On February 1st, 1982 David Letterman launched the Late Night Show on NBC.  As you can tell by its overly dramatic and irony fueled science fiction opening, Dave was far ahead of his time.  Understanding David Letterman’s genius is partly based on knowing what a clear cut revolutionary comic visionary he was.  Not only was he fully secure in his own comic voice, always bleeding confidence over every comedy beat, he was a broadcasting natural, just a seemingly perfect physical fit for the television medium.  When Dave is on TV, he is just in his natural environment.  It’s really harder to imagine the man in real life, and according to those who work with him and know him, the real Dave is a neurotic and socially awkward mess of a man.  TV Dave is the complete opposite, a titanic colossus of confidence and  razor edged awareness.  His first show on NBC is just a remarkable time capsule of his talent and impact, and I got all 7 parts for you to devour below.  You’ll get Dave at his most classic, giving you a bizarre monolog poking fun at himself and NBC.  You’ll get a hilarious tour of the NBC studios, and you’ll get Bill Murray being young and brilliant.  Oh yea, you get Mr. Wizard too.  This is awesome, so check it out and brighten up your late night.

“Imagine” is the sort of song played by rock stars young and old to honor the memory of dearly departed John Lennon.  It’s kind of sad in a way that its turned into a memorial dirge of sorts, obscuring it’s utopian message of peace and harmony due its tragic association with the author’s horrible death.  It’s because of that negative energy that I prefer to hear to “Imagine” sung by John in live settings.  It’s in moments like the one presented in the video below, that we get to see a vital and hopeful Johnny croon out his most popular solo song without grim specters of his his murder or world apocalypse hanging over everybody.  It’s a thoroughly enjoyable and low-key performance that highlights John’s love for baseball jerseys and his wife’s bongo playing.  Give it a spin.

I was sneaking under a bus parked over a snowy muddy pit.  I jostled a hinge holding the front of the truck to the freight, and it began to collapse on me.  As it caved in on me, I genuinely thought I was going to die.  This was the phrase that went through my mind, “This is the end of Willie Simpson…”  (lame I know.)  The truck hadn’t completely caved, so I dashed away from the pit and jumped just as the freight tipped over and crushed the bottom of my legs.  I couldn’t feel a thing and I assumed I was in extreme shock.  I was wrong, I had just woken up from an intense dream.  Naturally shaken by such a thing, I went right to my website, which I forgot to update yesterday, and found “#9 Dream,” the John Lennon single from Walls and Bridges that peaked on the Billboard Charts at #9.  Nine was John’s lucky number as he was born on the 9th day of October, and accorded it special status in his life, already borrowing it for “Revolution #9.”  He wrote the song when he was broken up with Yoko Ono, and living with May Pang in Los Angeles, in fact she’s in the backing vocals.  Other famous “Beatle friend” luminaries include the presence of bassist Klaus Voorman, (the German who discovered the Beatles in Hamburg), Nicky Hopkins, (famous British piano player who jammed frequently with the Beatles, Rolling Stones, and Kinks), and Jim Keltner on drums, (a famous session man who appeared on all the solo Beatle records and a zillion other super famous mega acts albums.)  Lastly, that mysterious phrase Lennon chants throughout the song, “Ah! böwakawa poussé, poussé” has no meaning whatsoever and is exclusively from the dream that inspired the song.  Enjoy the tune, as its one of John’s best solo efforts, and be careful in your dreams, or you might wake up thinking your dead.

EDIT:  When I posted this at 7 am this morning, I had no idea, that today, would have been John Lennon’s 71’st Birthday.  How’s that for Instant Karma!?

I was sitting around in Portland, Maine yesterday with nothing better to do, when on came the “Coneheads” movie.  I haven’t seen in quite sometime, but its one of those movies where you just have to sit through the whole thing.  I was amazed at the parade of 90s comedy superstars appearing in one scene after another.  Not only did you have original SNL stars Dan Aykroyd and Jane Curtin in their iconic roles, you had Seinfeld stars Jason Alexander and Michael Richards, mega comedy stars Adam Sandler, Phil Hartman, and Drew Carey, and even film indie stars like Parker Posey and Joey Lauren Adams.  When the film was released, it was a commercial dud, but I’ll be damned if it isn’t a cult classic. It contains Chris Farley’s best supporting role ever caught on film, where he plays the unlikely love interest Ronnie, and its riffs on the US immigration experience and laws are spot on and brilliant.  Anyway, I couldn’t get enough of the film, especially the scene where Beldar Conehead gets a 35 mm Kodak camera filled with glorious Kodachrome color film, and shoots his life on Earth with his family in the late seventies and eighties.  It’s a brilliant sequence set to Paul Simon’s classic hit song, “Kodachrome,” from his 1973 There Goes Rhymin’ Simon record.  Bit of trivia, the song was banned by the BBC in England for its use of a trademarked commercial item in the lyrics…kinda unfair considering how much commercialism is imprinted on our lives…just ask Andy Warhol.  So below, check out a sweet homemade “Kodachrome” video someone made, as well as the trailer for the legendary “Coneheads” film….See you next zearl!

