Category Archives: Music

Red Elvises at The Bethlehem Musikfest

If you follow me on Facebook, you’d know I spent Thursday evening at the Bethlehem Musikfest, in the pouring rain, just so I could catch The Red Elvises. They were awesome! It seems that Igor and Oleg have reunited! (At least kinda, we asked both Oleg and Igor after the concert if they were back together and both said, “I don’t know.”) And Milka Ramos and Elena Shemankova were also back! I LOVE LOVE LOVE MILKA! She wore a Suzi Quatro -inspired black leather jumpsuit! She is incredible!

Here, watch the video I shot:

And here’s the video Pookie shot…

Clearly it’s time to invest in a better camera for me.

Speaking of which, here’s a blurry shot of Igor and me:
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Elvis Week 2010

Yesterday was the kick off for Elvis Week 2010… and I am not there.

I am wondering if there’s a way I might be able to get there but I don’t think it’s in my cards. I think I’ll just go see the Red Elvises on Thursday at the Bethlehem Musikfest. (Let me know if you are planning on being there, maybe we can catch up!)

Probably one of my FAVORITE Elvis songs is Suspicious Minds. And I started thinking of Mark James who wrote it. On my first visit to Memphis back in 1999 (or was it 2000?), I went to the Rock and Roll Soul Museum and I saw the napkin where he scribbled the lyrics to Suspicious Minds. Can we just say it was like eating a York Peppermint Patty? At any rate, just now I decided to see what other songs he wrote. It’s hard to get a definitive list but Wikipedia says his canon consists of:

“The Eyes Of A New York Woman”
“Hooked on a Feeling”
“It’s Only Love”
“Suspicious Minds,”
“Sunday Sunrise”
“Raised On Rock”
“It’s Only Love”
“Moody Blue”
“Always on My Mind”

What a great list of songs. You can listen to them here: Share Songs by Mark James, writer of Suspicious Minds In fact, back when I was trolling Match.com, I used the one lyric from Moody Blue as my “Headline.”

My personality unwinds, just like a ball of twine, on a spool that never ends.

Yeah, I am sure I scared away many potential opportunities with that one. Whatever. It certainly doesn’t matter anymore. Besides, it was better than my original headline, “Chock Full of Chocolaty Goodness!”

Mark James continues to perform to this day but under the name, Frankie “Uray” Zambon. I had assumed he was dead since he doesn’t seem to be turning much out of late. This morning I listened to Sirius/XM’s Underground Garage and I heard Andrew Loog Oldham wish Jimmy Dean a Happy Birthday. ANDREW! JIMMY DEAN DIED LAST MONTH! Let’s hope it was just a rebroadcast.

PS Do you think it’s time I give Elvis and Peter Tork their own categories? I certainly write enough about both of them.

Old stuff rocks, New stuff…

I’ve been in a bit of a 60’s music mood ever since rocking out to The 1910 Fruitgum Company on Wednesday. What I find so difficult to believe is that for a 10 year period tons of bands produced tons of really great music! And then the 70’s hit and music shifted but there was still some pretty good stuff. The 80’s saw some great music but right around 1992 it stopped. Sure there were a few good songs produced but nothing that matches the old stuff. Did we just run out of songs? Does someone need to invent some new chords or notes or something? Is the fault of this dearth cause by my generation, those born in the 70’s? Maybe our brains really are totally rotted out from all those I Dream of Jeannie reruns and we are just incapable of coming up with anything…good?

Found this video of the Association on Youtube. They actually played LIVE! No lip syncing as far as I can tell. Good stuff!

Peter Tork (is still a dork)

I just found the Website, Ask Peter Tork. It’s exactly what you suspect, Peter Tork has an advice column. I am toying with the idea of asking him a question that has nagged me ever since January 25, 2004. That was the night Peter was unbelievably RUDE to me and broke my heart. I want to ask him: WHY WERE YOU RUDE TO ME!?! I wasn’t acting weird or asking you to go above and beyond! EXPLAIN YOUR ACTIONS!

In other more exciting news, I met The 1910 Fruitgum Company on Wednesday! Their songs include such hits as Simon Says, Indian Giver, 1 2 3 Red Light, Goody Goody Gumdrops, Special Delivery, May I Take A Giant Step (Into Your Heart). Can I tell you these fellows were just LOVELY!!! Friendly and kind! The total opposite of Peter Tork! In fact, the guys were so nice, they even posed for a picture with me:


How awesome is that? Peter Tork needs to take some lessons from The 1910 Fruitgum Company!

Here’s a video of The 1910 Fuitgum Company singing Goody Goody Gumdrops:

Gender Mix Up Mixed Tape

I have better things to do right now. But I am a procrastinator.

I was thinking about this the other day and I came up with 6 rather popular rock songs that had to do with Gender Confusion.

1. Lola
“I know what I am, I’m a man, I’m a man and so is Lola”

2. A.C.D.C. by Sweet or Joan Jett
“You wanna see her dingaling?”

3. Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da
“Desmond stays at home and does his pretty face and in the evening she’s a singer with the band”

4. Walk on the Wild Side by Lou Reed
“Shaved her legs and then he was a she”

5. Dude Looks Like a Lady
“Ooh he was a lady”

6. Funky Cold Medina by Tone Loc
“But when she got undressed, it was a big old mess, Sheena was a man”

Can you come up with any others?

Sirius XM Negotiating Special Pricing

I love my Sirius XM radio!  LOVE IT LOVE IT LOVE IT!  Especially since XM merged with Sirius because I get to listen to Elvis Radio!  And Little Steven’s Underground Garage.  I also love 80’s on 8, 70’s on 7, 60’s on 6, 50’s on 5, New Wave, Siriusly Sinatra and Willie’s Place.

At any rate, my subscription just came up for renewal and I was able to negotiate a really good deal that I thought I would share with you.  I called the cancellation department and told them that I was hoping they might help me because I didn’t want to have to cancel the service but the renewal amount, $149.00 was beyond my budget.  The cancellation rep said she could offer me a special price of 88.78 for the year.  I declined saying I had heard about a special rate of 77.00.  “The 88.78 is the 77.00 rate except there is a 12.00 fee for music royalty fees.”

I asked her to wipe the royalty fee.  She refused.  I asked her to credit me a month.  Still nothing.  We sat in silence for a bit.  I then said, “If you take away the royalty fee I will give you my credit card right now.”

She put me on hold and when she came back on she told me she would charge my credit card 79.80.  Hooray!  Just under 7.00 a month for commercial free radio!  I signed up for another year!