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."


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.


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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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March 30

#558: ry cooder - alimony (live at the record plant studios, sausalito, 1974)

i wish ill upon anyone who claims that ry cooder’s guitar playing is not the finest in all the land.

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December 29
new year’s resolution ‘10: listen to ry cooder in the a.m. to get days started right

new year’s resolution ‘10: listen to ry cooder in the a.m. to get days started right

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+

#502: ry cooder - the dark end of the street (1976)

now that december 2009 is winding down, it’s very important to identify the single greatest guitar solo of the decade—a two-and-a-half-minute ry cooder solo without a lick of fast-fingered shredding, played with such sweet modesty that you can hear the three back up singers clapping along. even lowell george would have a hard time explaining where this kind of soft sparkle comes from. it’s guitar playing that sounds like a first kiss. in fact, the solo of the decade is so good it was recorded 33 years ago on the bbc’s old gray whistle test, though we wouldn’t be watching and listening to it now without the wonders of modern video sharing! technology is probably going to kill us all, but first it’s providing lots of good music.

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August 20

#188: ry cooder - vigilante man (1973)

for some reason rolling stone’s 100 greatest guitarists of all time feature lists ry cooder (#8) as a member of the californian hardcore band black flag, which is like listing woody guthrie as a fat boy.

even more unfortunate is the opening line of rolling stone’s entry: “in ry cooder’s hands, the guitar becomes a time machine.” what the magazine meant to say was that listening to ry cooder play guitar is like overhearing your wife talking long distance in the bedroom, whispering into the phone that she loves another man, because ry cooder tears your heart out of your chest.

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