Sunday Morning Music: Jesus Christ!

Observations:

1. That little guy can dance!

2. What or who is on trial in the courtroom scene? And why does the judge allow one of the lawyers to strangle that dude on the witness stand?

3. Why does the big guy break the little guy's neck? Furthermore, why does he flashback to a time he was praying in church after he does it? It seems like after the flashback to that time in church, the big guy is given the strength to hurt more people. Kind of a conflicting message.

4. Best line: "With Jesus in my life, my suffering will be brief." No doubt about it, there will be suffering, but it'll be brief suffering, so be cool.

5. I kinda wish the whole thing was that stuff during the end credits. Oh, well.

In conclusion: Good job, guys. You can't sing and I can't follow your narrative, but you did something, and that's more than I've ever done.

Sunday Morning Friday Parody

Typically, I don't find myself tickled by the antics of teenage boys, but this parody of Ark "Music" Factory recording "artist" Rebecca Black's "Friday," brought to you by two young men who refer to themselves as "funnyz" and "simplyspoons" respectively, is fairly entertaining. Dammit, fine! I think it's pretty hilarious, so much so, I decided it was worth sharing with the GEP audience, many of whom I'm sure are a) also not entertained by high school kids with access to video cameras and b) pretty much over the whole "Friday" thing. Just push play and soak it in. You won't be disappointed.

Sunday Morning Music: Jon Lajoie -"WTF Collective"

Another comedy rap from internet superstar Jon Lajoie. Pretty funny in a fairly obvious way until MC Lethal Weapon 1,2, & 3 steps to the mic and spins some comedy rap gold.

Sunday Morning Music - Dio "Holy Diver"

What better way to come down from an insane 24-hour horror movie/cat washing/car repair festival than with a song about a...um...what the hell is this song about? Taking drugs? Being insane? Clergy on vacation? Your interpretations are welcome.

Sunday Morning Music: Muse -"Uprising"

Don't hold the fact that Muse's music inspired Stephanie Meyer's Mormon vampire series Twilight against them--this song is sweet. Triumphant, over-the-top, and a video featuring giant, killer teddy bears? Sign me up!

Sunday Morning Music: YMCK -"Magical 8-Bit Tour"

I basically completely love this. You will too.

Sunday Morning Music: BJ the Messenger-"Crackhead"

Gather your children around the computer screen and tell them to heed the warning of BJ the Messenger's "heavy rap." Le-le-le-le-leave it alone indeed.

Sunday Morning Music - One Bad Pig "Let's Be Frank"

Skot4God in the YouTube comments declares this 1989 Christ-punk anthem a "[t]imeless classic!" YouTube user pastorrob23 "used to roof houses to this stuff!!" Mikeraepowell claims porcine band member Paul Q-Pek "is now [his] church worship leader." Johnny Cash helped these guys cover his classic "Man in Black" for 1991's I Scream Sunday.



Regardless of these accolades, One Bad Pig suck just about as hard as any band has ever sucked ever. Screaming about a straw man named Frank who's going to hell because he believes in the big bang and evolution isn't punk. It's dumb. Also dumb: featuring a band member skateboarding on your album cover, rhyming "pass" and "gas," a punk band having a mascot that looks like a sign for a blues-themed BBQ joint, and those pig pants.




Oh, and that jacket with tassels, the guy pretending to peak around the corner of the album cover, nerdy glasses guy trying to be tough, and the erroneous implication that no keyboards = bad ass music.

Photos by tastypiesinc


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Sunday Morning Music: Group X - "Schfifty Five"

This one takes me back. Before I married my wife, bought a house, acquired a full-time job, and adopted the world's most bipolar feline, I had Albino Black Sheep and all the Animutation Flash videos I could stomach.  Group X was one of my favorites.  Enjoy this blast from my largely depressing distant past.

Sunday Morning Music - Kris Kristofferson "Why Me?"

I read Kristofferson's 1973 hit as more a proto-slowcore lament in the sad-sack tradition of Ecclesiastes (from the Bible)than the church-friendly (the books of the Bible are mostly church-unfriendly, and probably for good reason) song of regret and redemption most seem to interpret it as.

I mean, Kristofferson practically moans with pathological self loathing ("So help me Jesus, I know what I am") and mopes like a clingy ex-boyfriend ("Try me, Lord, if you think there's a way I can try to repay all I've taken from you"). And what's with the notion that he needs to do something to "deserve even one of the pleasure [he's] known?" So fucked up, but also truly stirring and surprisingly edifying.

You don't have to profess fealty to a savior to understand the spent desperation on display here, and that simple expression of complete frustration is comforting in the way a shoulder to cry on or a "dude, I totally know what you mean" is comforting--and in the way a simplistic "turn to Jesus" interpretation is totally not at all comforting (or even interesting).

Perfect listening for a Sunday morning spent at home mulling over your failures privately, contemplating how things got so bad, and wishing you'd passed on that last helping illicit drugs.

Sunday Morning Music: Yo Gabba Gabba- "Don't Bite Your Friends"

Good advice any day of the week.

