I'm a fleabit peanut monkey

//hearing: The Yardbirds - Hot House of Omagarashid
//thinking: wtf is "Omagarashid"?!

I've never been so bored in my LIFE. I'm BORED. GAHH.

So anyway. The other day--was it Wednesday? Anyway--my dad took me to Best Buy. (I've got $50 to spend.) And so, I bought A Quick One, and I must say ... it is awesome. Keith Moon actually isn't that horrible of a singer--or, as horrible of a singer as many make him out to be. That album is awesome. I'd heard most of it before, but now I know what ALL the fuss is about.

I keep nervously checking ticketmaster.com to see when the Stones tickets for the Glendale show are going to be on sale. I mustn't take any risks; they may sell out in 10 minutes. (Maybe.)

In other news, my sister lost my Who pin. (She was wearing it to fasten her jacket.) But ..her boyfriend offered to buy me another one. Plus more. So.. I guess I'm content about that.

I want to buy Cristina a Gibson Les Paul, really! If I ever got the money to buy one of those, I'd definitely get her one. But maybe that's because I haven't played the six-string since I was seven.

I leave you with this:

Whooo!

Oh yeah ...happy.. Amnesia day or whatever it is.

//hearing: the Beatles - Something
//thinking: Oh man.

WOOOHOOOO!!

Yes, dearies. What would cause me to use double-exclamation marks and capitalized words, you ask? It's SUMMER. SCHOOL'S OUT. Yessss.

And my father's cousin was married to this guy from a Mexican rock n' roll band that were popular in the 60s. No lies!

AND ... the Retrograde Revolution.

LOOK. Here's a review for NME Magazine from Uppers.org.

[
A new publication from NME which assembles interviews, images and articles spanning more than fourty years of 'modism'. Simon T Mallett takes a look and finds himself confronting his own prejudices…

In the last few years, the catalogue of books related to the subject of 'modism' has been expanding steadily. It seems the subject continues to elicit interest from all over the world (and the existence of Uppers.org surely proves the very point!)

And yet... I don't know about you, but sometimes when browsing this expanding library, all I see is a shelf-full of beautifully designed dust jackets housing page after page of sub-conscious historical revision. After all, 'mod' means just about anything that you want it to mean - we all know that. And possession of a carefully assembled ideal vision of how things were - a vision that somehow neatly explains ones own strange, highly personal obsession - is hardly a good qualification for writing an objective historical account, is it?

NME Originals are a series of cut and paste magazines, beautifully put together, featuring articles, interviews, reviews and images from the pages of the 'inky' music weekly from down the years. The new MOD issue also gathers together material from 'Rave' magazine ("the most mod of all the magazines from the swinging sixties"), Disc and fellow but now defunct 'inky' Melody Maker. On top of that there are some newly commissioned introductory essays from some chap called Paolo Hewitt, Eddie Piller and Paul Moody - to "place the archive material into context" quote, unquote. There is also a wonderful collection of Terence Spencer images from the sixties of our mod ancestors going about their daily business.

So this is not another potential 'dodgy mod dossier', it seems we actually have an historical document that can't fail to tell it how it was.

And yes, it is a very good and very revealing read. Divided into four eras - "The Birth Of Modernism (1945-1964)", "Maximum Mod (1965-1968)", "The Mod Revival (1977-1985)" and "A New Kind Of Mod (1990-2005)" - it self-evidently admits that the British music press either didn't understand or didn't much care to cover what was going on for several intervening years!

Putting that slight personal bitterness aside, this really is a worthwhile purchase. Here are some of the revealing quotes that kept me reading the whole thing cover to cover for at least a couple of hours:

Spencer Davis and Steve Winwood (Melody Maker interview June 12th 1965).

SD: "It's so difficult to define R&B. Definitions have gone to pot. We much prefer to call it younger generation American Negro pop".

SW: "R&B is such a wide term. It can mean The Beatles and it can mean Jimmy Smith. We are sick of it and prefer this term Negro pop".

Adrian Thrills on mod revivalists at a northern soul night in Oldham (NME article 12th April 1980).

"Richard Searling takes great delight in regaling me with stories of cultural crossovers as the new young mods discover that there's a wealth of music to be unearthed by listening to the DJ from Wigan".

