Recommended

Some of you young whippersnappers might have trouble comprehending such a thing, but there was once a time when the internet didn’t exist. And it wasn’t all that long ago, either. Indeed, I was already 32 years old when I first went online. Everything up to that point had been TV or radio, magazines or (gasp!) books. Or people self-publishing… and trading VHS tapes of wacked-out shit.

It was the VHS footage that seemed the most magical. VCRs were still relatively new, and when someone would pop in one of those underground tapes of god-knows-what,  it felt truly special. Like you were witnessing something so rare and forbidden, you might actually get into some kind of trouble. It was all so impossibly cool.

I dated a woman who had an impressive collection of such tapes, and there are two clips that really stick out in my mind. Coincidentally, both feature John Lydon, AKA Johnny Rotten. He had been, of course, the snotty and sneering singer of The Sex Pistols, but was now leading another band called Public Image Ltd. He was, however, no less snotty and sneering.

Both those clips are now on YouTube, and I’ll share them with you here.  It’s probably impossible, at this late date, to be amazed by such footage. But these things blew my freaking mind when I was 24, or whatever. The audacity! That dude was either insane, or possessed the biggest set of balls in the world.

In the first clip Public Image perform on Dick Clark’s American Bandstand, and Lydon kinda-sorta plays along and lip-syncs for a while. But everything quickly breaks down, and anarchy takes hold. By the end he isn’t even bothering to hold the microphone to his mouth, or even move his mouth. Sometimes he’s chatting with folks, yet his vocals are still booming from the speakers. He also brings EVERY audience member onstage. I have no doubt the producers were shitting bricks the size of the Astrodome.

In the second clip Lydon and bandmate Keith Levene are interviewed by Tom Snyder, on The Tomorrow Show. It didn’t go well. There are more uncomfortable and awkward moments in the video, than even the best episode of The Office. I loved the uncooperative attitude of Lydon and Levene, but also sympathized with Snyder a bit. The whole thing is outrageous, and fantastic.

If you’re old enough to remember the days when kool kids would trade underground VHS tapes of craziness, which ones do you recall the most? It’s all online at this point, so link to ’em if you’re so inclined.

And I’ll see you guy again next time. Thanks for reading.

Now playing in the bunker
Treat yourself to something cool at Amazon!

A few years ago I didn’t know a thing about Jean Shepherd. I’d seen his name associated with A Christmas Story, one of my favorite holiday movies, and had assumed he was a woman. I mean, Jean, spelled with a J, is a woman’s name, isn’t it?

But, of course, he was a man. In fact, he was the writer and narrator of A Christmas Story; he was Ralphie all growed-up. The movie was based on his real-life experiences, which he chronicled in magazine articles and books, and on his long-running radio show in New York City.

I started to learn about Shep, as he’s known to his fans, after a reader of this website, Dr. Drofub, sent a note suggesting I check out recordings of his old radio program.

The good doc’s enthusiasm, coupled with the Christmas Story connection, prompted me to troll the internet for more information. And the dude sounded right up my alley…

I decided to take the plunge. I went to eBay and bought more than 800 recordings, in mp3 format, for some ridiculously small amount of money. And he’s been a part of my life ever since.

It was one of the best eBay purchases ever!

From the late 1950s until well into the 1970s, Shep lorded over an almost timeless radio show, broadcast late at night. He told stories, reacted to odd newspaper articles, provided commentary about modern life, played kazoo, acted like a maniac, and let loose with what often sounded like stream-of-consciousness.

Then, at the end, when you were sure he’d completely lost the thread, he’d knock you on your ass by tying it all together in a hilarious, mind-melting finale.

It was almost breathtaking; his best shows are works of genuine artistic achievement. I can’t help believing that what sounded so effortless, must’ve actually required a large amount of planning and advance work. I mean, nobody’s that good, right?

In any case, I consider Jean Shepherd a friend now (even though he died in 1999); I listen to him almost daily. I’ve got ten of his shows from 1966 on my iPod right now… Just the sound of his theme song has the power to vaporize an entire day’s worth of stress.

And as late as a few years ago, I didn’t know a thing about him.

