The Young Southpaw Part Of An Hour: Recent Episodes
Young Southpaw
Young Southpaw reveals the obvious-once-you-see-it proof that Aerosmith were behind the 90s sitcom Wings. Were Sammy Hagar and Bruce Dickinson involved as well? Listen and find out
Was Aretha singing about drugs? Should there have been a national hotline set up for the trailer for the 1990 Charles Grodin/Jim Belushi film Taking Care Of Business? Why do they call them trailers anyway?
Is the actor we know as Warren Beatty really just a collection of rabbits? How do KISS and The Beatles play into this? Would Echo & The Bunnymen and The Easter Bunny have made Star Wars a better film?
When Joan Jett was having issues with her record company, she recorded a version of the Sex Pistols’ ‘EMI’ changing the title to ‘MCA’. Why didn’t she instead cover The Village People? Could she & the construction worker, biker, cowboy, et al save the Star Wars franchise? While at the same time resolving her disputes with her record label?
One of the most important questions of the 20th century. If Gene Simmons had poached Eddie Van Halen for KISS, what would Eddie’s makeup have been? Also addressing who actually is ‘the hottest band in the world’? And what would happen if KISS jumped off a bridge?
“this was pre-internet days, long before you could be watching 90210 and just Google whatever questions you had about the band Anthrax…” Was Beverly Hills 90210 some sort of bizarre tribute to Fugazi? What if Brenda had started dating Iron Maiden’s mascot Eddie? And what do Faster Pussycat and The KLF have to do with all this?
Young Southpaw examines the dangerous world of synchronized swimming, especially when elephants and idioms get involved, as well as how the Van Halen reunion affected the Greek gods Taking in “shooting the breeze”, Fleetwood Mac, The White Stripes, David Lee Roth, Dumbo, & more
Was Louis Pasteur an alias? Is the perfect place to write songs the back half of a pantomime cow? And who would make the best time-traveling yogurt salesman? Taking in Lenny Kravitz, James Bond, Yogi Berra, Yogi Bear, Henry Rollins, Halle Berry, Chuck Berry, The Dukes Of Hazzard, and much more
Does the Ouroboros ever take its tail out of its mouth to make prank phone calls? Would it & Jennifer Love Hewitt make the ultimate buddy film? And how would Tom Hanks play into the ensemble? Taking in Party Of Five, The Godfather, I Know What You Did Last Summer, Wooly Bully, William Burroughs, Van Halen, Splash, Bosom Buddies, Newhart, Friends, Jennifer Aniston, Greek mythology, and much more
Speaking of Adam Levine’s ‘bands’ comment, why don’t Maroon 5 add two members and remake ‘Gilligan’s Island’? What if the show was re-cast to star all musicians? Instead of Bob Denver have John Denver, Geri Halliwell as Ginger, Public Enemy’s Professor Griff as The Professor? Taking in The Ramones, Allen Ginsberg, Bruce Dickinson, Leonard Cohen, Marianne Faithfull, Sonic Youth, Fantasy Island, Lulu, Dolly Parton, Kenny Rogers, Kenny Loggins, and much more
What about bands making advent calendars as merch? Who would make the best ones? Strong cases for Guns N Roses and Rush. But how does Glenn Danzig fit into all this?
Why weren’t they called The Water Beatles? Was ‘Let It Be’ written for a slasher flick? And plans for the greatest horror film ever made starring Paul McCartney, MC Hammer, Christopher Lee, Steve Vai, Bugs Bunny, Patrick McGoohan, and Iron Maiden.
What if George Orwell had written Buffy The Vampire Slayer and added Robert Palmer, Jon Bon Jovi, and Chevy Chase to the cast?
Why wasn’t Bob Hope in Star Wars Episode IV as promised? And did he make a cameo in Empire Strikes Back to rectify this?
Was the Warrant song ‘Cherry Pie’ about Rudyard Kipling? Did Anthony Burgess write a Mowgli & Gizmo buddy movie? Shouldn’t Van Halen’s ‘Unchained’ be in every film ever made? And what does the backyard aquarium business have to do with all this? Taking in George Orwell, Albert Camus, Kingsley Amis, Van Halen of course, Cast Away, INXS, and much more
Would Morrissey and Marr have liked nothing more than for Canadian power rock trio Rush to cover ‘Push’ by The Cure? What Rush covers do The Cure do live in their 3+ hour sets? And finally ‘Geddy Lee Roth’ Taking in Mary Poppins, Dollywood, Strangeways, Here We Come, and more
Was ‘It’s Not Unusual’ the first ever goth song? What if Bela Lugosi had defied Bauhaus and actually went on to join the band White Zombie? And don’t you want to see a thriller starring James Bond, Indiana Jones, & David Lee Roth?
Well, why wasn’t he? Or in Bowie’s band? And why wasn’t Jon Pertwee? Young Southpaw explores these and other questions as well as contemplating the idea of perhaps the ultimate supergroup of Van Halen, George Clinton, Wilson Phillips, and everybody’s favourite 80’s beer-toting canine, Spuds Mackenzie. Taking in One Day At A Time, David Bowie, Diamond Dogs, Pin Ups, Iggy Pop, Beach Boys, Doctor Who, The Replacements, and much more
Who actually is the Master Of Puppets? Are Metallica and Genesis in cahoots? And how do Depeche Mode, Whitney Houston, and Cameo play into all this? Young Southpaw investigates
“You can’t be breaking up bands just to make salad dressing you know?…All musicians should probably learn that early on, save themselves a lot of pain…” Young Southpaw searches for the band with the most salad dressing-esque name. At times he is quite horrified with what he finds, while also uncovering a wealth of possibilities Taking in Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Fishbone, salad, Salad, New Order, The Replacements, Goldfrapp, Bad Brains, Minor Threat, The Teardrop Explodes, Van Halen, Guided By Voices, The Glove, The Cure, Afghan Whigs, Dinosaur Jr., G Love & Special Sauce, Poison, Pavement, Lonely Island, Future Islands, and a whole lot more
What would Drew Barrymore’s make up be if she was in KISS? And shouldn’t they collaborate on a Bond film together? Young Southpaw explores Taking in Never Been Kissed, Detroit Rock City, Cannonball Run, Charlie’s Angels, Firestarter, E.T., Music & Lyrics, Whip It, The Wedding Singer, Love Gun, The Spy Who Loved Me, KISS Meets The Phantom Of The Park, and much more
Featuring the hit single ‘How Do You Solve A Puzzle Like Ornette Coleman?’ Are Vince Clarke & Alison Moyet involved? And were Bauhaus the first synthpop free jazz band? (No. How could they be?) Taking in The Damned, The Sound Of Music, The Black Crowes, T.S. Eliot, The Jam, Bela Lugosi, and much more
Young Southpaw explores the curious fact that both KISS and Parliament had characters named Starchild during the 70s. With a deeper Mothership Connection as well. Billy Corgan would later have a band called Starchildren, making us wonder whether he’s under the impression that Joy Division were a KISS & P-Funk cover band. Also taking a look at Paul Stanley’s early alternate make-up design of The Bandit. Taking in K.K. Downing, Casablanca Records, Vinnie Vincent, New Order, Peter Criss, The Bad News Bears, and much more
We all know that Joy Division were an incredibly powerful band, but did any of us realize that they might have become both New Order & Dokken at the same time? Taking in The Shaize, Van Halen, Love Will Tear Us Apart, Bears, Human League, Buzzcocks, Atomic Kitten, Portugal, The Cure, and much more
“Can you light a gong on fire in goal under FIFA regulations?” To honour Dutch football legend Johan Cruyff, what if instead of the 1982 World Cup final having been West Germany vs. Italy, the winner of that match went on to play…Van Halen? Taking in Van Halen of course, Romeo Delight, Unchained, Diver Down, West Germany, Kraftwerk, Italy, Giorgio Moroder, and much more
What if David Bowie replaced David Lee Roth in Van Halen in 1985? Were the signs there all along? How does House Of Pain play into this? And were Kriss Kross wearing their clothes backwards in an attempt to get back to the time when Roth was in the mighty VH? Young Southpaw investigates Taking in 1984, Diamond Dogs, Dancing In The Street, The Pointer Sisters, RATT, and much more “I have a new album out, ‘The Lost Archimedes’. You can get it over on Bandcamp, youngsouthpaw.bandcamp.com And on the album I broach the subject that what if David Bowie had replaced David Lee Roth in Van Halen? I mean makes sense, ya know. Coupling two of the most innovative musicians of the 20th century. Heck, prolly even of the entire Universe since Time Immemorial. But also ya know, they both had songs called 1984. Van Halen’s the first track on the greatest album ever made, Bowie’s was on Diamond Dogs…Diamond Dave, there ya go! Makes perfect sense… And they also both covered The Kinks’ ‘Where Have All The Good Times Gone’. A very relevant question after Roth’s departure And I mean the Bowie Jagger Dancin’ In The Street is a hard thing to reckon with man. But when you realize it came in 1985, the very year Roth left and a mere months after that devastating event. Ya gotta figure it might have been some sort of signaling, ya know. VH themselves had also covered it back on Diver Down – another DD, like Diamond Dogs – an odd way to go about it, but ya know, lettin’ em know that he was available for the position. Gettin’ some moral support from his good buddy Mick And then like 5150 man, that’s gotta be a nod to the US Festival ya know. Van Halen had a clause in their contract that no one could be paid more than them. So when Bowie was gettin’ a million and a half dolla bills, that brought VH’s fee up to also 1 point 5. 