with the dubious honor of closing that magazine’s tenure on newsstands is joseph gordon-levitt, ms. deschanel’s would-be soulmate in the humerous and precious (500) days of summer.

these magazines have been felled by the curse of the twee.

the fact that mr. gordon-levitt and ms. deschanel graced three end-of-days covers is, of course, a coincidence. but a cynic would point out that the stars, like their parenthetically-titled romantic comedy last year, are downright fun and colorful and special and digestible and just as adorable as vintage tin lunchboxes, and are missing something. they are uncomplicated! they are gluten-avoiding vegans. hollywood’s great celebrities have always been scarier, or more mysterious, or just on the wrong side of unfathomable and arcane. like inception’s leonardo dicaprio, cillian murphy, ken watanabe and michael caine, but not mr. gordon-levitt, and not ellen page either, they are discomforting and itchy. ms. deschanel has sung in a cotton ad.

writing in these pages two years ago, tom mcgeveran penned a wonderful cover story about twee. his opening described the word: there’s twee “in the old british sense—twee was adorable baby talk for ‘sweet,’” and a newer american definition, “old-fashioned-looking wellingtons, fresh vegetables, t-strap mary janes, fringes or bangs, marmalade, anoraks and tea in a pretty teacup.”

twee is great, but maybe it can’t save magazines. [nyo].

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August 31

#647: al green - tired of being alone (1971, soul train)

what’s out today? let me tell you: three dvds with five hours of soul train, one of the great institutions in american pop culture, hosted by don cornelius, the best-named man in show business. and as if that weren’t enough, there’s over three hours that time-life home entertainment is promising to be “fabulous bonus material.” but if it’s this video of blue al green looped over and over i’ll be satisfied.

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the reverend green in white with the blues.

the reverend green in white with the blues.

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August 30

#646: nina simone - four women (1965, antibes)

hearing enter the wu-tang live was the highlight of my month, but i’d trade it any day for reanimating nina simone to do wild is the wind. and maybe talib kweli would agree to come on afterwards to do his version of the album’s best song, four women? and not to compare apples to oranges, but i’d also take let it all out over midnight marauders, as fast as you can say “i intend to be independently blue.”

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August 29
“rakim was unconvincing, and the crowd idled inattentively. a man who looked like gossip girl’s heartthrob ed westwick ordered a beer. he wore a straw hat with an enormous hole, big enough to stick a large hand through. for some reason, the hole was facing front, and the hat was tilted down and to the side. he wore a tattoo of an oversized feather on the back of his left arm: it was ed westwick. later, during the wu-tang’s wonderful show, boy jones stood in for his father ol’ dirty bastard, who died of a drug overdose in 2004 at 35. ‘just like his father,’ raekwon said, shaking his head after shimmy shimmy ya. ‘just like his father.’” - observer.com! also: “there was a horribly long wait for lauryn hill, who sometimes doesn’t show at all. the sun was hot. first, her stage was set up: there were five keyboards, two electric guitarists, two bassists, and, for some reason, two drummers playing similar-looking drum sets, like in the grateful dead. a dj ate up minutes by playing music and calling out locales. when a lot of new jersey guys cheered for their state, this reporter booed half-jokingly, and a tall man in a homer simpson shirt said, ‘actually, lauryn hill’s from new jersey. she went to zach braff’s bar mitzvah.’”

“rakim was unconvincing, and the crowd idled inattentively. a man who looked like gossip girl’s heartthrob ed westwick ordered a beer. he wore a straw hat with an enormous hole, big enough to stick a large hand through. for some reason, the hole was facing front, and the hat was tilted down and to the side. he wore a tattoo of an oversized feather on the back of his left arm: it was ed westwick. later, during the wu-tang’s wonderful show, boy jones stood in for his father ol’ dirty bastard, who died of a drug overdose in 2004 at 35. ‘just like his father,’ raekwon said, shaking his head after shimmy shimmy ya. ‘just like his father.’” - observer.com!

also: “there was a horribly long wait for lauryn hill, who sometimes doesn’t show at all. the sun was hot. first, her stage was set up: there were five keyboards, two electric guitarists, two bassists, and, for some reason, two drummers playing similar-looking drum sets, like in the grateful dead. a dj ate up minutes by playing music and calling out locales. when a lot of new jersey guys cheered for their state, this reporter booed half-jokingly, and a tall man in a homer simpson shirt said, ‘actually, lauryn hill’s from new jersey. she went to zach braff’s bar mitzvah.’”

