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(10cc - Did an admirable job poking holes in just about everything)

It's hard to imagine 10cc came out with "Sheet Music" in 1974. Thirty-five years seems like a few lifetimes ago. Times have changed and tastes in music have changed, but there is something about 10cc that has always been timeless with me. Maybe it's because they never took themselves seriously. To be certain, "I'm Not In Love" was their biggest hit and one which seemed to be played on every radio at most hours of the day when it came out in 1975 - there was no escaping it. They have pretty much faded from memory now (even though they are rumored to have gotten back together), and no doubt there is a huge audience who have never heard of them. Too bad.

It was "Sheet Music" which came out in 1974 on Jonathan King's label UK Records, that I initially heard and became a fan of. This track, Silly Love, started side two of their lp. It poked huge gaping holes in the over-wrought and well-worn genre of the love song.

And poking holes were what they were wonderful at.

...to vote! White lace and promises...

There are a bunch of votes still left to take in the Senate. How many, you ask?

Ezra Klein knows:

Louisville, Ky.: Ezra, can you shed some light on the process involved in moving the Health-Care bill through the Senate? I've heard bits and pieces about number of votes required, but would like some clarification about: voting to block filibuster in the Senate, taking the bill back to a joint Senate-House conference, then back to the floor for final vote. Would you expand on this? Thanks.


Ezra Klein: Sure. Next move is the Finance Committee vote on Tuesday: that requires a bare majority of the committee (I think that means 11 votes, but that's just memory). Then Reid and the Democratic leadership blend the HELP and Finance bills into one bill. That doesn't require any votes. Then the bill comes to the floor. It'll need 60 votes against a filibuster, and 51 votes in favor of the legislation.

Then we have to deal with the House bills. Do you have a headache? People are becoming very irritable in America. Haven't you noticed? The health-care debate and the economic situation is really, really making life miserable for most of America.

A kiss for luck and we're on our way...

Before the rising sun we fly...
So many roads to choose...
We start out walking and learn to run...

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R.E.M. Live At The Olympia is a double CD and DVD packed with 39 songs from their "rehearsal shows" in Dublin from 2007, where they played to smaller crowds over five nights at the Olympia Theatre.

The band used these shows to test-drive material from the album Accelerate before recording it and to treat fans to classics from all stages of their formidable career. They graciously offered C&L the chance to premiere one of the clips, and we happily accepted.

The set comes out on October 27th. It's pretty obvious from this clip that they still pack the vitriol and passion that most bands that have been cranking for 29 years have lost long ago.

(BTW, R.E.M. is the first concert I ever went to -- my Dad took me to see them at the Felt Forum in New York City for my 7th birthday (I thought I was older until I Googled the show). Legendary indie-rockers The Feelies opened, so technically they're the first live band I ever saw, but my only memory is of R.E.M. playing "Superman" and "Fall on Me", and being generally mesmerized by live rock music for the first time.)

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(An Eisenhower Press Conference - cheerfully referred to as Old Bubblehead)

I'm trying to do the math here. The tape says this is Press Conference Number 68. It's from May 11, 1955 - Eisenhower has been in office since January 1953. So as best as I can round it out, that's about one Press Conference every two weeks. I've spoken with several people who were with the White House Press Corps at the time and they honestly did refer to Eisenhower as "Old Bubblehead" - I'm not making it up.

I wonder if he was guilty of being overexposed?

At any rate - two subjects were covered:

First was The Big 4 Summit back when only four countries were considered worth getting together. Times have changed.

Pres. Eisenhower: “I would think the most important thing to possibly be done at such a meeting would be to define the lines or directions in which we commonly would want our Foreign Ministers to work to see if there’s any opportunity to relieve the tensions in the world. And beyond that, I don’t think you can possibly say what the subjects would be. Certainly there would be no agenda except in the most generalized form, to talk about a general group of subjects . No agenda in the sense that Foreign Ministers would normally meet.”

A sort of summit to sit around and talk about what they're going to sit around and talk about.

The other important topic in this press conference was the newly introduced Polio Vaccine which had been temporarily held up by reports of Polio outbreaks among people who got the vaccine.

1955 was the year the Salk Polio Vaccine was made public. People don't talk about Polio that much anymore, as it has been all but eradicated. But in the 1950s it was scary, especially if you were a kid.

The one thing that struck me was the civility of the press - not much in the way of screaming. Fancy that.

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Rachel Maddow talks to Princeton's Melissa Harris-Lacewell about the latest astroturf "9-12" protests being used by the likes of Glenn Beck and FreedomWorks to exploit the memory of what happened on 9-11.

MADDOW: No right-wing fury over anything President Obama does is complete until we‘ve heard from former half-term Governor of Alaska Sarah Palin.

