HOME |
RSS | 
Living in San Diego, I sometimes take mariachi bands for granted, but this song reminded me just how delightful these groups can be when they cover classic rock songs.
Via Laughing Squid
Sure, it’s a groaner of a pun, but I kinda want one now! Link
Comments Off
Aldo Cavini Benedetti took this photo that just might remind you of a certain album cover. Link -via reddit
(Image credit: Flickr user aldoaldoz)
Sky Arts, a British television channel, recreated the iconic logo from the Pink Floyd album Dark Side of the Moon in real life last October. The piece of art used lights, lasers, and smoke and was set up on Primrose Hill in London.
via Gizmodo | Previously: I’ll Never Join the Dark Side of the Moon
The British Royal Mail service commissioned Studio Dempsey to create first class stamps with classic albums covers. The covers include albums from Blur, New Order, Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones, Primal Scream, David Bowie, The Clash, Mike Oldfield, Pink Floyd, and Coldplay -but no Beatles.
The final selection of ten sleeves (which perhaps oddly doesn’t feature one of The Beatles’ album covers) will appear on a set of 10 stamps that will launch on January 7, 2010 – and the stamps will be uniquely shaped, as shown in these images, to accommodate a glimpse of a vinyl disc poking out of each record sleeve.
Link – via babycreativeblog
From the Upcoming 
ueue, submitted by 
It’s no real surprise that Wikipedia has a thorough list of these, but it’s interesting to parse through the many, and find a neat collection of songs and albums that were based on, or influenced by books. Led Zeppelin has a scatological lyric library referencing JRR Tolkien, but let’s see what else is out there.
13. Alan Parson’s Project – The album is called Tales of Mystery and Imagination, and includes interpretations of Edgar Allen Poe’s best, like “The Raven”, “Dr. Tar and Professor Feather”, and “The Cask of Amontillado.” Here’s the awesome “Dream Within A Dream” video. Also by Parsons: “I, Robot” (Isaac Asimov).
12. Rivendell (Rush) – A quiet, thematic representation of the Elf version of a Bed & Breakfast. (Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, of course.)
11. 2112 (Rush) - Side one* is loosely based on Anthem by Ayn Rand.
10. For Whom the Bell Tolls (Metallica) - Based on the classic by Ernest Hemingway.
9. The Thing That Should Not Be and The Call of Cthulu (Metallica) - These guys really let good classic fiction influence their songwriting. We get not one, but two songs in honor of H.P. Lovecraft’s best character. Also by Metallica: “One”, based on the book Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo.
8. The Small Print (Muse) - “clearly alluding to Goethe’s Faust, being sung from the point of view of the Devil to someone selling their soul to him in exchange for, presumably, musical prowess and fame…” source
7. Anthrax Loves Stephen King - As do a lot of bands like Pennywise (It). But Anthrax named one of their best albums Among the Living after King’s character Randall Flagg in The Stand. They also penned a song called “Skeleton in the Closet” based on King’s “Apt Pupil”.
6. Tom Sawyer (Rush) - Wow, Rush. Even “Red Barchetta” is based on a vague book called A Nice Morning Drive by Richard S. Foster. At least Tom Sawyer is pretty well known both as a song and a book. Who can resist the urge to sing along when Geddy Lee croons, “The River!”
5. Tales of Brave Ulysses (Cream) - Psychedelically sums up all you need to know about all the ins and outs of Homer’s The Odyssey. And I quote, “Tiny purple fishes run laughing through your fingers…” (This was actually a lyric inspired by lyricist Martin Sharp’s travels in Ibiza.) But the Sirens are there, so that’s cool.
4. The Ghost of Tom Joad (Bruce Springsteen) - Based on The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. Henry Fonda and Bruce Springsteen would have had some cool conversations, I bet.
3. White Rabbit (Jefferson Airplane) -Based on Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. Here’s a nice rendition of that song.
2. Animals (Pink Floyd) - It never actually occurred to me before, but an argument can be made that the Animals album, with it’s corrupt pigs (be they on the wing, or three different ones), dogs and sheep, political overtones… Yeah, it’s definitely based on George Orwell’s Animal Farm.
