Welcome friends to another Saturday night where I celebrate the theft of good songs by other bands. Let's jump right in.
First up we have a Beatles double whammy. I have no idea who made this random video. Enjoy the ducks as Ben Folds sings "Golden Slumbers" and Eddie Vedder performs "You've Got To Hide Your Love Away."
Second we finally have a U2 song that I would put on my mp3 player. They have never sounded better.
Next up we have the man who is always welcome on the Skog Blog, the late, great Elliott Smith doing "13" by Big Star.
Now we have the highest selling group in the history of Motown, who for some reason has been slandered this week on the blog scene. Shame on you all for mocking such a class act. Here is Boyz II Men with a silky smooth rendition of the Commodores classic, "Easy."
And finally we have one more Beatles song to complete the weekend. The always strangely erotic Fiona Apple doing "Across the Universe."
Ok so technically this isn't a cover song but this is my blog and I make the rules. Seeing the Fiona video above reminded me of her greatest video starring my twin (when Wheels lets me grow my beard for a few months) Mr. Zach Galifianakis.
So far on Friday Night I have shared a music guilty pleasure and a movie of which I should be but am not ashamed so I figure it was time to talk about the TV Hall of Shame. Here is a little snippet of
what I want to discuss tonight:
Anybody remember the show Studs? Premiered in 1991 and lasted a few years. Played on Fox 13 at like 10pm. Ring any bells? Well thanks to Studs I became addicted to horrible dating shows as a teen. Sure I saw reruns of the Dating Game and the Newlywed Game as a child but it wasn't until I started watching Studs that I realized the pleasure of watching trainwreck relationships and first encounters on television.
Over the past 6 years more "reality" dating shows have come and gone then I can even count or remember. Wheels and I used to watch Elimidate religiously every night and then Shipmates during the commercial breaks of the Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn. More recently MTV has upped the anty with craptastic dating shows like Room Raiders, Next, Parental Control and even Singled Out. I'm not saying that they were appointment tv or my tivo was set to record them but any time I happen to stumble upon them I had to finish the episode. It was a strange phenomena. I think Flanksteak would agree with me. Random side note - my favorite episode of Room Raiders was a "special" Spring Break edition where one lucky girl got to search the rooms of members of Maroon 5. When the mystery room occupants were revealed you could see the girl scrambling in her mind (and she seemed to be extremely bright for sure) to somehow pick the room of Adam Levine, the lead singer of M5. Of course only the weird looking dudes in the band had offered up the option of a date and the poor girl ended up with the ugly guitar player. Not the goofy looking LDS guitar player, I'm talking the REALLY REALLY ugly dude. High comedy.
Anyway, back to the subject at hand. Strangely enough one would assume that my love of these cheesy shows would include an adoration of the Bachelor and their ilk. I think it was the second season, Wheels and I decided we were going to jump on the Bachelor bandwagon. We couldn't even make it through the season premiere. The Bachelor took itself way too seriously. The good natured, tongue in cheek, trainwreckedness of the other shows was not there. So we abandoned ship quickly. Also I find it strange that I have never gotten into Flavor of Love, Rock of Love and all of those "new school" dating shows. Have I matured? Perhaps. Just too trashy? Maybe. I just haven't been able to find any pleasure, guilty or not in them.
So I kind of lied when I said that none of these dating shows ever became more than a reasonable way to kill 30 bored minutes. In the Summer of 2003 the greatest dating show of all time hit the air. I'm talking about Paradise Hotel. Wheels and I were late to the party on this one. We missed the first several weeks because it didn't look that great. Sure we caught clips here and there but nothing really "caught us." One night when hanging out with Dogface and his lovely wife they confessed of their love of Paradise. Wheels and I decided to give it another shot. For those who didn't have the chance to watch this guiltiest of all pleasures, it was basically the bastard child of Survivor, the Bachelor and the Real World. A group of guys and girls were sent to an awesome hotel in an exotic locale and just got to eat, drink, swim and get tan. Each week the studio audience would send a guy or a girl to the resort causing the guys or girls to have an extra person and at the end of the week whoever wasn't chosen to room with someone else was sent packing. Everyone talked about "the game" and playing "the game" but I'm 100% sure that nobody had any idea what in the hell was going on. The viewers at home sure didn't. I think there was a short time where Fox thought about leaving this show on forever. Finally after a few months (the show ran from June to October on multiple nights during the week) they stopped sending new guests to the hotel and began evicting people for good. "The Game" got more and more intense until finally winners were crowned. The big winner was a relatively attractive gal from Wisconsin named Charla. She had hitched her wagon to an unbelievably goofy looking dude named Dave who was the nerdiest but smartest man at the resort. Thanks to Dave's strategery and ability to play "the game" as well as his puppy love and devotion to Charla, she waltzed to the finish line. The real rub was this - as winner, Charla was given the opportunity to split the money with Dave, her partner and roommate for the duration of the Summer, or keep it all for herself. Of course Charla gave some BS excuse about going to school, buying her mom a house (how cheap are homes in WI??) and took the entire $250k winnings for herself. What a perfect ending to the most shallow, yet crack-like addictive TV show in the history of time.
Sorry Dave, but tonight I would like to say, "If Loving Paradise Hotel is wrong then I Don't Wanna Be Right."
I hate to take any attention off of Ben Folds Five day, but today is also a great day for other reasons. Yes it is the day when the NFL season kicks off and even more importantly, the Fantasy Football season. I am a FFL junkie. However the league in which I have played the most is slowly declining. Owner interest is down. The smackboard is deader than my dead great grandmother. I tried to spice up the league this year and was told by the infamous Dogface "some of us don't have 3 hours per day to dedicate to fantasy football." Well shame on you Dogface. You make that kind of time.
