Saturday Potpourri

Some hotlinks for you on this grey, fuzzed-out Saturday morning: from the I Fucking Love Bob Seger department, go beat the System...Power Pop doesn't get much more perfect than this Badfinger classic...in a clash of the titans, JBL takes on Godzilla...a very, very plaintive entreaty...and the old, classic Creature Double Feature promo...The Chairman and The King...the Benny Hinn Show...this song sounds great on your headphones in Washington Square Park, anytime it's snowtime...global Hollywood squares, supergroup-style...

Back to the virtual waiting room for Red Sox tickets.

Eightball By Request

My man the King* handed down the word, so here we go:

1. Crossfit. I've linked this before, I'll do it again. I love these workouts, even if I have to drop poundages by forty, fifty, sometimes sixty percent. Jon and I did the filthy fifty the other day; I was really proud of us for finishing without puking. Check out the overhead squat competition from Thursday's workout. Sick.

2. McMahon vs. Trump. 'the mind...the mind...is weak'

3. Great football. It's been forever since I watched a football game that good, even longer since that stomach-tightening kickoff feeling lasted all 60 minutes. I find it hard nowadays to work myself up to that feeling in front of a national telecast--all that fantasy football verbiage; lines and spreads; fat assholes saying nothing. But this game was worth the wait in every possible way.

4. The Greatest Radio Station of All-Time (except for piece of shit Saint Cal). Thanks to my fiance for the greatest Christmas present ever besides her agreeing to marry me. I mean, look at this. Wow.

5. Saturday mornings. The new best hours. Walks to Whole Foods, Brookline mornings.

6. Cheapo Classics from Borders. I enjoy the Rumsfeld quote in re: The Iliad in the linkes article. Got a combo Odyssey/Iliad the other week; the whole thing was almost too pretty to open.

7. High K, no BB. Nasty. Ben Sheets is fucking awesome. If he pitched in a major market, or if it were 1982 and he had Charlie Moore, Robin Yount, and Gorman Thomas up the middle, he'd be famouser than Amos, though maybe not as famous as Amos Otis.

8. Will the Wolf Survive? Michael Cole should be afraid. Very, very afraid.

B-Sides and Bee Sides

Why don't you come on over to the Abbey Lounge on Tuesday nite and hear some b-sides and the assorted cover or two with the Bunco Men and Chewbacca.

Kind of a Piece of Crap

I have about 7 or 8 rules of engagement with popular culture, among which "change channel whenever Will Smith/Jennifer Aniston/Whoopi Goldberg/Sgt. Pepper appears onscreen" and "anything Vince McMahon produces is worth a second look" number prominently.

After last night's Criminal Intent, I am only too happy to report, at long last, that Rule #4, "root against Richard Kind in all his endeavors," found wonderful fruition in the form of Detective Bobby Goren PWNING this assclown.

I mean, seriously, look at him.

TOTAL EFFING SCUM.

The One

You know, you grow up and you learn to play your instrument and you move beyond cheap explications of gumby family dramas, and maybe you even learn to sing a little bit somewhere along the way and I guess you get to forgetting that the one it all started with was Psychocandy.

Thank you for basically everything, Jim and Billy. And feedback and melody. The one before the other, like the chicken made the egg.

I fucking love the Jesus and Mary Chain. I guess smashing that mystery here feels like those endless wonderings on barre chords, open strings, mikes facing amps, goddamn how did they fucking get that sound???

Happy New Year!

2007 promises greatness and acclaim. Of that there is no doubt.

Here's best wishes to all of you reading now and those that are soon to stumble onto this little oasis, inveigled like moths to flame. I'd love you to let the JBGs be your soundtrack to 2007:

• Finally, finally, FINALLY, in early 2007: local release of Disciple & Punish/Muff, 26 tracks of power-pop goodness, fuzzed out with some propaganda art on top of spartan liner notes.
• Many Boston and NYC opportunities to check out sister act The Bunco Men & Chewbacca.
• National release of Disciple & Punish/Muff in conjunction with West Coast tour and press junket, mid-2007.
• And all along the worktower: continuing progress on our upcoming CD. I'm going to be immodest and tell you that these songs will blow anything we've done before out of the water. It's not even close. This next one will be our Pet Sounds, our Twin Cinema, the one we've been meant to make since Day One, and we're stopping at nothing to make that happen.

Sound a little grandiose? Fuck it. Playtime's over. Come on along for the ride.

And happy, happy new year to all of y'all.

Help Me If You Can

At intermittent times over the last few months, I've been haunted by memories of the interstitial music PBS (Channel 2 in Boston when I was a kid) would use. I guess this was back when they weren't really playing commercials for upcoming shit, but rather throwing a still photo/drawing onscreen with something like "up next: Sesame Street" in the lower or upper right hand corner while some fairly evocative instrumental pieces played on the soundtrack.

The only two I've really been able to remember and identify having been used are "Take Five" and "Dueling Banjos."

There's one in particular that I'd give my eyeteeth to identify; here's a ridiculously bad attempt at description: a plucked acoustic intro, vaguely Spanish-sounding, jaunty (I always imagined someone singing 'the things that you just can't have' in time to that part...genesis of some really bad college songwriting, I suppose), on into a sort-of staccato, almost staggering proggy Yes bridge that was probably meant to be about astronauts had the composer deigned to lyricize, and back into that jaunty plucked part, now triumphantly played on a chorus of Martins.

I'm probably remembering poorly but I heard it the other night as a fadeout on Alien Man's show so it shouldn't be too off. (Ed. note: due diligence on Alien Man's site reveals the piece in question to be "Classical Gas" by Mason Williams and yep, my description was pretty much a shit sandwich.)

But anyhow, anyone who remembers any of the other pieces PBS used, give me a holler.

Thanks in advantio.