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Bloggers, have you ever posted a video and then gone back to the post months later to find that the video has been removed by the original poster? Happens all the time here and this blog is littered with empty YouTube frames that make those posts pointless.

In some cases, it's a music publisher claiming copyright infringement, which in this day and age, is the dumbest move a music publisher/record label could make. When people are stealing your music from LimeWire and a host of other places, why not allow your music a little free play that doubles as promotion for your artist? Maybe someone sees this video of Prince (being painfully slow-hosted via two or three servers, with the original host being in Romania) and goes out and buys some Prince music on iTunes.

It could happen. Now please enjoy the funky fun of the Minnesota Vikings' most famous fan before it gets removed again.

Prince - Alphabet Street - Watch more Music Videos at Vodpod.

Put Her in the Backseat and Drive Her To Tennessee

Just got back from Tennessee, where I wish I was still. I can't say I missed blogging for one minute. Here's a shot taken during what photographer Ross Halfin calls "God's Light" one evening. Not a single thing was done to this image in Photoshop. Straight from the camera to here. (Click it for the big, screensaver version, free of charge. Hurry while supplies last.)


I'm so enamored of Tennessee, I even love their state flag. Understated, tasteful.

We didn't watch TV for a week, only checked Internet for emergency work emails and only on the computer that had a barely passable connection via Verizon. AT&T was out, as was Sprint. No cell phone service. We just hung out on a porch in the woods in the north central mountains of the state, went swimming and boating (Where's My Jetski?) in a lake and had three great meals a day, no between-meal snacks.

And yes, I've posted this cringe-inducing video before, but it's always worth a second look, especially since Prince sings about Tennessee. In that funky Prince way.

Your Pre-Election, Halloween-Eve Music Video Break

The election season demands this

(You'll thank me when it's over)

Cringe with me, readers, as everyone's favorite diminutive funkmaster embarrasses himself 1988 style in that now-dead medium they called "the music video." It's still a great song if you close your eyes. And even if you keep them open, Prince is one funny, confident guy, graduating with honors from the Sly Stone-Mick Jagger-Steven Tyler school of showmanship. This guy should be in sales, what with all that confidence and stuff.



(I can't help myself. The funk itch must be scratched.)

Is it Time For Another Music Break Already?

Yes. Yes it is. The current climate calls for it. Let that jingly jangly guitar bit from yesteryear (along with the insanely funny production values of the 80s) take away your blues.

(Pardon the :30 pre-roll advert. Price you pay for free video these days.)

(Prince used to be a really pretty girl.)

• Prince
• New Music

Open Mic Night - Opening the Mic

An Open Mic Night host who doesn’t share the mic is not really hosting an open mic night, but is instead subjecting you to his or her own creations ad nauseum. I have been guilty of this practice in previous open mic night posts and will now step aside for a week and treat you to a true master of the mic, Sylvester Stewart.

If you’ve ever tapped your foot to a Red Hot Chili Peppers* song; if you’ve ever said to yourself, “Wow, Prince has got real presence,”; or if you’ve ever appreciated how Aerosmith is so much funkier than other traditional rock acts, then you owe a debt of gratitude to Mr. Stewart.

I first heard this song as a narrow-minded little rocker kid, when a much more musically adventurous friend found it in the back of a bin at a seedy used record store on a dirty side street in Frankfurt, Germany, almost a decade after the song had been popular. In it I heard everything I liked in rock; prominent bass, an unapologetic attitude of self-assurance mixed with laid-back cool, and the ability to bend a single sung syllable into a contorted and drawn-out display of passion.

This is one of those songs that will never leave my iPod: Sly and the Family Stone’s "If You Want me To Stay." I would recommend you crank it up very loud. You can even unplug the headphones or earbuds and let your office mates jam with you. I would never suggest such a thing for my own music.

Find it at top in the sidebar until next week’s song replaces it.

Archived Open Mic Night music is found here

*They covered the song, but not nearly as well as the original.

Open Mic Night: Headed South Edition

Florida is the destination of choice for many a homeless man, and that’s the subject of this edition of Open Mic Night. A few months after kissing off the Ad Club, (see yesterday’s post) I had another bout with integrity.

My boss, who struggled in vain to land new accounts and relied on old friends who remembered him as a 2nd string quarterback at the local shitty college to bring him business, was pushing me to pad my time sheets. Of course he wasn’t so dumb that he’d come out and say it that way, but the implication was clear. He hated to see any time billed to the company, but the fact of the matter was there simply wasn’t enough business to account for all of my time. I was learning how to take a ridiculously long time to do very easy assignments and then bill that time to clients. I was learning that going through magazines or playing in Photoshop was called "creative concepting" and that we had a billing code for that. I learned that if I just needed to get the hell out of the office to take a drive, I could bill that to someone as a video-shoot location scouting expedition. Finally, after yet another battle with him in his office over hours billed to the company, I said, “Thanks for the education,” and walked out.

In hindsight, that was kind of stupid. At the time, I was sure that a stand for what was right would all turn out fine in the end. It did, eventually, but not before the things in this song happened.

Taking you back to when rock was raunchy and rooted in the blues, many people hear Keith in this song, which is fine with me. It obviously needs the intro and bridge fills of someone like Luther Dickinson , Joe Perry, or even His Royal Badness, but I’m strictly rhythm; I can’t make it cry or sing. This is a demo version only, so don’t give me too much crap.

It’s called “Babylonian Blues.” It’s up in the top of the sidebar. Lyrics are here.

Archived Open Mic music is stored over here.

SuperBowl Consumer Mindshare

Don't believe me? Witness the coal-raking Angela is undergoing over at AdRants.

No SuperBowl Spots Reviewed Here

Let's just call it the SuperBlow from now on. The hype is never worth the delivery. Nor are the ensuing analyses worth much either.

AdRants has already posted enough spot reviews to make up for EVERYONE. (Geez, Steve, do you even let Angela sleep? 35 posts (and counting) yesterday is a little insane. One might even call it shark-jumping, if that term can apply to blogs. But I guess ad reviews are your job...so good job. But Angela's review of Prince's performance has awakened the Prince Army.)

Then again, in Steve's defense, at least he didn't set up a whole site devoted to critiquing Super Bowl spots.

Stuart Elliott, desperate for a new and "literary" angle, goes way off the deep end in his New York Times analysis: "No commercial that appeared last night during Super Bowl XLI directly addressed Iraq...but the ongoing war seemed to linger just below the surface of many of this year’s commercials." Stuart thought the commercials were too violent and attributes that to the Iraq war. Quite a stretch, Stu.

Hopefully, we can all move on now.


Henry Winkler as Arthur Fonzarelli, giving birth to the term "jumped the shark."