Saturday, June 18, 2011

Hey, there

So, I wasn't going to blog.  There are a lot that I read and there's a lot of noise out there, who wants to read what I have to say?  It's probably going to be about stuff I find funny more than anything and, wow, is there a lot of fodder out there.  It's not going to be about dwarves, MI-5 agents, or leather clad guyliner wearing dudes who are not rocker boys.  Nosiree.

I was watching This Is Spinal Tap the other day on Netflix.  As mockumentaries go, this is the grandaddy.  Seriously, Nanny Fran, Meathead and Lenny Koznowski all in one place?  Sign me up.  One of the running gags is that their drummers keep dying: one spontaneously combusts, one chokes on someone else's vomit and one dies in a "bizarre gandening accident."  Watching it I started thinking about revolving drummers in general.  Like, how does it feel to be Pete Best?  He was on Letterman a couple of years ago.  How does it feel forty years after your eleventh hour replacement by Ringo Starr that all anyone wants to know about you is how it feels?

Anyway, drummers.  Here are a few replacements.

Chad Smith, Red Hot Chili Peppers
They put the funk in my blue dandelion.  Chad was actually their third drummer, replacing D. H. Peligro (formerly with the Dead Kennedys) who replaced Jack Irons.  Jack Irons deserves his own wing at the Rock-N-Roll Hall of Fame even though you've never heard of him.  Why?  He's the guy who encouraged Eddie Vedder to audition for Stone Gossard, Mike McCready and Jeff Ament, which lead to Pearl Jam.  But this is about Chad Smith.





Marky Ramone, The Ramones
I told pi that if I ever started blogging I would probably just post about The Ramones so this one's for you, girlfriend.  Oh, and me, too, because I love them.  A LOT.  The summer between my junior and senior years in high school was mainly spent riding shotgun in the 1971 blue Pinto owned by the guy who took me to my junior prom.  It had a testy tape deck that only seemed to work right when Joey Ramone was screeching out of it.  We'd chug through town, always a little nervous when someone tailgated, out past the Amish settlement and further on for the Flavor of the Day at the homemade ice cream stand.  I'd like to think that at least a couple of kids who were on Rumspringa do the Blitzkreig Bop when no one is watching.

 
 

Matt Cameron, Soundgarden and Pearl Jam (and Hater and Wellwater Conspiracy)
I love Tim Burton.  Really, truly.  Spoiler for "Mars Attacks!" follows, be forewarned.  His decision to use Slim Whitman as the savior of the world, though, seemed to me to be a gratuitous swipe at probably a perfectly nice guy.  That bit was based on "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes," arguably the worst movie ever made.  In that movie the savior of the world was some off-key kid who sang this song called "Puberty Love," causing the tomatoes to explode.  I sympathized with them the first time I heard it.  I could never figure out why Burton just didn't find the kid who sang "Puberty Love."  It's not like he was hard to find in the mid-90s being that he grew up to be Matt Cameron.  Matt replaced Scott Sundquist who had replaced some guy named Chris Cornell.  Later he replaced Jack Irons (remember him?) in Pearl Jam.







So, anyway, welcome to my blog.  Comments are open.

8 comments:

  1. I'm diggin' this muchly. :D Of course love all of the music!

    If you talk to pi, tell her I said hello.

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  2. And something bizarre -- I was listening to a lot of Chili Peppers late last night. Great minds. ;-)

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  3. AHA! It works!!!

    This is an interesting post. I never consider the drummers in bands; they seem to be overlooked. I think poor Pete was asked that question in hope he would finally fall to the floor and throw a fit.

    Looking forward to more posts. :)

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  4. Welcome to the blogsphere! Hope you have fun with it. Good start!! Unfortunately, I can't watch the Red Hot Chilly Peppers video... :( It says that uploader has not made this video available in my country. Poopers!

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  5. By the way, love the name of your blog. :D

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  6. Thanks so much for the kind welcome, gang.

    @judiang -- Letterman seemed to be waiting for him to flip out.

    @calexora -- there are a few uploads of that video on YouTube. One of them should work.

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  7. Now you have a chance to say all those things that have always been on your mind, AND educate me about Soundgarden. Looking so much forward to what you write, jazzbaby.

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Thanks for commenting!