Heavy metal monk blame it all on Metallica

Cesare Bonizzi is a 62 year old Italian monk who got hooked on heavy metal after attending a Metallica concert a 15 years ago. Check him out here.

Was (Not Was) backstage interview on Later with Jools Holland

One of our favourites from the 80's have gotten together for a tour and a new album; Was (Not Was) from Detroit.

The new album is great and even though the same can't be said for the following interview backstage in England on BBC's Later with Jools Holland, it's still an amusing 6 minutes and 20 seconds with Don and David Was explaining how they and Bob Dylan wrote a song for Paula Abdul ... a song she turned down. And then there's the story of how a pre-career Madonna did the vocals on one Was (Not Was) track, got replaced by Ozzy Osbourne and finally actress Kim Basinger!!


Your Luck Won't Last:


Semi Interesting Week:

Weekend music: Steely Week?

File under I-have-a-search-engine-and-I-know-how-to-use-it:

Stumbled across a blogger comparing a group called The Week That Was with Steely Dan. Quote:

Peter claims musical inspiration came from the early '80s when people were obsessed with Fairlight synthesizers and the Linn drum. But as I was listening to the album's first single, "Scratch the Surface," the more I listened the more it reminded me of Steely Dan than anything else. ("Night by Night," specifically.)

Well. Make up your own mind. Here's the song.

(Radio Dupree's Pop Department says: A catchy little song!)

P.S. The full blog post on The Week That Was (including mp3) can be found here.

Walter Becker's Circus Money: YouTube x 2!

OK. Three weeks ago Scapegrace99 joined the member ranks of the sizeable pile of visual entertainment that is YouTube. A mere five and 14 hours respectively ago he (?) posted two videos of considerable interest to those of us waiting for Circus Money to arrive.

First off the aptly titled Walter Becker Circus Money. 49 seconds with the soundtrack being from one of the songs on the album; Selfish Gene.


And then there's the shorter but perhaps even more intriguing Walter Becker Circus Money Fringehead. 27 seconds to the beat of Door Number Two you'll like and whose hidden meaning(s) can be discussed until June 10 and beyond.



Will there be additional videos for all songs? Can a Twitter account be far behind?

Neil Young's Blue-ray Archives

What was Neil Young doing at at the JavaOne computer/technology conference in San Francisco last week?
He was there to unveil the latest move foward in his Archives series. And to casual Neil Young fans like ourselves the massive all-inclusive Archives retrospective has been talked about and in the making for at least 20, 25, maybe 30 years.

A couple of CD:s have been released and there's a special Archives section over at neilyoung.com.
But last weeks PR-thing/announcement that it would all be collected on Blue-ray discs and updated over the Internet gave Archives a larger and perhaps more tangible form.

You can see a video where Neil Young explain why he's doing Archives the way he's doing it and why he's waited until now.

Then there's a text-only interview here.

Right now the plan is for five boxes consisting of ten discs each! The first box will cover the years 1963 - 1972.

Weekend music: King Crimson

Now and then we slap a video on this blog. And this time it is two videos by our Album of the Month artists; King Crimson!
First of a collage of clips from the early days of the group. The sharer writes:

The classic 1972-74 line-up of King Crimson - Robert Fripp, John Wetton, Bill Bruford and David Cross (plus Jamie Muir on the earliest footage) - filmed in Europe and the US performing some of its better known compositions - "Easy Money", "Lament", "Starless", and "Larks' Tongues In Aspic" Parts One & Two. Rarely seen archives; only fragments are presented here so as to support rather than prevent an official release which is hoped for... eventually.

And a rare TV appearance from 1995 by the group:

Steely Dan vs. The Eagles

This blog is not exclusively Steely Dan, far from it. But as we keep an eye on that very same group we should've had this clip here eons ago. It was about that time we first heard Yacht Rock mentioned.
And we meant to check it out. But you know how things go. You put it off and suddenly you're one way or another reminded that you haven't seen the clip yet. And you finally do and find it funny. And as we haven't had any clip here for quite some time we thought we'd give you Yacht Rock episode 10. The episode were we get to see how that feud between the two of the most successful 1970's bands played out. Steely Dan versus The Eagles:



P.S.
It just struck us as somewhat odd in a perplexing way that more than 30 years on both groups are still around, touring and recording...

"Fagen and Martha, man"

April 7 we promised a post in regard to Mr Donald Fagen the next day. So it's long overdue. But here it is. Finally.

