“Weird Al” Yankovic made an unboxing video for his 2015 Grammy Award for “Best Comedy Album of 2014” that he won for his Mandatory Fun album. I think I might make mine for when I get the JUNOs next week.
“Ohhh, look at this! I can make my own molds of Grammy Awards from now on.”
With a little help from his best friend and a bottle of Coke, one man discovers that a change in perspective can make all the difference in the world. Yes, this is EXACTLY how I feel after drinking it. I do!
https://youtu.be/7X2m2WueNcU
“This week, [insert celebrity introductions here], will be competing against [insert other team name here] on… THE RIDDLERS! With your host, David Letterman!”
This is a bizarre pilot in which five celebrities played against five contestants.
Five celebrities played against five contestants of the same occupation, hobby, etc. in a game of asking & answering riddles. At the start of a team’s first turn, host Letterman read a riddle to the first player, and a correct answer allowed that player to read a riddle to his/her partner, who then a read a riddle to the next player, and so on and so forth. As soon as a team got five correct answers, progress went the other way. When a player missed a riddle, control went over to the other team. The first team to answer nine riddles correctly won the game and $500.
The winning team went on to play a bonus game called “Crazy Quotes” for some extra money. Players on the winning team arranged themselves around in “intellectual ability”. Letterman read five quotes supposedly said by famous people. Each correct answer won more money and they increase in difficulty. The first four questions were worth $100, $200, $300, & $400, and the last question was worth $1,000, for a maximum total of $2,000.
But who cares, really? IT WAS HOSTED BY DAVID LETTERMAN!
Just look at the expression on Frank Zappa’s face…You can tell Zappa isn’t really having any of it, and the feeling was mutual – Andy Warhol hated Zappa. The interview made a lasting impression on Warhol. Here’s the entry from The Andy Warhol Diaries for June 26, 1983:
Frank Zappa came to be interviewed for our TV show and I think that after the interview I hated Zappa even more than when it started. I remember when he was so mean to us when the Mothers of Invention played with the Velvet Underground— I think both at the Trip, in L.A., and at the Fillmore in San Francisco. I hated him then and I still don’t like him. And he was awfully strange about Moon. I said how great she was, and he said, “Listen, I created her. I invented her.” Like, “She’s nothing, it’s all me.” And I mean, if it were my daughter I would be saying, “Gee, she’s so smart,” but he’s taking all the credit. It was peculiar.
The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast is an NBC television special show hosted by entertainer Dean Martin from 1974 to 1984. For a series of 54 specials and shows, Martin would periodically “roast” a celebrity. These roasts were patterned after the roasts held at the New York Friars’ Club. The format would have the celebrity guest seated on a dais, and one by one the guest of honor was affectionately chided or insulted about his career by his fellow celebrity friends.
Forget the Justin Bieber Roast. Watch this one, featuring George Burns, Truman Capote, Doc Severinsen, Joey Bishop, Ruth Buzzi, Dom DeLuise, Bob Newhart, Louisa Moritz, Fred DeCordova, Jonathan Winters, Foster Brooks, Dionne Warwick, Rich Little, Barry Goldwater, Bette Davis, Martin Milner, Kent McCord, Redd Foxx, Jack Benny ALL taking a spin at Johnny Carson in 1973.
https://youtu.be/n4yz7gctes4
R&B and soul singer Ben E King, best known for the classic song Stand By Me, has died at the age of 76. King started his career in the late 1950s with The Drifters, singing hits including There Goes My Baby and Save The Last Dance For Me.
After going solo, he hit the US top five with Stand By Me in 1961.
It returned to the charts in the 1980s, including a three-week spell at number one in the UK following its use in the film of the same name and a TV advertising campaign.
I had the pleasure to work with him for his last album, Heart & Soul, back in 2010, and it was a thrill, to say the least. Impressively funny, kind, and still had the groove. He will be incredibly missed, so, in tribute, let’s take a look at 8 of his best quotes.
On the music industry today: “Those things don’t happen today. I feel sorry for the kids in the industry today. They have on sunglasses, eat caviar in jet planes, but they’ll never know the true feeling that we did.”
