max abelson's super groovy music video spectacular

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


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


"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


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


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


"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


"you can't hold the hand of a rock 'n' roll man." -joni mitchell


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


"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


"to try to maximize the relationship of listening to a record through promotion is like experiencing driving a car by reading about stimulus programs." -bonnie 'prince' billy


"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


"we can make each other happy, or we can make each other happy." -harry nilsson


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


"i'm an idiot for you." -iggy pop


"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 going to boogie my scruples away." -lowell george


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


"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, to my brother tommy


"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


"tired of the tango? fed up with fandango? dance on moonbeams, slide on rainbows, in furs or blue jeans. you know what I mean." -roxy music


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


thelonious monk's middle name: sphere


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


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


"the only word is love." -john lennon


"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


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


"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," 33 1/3 says: "it's nice to have someone steer me in a more worthwhile direction," others say: "pulitzer."


download albums, see album covers, photos, posters, quotes & 'staches


the olden days: 08 j. f. m. a. m. j. j. a. s. o. n. d. 09 j. f. m. a. m. j. j. a. s. o. n. d. 10 j. f. m. a. m. j. j. a. s. o. n. d. 11 j. f. m. a. m. j. j. a. s. o. n. d. 12 j.


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February 11
the gerry mulligan page on the website brainy quote is the horse e books of jazz. “new york is still where i live most of the time,” gerry mulligan once said, it claims. “i’ve appeared on some other people’s albums,” he reportedly stated another time. because gerry mulligan played the baritone saxophone like an ice pick, an ice pick made out of ice (especially on mainstream of jazz), one can only assume he had much profounder things to say. in fact—after writing that sentence i’ve found a recording of his oral autobiography about being a scratch-your-eyes-out drug addict, on the library of congress’ website. it’s about the “one time when we gave artificial respiration for about eight hours straight to keep a guy going,” and when “after gail and i split up, i started to get back into my old habits with heroin. not ever to the extent that i had been involved in new york, but still enough that it was an ongoing thing, and it was time-consuming and constant.” in other words, gerry mulligan’s period after splitting up with whomever gail was of constant heroin use was somehow not as horrible as another period in new york city. to imagine what could possibly have made that other period worse provides a small peak into the misery of the word “habits.” update: and so does the story about whitney houston’s death on the cover of the times. 

the gerry mulligan page on the website brainy quote is the horse e books of jazz. “new york is still where i live most of the time,” gerry mulligan once said, it claims. “i’ve appeared on some other people’s albums,” he reportedly stated another time.

because gerry mulligan played the baritone saxophone like an ice pick, an ice pick made out of ice (especially on mainstream of jazz), one can only assume he had much profounder things to say. in fact—after writing that sentence i’ve found a recording of his oral autobiography about being a scratch-your-eyes-out drug addict, on the library of congress’ website. it’s about the “one time when we gave artificial respiration for about eight hours straight to keep a guy going,” and when “after gail and i split up, i started to get back into my old habits with heroin. not ever to the extent that i had been involved in new york, but still enough that it was an ongoing thing, and it was time-consuming and constant.”

in other words, gerry mulligan’s period after splitting up with whomever gail was of constant heroin use was somehow not as horrible as another period in new york city. to imagine what could possibly have made that other period worse provides a small peak into the misery of the word “habits.”

update: and so does the story about whitney houston’s death on the cover of the times. 

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November 15
“i just got home from serving my time. there’s a baby in the family, and i know he’s now mine. he’s not mine, there’s no way he could be, for i’ve been gone five long years and the little baby’s only three. he looks and acts like me, he’s even got my name. oh how i love him! beacuse he’s my son just the same. he’s a proud little fella, he’s a cute little lad. oh, i know the reason he looks and acts like me. because my brother is his dad.” - o.v. wright. he died on nov. 16, 1980.

“i just got home from serving my time. there’s a baby in the family, and i know he’s now mine. he’s not mine, there’s no way he could be, for i’ve been gone five long years and the little baby’s only three. he looks and acts like me, he’s even got my name. oh how i love him! beacuse he’s my son just the same. he’s a proud little fella, he’s a cute little lad. oh, i know the reason he looks and acts like me. because my brother is his dad.” - o.v. wright. he died on nov. 16, 1980.