Sunday Morning Music: The Duttons - "Mr. Sandman"

89-member singing group and extended family The Duttons are Mormons.

Sunday Morning Music - Lust Control "The Big 'M'"

Finally, a coherent, reasonable argument against masturbation that offers a reasonable alternative to sexual sin: Do a guitar solo instead!

Jesus sees everything you do, pervert.



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Sunday Morning Music: Tay Zonday -"Internet Dream"

I too have let the dishes turn green while in pursuit of my own internet dream, so Tay Zonday's song hits especially close to home for me.  Internet Dream is a damning indictment of those who use the internet to achieve marginal amounts of ironic fame among people who comb the internet looking for geeks and weirdos to insult and exploit on their blogs.  

Sunday Morning Music: Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen-"Bravery"

Mary Kate and Ashley on bravery:

I don't get it.  At the beginning, are they scared or just chilly?  And seriously, how much bravery does it take to try buttermilk?  Also, at 0:56, does Mary-Kate (or Ashley) say she's sat on Satan's lap?  That would explain a helluva lot.

In my most beautiful dreams, Reh Dogg records a cover version of this song. Oh, I wish, I wish, I wish...

Sundae Morning Music: Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen-"Ice Cream Crazy"

I kind of love this:

I'm going to learn how to play this song and perform it at every open mic night I can find!

Sunday Morning Music: Winterband-"Where Babies Come From"

Bible-based Christian rock from a band of robed, bearded guys. 

(thanks to Nathan for sending me this one way back in January)

Sunday Morning Music: Girl Groups!

When I think of Sunday morning music, I think mainly of insane (in a good or bad way) religious music. But I also think back to those halcyon days of childhood when a Sunday morning wasn't a Sunday morning unless it was spent sitting in the back seat of a car on the way to church with butterflies in my stomach (I always--ALWAYS-- got nervous going to church)and the sweet sounds of the '60s on the car stereo.

Any discussion of '60s music, I think, has to start with the girl groups that started appearing in the late '50s--groups like The Shirelles, The Ronettes, The Dixie Cups, The Adorable Pumps, The Femmettes, the Chinets, and The Amazing Excitable Woman Band. Every other important type of top 40 music in the '60s grew out of or was a cousin to the girl group sound: Soul music (at the very least the girl groups helped legitimize other soulful sounds), the British invasion (the Beatles covered "Chains" and adopted the girl group dynamic--everyone else copied the Beatles), sunshine pop (inspired by the sonic experiments of Phil Spector as well as the naive, innocent charm of the girls themselves), even American psychedelia (just look at this clip of Vanilla Fudge covering "You Keep Me Hanging On"). But this isn't a discussion of '60s music. This is Sunday morning music, and all this is just an excuse to share with you three songs from modern musicians making music inspired by the girl group sound that are perfect for listening to on a Sunday morning. So here they are.

She and Him - "I Was Made for You"



Zoey Deschanel and M Ward's She and Him project throws back to a lot of wonderful things in several wonderful ways but I think the two lesser-known girl group inspired tracks are great fun all by themselves.

From the opening drums, to the piano flourishes, to the spot-fucking-on guitar tone and background vocals, this could have been produced by Phil Spector. Such slavish adherence to an earlier form usually turns me off, but this--this--it's just so damn adorable it makes me want to give a homeless man a kitten.

She and Him - "Sweet Darlin'"



Like "I Was Made for You," but like 5 years more mature with a more advanced echo chamber and a steel guitar. Ain't nothing wrong with that.


The Pipettes - "Pull Shapes"



The Pipettes are the closest thing we have to an actual honest-to-God '60s type girl group in 2009. "Pull Shapes" has more of a '70s flavor (it mentions disco), but it's still several miles of fun in one compact, adorable, 3-minute ditty. If you can imagine The Spice Girls populated with three Lily Allens singing music inspired by the Shirelles, then you have The Pipettes. Or you could watch the video. Hopefully you already have.



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Sunday Morning (Afternoon) Music: Bruce Springsteen - "Queen of the Supermarket"

As we prepare for another ridiculously hype-filled Superbowl game and halftime show, let's take a moment to familiarize ourselves with track 4 of Bruce Springsteen's latest ridiculously hype-filled album with the ridiculously hype-filled E-street band.

Is this the worst song of Springsteen's career? Well, it's a song about being in love with a supermarket checkout lady that leadenly juxtaposes the cold decadence of a modern supermarket with the warmth of the often downtrodden people who work there (or maybe I'm giving it too much credit), but I hardly see how it's any stupider than "57 Channels (and Nothing On)" or most of his other heavy-handed slice-of-life bore-fests. Yes, the music is at once forward-reaching and absurdly outdated, which strips away the inherent desperate gravity of the subject matter and makes for a song that's shockingly out of touch with any real supermarket or its employees, but it's Bruce Springsteen. It happens sometimes. Deal with it.

Sunday Morning Music: Chris Rice- "Cartoon Song"

Really?