Zeppelin, pre-united

Five years ago this week, Led Zeppelin fans young and old squeezed their pants full of lemon juice when the band's three surviving golden gods -- Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones - announced that they'd be reuniting for a one-off concert in London. John Bonham's son Jason would man the skins.

The show was part of a tribute to the late Atlantic Records founder Ahmet Ertegun, a renowned champion of global superstars from Ray Charles to the Rolling Stones. All of the proceeds would go to scholarships in his name. For all Zepheads cared, however, the concert could have been held in tribute to desiccated dog dicks.

For the first time since Bonzo's death in 1980, tickets with the words "Led Zeppelin" on them would be printed up and sold to the public. This was big.

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wikipedia.org

Note: This is a rerun of a popular post from Mr. Allin's birthday last year. We'd be remiss in not sharing our some of the outlaw scumbag's best quotes on a day like this.

Today would have been shock-rock icon GG Allin's 56th birthday, making him a senior citizen. But hell, we doubt the man/force of nature would have made to the 21st century, unless he made a radical and annoying left-hand turn into normalcy.

The singer, born Jesus Christ Allin, died on June 28 1993 after a heroin overdose, not quite dying onstage the way he wanted, and was probably supposed to. We wouldn't mind dying while writing or seeing a concert ourselves. He left behind a band, The Murder Junkies, and a brother, Merle, who continue GG's stanky legacy to this day.

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What's worse: A movie geared towards kids and teens or the soundtrack to a movie geared towards kids and teens?

It's a tough call because both can be pretty awful and uninspired. Sure, Ferris Bueller's Day Off is great and had an excellent soundtrack but let's not fool ourselves: We all sat through a ton of bad movies filled with bad songs growing up. (Perhaps some of these -- ed.)

At some point in the late '80s and early '90s, someone in a boardroom somewhere decided that the key to selling more soundtracks to America's youth was rap music. More than that, the key to album sales wasn't having rappers on the soundtrack; the key was having people rap about the movie the kids had just watched.

It's not difficult to imagine that there are thousands of kids out there who first discovered rap music via the end credits of whatever Saturday matinee their parents took them to. You might remember "Ninja Rap," but do you remember blasting classics in your cassette player?

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Sshhh... Just let the radness overtake you.

If my gym is any indication, Olympics Fever is spurring folks into action. There used to be plenty of elliptical machines, barbells, and room in the pool available during the time of day I would go. Now it seems like every elliptical machine is taken except the one in front of the wonky TV that only ever picks up staticky Fox News, the line for a lane to open up in the pool looks like the line to get into a Tony Bennett concert -- old people love the pool -- and the barbells section is in total disarray from newbies who bit off way more than they could chew, felt something pop, and limped the hell out of there, leaving the barbells to lie where they fell.

Yes, seeing the ultimate victories of total strangers who have been busting their asses to obssessive-compulsive levels their entire lives has given people who would have otherwise let their gym memberships quietly leech $25 a month out of their debit accounts the will to go work out.

Which is great! We're all for motivation, however it happens. But it fades so quickly, doesn't it? In another short week, the Olympics will be over. How will Pavlov's gym rats find the will to get back inside the gym without hearing John Williams' hypertrumpets blasting the Olympic fanfare 200 times a day?

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The WWF may have been the most patriotic American institution during the '80s and '90s; it turned Hulk Hogan into one of the biggest symbols of patriotism in recent memory. But there's a fine line between patriotism and nationalism, which the WWF straddled for years.

By using jingoist superstars like Hogan and Hacksaw Jim Duggan, American wrestling took stereotypes from different countries and turned them into tangible, unforgettable characters. These characters were real-life representations of how America perceived other countries... and most of those characters were played by Americans.

The "foreign heels," as they are referred to in wrestling, are villainous characters or the "bad guys" in wrestling plots. They can exhibit unlikable personality traits specific to their background or behave immorally, but the point of their existence is to antagonize the "face" (the crowd favorite).

