Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

They don’t have outfits that big. nor codpieces that small.

Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.

“Facilitate” is an active verb, not a weasel word.

American history and black history cannot be separated.

The republican caucus is covering themselves with something, and it is not glory.

DeSantis transforming Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

Anne Laurie is a fucking hero in so many ways. ~ Betty Cracker

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

If you cannot answer whether trump lost the 2020 election, you are unfit for office.

In after Baud. Damn.

The only way through is to slog through the muck one step at at time.

Everybody saw this coming.

Republicans firmly believe having an abortion is a very personal, very private decision between a woman and J.D. Vance.

Human rights are not a matter of opinion!

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

The republican ‘Pastor’ of the House is an odious authoritarian little creep.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

They punch you in the face and then start crying because their fist hurts.

The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Song of the week

Song of the week

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Marvin Gaye, “What Do You Want With Him” (1962)
Here’s an early Marvin Gaye that really wowed me this week. Sometimes I think Motown is kind of overrated by us Boomer types but then a song like this comes along that I never really knew and I can see how good they were all the way back. Does anybody know the documentary Standing in the Shadows of Motown? Great stuff about the session players, like James Jamerson, that had so much to do with creating the label’s signature sound. There’s a Joan Osborne cover of “What Becomes of the Brokenhearted” that spooks me how good it is. I always liked Osborne, even “One of Us,” and that’s kind of a hard thing to admit. But then I feel vindicated when I see something like this (video since yanked, sorry about that, documentary definitely worth seeing!).

What’s been sounding good to you?

Reader Interactions

94Comments

  2. 2.

    patrick II

    What has been sounding good to me is attending a Rodrigo y Gabriela concert last night in Charlottesville, VA. Somehow I lucked into first row seats and to watch these two virtuoso guitarists up close was remarkable. At the endo of the latin/rock flavored concert all 3500 people were standing,dancing and yelling. Most fun I have had at a concert in many years.

  5. 5.

    Steeplejack

    Standing in the Shadows of Motown will be shown on Sundance at 6:00 a.m. and 4:25 p.m. Sunday (EDT).

    Not Motown, but I was listening to the old soul and funk this week. Think I was imagining myself back in the Café du Monde in New Orleans at about 3:00 in the morning. Haven’t been there in years. Need to get back.

    The Meters, “Stormy.”

    Fred Wesley and the J.B.’s, “Dirty Harri.”

    Maybe my Hammond B-3 jones is just itchin’ tonight.

    And this: Charlie Parker and Miles Davis, “My Old Flame.”

  12. 12.

    KRK

    I watched “The Stax Records Story” last night, which was great. Prompted me to revisit some fab stuff from Booker T & the MGs, Sam & Dave, and the Staples Singers.

    ETA: Otis Redding was Stax, not Motown. The documentary tells a great story of how he got signed there.

  16. 16.

    joeyess

    As you all know, (and if you don’t I’m telling you now) this is my go-to blog. Every morning, I open BJ and read some fresh outrage or one of Cole’s misanthropic missives. I love it here.

    Are we still doing Balloon Juicer live band videos?

    If so, I’ll have one ready by the end of May. I enjoyed it when a front pager posted video of a band from the comments section. I would like to see more of it for obvious reasons.

    With that said, I would like to invite anyone that’s interested in unsigned acts to visit my band’s ReverbNation page.

    We’re called Kink Alfred. Go on over, browse around. Do it because I spent the entire day setting this damn thing up.

    BTW, we’ll have an Android/iPhone app available in about a week.

    I know….. stop spamming. Well it isn’t spam unless you’ve been served endless cans of it, so this is the only plea.

    Of course, that doesn’t preclude me from emailing frontpagers with new songs and videos, does it?

    One more thing; The Jethro Tull cover was recorded live. Pretty proud of that.

  18. 18.

    Steeplejack

    @lamh35:

    I used to live in Mobile in the ’70s and went to the jazz festival almost every year. Hell, I went to New Orleans every chance I could. I love that town. It is the best eating city in the country, or at least it was. I haven’t been there since before Katrina.

    The festival was much smaller back then. I remember one night–“Blues and Roots Night”–when I saw the Meters, the Wild Magnolias, some other group (maybe the Wild Tchoupitoulas) and (I think) John Lee Hooker. Epic.

  22. 22.

    joeyess

    @Omnes Omnibus: there will be more to come. We’re recording in a unique and novel way. Digitally, all live 4 mics, a direct line and vocals cut later. I think we’re getting a really good live feel. The Mr. Lennon song was done properly in a studio, but the Tull song was done our way. It’s economical and we’re really getting the hang of it.