While Walter Becker's Circus Money will be out June 10, the other half of Steely Dan will beat him to appearing on a new record. Donald Fagen plays on one of the tracks on Martha Wainwright's new album I Know You're Married But I've Got Feelings Too.
The release dates are as follows:

UK - May 12th
Australia- May 13th
Germany - May 23rd
All Europe - May 26th
Canada - June 3rd
USA - June 10

The track Donald is on is titled So Many Friends. Now, that's a song she has been playing live for some time, and you can actually find and listen to three different preformances of the song on the Internet.

March, 2006 she performed So Many Friends and two more songs on Minnesota Public Radio. Here's the link. There are two listen-links up and to the right on the page.

And this link will take you to another Wainwright performance of the song. This time on National Public Radio. Both her and Neko Case's sets can be downloaded.

And finally there's the YouTube clip from Milwaukee and 2006.

Go listen to all versions and try to figure out what Donald will do on the keyboards with this song!

And for all who've missed Michael Leonhart's Memory Man videos on YouTube. Here they are, featuring Harlan Post Jr. as the Memory Man. Now, doesn't Harlan look familiar...? ;)

Drumming for fame

Thanks to Clas for the link. This is for all the drummers out there. No need to hold back! Just do it your way...

Weekend music: Scandinavia

OK. So we're living in Sweden. It's part of Scandinavia where we also place Norway, Finland,(*) Denmark and Iceland. A great place to live. Or is that great places to live?

For our weekend music we picked a guy and a video that has been watched close to 8 million times, so chancs are you've already seen this, But we're new to Norwegian Lasse Gjertsen's talent of making music without being able to play any instrument BUT being able to cut and paste video.

He says he recorded each and every note and sound here. THEN cut it up and made it into this piece of music:



Have a great weekend!

(*) = Correction! After our friendly Finn here on Radio Dupree; carpenter Heikki, in his surly matter-of-fact way instructed us that while Finland may be one of the Nordic countries it is by no means part of Scandinavia, we could but strike that country from the above post.
We stand corrected and find ourselves pondering if our close-but-oh-so-far-away neighbour to the east might in reality be the first visible black hole...

Weekend music: Where do you get your music?

>> Click the pic to play the video <<

Music. Do you download it online? Buy it from an store on the Internet? Visit your local record store?

We're old enough to still prefer our music on a vinyl or CD rather than mp3 or other file format. So we should buy most of our stuff in regular record stores, right?

From time to time we still go looking for used records in stores, but as far as new releases go we have turned to the cheaper and more convenient online stores for most of our purchases.

Maybe we should support our local record store by buying more music there. Hitting the search-button online just isn't the same thing as flipping through the albums looking for that record you just have to have...

Which leads up to the choice of weekend music on this blog. The brand new video from Erykah Badu. It takes place in a record store and she gets to digitally visit some famous and less famous record covers. Below are just five of them. Watch the video and tell us what other albums you spot!

Enjoy the weekend! ... and support your local record store...

Weekend music: Parodies shreds

We first saw Santeri Ojolas musical parodies on YouTube a month ago, but when we decided to link to the Carlos Santana video this weekend we found they were all gone.
A quick google search later we learned that three copyright complaints had been sent to YouTube who then closed Santeri's account. Our countryman and boring old fart/guitarist Yngwie Malmsteen is mentioned as one of the people responsible for the parodies disappearing.

At least from YouTube.Thankfully Wired video has put them all online. Read the article here and enjoy the "great" playing by Santana and friends here:

Have a great weekend!

More on "Boo!"

"Was (Not Was), the seminal, indestructible art-funk collective from Detroit, is back from hibernation and ready to ensnare the innocent with its snaky beats and brain-virus lyrics. The new album and Rykodisc debut, Boo! is set for release on April 8, 2008 in the U.S. / April 7, 2008 UK and worldwide."

That's the opening line of the press-release. For more on the album follow this link to the press release.

And here's a reminder of how they sounded ... with Kim Basinger and Ozzy Osbourne on guest vocals!

Elvis Costello: The 2008 model will be here March

He's been around long enough and done music good enough to have enough fans to keep releasing expanded and jazzed up versions of his old albums. I'm talking about Elvis Costello, who's second album; This Year's Model, celebrates 30 years on this planet this year. And why not release an expanded version of the record?

Of course it was already done back in 2001, but where there's a will there's a way and a few new tracks to remaster and compile. So we'll have a new version of This Year's Model in March, 2008.

Elvis Costello has changed enough over the years to find himself with fans who prefer a centain version of Elvis Costello. I subscribe to the early Elvis. I liked the first two albums but gradually lost interest in his music finding the odd song here and there that I liked.
I've yet to buy any of the souped-up CD versions of his albums, but the new version of This Year's Model looks like an excuse to finally get around to ordering it as well as his debut My Aim Is True that was given the deluxe treatmet last year.

