In a sense this is as it should be, for what Rock Dreams enshrined was a canon of music that would fragment in the wake of punk into a million jagged pieces with narratives that spoke to an increasingly specialized audience. Still, I like to think that some of the visual storytelling he employed found it’s echo in the early videos of the 80s which codified easy to swallow personas for stars like Cyndi Lauper, Billy Idol,  ZZ Top and Madonna.

His visual style owed a debt to Edward Hopper, with a touch of photorealism and occasional collage elements woven in. His post Rock Dreams work continued his obsession with pop culture and Americana mythmaking with images of Betty Hutton and George Raft amongst others. His later works expanded his scope to take in the entirety of 20th century pop culture and world history.

He’s also well known for doing the covers for David Bowie’s Diamond Dogs album (famous for having to emasculate the Bowie/canine hybrid) and the Rolling Stones’ It’s Only Rock N’ Roll album.

Here are some of his best pieces:

An Appreciation by Noah Mallin

Back when Cyndi Lauper was going to be the superstar of the 80s and Madonna was a ho-bag writhing around in her undies, Lauper was riding a wave based on her debut album much of which consisted of cover songs. The least likely was “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” a very 80s femme freedom anthem that was originally written and recorded by Philadelphia songwriter and musician Robert Hazard. Hazard with his band The Heroes had his own hit with “Escalator of Life” in 1982.

Hazard, like Lauper’s backing band The Hooters, was a regular on the Philly and South Jersey music scene and even as further success eluded him kept singing, writing and playing, moving to Florida and pursuing a country inflected folk sound.

“Escalator of Life” is a great lesser-known new wave gem with some very clever lyrics and of course “Girls” is a timeless classic. Below is “Escalator” and “Change Reaction.”

By Noah Mallin

Back in the old days I was known as something of a mixtape maven, making knees knock in the lunchroom with inspired pairings of, say, James Brown and Camper Van Beethoven. It turns out that lost art is alive and well and like Michael Jackson choreography – at its height behind bars.

The New York Times by way of Billboard, Reuters and a side route through BoingBoing among others report on one music distributor that isn’t staggering around at death’s door.
Granted they specialize in pre-recorded cassettes and not mixes but their business is expanding when big record companies are contracting — and with an “obsolete” format no less. Why? They market to America’s ever-growing prison population. Nothing says “Be my bitch” like some homemade hootch and an Anne Murray cassette.

Why not CDs? It’s simple, CD’s can be broken into handy little neck-threatening shards. If you’ve ever tried strangling someone with cassette tape you’ll know it’s not terribly effective. According the the nation’s paper of record:

“Best-selling current titles include Lil Wayne’s “Tha Carter III,” Mariah Carey’s “E=MC2,” Usher’s “Here I Stand,” Rihanna’s “Good Girl Gone Bad,” Nickelback’s “All the Right Reasons,” Leona Lewis’ “Spirit” and Lyfe Jennings’ “Life Change.”

Perennial sellers include Al Green’s “Greatest Hits,” Linkin Park’s “Hybrid Theory,” Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” Pink Floyd’s “The Dark Side of the Moon” and a best-of collection by the Stylistics.”

Hey, prisoners listen to the same crap as the rest of us!

In the last post I whined, as I so often do, about record companies that don’t understand that music videos are advertisements and ought to be embeddable by anyone. Along comes Weezer to prove the point by cleverly producing a video that asks (maybe too hard) for viral love.

Oh Weezer, how can I say no? With a catchy melody hewed from pure power punk goodness and hilarious and poignant cameos from the Chocolate Rain dude, the numma numma kid, Chris Crocker and a bunch of other YouTubers “Pork and Beans” is a must to display here. Lets hope the rest of the new album manages to put memories of their last two to rest…

Oh, and nice ‘stache Rivers…

Compiled By Noah Mallin

Air celebrates the tenth (!) anniversary of their acclaimed Moon Safari with a three-disc CD/DVD re-issue featuring live tracks and remixes. Here’s the Spike Jonze directed video for “Kelly Watch The Stars”:

M83 issues another album of cinematic popcraft with Saturdays = Youth. Here’s the video for “Graveyard Girl”:

Finally a DVD of rare live Clash performances, The Clash Live: Revolution Rock continues Sony’s mission of uncovering every last scrap of Clash related material out there. Here’s a preview of the doc which previously aired on PBS:

Those rascally Raconteurs rush release their new one, Consolers of The Lonely today. Naughty iTunes spoiled the retro unheard release fun by accidentally offering downloads over the weekend. Here’s the video evidence, a new song called “Salute Your Solution”:

The B-52′s are all “Mwahh hah hah hah we’re not dead fool!” with new release Funplex. Here’s a fan video for the song “Funplex”:

Reformed drug enthusiast Evan Dando delivers a remastered deluxe edition of his band The Lemonheads’ most beloved album, It’s a Shame About Ray. Check him out at the height of his indie-Fabio-ness in the “My Drug Buddy” video:

The retro-retards at Universal Music have put their foot down on Be Your Own Pets’ new album Get Awkward, axing three songs from the U.S. version. The reason? The songs were too violent, so says the sanctimonious money hemorrhaging major label which is home to Eminem and 50 Cent, DMX and a whole host of others who sing or rap about shooting maiming killing etc.

Apparently violence is OK for boys, like the fellas in Hatebreed, but little girls like BYOP singer Jemina Pearl are supposed to play nice.

Guess what Universal? Most fans will download the songs and perhaps the whole album for free at any number of locations on the World Wide Web. The idea that you can cut off a continent from content is so 1991.

More important, the whole label system is in itself so 1991, unless you are an American Idol winner. Good luck finding new music when the most creative artists out there want nothing to do with your interfering ways.

Finally, girls kick ass, OK? Get used to it you election year brown-nosers.

Meanwhile, the songs are “Blow Yr Mind”, “Black Hole”, and “Becky” and they are quite funny. They are also all available on the band’s MySpace page for free.