I don’t know about you but I’m in the mood for a reggae-flavored cover of Led Zeppelin’s Immigrant Song, hopefully one that’s performed by a 300-pound Elvis impersonator.
Fortunately, when you get those type of cravings, you can turn to Dread Zeppelin. Dread Zeppelin is certainly not the only band to cover Led Zeppelin but they are probably the best known. Actually, it’s somewhat unfair to describe Dread Zeppelin as being only a Led Zeppelin cover band. They’ve actually covered a wide variety of artists and I believe they’ve released some original material as well. They even did a disco record at one point.
Dread Zeppelin is one of those bands where members come and go. As of this writing, the band is still recording and touring but bassist Gary Putnam is the only member who has appeared on every recording and taking part in every tour.
Are they Bee Gees or are they The Bee Gees? I’m not really sure and, quite frankly, I’ve seen it listed as both on several reputable sites. Regardless, this is a good song. “The New York Times‘ effect on man” is a nice and random little lyric, even though Tony Manero really didn’t come across like a reader of the Times in Saturday Night Fever.
If you’re ever giving someone CPR, they say that you should do it to the tune of Staying Alive so, if you memorize this song, you’ll be able to save a life. That’s the type of helpful information that we happily provide to our readers free of charge here at the Shattered Lens.
According to the YouTube description, this from the “One for All Tour” Live concert at the National Tennis Centre in Melbourne 1989, Australia.
I can still remember the night when it was announced that Blake Lewis has lost the sixth season of American Idol to Jordin Sparks. That was when the world stopped making sense to me. Nothing against Jordin but how, I wondered, could she have won while Blake was so cute and adorkable!? It just didn’t make sense to me!
Of course, the judges were never on Blake’s side. During the final weeks, when it became obvious that the finale would be Blake vs. Jordin, the judges went out of their way to nitpick every performance that Blake gave. It upset me. I spent a lot of time that March calling and voting for Blake. When he lost, American Idol lost me as well. I’ve never voted since and, of course, I’m now actually an adult so it would hard for me to justify still caring about the show at this point.
(My cousin-in-law Ronny used to say that he would only watch American Idol to see the judges be mean. Once they stopped being mean, he lost interest. He had the right idea. Reality competition shows are so positive now that I have a difficult time watching them. For instance, last year, I nearly threw my shoes at the TV while trying to watch an episode of America’s Got Talent. The whole thing where the judges are all crying and going, “YOU! You are what this competition is about!” is just so creepy and weird.)
Anyway, Blake continued to make music even after losing American Idol. This is his video for Sad Song, which came off of his second studio album, Heartbreak on Vinyl. The video is meant to recall both 40s film noir and 80s video glitz and I think it succeeds fairly well. Blake’s co-star in the video is Casey Carlson, who was featured during the 8th season of American Idol.
Enjoy!
(Speaking of sad songs, my vacation’s nearly over! Boo hoo, says I.)
Today is Alamo Day. It was 184 years ago, today, that 600 men gave their lives in the name of Texas.
That’s one of the many things that I think sets us native Texans apart from the rest of the United States. Texans believe in freedom. We always have and we always will. Some of us may be conservative and some of us may be liberal but what we have in common is a desire to do it our own way.
I don’t think I’ve ever been as moved as I was during the days immediately after Hurricane Harvey. A lot of people outside of the state seemed to think that Harvey was a disaster of such immense proportions that it would lead to the end of both the state’s reputation for independence and our way of life. So, what did we do? We did what Texans always do. We came together and we helped each other. We did what we could and, when someone came along who could do the job better, we supported them. We appreciated everyone who came down to lend a helping hand and we checked on our neighbors to make sure that they were okay. See, that’s the thing about Texas. We don’t surrender. We fight and we help those who need it and, for that reason, we’re the greatest state in the union.
(In fact, if we had never joined the United States, the Republic Texas would probably be a world superpower right now. Oh well. In the end, it all worked out.)
Anyway. this music video is about the Alamo so it seems appropriate for today!
In today’s music video of the day, the Albanian rapper Mozzik goes to prison and it turns out that prison in Albania is just as tedious and soul-destroying as prison in America. Fortunately, he can always escape to his dreams.
Or, at least, that’s what I assume is happening in this video. I don’t speak a word of Albanian. But one of the great things about both music and the visual arts is that sometimes, you don’t have to speak the language. You just have to open up your mind to the emotions and the images.
This video was directed by Mozzik himself and he did quite a good job! I especially like the surreal scenes of Mozzik thinking about being free.
I remember, when I was like 14, I got up early in the morning and I woke up my sisters by shouting, “It’s Ash Wednesday, bitches!” My mom was not amused. That said, Ash Wednesday is one of my favorite days. I just love the ritual of it all. Of course, I also usually wash my forehead fairly early in the day. That’s allowed, by the way.
