Category: Music

The Savage Young

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My hometown friend George Hall occasionally used to say he’d like to start a band called “The Savage Young.”

George and I had both been caught up in the second wave of Beatlemania that swept over teenagedom in the middle and late 1970s, years after the Beatles had broken up, and a lot of us “inherited” record collections from older brothers and sisters. (I got the Beatles Greatest Hits 1962-66, a double-album, when my brother went off to college in 1975.) Second-wave Beatlemania got a boost in 1976 from the release of the Rock ‘n’ Roll Music album (with great old classics like “Long Tall Sally” and “Slow Down,” as well as Beatle-written tunes like “You Can’t Do That”), and another boost in 1977 from their live album recorded at the Hollywood Bowl in 1964-65.

At some point in 1976, I read Hunter Davies’ The Beatles: An Authorized Biography (published in 1969), and was fascinated to learn the early history of the group: Playing “skiffle” as The Quarrymen, a series of name changes, early personnel like Pete Best and Stu Sutcliffe, the tiny clubs in Liverpool, then the pivotal period when they traveled to Hamburg and had to play multiple sets every night in rowdy bars in the Reeperbahn district. It was during their Hamburg period that the Beatles wore leather jackets and, under the influence of art students Astrid Kirscherr and Klaus Voorman, adopted their soon-to-be famous hairstyles. But they were still a bunch of tough-looking greasers when Astrid first took their photos in the Hamburg rail yards (above).

It also was while in Hamburg that the Beatles, performing as back-up group, recorded several tunes with Tony Sheridan, including the single “My Bonnie.” Tracks from the Hamburg sessions were eventually released in 1965 as an album called The Savage Young Beatles, and it was from that title that my friend George got the half-joking idea that there should be a rock band called “The Savage Young.” Continue reading The Savage Young →

Rush: ‘Cut To The Chase,’ a Tea Party Rallying Cry

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by Smitty

After about a half-hour outage, the network pipe seemed stable enough to grab some tuneage off of Amazon. Rush’s 1993 Counterparts has this essential cut. No matter how deep the rot revealed inside the Beltway, there just isn’t any excuse to give in to despair.

You may be right, It’s all a waste of time
I guess that’s just a chance I’m prepared to take
A danger I’m prepared to face
Cut to the chase.


‘Cut to the chase’ is my attitude about the bad news. We know it will suck twice as bad as we imagine, even when we double our estimate. That bad news shan’t improve over time. Our leaders are, as a group, a heap of FAIL. Bring it on, so we can be about improving things.
Also rallying a Tea Party: Gov. Sarah Palin. We really have to focus on getting Stacy to the Big Easy again. Just in case Sarah decides, you know, to make a little news or something.

Also rocking the Tea Parties, courtesy of The Blaze:

$39,978 a Year

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That’s the undergraduate tuition at Dartmouth College, where Josh Riddle and David Rufful are students. And here’s their new rap video, “Obama, Reid, Pelosi”:

Riddle and Rufful got written up at The Blaze by Emily Esfahani Smith (Dartmouth ’09), who has never once linked my blog.

Also, Riddle and Rufful are on the staff of The Dartmouth Review, where the blog roll includes David Brooks and Andrew Sullivan — but not me.

Despite such vicious snubs, in sending me their new video via e-mail, Mr. Riddle wrote: “I love reading your blog. . . . Thanks for your blog, it has been a great fountain of knowledge for me.”

OK. Now shut up and link me, Josh. I got ties older than you, kid.

— Robert Stacy McCain, Jacksonville (Ala.) State University, ’83

‘That Little Faggot With the Earring and the Makeup’? He’s Now Banned in Canada

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Dire Straits ix now branded a homophobic hate group:

It was No. 1 in 1985, but it’s unacceptable for Canadian eyes and ears today.
The Dire Straits song “Money for Nothing” was ruled by the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council to be “extremely offensive” and thus inappropriate for airing because it uses an anti-gay slur. . . .
The Canadian broadcasters’ “Ethics and Equitable Portrayal Code” requires them to “ensure that their programming contains no abusive or unduly discriminatory material or comment which is based on matters of … sexual orientation” among other things. . . .

You know what’s an even more insulting slur? “Canadian.” Where I come from, buddy, them’s fightin’ words. Any faggot in Alabama would kick your ass if you called him a “Canadian.” Well, here’s the hateful guitar riff that’s too rockin’ for you Canadian wussies to handle:

Somebody call Mark Potok at the SPLC. Tell him I played this homophobic anti-Canadian anthem and demand to be denounced for it!

UPDATE: What’s wrong with this headline?

Canadian Fags Are Pussies

Obviously, it’s redundant to say “Canadian Fags.” Sodomy is their national pastime up there.

UPDATE II: Welcome, Instapundit readers!

UPDATE III: Linked by The Daley Gator, That Mr. Guy’s Blog, Inoperable Terran, The Lonely Conservative, Moose and Squirrel and Da Tech Guy. Thanks!

UPDATE IV: You know who I hate even more than I hate Canadians? Jake Gyllenhaal. Also, Chris Matthews. Southern man don’t need either one of ’em around.