5150 ya know, even and then gettin’ raised up 5150 ya got Inside as the last…song, I guess, if you can call it that… Then Bowie goes and releases 1.Outside, a decade later of course, obviously he’s still smarting that it never happened. Heart’s Filthy Lesson and all that… BUT!! Before that – and this is HUGE – his feelings best came out a few years before this, in 93 with, well you guessed it – Jump They Say. I mean who else says Jump, ya know…it’s right there… Well I guess The Pointer Sisters said Jump as well. That woulda been rad, David Bowie bein’ in The Pointer Sisters. They coulda all covered I’m So Excited about Bowie actually joining Van Halen. The gracious sisters of course completely understanding how great it would be for him. Even if they were losing a now vital member… But hold up a second cause I’m about ta blow yr minds. Bowie put out Jump They Say in 1993… And there’s someone else sayin’ Jump even just the year before. That’s right – HOUSE OF PAIN!!!! Which if you’ll recall…was a Van Halen song!!! And the last song we ever heard from the original Van Halen, well I shouldn’t even be sayin original, you know what I mean. Last song we heard from Van Halen for quite a while, it bein the final song on 1984 and all… Who coulda foretold that in the early 90s House Of Pain would become a band. And not only that but their song, their big hit, would be Jump Around! Callin’ back to Jump at the beginning of the 1984 album. And like House A Pain was an old tune of theirs, brought back just for the occasion. And it was also the b-side to the Jump 45. They knew! I mean it’s kinda like Jump gave birth to House Of Pain. It’s 8 songs before on the record ya know, like 8 months of pregnancy, like House Of Pain was…a month premature. I don’t know, maybe they were just dyin’ to get out and jump around, you know. Reminds me of that chapter in Ulysses, where Joyce mimics the nine months of pregnancy with – sure it does, sure it does, reminds me of that – where Joyce mimics the styles of writing throughout the history of the English language over 9 long paragraphs. But Van Halen’s House Of Pain is 8 months cause it’s pop music,
Was an early version of Love Will Tear Us Apart written by the ancient Greeks? Were New Order slated to cover the entire Wizard of Oz score for the So I Married An Axe Murderer soundtrack? Did The Pixies think Salvador Dali might have replaced Ian Curtis in Joy Division? Young Southpaw investigates. “Love will tear us apart, I mean maybe ya know. I guess that’s a possibility. I’d certainly never thought of that before I heard the song. That’s kinda dark. Though you look at those photos of Joy Division, they’re all black and white as well, real gloomy… But ya know love, maybe… like I said, but ya know what would definitely tear a couple apart? Bears! I mean why wasn’t it Bears Will Tear Us Apart? Same number of syllables, ya know? I’d have to think that just by using logic Ian Curtis woulda thought of that before love occurred to him. Comes first alphabetically too! In case like the charts were rigged that way. I guess A would be even better but… Can’t think of anything…axes? Nah, see that’s two syllables. And they more chop apart than tear. Though that So I Married An Ax Murderer had a pretty good soundtrack ya know. Ned’s Atomic Dustbin doin’ Saturday Night by the Bay City Rollers. Boo Radleys coverin The La’s There She Goes. Suede with My Insatiable One. Now that’s pretty dark when you’re talking about ax murderers. Insatiable, woo. I wonder if New Order were even considered for that soundtrack? They coulda done like…well Lions & Tigers & Bears was a chant, not really a song. But ya know how they had a certain fondness for like frog noises and whatnot, on singles no less? They coulda thrown the Lions & Tigers & Bears chant into their tune for the So I Married An Ax Murderer soundtrack. A knowing nod to their secret history. But wait a minute like what if New Order…covered the entire Wizard of Oz soundtrack… And like if you pressed play on it at the beginning of So I Married An Axe Murderer it was like the most psychedelic experience ever! But I mean yeah again axes and definitely axe murderers chop more than tear. Could be a combo I guess. Not so snappy of a song title though, ya know – Axes & Axes Murderers Will Chop & Tear Us Apart. Rarely do such themes make it into the singles charts. Though So I Married An Axe Murderer was ultimately a film about love. So this is quite problematic… But like what strictly tears? Eyes I guess, not in the same way of course. That’d be crazy if tears…teared…tore? I mean now we’re in Pixies territory, no pun intended. Though I don’t know, who knows the inner workings of my mind and what it means to intend and whatnot? But that’d be crazy if Debaser was actually a cover of Love Will Tear Us Apart. Done to point out exactly what I’m saying here about the tearing. Imagine if Salvador Dali went on to sing for Joy Division, they just kept the name after Ian passed and like Peter Murphy ended up bein’ their chauffeur. And that’s what that Duran Duran song is about! That makes perfect sense! Though if it was a bear drivin’ a car, like if Peter Murphy couldn’t make it to work one day. I mean I assume if Peter Murphy was going to get someone to replace him, bear or otherwise, he’d make sure they could drive. Heck they even had that Spy In The Cab, he’d totally know who he was putting in charge of cartin Joy Division around. Heck, it might even be too much of a system. But let’s just say, like there’s a communication breakdown, Jimmy Page workin’ some dark magic ya know, and a bear who doesn’t have a license, doesn’t even know how to drive, has prolly never even been behind the wheel of a car before – or any vehicle, tractors and gold carts included – let’s just say this bear finds himself there. What can he do? Does his best, I’m sure. But there is a very real danger that this bear…could tear them apart… Just by wrapping them around a tree or somethin’. And the car, car would go first. This could be what the songs Confusion and True Faith are about, heck maybe even Everything’s Gone Green – ya kno...
“I don’t mean to imply that Star Wars was some sort of documentary about Ms. Flockhart and Jon Bon Jovi on the set of Ally McBeal” In which Young Southpaw ponders why the Star Wars films didn’t have theme songs a la the James Bond franchise Taking in The Indelicates, Thomas Pynchon, Inherent Vice, The Ramones, KISS, Rocky IV, Def Leppard, Metallica, David Bowie, Cheers, Cliff Claven, Hoth, Empire Strikes Back, Shirley Bassey, and much more etc. “So I’m doin another podcast, one where I interview artists I really dig, it’s called Etcetera ETC with Young Southpaw. You can find it at all the places ya know. And last week’s one was pretty eye-opening man. I interviewed The Indelicates, a band I’ve loved for a long time, and Simon Indelicate pointed something out… Now it’s weird man, like I’m not exactly sure his last name is Indelicate, I wouldn’t put money on it, especially against him. But that’s the name of the band and so the last name he uses I’m pretty sure. I mean this is the way things have gone since The Ramones, since the end of last century, or I guess the last fifth of last century, that album came in 1980 I think… But ya know, hey ho, let’s go with it… But speaking of real names, there was that character in Tommy P’s Inherent Vice novel called Vincent Indelicato. And well I can’t say that I’m not sure that that’s his real last name cause he’s someone that Thomas Pynchon created so like… I don’t know, I mean, he’s obviously a fictional character, but it’s probably the fictional character’s real last name. There was no indication in Inherent Vice that he was, that this was an alias, or that he was even in a band. I mean I doubt he was even in The Indelicates. Man, I guess I missed a trick. That I should have asked The Indelicates have they ever had any fictional characters, by Thomas Pynchon or otherwise, in their band. And then like this guy would have been a bit of a rebel too, insisting on Indelicato while the rest of them are Indeli-cate ya know… But anyway like Simon Indelicate ya know…aka……..Simon Indelicate… pointed out that Jovi, ya know Jon Bon… his first appearance on record was actually that Star Wars Christmas album that came out in 1980 ya know. Woah same year as The Ramones’ End Of A Century! I wonder what that’s implying. I mean centuries can be used to measure the distance ya know like for a long time ago in a etc ya know. But this got me thinking – why didn’t the Star Wars movies, ya know, like the Bond films, have theme tunes with like the popstars of the day on them? Woulda been rad! And huge for the music industry! I mean they wouldn’t have to have the Ramones do one, even though that’s probably what we all want! I mean they were on that Space Ghost Coast To Coast promoting their Acid Eaters covers album but we’d want original material, ya know! Like Rocket To Russia would be more appropriate especially if like after blowing up the Death Star the Ramones themselves – I mean I guess they’d have to be in the film now – so like they help the rebels blow up the Death Star then they take said rocket and go to the Soviet Union to fight Drago. I mean yeah it’d have to be like all four of them cause they’re like skinny guys living on junk food… But ya know, like the Bond films, I think we’d want the theme songs to be done by a different band for each film. I mean Shirley Bassey, she’s a whole different story, can’t get enough of her. Imagine her covering Depeche Mode’s Just Can’t Get Enough, for a Bond film no less! And besides ya know you can’t be poaching people who have already done Bond films. Though if that lead to a Star Wars film where James Bond himself was playing a lead role, that’d be pretty amazing! So like who can we get? It’s 1977, right? And yeah the John Williams theme tune is classic enough but who’s to say it wouldn’t have been an even bigger movie ya know if like KISS had been in it?! I mean that makes total sense too ya know. Ya got StarChild and Ace as the Spaceman and like Gene Si...