Tracks on the upcoming version of This Year's Model:

DISC ONE: 1 No Action 2 This Year's Girl 3 The Beat 4 Pump It Up 5 Little Triggers 6 You Belong To Me 7 Hand In Hand 8 (I Don't Want To Go To) Chelsea 9 Lip Service 10 Living In Paradise 11 Lipstick Vogue 12 Night Rally 13 Radio, Radio
- Bonus material: b-sides, demos, live tracks, alternates, etc: 14 Big Tears 15 Crawling To The USA 16 Tiny Steps 17 Running Out Of Angels (demo version) 18 Greenshirt (demo version) 19 Big Boys (demo version) 20 Neat Neat Neat (live) 21 Roadette Song (live) 22 This Year's Girl (alternate Eden Studios version) 23 (I Don't Want To Go To) Chelsea (alternate Basing Street Studios version)

DISC TWO (ELVIS COSTELLO AND THE ATTRACTIONS Live At The Warner Theater, Washington, DC, February 28, 1978): 1 Pump It Up* 2 Waiting For The End Of The World* 3 No Action* 4 Less Than Zero* 5 The Beat* 6 (The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes* 7 (I Don't Want To Go To) Chelsea* 8 Hand In Hand* 9 Little Triggers* 10 Radio, Radio* 11 You Belong To Me* 12 Lipstick Vogue* 13 Watching The Detectives* 14 Mystery Dance* 15 Miracle Man* 16 Blame It On Cain* 17 Chemistry Class
(* Previously Unreleased)

Allt this typing has inspired me to add a couple of tracks to the Radio Dupree playlist. And here's a video from when This Year's Model was brand new:

Finally updated

It took a bit longer than expected and planned, but we finally got the first update of the year for the Radio Dupree homepage. This being our fifth anniversary year, we'll get some extra stuff going there eventually, but this time around it's just a lite update to get the year going.

And here's some Weekend Music:

Carolyn Leonhart & Wayne Escoffery perform Earth Calling from their new CD If Dreams Come True.

Donald Fagen on Ike Turner

Ike Turner passed away last week. He was 76.
Donald Fagen writes a fine obituary in Slate magazine. You can read it here:
http://www.slate.com/id/2180162/

And why not give Ike's Rocket 88 a spin while you're at it:


And here's Roscoe Gordon's No More Doggin' mentioned by Donald in the obituary:


And, believe it or not, but Donald's favorite is up on YouTube to hear as well!
Quote:
"My favorite from this period, though, is "I'm Blue (The Gong Gong Song)" by the Ikettes, with Dolores Johnson singing the lead vocal."

Reeling through the channels

The Next Great American Band is apparently yet another music show on TV where they try to find the flavor of the month, with a winner that'll survive an album or two before being relegated to the has-beens. Perharps with a little luck eligible for a part in some reality show where they round up the sad remnants of fleeting fame and let them make a final spectacle of themselves. You get the drift.

Here's a link to one of the groups remaining in the competition doing a Steely Dan tune; Sixwire and Reeling In The Years. Good, bad or indifferent? You be the judge.

Jimi Hendrix: Acoustic + in Sweden

In keeping with our Album of the Month-artist Jimi Hendrix, we sifted through some YouTube dreck to come up with these two must-sees.

Jimi playing an acoustic guitar and singing:




Jimi in Sweden doing Voodoo Chile:

XMas: Jimi Hendrix Christmas Medley

Since the Radio Dupree Album of the Month is Axis: Bold As Love from The Jimi Hendrix Experience, we found it quite natural to present this "video" of pictures set to the Christmas medley of Little Drummer Boy/Silent Night/Auld Lang Syne recorded back in 1969.
The picture of Jimi in a Santa outfit was originally taken to promote Axis... in UK music magazine Record Mirror, but was also used for a 1999 vinyl release of this medley.

Weekend music: Sweet Pea Atkinson!

Having a soft spot for 80's/90's group Was (Not Was) makes this a natural choice for our occasional weekend video.
One of the singers in that group was (and is*) Sweet Pea Atkinson. Listen to that voice!

Here's a pretty brand new recording of him and various others doing Back In Love Again. It was originally a hit for the group L.T.D. back in 1977.

And look out for the drummer. It's a guy named James Gadson. He's played on some of the greatest records in R&B history including Marvin Gaye's I Want You and Bill Withers’ Use Me.



(*) Yes, Was (Not Was) is back together again. Have been touring a bit and recording for what might be an upcoming album.