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August 27

#645 - ps22 chorus - beach house’s zebra (2010)

there is no reason to listen to anything besides beach house for the rest of august, except for choruses of new york city public school children singing beach house.

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August 26

#644: radiohead - no surprises (1997)

this may not be the official best video of the 90s, but, gosh, it’s my best video of my 1990s. i was a wee sleepaway camper at laurel south when i walked into a room of counselors watching a vhs of 7 television commercials, radiohead’s compilation of videos from the bends and ok computer, and even though i’d grown up in love with mtv, especially daisy fuentes, i’d never seen something so perfect. a head, singing about a heart filling up like a landfill, in a fishbowl filling up with water! slowly drowning? holding his breath for the final silence? opening his misshapen eyes for his final bellyache? and saved at the last moment by his chorus! i’ll take no surprises, please.

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i don’t think napster has an important place in anyone’s heart any longer, but i’ll never forget the afternoon i found how i made my millions, the soft b-side on radiohead’s no surprises single. it eventually became the title to a cnbc series that featured the wealthy inventors of roomba, lovesac and 1-800-got-junk (good job, america!), but back before the turn of the century it was the soundtrack to some awfully hearty and outstandingly unrequited pubescent love in larchmont, ny, let me tell you.

i don’t think napster has an important place in anyone’s heart any longer, but i’ll never forget the afternoon i found how i made my millions, the soft b-side on radiohead’s no surprises single. it eventually became the title to a cnbc series that featured the wealthy inventors of roomba, lovesac and 1-800-got-junk (good job, america!), but back before the turn of the century it was the soundtrack to some awfully hearty and outstandingly unrequited pubescent love in larchmont, ny, let me tell you.

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what guy clark thinks about while exhaling smoke through his nose is for guy clark to know and for you and me our tiny non-guy minds to never even begin to fathom. (photo: daniel ransom)

what guy clark thinks about while exhaling smoke through his nose is for guy clark to know and for you and me our tiny non-guy minds to never even begin to fathom.

(photo: daniel ransom)

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August 25

#643: guy clark - texas cooking (live, c. 1989)

no one could write a song this good about vegetables. it’s the stairway to heaven of beef.

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August 24

#642: gram parsons and emmylou harris - streets of baltimore (live, 1973)

first came a bookstore-bathroom run in with ultra rare hipster runoff graffiti. and this afternoon, in the middle of a very stressful observer deadline, i got to have an actual back and forth with pitchfork founder ryan schreiber, who, let’s face it, is a true indie-and-internet god. if you’re interested, and who could blame you if you’re not, it was a gentlemanly twitter disagreement over his site’s top-videos-of-the-90s list, which ends with aphex twin’s dementedly dark come to daddy.

not the decade’s single best video, i said.

agree to disagree, he proposed.

and what, he wanted to know, would i have chosen?

no surprises, wow and flutter, c.r.e.a.m., or even windowlicker, i said.

the finale came with his excellent point that anthony kiedis’ ocean rap should have been number one. and just like that our conversation had ended! the irony is that i started the day by spending 90 minutes compiling my list of the top 10 videos of grainy live versions of beautiful country rock songs about major maryland metropolitan areas. this one ended up on top, and it goes out to you-know-who.

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August 23

#641: the everly brothers - walk right back (tennessee ernie ford show, 1961)

the modern lovers will cure what ails you on a sunday night, then monday morning brings its own troubles. but the everly brothers will put on their matching suits, sling their matching monochromatic guitars around their necks below perfectly coiffed hair, and sing about daily lonesomeness in a close harmony that’ll pull you a little bit closer to tuesday. and their semi-bowties are an inspiration to us all.

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August 22
i just don’t know a single better cure for the sunday night blues than jonathan richman & the modern lovers, especially on a sunday evening with such mean skies and wet pavement, and especially following a nice week. most music that’s adorable, tender, elementary and un-sarcastic is also idiotic, but jonathan richman and the modern lovers are not idiotic. you won’t forgive yourself if you don’t click here and rock ‘n’ roll with love.

i just don’t know a single better cure for the sunday night blues than jonathan richman & the modern lovers, especially on a sunday evening with such mean skies and wet pavement, and especially following a nice week. most music that’s adorable, tender, elementary and un-sarcastic is also idiotic, but jonathan richman and the modern lovers are not idiotic. you won’t forgive yourself if you don’t click here and rock ‘n’ roll with love.