In which Young Southpaw wonders if there are plotlines to Dirty Dancing we’re not picking up on, in part due to it coming out in the aftermath of David Lee Roth leaving Van Halen Taking in soup, The Kinks, Margaret Keane’s big eye paintings, Vera Chytilova’s Daisies, food fights, time travel and other experiments, New Order, etc. “I really wish I could get over the fact that I’ve Had The Time Of My Life and Hungry Eyes could not possibly be of the time period Dirty Dancing deals with! I mean I was doin fine, hadn’t thought of this in quite a while. And then some days ago I was out at the supermarket hoping against hope for some soup, and the radio started playin’ Hungry Eyes. Which – WOAH! I mean now that I think about it is a genius thing to be playin where they sell food. Well I mean in principle, just slippin it in, arrogantly thinking people aren’t gonna equate it with the phrase ‘your eyes were bigger than your stomach’. Such bravado, ya know. But obviously they didn’t count on the effect it would have on me. Just send me into a state of confusion, like that Kinks album ya know, came out in 1983 while Dirty Dancing didn’t hit theaters until 1987. So the two of them spanning David Lee Roth being both in and out of Van Halen – like a Schrodinger’s Cat, I guess – a Schrodinger’s Roth…. But I heard that song, I forgot all about food and just started ponderin’ ya know. Well heck brooding wouldn’t be strong a word for it! Cause it bugged me out, ya know. I mean first of all, eyes aren’t hungry. That’s a property of the stomach, ya know. But then I started questioning myself, like was there some sort of scientific development in the mid-80s where they were testing these things that I just completely missed out on? Or ya know, like during the time that Dirty Dancing was supposed to take place, was there some sorta scientific research going on, and there’s this underlying theme that no one really picked up on in the movie? That like it was about eating…with your eyes… I mean it didn’t seem like a horror movie. Well, maybe to some… And that whole phrase ya know ‘your eyes were bigger than your stomach’, that doesn’t even make any sense. Of course they’re not…or weren’t…to keep the tense right… Though there’s those big-eyed paintings, ya know. Margaret Keane. But even then, I don’t think they’re bigger than an actual stomach. And I mean, you’d never say this to a cow, they’ve got 4 of ‘em! They’d be all like – which stomach, yo? And again, Margaret Keane didn’t paint any visible stomachs in those big eye portraits or at least there’s none I’m aware of. So it’s impossible to make that call… But wait! Is that what those pictures were all about?! The before photos, when they ordered too much food! Are there after photos anywhere? Maybe hidden on the sets in Dirty Dancing? And ya know the sayin’ is meant to imply you thought you could eat more than you could, ya know. So it all boils down to money. Cause you’re wastin’ food. Unless someone else eats it, and then like, how big are their eyes? But is there a part of the body that corrolates to money? Like the stomach does to food? But like, what if you eat your own eyes? That would be a problem…for many reasons… No one does this…that I know… tryin’ to teach the eyes a lesson like…so you’re not orderin’ more food than you could possibly consume again on a future occasion. But I mean in this case it makes sense to ya know, scarf down one’s own eyes. Like an eye for an eye, have the punishment fit the crime. So an eye for a stomach, a little twist there. Maybe a twist of lemon to make it more palatable… But there weren’t any major food scenes in Dirty Dancing, that I can remember… I mean they were eating breakfast and whatnot when Baby’s all talkin’ to her Daddy. But I mean Dirty Dancin and food, was it dirty because there was like a food fight ya know that they’re dancin’ in? I mean that seems more messy than dirty. But like at the end of that Czech film Daisies from the 60s…ya know Vera...
Should the three vocalists of Iron Maiden along with Ozzy, Lita Ford, Rob Halford, and Robert Pollard record a cover of the Beach Boys classic? Did a clown play oboe on the original? Why did its beat poetry take so long for ol’ Young Southpaw to comprehend. And much more…
In which Young Southpaw examines the dangers of It’s Raining Men even if it might get RATT back in the charts and posits the theory that Blind Melon’s No Rain might be a cover of GNR’s November Rain Taking in Exodus, Metallica, Duran Duran, Tones On Tail, Flood, Erasure, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, biblical plagues, and much more
In which Young Southpaw dives right into the chaos surrounding the world of queries within song and film, showing David Bowie to be – as you’d expect – valiantly at the front of both Taking in Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavour On The Bedpost Overnight, Sweet Child O’Mine, Axl Rose, Guns N Roses, Paradise City, Depeche Mode, The Wizard Of Oz, Star Wars, and much more
In which Young Southpaw looks into the theories about the great psychoanalyst C.G. Jung’s time as a member of The Ramones, detailing the band’s part in the whole Construction Time Again – Appetite For Destruction cycle while calling bull on Freud’s Louisa May Alp-cott speculations, and much else Taking in the Sex Pistols, Buzzcocks, Live Aid, The Clash, Young Frankenstein, David Bowie, Eurythmics, R.E.M., Subhumans, Sonic Youth, etc. “Lotsa people be like ‘Southpaw, you crazy! Talking bout Jung’s influence on the 80s records while skippin’ over his whole involvement with the punk movement like that. As if the Spirit of 77 never even happened. But people have been asking this question since the dawn of time – who was Carl Jung’s favourite OG punk band?’ I mean Sex Pistols, Buzzcocks you know seem more Freud’s cup of tea. I’m not saying he had tea made out of…male members, not even pandas though I’ve heard, I’ve heard that’s an aphrodisiac… But I just don’t know how that would have any bearing on who Freud… or anyone’s favourite punk band was… Unless it was like Never Mind The Bullocks just put, ya know, the other thing…in a cup a tea But punk was rebelling against all that! Or so they claimed. I mean Buzzcocks, that’s your caffeine hit right there. But we can’t just sit around drinking tea all day – no matter what it’s made out of – to try and figure out where Freud’s punk allegiances lie. I mean maybe he had his own underground band goin’ on in Vienna, ya know. That although it stayed true to the spirit of punk, it was a bit too avant-garde for them to be invited on the Anarchy In The UK tour. Then some people even claim that, fed up with this lack of commercial success, despite wishing to at the same time remain true to his artistic ideals – I mean you can see where psychoanalysis came from – well some claim that, with all this going on, Freud actually became a founding member of Ultravox But then ya know with Live Aid and everything, We Are The World, I mean what a throwing down the gauntlet to Jung. I mean if anything We Are The Collective Unconscious But I mean Jung’s punk bands – woo! – I mean you’d prolly think of The Clash first of all, right? With all that stuff going on underneath the surface of consciousness, all you have to reconcile. Or maybe the Clash should have been Freud and Jung’s supergroup, ya know, after their famous split But I’m just gonna say it. I mean though I have no documentary proof of this, I think it was The Ramones. I mean let’s look at the facts Young Frankenstein comes out in 1974. I mean obviously they couldn’t spell it with a J, it’s an American film. But ya know, it takes place over there around Central Europe. Ya know right near Jung’s native Switzerland. The alps ya know, like ALP in Finnegans Wake and ya know Joyce is buried in Zurich. Louisa May Alp-cott, ya know… Not quite. I mean Little Men and Little Women, Freud you can’t be usin’ that, that wasn’t her name. But ya know Alps, the Sound Of Music ya know, predictin’ punk rock! And Julie Andrews’ film before that was Mary Poppins ya know – pop, pop music. I mean no wonder so much punk just sounded like pop songs played real fast, ya know… But back across the ocean, over in New York City in 1974 the Ramones are forming. And you know David Bowie always knew what was really goin’ on. I mean next year in 1975 he goes and releases Young Americans to let us all know…that this up an coming punk band…are probably gonna be the famous Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Gustav Jung’s favourite punk band. Bowie was hip, man Then there’s the whole thing that people claim Jung was actually in the Ramones for a while. For a lot longer than you’d expect too. I mean the arguments about this go back and forth, and prolly will for aeons ya know. But the story goes that when the Ramones released Pleasant Dreams, Jung felt it was time to speak up. For dreams, can be anything but pleasant. It was a conversation he would also later clarify with the Eurythmics… And ...
