Sister Rosetta Tharpe

​I read a little bit about this woman here this past week and since then I honestly have not been able to listen to anything else.  I've been actively trying to not ​speak or write in hyperbole, as of late, but if anyone is going to break that reformation it is going to be this woman- her magnificence is unbounded.  I truly, regret every moment and resent every person who didn't tell me about her. The first time I watched her- every piece of my body seemed cheated and wanted to shout, "How did I not know about this?"

​Not that she didn't exist around me in some sense;  It's clear her influence is strong.  I don't play the guitar and I can't tell you the difficulties of what she is doing, but you can just see that she is doing something ridiculous, new, and alive.  To me, it is crazy that she isn't held in as high of a regard as her contemporaries and isn't proclaimed as a pillar of the genre.  You can see Chuck Berry, Elvis, Buddy Holly- all these rock forefathers grasping after what this lady developed.  

 Watch these videos and observe her take and give it all. 

​

Head

I watched "Head" by The Monkees the other night.  

It's a trip film. Which I don't understand and won't pretend to. 

It's mainly fun.  And it's mainly about acid.   It's a movie of it's time. 

Skeltered and disjointed, with no evidence of a classic plot the boys basically run from timescape to timescape and set to set trying to outrun fans, shoots, scripts, and themselves.  Sometimes singing and sometimes talking... nothing really happens.

They are trying to escape something.  The whole thing is about dismantling and then discovering that their personal freedom and freedom in general is basically illusory .


The Monkees were an entity.  They were created for TV.  They were created to sell.
And this film is about destroying that.  It is The Monkees last foray.

This movie is brave.  It literally tosses thee most commercial entity into a wistfully counter commercial odyssey to both question and aggrandize everything that the 60's represented.

I have no idea how this film got made. How anyone allowed for this thing, that had made so many people so much money, to purposefully dive into a drug dream- it's unfathomable.  It's equivalent to the Disney Channel paying Miley Cyrus to don the Hannah Montana wig, spring the cash for the salvia,  leak the video and then finance a production behind the incident where high Hannah discredits the Bush administration.  Unfathomable and Awesome. 

I recommend it.  It's a more fun drug movie than Easy Rider, so if you are into those things there is a lot of respect and enjoyment to be had. 

I rate things by how excited I am to show my children and I am really excited for them to know these songs and lines and to impress their friend's grandparents.  I will show it to them young and set them on a healthy and irresponsible path. 

(The Porpoise Song is one of the more amazing songs I've ever heard)

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