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November 12
this week i spent all my free time reorganizing my old records—because, really, why anyone would spend their open hours doing something else is totally beyond me—and found things like two charlie christian albums i hadn’t heard in a year. “time removes fads,” barney kessel once said. “shakespeare today is no less than he ever was; so charlie christian stands up.” barney was right.

this week i spent all my free time reorganizing my old records—because, really, why anyone would spend their open hours doing something else is totally beyond me—and found things like two charlie christian albums i hadn’t heard in a year. “time removes fads,” barney kessel once said. “shakespeare today is no less than he ever was; so charlie christian stands up.” barney was right.

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September 13
“tutti fanno gli stupidi.”

“tutti fanno gli stupidi.”

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September 5
“time and life building! american hotel! cbs building! rca building! first national city bank!” (no. 1 and no. 2)

“time and life building! american hotel! cbs building! rca building! first national city bank!”

(no. 1 and no. 2)

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August 1
from the cover of the cathy’s clown single, which is very good, although it could also have just said “i die each time i hear this sound,” in pink letters

from the cover of the cathy’s clown single, which is very good, although it could also have just said “i die each time i hear this sound,” in pink letters

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March 8
“ grandchildren now don’t write a thank-you for the christmas presents, they’re walking on their pants with the cap on backwards listening to the enema man and snoopy snoopy poop dogg. and they don’t like them! senator alan simpson, with words for marshall mathers and calvin broadus on fox news. a bonus point for his kicker, which i think suggests that hip-hop fans don’t actually enjoy the music.
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January 11

#726: nina simone - what’s free to you speech

in the radio station in my apartment, a ten-day block of nina simone just started in anticipation of martin luther king jr day. is there anything finer? just look at her talk. ”what’s free to you?” a french-sounding interviewer asks.  ”what’s free to me? same thing it is to you, you tell me,” she says. “no, you tell me,” says the frenchman. ”it’s just a feeling. it’s like how do you tell somebody how it feels to be in love? you cannot do it to save your life. you can describe things, but you can’t tell them, but you know it when it happens. that’s what i mean by free. i had a couple of times on the stage when i really felt free, and that’s something else. that’s something else!”

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December 29

#720: willie nelson - angel flying too close to the ground (and always on my mind, mr. record man, etc) (1982)

barbara walters’ blue dress billows, old dependable willie nelson’s red bandana sits tight on his distinctly unwashed head, the green trees on what was then his 750-acre estate rustle cinematically in the early-80s texas wind, and all’s well with the world.

then mr. nelson says: “i came home, again, very drunk, and came right to bed and right to sleep. so i guess martha, that’s my first wife’s name, she decided she had had enough of that. so while i was laying there passed out, she took the sheet, wrapped it up around me—i can envision her doing it—and then very methodically sowed me up. it must have taken her 45 minutes or an hour to do it. and then she took a broom stick, and the next thing i know there’s this white stuff coming at me, the sheet is banging me in the head. and then once i woke up she split.”

see also: george jones’ lawnmower story.

bonus! also see: tammy wynette’s “rider mower” story.

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November 2
“ What was arrogant about that? That was selfless! I jumped in front a bullet. I lost an arm! I’m trying to promote an album with a missing arm. Everyone’s like, ‘What happened to your arm?’ Kanye West is cremating the radio right now.
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October 14
“ Jay, but you got a new joint out, is this available in all the stores? Independent?”
“Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah—it’s in some stores. But once we lock this distribution thing down it’s going to be in all stores”
“Ok”
“Yeah, it just got Rap Pick of the Week on BET”
“Tell us what it is”
“It’s called In My Lifetime”
“On what label?”
“Roc-a-Fella Records”
“Roc-a-Fella Records? Alright. Support Jay-Z The world was a different place in 1995.
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September 30
“seemed like i started going back over everything i’d ever done, wondering if i wanted to do it again for the next 30 or not. i finally decided: what the heck. i might as well.” that’s john prine talking in 1980, right before he starts playing this, which of course was 30 years ago exactly. i wonder how he feels the time went? not bad, i hope. (photo sandy frazier)

“seemed like i started going back over everything i’d ever done, wondering if i wanted to do it again for the next 30 or not. i finally decided: what the heck. i might as well.” that’s john prine talking in 1980, right before he starts playing this, which of course was 30 years ago exactly. i wonder how he feels the time went? not bad, i hope.

(photo sandy frazier)

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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.

“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 28
“my daddy was a bankrobber/ but he never hurt nobody/ he just loved to live that way/ and he loved to steal your money.”

“my daddy was a bankrobber/ but he never hurt nobody/ he just loved to live that way/ and he loved to steal your money.”

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