Her take-away from last night‘s speech on health care reform, according to her Facebook page, was this—quote, “President Obama delivered an offhand applause line tonight about the cost of the war on terror. As we approach the anniversary of the September 11th attacks and honor those who died that day, and those who have died since in the war on terror, in order to secure our freedoms, we need to remember their sacrifices and not demonize them as having had too high a price tag.”

OK. Never mind that the president‘s remark was a cost comparison between health reform and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and never mind that the Iraq war and 9/11 still have nothing to do with one another despite how inconvenient that is, Sarah Palin is staying in the news now by using 9/11 to try to score political points against President Obama on the eve of the anniversary of the attacks.

But that cynical patriotism, it turns out, is merely an appetizer before the main course of exploiting a national tragedy that this year has been prepared for September 12th by the sous chef of politics as performance art, Mr. Glenn Lee Beck.

Continue reading »

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(The Charlatans (UK) - still very much alive and kicking)

Since I mentioned them last night during my Catherine Wheel entry, I thought I should include the headliners from that 1995 gig, The Charlatans (UK) - or just The Charlatans if you're overseas.

As much as everyone talked nonstop at the time about Stone Roses, Happy Mondays, Inspiral Carpets and the rest of the Madchester scene in the early 1990s, The Charlatans have to be mentioned in the same breath. It's something of a misnomer to consider them Britpop, because they have many more layers than just one you could identify. Testimony to that fact, they are still recording and gigging around, and are just as popular as ever. Even though the band have gone through a number of personnel changes over the years, they are still fronted by Tim Burgess whose distinctive vocals are fresh as ever.

I thought I would refresh your memory with a cut off their second album, actually two cuts since they fade into one another. Weirdo and Chewing Gum Weekend.

And if you've never heard of them before . . . . . where have you been?

We've lost healthcare reform's biggest hero, and it's only fitting that HR3200, the healthcare reform bill, bear his name.

Progressive Change has started a petition asking Congress to honor Ted Kennedy's memory.

In just a few hours, they've collected over 10,000 signatures. You can add yours here.

For many members of Congress, it may be the inspiration they need to get this done.

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(The Groundhogs - a power trio with no pretense . . go figure.)

When free-form FM radio came into being in the States in the late 1960's, bands like The Groundhogs were just what the disc jockey ordered. A Power Trio with a big following who first got started roughly around 1963, before the honing and refining process started and got them to where they were in 1970 when "Thank Christ For The Bomb", their third album was released. They were a staple on the festival circuit - raw, gutsy and loud; all the right elements.

They never toured extensively in the U.S. though - I think they did one brief foray onto the East Coast (if my somewhat addled memory serves me). But in any event, they were a popular band who are rumored to be still together and still gigging around the UK and Europe.

One of my favorite tracks off this album was Status People.

Still feels pretty fresh.

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Lou Dobbs looked like he was hoping to get President Obama's former doctor to trash him, and instead got polite disagreement, and some straight talk on health care reform he looked like he didn't want to hear, but wasn't willing to argue against. Sorry Lou, no red meat from this interview. Instead just some very good arguments about why we should have universal Medicare.

DOBBS: The president's health care proposal has many critics. One is the president's former personal physician, Dr. David Scheiner. Dr. Scheiner is a Chicago doctor. He treated President Obama for more than two decades. He says the president's health care plan will not work because it's too expensive and too compromised.

Doctor, it's great to have you with us here. You know I think a lot...

DR. DAVID SCHEINER, PRESIDENT OBAMA'S FORMER PHYSICIAN: Thank you very much.

DOBBS: I think a lot of people are going to be surprised that -- you know, you spend two decades with your patient and now you're a little disappointed, to say the least, with his health care plan. Why so?

SCHEINER: Well, you know, I have tremendous respect for him. He's incredible, maybe the best president I've been living through and I go back to Franklin Roosevelt. But on this issue I think he's wrong and I think...

DOBBS: And we're only six months in.

SCHEINER: Well, I think on this particular I think he's wrong.

DOBBS: No, I'm just kidding with you.

SCHEINER: He is extraordinarily bright. I mean the man is incredible.

DOBBS: Right.

SCHEINER: His knowledge. Once I told him a joke the last time I saw him, and he remembered that I told him the same joke, and he criticized me. If he can remember dumb jokes this guy has got a memory.

DOBBS: Yes, he's got a memory but what's his vision? And that's the issue here. You say this plan is too expensive and doesn't go far enough in the sense that it isn't sufficiently universal, isn't sufficiently nationalized? In what way?

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Here's one I didn't know existed. Tiny Tim is a memory from when I was very very young, five or so. I would sing Tiptoe Through the Tulips. I also remember singing Hey Jude by The Beatles at that age.

What music was playing, what did you sing along to, when you were five

(h/t Rehctaw)