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[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

all i know about this version of jonathan richman & the modern lovers’ fly into the mystery is that it came on a really good mix that my friend julia’s boyfriend scott made me, and that it’s not the version that’s on rock ‘n’ roll with the modern lovers. that one is terrifying, this one is terrific. both versions include the world’s saddest line about closing time at filene’s, but only this has a last verse with my favorite astrophysical insight: ”it’s so good to see all the stars/ i’m glad they’re there and we haven’t lost them/ and must end.”

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August 19
being on vacation is like lounging around naked or eating grapes from the vine—totally resplendent, and wildly relaxing, and without a doubt something one should do only very rarely. these are the albums i’ve been listening to with my family while slouching around this week in massachusetts. not only are they perfect, especially at certain parts of a mid-august day, but they’re available for semi-legal download thanks to glorious blogs like zamboni soundtracks, which, thank god, is back from a long hiatus. 10:35am: harry nilsson’s nilsson schmilsson - i’m sure it’s been said before, but the gotta get up/driving along/early in the morning triptych must be one of history’s great album openers. while you’re showering there’s the coconut/let the good times roll/jump into the fire trio to put even more pep into your already peppy stepping. 12:15pm: ry cooder’s paradise and lunch - over sandwiches you learn everything you need to know about melody, martinis, r&b harmonies, divorcees, tobacco, cornets, and coroners. as if the album needed more heart, ry’s wife painted the cover. 3:30pm: tom zé’s todos os olhos - the only early-70s brazilian album that sounds like the sun, looks like an eye, and turns out to be a marble in an ass. 6:00pm: yo la tengo’s fakebook - sad like dusk, happy like dusk. 8:05pm: caetano veloso’s jóia - good for digestion, great for creaky joints, perfect for easing that summer evening choleric yellow bile feeling in the old gall bladder. 10:55pm: the monkees’ pisces, aquarius, capricorn & jones ltd. - beer drinking music at its finest. was cuddly toy written by 10:35am’s harry nilsson? it was! is pleasant valley sunday 1967’s best song about the suburbs? of course. doesn’t drummer mickey dolenz’s face remind you of my college friend alex nemser? how could it not! 12:05am: blind willie johnson’s sweeter as the years go by - if you meet the special someone who considers this semi-appropriate music to make love to your special someone by, you will know for sure that you have met a very sweet special someone.

being on vacation is like lounging around naked or eating grapes from the vine—totally resplendent, and wildly relaxing, and without a doubt something one should do only very rarely. these are the albums i’ve been listening to with my family while slouching around this week in massachusetts. not only are they perfect, especially at certain parts of a mid-august day, but they’re available for semi-legal download thanks to glorious blogs like zamboni soundtracks, which, thank god, is back from a long hiatus.

10:35am: harry nilsson’s nilsson schmilsson - i’m sure it’s been said before, but the gotta get up/driving along/early in the morning triptych must be one of history’s great album openers. while you’re showering there’s the coconut/let the good times roll/jump into the fire trio to put even more pep into your already peppy stepping.

12:15pm: ry cooder’s paradise and lunch - over sandwiches you learn everything you need to know about melody, martinis, r&b harmonies, divorcees, tobacco, cornets, and coroners. as if the album needed more heart, ry’s wife painted the cover.

3:30pm: tom zé’s todos os olhos - the only early-70s brazilian album that sounds like the sun, looks like an eye, and turns out to be a marble in an ass.

6:00pm: yo la tengo’s fakebook - sad like dusk, happy like dusk.

8:05pm: caetano veloso’s jóia - good for digestion, great for creaky joints, perfect for easing that summer evening choleric yellow bile feeling in the old gall bladder.

10:55pm: the monkees’ pisces, aquarius, capricorn & jones ltd. - beer drinking music at its finest. was cuddly toy written by 10:35am’s harry nilsson? it was! is pleasant valley sunday 1967’s best song about the suburbs? of course. doesn’t drummer mickey dolenz’s face remind you of my college friend alex nemser? how could it not!

12:05am: blind willie johnson’s sweeter as the years go by - if you meet the special someone who considers this semi-appropriate music to make love to your special someone by, you will know for sure that you have met a very sweet special someone.

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