Headbang - Friday 21st May

From http://banchoryheadbangers.blogspot.com/

Jeb can't make next Friday so we'll have to save his selected favourite artistes until the next time - likewise with his 2 suggestions for new categories - "Plagiarism" and "Guitar Heroes". Gary, too, looks unlikely to make it, so we'll hold back his requests until another time as well.

Colin's and Andy's requests were played two headbangs ago, so that means that Dave's and Malcolm's requests will be the most prominent features this time. They both asked for some newer and perhaps slightly less well known artistes, so this has meant me trawling You Tube for a number of these - it might mean the quality is a bit variable, but we'll manage somehow.

Amongst the more "exotic" requests received were the following:

Feist
Gotan Project
Joanna Newsom
Nitin Sawhney
Regina Spektor
Sigur Ros
Yann Tiersen
Maximo Park
Missy Higgins
Pink Martini

CK had made a suggestion that he would like to read a review of the artiste/song before watching and listening to it, but, if we did this for all the tracks we wouldn't get to hear as much music, but I may try to incorporate this idea for some of the newer, less well-known artistes above. I'll intersperse the selections with some older tracks and a few of my favourites - mostly those that haven't been viewed at previous headbangs.

I've also added a couple of short, fun features to start the evening off. Last month was the 50th anniversary of the famous (some say first) rock and roll tour of the UK, featuring Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochran, which ended with the tragic death of the latter as he headed to Heathrow to catch his flight home, so that's the first feature after the obligatory obituaries.

My recent trip to southern California, and, in particular, Huntington Beach (aka Surf City) brought to mind fond memories of the surfing music craze from the early sixties, so I thought it would be good to have a short feature on this. I also read a book when I was in the States about a writer who more or less gave up his job during the summer to go on the nostalgia tour with Jan and Dean in the eighties and nineties, initially just to write a book about it, but he ended up touring and playing with them for over 15 years.

It's a poignant little book, telling the rather sad story of Dean trying to hold the act together as Jan stumbled from stage crisis to stage crisis - and here's the irony - one of the most famous songs written by Jan in his heyday was Dead Man's Curve which portrayed - some say prophesied - the subsequent car crash that all but killed him. Amazingly, he came back and played on the Oldies tour for years, but his wreck of a body eventually gave way in 2004. There now, CK - is that the sort of short story you were thinking of to prelude the song?

Here's a little taster of Jan and Dean singing Surf City from the Steve Allen show in 1963(has to be viewed directly from blog):



So, the line-up for next Friday will be:

1. Obituaries
2. Eddie Cochran tribute
3. Surfin' USA
4. Requests and oldies

There's over 70 video clips to watch, so better get cracking next Friday. I presume we can rely on CK to get the curries as usual? - but not from the Derbar, please! What about transport? Any cars available?