  25. 25.

    Spaghetti Lee

    What’s been sounding good to you?

    Still going over my Record Store Day purchases from last weekend (OK, they’re CD’s, but still). Most of them were bands I’d never really listened to before: Portishead, M83, Pere Ubu, Fastball-all love at first listen.

  27. 27.

    muddy

    @Omnes Omnibus: I just can’t get enough of her. My son knew just what would appeal to me out of his kazillion artists that I have never heard of.

    “Forget the bull in the china shop, there’s a china doll in the bullpen…” and then I put down my tools and dance about.

  28. 28.

    Brachiator

    Here’s an early Marvin Gaye that really wowed me this week. Sometimes I think Motown is kind of overrated by us Boomer types

    If Motown is overrated, then the Beatles, the Stones and the Beach Boys are overrated.

    Cool Marvin Gaye jam.

    For Otis Redding, jump over to YouTube and take a listen to his cover of “That’s How Strong My Love Is.”

    (having problems linking from a mobile device.

  42. 42.

    Steeplejack

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    I am still searching for the ultimate go-go dancing clip on YouTube. There are fragmentary glimpses of the promised land here and there, but nothing definitive or satisfying.

    Somehow I feel it should involve Mitch Ryder’s “C.C. Rider”, but this may be a recovered memory from my youth.

    ETA. If AsiangrrlMN shows up, I will unleash the canonical Mavericks video.

  43. 43.

    burnspbesq

    Listening to the new Norah Jones record, thanks to NPR First Listen. Quite a change in feel for her (produced by Danger Mouse). Not sure it’s grabbing me.

  46. 46.

    burnspbesq

    @Steeplejack:

    There’s a clip on YouTube of the Bobby Fuller Four doing “I fought the law” with go-go dancers in jail cells that might do the trick.

  53. 53.

    burnspbesq

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    I can’t even imagine the amount of self-confidence Duncan Wickel had to have in order to go toe-to-toe with Mark O’Connor. Kid can play. Heck, all the kids in that video can play.

  55. 55.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    We listened to television themes tonight while we shot pool. I collected a ton of them over the years. We decided the top 5 were:

    Cheers
    WKRP in Cincinnati
    MASH
    Greatest American Hero
    Monkees

    We had about another 30 in the top 10.

  57. 57.

    Omnes Omnibus

    While pursuing this quest, I stumbled across this. Takes me back to my childhood. I do prefer the Great Society to the Jefferson Airplane. Unfortunately, no go-go dancers.

  61. 61.

    Alison

    Okay totally OT but is there anyone who can explain to me how to fix a javascript problem? Trying to order baseball tickets, but on the payment page, when I try to click the button to add a new credit card to my account, nothing happens and I see the “javascript void 0” thing at the bottom of the window. Same in Firefox and IE. I updated java and still not working. Is there any way I can fix it, or is it something they have to do? HALP.

  63. 63.

    Alison

    Okay nevermind my whining, I just created a new account with a different email. All the other buttons on the dumb page worked except the “add new card” one. Morans.

  67. 67.

    Steeplejack

    @Alison:

    Glad you solved your problem. For future reference, JavaScript is different from Java, so updating the latter wouldn’t affect the former.

    The snippet you gave wants to launch a script upon clicking the button. Also for future reference, sometimes you can’t Ctrl-click on such links to open a new tab, you can only “plain old click.”

  68. 68.

    Steeplejack

    There are a lot of TV themes that are memorable without being great songs. I loved The Rockford Files, but the song was meh. But of course it’s stuck in my brain.

    Most memorable? The Twilight Zone.

    Welcome Back, Kotter had a good song.

  73. 73.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Steeplejack: A fair point. Except that Grace is around the same age as, and, in the time frame, looked rather like my mother, so I don’t really care to associate go-go dancers with her. I know that I first brought Grace to the table here; I am sorry.

  74. 74.

    hamletta

    @Steeplejack: Dude, I got so entranced by the hot Sauza fireman commercial I closed the window without listening to the song!

    Damn, he’s hot!

    I was wondering if “Stormy” was that “Stormy,” and indeed it was. Would have been good to listen to after the hailstorm subsided last night.

    I miss you all, but have to get up at Oh-Fuck-Thirty for DrupalCamp tomorrow. I made the stinkin’ badges, and they’re in my truck. Also the room schedules and the yard signs pointing to the venue.

