Wednesday, April 29, 2026
Gary Numan - “Cars” (1979) Moments in Music August 24th 1979
Gary Numan - “Cars” (1979)
—August 24th, 1979—“Cars,” the solo debut single by Gary Numan from the album The Pleasure Principle, was released. A pioneer of electronic music, complete with an androgynous robotic on-stage persona, Gary Numan’s first solo single was an immediate success. Within a month of its release, the song hit the number one spot on the UK Singles chart. The following year, the song had hit in North America, taking the top spot in Canada and peaking at number 9 in the US. In addition, the song was a top 20 hit in the UK in three successive decades: its initial release in 1979, a remixed version reached number 16 in 1987, and its use in a beer advert led to its charting again at number 17 in 1996
Gary Numan - Cars
James ‘Stump’ Johnson ‘The Duck’s Ya-Yas | Thanks to Robert Crumb
The Cheap Suit Serenaders
The Duck's Yas Yas Yas" - Johnson's Cracker Jacks (1932)
The Duck’s Yas-Yas-Yas · James "Stump" Johnson
James "Stump" Johnson 1929-1964
Bob Dylan - Changing of The Guard [1978]
Backstage the Universal Amphitheatre, L.A., CA - Heckel Sugano (1978)
Changing of the Guards
Sixteen years
Sixteen banners united over the field
Where the good shepherd grieves
Desperate men, desperate women divided
Spreading their wings ’neath the falling leaves
Fortune calls
I stepped forth from the shadows, to the marketplace
Merchants and thieves, hungry for power, my last deal gone down
She’s smelling sweet like the meadows where she was born
On midsummer’s eve, near the tower
The cold-blooded moon
The captain waits above the celebration
Sending his thoughts to a beloved maid
Whose ebony face is beyond communication
The captain is down but still believing that his love will be repaid
They shaved her head
She was torn between Jupiter and Apollo
A messenger arrived with a black nightingale
I seen her on the stairs and I couldn’t help but follow
Follow her down past the fountain where they lifted her veil
I stumbled to my feet
I rode past destruction in the ditches
With the stitches still mending ’neath a heart-shaped tattoo
Renegade priests and treacherous young witches
Were handing out the flowers that I’d given to you
The palace of mirrors
Where dog soldiers are reflected
The endless road and the wailing of chimes
The empty rooms where her memory is protected
Where the angels’ voices whisper to the souls of previous times
She wakes him up
Forty-eight hours later, the sun is breaking
Near broken chains, mountain laurel and rolling rocks
She’s begging to know what measures he now will be taking
He’s pulling her down and she’s clutching on to his long golden locks
Gentlemen, he said
I don’t need your organization, I’ve shined your shoes
I’ve moved your mountains and marked your cards
But Eden is burning, either brace yourself for elimination
Or else your hearts must have the courage for the changing of the guards
Peace will come
With tranquillity and splendor on the wheels of fire
But will bring us no reward when her false idols fall
And cruel death surrenders with its pale ghost retreating
Between the King and the Queen of Swords
WRITTEN BY: BOB DYLAN
Copyright © 1978 by Special Rider Music
’Twas Ever Thus . . . . . . Michael Jackson | Popbitch
As there is the brewing fuss about the hagiography of Jackson in the film world Popbitch come’s up with this:
"When Jacko died fans turned the “Michael Jackson” star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame into a shrine. However, the star in question belonged to an LA radio host who was also called Michael Jackson. The actual MJ star was at the time covered by a red carpet set up for The Chinese Theatre premiere of Sasha Baron Cohen’s BrĂ¼no."
Art of The Day + | DON VAN VLIET: "Parapliers The Willow Dipped” 1987 | Rip Rense
Don Van Vliet
"Parapliers The Willow Dipped", 1987
Oil on canvas.
198 x 147 cm / 78 x 57.75 inches
Here is Don's own description of his painting, from an interview with his friend Rip Rense in 1988:
"Hmmm. Looks like a landscape. There's a veridian mountain. There's also... I started to say an elk, but it isn't an elk, it's a carp... down at the bottom, under the mountain. Naturally. The carp is Hoggar blue, flesh, has two eyes, and various blues and greens. And a big Hoggar blue tail! And I'm trying to hold the thing down with my finger! Above that, there are some non-objective markings in black. There's a clicking time (clock) on this landscape and above that is violet, kind of... God, you know, it's hard to talk about paintings!"
