A-HA/ Family Guy

Today's clip is brought to you by Family guy....enjoy!

Ben Lee

I was just flicking through one of those horrible "women's" magazines at lunch (you know the one's where there will be a 4 page diet feature and in the same magazine another story about accepting your body how it is) and saw a picture of Ben Lee and Ione Skye. Apparently they are married and I never heard a thing about it.


For those of you that don't know Ione Skye was quite popular in the 80's with the movie "Say Anything" (starring John Cuzak). Her Dad is the singer Donovan. She was also married at one time to the Beastie Boy's Adam Horowitz.


Ben Lee is an Australian musican who dated Clare Danes for quite some time. Clare left Ben for "Almost Famous" star Billy Crudup. Billy Crudup left his then 8 month pregnant partner Mary Louise Parker for Clare (nice guy huh?) Billy also plays the role of Dr Manhatten in the god awful "Watchmen" movie. His digitally enhanced "member" was the only decent acting in the entire movie. An Oscar for the penis I say! I digress though.


Ben and Ione got married in a traditional Hindu ceremony as you can see by the pic below...seems like a big wank to me but whatever floats your boat Ben. If you are interested you can read about the wedding on Ben Lee's blog here





After reading this it made me think of some of Ben's songs.
The one I want to share today is "Cigarette's will kill you". Trust Ben to state the bleeding obvious. Good track though.

Eels Fucker

The first time I heard this song was on a show called The Panel where an acoustic version of this song was played. I instantly fell in love with it. It is so simple but so complicated with the distorted music in the background.

Apologies for the crappy little video I made. I tried to find this song on Youtube but there are only live versions that are barely audible available.

While you are listening you can read the lyrics:

Came home tonight
I felt like I'd die of loneliness
Strange, you think
Popularity...
Looking for a simple life
Life aint simple
Tired and sick but I dont wanna be alone

Could go to a party
But I don't really want to
For now Im sitting out here on my porch
Writing in the dark air
Listening to
My little black cat miaow

Trying to vent some of the terrible passion
That's coursing through me
Something about you
Something about spending the afternoon asleep in your arms
I hate you, fucker.

Siouxsie and the Banshees

I watched a documentary a few years ago which followed groups like The Slits, The Cure and Siouxsie and the Banshees during their embroyonic stages. The reason why Siouxsie and the Banshees stood out to me is the fact that the original line up had no musical experience at all.
They couldn't play any instruments so their set used to comprise of a 20 minute rendition of the Lords Prayer. Siouxsie would scream the Lords Prayer while a whole bunch of racket went on in the background. Don't forget that this was the era of punk so it was totally acceptable and probably what they needed to get enough attention to continue on and actually learn how to play the instruments.


Siouxsie's distinctive image has had an influence on many artists, in particular Robert Smith from the Cure. Robert Smith toured as a guitarist with the Banshees in the late 70's. It was during this time that Robert started to create his image.Siouxsie had/has a very distinctive look - red slashed lipstick, kubuki style pale skin and black teased/matted hair. Robert Smith admits to using Siouxsie's red lipstick when they used to tour and painting outside of his lip line. As much as I love Robert I think he stole a bit more of her image...what do you think?


It was hard for me to pick a Siouxsie and the Banshees song.
In fact I will more than likely include another song at a different time.
For now I have chosen the song "Peek a Boo".
The reason I have chosen this track is because it shows an example of backmasking. Bascially backmasking is where a song is recorded backward onto a track that is meant to play forward (got that?) The band had to learn how to play it backwards as well which I give them props for.
The backmasking is why the track sounds a bit off centre but I think it works well. I also love the use of the accordian in Peek a boo. I think the only person in music today that would experiment and use the accordian would be Bjork.

Beethoven double shot

Today's double shot is Beethoven inspired.


I'm going to start out with the track from the Saturday Night Fever album "A Fifth of Beethoven" by Walter Murphy.
This is an adaptation of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. I'm still trying to work out whether this is blasphemous or not.


The second track is a sample of a sample (if that makes sense).
Robin Thicke borrows heavily from "A Fifth of Beethoven" to create his song "When I get you alone"


Take a look at both songs.