Did you see that?

Ugg Boot

First off, let me say something: DO NOT ADVERTISE ANYTHING ON MY BLOG. IT WILL BE REMOVED IMMEDIATELY. IF YOU ARE SO DESPARATE TO MAKE A SALE THAT YOU HAVE TO ATTACH IT TO A BLOG, YOU NEED A NEW LINE OF WORK. YOU ARE A LOSER. TAKE YOUR OWN LIFE AND SAVE THE OXYGEN FOR THE REST OF US.

I know ya'll watched Survivor last night. Was that a hard start or what? This should be a great season.

1814, Francis Scott Key pens the lyrics to "The Star Spangled Banner" ... the song will be adopted as the U.S. national anthem over 100 years later on March 3, 1931, and continues to be among the most badly butchered vocal exercises to this day...

1970, 27-year-old Jimi Hendrix dies in a basement bedroom at the Samarkand Hotel in Notting Hill Gate, London ... the room is rented to Monika Danneman who later claims that she and Jimi were to be married ... he has taken about nine hits of quinalbarbitone and is already quite dead when the medics arrive, despite Danneman's later claims that he had been alive at that time ... the coroner's report cites "inhalation of vomit due to barbiturate intoxication" as the cause of death ... in 1993 the investigation into Hendrix's death is reopened by Scotland Yard in order to clear up discrepancies as to how and when the ambulance was called ... Danneman is vilified in books and other media and in 1996 commits suicide after losing a libel case brought by Kathy Etchingham, who originally reopened the Hendrix case...

1973, Gram Parsons of the Byrds dies after a fatal combination of alcohol and morphine in Joshua Tree, California ... his coffin is stolen from the airport by his manager, Phil Kaufman, and a former Byrds roadie before it can be sent to New Orleans for a family burial ... according to Kaufman, he and Parsons had made a pact months earlier that when one of them died "the survivor would take the other guy's body out to Joshua Tree, have a few drinks, and burn it" ... the two make their way into the desert night after toasting their departed friend at a local bar, pour five gallons of gasoline onto the body, and light it ... the fire is spotted quickly, before the cremation is complete ... Kaufman will be found and charged with stealing a coffin days later, and sentenced to pay $750 for the casket...

1973, Jim Croce, who made his big break with machismo songs "Bad Bad Leroy Brown" and "You Don't Mess Around With Jim," meets his fate in a twin-engine prop plane when it hits a tree on takeoff, killing everyone aboard...

1977, Marc Bolan of T. Rex is killed outside of London when his intoxicated wife crashes their mini-GT into a tree...

1978, The Grateful Dead do a three-night stand at the Son Et Lumiere Theater in Giza, Egypt, with the Great Pyramids as a backdrop...

1981, Pink Floyd begin production on the film version of The Wall...

1983, the members of KISS appear on MTV sans their trademark makeup ... the band had already lost original members Ace Frehley and Peter Criss, and sought to reinvent themselves for the '80s ... the ploy seemed to work, as their next release Lick it Up became their first platinum album in four years...

1984, the burgeoning MTV network holds its first Video Music Awards ceremony at New York's Radio City Music Hall ... the show is co-hosted by Bette Midler and Dan Aykroyd and honors the top music videos of the year ... the event is conceived as a hip alternative to the Grammys ... winners are awarded "Moonman" trophies that depict an astronaut with an American flag, one of the network's earliest icons...

1990, the Department of Labor slaps Dolly Parton's Dollywood theme park with a $20,000 fine ... the singer--whose hit song "9 to 5" complained of an overbearing boss--had been overworking teenage staff members of the park...

1991, Guns 'n Roses release Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II ... the albums are at times a departure from the raw, riff-laden rock of the band's debut, Appetite for Destruction, with songs like the epic ballad "November Rain" and "Don't Cry" showing the band's softer side ... the albums will both go platinum within two months, and secure Guns' place as the biggest rock band on the planet until Nirvana arrives the following year...