  75. 75.

    Steeplejack

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Heh. We all have our issues. Who knows what will jump out when we open the doors of memory? I think Nabokov said that. Brinsley Nabokov. On his blog, Fail Pyre.

  77. 77.

    Alison

    @Steeplejack: Ah well – shows how little I know, on the first part.

    What do you mean by “ctrl-click” vs plain old click? I was just trying to normal click a button on the page…

  78. 78.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Jewish Steel: Sanford and Son has to be #1. It avoids the cheese factor of the ones with lyrics. Just beneath the surface of all TV themes is “Standing tall on the wings of our dreams” or some such shit.

  80. 80.

    Steeplejack

    @hamletta:

    Night-night. Have a good day tomorrow.

    I’m about to pack it in myself. Have stayed up past 4:00 a.m. the last two nights, need to pull in the choke chain on the night-owl syndrome. Too late, I know.

  83. 83.

    Steeplejack

    @Alison:

    Ctrl-click is a shortcut to open a link in a new tab, so the current page stays open and available. Like if you’re on this page and Ctrl-click “Next Post” at the top, the page will open in a new tab. (Ctrl-click means hold down the Ctrl key and then click the mouse button. Cmd-click or Cmd-Shift-click on an Apple.)

    Some people get so used to doing this that they have the problem I mentioned above–a JavaScript script won’t run because it doesn’t respond to Ctrl-click, only to a simple click.

    Why, yes, I did do technical support at one time.

  84. 84.

    Alison

    @Steeplejack: Oh I see. I right-click and do “open in new tab” for that. But i tried that with this button thingie and it still didn’t work.

    Oh well. Maybe I will bug them about it if it’s still on my mind tomorrow, but since I was able to work around it…meh :P And now the folks’ anniversary gift is settled, 3.5 months in advance. I rule.

  86. 86.

    MikeJ

    @Alison: I was plotting out some driving around the other day and every single time I see the Gifford Pinchot National Forest I picture Balki walking through the woods.

  87. 87.

    Steeplejack

    @Alison:

    No, if you did a plain click on it and it didn’t work, it’s not working. It’s not you. I went through that whole rigmarole on the off-chance that you were Ctrl-clicking. Like I said, some people get so used to that that it becomes their default click.

  89. 89.

    Alison

    @MikeJ: LOL :) I used to work with a guy named Larry who I know liked me but probably also kind of wanted to kill me eventually for calling him Cousin Larry 90% of the time. (He looked nothing like Mark Linn Baker but he was the only Larry I’d known. I couldn’t help myself)

  90. 90.

    Billy K

    Sometimes I think Motown is kind of overrated by us Boomer types

    Completely. Not that there wasn’t good stuff, but most boomers don’t look past Motown and they run around thinking they have some kind of triumphant understanding of music. Motown was good. It wasn’t the Alpha nor Omega…

    but then a song like this comes along that I never really knew and I can see how good they were all the way back.

    Well, yeah, this was early, before Motown became more interested in generating money than making great music.

    Does anybody know the documentary Standing in the Shadows of Motown?

    I want to punch something when I hear a question like this. Of course we know it; it’s not a deeply held secret. It’s just common knowledge for anyone who makes themself even generally acquainted with the history of popular American music. You are not part of a secret club for watching a fucking documentary that focuses on one of the most popular styles of music in our history.

    There’s a Joan Osborne cover of “What Becomes of the Brokenhearted” that spooks me how good it is. I always liked Osborne, even “One of Us,” and that’s kind of a hard thing to admit.

    FFS…. really?

  93. 93.

    Anne Laurie

    @Yutsano:

    And at one point he actually was funny.

    Story I heard — YMMMV — was that he had writers who were funny. But when some of those writers wanted “too much” credit for the success of Dennis Miller BigShot TeeVee Host, DMBTVH cut them loose like the backstage ingrates he felt them to be, only to discover the cushy job sitting around making up funny lines was a lot harder than he remembered. Fortunately, NineElevenChangedEverything, and Miller is now selling to an audience that doesn’t want — in fact, is actively hostile to — novelty; the fReichtards don’t want new jokes, they want ritual repetition of the established canon of Acceptable Funny Topics. “Take my wife, please, but don’t let the feminazis sell her to That Man in the White House! Hahahahahaha!”

  94. 94.

    gravie

    Got “Standing in the Shadows of Motown” through Netflix and loved it. So much great music and such a great insight into how all the music got made.

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