I WAS LISTENING TO MY IPOD TODAY AND THIS GREAT SONG CAME ON AND SAID WHO IS THAT? WELL THAT BAND IS A BAND NAMED THE THROB FROM AUSTRALIA A GREAT NAME!!!!!!!!The Throb are mostly famous for their better-than-the-Stones cover version of Fortune Teller, but to my ears the band’s finest recorded moment came six months later, when they transformed the bittersweet traditional folk song Black into a violent feedback-laden Gothic masterpiece.UnfortunatelyBlack was not a substantial hit and the band soon disintegrated.Nonetheless, the Throb still had one of the best band names ever, and even better... they looked exactly liked they sounded!
This past Saturday morning I left my house here in Va Beach at about 615 and meet up with a couple of my scooter pals and headed to Richmond VA via old highway 60! The weather channel said rain,but the whole ride up was pretty clear until we got into Richmond! It rained its ass off! We went to Richmond for THE 2008 INDIAN SUMMER SCOOTER RALLY! GOOD TIMES!! Hopefully next year it will be a little dryer!!!!!!Met Some Cool Cats,drank some good beer,and ate some good food! Sunday morning we left our friends and headed home on a true VA byway!!! route 5! What a ride!!!!!Route 5 follows the mighty JAMES RIVER all the way to Williamsburg which at that point we jumped on the James Town Ferry, and headed back to the 7CITIES!!!! WHAT A GREAT TIME!!!!!!
SOUTH ORANGE, N.J. (Oct. 20) - Soul singer Dee Dee Warwick, who herself was a highly accomplished soul singer who gained acclaim both solo as well as with her sister Dionne, has died at the age of 63 after being in poor health for months.
Warwick died Saturday at a nursing home in Essex County, said Kevin Sasaki, a family spokesman. She had been in failing health in recent months, he said, and her sister was with her when she died.
THE OTHER DAY MY LADY AND I WENT OVER TO CASA ULSH,WHERE WE DRINK FINE BEER, JOOZE,AND WINE,LISTEN TO SOME RECORDS AND ATE A A BIG BOWL OF CHILI!!!'LOOKOUT" THEN WE TOOK A STROLL IN THE WONDERFUL GHENT AREA THE TREES ARE TURNING,LEAVES ARE FALLING,AND THE AIR WAS CRISP!!!HERE ARE A FEW PICTURES OF OUR DAY!
Board track, or motordrome, racing was a type of motorsport, popular in the United States between the second and third decades of the 20th century, where competition was conducted on oval race courses with surfaces composed of wooden planks. Although the tracks most often used motorcycles, many different types of racing automobiles also competed, enough so as to see the majority of the 1920s American national championship races contested at such venues. By the early 1930s, board track racing had fallen out of favor, and into eventual obsolescence, due to both its perceived dangers and the high cost of maintenance of the wooden racing surfaces. However, several of its most notable aspects have continued to influence American motorsports philosophy to the present day, including: A technical emphasis on raw speed produced by the steep inclinations; ample track width to allow steady overtaking between competitors; and the development of extensive grandstands surrounding many of the courses.The first board track opened at the Los Angeles Coliseum Motordome near Playa del Rey, California, onApril 8, 1910. Based on and utilizing the same technology as the French velodromes used for bicycle races, the track and others like it were created with 2-inch (51 mm) x 4-inch (100 mm) boards, and banked up to 45°, and some venues, such as Fulford-by-the-Sea and Culver City, boasting unconfirmed higher bankings of 50° or more. Around a half dozen tracks up to two miles (3 km) long had opened by 1915. By 1931 there were 24 operating board tracks, including tracks in Beverly Hills, California, Atlantic City, New Jersey, and Brooklyn, New York. The board tracks popped up because of the ease of construction and the low cost of lumber.The banking in the corners of board tracks started at 25° in 1911, like bicycles tracks were. The banking was increased until 60° was common. The effect of the banking was higher cornering speed and higher G-force on drivers. Fans sat on the top of the track looking down at the racers. When a driver lost control of a racecar in a corner, he could slip up off the track and into the crowd. An incident often killed a half-dozen competitors and spectators at a time. On September 8, 1912, Eddie Hasha was killed at the New Jersey Motordome near Atlantic City. The accident killed 4 boys and injured 10 more people. The deaths made the front page of the New York Times. The press started calling the short 1/4 and 1/3 mile circuits "murderdromes". The 1913 motorcycle championship races were moved to a dirt track because dirt was safer. The national organization overseeing motorcycle racing on board tracks banned all competitions on board tracks shorter than 1-mile (1.6 km) in 1919.
Board tracks slowly faded away by the 1920s and 1930s. Notable driver fatalities on board tracks included four Indianapolis 500 winners, three of which occurred at the Altoona course in Tipton, Pennsylvania, and three in the same years in which the driver won at Indianapolis. 1919"500" winner Howdy Wilcox died in an Altoona race on September 4, 1923, while co-1924 winner Joe Boyer and 1929 winner Ray Keech both suffered fatal accidents at the facility in the same years as their 500 wins, Keech's occurring only seventeen days after, on June 15, 1929.Gaston Chevrolet, winner of the 1920 Indianapolis 500, perished that same autumn, on November 25, 1920, at a Thanksgiving Day race at the Beverly Hills Speedway.
