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If you were living in the Mid-Atlantic in the 1970s you probably saw that commercial.

The Joon Rhee martial arts schools started in the Washington D.C. area and I guess we had a D.C.-based channel back in those dark ages of “regional” TV. Still, I will always remember the phone number to Joon Rhee’s school. Always.

Yesterday I was thinking about the commercial and I looked it up on the web, as I am want to do. Its turns out that the great Nils Lofgren wrote that catchy Joon Rhee jingle! Yes, that Nils: E Street Band; Crazy Horse. Nils Freakin’ Lofgren! Its listed on his webpage along with a handful of other T.V. song credits. Who’d-a-guessed that?

Makes me want to call USA-1000

The other day my friend Paul and I got onto the subject of songs with whistling in them (I made a playlist). During my search for songs with whistling I ran across “Whistling Jack Smith”. Ol’ Jack had a hit song in the late 60s in the UK – a song of high quality whistling. Here is Jack whistling his way through the incredibly goofy “I Was Kaiser Bill’s Batman”¹:

We watched this and Paul made the claim that this guy is lip-sync-whistling. Paul is correct… it turns out that this isn’t Whistling Jack Smith! Its an actor. The real Whistling Jack Smith was actually a guy named John O’Neill² who was a “session whistler” and was the guy who whistled in “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly”. So now I am on a quest to figure out who this dude dancing and lip-sync-whistling is. Any help would be appreciated.

Update!

My friend John Fleck passed this along to those who read him on twitter and received the following:

After extensive research by lots of people in the TV music business
including people in charge of keeping extensive rock and roll music
clips.

The original whistler is unknown and was apparently a producer of some other artist.
The song became popular.
The production company was asked to have it performed on TV shows
The clip is from the 1960’s German hit show “Beat Club.”
The song producers hired a local German actor who looks sort of like Don Grady from “My Three Sons” but isn’t.
The actor is unknown.
The actor seems to have made up dance steps in the instrumental breaks.
About four different actors were hired around the world to lip sync this song.
There never was an actual ‘Whistling Jack Smith.’

Wow! I mean, wow! The power of curious smart people still amazes me. Thanks to the person who passed that along (whom I will keep anonymous unless told otherwise).

1. a batman is a personal aide to a military officer [↩]
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whistling_Jack_Smith [↩]

A long time ago I took photos of my Spinal Tap Action Figures. I feel no explanation is needed as to why I would take photos of my Spinal Tap Action Figures… they are Spinal Tap Action Figures. Nonetheless, I uploaded a triptych of the “portraits” and so far two people have posted their favorite Spinal Tap lyrics as comments to the photos.

This has spawned a new dream for me in which many people post their favorite Spinal Tap lyrics to that particular Flickr page.

I don’t have any problems with DRM in my music. This is because I don’t have any DRM’d music. I really only buy CDs. I am a collector and it is not quite as fun to collect bits and bytes as it is a physical CD or a beautifully large LP. Still, I am firmly on the side of DRM-free music offerings and if I did purchase more music online I would only use Amazon or another DRM-free source. I’d be in trouble if I did buy DRMd music anyway as I use a Squeezebox at home to listen to my collection.

So it is with pleasure that I find this iTunes script which allows one to browse the iTunes store and then click a menu-item to take them to the same album on Amazon’s mp3 sales site. The appearance of tools like this should be a sign to Apple that people don’t want DRM – and they are smart enough to know what it is and how it restricts them.

In a soundbite, Apple, these folks are trying to Think Differently – perhaps you should too.

Yesterday was live-music day here in Carrboro. After a brief spot of work at Carrboro’s own “Open Eye Cafe” and a quick lunch at Carrboro’s own “Akai Hana” sushi restaurant, it was time to hear some tunes. First up was the Obama Early Voting Rally (I only vote on election day thankyou, I like ceremony) featuring Chapel Hill stalwarts Superchunk opening for Arcade Fire. The show was outside at the Carrboro’s own “Carrboro Town Commons” and was packed with people. The weather was beautiful and everyone had a great time. A bunch of us headed to my main man Fred’s (Carrboro’s own) house for grillin’ and chillin’ afterwards.

We left that a bit early to take care of the dog, sit for a moment, and then head out to watch The Pressure Boys play a show at Carrboro’s own “Cat’s Cradle”. The Pressure Boys owned Chapel Hill long before Superchunk ever did and were an integral part of my rock-n-roll education as I used to devour their shows in high-school and college. They were playing this reunion show to raise money for CF research too. It was a great show and once again, everyone had a great time.