One of the reasons I think I enjoy FFL so much is that I used to be a NFL video game fanatic. These days I believe it is easier for grown men (and women for my FFL loving females out there) to say, "sorry honey just finishing up some work and checking my email" as we actually tinker with our lineups each night. If we were sitting on the couch with a controller in our hand playing XBox that doesn't go over nearly as well to our spouses when there are lawns to be mowed, kids to be bathed and dishes to be done.
FFL and Roto Leagues have been around for years. However, I've only been playing FFL now for about 8 years. I wish I had been playing since I was 12 years old but that would be a lie. Had I been playing during those golden years of mine I would have most definitely done anything I could to include the following player on my roster. Yea, even the greatest athlete of all time. Who cares if he isn't real, to anyone who once played entire seasons of Tecmo Super Bowl in mere days, he is all to real. I present to you - Tecmo Bo - the Greatest Football Player of All Time.
I just received an email that was so amazing, so shocking that I have read it probably 28 times to validate its authenticity. I checked the calendar, nope still September 3rd not April 1st. What is going on?
What if I told you that the greatest band in the history of time (even better than Gomez or the Cardigans) was reuniting for one night only. One concert. How much would you pay? $100? $1000?
Well I just received the following email sent from Ben Folds and Myspace...
Subject: Ben Folds Five To Reunite
BEN FOLDS FIVE TO REUNITE FOR A ONE TIME ONLY CONCERT! TO PLAY REINHOLD IN ITS ENTIRETY!
MySpace, the world’s premier social network, today announced the exciting launch of its newest music program, Front to Back, celebrating iconic albums that have helped shape the MySpace Generation. MySpace kicks off this program by reuniting beloved alt-pop band Ben Folds Five with an exclusive one-time live performance of their final studio album together, The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner, in its entirety. The concert will be the band's first performance together in nearly ten years and will take place in the band’s former hometown of Chapel Hill, North Carolina on September 18, 2008 at the UNC Memorial Hall. The show will be rebroadcast on the Front to Back official MySpace profile in October http://myspace.com/fronttoback “We are honored and excited that Ben Folds Five is helping launch this new music program,” said Josh Brooks, VP of Music Marketing for MySpace. “Front to Back is about connecting and re-connecting the MySpace community, fans and bands alike with some of the most acclaimed and inspirational albums ever produced.” Front to Back asks leading artists to perform one of their own seminal albums, from front to back, in a live concert that is then later aired on the site. The airing of the event includes interviews with the band as well as artists who were influenced by the album. Presented by Nowwhat.com, tickets to the Ben Folds Five Front to Back taping will go on sale to the public through etix.com on September 8th at 10 AM EST. Additional Front to Back performances will be announced by MySpace in the coming months. Piano-based rock trio Ben Folds Five formed in Chapel Hill, North Carolina in 1993. Comprised of Ben Folds on vocals and piano, Robert Sledge on bass and backing vocals and Darren Jessee on drums and backing vocals, the group quickly became heroes in the world of indie alternative-pop. The band, well-known for their hit single "Brick" from their platinum-selling 1997 album Whatever and Ever Amen, was together seven years before disbanding amicably in 2000, at which time Ben Folds began his esteemed solo career while Darren Jessee went on to form the band Hotel Lights and Robert Sledge went on to play in the now defunct International Orange. Folds' third solo studio album, Way to Normal, releases on September 30, 2008. The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner was released in April 1999 and was the fourth and final album from Ben Folds Five. It cracked the Top 40 of Billboard's Album chart and reached No. 3 on Billboard's Top Internet Albums chart. “When MySpace approached me about doing this gig,” Ben Folds said, “I misunderstood and thought they wanted us to play Purple Rainfront to back, so of course I said yes. But we're happy to do "The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner" instead. Of our three albums, this one brings back the most vivid memories. It was actually written to be one song of many movements, which is why there are motifs that appear throughout the album. That should make 'Reinhold' a natural to be played front to back."Proceeds from concert will benefit Operation Smile: Changing Lives One Smile at a Time. For more information, please go to operationsmile.org.
I'm speechless. Ben Folds Five reunited playing their best album in its entirety. I'd love to chat some more but I am off to donate some plasma and other body fluids and/or parts in order to make sure this happens. Good luck to me!
Labor Day, September 1st. The summer is pretty well over. Are you bummed out? Depressed? Happy because the kids are going back to school? Well leave it to old KG to help ease the pain or make the joy even better. I have an album for you that will allow you to enjoy Summer all year round.
Before you laugh, I ask for some patience and an open mind. The album is "Life" by the Cardigans. Yes the Cardigans. The band that brought us 'Love Fool.' I know what most of you are thinking, "The Cardigans are one hit wonders... I really liked Love Fool the first 10,000 times I heard it but now it makes me want to punch someone in the face..." Well good news the song 'Love Fool' is not on this album. Life was released in 1995 and was pre-Love Fool. If we were to have one of those "What 10 CDs would you want on a Desert Island" discussions, 'Life' would make the cut.
Let's discuss why 'Life' is so very awesome. There is not a single bad song on the album. Not one. The entire album is cheesy rock perfection, mixed with 60's Euro-Pop, and a hint of jazz. Most people know that the band is from Sweden and so it also doesn't hurt that the lead singer Nina Persson is not exactly an ugly gal.
Enough of my ramblings, let's give some of the tunes a listen:
First up - "Carnival"
Next up we have "Rise and Shine"
And now, "Sick and Tired"
Finally, last week I received complaints that my Monday Music blog didn't have enough Grey's Anatomy. I'm almost positive that this song has never actually been on Grey's Anatomy but some psycho fan produced this little number with perhaps my favorite song on "Life." So for real this time, here's one for the ladies. I give you "Celia Inside" starring Ronald Miller.