Please note: An earlier version of this post appeared at Suggestaholic, one of my many now-defunct websites. Also, it’s no longer necessary to purchase copies of Jean’s old show, they’re readily (and legally) available on the internet for free.

I Want My MTV is a big doorstop of a book: 572 pages, to be exact. But it was so much fun, and addicting, I wanted there to be a few hundred pages more. When I got to the end I felt mildly bummed.

This is an oral history of the early days of Music Television, and the editors seemingly spoke to everyone involved. The stories and explanations of events were then sliced, diced, and arranged to form a compelling narrative.

Because I’m a lazy sack with confidence issues, the thought of taking on such a gigantic project makes my brain ache. But these guys somehow pulled it off. We hear from many former network executives, lower-level MTV worker-bees, musicians, video directors, VJs, etc. And it all fits together to form what feels like the definitive history of the MTV phenomenon.

Some of the folks interviewed were gossipy, and a few were bitchy and/or catty. Many of the stories are not flattering to anyone involved, and there was a good amount of debauchery. Which means it’s fun as hell to read. However, the book never sinks to the level of trash. It’s a tapestry made up of all sorts of people, with differing personalities, most of whom are remarkably open and honest.

A few times a story is told by multiple people, each with a different spin.

For instance, a director talks about working with a difficult and flaky Stevie Nicks. A million dollars was spent shooting a video, and she was horrible throughout the process. Then, when she saw the finished project, she thought she looked fat, and wouldn’t allow the thing to be released. She reimbursed the record company herself, and the whole thing was scrapped.

But when she tells the story… it’s significantly different. Heh. Somehow, I believe the director’s account, over Stevie’s. But what do I know about it?

We also learn that some of the VJs couldn’t stand each other, one of the originals VJs was a full-on party freak, Sting is the pompous ass we all suspected, and John Cougar Mellencamp is a bit of a bastard.

There’s a great chapter about the Van Halen Lost Weekend contest. The winner would get to travel — and party — with the band for a couple days, as they toured and played shows. In one of the commercials promoting it, David Lee Roth warned, “You might not survive!” And, they turned around and nearly killed the guy, for real. He was some nerdy kid from Kansas, or somewhere, and Van Halen almost did him in. MTV brass nearly shit a brick over what happened. It’s really funny, and kind of scary.

And there’s an entire chapter devoted to one of the most notorious videos of all time. Billy Squier is convinced it destroyed his career, and speaks at length about it in the book. The video is below. What do you think? Career-killer? Maybe so, but he agreed to prance. A person can ALWAYS say no to prancing.

There are all sorts of behind-the-scenes tales involving Duran Duran, Michael Jackson, Madonna, David Bowie and most of the big MTV artists. There are some great stories, which will cause you to keep running to YouTube, to watch the videos again.

I Want My MTV is a like a big tub o’ theater popcorn. Once you’re in, there’s no turning back. I highly recommend it, especially if you were a teenager during the early days of the network.

Click here to grab a copy from Amazon.

And have a great day, my friends.

During the long history of this website, I’ve used a number of hosting companies. The first was chosen after I saw it ranked #1 on some questionable page loaded with flashing banner ads, and pop-ups. I didn’t know about such things in those days, and got fooled into casting my lot with a half-assed service.

I quickly realized my error, and switched to a well-known company. They’d been my original dial-up ISP, and I had a warm spot in my battered heart for them. Their hosting fees were fairly high, but I believed they’d be the gold standard. So, I made the big switchover.

And all was well, for a couple of years. Then came the Neti Pot video…

Somebody sent it to me, attached to an email. It was the pre-YouTube era, and that’s how things were done back then. It was an instructional video, on the use of a Neti Pot. I’d never heard of such a thing, and thought it was hilarious. So, I uploaded it to the servers, and linked to it at my website.

I didn’t have very many readers, and didn’t give it a second thought. I knew twenty or thirty people would watch it, and possibly get a laugh out of it. And that’s exactly what happened: there were a few chuckles, and we moved on to other things. Here it is:

Yeah, all hell broke loose. Dave Barry shared the link at his blog, and there was an avalanche of traffic. Thousands of people downloaded the video, and I went WAAAY over my bandwidth limit. I received a bill for $800, and nearly shit the credenza.

