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Tag: Saturday Night Live

  • Buffy, Godfather, Lil Wayne and Gitmo – Saturday in the Park 2

    “Losing My Religion” cover
    Did this song torture anyone?  Image via Wikipedia

    The snarkfest known as Saturday in the Park begins here:

    Get your pompadours straight. Crooner Al Martino died recently. Multiple generations remember him as Johnny Fontane in The Godfather. Paul Sorvino is the character with the hot daughter who kind of looks like Martino. Martino=Godfather; Sorvino=Oh God!   Got it? Good. Sorry to hear of his passing. Now I keep thinking about the song Spanish Eyes and bottles of red wine on checkered tablecoths.

    Music and acting continue mingling when Buffymeister Joss Whedon helms an episode of Glee this season. Recall that Buffy once featured an entire episode of singing a la 1950s musicals and that Wheedon wrote the theme to Firefly, which later was rebooted as the movie Serenity. With Dollhouse on the ropes again – his third straight series to get smacked down – perhaps it’s time for Joss to head to Broadway, a good idea if things turn bad for

    Sir Andrew Lloyd Weber, diagnosed with prostate cancer shortly after announcing a Phantom of the Opera sequel would be set in turn-of-last-century Coney Island. Not suggesting that the disease is a sign from any higher beings, but get well, Sir Andrew. You deserve a chance to sit back and enjoy life. Please don’t write this show. And if you do, please collaborate with Jim Steinman again so at least the lyrics are biting.

    ALW isn’t the only sick Brit running around either. One Steven Patrick Morrisey, yes, the Morrisey who brought you The Smiths, collapsed during a concert after one song. Morrisey, who also turned 50 this year, was in and out of the hospital in a day, but no word on remaining dates.

    Morrisey had a better time of things then Canadian folk singer Taylor Mitchell who was killed by a coyote while camping in Canada. Just saying. Didn’t know her music, but that’s an ugly death for someone coming on the scene. I learned about her death on CNN the same day I read that 82% of that site’s visitors said in a poll that they weren’t ready to let Chris Brown move on with his career. I hate domestic violence too, but when one pays their debt to society… Tell you what, stop buying songs that objectify and demean women and then you can vote in the poll. Or maybe the 18% were the people who buy those tracks. Hmm. Let the kid do his punishment and if it happens again, lock him in a cinderblock room with some Rhianna fanboys and see what happens.

    Maybe Lil Wayne can join them. He apparently has the firepower. At least that’s what he told a judge when he copped to a weapons possession charge. Lil Wayne plays Folsom County Blues in early 2010, but at least he has time to be the musical guest on Saturday Night Live when Taylor Swift is hosting. True justice would have Lorne Michaels book Kanye and then let Taylor pull the plug, but Kanye would probably get mad and spray the place with, uh, credit cards.

    Speaking of music acts getting a little chummy around money, what were classic dinosaurs Mick Jones and Lou Gramm doing horsing around the New York Stock Exchange? Yes, we get the fact that Foreigner just added some shekels to a music label’s coffers, but not that many. Could it be that the guys and gals trading on Wall Street now went to prom when the theme song was I Want To Know What Love Is?

    That would beat the theme music down at Gitmo, which better not have been anything by Pearl Jam or REM. Seems the bands along with more than a few others have filed a Freedom of Information Act request. They want to know if their songs were among those blasted at detainees at Guantanamo Bay. Stipe used the word “torture”. Honestly, Losing My Religion is only torture the fifth time some classic rock station plays it that week. It’s catchy, got a nice beat you can dance to. I give it a 78, Dick.

    Remember, now only 56 days until Christmas, whch means This is It starts pre-orders for the DVD. Be nice to others.

  • Timberlake & Samberg Do It Again: “Motherlover”

    It may be a little late to properly celebrate Mother’s Day, but Justin Timberlake & Andy Samberg have the perfect Mother’s Day gift.

    This is from Timberlake’s latest turn as the host of “SNL” and good Lord does he need his own show.

    If you’ve got a case of the Mondays, I suggest you watch this.

  • You Gotta Hear This Vol. 1: Vampire Weekend

    And the fact is, over the past couple of weeks, a lot more people HAVE heard the debut CD by NYC quartet Vampire Weekend. After a performance on “Saturday Night Live” a couple of weeks back, their album vaulted back into the Top 30 on the Billboard chart.
    I found out about the band a month or so before, thanks to a coworker who went to Columbia University along with the four members of VW. They’ve gotten tons of blog press over the past couple of months, and are allegedly the first band to appear on the cover of “Spin” magazine before their first album was released. I’ll leave it up to you to decide whether that means anything or not.
    At any rate, these kids are pretty interesting. Their music is hooky and catchy (as all pop should be…I’m not even gonna call it “indie pop” for the benefit of all the dorks with tight pants and ironic mustaches), and carries a couple of interesting influences. First and most obvious would be the African music influence. A good friend of mine who is also a musician harumphed “all they did was rip off old Hugh Masakela records”. While it’s true that they probably listened to a lot of Afrobeat stuff (in addition to much of the African-influenced work of Anglo bands like Talking Heads, Paul Simon and Peter Gabriel), their music has a fun, tossed-off quality (they actually remind me of The Ramones in spots) that makes it more unique than your average retread. Their songs also have a bit of a classical influence. The string sections are a bit fuller than on your average pop record, and when was the last time you heard a pop/rock album with a flute?
    Although they’re a bit on the pretentiously literate side (come on, they’re frickin’ Ivy Leaguers…what did you expect?), thanks to Vampire Weekend, not only do I have a cool new danceable album in my collection, but I now know what a mansard roof and an oxford comma are!
    Check ’em out for yourself:
    Their official website is: http://www.vampireweekend.com/
    Check out the video for “Mansard Roof” here: http://youtube.com/watch?v=XSOM0tQMNZ8
    …the video for “A-Punk” is right here: http://youtube.com/watch?v=fiATtJUPuzI