In which Young Southpaw explores Carl Gustav Jung’s relationship with albums released in the 80s and beyond, wonders if Jung and Axl Rose ever actually did have a band together, shows the effect of Van Halen & Def Leppard on his Anima/Animus theory, explains how Depeche Mode and Guns N Roses embody the process of the great cycle of life, and so much more Taking in The Creatures, The Police, Inherent Vice, ABBA, Thom Yorke, Radiohead, shamen, Appetite For Destruction, Freud, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, L.A. Guns, Girl, Young Guns, 101, the spirit world, the collective unconscious, Construction Time Again, 5150, etc. “People musta been all like ‘Jung, you crazy! Postulatin’ a collective unconscious like that. What you playin’ at? Everything’s connected? I mean even in a game of Connect Four, there’s gotta be a winner and a loser and then the game stops. How you go about explainin’ it, the rules are different in your dreams?’ Tryin’ to laugh him off… And keep in mind, this being Swiss German, they’re all pronouncin’ it Connect Fear… Little do they know they’re playin’ right into the great man’s theories. But Jung remains cool as ice, sticks to his guns, he knows what he’s talkin’ about. He’s all in touch with the future, like he knows Van Halen and Def Leppard are gonna come along. Heck, he’s even channelin’ them for some his theories… You know singin’ all ‘Anima!’ Confusin’ the title of that Def Lep single with the tune of VH’s Panama you know… But can you blame him? Things get all mixed up in the collective unconscious… going ‘Anima! Animuh-huh-huh-huh-huh,us’… And it starts to give him his Anima/Animus theory and in the process providing Siouxsie and Budgie the title for their third Creatures record… Of course not the first time Jung was involved in naming albums. He was apparently doin’ that left and right, givin’ old Stingy and the Police boys Synchronicity… Of course I mean the irony of it being that no one’s policing the collective unconsciousness. You can just steal people’s phrases and release multi-platinum albums there without anyone batting an eye… Or any royalties coming back across the aeons… Or I guess just decades, ya know… Then ol’ Thom Yorke of Radiohead – I mean wasn’t Jung the OG Radiohead pickin’ up all the signals like this… Well I guess not, I mean shamen have been doin’ it for ages… But just this year Thom Yorke released an album too called Anima… Which surprisingly was not just a covers album of precisely one half of that Creatures record… And he made a short film to go along with it directed by Paul Thomas Anderson… Who you’ll all know made the only film of a Tommy P novel, ol’ Inherent Vice!… Which you’ll recall had lots of police stuff in it – I mean woah ya know…all Bigfoot Bjornsen and all that… I mean does the actual Bigfoot, ya know Sasquatch, have an anima himself, provided this creature – woah – is male… Or you know an animus if Bigfoot’s a female… And woah though Bigfoot Bjornsen, well I mean who’s one of the most famous Bjorn’s of all-time?… Only him outta ABBA… And talk about the perfect balance between male and female, they were 2 and 2, ya know. The Noah’s Ark of pop music. And Jung wasn’t even Swedish to know all this But Jung’s not too concerned with credit, or with all these naysayers. He knows what’s coming up in 1987, anticipatin’ it like a mofo, when he will be justified with the release of Appetite For Destruction and it’s lead off track, Welcome To The Jung-le. I mean of course Axl couldn’t pronounce it like that, ya know give the game away. I mean it’s not that easy, like the next song on the record would imply. Oh you wanna go through it track by track? Talk about takin’ the Nightrain from Zurich to Vienna to go hang out with Freudy Freud. Out To Get Me, Mr. Brownstone… well I guess I’m just namin’ tunes right now but ya know, you wait til you get to side two with Think About You, Sweet Child O’Mine, and You’re Crazy. I mean start thinkin’ about those songs and Freud’s theories a...
In which Young Southpaw is dazzled by the heights and depths of rainbow tornado junkies and speculates what the wolves have to do with it all. Taking in Ronnie James Dio, The Go! Team, chiropractors, The Wizard Of Oz, Scorpions, Duran Duran, Wolfsbane, Elton John, etc.
In which Young Southpaw ponders the potential of water-based Cannonball Adderley album covers, Depeche Mode in pie form, if otters – those perfect teatime companions – blink in and out of existence or to Hoth and back, and much much more Taking in The Beatles, ‘Abbey Road’, Cannonball Run, Meg Ryan, Can, the letter H, ‘Otter Than July’, Star Wars, rattlesnakes, Duran Duran, candy, sugar, etc. “Does Cannonball Adderley have any album covers of him just jumpin’ into a swimming pool? Cause that would be amazin’, ya know. Summertime fun. Or maybe even in winter ya know, why limit, especially in jazz. And like with cool jazz, maybe it could be like the polar bear club? Him just bounding off an iceberg into the freezing Artic sea. I mean people used to put a lot into their album covers. Well, I mean the Beatles wanted to call Abbey Road Everest but, well I’ve heard different stories, that it cost too much or that they didn’t wanna travel all that way just for a photo. But you got to, ya know! I mean imagine if The Beatles did that?! They coulda been the biggest band in the world! Alright I’m just playin’ with y’all but I mean imagine if John Lennon addressed imagining them making the trip on Imagine? And then we all get sucked into some infinite time loop? But back to Cannonball Adderley cause that’s like the best name ever. He played the alto, ya know – altitude… Maybe he shoulda gone to Everest! I mean what would Abbey Road have been like if it had all hard bop sax lines all over it? Well maybe it did, we don’t know. And they just didn’t make the final mix. Cannonball all doublin’ McCartney when he starts getting’ real into it on Oh Darling. I mean it’s a shame they took out the sounds of Cannonball jumping into the sea on Octopus’ Garden. I mean had he known they weren’t gonna use those recordings, would he still have taken time out of his day to travel down to the beach with a bunch of equipment to do it? But getting’ back to Miles, I mean if Cannonball had been in his band for Birth Of The Cool, shouldn’t that album cover have been Cannonball just shootin’ outta the womb? Knees clasped to his chest with his sax already in his hands? Man, there could be so many album covers. Like when prog started goin’ all wizardy, they could have ol Cannonball jumpin’ off the turrets of a castle. And of course expandin’ it to film, I mean had they known he was gonna die in 1975 they should have moved up the shooting schedule for all the Cannonball Runs. Well, I guess there were only two but I mean didn’t we all – don’t we all – want a third ya know? For the trifecta? Have it just be all crazy jazz with the crazy cars. I mean this would be the best movie ever! Burt Reynolds & Dom Deluise as jazz musicians, drivin’ some sorta crazy, well not a Honda Jazz, though that might actually be the craziest car they could possibly use! Dom Deluise all playin’ a bassoon in the passenger seat, addin’ to the soundtrack. And ya know with the bassoon being a double reed instrument would lead many to conjecture that both Donna and Oliver Reed had been written into the original script as being the dynamic duo who wins it this time. I mean that would be hilarious, ya know. But would that mean that ol’ Cannonball Adderley wasn’t the winner? Of any of the three films? That can’t be right. And which way are they goin’ this time anyway? I mean in the first film it was Connecticut to LA and in number two they were tryin’ to go back the opposite way but they never made it past Las Vegas. Well personally I think they should finish what they started ,ya know like that Van Hagar song, but go back to the city of angels to start fresh and go LA to Connecticut, ya know the Nutmeg State. Well maybe ol Cannonball’s partner could be like Nut Meg Ryan and she’s the favourite, it being her namesake and all. Ya know what’s crazy is that Nut Meg Ryan was also in the film City Of Angels, that remake of Wim Wenders’ Wings Of Desire with Nicolas Cage. Woo!
In which Young Southpaw contemplates how the Welsh pronounce the word, where Van Halen’s brown M&M’s ended up, what Ozzy Osbourne’s comedy career would’ve been like while assuring Paul McCartney he wouldn’t be called a poseur if he too wanted to bite the head off a live bat, and much more Taking in the word ‘ravenous’, ravens, geese, Edgar Allen Poe, Michael Caine, Batman, Black Sabbath, Thunderball, Mother Goose, etc.
In which Young Southpaw asks are Def Leppard the Wounded Healer Beethovens of the musical world? Does there still exist a renegade Gaulish village inside of Sheffield? Why are all these ocelots obsessed with yachting? Why isn’t there an Asterix & Obelix adventure where they adopt a child with Kyle Minogue? Plus much more hijinx & intrigue Taking in the films Beethoven, Who’s That Girl?, Wildcats, and Overboard, Pour Some Sugar On Me, Duran Duran, Rio, Led Zeppelin, jungle cats, On Through The Night, Pyromania, Hysteria, French, Tintin, The Wizard Of Oz, The Sex Pistols, Pink Floyd, Bill Haley & The Comets, etc.
Young Southpaw recalls sitting in a hot tub on the eve of Live Aid, Facetiming with Ian Curtis about his love of mini-golf in the afterlife, poses the all-important question ‘did Sartre ever see Joy Division’, conjectures about worlds made entirely of soup and songs, etc. Taking in Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Van Halen, the Kabbalistic Tree of Life, the Chinese Zodiac, New Order, Love Vigilantes, Dr. Who, Phil Rudd, and much more… “Speaking of Live Aid last time, I remember it was the eve of that great event, and I was sittin’ in a hot tub FaceTiming with Ian Curtis. It was weird, there were like two days in 1985 when like all this stuff that we now know and take for granted was available back then, just came out of nowhere and everybody had everything. It was like those scenes in Buffy when her little sister appears and there’s all this crazy stuff like ripping and tearing open the sky and these giant beasts would just burst into view. It was like that for like 48 Hours, not the film, that came out a couple years before though you could actually see the sequel Another 48 Hours that came out in 1990 for these two days in 1985. It was playin’ at all the cinemas. And of course Buffy was available then so of course everyone was just watchin’ Buffy all the time. And then like everything disappeared so that’s like why it wasn’t that far-fetched, why it seemed familiar to Buffy when her sister came back like that… But it was weird man cause I was like sittin’ there, lookin’ at Ian Curtis over there in the afterlife, you know. And he has no idea even who New Order is. He’s just too busy playin’ mini-golf. I mean they have crazy mini-golf tournaments you know in the astral plane, as you can imagine. Imagine like a mini-golf set up like the 10 Sephiroth, that would be crazy. Like the Tree Of Life depiction with all the circles and pathways, I mean how would that even go? Ian explained it but like he was using, I mean I understood the mystical terminology of what he was saying but it was the golf talk that confused me. Which reminds me of my favourite joke: ‘What’s a golfer’s favourite number?’ ‘I don’t know, I don’t remember how scoring in golf works’ But you know the 10 holes and 32 paths I was right along with. Though I mean maybe this is forbidden for me to even be speaking about. And there’s no way for me to get back in touch with Ian Curtis now cause there’s no way to FaceTime with the dead even today. That’s still comin’. It was just those two days in 1985, ya know the Year of the Ox, the most spiritual of all the Chinese zodiacal animals, you know. Then Buffy the Vampire Slayer the film came out a few years later in 1992, which, speaking of the Chinese animals, was the same year that Tiger Woods made his pro debut. Though of course you could’ve seen it live on tv or even on YouTube during those two days in 1985… Now that I think about it…this have been a dream…. That I had recently too. I hadn’t even heard Joy Division in 1985. That woulda been weird ya know, had I just been FaceTiming with this guy Ian Curtis, who died in 1980 and is obsessed with Kabbalistic mini-golf, and I didn’t even know who he was, you know! I’m trying to remember the first time I heard Joy Division – Transmission… Novelty… Unknown Pleasures… Well maybe this wasn’t a dream cause those three titles, especially Unknown Pleasures, would definitely sum up the undead playin’ these mystical forms of mini-golf. I can’t think of a, well I’m sure there are plenty of things that are unknown and pleasurable but by the very definition, we don’t know about them. Well, I’m sure I could have asked him had we more time back in this spectral window in 1985, the day before and day of Live Aid. And the thing is like unless you started watchin’ Buffy like the first night and got real obsessed, you know the whole second day this window was available, everyone was watchin’ Live Aid… It was a weird time, man. I mean Roth had left Van Halen so you knew somethin’ like this might...
