trubbaman

There were short films produced in the 1920s and '30s, like Bessie Smith's immortal take on St. Louis Blues. Those continued through the '40s and were shown in movie theaters along with the cartoons and newsreels and such. They didn't make a ton of them, but they did make some. In the 1950s, as television rolled out across the country, time blocks weren't like they are now - there were five minute blocks, fifteen minute blocks, half-hour, hour and 90 minute blocks that would contain a wide variety of content, some of it some music act in performance. At the same time, Scopitones were popular, which were jukeboxes that played short movies of performers singing the hits of the day. In the '50s and '60s those shorts began to be incorporated into full-length movies so you'd have a band doing a few songs or a bunch of bands doing one or two each, and then some teenage hijinks stitching a storyline together - think Beach Movies or Teenage Romance type stuff, and movies that featured a band like The Beatles or Herman's Hermits or whomever. More productions, more popularity and more available tools meant that bands like The Beatles could do short films for songs and variety shows like Ed Sullivan would snap them up and show them, so there was an outlet for the bigger bands to do that. So no, visual content of music performances and interpretations have been around as long as there has been sound connected to pictures, and Strawberry Fields Forever was not the first time it had been done. The generation of content accelerated as the availability for viewing became more widespread, and once record companies, flush with cash, had the money and the talent and the tools to make these enduring advertisements for a launching channel that would play this content, it exploded. Don't forget that MTV was not an overnight sensation - it started out taking this content, which had been shown on local New York cable and independent channels, to a regional NYC-area audience. It wasn't even a 24-hour channel in the beginning. It took some time for it to grow beyond that area and eventually spread across the country. You may have come across those "I Want My MTV" ads where rockers would say that between commercials and songs - it wasn't picked up by cable systems and it took a couple years to grow into the massive thing it became.

Gotta stoke The Hate. Hate is Money.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4kvD29z2gk&ab_channel=BobDylan-Topic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBcPbkM-c5U&ab_channel=M.O.T.O.-Topic

I was there 1977-1981. We'd mill around the tables in the AC (Academic Center, before the UGL was ready), with that phone book of classes folded and dog-eared, signing up for classes. If we needed 'Instructor Approval' because we were taking something out of sequence, or we needed to pull seniority on someone to get a class in our major, then we'd have to go to the prof's office and get them to sign for it and go back. File the stuff, and then in a couple of weeks we'd get a bill in the mail for $250 or so for the semester. I think adding football tickets was another $50 or $60 but it might've been cheaper than that. Then we'd have to go to the Co-op to buy books and figure out how we'd come up with the $100 that was going to cost us. Probably get a couple egg rolls and a won ton from the cart outside for $1.

I was at that Jandek show as well. It was pretty interesting especially given that the mythology was reaching its peak. The Austin show was his first US performance and it included at least one very highly-regarded avant-garde musician who is really big in the improvisational music world - highly trained in that Ornette Coleman style of breaking down keys and playing only wrong notes and tearing at meter and such. Jandek walked on stage, put a book of lyrics on a music stand, pulled a guitar out of a case, put it on and then played for 60 minutes on the dot and stopped, put the guitar up and left. He only sortakinda acknowledged the audience once briefly but never spoke or looked up except for a couple of glances at the musicians playing at/with him. The concert had that quality that Brian Eno used to experiment with, beginning with dissonance and mismatched meter but as time went on every once in a while this discordant noise would lock together and it produced these incredible crystalline moments that stood out wildly apart from the noise, these bright bits of wonder and beauty that were almost immediately lost again in the noise. At the time, it was fascinating and exciting because no one knew anything about him other than a couple of murky images and some guarded articles with hesitant ‘interviews.’ Now that he’s played so often and has been seen and I guess, figured out to some degree he’s lost a lot of his cachet and mysterious appeal. I haven’t thought much about him in a while, maybe I should check back in and see where he is on the radar these days.

Postponed because Colbert has COVID.

Those backpacks are great, I'm just really over backpacks. I always had cheap, crappy luggage because I didn't fly that much but I finally decided to get something good. I had no idea how much better it is to have good luggage.

