top of the bops [lulu's song stash]

[lulu]

here ya go, have a song

i'd like to share some songs/videos that i like, maybe you'll like them too. feel free to reply if you do!!

i'm too spacey for a "song of the day". but i'll pop in to drop a bop. i wont go over the top, and some of these might flop. (i'm running out of ops. so i guess i'd better stop.) (support small record shops!!)

stay tuned!

[lulu]

Love - Little Red Book
American Bandstand, June 18, 1966.

I love Love. They're a criminally underrated band from Los Angeles, and even though they're kinda lumped in the "60s psychedelic rock" umbrella, their sound is pretty diverse. Their second album, Da Capo (1966) is a perfect example. Just go listen to it, it's like 30 minutes long, it's like sunshine punk. I think everyone should listen to Forever Changes (196:cool:!! There's a whole sad story involving Arthur Lee, but we won't get into that now.

I chose this song because it's So Dang Cool, and because there just aren't a lot of Love performances on YT, but I might come back and switch this because I don't think it really shows Love at their best. I've linked some of my favorite songs below, so check those out if you'd like!

¡Que Vida!
The Red Telephone
Dream
Always See Your Face

[lulu]

Jefferson Airplane - Star Track
Crown of Creation, 1968

It's a Jefferson Airplane song that doesn't feature Grace Slick!

Written, sung and shredded by Jorma Kaukonen, this song is just.. cool. I bet Hunter S. Thompson dug it, too. It creates a whole sonic landscape for me, and those are hard to articulate, so I won't even try. It's just cool, man. The vocal delivery and the lyrics and the bass... 1960s computer programming and burnout.. cool. it's just cool.

give it a listen while driving alone at night, and you'll be cool too.

[lulu]

Taco - Puttin' On The Ritz
1983

funky synthy hypercamp show tunes

SOMETIMES the algorithms work for good, because I didn't know about Taco until about 12 hours ago. I guess this song went "viral on tiktok" whatever that means. This might be the equivalent of someone naively posting this song and being all "wow look what i discovered".. but hey not all of us live on that side of the internet :P Anyway.. man o man, this cat's cool. He was born in Jakarta, went to school in Brussels, then moved to Hamburg and got into the theatre bizz!

And SOMETIMES YouTube comments are cool and not toxic, because that's where I learned that

- Taco was known for performing depression era show tunes in a modern style.
- Irving Berlin was still alive in 1983 when this cover was released, which made him, at 95, the oldest living songwriter to have a hit on the Billboard Charts during his lifetime.
- He's been responsible for at least one person becoming a drag king (or.. maybe two. check back with me in a few years)

A few other choice comments from people who took the words outta my mouth fingers:

- This dude is like a fusion between Tim Curry's Frank N Furter (Rocky Horror) and Tim Curry's characters in Clue and Home Alone 2. Tim Curry levels unparallelled by mere mortals.
- This song and video has always struck me as creepy, catchy, unsettling, fun, and disturbing. And I'm here for all of it.
- This guy has the same energy I have creeping around my apartment at 4 am drunk off busch lite after work

(Also worth noting that Taco replied with gratitude to most of the kind comments, which made me smile because we love a humble king.)

ANYWAY, enough of all that noise. The song is a funky synthy cover of Irving Berlin's classic. It's great on it's own but if you've got a working pair of peepers, watch the performance for the full experience... the ones linked, or any others available! You'll have a good time! I'm always in awe of people with that much control over their movements and expressions.

This performance is from a German NYE show. The music video is pretty great too. I couldn't decide which one to post, but I went with this because, well, it's a show tune! The outfits, the tap dancing!