I had multiple conversations with the hosting company, and a person there promised to waive the fee – since it was my first offense. I was finally able to exhale, and went back to writing my daily updates.

A few days later, however, I received an email saying they’d reviewed the situation further, and the fee had been reinstated. What the?! I’d never gone over before. Plus… the site was supposed to go down when I reached my bandwidth limit, and hadn’t. There was a failure on their end. But they were reinstating the fee anyway. And promising to shut down my site, unless I paid.

It was awful. I felt like I had a gun to my head. I tried to talk with them, but they were no longer interested in conversations. I’d considered them a partner, and now they were an enemy.

So, I turned to the readers, and they bailed me out. I set up a Neti Pot Fund, and collected around $500, I think. I coughed up the balance, and paid the bill. Then I got the hell out of there. When I was finally free of them, I felt like I’d been released from a POW camp.

Jason Headley, who is now world famous because of this short film, suggested I move my site to a small start-up company in San Francisco. He’d been using them, and had nothing but good things to say. So, that’s where I went.

It was fantastic. There were three guys there, and they were the REAL partners I’d been looking for. Whenever I had a problem I could just call them, and they’d take care of it for me. I knew their names, and they knew mine. It was a great situation. Big corporations could suck it!

I was there for about six years, and the first five were good. They had bandwidth limits too, but were flexible with them. If I went over, they’d say forget about it, or move me to a new plan that only cost a few more dollars per month. I did have quite a few problems while I was there, but their customer service was kick-ass, so it didn’t bother me too much.

Then I started getting hacked, again and again. Russians were getting into my website files, and causing all sorts of problems. The Surf Report was blocked by Google a few times, and was labeled as an Attack Site! I was about to lose it, man.

And the guys at the little hippie-dippie hosting company wouldn’t help. I’d noticed their enthusiasm had started to wane a bit, and by the time the hackings began… I was on my own. They would not accept even a droplet of responsibility, even though I had experts telling me it was due to lax security at the server level.

It was extremely frustrating, and cost me a good bit of money. Every time it happened, I had to hire someone to sort it all out. Finally, I’d had enough. I decided to pay the guy to move me to a new host, instead of exorcise the Russians again. Jason ended up leaving them too, because of their new couldn’t-give-a-shit attitude.

I moved to HostGator, and have been there for more than a year. It’s the best hosting experience I’ve had to date. They’re no mom ‘n’ pop operation, but their customer service is topnotch. And here’s the cool part: I almost never have to use it. The past year has been nearly 100% hassle free, on the hosting front. And that’s exactly the way it’s supposed to be. If you’re thinking about your webhost, something ain’t right.

It costs less than the hippies charged, it’s far more stable, the Russians haven’t been able to get in (knock on vatrushka…), and there are no bandwidth limits. I love it, and unless something changes… I’m home.

So, if you’re looking for a great hosting company, I’ve got a recommendation for you: HostGator. Just because I endured a decade of pain and nonsense, doesn’t mean you have to. Learn from my mistakes, and spend your time creating, not ranting and running your hands through your hair.

Have a great day, my friends!

Opie and Anthony’s Traveling Virus was a touring comedy show that made the rounds in 2006 and 2007. It was a Lollapalooza-style festival, featuring scores of comedians.

During the first year, the Philadelphia crowd was… difficult (go figure), and there was a lot of drunken booing and heckling. Veteran Boston comic Bill Burr watched from backstage as his colleagues were heaped with abuse.

Pissed-off, Burr took his turn onstage and the crowd began giving him the same treatment. But he wasn’t having it, and launched into one of the most amazing diatribes ever recorded. For twelve minutes he unleashed his fury on the city of Philadelphia.

Burr mocked their sports teams, their bridges, the Liberty Bell, Rocky, cheesesteaks, their mothers(!). He called them losers, assholes, and racists.

As the loud boos cascaded over him, he screamed, “Why don’t you go down to the docks and unload some shit, you fucking warehouse-working, weed-smoking, disappointments to your mothers?!”