1. Iron Maiden (Pretty much every song of theirs, ever) - At least a heavy handful. These Brit bad boys of metal must have had some scratched up library cards. Their adaptations include:
On second thought, an honorable mention should be made for Led Zeppelin’s “The Battle of Evermore”, as it pretty much describes the Battle of Pellennor Fields in The Return of the King.
(Iron Maiden illustration by Ado Cedric & Tio Julio.)
*For help with determining what this means, ask a grownup.
There are some weird bands out there with some even weirder names. Here’s a collection of bands and the story of how they came up with their titles. If you have any bands you’re curious about, list them in the comments, I might do a part two of this article if you all like it.
Pink Floyd was originally called “The Tea Set,” but changed their moniker after finding a group of the same name was booked at a show they were scheduled to play. The band decided to change their name to “The Pink Floyd Sound” –later shortened to “Pink Floyd” -after seeing the names “Pink Anderson” and “Floyd Council” on the notes of a Blind Boy Fuller album. It’s likely all for the best, would you go and see a movie called “The Tea Set’s The Wall?”
Source Image via Tea Set on Wikipedia
Ozzy’s band of mischief didn’t start off nearly as dark as it ended up. The group’s first name was “The Polka Tulk Blues Company,” which was soon shortened to just “Polka Tulk.” After a while, they renamed themselves “Earth,” but had to change their name again when they found out there was another British band with that name.
One day, bassist Geezer Butler saw a bunch of people lined up at the theater across the street from their rehearsal room. The movie showing was the Boris Karloff movie Black Sabbath. He noted how much money people spend to see scary films and used the film’s title for a song he wrote inspired by occult writer Dennis Wheatley. This song changed the entire music direction of the band and they started playing much darker songs than other musicians of the time. In 1969, the group decided to change their name to “Black Sabbath” to reflect their new decision to make the musical version of horror movies.
Source | Image Via IMDB
The original band was called “The Noble Five” and the year after it was changed to “My Backyard.” By 1970, it was obvious the group needed a new moniker. They decided on “Leonard Skinnerd,” to make fun of their high school gym teacher Leonard Skinner, who frequently harassed boys to maintain the school dress code that banned long hair. They changed the spelling before they released their first album and the rest was history.
Source
Before founding Motörhead, Lemmy Killmister was in a psychedelic rock group called Hawkwind. He was a heavy user of amphetamines and the last song he wrote for the band was called “Motorhead” –a British expression for a speed freak. Lemmy also held onto that song and it became a standard of the Motörhead lineup. The umlauts in the band name mean nothing -he just thought they sounded cool.
Source
History buffs may know the term “joy division” to mean a prostitution division of a concentration camp, it was used to reward prisoners and guards alike. It’s interesting that a term this vile has lost most of its meaning, as most people merely associate it with the band, who adopted the name after reading the term in the 1955 novel The House of Dolls.
Source
Here’s a group that got the right name, right away. But where did “Duran Duran” come from? The villain in Barbarella, a really bad B-movie, was called “Dr. Durand Durand.”
Source Image Via Barbarella on Wikipedia
After leaving Jayne’s Addiction, band members Perry Farrell and Stephen Perkins wanted to start up a new project. Farrell was looking in a porno magazine where he saw an ad for fireworks. The name fits even better when you consider that right around the time of their inception, the LA Riots had just happened.
Source
The band was originally called “Hütz and the Béla Bartóks,” but they decided to change it because, according to singer Eugene Hütz, no one in America knows about Béla Bartók (in case you don’t know, he is a Hungarian composer considered by many to be the best composer of the twentieth century). As a result, the group changed their name to Gogol Bordello. “Gogol” referencing writer Nikolai Gogol because the band considered him to have “smuggled” Ukranian culture into Russian society, which is similar to what the group wishes to do with their Eastern-styled music in America. Of course, I think you know what “bordello” means.
Source