Johnny Dean from Menswear (Melody Maker interview November 19th 1994).

"This whole mod revival is shit. The true mods are now ravers, people who are into jungle and futuristic music. We don't make mod music, we make pop music".

Pat Long, journo, (NME interview with Paul Weller and The Ordinary Boys May 22nd 2004).

"In 1980 when the Jam were at the height of their popularity, Paul Weller was introduced to Pete Townshend. Hilariously, they absolutely hated each other. Secretly, and although we won't admit this to anyone, we're hoping the same thing will happen today making the job of writing this piece several million times easier and allowing us to get back to the really important business of inventing musical movements down the pub".

So does this publication say more about 'modism' or about British music journalism than anything beforehand? Does this review say even more about my own personal bitterness towards the music press? Well, you'll have to buy it and find out!
]

Don't you understand?!

It's happening.

A part of me thinks Austin Powers had something to do with it.

YES.

Peace.

//hearing: Led Zeppelin - Moby Dick
//thinking: Led Zeppelin should have put out some protest songs. Kidding.

Barely an hour from the last post, and I'm already getting visitors who've come searching for "Vietnam protests" or "KSU". What is up with these people? (Or Google?!)

Okay, so anyway. Since D-Land is being stupid and won't let me update/change my very first entry, I've decided to place another "Favourite Bands" list here. Here you go.

The Rolling Stones, the Who, the Yardbirds, Led Zeppelin, Them, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Aerosmith, the Zombies, the Hollies, the Kinks, Cream, the Animals, the Young Rascals, the Beatles, the Doors, Van Halen, the Spencer Davis Group, the Dave Clark Five, the Jimi Hendrix Experience, the Animals, Strawberry Alarm Clock, Aerosmith, AC/DC, Boston, Jefferson Airplane, and various others I've only heard two or three songs by (e.g. Herman's Hermits, the Association, the Byrds, etc.)

That really doesn't seem like a lot, now looking at it.

Another thing to add. The guy from Great White kind of sounds like Mick Jagger at the very end of "Once Bitten Twice Shy". Even the guitar riff sounds a bit Richards-esque. That's not implying anything, though.

And George Thorogood AND Robert Plant are coming to town, adding more stress to my decision on which show to go to.

P.S. I am forever a mocker.

//hearing: Creedence Clearwater Revival - Fortunate Son
//thinking: end the war in Vietnam.

Yesterday was my sister's birthday, and she didn't get to go to The Bravery show, at which I laugh. (Ha-Ha.) And we had cake, which was good. (I am beside myself with enthusiasm.) From her boyfriend, she received a gerbil. (I have no idea.) And, on Tuesday or maybe Monday, I saw the Simpsons episode with The Who. It was awesome. (Daily Who concerts?! Who Huddle! HAHAHAHAHA ...anyway.)

I've been waiting the entire year to begin studying the Vietnam war in American History, and we're finally doin' it. (After all that useless information about Russia and Japan mingling with eachother.) My teacher was criticizing the protestors at Kent State and asking all of us if we would have protested had we been college or high school students in 1970, but she asked us as if the answers would be unanimous. It was outrageous if you ask me. I said, "I would have. In fact, I probably would have organized some of them." Well, maybe I was exaggerating a bit and just putting my sharp tongue to use, but it served her right ... what sort of teacher would actually assume that everyone in their class has the same opinions, outwardly preaching conformity? So then she looked at me like I was crazy, but I think she understood my point after hearing my opinions on this one film we watched about the protests in KSU. She's pretty much all about the war. I have my own opinions about it--I mean, I've always got something to say--but I'll keep those opinions to myself so the government won't, you know, sue me or something. I'm sure they can do that.

So--I knew this was going to happen--thus begins my Vietnam-protest-song phase. (Don't worry, I probably won't go past 1972, and definitely not past 1974.) I suppose I've always been into late 60s/early 70s protest songs, but one should expect to hear of them quite often. And maybe not just the protest songs--have you heard the music from Remember the Titans? You know, those songs that have that sort of feel to them. (Like the Hollies' "Long Cool Woman" I think, a song that I first heard at age 4.) Oh, great fun!

Peace, all. (Time to go download some Dylan.)