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3 Mustaphas 3: TV Special

Wow, this is something else. It's a video of sorts that the 3 Mustaphas did in 1988. The first tune sounds like it's in Bulgarian, but it isn't as far as I can tell. The next sounds like it might be in Serbo-Croatian. It also isn't. And so on. Since I don't have an intimate knowledge of all Balkan languages, I can't totally say that everything is fake, but it probably is. I mean, these guys are British. Everyone knows that the British are even more inept than Americans when it comes to foreign languages. Whereas each American on average knows a tiny bit of Spanish, someone from England knows only English. OK, so they may claim to know a little bit of French. This is always a lie. Anyhow, I recommend that you watch all of this from start to finish. It is brilliant. The newscasts are particularly clever. When I was in Bulgaria in 1986, this is exactly how the news went.

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Completely out of self-interest... Enjoy!

P.S. I play saxophone on this.

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Potap and Nastya Kamenskikh. Lyeto (Summer)

This is like Vern Fonk Vision gone completely haywire. And the best thing is that you can sing along with it. OK, it's not Shakespeare, but what is these days? In case you don't know, Russia is totally like this: no grinding poverty, superstition, or authoritarian government; only nice weather, swimming pools and women who show lots of fanny. Enjoy!

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I've been watching The Ricky Gervais Show lately on DVD. It's pretty weird - basically, it starts as a podcast and gets animated into a cartoon. I'm a little surprised that Ricky Gervais looks like Fred Flintstone, but if he doesn't mind, who cares? So they just sit around and ask Karl Pilkington questions. At first, I thought he was just stupid. That's not the whole story. OK, he might not be very smart, but he also has a breathtaking lack of imagination. They ask him a question - any question - and he can only answer back with another question. Eventually, he'll launch into a long, drawn-out answer that makes no sense at all. This is my favorite one right here, the "blind ghost" answer. In earlier episodes, I thought that Gervais and Merchant were being kind of mean to Pilkington, but by this episode, I began to admire their restraint. The one thing about Karl Pilkington that's nothing short of incredible is that he is completely even-keeled. He never gets angry or annoyed and always talks in that lilting semi-monotone. Nothing bothers him. When he tells a story that makes no sense or sounds like an idiot, he doesn't care. That's kind of admirable. But then Gervais and Merchant swoop in with the ridicule. And Pilkington just digs a deeper hole. I can imagine that some of these conversations go on for hours. We just get the edited parts.

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The Kinks. Victoria

Because, well, why not? OK, so Ray Davies' long hair didn't look so good, but that is counterbalanced by the addition of a horn section, so it all works out. Hooray! But seriously, it's one of the best songs ever.

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Bobby Darin. Mack the Knife

While we're on the topic of Bobby Darin, here's everybody's favorite song about several murders and a certain psychopath who committed them. There is also talk of prostitutes. You know, Ella Fitzgerald's version is a close second, but this rendition - arranged by Manny Albam - truly takes the cake.

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Bobby Darin. Beyond the Sea

Just for the hell of it. Mad respect to Charles Trenet for the original.

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This guy's name is Bernd Lhotzky, so I'm guessing that he's some kind of foreigner. But, oh my, does he do a number on "Carolina Shout" by James P. Johnson! It's not exactly perfect but there's enough imperfection in it to make it jazz. Please enjoy. I know I did.

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Hey, I made a music video! This is a tune I wrote last year, but it took me a while to find the vintage space footage. If you're looking for some, go to archive.org. It's a gold mine, baby! Anyhow, thanks to iMovie, schlubs like me can now make music videos like this. Please enjoy!

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Nick Lowe. So It Goes

This is kind of how all music should be. The tricky part is that few can write songs like this. And even the great Nick Lowe can't do it forever. If he could, he'd be doing it right now.

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I've never seen this guy before, but lordy, is he ever weird! Apparently, somebody's pet snake or some such escaped in the New York area, which is the reason for the bizarre impersonation. Even though this is a very surreal minute and a half, it's still nice to see somebody get that excited about the weather.