1995, Paul McCartney's hand-written lyrics to The Beatles' classic "Getting Better" sell for a cool quarter-million dollars at a Sotheby's auction...

1998, for the first time in 24 years, the members of '70s British rock band Mott The Hoople get back together to perform at the Virgin Megastore in London ... also this week in '98, an airliner is forced to make an unscheduled landing in Denver as an extremely intoxicated passenger goes berserk after meeting Hootie and the Blowfish ... the man had been pestering the band for autographs and advice, and blew up after being removed from the first-class area where the band was seated...

2001, McFarlane Toys, the brainchild of the Spawn comic book's creator Todd McFarlane, continues its line of rock star toys with the release of Metallica action figures...

2003, the ever-dramatic Billy Corgan announces that his latest band Zwan is no more ... "I really enjoyed my experience with Zwan, but at the end of the day, without that sense of deeper family loyalty, it just becomes like anything else"...

2004, police in Denver, Colorado arrest a man for criminal impersonation and theft after he walked into a local bank claiming to be Mike McCready of Pearl Jam ... he went on to tell patrons that Pearl Jam would be playing a benefit concert nearby that weekend, and that he would sell them fictional $1,000 tickets for a mere 20 bucks ... a female employee of the bank called her husband, a big fan of the band, to tell him about the tickets ... the savvy fan had heard of the scam, and had his wife promptly notify the police ... the man had apparently pulled the scam in Vegas, New York, Miami, and New Mexico despite looking nothing like McCready ... also this week in 2004, Johnny Ramone dies in his his Los Angeles home after five years battling prostate cancer ... Ramone passes surrounded by his wife Linda Cummings and friends Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam, singer Rob Zombie and his wife Sherrie Zombie, Lisa Marie Presley, Pete Yorn, Vincent Gallo, and Talia Shire...

Guess What Starts Tonight?

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SURVIVOR!!!!!
It's about time. More to come.

Thank You, I Love You

Ugg Boot


Check out my other website. www.bradsarcade.com

Monkee business ... Moon eclipsed ... tarnished Glitter

This is the week that was in matters musical...

1956, in the wake of Johnny Ray's success with "Just Walking in the Rain," Sun Records releases a cover by The Prisonaires, a smooth-singing doo-wop outfit composed of Tennessee State Penitentiary inmates...

1957, Jackie Wilson, former Dominoes lead singer signs a solo deal with Brunswick Records ... later dubbed "Mr. Excitement," he goes on to score 54 chart hits including the highly energized "Lonely Teardrops" and "Higher and Higher"...

1960, Nancy Sinatra weds pop singer Tommy Sands ... five years later she finds her walking boots and the marriage dissolves...

1964, a pair of enterprising Beatles fans pack themselves into a carton marked "Beatles Fan Mail" and arrange to have it delivered to the Baltimore Civic Center where the Fab Four are appearing ... their plot is foiled when the girls are discovered by guards checking deliveries ... Rod Stewart cuts his first single--the blues chestnut "Good Morning Little Schoolgirl"...

1965, an ad in Variety announces auditions for the new TV show The Monkees ... would-be Monkees who fail to make the cut include Stephen Stills, Danny Hutton later of Three Dog Night, songwriter Paul Williams, and Charles Manson... What the hell? Charlie manson?

1965, The Toys, a New York-based girl group, scores a #2 pop hit with "Lover's Concerto" ... the song is based on a Bach minuet...

1966, after scoring hits in the guise of a crooner and rock 'n' roller, Bobby Darin reinvents himself as a folk singer with the release of "If I Were a Carpenter" ... the Tim Hardin tune reinvigorates his flagging career...

