Canadian Politics Today

Yeah, I have heard his music before and remember it was good.... though a younger vibe than mine...

I grew up in Windsor and I remember late night radio in the late 80s, early 90s having some amazing electronic music.

I actually meant to post this at Halloween.  Probably everybody has heard some version of "I Put A Spell On You" ...but have you heard the original?

Jay Hawkins walked into a recording studio one night. He had a bunch of songs to record, and someone had brought some liquor and they were up all night singing and drinking, and ... well, this happened.  At some point that night, they thought it would be hilarious to do this comedy version of one of the songs.  That late-night drunken idea changed Jay's career forever.

"When I walked into the studio I was Jay Hawkins... when I left, I was Screamin' Jay Hawkins."

This caught on like wildfire before it was banned... perhaps it was deemed too intense for white-folks or something. Whatever the case, it earned Hawkins a cult following... in almost a literal sense. What was a novelty song turned into a whole stage persona. Hawkins would dress like a voodoo priest and his concerts turned into a whole theatrical show, complete with "human sacrifices". He was "shock rock" long before Alice Cooper or Ozzie came along.



 -k

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last six months, you’ve almost certainly heard Despacito. Now hear it as covered by a rubber chicken!

BTW just LISTEN.  Don't watch the video.

CANADIAN CONTENT ALERT!

STAND BY FOR CAN-CON!




Last week I used the phrase "ghost ship of cannibal rats" in a thread, and later realized that probably nobody knew what the **** I was talking about.

It's a song by Canadian punk-rock band Billy Talent.  Billy Talent isn't a guy, it's a band. They're named after one of the characters in the movie "Hard Core Logo".   I'm not a Billy Talent fan, but the song stuck with me because of the story behind it.   The song was inspired by the story of this abandoned Russian cruise ship, which was supposed to be towed from Newfoundland to South America to be cut into scrap metal.  But it was lost at sea, and was eventually sighted drifting towards Britain.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Lyubov_Orlova

Apparently there was concern that the ship was infested with rats, who would be set loose if the ship wrecked on the British Isles.  Further, it was believed that the rats would breed prolifically, eat anything and everything on the ship, and when nothing else was left, would start eating each other.  Yikes!   

Billy Talent saw the situation as a metaphor for our race-to-the-bottom, cut-throat, stab each other in the back, dog-eat-dog world.

"Don't be afraid of the view from economy class--
 It's just the captain and crew jumping off of the mast!
 All aboard on the ghost ship of cannibal rats!
 All aboard on the ghost ship of cannibal rats!"




 -k

A warning like that just makes people curious.  Why not watch the video? Does something horrible happen?

 -k

We depend to much on the visuals to compliment the song. If I cannot listen to the song without the video, then it fails to deliver, in my opinion. This probably hurt a lot of bands more than helped them.  I will point to the era of 'glam metal' or 'hair metal'. A good deal of those songs are terrible, and the videos were just as bad. Most videos are simply the band playing in some environment with other scenes cut in that may not make sense to the song. Very boring videos and the songs (for the most part), in the end, were not great either.