Category: Multimedia

Record Store Day

Tomorrow is (Record Store Day, which is an awesome idea. I’ve always been a music snob/nerd, but I’d lapsed a bit. I bought a great new turntable a couple months ago, and I’ve really reconnected with music lately, maybe I’ll write an interminable rant about it tomorrow to celebrate.

Another (positive) Honda-inspired rant

Bob sent this great Honda ad from 1967. The ad’s a perfect illustration of everything Honda got right back then, and explains how they came to dominate the U.S. motorcycle industry at that time. There are a lot of ideas here for aspiring foreign scooter and motorcycle importers (in no particular order):
Continue reading “Another (positive) Honda-inspired rant”

WKRP 2008, and a MT victory!

Cincinnati Merciless Tigers March 2008
As usual, 2SB spent most of the WKRP rally with our family, aside from some rapid consumption of rather large bottles of Red Stripe in the basement of the Comet, and a quick stop at the C&D (cheese grits!) to save 2SBmom the trouble of making breakfast on Sunday. Luckily Jordan took some photos of the actual rally. Sunday brought good news for Merciless Tigers fans, the boys dominated their first outdoor-league game (with the help of the league office, who mistakenly placed them in an over-40 league, but that’s hardly their fault, right?) Final score was 5-nil or 6-nil or something like that, and we finally got some photos of the Tigers in action and a new team photo (above.) MT jerseys are now SOLD OUT, sorry!

Mekons: Work All Week

Thanks for registering for 2strokebuzz. As a bonus to registered 2sb users, we’re relaunchng our quasi-legal “What Rocks Us” music column. We’ll try to post a new song every Monday. Enjoy!

Work All WeekThe Mekons:
“Work All Week”
from Virgin 7″

All my friends know how nuts I am about the Mekons. They’re a band that’s hard to explain, they’ve been around for 30 years, gradually moving from Leeds to Chicago, as bandmates came and went and came back, and they switch styles every few albums (Post-punk, art noise, country, indie rock, country again, sea shanties, electronic disco, more country, disco versions of their greatest hits, etc.). When they play live it all comes together and makes sense, and there’s something there for everyone. Probably my favorite thing about the band is how they temper their highbrow musical, political and literary references with lowbrow boozy self-deprecation and a great sense of humor.

The sleeve for the 7″ of “Work All Week” is a good example of their appropriation and humor, and the song is a good example of their very early post-punk style, basically a sloppier, catchier version of their Leeds neighbors Gang of Four. It’s not their best song, but I chose it because it’s a bit rare (This mp3 was made from the Meek’s third single from 1979, it’s never been released on CD in the U.S.) If you hate this song, don’t write them off, somewhere in their vast repertoire there’s something you’ll like. There’s finally a must-have (import-only, sadly) Greatest hits album, which was always nearly impossible considering all their label-hopping, that’s a great place to start, or pick up “Rock and Roll” or “So Good It Hurts,” both are late-80s masterpieces finally available on CD again.

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