Pages

Friday, July 19, 2013

Happy Birthday, Lizzie Borden!

Did you use to chant this when you were a kid?

Lizzie Borden took an axe
And gave her mother 40 whacks
When she saw what she had done
She gave her father 41.

Is this just a Massachusetts thing?

Today is Lizzie Borden's birthday, which my good friend Gabrielle pointed out (hi Gab!) on faceboob. This woke up some memories and she posted a video of this Boston band from the 1980s, Lizzie Borden and the Axes.

Well, you know what happens when someone posts a utube video on fartbook. Down the rabbit hole......but before you watch those videos, listen. If you aren't from Boston you might find this interesting.

In the 1980s, at the dawn of MTV, the greater Boston area did not have cable TV for a reason I either don't remember or don't understand. So instead, we had V-66, a local UHF channel anyone with a TV could get, albeit with dreadful reception in some places. What was so cool about having a local music video channel during the time music video was an exciting new art form was that loads of local bands made videos and got airplay.

V-66 only existed for a year and a half, but after local independent commercial radio station WBCN, much of my early exposure to local rock and roll was thanks to this short-lived local music video channel. And now, the rabbit hole.

     

Thursday, July 18, 2013

It's Art Fair again already??!!

Why hello. It is hotter and damper than a sweaty crotch here in Ann Arbor, and many other parts of this great nation of ours, but will you hear me complaining? No you won't, because I fucking love it when it gets this hot.

The Onion wrote this article today. Look! But for real, some people really have a higher heat meter or something.

Anyway, July in Ann Arbor means seventeen thousand fat sweaty hogs from places like Ohio and Pennsylvania trundle out here in RVs and giant trailers to see and participate in the annual Art Fair that occupies our town at this time of year. Locals mostly hate it- at least the locals I know do.

I'm ambivalent about Art Fair. Of course there's a lot of shitty art, tents selling crap that is not art (electronic cigarettes, cable TV) and an influx of people from elsewhere which pushes up the shitty driver index by a million. But like I said last year, football Saturdays are worse, and they add up to far more days than Art Fair.


Enjoy the hot weather, because it'll be winter again soon. You can dance around your living room to this wearing only your underwear.