The College Crowd Digs Me

"I'd like to lick the coil some day... Like Icarus, who had to pay with melting wax and feathers brown. He tasted it on his way down." -- Phish -- This surprisingly twisted film, directed by legendary Frank Capra ...rolls comedy, horror, romance, and drama into one long, smooth and satisfying smoke. "Arsenic And Old Lace" (1944) is a whacked-out tale revolving around a hyperactive longtime bachelor...Mortimer Brewster (Cary Grant) who finally takes the marital plunge and returns to his hometown to announce the good news to his two favorite aunts who are now running a boardinghouse for elderly men. Crazy Aunts - Jean Adair & Josephine Hull These delightful old sisters are perfect as the sweetly naive and macabre spinsters who share a very strange secret. Mortimer, of course, accidentally stumbles upon his aunts..."charitable activities"...and quickly realizes his favorite relatives have been loitering just a little too close to Insan...

" I am the backwards traveller. Ancient wool unraveller." -- Wings -- Phileas Fogg,  the  phlegmatic  "nothing worries me" guy, must travel around the world and only   has  eighty days to do it.  A feat believed nigh on impossible...or his entire fortune is burnt toast.  And all because of a spur of the moment wager he strikes up with a swell bunch of snooty fellas down at the Gentleman's Reform Club.   Talk about your no-nonsense itinerary! Jules Verne   French novelist  1828 - 1905 Fogg, along with his new servant, Passepartout, (I pronounce it 'Pass-the-potatoes" for fun) encounter one frustrating obstacle after another.  B ad guys, bad d rugs, bad weather, bad fish, and a bad  tribe named Sioux. Along with all that, Fogg squeezes in time to rescue a young lady in harms way.  Actually his servant's the hero, but Fogg has all the dough, so he gets to bake the cinnamon rolls...(if you get my dr...

" The madman climbed The steeple spire. "Go higher" said the crowd From down below ." Thin Lizzy St. Patrick’s Day, I opted to review an album from a band of Irish descent. So after filling my plate with corn beef and cabbage and refilling my tall glass with green beer, I put in the CD " Vagabonds of the Western World " , an offering by Thin Lizzy released in 1973. At this time Thin Lizzy was just a three piece band led by the legendary Phil Lynott , an underrated bass player and singer-songwriter from Dublin, Ireland and was backed by Eric Bell /guitar and Brian Downey /percussion.  Lizzy had a much more soulful psycha-blues-rock burn going on...on this one...with plenty of meat on the bone. The band kicks off this overlooked treat with a message of environmental neglect in the powerful " Mama Nature Said ," a driving song that rocks without being preachy. It is interesting that forty years later the message i...

Something's Burning... and I got nuttin'! 1.   Just 3 days after "Sgt Pepper..." dropped, Jimi Hendrix learned it and opened his show with this little ditty. "SPLHCB" - Jimi Hendrix Experience December 22, 1967 2.   Can you name the Neil Young Songs  off these albums released before 1980? My score was 30/95.  (I crapped out. Just couldn't think!) 3.   I think Pink Floyd's... "Animals" ...is a tremendously underrated album and one of my "go-to" records when I want to hit the lights and unwind.  At Neptune Pink Floyd ...they share a few early outtakes from "Animals".  It's exciting hearing the small changes that would be made as each song evolved. Checkout... Neptune Pink Floyd 4.   I've read one of'em.  Own another that's on my "to-read" list.  And the other two sound worthy of a few late nights. 4 Books To Scare The Life Out Of You 5.   Stevie Wright was an Australian rock...

"Breakdown nearly every day. Shoulda known ya couldn't get away." --> Cheap Trick <-- "Valley Of The Dolls" is a guilty pleasure. A favorite mistake that rewards in spite of itself. It's a groan-fest frothing with over-the-top acting and show-biz cliches. But I absolutely dug it! Partly because of the look and vibe...but mostly because the actors are so freaking sincere. Without spoilers, 3 young girls (one very sweet...one very ambitious...one not so talented) get schooled in the shag-nasty ways of show-business circa late 60's New York City. Barbara Parkins, Sharon Tate, Patty Duke Barbara Parkins , I suppose, is the Dorothy on this yellow-brick road. Patty... "a hotdog makes her lose control" ...Duke is still a cutie. And Sharon Tate (who we all know from...well, you know) was considered a star on the rise. I've never been a huge fan of singer, Dionne Warwick , but she was the perfect choice singing the the...

" Brothers fight or fall It's man for man and one for all." ~ Thin Lizzy ~ In the earlier classic, "The Three Musketeers" ...the swashbuckling Fab Four (D'Artagnan, Porthos, Athos, & Aramis) were reveling in the thralls of Musketeer-mania. But now,  "Twenty Years After" finds our beloved swordsmen thrusting their poniards in conflicting directions.  They're still like brothers, sure...but they're also different men with different interests, personal and political.    It's a confusing time in France.  Tense civil unrest has the country divided and the guys are smack dab in the middle.   Someone from their past is bent on inflicting some vicious sword-spanking revenge.  And a slimy adviser to the throne is  manipulating their Queen like a pawn on a Parcheesi board.    All of which finds the Musketeers with their  butts against the bowl. At nearly 800 pages, Alexandre Dumas weaves a ...

"And they told me that I looked a fool  And I said I'd let that go." ~ It's A Beautiful Day ~ A band often forgotten when discussing the  San Francisco hippie headspin... It's A Beautiful Day made some wonderful moments of  f rock trippage. However, IABD had a slightly more  prog vibe going on.  David Laflamme's unique  electric violin and harmonica play and s inging partner, Patti Santos'   vocal harmonies  created a haunting experience that blended smoothly like a Jefferson Airplane/Moody Blues milkshake. Life-partner Linda Laflamme's lava lamp organ riffs are magical and mysterious giving arrangements a smart,  edgier ride.   Listening to classic rock radio, one would think "White Bird" was all It's A Beautiful Day  ever did.    It wasn't.   Explore, my babies, explore. Lost Gem:-->   "Hot Summer Day" ... A dreamy coffee shop mind-hang.  Gorgeous harmonica a...