Mark McDermott
Your source for uninformed rants on popular culture!
Monday, June 20, 2016
Thursday, September 13, 2012
The Return of Musical Cheese! Sept 12, 2012
Musical Cheese Practice Show: Sept 12, 2012 on WIIT 88.9 FM
A little instrumental break here:
Some Classical Gassers:
Maybe I'll feature songs that reference super-heroes each week:
A selection whose cultural importance I labored hard to explain:
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Musical Cheese II: The saga continues!
Now, I don't know how long I'll be doing this little broadcast from the studios of WIIT. There may be a job coming down the line that keeps me from coming in for class, who knows? The next podcast could be my last!
So I learned a few things after last week's opening salvo. First, the Virtual DJ software on my Windows netbook is by default expecting a soundcard installed with two outputs: one for cue and one for air. So whenever I dropped an MP3 track on one of the cue decks, a channel on the song playing on air would cut out. Finally found the configuration to acknowledge that there's just the one stereo output. Now if I can just figure why the plug feeding the sound board only plays the right channel (I tried my headphone in the jack, that's pure stereo). For the sake of this podcast, I tracked the right channel into both ears.
My topic for the broadcast came to me after watching the Grammy Awards the previous Sunday. Another slate of Best New Artist nominees that by legend would never be heard from again. Checking the lists of previous nominees and winners, that see that isn't so much the case today as it was in the 1970's. I think Christina Aguilera has gone on to better things after her win. But there were some nominees so obscure that they didn't even have a Wikipedia article about them yet. But I still found an MP3 of the J's with Jamie, so their mark on internet posterity may yet be made. And I should have known when putting together a playlist of Best New Artist nominees, I'd be rutting out the greatest piece of musical cheese ever recorded!
Note: "Johnny Get Angry" by Joanie Somers reminded me that it's one of a very small group of pop hits to use a kazoo. The only other ones I could think of offhand was "You're Sixteen" by Ringo Starr and "Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die Rag" by Country Joe and the Fish–which was not really a "pop" hit. But once again, the Internet comes to the rescue!
And yes, the Ace Frehley version of "New York Groove" starts out draggy. A previous DJ had messed with the pitch control of the CD deck and not set it back to normal. I tried to speed it up a little bit in GarageBand.
And of course, all the songs below have links to purchase a copy for your very own on iTunes, or another source if possible!
New York Groove--Hello (1975)
New York Groove--Ace Frehley (1978)
I Was Made for Lovin' You--Kiss--12" single (1979)
The Way of Love--Cher--Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves (1972)
Acid Queen--Tina Turner--Tommy Soundtrack (1975)
Special Feature: Select Best New Artist Grammy Nominees:
Let's Not Be Sensible--The J's with Jamie (1963)
Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah--Allan Sherman--My Son the Nut (1983)
A Walk in the Black Forest--Horst Jankowski--Hard to Find Pop Instrumentals ii--(1965)
The Shape I'm In--Johnny Restivo (1959)
Afternoon Delight--Starland Vocal Band--Super Hits of the 70's v. 18 (1876)
Hey Deanie--Shaun Cassidy--Super Hits of the 70s (1978)
Feelings--Morris Albert--Super Hits of the 70s v. 17 (1975)
Rock On--David Essex (1974)
59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy) - Feelin' Groovy--Harpers Bizarre (1967)
Joanie Sommers--Johnny Get Angry--Hard to Find 45s on CD Vol.5 (1962)
Steal Away--Robbie Dupree (1980)
Whispering/Cherchez La Femme/C'est Si Bon--Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band (1977)
What a Difference a Day Makes (Disco version)--Esther Phillips (1975)
Rock and Roll--Boswell Sisters (1934)
Jolly Fellows Waltz--Peerless Orchestra (1904)
Tumbling Tumbleweeds--Sons of the Pioneers (1934)
Matchbox--Blind Lemon Jefferson (1927)
Mule Skinner Blues--The Fendermen (1960)
Itchy Chicken--Los Straitjackets--Viva Los Straitjackets (1005)
Who Listens to the Radio--The Sports--Mushroom Evolution Concept (1978)
Sex (I'm A...)--Berlin--12" single version (1983)
I'm on Fire--5000 Volts (1975)
Sometimes A River--String Cheese Incident--One Step Closer (2005)
Highway 40 Unplugged--Brak--Space Ghost's Musical BarBQ
Gone, Gone, Gone--Charlie Feathers--single (1967)
Monday, February 13, 2012
Back in the Booth! My Musical Cheese show
It's something I've awaited for 25 years. I had promised myself that, if by some chance I got myself affiliated with a school or college with a radio station, I would get myself an air shift!