However, all this “great time’in” in Carrboro has done wore me out. Crap, I’m actually sore from all that.

Above I share with you a shot from the Superchunk portion of the day – That’s Laura Balance on bass. If you’d like to see some more shots from the rally, look here.

Update: Fred makes the following note in his twitter: “Carrboro should do that every friday.” – Agreed.

What I know is that veteran songwriters Gerry Goffin & Carole King wrote The Porpoise Song for the Monkees.

The Monkees actually played the instruments on the song and recorded it for the soundtrack for their film Head (which is an acerbic and trippy criticism of themselves – the movie was written by the Monkees and Jack Nicholson).

I have been obsessed with The Porpoise Song for many years and have collected recorded versions of it. Oddly, the first version I ever heard (and perhaps my favorite) was Bongwater’s cover of it which is on their double LP Double Bummer.

Now you can enjoy the original and all the cover versions of The Porpoise Song too thanks to:

http://porpoisesong.muxtape.com/Update: No you can’t – ’cause the man took muxtape down

If anyone knows of other versions please pass along the information.

OK Look – none of you dear readers helped me out when I wanted to by a fort. None of you helped me out when I wanted to by an ice-breaker. You wouldn’t even help me out with the purchase of the original SS Minnow. And, with the exception of the Minnow, I supposed I can understand why – I mean, the upkeep on those things would probably cost me far more than I could afford and you would feel simply awful for bankrupting me.

Well, never fear my fine readers. Here is your chance to show your love for me, and get rid of some of that pesky money that you can’t figure out what to do with.

Its the Worlds Greatest Music Collection. I could put that collection to great use. This one really hits home to my heart people. It’s only $3mil right now – you can swing that!

I took some photos the other night of a friend’s band – for them to use if they like. I think some of them came out quite well. It was a difficult place to shoot but I think I’ve coaxed out some atmosphere.

Enjoy them.

I stumbled onto a super cool website last night. Blogoteque’s Les Concerts A Emporter is a site full of great videos of bands and musicians walking through Paris performing, singing in elevators, bathrooms, office buildings, etc. Almost every one of them makes me want to either a) grab a guitar and walk through the streets b)be in France when one of these is happening.

Highlights include:

Of Montreal and Axe Riverboy singing the Zombies tune “Care of Cell 44″ after midnight in Paris – unfortunately there is a terrible echo, but still a wonderful captured moment.

The National singing “Start a War” while vacationing in the south of France

Elvis Perkins singing “While you were sleeping” walking through daytime Paris. Singing to the kid in the beginning was a nice touch.

Today I picked up the new Steve Earle album, Washington Square Serenade. I had read some really good pre-release reviews of the album which perked up my attention. I have never been a huge Steve Earle fan – and I’m not sure why because I tend to think him a good song writer.. I just didn’t dig the style much.

This album changes that. Its brilliant.

Perhaps its because Earle now lives on the same street that the cover for Bob Dylan’s The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan was shot on. Perhaps its his advanced age with advancing wisdom and abilities. Whatever has brought the change, Earle has really grown as a songwriter and has abandoned some of the twang sound he once used a great deal of. This album brings some of his pseudo outlaw country into early 60s Washington Square folk troubadour music. Its a blend that works.

Even his cover of Tom Waits’ Way Down In The Hold works with this new “mashup” of styles. But the heart of this album lies in the lyrical quality of the songs. Songs like Steve’s Hammer, Tennessee Blues, City of Immigrants, and Days Aren’t Long Enough are incredibly engaging musically and lyrically. His politics are there, but not as on display as most Earle detractors would have you believe.

Take the New York City tribute City of Immigrants for example. The music blends what might be mistaken as a World Music percussive sound with simple folk instruments and well-thought out lyrics:

Livin’ in a city of immigrants
I don’t need to go travelin’
Open my door and the world walks in
Livin’ in a city of immigrants
Livin’ in a city that never sleeps
My heart keepin’ time to a thousand beats
Singin’ in languages I don’t speak
Livin’ in a city of immigrants

Which is then brought further forward with a female chorus singing:

All of us are immigrants
Every daughter, every son
Everyone is everyone
All of us are immigrants – everyone

The songs have hooks, but not cheap ones – and they’ve hooked me.