Another contributor to the demise of board tracks was the expensive upkeep. Tracks needed new 2x4 boards every five years. During the last decade of board tracks, carpenters would repair the track from below after the cars raced down the straightaways at 120 miles per hour. A further factor was that as speeds rose, overtaking became increasingly difficult; as long as it held together, the fastest car would almost always win the race. This led to spectators turning their attention to the less-predictable racing taking place on dirt tracks.
Born Irma Lee, as a teen she sang with a Baptist church choir, auditioning for Specialty Records as a 13-year old. By the age of 19 she had been married twice and had four children. Keeping her second ex-husband's surname, she worked as a waitress in New Orleans, occasionally singing with bandleader Tommy Ridgley, who helped her land a record deal with the local Ron label. Her first single, "(You Can Have My Husband but) Don't Mess with My Man," was released in spring 1960, and reached number 22 on the Billboard R&B chart.
She then began recording on the Minit label, working with songwriter and producer Allen Toussaint on songs including “It’s Raining” and “Ruler of my Heart”, which was later reinterpreted by Otis Redding as "Pain In My Heart". Imperial Records acquired Minit in 1963, and a string of successful releases followed. These included "I Wish Someone Would Care” (her biggest national hit), its B-side " Break-a-Way” (later covered by Tracey Ullman among others), "Anyone Who Knows What Love Is”, and "Time Is on My Side" (a song previously recorded by Kai Winding, and later by the Rolling Stones).
Although her first four Imperial singles all charted on Billboard's pop chart, later releases were less successful, and, unlike her contemporaries Aretha Franklin, Gladys Knight and Dionne Warwick she never managed to cross over into mainstream commercial success. She recorded for Chess Records in 1967/68 with some success, the Otis Redding song "Good To Me" reaching the R&B chart. She then relocated to California, releasing records on various small labels, before returning to Louisiana, and in the early 1980s opened her own club, the Lion's Den.
After several years’ break from recording, she was signed by Rounder Records, and in 1991 earned her first-ever Grammy nomination for Live! Simply the Best, recorded in San Francisco. She subsequently released a number of traditional gospel albums, together with more secular recordings. The album Sing It! was nominated for a Grammy in 1999.
Thomas is still active as a performer, appearing annually at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. She reigned as Queen of the Krewe du Vieux for the 1998 New Orleans Mardi Gras season. She often headlined at her own club, which is now out of business due to the effects of Hurricane Katrina. Thomas relocated to Gonzales, Louisiana, 60 miles from New Orleans, after Hurrican Katrina, but, according to her web site, she is now back in her home in New Orleans.
Alton Ellis (Mr Rocksteady) passed away Friday evening at age 70. The singer succumbed to a 10-month fight with lymphatic cancer.
No singer had more success on Jamaican charts during the 1960s than the Trench Town-born Ellis whose first hit song was Muriel which was done with Eddie Perkins.
Throughout the 1960s Alton Ellis recorded a series of ska hits for rival producers Arthur 'Duke' Reid and Clement Dodd. These included Dancecrasher, Girl I've Got a Date, I'm Just a Guy and I'm Still in Love.
RIP Alton. You and your music will never be forgotten
Bangs was born in Escondido, California, USA. His mother was a devout Jehovah's Witness; his father died when Bangs was young. In 1969, Bangs began writing freelance after reading an ad in Rolling Stone soliciting readers' reviews. His first piece was a negative review of the MC5album Kick Out The Jams, which he sent to Rolling Stone with a note detailing that should the magazine decide not to publish the review, then they would have to contact Lester and tell him why. Instead, they published it. (He later became a big fan and friend of the MC5 after moving to Detroit.) In 1973, Jann Wenner fired Bangs from Rolling Stone over a negative review of Canned Heat. Wenner contended that Bangs was "disrespectful to musicians". He moved to Detroit to edit and write for Creem, which is where his legendary stature as a rock critic really began to grow. After leaving Creem, he wrote for The Village Voice, Penthouse, Playboy, New Musical Express, and many other publications.
Bangs claimed his influences were not so much predecessors in journalism as they were beat authors, in particular William S. Burroughs. His ranting style, similar to Hunter S. Thompson's gonzo journalism, and his tendency to insult and confront his interviewees earned him distinction.
Well basically I just started out to lead [an interview] with the most insulting question I could think of. Because it seemed to me that the whole thing of interviewing as far as rock stars and that was just such a suck-up. It was groveling obeisance to people who weren't that special, really. It's just a guy, just another person, so what?"
Bangs idolized the noise music of Lou Reed, but he had a complex journalistic relationship with Lou the performing artist, writing several legendary articles for Creem which depicted hilarious confrontational interviews, often reflecting aspects of Bangs own personality against his difficult interview subject. The essay/interview Let Us Now Praise Famous Death Dwarvesfrom 1975 is a distinctive example.
Bangs was not only involved as a critic of music but as a musician in his own right. He teamed up with Joey Ramone's brother, Mickey Leigh to put together a New Yorkgroup namedBirdland. In 1980 he traveled to Austin, Texas and met a punk rock group named the Delinquents. During his stay in Austin he recorded an album as Lester Bangs and the Delinquents entitled Jook Savages on the Brazos. It was quoted that, "Lester's album with the Delinquents was the predecessor of so-called alternative-country bands such as Wilco and Son Volt".