Except if you’re Alicia or John: “I do like what Alicia Keys and John Legend are doing. With their music, you keep your clothes on.”
On the feeling of fooling himself: “I still think my whole career was accidental. I didn’t pursue it. I feel like I’m cheating sometimes.”
On the choice of songs: “You were able to sing something they related to instantly, because it was part of what you felt. It was part of what you had already traveled through. It’s part of the people you were associating with daily. It was all of that.”
“We were doing things with a hundred per cent feeling. It wasn’t programmed. It wasn’t asked for. It wasn’t structured. It was just there. It was very raw. I don’t think the industry would allow that to happen again.”
“Yeah. I’m amateurish. I can play enough to write a song, or strum on a little guitar to write out a song. But, I don’t play well at all. I wouldn’t even attempt for a second to play in public.”
“Of course, the kids who had never heard of a person called Ben E. King were then aware of the name associated with the song. That gave a tremendous lift to me as an artist.”
…and my favourite quote, and it might be the best one ever told to me by an artist:
Ben E. King: Ignore everyone that says you can’t achieve your dreams.
Me: Is that what you did?
Ben: Yes, because I’m crazy.
RIP, Ben.
Marking the 100th Anniversary of Billie Holiday’s birth this year, Neneh Cherry introduces a special section in the new issue of MOJO (June 2015/ #259) with a personal story of the time her father Don came face to face with the legendary singer.
“As a kid, my dad, [jazz musician] Don Cherry, used to roller skate all over Los Angeles. Him and his best buddy would make their way down to a jazz club and stand out the back and watch the music through the slats in the windows,” she explains of her long connection to the jazz genius.
“One of these times, Billie Holiday was playing there. Between sets she opened the back door and found Don and his friend there. She gave them some money and asked them to go buy her some candy at the store. Then she looked down at my dad and said, ‘You sure is skinny. If there’s no bad luck, then there’s no luck at all.’”
“I’ve always felt that we owe so much to Billie Holiday and the great blues queens. They were real pioneer feminists who paved many roads for us. They made anything possible,” she writes. “Her story is deep and touching, and that lives on forever in her music. That was her gift to us.”
Get the new issue of MOJO to read the rest of our Billie Holiday feature. As another taster, here’s just one of the songs featured in their guide to her essential music: Strange Fruit.
https://youtu.be/h4ZyuULy9zs
Jimmy Kimmel will unite REO Speedwagon and Imagine Dragons to a one-time-only performance of “Mash Up supergroup” IMAGINE REO SPEEDRAGONS. Featuring a secret hit track, the performance will air on Jimmy Kimmel Live on Monday, May 4, at 11:35 p.m. / 10:35 p.m. CT on ABC.
REO Speedwagons’ Kevin Cronin said, “I talked to Wayne from Imagine Dragons yesterday, and both our bands are totally psyched about doing the ‘Mash Up Monday.’ We all love Jimmy and we’re gonna play one of our favorites like it’s never been played before. IMAGINE REO SPEEDRAGONS is gonna f*ckin’ rock!”
“IMAGINE REO SPEEDRAGONS was destined to happen since the day Zeus thrust his mighty bolt to the earth,” said Imagine Dragon’s Dan Reynolds
In February, Jimmy Kimmel Live launched “Mash Up Mondays” (#mashupmondays) a series of one-of-a-kind musical performances that brings together two big name bands to perform one of their classics in “pun-happy” combinations. Previous “Mash Up Monday” include such stars as Weezer and ZZ Top, aka Wee-Z Top; Kenny G and Warren G; Morris Day & The HAIM; and Blackstreet alongside Aloe Blacc as Aloe Blaccstreet.
Andy Gross aka “SplitMan” returns as the magician cut in half magic trick elevator prank. How someone hasn’t died from a heart attack is beyond me.
Daniel Johns was ‘silent’ for 8 years, but today he announced that his long-awaited album will be called TALK. People can hear it May 22.
