max abelson and his funktified flying fortress of old music videos.
1960s on mon
1970s on tues
1980s on wed
1990s on thurs
2000s on fri
i write for the
observer, email me at mabelson at observer.com
beck says: "mtv makes me want to smoke crack... condominiums rising above, and those videos are better than love."
tom waits says: "his wife was a spent piece of used jet trash, made good bloody marys, kept her mouth shut most of the time, had a little chihuahua named carlos that had some kind of skin disease and was totally blind."
r. kelly says: "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."
brian wilson says: "my mother used to tell me about vibrations. i didn't really understand too much of what that meant when i was just a boy. to think that invisible feelings, invisible vibrations existed scared me to death."
john cale says: "i believe you, mr. wilson, i believe the things you say, and i'm always thinking of you when i hear your music play. and you know it's true that wales is not like california in any way, and when i listen to your music you're still thousands of miles away."
john cale also says: "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... dirty ass rock and roll, dirty ass rock and roll, dirty ass rock and roll, dirty ass rock and roll."
phil spector says: "i'm dealing in rock and roll. i'm not a bonafide human being."
leonard cohen says: "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.'"
tom wolfe once told me about phil spector: "we were having coffee or something to drink, i forget, at 2 am at the plaza hotel. phil had this long hair, down to his shoulders, he’s a very strange looking guy, it’s, well, anyway, this was before longish hair was everywhere, it goes back. i could see at this table nearby, there were two couples, i remember, they were older people, at least in the 60s, 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?' he didn’t bat an eye! he came back with it so fast."
gram parsons says: "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"
always avoid foolhardy folk-rock alliteration, such as: "love isn't lying it's loose in a lady who lingers."
woody allen's reasons to live: "i would say groucho marx, to name one thing, and willie mays, and the second movement of the jupiter symphony, and louie 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."
"wait until the moon is out, then go outside, eat a multi-grained bread and play your guitar to a bush. if the bush dosen’t shake, eat another piece of bread." - captain beefheart
david bowie says: "the first time i got stoned on grass was with john paul jones of led zeppelin many, many years ago, when he was still a bass player on herman's hermits records. 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 department. i ate two loaves of bread. then the telephone rang. jonesy said, 'go and answer that for me, will you?' so i went downstairs to answer the phone and kept on walking right out into the street."
brian eno songs that will make excellent book titles for my ten-volume memoir, chronologically ordered: here he comes, baby's on fire, the lost day, swanky, brutal ardour, events in dense fog, the fat lady of limbourg, some of them are old, dead finks don’t talk, what actually happened?
ry cooder albums that every living man should own: into the purple valley, boomer's story, paradise and lunch
#1 favorite song on the white album (tie): long long long, happiness is a warm gun
john lennon's middle name: ono
thelonious monk's middle name: sphere
my middle name: joseph
great maxes of history: max weber, max factor, max power, max abelson, max silvestri, max goof, max headroom, max ernst, max rockatansky
"if there’s an astrologer with a criminal record in one of my songs it’s not going to make anybody wonder if the human race is doomed." - dylan
"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
"there is this cold and dizzy feeling that overtakes me sometimes, when a song or a passage of a song happens to gun it to my heart." - nick sylvester
mashable.com says about the spectacular: "you can expect the unexpected with this awesome gem. groovy."
the 33 1/3 book series' blog says about the spectacular: "whenever i start playing around on youtube i always end up watching that lady fall over while stomping grapes, so it's nice to have someone steer me in a more worthwhile direction."
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