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Fabrika. Ne vinovataya ya

This video drops in and out of existence on the YouTube from time to time, but I enjoy it so much that I must feature it again. It is very much what we suppose modern Russia is: powerful men and and the kept women who make fun of them. Hell, that was a major theme with Tolstoy, wasn't it? Anyhow, it's a very catchy tune about who, out of eight daughters, has ended up with whom. My favorite is the Ginnifer Godwin-like one with the awesome Slavic cheekbones. I can't help it. It's the way I'm made.

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Lester Young and a bunch of other people: Blues for Greasy

Here's Lester and other folks doing a tune I'm sure that nobody really meant to write, but it's certainly a blues and there are times that it works. Yes, that's Buddy Rich playing the drums. He was voted America's biggest bastard until George W. Bush came along. Other mentionables include Ella Fitzgerald on vocals and Ray Brown on bass. The trombone player is Bill Harris - history rarely mentions him - and Flip Phillips on tenor saxophone. I've never been a big Flip fan, but he did excite them back in the day. And that's why nobody's ever heard of Flip Phillips.

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OK, Elvis sounds sped-up here, but he did take a lot of pills, so maybe those had something to do with this. Judging from the content, back in the early sixties, women who wore lots of feathers were considered attractive by the opposite gender. Otherwise, why would they be in an Elvis movie?

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Well, I managed to find another version of this French pop gem. Please excuse the low-end distortion. It ain't my fault. This song is just so booming that, in the wrong hands, all kinds of bad sounds can abound. Fortunately, with such a genuinely great tune, those things are forgivable. While this isn't quite as memorable as the legendary Barbarella video, it is marginally better than the chaotic and slipshod color clip. You've gotta admit that this is really one of the finest tunes of the sixties in any language. Sure, it's disposable pop fare, but its worth has outlasted its shelf life.

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This really doesn't need much of an explanation. It is what it is. However, I really dig his pin cannon. If the Soviets had built these on any sort of scale, I'm pretty sure we'd all be speaking Russian now. Well, OK, I speak Russian, but I'd be speaking it with y'all. Thank you and goodnight.

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I can only present this without comment. It is really strange, even for someone used to seeing this kind of stuff. Back when I lived in Astrakhan, this sort of fare played a lot. But it wasn't quite as dated and odd as this. Enjoy.

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Gruppa Nol. Idu, kuryu

Be patient, the real business begins just after the one minute mark. I first saw this video in Russia many years ago. To this day, I still think it's one of the finest ever made. I even bought Nol's album just to get at this tune. It's about walking and smoking. It's very much about Russia. You have your worker and your rich guy, possibly an oligarch, and you have all sorts of chaos. Yep, Russia. My favorite part is the guy swinging upside down. Great tune, awesome video. To hell with Gogol Bordello, this is the real thing. I hope to cover this at some point. Sorry about the Skriabin being taken down, but enjoy this clip.

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Ah, Ukraine, you may be a very crappy country, but you do have some fine pop music.

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Alice Cooper. Clones (We're All)

For several weeks back in 1980 - I remember it well - this song was the rage of the radio playlists. Alice Cooper had gone new wave and it was very big news. Back then, AC was a major player, nearly as big as Bowie and far, far more important than Springsteen or Costello. These days, the latter two have surpassed him. But still, in 1980 they played this tune every 15 minutes on KZAM. And it was a joy to hear. I find this video a bit surprising for its stripper-iffic qualities. I mean, I didn't think they invented lap dancing until the nineties. How wrong I was! The truly ironic thing is that in contemporary times - such as they are - all of these women would be deemed too fat for video work by casting agents. I would disagree. And if this video taught me anything, it's that all the people looking after clones walk and act like robots. That seems right. But I really must stress that this is one hell of a great song. Alice's album, Flush the Fashion, short as it may be, was one of the unsung masterpieces of the wave era. The guy had some very interesting stuff to say about the bygone modern times before he eventually became a harmless, heavy-metal boogeyman and a subsequent born-again Christian. For a while, though, he seemed like a genius. Just listen to Billion Dollar Babies and tell me that what you're hearing isn't completely brilliant. I dare you. That is all.