TALK will be launched with two special shows at the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall on May 28 and 29 as part of the Vivid Festival in Australia.
In the meantime, there’s an uplifting and uptempo love song … “Cool On Fire” … co-written and produced by Lorde/Jarryd James collaborator Joel Little. That new single is released today. Listen to it here:
During those long, silent years there was lots of speculation about what Daniel was doing. The enigmatic singer/songwriter removed himself from radar. Rumors were rife.
“Some of the rumors were probably true,” he chuckles. Which ones? “Well, anyone who wants to listen to the new songs will figure it out pretty quick. It’s been an interesting ride.”
TALK tells that story in a brand new way. Gone are the big guitars and roaring rock vocals; in their place, urban beats and aching falsetto croons. Dollops of lush R&B are laced with cruisy electro flavors and some dark glitchy bedroom production touches to create a stylish take on modern soul.
Asked to explain this Bowie-esque genre hopping and he eventually says, “Music’s the best way I know to express how I think and feel but over time you don’t think and feel all the same things in the same ways so the music has to change.”
From teen grunge sensations, through orchestral rock to baroque pop, Daniel Johns was never scared to completely reinvent himself. Even so, there is a core thread that unites all of his work – a raw and unfiltered emotional honesty. A direct line can be drawn from his best ‘spill-your-guts’ ‘90s tunes, including “Israel’s Son” and “Ana’s Song” through later Silverchair classics such as “The Greatest View” and “Straight Lines” into new tracks like “Too Many” and “Preach.” All talk of dark days with a distinctly searing quality.
To borrow a line from TALK’s lyrical cornerstone, “Preach,” Daniel may “find it hard to breathe the truth,” but he’s never been afraid to sing it.
The eclectic mix of sounds and styles on this new album reflect the array of collaborators that he brought on board. Lorde and Broods producer/co-writer Joel Little brings his breezy grooves to key tracks like “Cool On Fire,” “Warm Hands” and the first song to be lifted off the album, “Aerial Love.” Melbourne underground duo Damn Moroda and influential writer/producer Louis School helped create tracks like “Goin’ On 16,” “We Are Golden,” “Too Many” and the epic “New York,” while Presets mainman (and co-writer of “Straight Lines”) Julian Hamilton helped pen two of the album’s most immediate moments – “By Your Side” and “Dissolve.”
But it is the songs created with local hip hop icons Styalz and M-Phazes that push the envelope farthest. Deep grooves such as “Imagination,” “Chained” and “Faithless” find Daniel stepping into “futuristic R&B” territory.
Throw in a few quieter moments like “Sleepwalker” and “Good Luck” and you’re left with a sprawling, but still densely packed, body of work. It’s highly musical and often highly confessional as one would expect from Daniel Johns and yet, at the same time, it’s still profoundly shocking; particularly to those accustomed to the instant gratification norms of most 21st century pop.
Aptly enough, the first songs to be lifted from TALK have already provoked mountains of online chatter. For every music lover excited to hear radically different work by Daniel there are a couple of others ‘trolling’ him for not endlessly churning out the same sounds since his mid-teens.
“I’ve always felt like most people hate everything I do, but thankfully there’s always been an enthusiastic minority who seem to ‘get’ it. That’s fine with me. Anything that appeals to everyone tends to suck anyway.”
“What’s funny is that when Silverchair released frogstomp most people went out of the way to tell me how much it sucked. Then when we made DIORAMA a few years later everyone started telling me how I should go back to making frogstomp. I guess now I’ll be told to go back and make DIORAMA again!”
“That was part of why I picked the album title too, by the way. I don’t really care what most people think. Let them talk.”
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Eric Alper is a 6-time nominee for Publicist of the Year during Canadian Music Week and has overseen the publicity campaigns for over 183 JUNO Award-nominated albums (and 16 in 2025), 45 Grammy-nominated albums, including 47 JUNO Award, 58 Canadian Folk Music Award, 126 Maple Blues Award-winning albums and is also truly honoured to work with some of the biggest and most important artists of our time.
Contact me: eric@thatericalper.com
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