late night with guy mondo

ME: "Hey Kitty..." THE KITTY WITH NO NAME: "Whuddat food?" ME: "It's peanut brittle, you want some?" TKWNN: "Is good food?" ME: "I like it. Do you want some or not?" TKWNN: "Food me!" ME: "Here you evil thing." TKWNN: "This not food! What you eat!" ME: "That is what I'm eating." TKWNN: "Do not want! Pingnud brzzle not food! Want cookie foods!" ME: "You ate all the cookies. Go away!" TKWNN: "Cookies now!" ME: "No cookies." TKWNN: "No good! I put socks in toilet again, okay?"

  Collage by Viktor Valentine, 2011 I'm not a "holiday person" because it's always awkward for me to have to explain, again, that, as an atheist, I refuse to accept folktales and legend as fact. However, some of my friends "get it" and are as irreverent as I am and, so, every year I look forward to a holiday card from my friend Viktor who may not consider himself an artist as much as he would say he is an artistic person. what I like about his card is how he links religion, war and money. I also like the symbolism of Betty Boop as, in my opinion, the church's view that sex should not be fun. I may have to write another blog about that though...

I used to love those " Beach Party " movies when I was a kid in the 60's and was, also, a big fan of TV shows like Hullabaloo , Where the Action Is , American Bandstand , and Shindig . What I liked most was the music, of course, especially the "girl groups" and girl singers that always sang songs about getting The Boy, losing The Boy or going through life unnoticed by The Boy. Oddly enough though, out of the thousands of records I own, I have very little in the genre.      Now my interest has been piqued lately by a site I came across while researching cover art for my ongoing contributions to the Rate Your Music database called The Hamster and the Guppies which led me to a new band from Singapore called Obedient Wives Club who have really captured the spirit of Lesley Gore, The Shangi-Las, The Chantels and the whole Phil Spector girl singer discography. It would be great to see what they could do with a proper studio recording as the samples at their Bandca...

Lots of records... Lots and lots of records.... Lots of CDs (on the shelves and in those boxes and crates... And more CDs. I have been cataloging my collection at the Rate Your Music website. It's an ongoing project as I am still acquiring music, in some form, all the time. I've discovered that I can download free music from Amazon , mostly label samplers, that exposes me to artists and types of music less familiar to me.

  ©2004 Guy WR Waynes / StudioMONDO Taken at The National Aquarium in Washington, DC, in the summer of 2004.

Survival Sampler: Fear and Loafing , collage ca. 1985 by StudioMONDO I don't recall how I came into possession of this cassette but it's still one of my favorite albums to listen to. Not one dud on the whole compilation of mid-80s New Wave, Pop and Rock acts from the Second British Invasion. It was the catalyst for my later purchases of music by groups like The Smiths, China Crisis, Scritti Politti and Depeche Mode , groups I, back then, knew little or nothing about.  There's also a great song from The Assembly a one time project of Vince Clarke (of Depeche Mode, Yazoo, Erasure ) that leaves you wanting more like it. I just recently found out what the original packaging looked like (I did the artwork above because I just had the tape) but it was really cool and I wish I had it. A quick scan on eBay yielded yet another surprise: it was also issued as a vinyl LP! I guess should burn it to a CD even though, unlike most of my cassettes, it still plays flawlessly. Surviv...

Today i decided to do a little housecleaning. While rummaging through my collection of VHS tapes i found a bunch of promo music videos. Among them was Rock DJ by Robbie Williams . It's a mediocre song made more interesting by this video in which begins with Robbie center-stage in a roller rink full of yawn-inducing, generic fashion models. He becomes increasingly distressed at not being the center of attention and begins a striptease to catch the eye of any of the women and, particular ly, those of the DJ Lauren Gold .      There's a pretty good idea at work here and it's well executed with better than average make-up effects and CGI so it's, actually, a lot of fun to watch with the sound off (or on depending on your tolerance for Robbie Williams ). It's one of those things you want to view every once in a blue moon. Unfortunately, after watching it today, it is stuck in my VCR so now i can't watch my VHS copy of Volumen . Music: 2/5 - i'm bewilde...