Sorry for the disturbing lack of updates, but I was busy packing up my Brooklyn apartment and heading north for Maine.  I’ve got three weeks in beautiful Portland before I head across the world to South Korea and Australia.  I’m happy to be out of the city and hear crickets out my window, as four and a half years in New York really drains the nature out of you.  I couldn’t be more excited for my trip across the Pacific, and I’m reminded of four other guys who had to get away from it all, the fab four.  The rare song you are about to hear was NOT recorded by the Beatles, but rather its a solo John number from 1980 that he made reflecting on the journey he took just 12 years prior.  John was beginning to feel sentimental about his life, emotions reflected strongly in his last record Double Fantasy.  “India, India” didn’t survive the cutting room floor of that record, but luckily it survives the cutting room floor of history.  It’s a pretty psychedelic folk ballad with a wistful haunting melody.  Enjoy.

Beulah was formed in a mail room in San Fransisco when Miles Kurosky and Bill Swan decided they both liked the same music, well mostly.  This is the kind of story yours truly can get behind due to own desire to hatch great ideas when I worked in a mail room.  Robert Schneider of the Apples in Stereo hooked them into Elephant 6 when he heard their first demo, and before you knew it, Beulah was one of E6’s shining stars of indie rock.  The thing I love about the Elephant 6 Collective was how they all intermingled with each other and helped out other bands when they recorded and went on tour.  The “collective” part of the moniker was no bullshit, as this was a band of boys and girls who all loved the same music, and all dreamed of becoming rock stars.  They remind me of the way certain underground comedy teams were forming around this time in the mid 90s like Upright Citizens Brigade and the State.  Creative young people in the 90s all saw the value in sharing, working together, and having fun, despite rivalries, which were never too serious.  Beulah is that band, constantly swapping members with Of Montreal, Olivia Tremor Control, and the Apples.  Musically, Beulah has a gorgeous storytelling quality to their songs.  Most of them begin somewhere in the middle, and the music is so energetic and uplifting, that you just go along for the ride, no matter how out of context the lyrical content seems.  The only thing I know about “Gene Autry” is that it was released on 9/11/01, bestowing it’s sweet sadness with even more mysticism.  “Emma Blowgun’s Last Stand” has some of the greatest lyrics you’ll find in an indie rock song.  Lastly, my favorite, “Ballad of the Lonely Agronaut,” I’ve played 1000 times.  I always kept swept up in its tale of American exploration, and its ceaselessly catchy structure.  The song bursts out the gate with an enthusiastic melody that just hooks you instantly.  Also, the line, “gold is coated with gold on the languid hills, where they wait for hours and hours, cool grey ladies from Shirley’s loan us cheer, as they sat for hours and hours,” is so wonderful, and I have no idea what it means, but its been stuck in my head forever.  Beulah broke up in 2004 because their last record, Yoko, despite the best reviews of their career, failed to go gold, a huge goal for the band never reached.  The recording of that album, which featured the breakup of Miles and his long term girlfriend, and three other band member divorces, was dark and difficult, and took its toll on the group’s psyche.  It was a bit of a burnout for one of the most unique and creative bands of the late 90s/early 00’s, but they certainly left a legacy as one of America’s best underground bands with one of the most devoted fan bases.

Revolution, liberty, discovery, and moral courage.  These were themes prevalent in Ted Kennedy’s eulogy for his brother Bobby, after his insane assassination in 1968.  Drawing directly from one of Bobby’s greatest speeches, Ted quoting Bobby, said that, “Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope.  And crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.” Well, I don’t know about you, but that’s one of the greatest things I’ve ever heard or read.  To me, it encapsulates the frontier thinking that marked the cultural and social revolutions going on in the 1960s.  Bobby originally gave that speech in apartheid afflicted South Africa in 1966, where racism and intolerance were raging.  Ted’s eulogy for his brother was also perhaps his finest moment and speech, summing up his brother’s life by stating that “his brother not need to be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life,” and that “he be remembered as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, and saw war and tried to stop it.”  It’s at this point, where Ted’s voice begins to quaver, and he delivers Bobby’s greatest thought ever, “some men see things as they are, and say why, I dream things that never were, and say why not.”

