Can You Hold Your Fingers Like This?

Wayne Raney and Lonnie Glosson, harmonica players, teach you how to play guitar, if you can hold your fingers like that.

A Recommendation

Went on my annual pilgrimage to See Reverend Horton Heat last night, who put on a spectacular show as always, with an added "History of Music" that left one feeling as if the price of the ticket was well worth it.

I came to the conclusion that mosh pit people are basically unable to get laid. This is, in effect, moshing's raison d'etre- a sexstitute. They just have that look. A look that says, "I will somehow lack whatever it is you need to be attracted to in order to tryst." How the f*@k do you mosh to "Happy Camper"? Anyway, a bit of advice: when they come for you, lean in.

The real treat, for which, due to scheduling conflicts, we were only able to hear the last three songs of, was what I as of last night, consider to be possibly the greatest rock n' roll band ever: Nashville Pussy.
I felt like I dropped into a Robert Rodriguez film.

They were.......

Van-Tazdick.

Not only was the outrageousness turned up to 11, they were mixed well and tight. Others only hope to rock; Nashville Pussy is the touchstone for rocking. They could be the house band for House of 1001 Corpses, Kill Bill 3, and any other film with guts and elan you can imagine. The stage presence is amazing: stringy-haired trucker-hatted front man with two wild uber babes on guitar and bass, with a drummer that looked like he was ripped directly from the pages of an EC Comic. Here's their wiki, 'cos I still don't know who they are or anything. They're in Washington tonight, NYC tomorrow. GO. They're on first, like who, so get there early and don't make my mistake.

In the middle was Hank III and unfortunately, despite a great fiddler, slide guitar player, and bassist, it fell short - followed by the grandson of Hank Williams playing 45 minutes of non-sequituresque thrashmetalpunkyellingchants as their alter ego, Assjack. The first half's sound could've been at a casino (as my son so aptly put it) and the second half just was like a 200 decibel explanation of the rules of cricket. Don't get me wrong - there was a lot of good about his band, but Nashville Pussy pretty much killed them for me.

I was however mesmerized by two band members: The fiddler, who possessed an expression of such deep-seated glee at playing the fiddle, that I don't think you could find a happier more authentic looking country fiddler in all the picture books of country music in the universe. And the bass player- who provided an unrelenting kaleidoscope of asexually framed hatred, pain, confusion, hurt, indignance, and perverse introversion on his face - he was fascinating, and if I were casting a horror movie, this guy would have a job in about 5 minutes.

This picture doesn't even come close to the experience of him gesticulating wildly with obscene and/or hostile finger positions (like mudras of hate and pain and anger) while screaming profane epithets at the audience at the conclusion of a song....... Genius:



Last: Here's some images- the futility of phonecamming in that type of environment leads one to get all impressionistic as a way of salvaging them - first Nashville Pussy Followed by two Horton Heats:




But - OHHHHH! None are wallpapers - f#@*k it!

Pop Gear

Let me start by saying that I went through all my old vids and maybe only one or two weren't on YouTube already.

Having said that, I recently watched Pop Gear again. This movie has some phenomenally oddball performances. Annnnnd....90% of them were in fact on YouTube. So- I gleaned 'em and here's a bunch well worth a look.

It's introduced by Jimmy Savile - possibly king of the jerkoffs. (Okay, okay, great guy etc., etc.- but hey I ain't English!)

HOWEVER- first up is something from that film that wasn't on YouTube: the gold pants dance sequence - if you like gold pants like I do, then this video is for you. You're welcome for the upload, massive fan base!



Comes next, (as my son used to say when he was a baby) is the Honeycombs singing Have I the Right, which is notable for two reasons:
The friggin' mentally-challenged-cousin-type on rhythm guitar, and the fact that the drummer, I'm pretty sure, is a dude in drag....



Tommy Quickly gives a performance of Humpty Dumpty that can only be described as excruciating. I want to punch his face off every time I see it. If I didn't have such a nice TV, I might punch it. This video infuriates me so.......

I'm punching you in my mind Tommy Quickly! In fact, I'm punching punching itself!!



UPDATE could this be another version of a sort of cultural idiom? Help me, massive fan base!!!


The Four Pennies doing Where Did you Sleep Last Night ain't no Leadbelly, but their interpretation is such a screamingly loud (for the era) go at it, sort of an end-of-folk-Dylan-at-Isle-of-Wight event, that it's quite enjoyable.



Billie Davis singing Whatcha Gonna Do? is like watching a live Thunderbirds character singing. Exquisite. Dee-lish. Helium-y. Puppet - puppet - puppet.



Steve Winwood in the Spencer Davis Group stands as exemplar of some of the great performances from this film (The Animals, Herman's Hermits, et al) so I'm including it.



Last is the creepy butt dance being done by the Roger Daltrey clone in this performance of Tobacco Road by the Nashville Teens (whatta name!) The Butt dance is mesmerizing in a scoliosis/back brace/uncontrolled intestinal problem kinda way. The performance is good tho.


All the great performances, with the exception of Matt Munro, a super boring lounge singer, will be watched over and over by me.

Wanna buy it?
Go Here:

The Reverend Horton Heat - Last Friday Night!

Abosultely the rockinest, on fire-est, show you can go to. He never plays the same song list twice and this time he really dug deep. Buy all his albums now. There was a suprisingly self-contained mosh pit as well. Kind of anachronistic tho. They seemed like the equivalent of people who get dressed up in 50's outfits..

Her's a pic of the Rev standing on top of Jimbo's Bass - Jimbo's there, too. Down low.

(link to a 1024 above)

Here's another "shot":


Now here's a mystery explained: I always thought that the Rev was portraying a chicken (possibly a guinea hen) antagonizing an insect, child, or other barnyard animal (as portrayed by Jimbo) in the following clip:

But then he explained that after playing Atlantic City the night before and crossing the mighty Delaware on his way to Philadelphia, his pathological fear of Bottlenose Dolphin was reawakened. I now get it- predatory swimming and a sinister dolphin cackle on guitar - it's not a chicken at all - it's a dolphin attacking a swimmer!!!!

Luckily that huge Bass makes a great flotation device......