In which Young Southpaw proposes a séance to get to the bottom of who in fact John Lennon thought was the best drummer in The Beatles, what we might find out about Live Aid in the process, and are people who wear a number other than two shoes really badasses? Taking in Lenin, Van Halen, David Lee Roth, David Bowie, The Beat, symbols, Russian letters, Jabba The Hut, Elton John, Phil Collins, Adam Ant, the astral plane, etc. “You know that John Lennon quote about Ringo, ya know? When Lennon was asked if Ringo was the best drummer in the world or something, and Lennon’s reply was ‘he’s not even the best drummer in The Beatles’ BUT I MEAN WHO WAS?! Ya know? I realize it was intended as, as a humorous statement, but it does raise the question – who was the best drummer in The Beatles? And I guess we’ll never know. We’ll certainly never know who John Lennon thought, unless of course he confided it to someone, well WILL THAT PERSON PLEASE COME FORWARD?! I tell ya, if he did tell somebody who he thought was, well, that person is a master at keeping secrets, someone I would very much like to have as my friend. Though that would complicate things because I would know that he had this information that I sought, and he…or she…would be aware that I desperately wanted this information, and not just me, I imagine the whole world at large would like to know too, ya know. And that would make things uncomfortable for the secret bearer, so that we could never truly be great friends, ya know. No matter how well we got along. Or even if like we perfected like some sort of unstoppable give-and-go basketball play that only we could perform, and like all the major teams were trying to sign us, new leagues sprouting up all over the world in the hopes that we’d be on their starting five but eventually I imagine this rift, this being unable to reveal all our deepest darkest knowledge to one another, would crumble even that. A shame really… I mean I guess we could have a séance. That might even be the purpose of seances, the real deal, ya know find out, find out the facts, ya know. All the ancient mysteries of the universe that the dead are now privy to – like who did John Lennon think was the best drummer in The Beatles. Hmm, I was gonna say could it have been Stuart Sutcliffe, you know, you gotta lock the bass in with the drums? But he wasn’t in The Beatles when John Lennon made that statement, and he didn’t say ‘who’s ever been in The Beatles’ cause I mean that would have been like really unkind. You’d have all these people, ya know like opium addicts who are trying to set records for crashing hot air balloons, and like pyromaniac hairdressers who now operate in more metaphysical spaces ya know once they’d read Barbarella, all them start claiming they had been in The Beatles for like a day and that song Yesterday was actually about that 24 hour period and they’ve got the minidiscs to prove it. But no one knew what minidiscs were back then… But I mean what else would I like to know from John Lennon if we were to do this thang? Well like, what did he think of Live Aid, ya know as a spectral being? That would certainly be interesting, I mean what would he have thought of it, 1985, what did he think of David Lee Roth leavin’ Van Halen?! Was it too soon for somethin’ like Live Aid after that catastrophe? Y’all, y’all with me on this? I mean, well what about Lenin? The other one ya know, ol’ Vladdy Ilyich. Do they like hang out all the time together? The other souls gettin’ them all confused, especially with that Back In The USSR song – yes I know McCartney wrote that one but McCartney never found himself in circumstances like these, ya know! And then there’s Working Class Heroes too, if you’re gonna be pedantic about it. Or is there like a language barrier, like they wanna hang out but all the interpreters are busy trying to interpret just what is going on in the afterlife and are unavailable for mere communicatory purposes.
In which Young Southpaw reveals that ‘Over The Top’ might be the most literary film of all time, how The Cure speak to him more about doors than The Doors do, and how he’s surprised anyone ever fell in love again after 1985 Taking in RATT, the Los Angeles subway system, David Lee Roth, Van Halen, Nabokov, Russian Literature, Hulk Hogan, No Holds Barred, The Head On The Door, Sly Stone, Mark Arm, John Candy, mud wrestling, the Russian Ramones, etc.
In which Young Southpaw freaks out pondering edible zombie plants, conjectures it might be Paul McCartney & Hawkwind keeping us all breathing, and reveals how the inventor of anime, Swiss Mister Carl Gustav Jung, plays in to the whole NWA/Sting rivalry. Taking in Van Halen (of course), ‘Drop Dead Legs’, Jimmy Page, JJ Fad, The Smiths, ‘Panic’, plants, breathing, David Lee Roth, The Beatles, Wings, Empire Strikes Back, Aerosmith, Steven Tyler, Pet Shop Boys, Love & Rockets, Thomas Pynchon, The Police, The Corrs, Britney Spears, carbon dioxide, oxygen, hawks, and much more etc. “I’m in a bit of a tizzy today, man. I just don’t get it, ya know. I mean we breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide. But ya know, when we breathe out, that breathe is still right there in front of us… to breathe right back in! So how are we not like dying of carbon dioxide overdoes within minutes? Unless you know like you’re breathing out really heavy, ya know like that line Roth sings in Drop Dead Legs ‘gettin’ ready’ etc. And then again Drop Dead is right there, in the title ya know. I mean your legs would be the first to go. Bucklin’ right under once you stop breathin’. Unless like you know you’re expelling with your mouth some kinda like jet propulsion to get the exhale far enough away while allowing new air to rush in and take its place ,and I mean it’s gotta be like oxygen-packed air. Can’t be the carbon dioxide exhales of the person standin’ next to you, even if it is David Lee Roth! And I mean there’s so many people in the world these days, all that carbon dioxide is right there just waitin’ – for your nose or your mouth, whichever way you wanna go, I’m not gonna judge – I mean there’s so many times where it’s just people, no trees or even tiny house plants in sight to absorb it all up. I mean woah I just don’t know. How does life keep goin’ on? And if everyone starts worryin’ about this they’ll be taking even shorter breaths you know, panic everywhere, I mean Morrissey prolly knew about this. Panic on the streets of London, Birmingham, all those places… Dundee? Done deal, ya know. Carlisle Ostend Ottawa, CO2 ya know… No wonder everyone’s so depressed all the time ya know with death only minutes away… Everytime you breathe it’s just a continual cycle, you know… Let The Circle Be Unbroken, that old folk song that Pentangle did. Though there are no angles in a circle. But you gotta break it, you know. Lest we all just keep breathin’ in carbon dioxide… It’s a shame that plants don’t continue to breathe out once they’re already dead so you know like as you’re chewing they’re givin’ you the oxygen hook-up. In a very intimate fashion too. I mean that’d be cool if it worked that way – edible zombie plants ya know. But I don’t know man, I mean they say you get the most nutrients outta plants if you eat ‘em straight after pickin’ ‘em from the dirt you know. But I mean isn’t dirt just a whole bunch of decomposing dead bodies and excrement ya know? I mean I just don’t understand how life carries on you know. Even with that My Chemical Romance song to keep us goin’. Unless it’s all, I mean they talk about things just being a simulation… Or we’re all just imaginin’ this… Though why are we imaginin’ bein’ so close to death all the time? And if we’re imaginin’ this, why aren’t we imagining getting the original Van Halen back together? I mean I get it, in 1985 some prankster storyteller thought maybe we needed a little more drama in the world, something to compete with Live Aid, they thought I know, we’ll have Dave leave for a while. Without tellin’ everyone else to start imaginin’ gettin’ him back in the band a.s.a.p. I mean he couldn’t have wished to inflict us all with 22 years of that, could he have? And who was this fellow? I don’t mean to imply it was a member of The Who but ‘who’ is just really the only word I could use there to ask the question. Or why aren’t we imagining an infinite number of Van Halens?
