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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May 31

#594: sister rosetta tharpe - down by the riverside (c. 1965, tv gospel time)

soldiers sang it during the civil war, pete seeger sang it on a banjo, elvis presley sang it in a costume, leadbelly sang it with wobble, louis armstrong sang it with louisiana clarinets, mahahlia jackson sang it beautifully in the 1950s, and then she sang it beautifully in the 1970s. but when the blind boys of alabama back up rosetta tharpe with her white electric guitar and floor-length flower print dress, and you’re listening to down by the riverside on memorial day with the sound turned up and the morning’s newspapers open, the claps sound like taps.

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October 12

#459: june carter with pete seeger and johnny cash - i’m thinking tonight of my blue eyes (1965)

pete seeger’s rainbow quest, basically the best tv show of the century, not only had the rev. gary davis blowing donovan’s mind at a kitchen table, but featured lovestruck johnny cash and june carter before they were married, or had even ended their first marriages.

in an early clip, she talks about losing her teeth in korea and he sings a version i am a pilgrim that makes sweetheart of the rodeo sound pale and pagan. here, even better, june carter takes a special request while pete seeger says: “might say, this song doesn’t have but two or three versus, but it’s a lot of fun to sing, a lot of fun to harmonize on, too. any of you out there, you know, it’s the main reason for this rainbow quest show, not just to show what we can do, but show how you can have a lot of fun yourself making music. and i mean it! 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, don’t let the microphones and loudspeakers faze you. make some yourself.”

“and take your shoes off,” johnny cash says, in his socks.

“that’s right!” pete seeger says. what a guy. “and this would be a good song to try, if you want to.”

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January 19

if johnny cash had been president, then pete seeger could’ve been the secretary of the department of motherfucking super majestic banjo-playing awesomeness.

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March 17

#72: rev. gary davis (with pete seeger) - oh glory, how happy i am (1965)

besides the bizarre awkwardness of the introduction—donovan doesn’t seem too interested in blind blues legend reverend gary davis, and the reverend doesn’t seem too pleased that pete seeger got his carolina roots wrong—this is the kind of thing that makes me wish i was religious.

if there really is a god, god likes pete seeger—who discovered the reverend 15 years earlier, when “hardly anybody knew him outside of just the people in his neighborhood”—and god likes this song too. oh glory! it makes him happy.

god may or may not like the observer’s will heinrich, our newspaper’s resident novelist, who introduced me to this.

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#71: donovan (with pete seeger) - colours (1965)

“some may find them merely diverting melodies,” the 90-year-old folk god pete seeger once said about his songs. “others may find them incitements to red revolution. and who will say if either or both is wrong? not i.” and when he says red, he means communism: “i want to turn the clock back to when people lived in small villages and took care of each other.”

but when donovan sings about yellow, he’s talking about his blond girlfriend’s hair in the post-coital morning, and when he sings about blue he’s talking about the clear skies that day. but does it matter that the polka dotted-shirted singer’s song is about lovey dovey mellow morning yellow pillow hair instead of cold hard politics? it’s still a beautiful tune, especially with pete seeger singing along in that fatherly harmony. it makes me wish it were morning. and 1965.

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February 5

#21: neil young - don’t let it bring you down (1971)

it’s primary day, so i’ve been trying to find a super appropriate get-out-the-vote, times-they-are-a-changin’ song. radiohead’s electioneering has the right idea, but it isn’t exactly the best track on “ok computer.” besides, it’s tuesday, which means i need something from the 70s—too early for public enemy, too late for pete seeger.

but high-voiced, long-haired neil young makes good songs for election day. and even though he has more activist-y songs then don’t let it bring you down, somehow this tune’s picture of burning castles, dead men, sinking moons, red sirens, scraped skies, cold winds and morning papers feels more political than whining about impeachment.

his after the goldrush-era performance here on the bbc is enough to make you want to change the world. and another thing! he likes obama.

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