Interlude: Five-Oh-Oh.

I’m sure we all need a break from this Comet Gain stuff by now. I’ve been spending a few days listening to – wow, get this - other music before I launch into the next bit.

And conveniently enough, we have an anniversary to mark in the meantime. Blogger Dashboard tells me that this thing what you are currently reading is the 500th post on Stereo Sanctity.

I guess 500 posts in seven and a bit years is nothing to shout about in blog terms, but if my calculations are correct (they’re probably not) I reckon it averages out at about one post per six days since May 2004 – a far better breakdown than I was expecting, given my frequent failure to get a post done at least once a week and irregular lapses into unexpected hiatus over the years.

By way of celebration, I’ve tidied up the dead wood in the links list a bit – never let it be said I don’t know how to party. So what does the future hold for what history will record as the distinctly-turn-of-the-century medium of the Music Blog? Fuck all, if the number of decent ones still standing is any indication, but a desert can be a cool place to be, so I’ll keeping plugging away.

For no reason whatsoever, I will dedicate the rest of this post to revisiting a video I’ve already posted once before, from Kuwait’s The Bendaly Family, just because it never fails to fill my heart with joy.

So much to love going on here, but I would in particular draw your attention to;

1. The way this video seems to suggest a fully formed Wes Anderson-style movie, all about the way that starry-eyed Mr Bendaly has coerced his wife and daughters (and nieces? sisters? who knows..) into becoming his backing band as he pursues his goal of international pop stardom. Participation, you feel, is compulsory in this family – anyone who lacks rudimentary musical talent, well they’ll just have to clap their hands, or do some dancing!

2. Also playing into this imagined motion picture is the way in which The Bendaly Family manage to totally rock the idea of vintage/indie dress codes and contemporary wimp/girl/amateur-friendly pop performance aesthetics… in Kuwait in 1978.

3. Above all though, I just really love the way that this song is actually three completely separate songs with wholly conflicting moods, crudely crowbarred together with no attempt at all to disguise the joins – first the forlorn, political angst-ridden “those guys who cause all the trouble” section, then the sexy “do you love me?” belly-dancing bit, then the big, wholesome “la la la” pop chorus. Mr Bendaly’s jaunty ‘I’m goin’ for a walk’ arm swinging move as he introduces the latter section, singing “when I go… etc”, is just the greatest thing.

Actually, checking back, those are pretty much exactly the same observations that I made when I first posted the video in August ’09… but hopefully they bear repeating.

I guess it is the fact that just about every country on earth has a wealth of stuff this awesome buried in its culture – so much so that after decades of obsessive immersion I’m nowhere near even hitting bottom on my own particular corners of closer-to-home Anglo-American pop music – that keeps me doing this crap five hundred ‘publish now’ clicks later.

Labels: anniversaries, The Bendaly Family

Placeholding Video Awesomeness

Apologies as usual for the recent lack of blogging action – I got back from Copenhagen a few days ago (had a smashing time), and now I’m down in Wales preparing for a weekend’s camping, whilst the USB stick with all my half-finished bits of writing on it remains in London.

So as much as I hate to do another placeholding post comprising some videos blatantly picked up from other blogs, here it is, and damn, do I ever love the videos.

First, via WFMU, here’s The Bendaly Family; awesome Kuwaiti pop from 1978. I don’t know *what* to make of these guys – they look like the kind of mixed up family unit that Wes Anderson would probably make a film about, with the single-minded patriarch/singer coercing his children and loved ones into joining his quest for pop stardom, his relentless optimism blinding him to the strange effects this lifestyle may be having on them all, etc. etc. Or maybe not. I dunno. I mean, it’s not like I’ve actually bothered to do any research into who they are or how their career progressed. I also like how they somehow manage to rock a contemporary ‘indie pop’ kinda visual style, twenty plus years too early on the wrong side of the planet. Go figure.

I love how the song sort of opens with a darkly mournful, vaguely political lament, then veers into a kinda cheesy Middle Eastern radio hit ballad bit, and hits a huge ‘altogether now’ DIY pop chorus at about the two minute mark. It makes me sad to note that most of the comments following this video, both on Youtube and WFMU, lean toward mockery – I think it’s just ace. Totally beautiful.



Next, courtesy of Honey is Funny, here’s John Lee Hooker playing on the BBC in 1964, backed by an early line-up of The Groundhogs. Man, I LOVE John Lee Hooker – his stuff’s so minimal, so razorsharp, so… punk, like a big fuck-you to anyone who’d wish to reduce the blues to some morass of sloppy, meandering crap that you can’t dance to. And he is ON here. Wonderful footage of the early ‘60s BBC’s idea of a hip crowd getting their groove on too – dig the chef! (More of the good stuff, with the band really giving it some on 'Boom Boom Boom', to be found here.)



Los Shakers were Uruguay’s answer to The Beatles – and WHAT an answer! This promo clip for their (totally bloody fantastic) hit song “Break It All” was posted on WFMU a while back as “the greatest pop video of all-time”, and having tried my best to watch it at least once a day since then, I’m not going to disagree. The editing alone marks it out as a work of genius, the “let’s just film as much cool stuff as we possibly can and cram it all into two minutes” conceit even more so. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ and Richard Lester, but Los Shakers WIN. You’ll be aware that I often stand in awe of ill-defined ‘awesomeness’ on this blog – so, in case you were wondering, this is two minutes and twenty seconds of pure, unadulterated awesomeness for you to refer back to at any point: “and when the music starts, don’t stand there like a fool..”



Oh, and finally, here’s a brief movie from The Sock Puppets set last Friday. A great band, righteous people, tons of killer three chord songs - here’s hoping we get the chance to see them playing more gigs, releasing great records etc. in the near future!

Labels: awesomeness, John Lee Hooker, lameness, Los Shakers, The Bendaly Family, The Sock Puppets, videos