Here is the link to Don's interview with Rip Rense:
Tuesday, April 28, 2026
John Prine - Ebbets Field Denver CO USA - 4-2-1974 | Albums That Should Exist
John Prine - Ebbets Field, Denver, CO, 2-4-1974
I'm enjoying (and thus prioritizing) posting these Ebbets Field concerts for several reasons. 1) Most albums I post have issues, requiring a lot of tinkering to get things fixed to my satisfaction. That's much less the case with these broadcasts. That's probably a reflection of how well they were recorded in the first place. 2) Most of these are very rare and hard to find, with the exception of a small number. So I'm pleased to reveal these to a wider audience. 3) When I look at the concerts that took place in this venue, I'm really impressed. I find myself wishing I could have attended the vast majority of them. I've long felt the late 1960s and early 1970s were a peak of musical creativity in general, so that's part of it. But I also think the people who booked the music acts for this venue must have had very good musical taste.
Speaking of how rare these Ebbets Field broadcast bootlegs are, I was only able to find this one on YouTube. So I converted it to audio and chopped it into mp3s.
At this time of this concert, Prine had released three albums. He was touring to promote the third one, "Sweet Revenge." According to the crowd-sourced ratings at rateyourmusic.com, that album gets the highest ratings of all his albums other than he debut. So this is a good point to hear a concert from him.
The music is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent.
This album is 53 minutes long.
01 Spanish Pipedream
02 talk
03 The Accident [Things Could Be Worse]
04 talk
05 Sweet Revenge
06 talk
07 Illegal Smile
08 talk
09 Illegal Smile [Reprise]
10 talk
11 Donald and Lydia
12 Sam Stone
13 talk
14 Dear Abby
15 Rocky Mountain Time
16 Pretty Good
17 Hello in There
18 talk
19 Grandpa Was a Carpenter
20 talk
21 Christmas in Prison
22 Paradise
23 talk
24 My Mexican Home
(all songs John Prine )
Now we’re talking!
I struggled for the longest time to listen to any John Prine after his death from his last bout of cancer and the after effects of COVD-19 hit him when he was at his lowest (one of the first we lost to the epidemic) as I have mentioned before and only recently been able to listen to the later work. This however is a joy and an earlier set from 1974 so full of the early classic songs from Spanish Pipedream to Paradise
Enjoy! I know I did
Nearly . . well 1978
John Prine live - Fish and A Whistle
or even earlier . . . . .fine quality too
John Prine Performs “Illegal Smile” In 1972 Underground News Broadcast
Fiona Apple - Capitol Theater, Port Chester, NY, USA 10-10-2012
Fiona Apple - Capitol Theater, Port Chester, NY, 10-10-2012
The reason I was keen on posting this is because there is a surprising lack of live recordings from her with impressive sound quality. There are a few soundboard-level recordings from the first few years of her music career, in the 1990s. But after that, I believe it's been nothing but audience boots. So this is really welcome, because it's a true soundboard.
I took the single sound file and chopped it into mp3s. I didn't attempt to fix the mono problem. The audience applause is pretty low in the mix. For some of the songs, I boosted the applause volume.
One reason there aren't a lot of great concert recordings from her is because she hasn't toured that much, so there haven't been many recording opportunities. For instance, I don't believe she's performed in public since 2020 (I'm writing this in 2026.) Her last big tour, so far, was in 2012, supporting the album "The Idler Wheel..." So naturally there a lot of songs here from that album. She ended the concert with a cover of "It's Only Make Believe" by Conway Twitty.
This album is an hour and 25 minutes long.
01 talk
02 Fast as You Can
03 talk
04 On the Bound
05 Shadowboxer
06 Paper Bag
07 Anything We Want
08 Get Gone
09 Periphery
10 Sleep to Dream
11 Extraordinary Machine
12 talk
13 Werewolf
14 Left Alone
15 I Know
16 Tymps [The Sick in the Head Song]
17 Every Single Night
18 Daredevil
19 Not about Love
20 It's Only Make Believe
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