Flaming Lips: “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Part 1” (2002)
Like the Magnetic Fields’ “Andrew in Drag” (Songs You May Have Missed #162) Flaming Lips’ “Yoshimi” follows a cardinal rule of pseudo-novelty songwriting: if it’s catchy enough, even the people who ought to think it’s too weird will find themselves liking it. “Yoshimi” actually made it into the video game Rock Band 3 and has been reworked for the TV show Friends (“Phoebe Battles the Pink Robots”)–pretty mainstream for a song so bizarre.
If you removed the lyric about a city employee charged with the task of defending citizens from…well, pink robots–and substituted more typical love song sentiments, the melody could have carried it to pop hit territory. But I like it better as a cult classic.
A painting created collaboratively by all four Beatles in 1966 is being offered as part of a music memorabilia sale by Philip Weiss Auctions, in Oceanside, N.Y., on Sept. 14. The auction house estimates that the painting, now called “Images of a Woman” will sell for between $80,000 and $120,000.
The group produced the work during a visit to Tokyo in 1966, as a way to relieve the tedium of being all but locked into their hotel rooms by their security-conscious Japanese hosts. They were concerned about death threats the group had received from devotees of sumo wrestling, who regarded their engagement at the Budokan arena to be a matter of sacrilege. After Paul McCartney and John Lennon slipped out for some unchaperoned touring, security was tightened.
To while away the hours, the group set a 30-inch by 40-inch piece of white paper on a large table, put a lamp in the middle (slightly off center) and each began painting a corner of the sheet using bright red, yellow, black, blue and green oil paints. When they finished the abstract work, which anticipates the psychedelia that would explode through the pop world a year later, they removed the lamp and signed their names around the edge of the white circle that the lamp left.
The Beatles gave the painting to Tetsusaburo Shimoyama, the president of their Japanese fan club. Mr. Weiss said that be believed that the current owner bought the painting from Mr. Shimoyama, possibly in the 1990s. It was offered for sale on eBay in 2002, but was withdrawn after it failed to meet the seller’s minimum.
Having come of age in 1970’s America and not 1960’s England, perhaps it’s to be expected that Screaming Lord Sutch escaped my musical radar.
But it’s with some embarrassment that I find I’ve been repeating a common but innacurate tale about Alice Cooper “inventing shock rock”–not surprising since that’s the version you’ll read in any and all Alice-related interviews, bios, and liner notes.
While Alice Cooper has certainly influenced every so-called shock rocker who came after him, and in my opinion contributed more classic tunes to the rock songbook than anyone else in the genre, it turns out he was not without antecedent.
The UK’s Screaming Lord Sutch, 3rd Earl of Harrow is more deserving of the title of the original Monster Rocker. (An argument could also be made for Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, although Cooper’s act seems to owe more to Sutch than to Hawkins.) Sutch had a horror-themed stage show, emerged from a coffin, dressed as Jack the Ripper…and for a time had Ritchie Blackmore in his band, by the way.
He also ran in parliamentary elections, sometimes as representative of his own Official Monster Raving Loony Party.
Two other dubious biographical details: The album Lord Sutch and Heavy Friends was named as worst album of all time in a BBC poll in 1998. Also, the Rolling Stones are referring to Lord Sutch (as “a guy who’s all dressed up just like a Union Jack”) in “Get Off My Cloud”, supposedly a reference to an incident when Sutch turned up uninvited in Jagger’s room.
Screaming Lord Sutch, who suffered from depression, committed suicide by hanging in 1999.
Songs like “Judas Unrepentant” are why I hang in there with prog rock. Despite the fact that 95% of what I sift through disappoints, and notwithstanding the genre’s current overall metal leanings, there are occasions when an ambitious practitioner of the long-form rock song produces pure gold. Songs like this one, and bands like Big Big Train, reward repeated listenings and have greater shelf life than more ephemeral pop music.
The song does a remarkable job telling a story that requires quite a bit of detail, as well as the language of the art world–without sacrificing listenability. Let’s face it, if your story is “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown”, it isn’t difficult to keep it catchy. But weaving a tale with the complexity required here, well–that’s what we still have progressive rock for. That’s why it’s still essential, despite the multitude of claims that the only era of prog that mattered was the Yes/Genesis/Floyd heyday 1970’s.
Judas Unrepentant:
Venetian expertise Inspired by Titian Which he modified Fine tuned along dutch lines
He’s painting revenge Embittered by lack of success
With signature techniques Attention to details And fine tell tale brushstrokes Of badger and sable
Expressing contempt For greedy dealers Getting rich At the artist’s expense
Infamous forger and restorer Judas Unrepentant Branded a charming old lovable rogue Judas Unrepentant Hey Judas Unrepentant Hey Judas!
His time bombs are in place And anachronisms Clues pointing to the truth If ever they are X-rayed
Wrote legends in lead white To trick the experts And hoodwink Hoodwink the trained eye
Infamous forger and restorer Judas Unrepentant Branded a charming old lovable rogue Judas Unrepentant Hey Judas Unrepentant Hey Judas Unrepentant
Establishing provenance Acquiring old frames with Christie’s numbers Then paints a picture in the same style Specialising in minor works by major artists
All rise Thirteen watercolours by Samuel Palmer Have proven to be his undoing And so he confesses then he is arrested Charged him with conspiracy to defraud
Years of chain smoking and breathing in fumes from restorations The stress of the court case had taken its toll His trial was halted due to ill health
So now we can all buy Real genuine fakes That’s posthumous fame It’s always the same
Infamous forger and restorer Judas Unrepentant Branded a charming old lovable rogue Judas Unrepentant Feeling like Robin Hood Just as good As Rembrandt or Titian Hey Judas Unrepentant Hey Judas Unrepentant Hey Judas Unrepentant
Every Moment Has A Song 