And that one-class certificate course I'm taking at Illinois Institute of Technology is my ticket.
Once I knew I would be going to the downtown campus for a class, I signed up to do a radio shift on WIIT-FM, broadcasting from the campus center on State St.
The orientation was pretty quick and easy. Now mind you, the last time I played music on the radio was before the station at Bowling Green U. had any CD players installed. Now at orientation, the Tech Director asks "so, is anyone going to be bringing CDs?" Turns out most people just bring a laptop with DJ software installed. And they have turntables, but due to the problem of theft, I would have to provide head shell and needle for two Technics 1200 turntables. The guy says they've got a grant for new equipment that will be installed starting in March, but for now we're "stuck" using a board from the 1970s. All right by me, I started out on boards from the 1950s.
For a while, I've highlighting my favorite obscure, silly or otherwise annoying old songs when I hear them on iTunes, and tagging them as "Musical Cheese." So that's the title of my new show. Featuring the stuff your parents forgot about when they said music was so much better in their time. So watch for my show to contain bad 70s earworms, unusual or obscure tunes from through recording history, and some of the comedy stuff that we played the crap out of back in the 70s. Hey, everything old is new again.
Monday, January 16, 2012
My weekend vinyl pleasures
Iggy Pop, Lust for Life (1977) remains, how shall I put it, "timeless." It's title track is a tribute to Iggy's long career as a heroin addict that would never get airplay if recorded today. It was used in its proper context in the movie Trainspotting, then was appropriated by clueless advertising execs for a cruise line's TV campaign. How Family-friendly!
Renaissance, Novella (1977). Even if you've had it with Prog Rock, this is a slightly refreshing package, made different by having a female lead singer in Annie Haslam, and a greater emphasis on classical and European folk elements over rock, though sometimes it's every bit as bombastic as Emerson, Lake & Palmer.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
The Hobbit Condensed
Now another long-lost film has resurfaced, this one with a slightly bizarre history. But it offers insight to the weird world of movie making. The link below has the actual YouTube, and I am encouraging you to visit the fun that is Cartoon Brew to see the video. But the condensed version of this condensed version is this: in 1964, when J.R.R. Tolkein was just another fantasy author on Ballantine's backlist, the author's estate sold the movie rights to "The Hobbi" to a producer named William Snyder, who had done some work with Deitch and had picked up Deitch's Oscar for his cartoon "MONRO" in 1961. Snyder pitches Deitch on the project, he works up a screenplay, and makes a pitch for a full-blown animated venture to 20th Century Fox, which turns them down flat.
Meantime, by 1966, "Lord of the Rings" has been issued in paperback and Tolkein is now a cult favorite. J.R.R.'s estate gets a bigger offer for "The Hobbit," and prepares to let their contract with Snyder expire within a month, so they don't have to pay him anything.
Snyder notes that the contract only stipulated that he deliver "a full-color film adaptation of 'The Hobbit'" by deadline time. No mention of how long it had to be, nor how GOOD it had to be. So Snyder tells Deitch to tear up his script and produce a quickie animated version on one reel of film within 30 days. Which he does. Note that the movie is not so much animated as it is a still life with camera pans. But Snyder delivers a film, Tolkein's estate learns a valuable lesson about Hollywood contract, and "The Hobbit" and the whole "Lord of the Rings" trilogy passes through several hands over the next 25 years, briefly emerging as a made-for-TV cartoon and an odd bit by Ralph Bakshi, before emerging full-blown with Peter Jackson.
I'm just glossing in details. Click the link below for more of the story.
http://www.cartoonbrew.com/classic/gene-deitchs-the-hobbit.html
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
There's something you don't see every day
Now I'm not sure that I've ever seen a Rolls on the road at all before, let alone in a repair shop. This is in spite of the fact that the shop is located across the street from a Bentley dealer.
According to what I know, and I'll admit that sometimes isn't a lot, the urban legend goes that whenever a Rolls "fails to proceed" (they never do such commonplace things a "break down," yew know), a factory representative will arrive nearly instantaneously to effect repair. It certainly wouldn't do for the silver Lady to be seen in a common breakdown yard sharing space with some tawdry German hussy, or even, >gasp!< a Hyndai.