We've found a few of the most cringe-worthy foreign heels of the WWF/WWE during the '80s and '90s. Rest assured that the foreign heels haven't been worn down in the past two decades, either.

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The surviving members of the Kings of Rock, Run-D.M.C., will headline Austin's Fun Fun Fun Fest November 2-4 at Auditorium Shores, the festival announced this morning. The performance will be Joseph "Run" Simmons and Darryl "D.M.C." McDaniels' first since DJ/producer and founding member Jam Master Jay's 2002 murder.

DMC will also perform songs from his new album will his live band, as well as Run-D.M.C. favorites like "My Adidas," "Peter Piper," "King of Rock," "Christmas In Hollis," "Mary Mary" and, well, lots more. A portion of the proceeds will be donated to the JMJ Foundation for Music, which provides underprivileged children with access to the arts.

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Photos by Victor Pena

The English Beat

The English Beat, The Romantics
Fitzgerald's
June 15, 2012

I've often wondered if people who experienced the '80s in adulthood had as much fun as the music still makes it sound today. Probably not, but try coming of age on the cusp of the '90s and all these rain-clouded Seattle bands pissing all over everyone's parade or borderline-comatose college-rockers like Pavement or Sebadoh mumbling all the time. Oof.

So if there's a ribbon of truth to the musical urban legend that the last time someone in a band smiled onstage was sometime in 1991, Dave Wakeling's grin threatened to blind the Fitzgerald's audience. Not to be all Pollyanna, but Wakeling and the rest of the English Beat's set upstairs Friday night was a solid hour-plus ray of sunshine without all the unpleasant heat-related connotations such an allusion might mean during a Houston summer.

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In the late '70s and early '80s, England was something of a musical petri dish as scores of bands blended genres of music and, in the process, sometimes created whole new ones. It was also the heyday of bands like Madness, The Specials and The Selecter who blended a punk energy with ska and reggae sounds. It became known as the "Two Tone" style, named for the record label that recorded many of the acts.

At the forefront of the movement was The Beat, known in the U.S. as the English Beat. The multiracial group consisted of Dave Wakeling (vocals/guitar), Ranking Roger (vocals), Andy Cox (guitar), David Steele (bass), Everett Morton (drums), and Saxa (saxophone).

They released just three records, I Just Can't Stop It ('80), Wha'ppen? ('81) and Special Beat Service ('82) before dissolving, with Wakeling and Roger starting General Public and Cox and Steele creating Fine Young Cannibals.

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Much like pro wrestling, video games are another part of pop culture easily referenced by the modern artist, whether it's Styles P checking Red Dead Redemption in "B.M.F. (Blowing Money Fast)," Del The Funky Homosapian's love letter to video games "Proto Culture" or Childish Gambino sampling the music from Donkey Kong Country for "Eat Your Vegetables."

Pac-Man wasn't the first arcade game or the best game of all time, but it was a landmark in video-game history and became part of the fabric of pop culture. Unfortunately, America's favorite pellet-chewer hasn't had a lot of songs written in his honor.

Ask someone to name a song about Pac-Man. Since this is Houston, the obvious choice would be Lil' Flip's "Game Over." However, if that person hasn't studied up on their Houston hip-hop history, they'd have to go all the way back 30 years to find another big song about Pac-Man.

But "Pac-Man Fever" wasn't the last video-game song for the pair known as Buckner & Garcia. It was only the beginning.

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http://en.wikipedia.org

Disco, that uniquely '70s, coke-laden, soulful, brash and flamboyant genre, was Public Enemy #1 for rockers and punks in the latter half of the Me Decade. Hippies and suburbanites cut their hair, stuffed their noses and took to the dance floors, tripping the light fantastic in their best polyester until the sun came up or the clown powder out.

Disco is dying. Long live disco. Within the past few days, both Donna Summer and Bee Gee Robin Gibb have succumbed to cancer at the ages of 63 and 62, respectively.

The only living Bee Gee left is brother Barry; brother Maurice died back in 2003. Summer said months before she died that she thought her lung cancer was due to exposure to dust from the 9/11 attacks.

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