imageI have recently watched the 1989 classic Doctor Who episode Battlefield, in which the Seventh Doctor(Sylvester McCoy) and Ace (Sophie Aldred) land near Lake Vortigern in England, and meet Brigadier Bambera of UNIT, Administering a nuclear missile convoy And retired Brigadier Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart. Then Later At the Gore Crow hotel, the Doctor and Ace meet a young woman called Shou Yuing, Meanwhile, Brigadier Bambera encounters two groups of armoured knights. Elsewhere The Doctor discovers a scabbard excavated from the battlefield, on display in a hotel, which an Archaeologist named Warmsly dates  to the 8th century, but the Doctor suspects it’s more ancient. Later The Doctor, Bambera, Ace and Shou Yuing find a knight named Ancelyn hiding in the hotel cellar, And are then surrounded by more knights led by a villainous knight named Mordred,

Later Mordred performs an arcane ritual to revive his mother Morgaine Who arrives through a rift in space and time. The next day, Warmsly shows the Doctor where he uncovered the scabbard and They discover a mysterious rune, and a chamber under a lake which is part of an organic spaceship, where they find the body of King Arthur, lying next to a sword, which could be the fabled Sword Excalibur, sadly Ace and The Doctor soon find themselves in deadly peril.

Unfortunately Mordred and Morgaine also learn of Excalibur’s discovery and work out a plan to retrieve It. Later  Earth tremors and other strange weather phenomenon start occurring near Lake Vortigern and the Doctor suspects that a powerful evil is at work, so UNIT Troops evacuate the area and Ace is instructed to draw a chalk circle around herself to protect against Morgaine’s sorcery. So Ace and Shou Yuing draw the circle around themselves and Excalibur and stay at the Gore Crow Hotel, however they are confronted by Morgaine, who then summons the Destroyer of Worlds.

Meanwhile Outside an enormous battle ensues between Morgaine’s Knight’s and UNIT troops and amid the carnage Mordred confronts Ancelyn and the Doctor discovers that Morgaine plans to unleash the power of the Destroyer of Worlds if  Ace and Shou Yuing, refuse to hand over Excalibur. Eventually The Doctor and the Brigadier manage to capture Mordred, who informs them that Morgaine, now has Excalibur. So The Doctor, Brigadier and Ace pursue Morgaine to her castle, where they face a race against time to stop Morgaine and Mordred’s sinister scheme to destroy the world by unleashing the Destroyer of Worlds.

Feetlebaum- tribute to Spike Jones

19724The late, great musician and bandleader, Lindley Armstrong “Spike” Jones was born on December 14th 1911. Jones’ got his nickname from being so thin that he was compared to a railroad spike. At the age of 11 he got his first set of drums. As a teenager he played in bands that he formed himself. A railroad restaurant chef taught him how to use pots and pans, forks, knives and spoons as musical instruments. He frequently played in theater pit orchestras. In the 1930s he joined the Victor Young orchestra and thereby got many offers to appear on radio shows, including Al Jolson’s Lifebuoy Program, Burns and Allen, and Bing Crosby’s Kraft Music Hall. From 1937 to 1942, he was the percussionist for the John Scott Trotter Orchestra, which played on Bing Crosby’s first recording of White Christmas. The City Slickers evolved out of the Feather Merchants, and made experimental records and performed publicly, gaining a small following. The original members included vocalist-violinist Carl Grayson, banjoist Perry Botkin, trombonist King Jackson and pianist Stan Wrightsman.Throughout the 1940s and early 1950s Spike Jones and his City Slickers enjoyed huge success, with their satirical arrangements of popular songs. Ballads and classical works, which after receiving “the Jones treatment” would be punctuated with gunshots, whistles, cowbells, and outlandish vocals and sounded absolutely hilarious.

Among the best known satirical recordings were humorous takes on the classics such as the adaptation of Liszt’s Liebesträume, played at a breakneck pace on unusual instruments. Others followed: Rossini’s William Tell Overture was rendered on kitchen implements using a horse race as a backdrop, with one of the “horses” in the “race” likely to have inspired the nickname of the lone SNJ aircraft flown by the US Navy’s Blue Angels aerobatic team’s shows in the late 1940s, “Beetle Bomb”. In live shows Spike would acknowledge the applause with complete solemnity, saying “Thank you, music lovers.” A collection of these 12 “homicides” was released in 1971 as Spike Jones Is Murdering the Classics. They include such tours de force as Pal-Yat-Chee (Pagliacci), Ponchielli’s Dance of the Hours, Tchaikovsky’s None but the Lonely Heart, Flight of the Bumble-Bee and Bizet’s Carmen. Then In December 1945 Spike released his version of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite, arranged by Joe “Country” Washburne with lyrics by Foster Carling.

Sadly Spike Jones repertoire was adversely affected by the rise of rock-’n’-roll during the 1950′s and the decline of big bands. The new rock songs were already novelties, and Jones could not decimate them the way he had lampooned “Cocktails for Two” or “Laura.” He played rock-’n’-roll for laughs when he presented “for the first time on television, the bottom half of Elvis Presley!” This was the cue for a pair of pants — inhabited by dwarf actor Billy Barty — to scamper across the stage. Jones adapted to changing tastes. In 1950, when America was nostalgically looking back at the 1920s, Jones recorded an album of Charleston arrangements. In 1953 he responded to the growing market for children’s records, with tunes aimed directly at kids (like “Socko, the Smallest Snowball”).In 1956 Jones supervised an album of Christmas songs, many of which were performed seriously.