In which Young Southpaw traces the early days of wildcats playing professional sports, David Bowie’s obsession with this phenomenon, plus the great feline foray into jazz and movie-making as the secret history of The Wizard Of Oz comes to light Taking in lions, tigers, bears, Duran Duran, football, soccer, baseball, Def Leppard, Prohibition, the roaring 20’s, Detroit, Rockport MA, Helmut’s Strudel, Lowenbrau, Katy Perry, William The Refrigerator Perry, William Parry, Wire, T.S. Eliot, C.S. Lewis, and much more…
“He doesn’t wanna be bogged down with inventing cinema as well as bending the rules of physics, he just wants to get in his time machine and go to the movies…we’ve all been there…” In which Young Southpaw queries if Nietzsche invented the Wu Tang Clan leading him to become a prototype for Dr. Who, wonders who the German philosopher was trying to bring to China to beat Wham! to it, and reveals ol’ Zarathustra’s plans for a highly irregular James Bond film. Taking in European currency, the TARDIS, 36 Chambers, Shao Lin & Wu Tang, Intellivision, Cheers, ELO, Jeff Lynne, Elton John, Carl Douglas, Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting, Kung Fu Fighting, Enter The Dragon, New Order, Power Corruption & Lies, Beyond Good & Evil, Twilight Of The Idols, RZA, Simon Napier Bell, James Bond, Nelson Algren, The Man With The Golden Arm, T. Rex, Marc Bolan, Tony! Toni! Toné!, Metal Guru, China, etc. “The German philosopher Nietzsche said ‘Without music life would be a mistake’ That’s a really beautiful sentiment, you know. And he said this in the 1880’s. I mean imagine that, he didn’t have any streaming services you know. He didn’t even have an ipod! If he wanted to experience music he hadda go to some sort of orchestral hall or sumthin. And I mean, what if he wanted to see the Wu Tang Clan ya know? I mean he woulda had to first invent a time machine… And then travel, and he’d of had to figure out their tour dates ahead a time. I doubt he woulda like invented his time machine and been able to second guess where and when they were playin’, and just landed there and walked right in. And let’s not forget he woulda had like 1880 German deutschmarks. He woulda somehow have had to convert those to American money. Actually this was well before deutschmarks and I believe he was living in Italy when Twilight of the Idols, which had that quote, was published, so it probably woulda been like Italian lire. But I think you’ll find the point still stands. And too you know both them Germany and Italy been on the Euro for years ya know. And then I mean first he’d even have to invent the concept of the Wu Tang, did – did Nietzsche invent the Wu Tang Clan? You know, in order for him to want to go see them, he would’ve first have had to know about them. But I mean he coulda had a vision too, ya know. A prophetic dream perhaps. That seems more likely than him thinkin of the phrase 36 chambers and then inventing it all from there. I mean, would his time machine have 36 chambers? That’d be crazy, that’d be huge you know, for the first time machine ever invented. Imagine that, he shows up, sees Dr. Who with the TARDIS and thinks nothin of it, ya know. He’s like ‘I can do that, why don’t they give me my own television show, ya know’ And if that’s what he’s thinkin’, I would imagine he would have then immediately invented Intellevision, jumped back in his ship to the late 70s and started that company. I mean I guess you can take diversions like that ya know even if his trip was originally to see Wu Tang he can just program his ship back to the show. Cause like when he learns about all those kung fu movies then he has to go back to the early 80s to watch them, well he probably doesn’t ‘have’ ‘to’, but he gets overexcited and wants to see them in the cinema when they come out. Also check on how Intellevision’s doing, figure out how he can bring all those profits back to 1880’s Europa… At some point he hops back to 1978 too to see the cinematic release of the 36 Chambers film. Wondering ya know if its based on or if they even mention his time machine. Which he’s nicknamed Diane, I mean you never hear about that in the official history of Cheers though that might have been a whole different show if it had been a time-travelin’ interdimensional bar ya know… And he has such a good time after attendin’ the world premieres of that and Shao-Lin and Wu-Tang he decides he wants to see Enter The Dragon – I mean who doesn’t! – in the cinema when it comes out.
In which Young Southpaw further explores Van Halen numerology, catching a glimpse of their shamanistic bilocation attempts in the Van Hagar era, conjectures what each of Earth Wind & Fire’s solo albums would be like, expresses his wish for Swedish singer Robyn to cover Robyn Hitchcock’s ‘I Often Dream Of Trains’ album in its entirety as ‘I Often Dream Of Trains Too’, and much more. Taking in 1984, 5150, OU812, For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge, Van Halen II, Women & Children First, Fair Warning, “Fare Warning”, ‘Top Of The World’, Mr. Solo, The Offspring, Wilson Phillips, Nelson, The Go-Betweens, Jesus Jones, Jimi Hendrix, German, the soft J, Amon Düül II, Ash Ra Tempel, Julian Cope, ‘Yeti’, yams, yaks, Stevie Ray Vaughan, David Bowie, the US Festival, Tom Baker, Dancing In The Street, Black Sabbath, Superchunk, Aerosmith, The Ramones, Bad Brains, Fugazi, The Replacements, Hanoi Rocks, Kraftwerk, a-Ha, Led Zeppelin, trains, ‘Crazy Train’, etc.
In which Young Southpaw wishes The Cult would use Billy Dee Williams in their marketing campaigns, brazenly wonders about Thomas Pynchon’s footwear, and posits that the next Star Wars film may well be the sequel to Beach Blanket Bingo or at least should be Taking in James Bond, the Singles soundtrack, Van Halen, the Pynchon in Public podcast, George Perec, palindromes, stripey socks, Mad Max, Tina Turner, etc.
In which Young Southpaw questions the veracity of Elton John’s claims, explores the more obscure Friends episodes, and wonders if the New York and San Francisco Giants are in an immortal league of their own. Taking in Chris Elliott’s Get A Life, R.E.M., The Jetsons, The Wizard Of Oz, Australia, Ionescu, Mr. Bean, Custer’s Last Stand, Custard’s Last Stand, Custard, Led Zeppelin, Stand By Me, Weekend At Bernie’s, Oasis, Jack & The Beanstalk, Frank Baum, Pink Floyd, etc.
In which Young Southpaw ponders how Mediterranean bees might give rise to a World Basketball League played on rafts, realizes the need for a regulation committee to keep players’ moustaches looking pre-1913, and ol’ President “Saltwater” Taft’s role in all this. Taking in Burt Reynolds, Guided By Voices, golf, Greece, Ouzo, “All Greek To Me”, bathtub gin, bathtub djinns, world leaders’ facial hair, CBGB’s, Kingsley Amis, James Bond, Colonel Sun, Ian Fleming, Robert Markham, Asterix, Getafix, Aphrodite’s Child, Destiny’s Child, Hawaii, water, Ohio, etc.
In which Young Southpaw explores how putting honey in pie might lead to time-traveling Van Halen record-shopping binges, EMF predicted the short-lived baking drill craze of 1991, and The Birthday Party really missed a trick by not having Nick Cave change his last name to Cake. Taking in Cake, The Beatles, kale, Mötley Crüe, Mr. Big, Herb Alpert, Ginger Baker, Mercury Rev, ‘Apple Peaches Pumpkin Pie’, and much more.
In which Young Southpaw elaborates on the theory that Led Zeppelin’s final U.S. tour in 1977 was just an excuse for Jimmy Page to scout locations for a water park in Ohio, proposes that Johnny Marr should have played guitar for Ozzy Osbourne, clarifies that Samuel Taylor Coleridge was NOT in Duran Duran, takes a peek at the alternate universe where Lookout! Records released the Coverdale/Page album, and much more… Taking in Family Ties, Scrabble, Christopher Columbus, Sandy Denny, occult symbolism, William Burroughs, Aleister Crowley, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Mötley Crüe, Guns N Roses, Def Leppard, RATT, Tom Petty, Shania Twain, Metallica, AC/DC, Deep Purple, KISS, Van Halen, The Electric Slide, The Cure, Wet Wet Wet, etc. “Drive throughs…would be a whole lot more fun, you know..if water slides were involved. Of the ways that this could go, I mean it’s like a cow’s stomach, there’s a lot of ‘em.. But imagine you’re going to get some food, you drive up and order, then park your car, and you get out and go on a water slide. And at the end they give you your food, that sounds amazin’. Or maybe after you order you give your keys to a valet who then drives it to the end of the water slide so it’s waiting for you after you’ve gone down and then eaten. Or like at water parks you could place your order at the top of the water slide then you shoot down and someone passes it out to you just as you’re about to hit the bottom so you can like slide into the end and then walk out just chompin’ down on whatever you ordered you know. Or you know there could be like a big pool at the end where you can relax on a tube and enjoy your meal while you’re floatin’. They’d time it right so it doesn’t get all wet, I mean these are professionals. And you just pay attention to the simple instructions you know… But this starts from even before we were even born, you know. Comin outta the womb, I mean you mighta had some thoughts… Maybe, maybe you placed some orders in the womb, who can remember that far back? Maybe just orders in the metaphysical sense, like what you expected outta life. And you slide out and…well, maybe eventually…though you might not even know when they’re realized, or maybe you do, you get this sense of something coming together just beyond your comprehension. And speakin’ of sense, are we in a sense, what our parents ordered? Will there need to be some umbilical cord at the water parks to ensure a safe passing off, maybe the first time you do it? Then you gotta cut that thing but the family ties still remain but not in a strictly physical sense anymore. Remember that episode of Family Ties where they’re playin’ Scrabble, and Stephen’s gettin’ all obsessed with the game as is his wont? And he insists that zoquo is a word, you know, from the Greek, meaning ‘water sports’. Well hello theme park! And we were just talkin’ about the mysteries of life, I mean that’s prolly what Zeppelin 4 was all about. I mean who knows the actual name of that record? It seems to be untitled, but people call it Led Zeppelin 4. The band themselves just say ‘the fourth album’. Some say the name is the four symbols on it, and I’ve heard others just say Zoso, which you know, was Jimmy Page’s symbol. I mean it can’t be just a coincidence that Zoso and Zoquo, what Stephen Keaton was sayin’, sound so much alike. I mean this is just one of those incidents when the true meaning of things pops up later in the most unexpected places. Cause if you look at the last Zeppelin tour of America, 1977, they played two nights in Cincinnati, Ohio – shout out to the Afghan Whigs – and then two nights in Richfield, Ohio. That’s a lotta time in one state. And that’s where the Keatons were from, Columbus, Ohio. Named after Christopher Columbus I would guess, double C you know. That’s two hundred in Roman numerals, and we had just had the bicenntenial in 1976 the year before the Zeppelin tour. Well I mean, I think it’s obvious. Jimmy Page was usin’ the tour as cover while he sc...
