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 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.’”

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August 9

james brown was 25 when he recorded try me at beltone studios on west 31st street and fifth avenue, not very far from the observer. i’m 25 too and i barely deserve to look at this beautiful album cover, let alone hear the song. early james brown is better than anything i’ll ever dream up. it’s shameful. it’s a disgrace. the two lines of smoke coming up from the gun, and the zero from the unlit cigarette, don’t even begin to get at it.

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August 6

nyo: 25-year-old will pay $1,400 for a new york room, won’t live with iphone user.

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August 4

“everybody came to the party, and we all have the headache and the hangover. but it’s classically human to say, ‘we lost all this money, it must have been the villain, so let’s find him! let’s string him up. somebody’s got to pay.’ but fortunately, we have a system of laws, not men.” - richard d. parsons, citigroup’s chairman, and the former ceo of time warner, in this week’s new york observer.

“as long as the music is playing, you’ve got to get up and dance. we’re still dancing.” - charles o. prince, then citigroup’s ceo, in 2007.

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July 19

i haven’t remembered to post my recent observer wall street things, but i’d be honored if you checked out my profile of the new doom (it’s a laugh riot, in a way!) and wall street’s semi-secret stasis. if you’re interested in smaller little ditties, here is simon johnson punching tim geithner’s brains out, ron lieber’s 4-year-old complaining about summer homes, a hearty lieber follow-up, a bank executive spilling the beans, and ted danson before the senate committee on finance. enjoy!

(photo: slim aarons)

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July 9

#617: beck - cold brains (2000, germany)

during a staff meeting today with observer publisher jared kushner, i realized that if he grew his hair long and starting talking in nonsense rhymes he would closely resemble mutations-era beck.

which is cool, though not as cool as mellow gold-era beck.

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June 16

on july 1, eight goldman sachs employees will meet outside the bank’s new manhattan skyscraper and head to the barc animal shelter on wythe avenue in williamsburg. they’ll walk, bathe and play with homeless dogs; brush and play with homeless cats; help with cleaning the cat loft; and change litter boxes.

six days later, according to a schedule for what the bank calls its community teamworks program, there’s an ice cream social at a jersey city home for the blind, where eight more volunteers will decorate a large space with an americana ice cream parlor theme. a week after that, 25 goldman volunteers will go fishing with children in prospect park: on an outing last year, nothing was caught, an associate said, because of a layer of algae or something covering the pond. one kid fell in.

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June 9

#600: carly simon - i got it bad (1981)

carly simon was lying in bed in martha’s vineyard. wearing a white nightgown, a kind of victorian-style shift, she answered the phone. “i’m fine,” she said. “i’m not fine, what am i saying?” for one thing, she’s been ill: she thinks she was bitten by a tick when her horse was put down. for another, the singer says she has lost upward of $15 million to kenneth i. starr, who is being held without bail on charges that he was running a ponzi-like scheme. (read more at observer.com)

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my cover story in this week’s observer, he’s so vain: carly simon and the wannabe madoff, is at friendly manhattan newsstands near you!

painting: philip burke

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June 4

saw a young punk wearing a mohawk and a black tee with an awfully big swastika on it buying beer at the deli across from the observer.

the back of his shirt said anti-nazi but i gave him the old stink eye nonetheless.

(pic: getty)

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May 24

in this week’s observer, i wrote about two 31-year-olds (and a 26-year-old who just left twitter to join them) who are starting a very new kind of bank in a clinton hill basement. they’re nerdy and idealistic, they like worms and hacking and video synthesizers, and they might be on to something. hope you like it!

pic: illustration of a money changer, germany 1486

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May 21

#591: clap your hands say yeah - is this love? (2005)

my former colleague doree shafrir recently shared a very nice memory of going to see the national and clap your hands say yeah play at warsaw back in the glory days of 2005. those were innocent times! a young woman named m.i.a. released a debut called arular, belle and sebastian came out with a b-sides compilation that introduced take your carriage clock and shove it to a new generation of doe-eyed romantics, sufjan stevens’ 50 states project was still a thing, and the question “who is mike jones?” was asked without irony.

anyway, doree was more excited to hear the national, because she had just seen clap your hands say yeah play in philadelphia—her then-boyfriend was a drummer in a dub band that had opened for them, of course. and yet, as contemporaneous reports confirm, half the audience left when the national came on. clap your hands say yeah was just that cool! they were so of-the-moment, in fact, that they even apparently turned down this adorable anthropomorphic vacuum cleaner video for is this love.

“so,” doree writes, “i have to say i find it sort of hilarious that everyone is all creaming their pants about the national now.” i agree: it’s not that they don’t deserve it, it’s just that time makes fools of us all. and it especially makes fools of brooklyn indie rock, temporary soda flavors, and millinery.

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May 20

wink of the year (so far): obama gave a historic one-eyed salute before the senate passed its seriously serious financial reform bill tonight.

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three things you may be interested in reading: (1) “goldman and magniloquent spokesman lucas van praag not quite mellowing”, my item on the latest goings-on of the most interesting communications man in the world, above, (2) “debt, ugly dogs and a new dr. doom”, my piece about the words and wisdom of willem h. buiter, and also (3) “a 13-year-old takes on everest”, a new york times article in today’s paper that includes the phrase “a cross from his grandfather and a pair of kangaroo testicles from his friend nigel.”

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