In 1957, he revamped his own act for television. Gone was the old City Slickers mayhem, replaced by a more straightforward big-band sound, with tongue-in-cheek comic moments. The new band was known as Spike Jones and the Band th at Plays for Fun. He also recorded a cover of “Dominique” with Spike Jones’ New Band in 1964, a hit by The Singing Nun, in which he not only plays part of the melody on a banjo but melds the melody successfully with “When the Saints Go Marching In!” The last City Slickers record was the LP Dinner Music For People Who Aren’t Very Hungry. The whole field of comedy records changed from musical satires to spoken-word comedy (Tom Lehrer, Bob Newhart, Mort Sahl, Stan Freberg). Spike Jones adapted to this, too; most of his later albums are spoken-word comedy, including the horror-genre sendup Spike Jones in Stereo (1959) and Omnibust (1960). Jones remained topical to the last: his final group, Spike Jones’ New Band, recorded four LPs of brassy renditions of pop-folk tunes of the 1960s (including “Washington Square” and “The Ballad of Jed Clampett”).

Unfortunately Jones was a lifelong smoker. He was once said to have gotten through the average workday on coffee and cigarettes. Smoking may have contributed to his developing emphysema. His already thin frame deteriorated, to the point where he used an oxygen tank offstage, and onstage he was confined to a seat behind his drum set. He sadly died on May 1, 1965, at the age of 53, and is buried in Holy Cross Cemetery, Culver City, California.

Cliff Williams (AC/DC)

imageCliff Williams, bass player with heavy metal band AC/DC was Born 14th December 1949, Formed in 1973 by brothers Malcolm and Angus Young, who have remained the sole constant members.AC/DC are Commonly classified as hard rock, they are considered pioneers of heavy metal and are sometimes classified as such, though they themselves have always classified their music as simply “rock and roll”. To date they are one of the highest grossing bands of all time. AC/DC underwent several line-up changes before releasing their first album, High Voltage, on 17 February 1975.Bass player Cliff Williams replaced Mark Evans in 1977 for the album Powerage. Within months of recording the album Highway to Hell, lead singer and co-songwriter Bon Scott died on 19 February 1980, after a night of heavy alcohol consumption. The group briefly considered disbanding, but Scott’s parents urged them to continue and hire a new vocalist. Ex-Geordies singer Brian Johnson was auditioned and selected to replace Scott. Later that year, the band released their highest selling album, and ultimately the third highest-selling album by any artist, Back in Black.

The band’s next album, For Those About to Rock We Salute You, was their first album to reach number one in the United States. AC/DC declined in popularity soon after drummer Phil Rudd was fired in 1983 and was replaced by future Dio drummer Simon Wright, though the band resurged in the early 1990s with the release of The Razors Edge. Phil Rudd returned in 1994 (after Chris Slade, who was with the band from 1989–1994, was asked to leave in favour of him) and contributed to the band’s 1995 album Ballbreaker. Since then, the band’s line-up has remained the same. Stiff Upper Lip was released in 2000 and was well received by critics, and the album, Black Ice, was released on 20 October 2008 and was their biggest hit  since For Those About to Rock, reaching No.1.


Monkey Day

imageMonkey Day is celebrated internationally on December 14th. While the holiday is mainly about monkeys, it also celebrates other non-human primates such as apes, tarsiers, and lemurs. The holiday was started in 2000 when artist Casey Sorrow, then an art student at Michigan State University, jokingly scribbled Monkey Day on a friend’s calendar, and then first celebrated the holiday with other MSU art students. It gained notoriety when Sorrow and fellow MSU art student Eric Millikin began including Monkey Day in their artwork and Fetus-X comic strips, and began promoting it online along with other artists. Since then, Monkey Day has been celebrated internationally, across countries like the U.S., Canada, Germany, and the United Kingdom.

It is described it as the “one day when monkey business is actually encouraged.” The holiday is primarily celebrated with costume parties intended to help draw attention to issues related to simians, including medical research, animal rights, and evolution. Often there are competitions to see who has the best costumes, who can act like a monkey the longest, or speed knitting of monkey dolls. It transcends religious boundaries and provides opportunities to share monkey stories and contemplate our simian relatives. Other Monkey Day activities include going on shopping sprees for Paul Frank “Julius the Monkey” fashions, eating Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey ice cream, and spending the day at the zoo.

In 2005, Peter Jackson’s King Kong was released on the fifth anniversary of Monkey Day. King Kong and Planet of the Apes films are popular at Monkey Day parties.Monkey-themed songs, such as Major Lance’s “The Monkey Time”, are also part of Monkey Day festivities.Often, celebrations involve raising money for primate-related issues. In 2008, the official Monkey Day celebrations included an art show and silent auction to benefit the Chimps Inc. animal sanctuary; the show and auction included art by human artists as well as paintings from chimps Jackson and Kimie, residents of the sanctuary. The Biddle Gallery in Detroit also celebrated Monkey Day in 2008 with an annual Monkey Day art sale that included a free banana with each purchase.