In which Young Southpaw wonders if Love is simply a Sonic Youth album played backwards, about Sammy Hagar and Jim Morrison’s knowledge of the question, if there are any professional Duck Duck Goose leagues and what they know about it, plus a whole lot more… Taking in Carla Thomas, Van Halen, Thomas Pynchon, The Soul Survivors, snakes, vinyl, The Cult, Iron Maiden, Revelation Records, straight edge, hugs, kisses, x’s, o’s, tic tac toe, etc.
In which Young Southpaw muses on prophetic breakfasts, what exactly The Who were trying to say about healthy eating habits, and the immortal yet criminally obscure Swedish game of Bonving. Taking in eggs, Scrabble, augury, Bugs Bunny, A Fish Called Wanda, Prince, Kiss, Gene Simmons, Van Halen, Pet Shop Boys, James Ward, Roger Rabbit, Peter Rabbit, Dante’s Inferno, Trainspotting, Eggstone, astrology, and more.
Young Southpaw contemplates infinity’s affinity with boutique hotels, the fabled forests of Chairland, and surfboarding wizards with their Zeppelin & Sabbath-loving seagull entourages. Taking in Chairmen Of The Board, Smashing Pumpkins, Elvis, Van Halen, Poseidon, Leonard Cohen, Robyn Hitchcock, The Afghan Whigs, yogurt, David Lee Roth, Fugazi, Thomas Pynchon, The Beach Boys, and more.
“The Man Who Whispers In The Ears Of Boxing Kangaroos In Space On The Spaceship: The Al Pacino Story, man I’ll have to Google if Scarface wasn’t already subtitled this, it’s been so long since my cousins went to see it…” In which Young Southpaw uses his possible illusion to conjecture about the heavenly Australia, florist mobsters, the complicated lives of famous kangaroos, and much more. Taking in Al Pacino, Pinocchio, Rush, Barry Manilow, Guns N’ Roses, Motorhead, Neptune, Uranus, Mars, Joey from Friends, The Horse Whisperer in different languages, Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer, Impressionist Painting, etc. “So I’ve never seen Scarface, you know…. Al Pacino… I remember when I was young when that came out all my older cousins went to see it with my grandparents and they came back and they were raving about it and I was confused cause… I was obsessed with Star Wars at the time and you know I kinda mixed up the letters in my head, I just changed that C to a T you know like Connecticut you know, the Nutmeg State. And we were all in Connecticut at the time, making this even weirder. And I swear I have ever since labored under the illusion… Well I don’t know if it’s an illusion or not, but I’ve certainly been using it, you know like Guns N Roses the old 1-2 punch. But I don’t actually know if it’s illusory or not cause I’ve still never seen Scarface. But I’m guessin it’s not true, but for some reason I think Scarface takes place in outer space… You know gangsters in space it’s not that far-fetched, what with films where you can do anything, they didn’t really have CGI back then, well maybe they did but you know it wouldn’t have been that great… You know I mean The Godfather you got planet Jupiter you know Saturn you know the rings like Wagner’s The Ring or that horror film The Ring you know with that Isle of Misfit Toys. I mean you gotta figure Rudolph’s been to space a few times. I mean how do we know that Mars ain’t just Rudolph’s nose you know… Truth be told, I’ve never seen any of these so like I’m just riffing here, saying what I think from what people have told me… I mean obviously I’ve seen the Rudolph film, you’d have to be livin’ in outer space not to have seen that… Though that is a generalization I’m gonna take back right now cause maybe if you’re livin’ in outer space you see everything cause the broadcast waves just hit ya and you take it all in you know… But with the others I’m just givin’ a general impression, that is the impressions that these have had upon me you know like the impressionist painters, you know. I mean are there any impressionist paintings call Scarface or Starface? Or of Al Pacino himself? I mean was Al Pacino an impressionist painter? I mean you can’t prove that there’s never been- I mean there’s the famous guy but there coulda been an impressionist painter named Al Pacino somewhere you know… Somewhere in time like Iron Maiden you know and that one had the futuristic Eddie on the cover. Not that it was very impressionistic at all, though it certainly made an impression on me as a child. Had that Wasted Years on it, and Stranger In A Strange Land just like Al Pacino in the world of Impressionist painting… BUT! Of course there coulda been this other Al Pacino who was no stranger to the equally un-as-strange world of impressionism. Just doing his thang you know, not too concerned with fame and fortune you know, just painting impressionist pictures of you know of gangster wars in space. Maybe some tulips, you know… Maybe Johnny Two-Lips you know, some sort of florist gangster, you don’t want to run afoul of those. Saved Al Pacino’s life that one time that night the Barry Manilow concert got way too crazy in Rotterdam. I mean I picture them all being Dutch despite the last name Pacino. Or maybe Johnny Two-Lips is called that cause everyone else in his gang got their mouths sewn shut by some renegade Gepetto you know. Who wasn’t listenin to Jiminy Cricket’s always let your conscience be your guide,
In which Young Southpaw spots the numbers in certain state names and wonders which has the most points. Of course he wants it to be California, the home of Van Halen, but Southpaw is nothing if not fair, as we shall see. He also uncovers the work of a mysterious trio of sisters in the founding of our nation and tells a little of his youth as a young Young Southpaw. Taking in Bertolt Brecht, ‘Dragostea Din Tei’, Roman numerals, Diana the Roman goddess of the Moon, Van Halen’s ‘1984’, the Temptations, the Kinks, Icarus, the music of Chicago and Minneapolis, Soul Asylum, Steve Albini, the exact center of the continental United States, and much more.
In which Young Southpaw inadvertently launches a stationary superstore whilst attempting to remember how to speak French, grows concerned over the uses its patrons will use the products for, and pitches a new National Lampoon’s Vacation movie. Taking in The Go-Betweens, The Birthday Party, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, The Monks, The Nuns, the Griswalds, stationary, late-period capitalism, ‘Kingpin’, ‘Vacation’, The King Of Luxembourg, INXS, Sisyphus, and more.
“Talk about extremes, Gary Cherone joined Van Halen! Got to play with the old Edward Van, as Anthony Burgess woulda said had he written ‘Clockwork Orange’ in the 80s, you know 1984, and then Anthony Burgess had that 1985 book, and Van Halen are Dutch, what’s the national colour of the Dutch? I think you’ll find it’s orange…” Young Southpaw traces the not-so-hidden connections between the British novelist and the ultimate hard rock band, taking in along the way the idea that Bad Brains should do a James Bond theme, Billy Joel & Billy Joe Armstrong should duet, using the Eiffel Tower as a unit of measurement, and much more. “Has Billy Joel figured out why he goes to extremes yet? I mean you think he woulda let us know, you know. I mean figured it out written another song, helped everyone else who has that problem you know. I mean maybe for him it’s just a song but to some people it’s a way a life. I mean to Jovi, you’ll remember last episode, that second Bon Jovi album bein’ called 7800 degrees Fahrenheit, I mean that seems to be the very definition of extreme. Well, I guess you got the band Extreme, you know More Than Words etc. And then for Gary Cherone, their lead singer, I mean talk about extremes, he joined Van Halen! Got to play with the old Edward Van, as Anthony Burgess woulda said had he written Clockwork Orange in the 80s, you know 1984. And then Anthony Burgess had that 1985 book, you know. And you know Van Halen are Dutch and what’s the national colour of the Dutch? I think you’ll find it’s orange. So that woulda made sense, you know. And remember Alex’s eyes are all bug-buggin’ in that one when he’s watching the film? I mean what if he had been watchin’ the Pretty Woman video? I mean who’s eyes aren’t bug-buggin’ as they say when they see that video? It’s like givin’ everyone the Ludovico technique. And I mean doesn’t Alex Van Halen play Ludwigs? I can’t make this stuff up! The old Alex Van playin’ Ludwigs. Man, it’s gettin’ too real! I mean what did Anthony Burgess write in the late 70s when Van Halen first started releasin’ records? He was probably workin’ on Earthly Powers. Well 1985 came out in 1978. Confusing I know but also the year the first VH record appeared. Then you had Van Halen II in 1979 and then Gary Cherone joined years later for Van Halen III. Years later so it’s kinda like releasing a book called 1985 in 1978. But I’ve still never heard Van Halen III, I’ll be honest with ya. But you know, I appreciate the legacy. When I saw that Sam & Dave tour back in 2002, Gary Cherone joined Sammy Hagar on stage for some songs. Top Of The World I think, you know, I love that song. I mean people draw lines and of course I mean you know I love Roth but I’ll still listen to Van Hagar, I mean I still love 5150. And Top Of The World, you know. I remember being in the line for the bathroom at that show, you’ll excuse my bathroom talk but it hit me when I was there, like a ton of bricks. The realization that, well I saw this dude I went to college with. Jamie we called him, that was his name. He was in that same line, the one at the show, I don’t remember there bein’ any lines for the bathroom at college. Well not at the university buildings themselves but obviously at parties you know. There were lines as long as the Eiffel Tower. Well you know what I mean, horizontal lines not vertical, but the same distance for both. But if you prefer to look at it like the line to get into the Eiffel Tower well then you’re free to see it that way too. But anyway we weren’t in college anymore, though I’m sure at the same concurrent time – this was 2002 remember, and even nowadays I’m sure – that there are lines for the bathroom while concerts are going on even in the places the concert isn’t. You know what I mean… So anyway I saw Jamie and he yelled across the line ‘who are you here to see?’ And the question just totally shocked me, you know like that KISS song. But KISS wasn’t playin’.