I’m not ready to leave John’s 1972 concert just yet.  Yesterday I posted about “Come Together,” and in the past I posted the live performance of “Cold Turkey.”   Despite the fact that Yoko only released the inferior afternoon version of the show, as opposed to the superior evening version, there are still incredible worthwhile performances to be had, and John’s performance of “Mother” is one of them.  “Mother” is the unofficial sequel to John’s Beatle song “Julia” from the White Album.  Julia Lennon was struck down by an  drunk driving off duty police officer when he was 17.  Her death was already the 3rd or 4th tragic moment in a young life that was quickly piling up memorable scenes of wretched heartbreak.  By that point, young John already had to deal with the sorted split up between his parents which included an aborted kidnapping, the death of his uncle George, the strict surrogate parenting of his aunt Mimi, the discovery that his mother had another family whom all lived down the road without his knowledge, and the complete abandonment of his father who provided no support and lived in New Zealand.  The death of his mother, who he had just begun a reconciliation with, pushed John over the edge personality wise and hardened his soul.  The song “Mother” is the result of a bunch of soul searching and therapy, and is subsequently a triumph of someone who refused to be swallowed up by sadness, bitterness, and rage.  It’s one of John’s best songs, and one of my favorites too.  BTW, today is the last day to vote me in as CBS’s Best Local NYC Blogger, so, cast me one last vote for all time’s sake!  Thanks.

They say elephants never forget, and they also say fuck Yoko Ono.  When John Lennon played Madison Square Garden Live in 1972, he played an afternoon show and an evening show.  “Elephant’s Memory,” the backup band for John, claimed that the evening show was far superior, but upon releasing this concert  in 1986, long after John’s death, Yoko decided to use the inferior afternoon show  as the basis for the album and the concert video.  Why?  Nobody knows what Yoko is thinking.  She probably thinks that her performances in the afternoon show were better than her performances in the evening show, which is insane, because nobody could possibly care.  The tapes and video of the evening show are locked away forever, or maybe even destroyed, and we might never get to see them thanks to the brilliant Yoko.  Yoko did the same thing for the Mind Games video where she took a raw 19 hours of footage, shot by college kids who followed John Lennon around for a day, and condensed it to a precious 4 minutes!  In that 19 hours you can supposedly see John Lennon making an appearance at Radio City Music Hall, where the “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band On The Road” was playing.  He apparently got a 20 minute standing ovation that he described as one of the greatest moments of his life, and proceeded to sit down on organ and play with the house band.  Why this footage is not released is beyond me.  I actually rather wish I knew it never existed, then to think Yoko’s got it hidden away somewhere for no one to see.  Blah, that’s the end of my rant.  Enjoy John’s performance of “Come Together,” a song originally written as a way to get people to vote LSD guru Timothy Leary as governor of California.  It’s a little historical tidbit that’s a perfect segue for me to champion my status as finalist in the CBS Best Local NYC Blogger award one last time!  Tomorrow is the last day of voting, and you can STILL vote for me, even if you’ve already voted!  Once a day counts, so click that link and put me over the top! 

I had a fun Labor Day weekend.  I crossed the Williamsburg Bridge on foot for the first time, explored Greenpoint, went to a great BBQ in Sheepshead Bay, got free tickets to the Museum of Natural History, hung out in Chinatown eating at the legendary Wo-Hop, and had a Belgium Chocolate milkshake at Haagen Dazs.  Basically, I was all over New York City, taking in the city I love before I depart for South Korea and Australia next month.  One great thing about this city is its history of rock and roll music, and no band in recent memory has blazed the torch for New York cool more than the Strokes.  At once both declared the saviors of rock and roll, and everything wrong with it, the Strokes have persisted for ten years now.  Coming out right after 9/11, the Strokes rock harder than ever, at least they do live, and it all started with their debut single, “Last Nite.”  When this single came out, I was 17 years old, starving for a new rock band to break into the pop scene and change the awful commercial images that dominated the depleted American cultural landscape at the time.  A lot of people would argue that the Strokes were depleted themselves, merely presenting a retread of the early 80s post punk rock movement, but I didn’t subscribe to that theory.  I saw them for what they were, rock stars writing catchy, exciting, and tasteful songs.  They were cool, and they still are.  Stroke on Strokes, and remember to vote me as CBS’s Best Local NYC Blogger by clicking here!