Refusing to leave the stage until his allotted time was up, Burr insulted the audience, and everything they stood for. Then he told them he’d be selling his CD after the show, hung up the mic, and exited to a standing ovation.

It’s one of the most notorious events in recent showbiz history, and, it’s all documented in this shaky — but great-sounding — cell phone video. Recommended!

After Dream Police was released in 1979, Cheap Trick became erratic and consistently inconsistent. Next Position Please was pretty good, but it wasn’t up to the level of the early masterpieces.  And none of the other albums even came close.  Then something crazy happened…  In 2006 — 27 years later! — they released one of the best albums of their career.  It’s called Rockford, and if it had been released in 1980, it would’ve sold millions of copies, and spawned three or four big hit singles.  It’s shockingly good.  The band re-teamed with their original producer, Jack Douglas, but that only goes so far if you ain’t got the tunes.  On this album it all came together, again, many years after most people had stopped paying attention.  Who could’ve predicted such a thing?

The Smithereens, of course, are a great power pop band out of New Jersey, who perform catchy-as-Strep Throat songs, tinged with a bit of melancholy.  Their first two albums are where their legend was made.  They are two of the finest releases of the 1980s. But their third and fourth weren’t quite as good, and their fifth and sixth were kinda dull and workmanlike.  The songs just weren’t there, and near the end of their original run, the band sounded tired. They parted ways, but eventually reformed and began releasing albums of Beatles and Who covers. What the hell, man? Then, in 2011, they dropped an album of original songs, and it’s a good one. Not as good as the first two records, but better than either of the second two…  It sounds like a great lost Smithereens album, from the classic era.  In 2011?  Amazing!

The Church had one radio hit in the United States: “Under the Milky Way,” in 1988.  And, unfortunately, that’s where many people’s knowledge of the band ends.  During the 1980s they released a string of fantastic albums, mostly known to record store-dwellers, and nobody else.  Indeed, there was a time in my life when I considered their second record, The Blurred Crusade, to be one of the greatest albums ever recorded.  It’s a dream-pop masterpiece, and all their albums from that era are nearly as good.  When they had their Big Hit, I hated to share them with the masses.  What did those people know about The Church?  Not nearly as much as I do, that’s what!  The band stayed together, and continued recording original music.  But it wasn’t until 2009, when they released their 23rd(!) album, that I felt the same emotions as I did while listening to The Blurred Crusade, during olden times.  It’s a great, timeless record, which sounds best at 1:00 a.m., or on a rainy Saturday afternoon.  Love it!

This one might be a bit of a cheat, but who’s keeping score?  Unlike the other bands listed here, The Cars were broken up for a long, long time.  So, this album from 2011 is a reunion — without Benjamin Orr, who died of cancer during the off-years.  But it’s better than I was prepared for it to be.  There’s a lot of energy, and the songs are great.  It’s not equal to the debut album, but I’d put it up against any of their others.  And that’s high praise.  I liked the Cars when I was in high school, and bought this record for nostalgic reasons.  I wasn’t expecting much, and got a lot.  The album is a blast, and I still listen to it all the time.  If you were a Cars fan, you need this.  The shit is good.

And finally, the album that really blew my mind…  How is it possible that Madness would release THE BEST album of their career in 2009?  It seems unlikely, I know, but it happened.  The Liberty of Norton Folgate came out of nowhere, and took its place at the front o’ the pack.  It’s not the crazed Nutty Boys ska of the first two albums, it’s more like the middle period, which begat their big hit, “Our House.”  But I happen to like that period…  You can file a lawsuit, if you’d like.  It’s very British, and reminds me of late ’60s Kinks.  The band released an album in 1982, called Madness Presents The Rise & Fall, which never came out in the U.S.  It was, before Norton Folgate, my favorite of all their records.  This album is cut from the same cloth: atmospheric, British, and loaded with great songs.  Better, even, than the 1982 album.  It’s one of the great surprises of the past few years: the best Madness album of them all!

And that’s five from me.  Do you have anything to add to this list?  What classic bands released surprisingly great albums late in their careers?  Abbey Road doesn’t count.  That band didn’t have any dips…  Use the comments link below, if you have anything to add.

See ya next time!