Welcome back to our daily microseries “Shooting The Sh!t with Black Joe Lewis.” It’s been a fun ride, and here is the final webisode. As you could imagine, crazy sh!t happens on the road when you’re a touring rock n’ roll band. Here BJL breaks down his craziest road story. It involves a hooker, ’nuff said.
Welcome back to our daily microseries “Shooting The Sh!t with Black Joe Lewis.” Those that know Joe know that his music is the real deal. Here he talks about some of the stories that have inspired songs on his fantasticTell ‘Em What Your Name Is!
I came across this list of songs, The Clear Channel Memorandum, which was given to their 1,200 stations suggesting that the songs be removed do to insensitive lyrics after the tragedy of September 11th. Here are some of note.
Louis Armstrong - “What a Wonderful World.”
The Beatles - “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.”
Buddy Holly and the Crickets - “That’ll Be the Day.”
The Drifters - “On Broadway.”
Elton John - “Bennie and the Jets.”
Frank Sinatra - “New York New York.”
Lynyrd Skynyrd - “Tuesday’s Gone.”
Tom Petty - “Free Fallin’”
Red Hot Chili Peppers - “Under the Bridge.”
* Every single song by Rage Against the Machine was banned.
* MC Hammer was the only hip hop artist banned for his song, “Have You Seen Her.”
There’s an entertaining community message board up on Amazon with people contributing their choices for the most annoying song ever. I entered my top 5 (somewhat off the top of my head):
B-52s. Annoying.
1. “Love Shack” The B 52s
2. “We Built This City” Starship
3. “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)” The Proclaimers
4. “Time Warp” Rocky Horror Picture Show
5. “Dude (Looks Like A Lady)” Aerosmith
Truth is, I could’ve put “Entire Celine Dion Catalogue/Post-70’s Elton John/Post-70’s Rod Stewart/Rent Soundtrack”, but that seemed like cheating. After posting on Amazon I realized I criminally left out “Believe” by Cher. That probably should be my #4 or 5.
Check it out here, feel free to give us your choices as well.
As reported by the UK’s Register, Barack Obama’s Department of Justice (DOJ) has sided with the Recording Industry Ass. of America (RIAA) in its lawsuit against a Massachusetts man accused of illegally downloading seven songs. He’s being fined $222,000 for DOWNLOADING SEVEN songs. What songs were they, lost demos of a supergroup of John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix, Cliff Burton and Keith Moon!? (Sorry, but when you google “dead bassist” the only results you get are Phil Lesh and Cliff Burton) At the risk of repeating myself, from this report, he’s being fined for downloading the songs, not posting them on a blog for the world to download for free.
I’m going to skip the obvious reactions- that the DOJ probably has Gitmo and other priorities it should be attending to, that in today’s economy $222,000 to some kid caught downloading is akin to $2,222,000 in normal economic climes. Instead let’s discuss the notion that the RIAA and DOJ going after kids downloading songs illegally is somehow going to deter others from doing the same, or in a larger sense this action will cure the music industry of its ails. When Napster hit the scene and was drawing 30MM uniques a day, I said then and I’ll say now that the record labels should have purchased it and turned it into the biggest music subscription service in the history of mankind. Instead they’re conducting open heart surgery on a splinter. They’re dropping the atom bomb on a roadside construction project. They’re invading Iraq when they should be tracking down Osama. Sheesh!