Warning: May Cause Seasickness
No plans this "holiday weekend"? (Note: it's not really a holiday weekend if you don't get Monday off, which I don't. What kind of shit is that?) Spend an hour watching Yacht Rock, a brilliant web-based series that will tell you all you ever needed to know and more about a forgotten American art form: smooth (pronounced "smeeeuuuwth") music from the late 70s and early 80s.
Yacht Rock the show has been around and getting attention for awhile, in fact about six months lapsed between Herr Guitar forwarding me the link and saying, "We HAVE TO watch this," and our getting around to actually watching it. I'm glad we didn't miss the boat (hehe... get it? Boat. Like, yacht? Ehem).
I happen to be something of an expert on this subject. I was nursed at the teat of Yacht Rock, having been raised in the 1970s by a father who exemplifies the genre. I think he still has the first Doobie Brothers cassette he ever bought - and still plays it incessantly. To this day, I can't get through a phone conversation with him without having to endure a list of the merits of Loggins and Messina, his very favorite band*. At 60, my father still looks and acts as if he's been drinking in the sun all day (and he likely has been). I mean, the man has a Hawaiian suit, for god's sake. Case closed!
But even if you know nothing about YR (which is impossible - believe me, you do know something about it), you will love it. I'm upset that the series has not yet plumbed the depths to include unknown YRers such as Sanford and Townsend (another of Papa Milieu's favorites). Rupert Holmes is another obvious contender. And, hello, Jimmy Buffett - the man made YR a lifestyle choice. But the series shows how YR weaves through stories of other music legends, including Van Halen, Jethro Tull, Hall and Oates, Nate Dogg and Warren G and, in my favorite episode, Michael Jackson. There's even a plot (in another brilliant episode) involving Rosanna Arquette, specifically how Toto came to write the hit "Rosanna."
So don't sit around doing nothing this July 4th weekend. Instead, sit around doing almost nothing, but with a computer involved. Get out your weenies and buns and breasts and thighs, pour yourself a glass of Riuniti on ice, log on and sail away.
*Things about Loggins and Messina that I have heard way too many times:
- They are the best live act my dad has ever seen. He took my mom, who really doesn't remember it all that well.
- Loggins was a musical prodigy, and wrote the song "House at Pooh Corner" while still in high school (this blows my father away, but everyone else who has ever heard that song invariably asks, "What, was this written by a kid or something?").
- Messina, originally a member of Buffalo Springfield and Poco, discovered Loggins. The two of them recorded their first album together in Messina's living room.
- My cousin, who is in his early twenties, went to school in Santa Barbara with Loggins' kids, but has no idea who Loggins is (this fact, however, is being debated by my brother, who points out that Loggins sang "Danger Zone" from Top Gun, and he knows for a fact that my cousin loved that movie).
Yacht Rock the show has been around and getting attention for awhile, in fact about six months lapsed between Herr Guitar forwarding me the link and saying, "We HAVE TO watch this," and our getting around to actually watching it. I'm glad we didn't miss the boat (hehe... get it? Boat. Like, yacht? Ehem).
I happen to be something of an expert on this subject. I was nursed at the teat of Yacht Rock, having been raised in the 1970s by a father who exemplifies the genre. I think he still has the first Doobie Brothers cassette he ever bought - and still plays it incessantly. To this day, I can't get through a phone conversation with him without having to endure a list of the merits of Loggins and Messina, his very favorite band*. At 60, my father still looks and acts as if he's been drinking in the sun all day (and he likely has been). I mean, the man has a Hawaiian suit, for god's sake. Case closed!
But even if you know nothing about YR (which is impossible - believe me, you do know something about it), you will love it. I'm upset that the series has not yet plumbed the depths to include unknown YRers such as Sanford and Townsend (another of Papa Milieu's favorites). Rupert Holmes is another obvious contender. And, hello, Jimmy Buffett - the man made YR a lifestyle choice. But the series shows how YR weaves through stories of other music legends, including Van Halen, Jethro Tull, Hall and Oates, Nate Dogg and Warren G and, in my favorite episode, Michael Jackson. There's even a plot (in another brilliant episode) involving Rosanna Arquette, specifically how Toto came to write the hit "Rosanna."
So don't sit around doing nothing this July 4th weekend. Instead, sit around doing almost nothing, but with a computer involved. Get out your weenies and buns and breasts and thighs, pour yourself a glass of Riuniti on ice, log on and sail away.
*Things about Loggins and Messina that I have heard way too many times:
- They are the best live act my dad has ever seen. He took my mom, who really doesn't remember it all that well.
- Loggins was a musical prodigy, and wrote the song "House at Pooh Corner" while still in high school (this blows my father away, but everyone else who has ever heard that song invariably asks, "What, was this written by a kid or something?").
- Messina, originally a member of Buffalo Springfield and Poco, discovered Loggins. The two of them recorded their first album together in Messina's living room.
- My cousin, who is in his early twenties, went to school in Santa Barbara with Loggins' kids, but has no idea who Loggins is (this fact, however, is being debated by my brother, who points out that Loggins sang "Danger Zone" from Top Gun, and he knows for a fact that my cousin loved that movie).
posted by j.m. at 2:00 PM
1 Comments:
What about http://www.allentertainment.net/sealsandcroft.html ?
They are to Yacht Rock what Link Ray is to loud.
Post a Comment
<< Home