Well, the car was gone the next day, though the Jag was still there.
Tuesday, July 05, 2011
Whadya got when ya got no lights?
What we did have back at the ranch was a power outage that lasted just over 24 hours. This is longer than we've ever been without power in our Chicago area dwellings. For the most part, any storm usually knocked us out for an hour. So we just figured we wouldn't need to take extraordinary measures to save our refigerator, like buying bagged ice, until it was too late. Besides, many of the nearest stores were also still without power.
Well, we mostly ended up tossing leftovers and opened packages. The guides we consulted said anything in a chest freezer was probably good for up to 48 hours, but I'm the one taking those chances here.
We did discover what resources we still had available while we had no electricity.
- Landline Phones. Sure, the cordless sets in our house were knocked out. Luckily I still had one ole fashioned receiver plugged in, in the basement.
- Cell Phones. We weren't foolish enough to try and get a signal during the actual storm. But of course our cells had enough juice to take us to the next day, when we could still drive to work and plug in the phones to recharge there.
- Hot water. You don't think much about it, but a basic gas water heater depending on a pilot flame has no electrical components. Hot showers all around!
One thing we did discover, with a couple of kids in the house, was the need to keep kid drinks around with a longer shelf life. In fact, the power finally came back on while I was at Jewel, picking up juice boxes, cans of evaporated milk, and those asceptic containers of Horizon Organic Milk, and just for a change, some "Almond Milk." Plus a Sam Adams Summer variety pack for Daddy.
Monday, June 27, 2011
Hiding out and Hanging out
My detached garage has no electricity, though it might be within reach of my Mac Mini's Air Port. But let's say you just want to go someplace away from the usual coffee shops and just sit in a quiet spot?
Here is:
#1 College Extension Campus Buildings
My current temp assignment is at the "Naperville Campus" of Northern Illinois University. A nice big, recent building along one of the many Corporeta lining the tollway. During the summer its practically empty except for the occasional seminar. You can be it's Wi-Fi enabled. And it has plenty of lounging areas besides the classrooms. Pretty much anyone can walk in, and there's a small cafe, too.
Now I haven't tested the Wi-Fi, and it may be you need to be a registered student to access it, so you might be SOL if you want free internet, or have a data plan handy. And while there are a few of these "Campus" buildings in local downtowns, I'm thinking a lot of them are a bit of a drive from anybody's residence. But of you really need a few hours of peace and quiet, here's a possibility.
Friday, April 08, 2011
Monday, April 04, 2011
Another "rediscovered" Warner Brothers wartime cartoon
Another Warner Brothers military film rediscovered: The Cartoon Brew site discusses this film: cartoonbrew.com/classic/grampaw-pettibone-by-warner-bros-cartoons.
Much lesser-known than the Pvt. Snafu, cartoons for the Army, the Grampaw Pettigrew character was thought to have been created by the UPA studio for Navy training films, but Brew researchers found the first of these was definitely Warner Brothers, probably Frank Tashlin directed, definitely Carl Stallings music.
Start of the cartoon has some rather limited animation, though it carries the precautionary tale well: a bomber pilot so focused on his bombsight while diving toward his target, that he forgets to check his altimeter, and blam! To we who are many years removed from the war, the sequence evokes the Rebel X-Wing pilots trying to sight that thermal exhaust port on the Death Star. If only that pilot had trusted The Force.
The other half of the film is said Grandpa (an aircraft mechanic?) lecturing the audience about carelessness. One gets the impression that someone higher-up might have thought Pvt. Snafu getting killed in humorous ways from his own ineptitude was taking the vital message they wanted to convey too lightly.
Side note: "Grampaw Pettigrew" was created by Robert Osborn, who illustrated thousands of posters and other educational materials for the Navy. There's an appreciation of him here: www.cartoonbrew.com/comics/the-largest-on-line-stash-of-robert-osborns-dilbert
He main educational creation was a screw-up Navy pilot named "Dilbert," which soon became the slang term for screw-up throughout the Navy, and which Scott Adams has said was where he got the name for his comic strip from. Another trivia trifecta for today!
Monday, March 21, 2011
Three topics you should never bring up in polite discussion
DC Universe: The Source » Blog Archive » Who’s the Fastest?
Probably should add to that:
Hulk vs. Thing
Thor's hammer (unstoppable force) vs. Juggernaut (Immovable object)