Throwback Thursday - The Year Was 1980

It was a weird time for music. It was post-punk melding into New Wave. And there was still this thing called rock 'n roll. 

Pink Floyd had released The Wall. But the soundtrack for Urban Cowboy was also a big seller. Queen had The Game. ACDC had Back in Black. The Clash had released London Calling around this time. 

Barbra Streisand and Diana Ross both had top ten albums that year. Both U2 and The Pretenders released their debut albums that year. One of the biggest bands of all time, The Eagles, released their sixth album, The Long Run. The biggest seller that year? Billy Joel's Glass Houses. 

Van Halen was hot after their debut album in 1978. Springsteen released his double album The River. Tom Petty released his third album, Damn the Torpedoes around this time. Styx was still around with their Cornerstone album. Donna Summer had her greatest hits out and so did Kenny Rogers. So yes, there was still disco. And adult contemporary.

It was a veritable cornucopia of oddball music and plenty of styles to choose from. 

So what say ye, fellow freakers and geekers? What's your taste out of all of this? Post some tunes from around this time. Share some hair styles from your youth. Or from now. Or then. Or just reflect. And don a shirt with no sleeves. And please recommend. 

40 years ago...seems like yesterday 40 years ago. 

On This Day in Present - It's Friday the 13th Y'all!

It's here, everyone! The day we've all been dreading. But we have no choice but to get out of bed and face it. Like a visit from Great Aunt Trudy.

Long considered a harbinger of bad luck, Friday the 13th has inspired a late 19th-century secret society, an early 20th-century novel, a horror film franchise and not one but two unwieldy terms—paraskavedekatriaphobia and friggatriskaidekaphobia—that describe fear of this supposedly unlucky day.

Just like walking under a ladder, crossing paths with a black cat or breaking a mirror, many people hold fast to the belief that Friday the 13th brings bad luck. Though it’s uncertain exactly when this particular tradition began, negative superstitions have swirled around the number 13 for centuries.

An important milestone in the history of the Friday the 13th legend in particular (not just the number 13) occurred in 1907, with the publication of the novel Friday, the Thirteenth written by Thomas William Lawson. The book told the story of a New York City stockbroker who plays on superstitions about the date to create chaos on Wall Street, and make a killing on the market.

The horror movie Friday the 13th, released in 1980, introduced the world to a hockey mask-wearing killer named Jason, and is perhaps the best-known example of the famous superstition in pop culture history. The movie spawned multiple sequels, as well as comic books, novellas, video games, related merchandise and countless terrifying Halloween costumes.

So what say ye fellow freaks and geeks? Are you superstitious? Much ado about nothing? Just another Friday? Share some stories. Or gifs, videos or pics this Friday the 13th. You know the drill. And be careful when you come across a black cat perched atop a ladder. Or something. And recommend. And be nice to your little brother. 

On This Day in History Singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell is Born

“The moment I began to write, my music was not folk music.” Performing solo with her acoustic guitar and long, straight, blond hair, the woman born Roberta Joan Anderson in Fort MacLeod, Alberta, Canada, on November 7, 1943, may have looked the part, but in truth the only category that fits the groundbreaking singer-songwriter better known as Joni Mitchell is Duke Ellington's famous superlative: "beyond category."

Even as a child taking piano lessons, Joni Mitchell showed more interest in composing her own melodies than in playing the pieces her teacher assigned her. “My teacher rapped my knuckles with a ruler and said, ‘Why would you want to compose when you could have the greats under your fingers?'” she recalled in an interview some 40 years later. When the folk-music revival of the late 1950s and early 1960s came to Saskatoon—the college town in which she spent most of her childhood—Mitchell resolved to learn the guitar in order to become a competent accompanist at sing-alongs. When her mother refused to chip in, citing Joni’s earlier abandonment of the piano, the woman Rolling Stone would later name the greatest female guitarist of all time saved up and purchased a baritone ukulele.
 
A bout with polio as a child had left Mitchell unable to form the chords with her left hand that her ear wanted to hear, so early on she began experimenting with non-standard guitar tunings that would later become part of her signature sound. It was not as performer, however, but as a songwriter that Mitchell would initially make her name.

Mitchell's landmark album Blue (1971) marked the beginning of Mitchell’s period of greatest popularity, and her commercial success peaked three years later with 1974’s Court and Spark. But even though she would never sell as many records in the subsequent decades as she did in the early 1970s, her creativity only increased as she experimented and collaborated with jazz greats like Charles Mingus and Herbie Hancock. In a judgment that history has already recorded as very sound, David Geffen of Geffen Records, Mitchell’s label from 1982 to 1993, said in 1994, “Even though we lost money on every one of her records, we always treated Joni as one of the most important artists in the world.”

In honor of Ms. Mitchell's great contributions to music, share some of your favorite pieces of music, maybe some female artists or more folk-tinged stuff, share your musings on art or just check in because we're thinking of getting the band back together. Also, if you haven't checked out the absolutely fantastic documentary Laurel Canyon about the music and performer scene that was taking place in that enclave in the Los Angeles area in the 60's and 70's, I highly recommend that you On Demand it if you can. It originally aired on EPIX months back.

Cheers and recommend. And call your mother.

This Day in History - November 1, 1512

On this day in history in the year 1512, Michelangelo unveiled his Sistine Chapel to the world for the first time. Michelangelo painted over three hundred figures while he was lying on his back on sixty foot scaffolding. I, myself, have to take a break when trimming my fingernails.

    

Michelangelo's epic ceiling frescoes, which took several years to complete, are among his most memorable works. Central in a complex system of decoration featuring numerous figures are nine panels devoted to biblical world history. The most famous of these is The Creation of Adam, a painting in which the arms of God and Adam are stretched toward each other. In 1512, Michelangelo completed the work.

How 'bout you? Artistic at all? Share with us - drawings, paintings, tasteful nudes (tasteful!), okay, no nudes, no nudes!, stick figures...or do you play a musical instrument? Do you put on puppet shows to amuse yourself? Anything, let us know. Or just post some pics of some cool artwork this lazy Sunday morning. Or vids. You know the drill. 

Cheers. And good morning. And recommend.

Throwback Thursday!

Afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the 39th edition of Throwback Thursday. If you missed the other 38, don't feel bad, one or two others probably did as well.