We just did a week in the UK and I had plenty with those two, but no room to bring souvenirs or anything like that back. I'm a road dog, I can pack light but adding in something like rain or cold gear would push it pretty hard. Otherwise there isn't that much difference between the US and Euro allowances, not enough to mean much to me anyway. I loved being able to trust that my stuff wouldn't be challenged and I could always have my bags with me, no matter which carrier we were on.

I've been super happy with my Monos Carry-On and my Tom Bihn Pilot. Both of them qualify as carryon / personal item on any airline and they hold much more than you'd expect. https://monos.com/collections/carry-on-luggage/products/carry-on?variant=25396777680960 https://www.tombihn.com/products/pilot?variant=42965521465533

I just remember Mick’s IFB not working and how he got more pissed off with every passing second before he pulled it out and threw it down on the stage.

I was there and had forgotten about DMB too. We were tied up in the ticket snafu so we missed all of Matchbox 20, which I'm not sad about yet. Ended up next to the B-stage down on the track.

It looked to me like maybe they had plans that got caught up in other plans so they flipped Luther’s to someone who couldn’t keep it afloat.

Onion ring loaf... https://houstonhistoricretail.com/restaurants/luthers-bar-b-q/

We used to go to Leo's regularly, in part just in hopes that BFG would show up and surprise us. That was a terrific neighborhood mainstay restaurant and it's missed.

Saw Pulp reunite in front of the home crowd in Sheffield last Friday. Absolutely, completely, utterly magnificent.

And now "Smash Burger" is a thing. I loved sitting at the counter watching Wes bang down those patties, it was like watching a performance.

Trapped. I deleted the app when the bean counters pulled the JCB and the service sped up augering in. Getting it back feels like failure but it might be worth a try.

Tried to go this morning for a JCB. Five cars in front, 45 minute wait. Double barrel of middle fingers and blood pressure raised.

I can back up the health care comments. I've got a brother-in-law who has lived there for a few years, mother-in-law lived out there for a bit and we had begun to consider moving there eventually as well because so much really does seem great. Our visits were very enjoyable and we did see that there are some things that do stand out - it's dry, dry, dry, the kind of dry that sneaks up on you in ways you don't expect. Think skin considerations, from dryness and from UV exposure, and they're not kidding about staying hydrated. There's predators that will take cats or small to medium sized dogs, depending on where you live. My brother-in-law had a mild heart attack last week. Pretty minor, something dealt with easily and daily here but in Santa Fe, outside of basic stent insertion, he was going to have to be moved to ABQ for anything more complicated. Fortunately it wasn't necessary, but we did find out that Santa Fe is still a lot more small town than it is growing city and that is very much reflected in the quality and availability of health care beyond preventive and first-level needs so if you anticipate the potential for health problems that require more, know that you will likely have to travel for it and put up with the housing and extra costs that'll involve.

Thanks - we’ll have a car but were considering Uber to the venue or even driving from Liverpool and then driving back after the show.

Going to Sheffield in July to see Pulp.

Oldboy.

I've been twice, the last time was about a month ago. The first time, I swear they keep their donuts in a refrigerator, they were really cold and chewy and crappy, nothing at all like they were a few years ago. This last time I wised up and asked for 'hot' so they came out about room temperature. Still really chewy, the icing is crap, all thin and gooey. I don't like Tyson much but I can't believe he put all that money into this just to turn out really shitty donuts. He might be the Elon Musk of breakfast.

Randy Franklin just let fly with the lineup for the annual Yard Dog Party at ABGB, Friday March 17. 26th Annual Yard Dog Party at ABGB Friday March 17 3 - Midnight FREE ADMISSION. No tickets, no rsvp, no nothin'. FREE ADMISSION. Music by 11 pm: Waco Brothers 10 pm: Jon Langford & The Far Forlorn 9 pm: The Silos performing the Cuba album 8 pm: Churchwood 7 pm: Wild Seeds 6 pm: Casey Neill 5 pm: Bob Schneider 4 pm: Jon Dee & William Graham 3:20 pm: Alice Spencer and Brian Beattie 3 pm: Ethan Azarian It's a Yard Dog party but it's not at Yard Dog. ABGB is at - 1305 W. Oltorf, Austin, TX 78704