1969, during Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young's set at the Big Sur Festival, a yahoo in the crowd starts heckling the band for being rich rock stars ... Stills, wearing a flamboyant fur coat, leaps off the stage, chases the heckler down, and administers a pounding while from the stage Crosby pleads for "Peace and love, peace and love" ... Stills gets back onstage and reflects, "Y'know, we think about what that guy was saying, and we look at these coats and these pretty guitars and fancy cars and say, 'Wow man, what am I doin'?'"...

1978, Who drummer Keith Moon succumbs to an overdose of the drug Heminevrin prescribed to combat his alcoholism ... an autopsy reveals that he'd washed down 32 of the pills with champagne ... his death occurs in the same apartment in which Mama Cass of The Mamas & The Papas met her demise in 1974...

1982, the gospel musical Your Arms are Too Short to Box with God opens on Broadway ... co-starring Al Green and Patti LaBelle, the show is scheduled to run for 30 performances but is extended to 80 after garnering rave reviews and big box office...

1987, former Wailer Peter Tosh is shot to death in his Jamaican home during a robbery ... an article in Rolling Stone suggests the killing was actually the result of a feud ... Tosh's previous home had been burned down by an arsonist a year earlier...

1987, brilliant but mentally troubled bassist Jaco Pastorius comes to an ignominious end in a tussle with a nightclub bouncer...

1993, the movie What's Love Got to Do With It opens to solid box office...the biopic is based on Tina Turner's tell-all biography I Tina that details her stormy relationship with ex-husband Ike...an anticipated counter-biography, I Ike, never materializes...

1996, David Bowie's "Telling Lies" becomes the first song to be released exclusively on the Internet ... Tupac Shakur, the frequently-shot rapper, expires in a Las Vegas intensive care ward following a drive-by shooting six days earlier...

1998, Bushwick Bill, formerly of the rap ensemble Geto Boys, sues the act's label, Rap-A-Lot Records, a division of Virgin, alleging that three of the company's employees held him at gunpoint, then beat and kicked him in order to dissuade the three-foot, eight-inch rapper from breaking his recording contract ... British glam-rock star Gary Glitter makes a court appearance on charges of producing child porn and sexual assault ... he is later convicted and imprisoned...

2000, Timothy Commerford, bassist for Rage Against The Machine, is sentenced to time served by a New York court after pleading guilty to assault and disorderly conduct ... the charges stem from Commerford's antics at the MTV Video Music Awards during which he scaled a large stage set from which he was forcibly removed by the cops ... the soundtrack for Almost Famous is released ... it's notable for including four vintage Led Zeppelin tracks -- a first for any soundtrack ... Robert Plant and Jimmy Page agree to the tunes' inclusion after being won over by Cameron Crowe's filmed semi-autobiographical remembrance of a rock journalist-groupie in the '70s...

2003, The Pixies announce that band members have buried the hatchet and will embark on a reunion tour in 2004 ... the influential '80s rockers go on to huge success in the face of a lackluster touring season...

2004, The 6th Circuit Court in Cincinnati rules that artists should pay for every sample they use...previously courts had held that as long as short samples could not be identified, licensing was unnecessary ... ironically, a two-second sample of a Funkadelic record in NWA's "100 Miles and Runnin" was at the heart of the ruling ... Funkadelic and Parliament leader and founder George Clinton has historically been supportive of sampling having produced two albums titled Sample Some of Dis and Sample Some of Dat, that permitted remixers to use Clinton's music without legal strings attached...a jet-lagged Elton John, set upon by Taiwanese paparazzi, has a hissy fit calling them "rude, vile pigs!"...

2004, it's been over 20 years since Aretha Franklin has performed on the West Coast due to her pronounced fear of flying...the Queen of Soul announces that she and her entourage will travel in a three-bus caravan to Las Vegas and L.A. for a handful of shows...a source close to the singer is quoted as saying, "Her albums don't sell like they used to -- she's got to tour"...