In which Young Southpaw gets confused by the titles of the Bon Jovi records, the bathtub one and the releases surrounding the bathtub one Taking in My Chemical Romance, Steve Vai, Bruce Springsteen, New Jersey, Nick Rhodes, Randy Rhoads, Cynthia Rhodes, ‘Slippery When Wet’, Fugazi, Van Halen, the film Runaway, Ionescu, and much more. “So today I’d like to, like to talk about the album titles of Mr. Jon Bon Jovi. Or the band Bon Jovi, of which Mr. Jon Bon Jovi is, well, an integral part I would say. Named after him. Unless he named the band after one of his ancestors also named Bon Jovi. Maybe, you never know. You really never know. I mean you could ask him but I have no way to contact the man. And you know, time is a flowin’ like all those waterfalls. Not over the edge hopefully. Just flowin’ on, ridin’ on as that mellow AC/DC song goes. But I mean I do get confused. I didn’t get too confused, but enough confused you know. I’m sure you can get confused by any bands album titles once you think of them for a very long time. Or even a few minutes as the case may be. I mean Public Image Ltd. is probably the only band that’s ever had an honest album title, you know. With Album, Cassette, or Compact Disc…whatever format you had it on. You know the one with Steve Vai, 1986, year of the Fire Tiger, you know, Joan Rivers all that. Well it just hit me, Steve Vai went from working with John Lydon to DLR in the course of a year. From punk rock to Roth rock as they say. And Album and Eat Em And Smile came out in the same year. That just blew my mind… But yeah I mean what I wanted to talk about is – well gimme a minute to get over this whole album Eat Em And Smile thing… Ok well then, let’s go. This one also came out in 1986. I’m talking about Slippery When Wet of course. I mean I get what they’re sayin’, believe me…I get it. It’s uh, it’s innuendo. But it’s also something you’d say about a road, you know, and I don’t think anybody named Rhodes played on that album. Imagine if Nick Rhodes and Randy Rhoads played on Slippery When Wet. And Cynthia Rhodes was the singer. I mean she was a singer, maybe still is, I don’t know. Be good to find out. Again I don’t have any way to contact her. But you know Dirty Dancin’ Flashdance coulda been called Dirty…Flash…vocals… But they weren’t called that. You know, those were not the names of those films. But it woulda been a wildly different sounding record if Slippery When Wet had been made like that. Heck, maybe even my favourite record of all time. But once I started to think about it, it just started to bug me out, you know? Got my mind all bug buggin’ as they say, as I’ve said before. When something gets my mind all…bug buggin’, you know. But Slippery When Wet’s the big one outta all his confusing albums. I mean, I just don’t understand. And it’s on the front cover like that, is it some sorta warning? I mean who…who gets their records wet? They won’t play. Precisely because they’ll be slippery. It seems like common sense. I mean the jacket all damaged, you know. I suppose I mean maybe there was an epidemic in America at the time or maybe they heard it someplace else around the world, people just dippin’ their, takin their records with them in the bathtub. I mean I know I love Van Halen’s 1984 but even I could…afford to…put it down for a little while while I took a nice soak..you know? And then you got New Jersey, I mean that’s confus- I mean I get it. They’re from New Jersey, but then forever on after once people say they’re going to New Jersey they could just be talkin about going to listen to that Bon Jovi record. I think that’s my favorite one, it’s got Born To Be My Baby – Na Na etc you know. Not like that My Chemical Romance song – you know that crazy My Chemical Romance band, also from New Jersey I might add – but they had that song Na Na Na…and then a whole bunch more Na’s in parentheses, you know… From their Danger Days album – Double D! Well not like that comic by Steve Horry and Eddie Ar...
In which Young Southpaw confuses even himself wondering whether or not he is at a wedding, wrestling with the conspiracy theory behind the song ‘Some Kind Of Wonderful’ while professing his love of all things soup Taking in soups, broths, and consommés, that crazy Freezepop band, Thomas Pynchon, ‘The Love Song Of J. Alfred Prufrock’, The Soup Diaries, Happy Mondays, The Boomtown Rats, Loudness, Randy Rhoads, Quiet Riot, Aquirax Uno, and much more.
In which Young Southpaw posits that Stephen Hawking must have been touched by the hand of Van Halen’s Fair Warning. Taking in the nature of water, snow, Boston Celtics, Celtic Frost, TLC, a vast array of alcoholic beverages, Van Hagar, snake wine, and the film Titanic. “Welcome to this third installment of The Young Southpaw Part Of An Hour. I hope you meditated on my koan from last time, you know. The water implied in that Melissa Etheridge song was of course, you know the Moon. You know, by the light of the Moon that she’s singin’ like that. All full of feelin’ and stuff. You know, the Moon controls the tides so Boom, there ya go… Well there I was you know… Wait, now what did I wanna talk about now? Oh yeah, another water song… You know that one by TH, TLC… what was I thinkin’ of? ‘Don’t Go Chasin’ Waterfalls’? Well I mean I love TLC, you know. Saw em live at the Boston Garden, back right after a snowstorm. Snow was piled real high outside the cars. Well not that high, ‘pretty’ high, you know it was January. But one time I was in Boston – I wasn’t livin’ there anymore – went up to visit after the blizzard of 2013 and the snow was piled over the cars. It was 7 feet tall, it was insane. The snow coulda played for the Celtics, you know like that band Celtic Frost. Then there’d be the issue though of the way you pronounce the ‘C’ – hard or soft – like tacos you know. And then maybe an issue about Celtic Frost being a Canadian metal band and not technically in the National Basketball Association. Now wait just a second, Celtic Frost were Swiss, I’m thinkin’ of Voivod. They’re from Canada, you know like the Expos and Toronto Blue Jays. But those are baseball teams not basketball, but you just add a K and a T to baseball and voila, as they say in the French speakin’ parts. That’s a hard K like in Celtic Frost and not like Boston Celtics. But you know all that snow kinda relates to the song I wanna talk about… because… if the snow starts meltin’ real fast we would be getting’ some waterfalls, you know… But my problem is – and again don’t get me wrong – nothin’ against THC, but ‘don’t go chasin’ waterfalls’ I mean, ya know… Waterfalls don’t move, you know. It’s always in the same exact geographical location. I mean the water moves. I mean if it said don’t go chasin’ the water in waterfalls, you know. It would kinda make sense. But I mean don’t go chasin’ water anywhere. I mean the water’s fallin’ but it’s still movin’ like it’s in a river or something, you know. I mean Stone Roses had that song ‘Waterfall’, that was real good, you know, I love that first Stone Roses album… But uh you know, uh, I just don’t understand. That song, the THC one, was a huge hit. But it’s not gonna scan if you say ‘don’t go chasin’ the water in waterfalls’ cause you repeat water, sayin’ it twice, you know. That’s kinda redundant, not an oxymoron like, like I said it wasn’t in that first episode. Anyway I remember seein’ them at the Boston Garden, this was in January, then when my birthday rolled around in April I had my birthday cd shopping list and I had, well I think I had T Boz’s solo record on there. Already owned that crazy CrazySexyCool album, and you know what? I even had the Ain’t Too Proud To Beg cassingle cassette when it came out, you know, two spools one tape little cardboard box, heck of a long thing to name a product… But you know, I had that album on my birthday shopping list and I went to my birthday party and someone saw it and they were joshin’ me about it and I stood up and just said ‘I love THC’… But I didn’t have as much of a problem with the Waterfalls song then as I do now. Now that I’ve had decades to reflect on it. You know years go by, flowin’ like the sands of time, like the water in a waterfall…like the liquid in a waterfall. That’d be an even worse song title – don’t go chasin’ the liquid in waterfalls. Might get confusin’. I mean people dump their, well people pee in water. That’s inappropriate to have a pop song on the rad...
The Young Southpaw Part Of An Hour Episode Two – Madness, Melissa Etheridge, & The Secret History In which Young Southpaw apologises, runs into some trouble betting on the order Def Leppard would play their ‘Hysteria’ album shows in, is confused by Madness’ ‘Our House’, and is spotted in Bermuda. Taking in James Bond, Scooby Doo, quarry diving, Desperate Journalist, Morrissey, Madness, My Favorite, The Secret History, Donna Tartt, Sweden, Melissa Etheridge, and more.
The Young Southpaw Part Of An Hour Epsiode One – The Breeders’ Pod In which Young Southpaw almost latches on to a conspiracy theory that the Internet is all a hoax started by The Breeders’ 1990 debut. Inspired by his favorite podcasts, Harmontown and Greg Proops’ The Smartest Man In The World, Young Southpaw decides to start one of his own. Wondering what the word ‘podcast’ actually means, he takes in The Breeders, Bruce Dickinson & Iron Maiden, Van Halen of course, Slade, Quiet Riot, Saint Etienne, New Order, Monopoly, The Divine Comedy, Risk, and more.