Now, before anyone leaves any snarky comments, I fully understand that David Bowie’s Ashes to Ashes is not actually about Ash Wednesday nor are the ashes mentioned in the song literal ashes. I understand that but hey, this is a good song and David Bowie certainly does look happy in this clip. Around the two minute mark, he takes the time to praise the backup singers, which is a pretty classy move.
Lord of the Flies is based on William Golding’s famous book about a group of school children who get stranded on a deserted island and turn into savages. The lyrics are a literal interpretation of the book’s plot:
I don’t care for this world anymore I just want to live my own fantasy Fate has brought us to these shores What was meant to be is now happening
I’ve found that I like this living in danger Living on edge it makes feel as one Who cares now what’s right or wrong, it’s reality Killing so we survive Wherever we may roam Wherever we may hide We’ve got to get away
I don’t want existence to end We must prepare ourselves for the elements I just want to feel like we’re strong We don’t need a code of morality
I like all the mixed emotion and anger It brings out the animal the power you can feel And feeling so high on this much adrenalin Excited but scary to believe what we’ve become
Saints and sinners Something within us We are lord of flies
Saints and sinners Something willing us To be lord of the flies
The video was shot while Iron Maiden was touring the Holy Land and it’s a typical no frills Iron Maiden production. One thing that I’ve respected about bands like Iron Maiden is that the majority of their music videos are just clips of the band performing. They don’t need to do anything fancy to hold your attention. They just get out there on stage and play the Hell out of every song.
I like to think that this song was directed at whoever it was who convinced her to appear in New Year’s Eve.
I’m happy to say that no one in my life sucks right now. In fact, I’m about to go on a two week vacation with my favorite person in the whole wide world. Fear not, though. I may be gone but I have a lot of posts written out and scheduled to publish until I get back. So, I’ll be on vacation and yet, I’ll still be posting reviews. I often think about this because it’s actually a pretty common occurrence for me to write out a review and then schedule it to publish way later in the year. So, if — God Forbid — I were to die over the next two weeks, I would still be posting reviews all the way through 2021. It would be like my ghost telling you what movies to see …. FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE! That’s kind of neat.
I watched this entire video waiting for a zombie attack or something similar but it didn’t happen. That came as a shock to me because I guess the movies have just preconditioned me to expect any happy day at the beach to end with either zombies or, if it’s a Jean Rollin film, vampires.
Anyway, even though this video doesn’t end with the carnage that I was expecting, the shots of the beach are still nicely atmospheric. The beach shots reminded me a bit of the incredibly depressing scene in Under the Skin where a couple is drowning in the ocean and the only person who around who is capable of saving them is killed by Scarlett Johansson. (Seriously, that scene gave me nightmares.) Don’t ask me where this video was filmed because I don’t know. I’m not an expert on beaches. The closest that I regularly get to the beach is when I go up to my cousin’s house at Lake Texoma. To be honest, most beaches kind of look the same to me. It’s like water, sand, and a bunch of rocks. Sometimes, you might see a jelly fish wash up on the beach. Just the thought of that freaks me out.
One thing I like about this video is that you can read the lyrics while listening to them. As someone who is notorious for mishearing lyrics, I appreciate that. Seriously, I used to try to sing along to songs and people would give me such a hard time because I always ended up getting the lyrics wrong. It was really upsetting and it made me associate many great songs with tears and injured feelings. What’s especially annoying is that my misheard lyrics were often a hundred times better than the actual lyrics.
Of course, to be honest, I’ve never been one of those, “You must listen to the lyrics and ponder what they’re saying about life!” type of music fans. When it comes to music, my main concern is whether or not you can dance to it. I used to have a friend who would force people to listen to songs from certain artists and, while you were listening, you weren’t allowed to speak or dream or anything else. Instead, you were expected to listen to the lyrics so you could discuss what they meant. After a while, it got to be pretty annoying. There’s only so many times that you can say, “This song is about the futility of war and institutionalized misogyny,” before you get bored with it. The last straw, for both me and many of the members of our social circle, came when she got involved with the Occupy Wall Street people and she expected everyone to start listening to folk music. I was like, “Unless there’s a big beat remix of If I Had A Hammer, count me out.” There’s only so many times that you can listen to that Turn, Turn, Turn song before you just want to go off and become the most committed capitalist ever.
I’m still in my disco mood from hosting last Saturday’s #ILikeToWatch live tweet so here’s Yvonne Elliman singing If I Can’t Have You. Technically, this is less a music video and more of a guest appearance on a TV show but, in the 70s, that’s as close as many songs got to getting a music video.
Yvonne Elliman also played Mary Magdalene in Jesus Christ Superstar.If I Can’t Have You was originally written for the Bee Gees but was given to Yvonne after the band decided that they couldn’t make the song work. She did a great job with it because this is one of those songs that you could just listen to a hundred times a day.
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