I've Got Gas

Ugg Boot

It makes no sense. It's summertime. Gas prices increase because with school out, more people go on vacation. We're at war. Prices go up. Hurricane, up again. Howard Stern quitting radio, up again. It's gonna rain on thursday, up again. Bangladesh is having it's annual pancake cook-off, up again. The new X-Box system released, gas prices up again. What other excuses will they come up with???
Here is the biggest mystery. If you're a retailer and you buy an item to resale. You base your price off of what you paid for it, not for what you're gonna pay for it in the future. Gas stations raise prices in anticipation of a price increase towards them. Basically, they're stealing. If you buy a tanker load of gas, the price per gallon should stay the same until you buy your next tanker load of gas. The government should regulate. I know, I know, the government should do this and that but who can tell them anything? They're getting their cut of the gas increase.
When will electric cars become a reality to comsumers? When will hybrid cars be reasonably priced. When will solar powered cars become a reality to consumers? Speaking of hybrid cars, I priced a hybrid toyota about a month ago. The car got twice as much gas mileage as the 4 cylinder models but at more than double the cost. I guess that's the price of technology. Let me not fail to mention that the hybrid car was the ugliest vehicle on 4 wheels that I've ever seen.

Sky-high gas prices will fall noticeably in the coming weeks, settling in at around 2.60 dollars per gallon by the end of the year, a federal energy official told a congressional panel. http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20050907/ts_alt_afp/usweatherenergyoilpolitics_050907074523
Bullshit. It will fall to $2.60 a gallon?

Man Oh Man

Ugg Boot

1948, Sonny Til & the Orioles' "It's Too Soon To Know" moves onto the charts ... the song will reach #11 on the pop chart and #1 on the R&B chart ... it is the first time that a black group singing a song in the "race style" penetrated such a high place on the pop chart...

1956, Elvis begins recording his second album in Los Angeles ... it is to include covers of Little Richard hits "Rip It Up," "Long Tall Sally," and "Ready Teddy" ... Elvis even plays piano on some of the tracks...

1962, The Beatles hit Abbey Road recording studio for the first time, recording "Love Me Do" in about 16 takes with drummer Andy White ... a demo of the song had been recorded with Pete Best on drums, but George Martin suggested, since Ringo had just joined the band, that they use him and session man Andy White ... a version was recorded with White on drums and another with Ringo ... the White version was released in England and the Ringo version was later released in Canada and the U.S ... six years later to the week, Eric Clapton lays down one of the most famous solos ever at Abbey Road on The Beatles' tune "While My Guitar Gently Weeps"...

1963, "Be My Baby" by The Ronettes hits the charts ... the song will later be cited as the perfect pop song by Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys and one can maybe hear a touch of it in Brian's own "Good Vibrations"...

1968, "Piece of My Heart" by Big Brother & The Holding Company with Janis Joplin singing lead hits the charts ... it is Joplin's and the band's first hit ... meanwhile in Chicago, because of fears of street violence during the National Democratic Convention, The Rolling Stones' "Street Fighting Man" is banned from air play in Chicago...

1976, Fleetwood Mac's album Fleetwood Mac reaches number one this week ... it has been on the charts for 13 months, relentlessly working its way toward the top...

1990, Tom Fogerty, an original member of Creedence Clearwater Revival and brother of John, dies of tuberculosis this day at age 48 ... he had parted from the band at the height of its success in 1971, a casualty of sibling rivalry ... and although he recorded a number of albums on his own, never scored a hit after his Creedence days...

1991, country music star Dottie West dies from internal injuries suffered in a car accident in the parking lot of The Grand Ole Opry ... the crash occured a few days earlier when an elderly neighbor who was giving West a ride to work lost control of the car ... also this week, Vincent Lance dies ... he is a leather-clad rocker from England who established a career in France ... often in trouble with the law and prone to messianic delusions, he served as the model for David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust...

1997, Pat Smear announces he will no longer be a Foo Fighter and that Franz Stahl will take his place...

2000, The Doobie Brothers offer 15 new tracks for free download to promote their latest album Sibling Rivalry...