Alice Cooper "Rock & Roll" (SOTD)

Just one week ago this new Alice Cooper song was released, "Rock & Roll" , from the upcoming album Detroit Stories, out on February 26th 2021.  For  week i'm struggling to post this but finally...

---The song sounded familliar , sure, why ? Its a cover of the Velvet Underground song  "Rock & Roll" , composed by Lou Reed in 1969 and out in 1970 in the album Loaded and a part of his later repertoire. So, investigating further, co s Alice changes New York station with Detroit station, surely, where Rock n roll was heard by Jenny, when she was 5 years old :) . There was a cover by Mitch Ryder with his band Detroit in 1972, with Detroit instead of NYC on the lyrics. So Alice's cover is more this one than Lou.  For completists, there's also a Runaways (The) cover of this song, with LA station instead of the mentioned above. Can't wait for more of Alice's Detroit Rock n roll stories...

Jenny said when she was just five years old
There was nothin' happ'nin' at all
Every time she puts on the radio
There was nothin' goin' down at all, not at all
Then one fine morning, she puts on a New York station
You know, she don't believe what she heard at all
She started shaking to that fine, fine music
You know, her life was saved by rock and roll.

Accidentally Like a Martyr (SOTD)

 This just in, The War on Drugs released a cover of a legendary song by Warren Zevon, Accidentally Like a Martyr, so I have to post this as the song of the day, To-Day.  Its from their new live album,  DRUGS LIVE which will be released on Nov. 20.  Article in Pitchfork about this, here. 

The Warren Zevon iconic song was first published on his 1978 album Excitable Boy. Here is the original version.  

 “A song so simple and so true, you should ever be lucky to write a song that simple.”                                                                                                                                 Adam Granduciel  of TWOD

Bensonhurst Blues -SOTD:(

Oscar Benton played Brezoi Open Air Blues Festival for the 1st and only time last year, July 21st. He was once before in Bucharest in 2013 (see here), when he had a comeback tour after almost 20 years break from stage.

Transilvania Blues was here and met the maestro. We talked about how Alain Delon got the rights for his 1973 hit song Bensonhurst Blues (composed originally by Artie Kaplan in 1971) and used in in Pour la Peau d'un flic (1981), mythical film to all Romanians, under the name it was shown in Romanian Theaters, Afacerea Pigot, back in 1983.

Baptised ad hoc `Bui Bui Bui` there's also a Romanian cover of this, by Margareta Pislaru (see it here) and another one by Aurelian Andreescu!!!

The song got a second life due to the Delon flick, in France and all Europe and was the Dutch artist most loved and famous song. Amazingly Oscar Benton never met Alain Delon then but he died November 8th 2020, on the French icon's 85th birthday. Benton was 71. That's a blues in itself....

There's also a video of Bensonhurst Blues in Breazoi from the backstage here. And the whole Brezoi live gig professionally filmed is here !

Here's to you Oscar and the Bensonhurt Blues in Eternity. RIP...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JO8boNBJC40&feature=emb_title

RIP Sean Connery

 The Bond to rule all James Bonds is no more :( 

Sean Connery died today at 90. He was one of the most iconic figures in cinema starting, as 007, starting with Doctor No in 1962. The image of Bond continued to pursue him all his life, no matter how much he tried to change or avoid it (as early as 1964 Hitchcock cast him in Marnie with uneven results). His last Bond film was You Only Live Twice in 1967 and George Lazenby came for one shot to take his place in On Her Majesty Secret Service. But the world didn't much care for Lazenby (now his film is considered among one of the best of not the best for some), so Connery came back for one more film, Diamonds are Forever, in 1971. Then in 1983 he was Bond again, the star of the unofficial remake of Thunderball, aptly named, Never Say Never Again. He was absolutely my favourite James Bond, the 1st I saw as Bond in Dr. NO, as it happened that I saw the 1st Bond as my first 007 film. 

Sir Connery, grand scotsman, won an Oscar (best supporting) for Brian De Palma's The Untouchables, as the stubborn Irish cop Malone. He was William de Baskerville in The Name of he Rose, played against type in Zardoz (one of my favourite curios which we played at Cinemateca Patria along with The Name...and on his birthday, August 25), The Hill, Robin and Marian (an aging Robin Hood!), The Man Who Would Be King, Murder in the Orient Express, The Wind and the Lion. He was  Indiana Jones father in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, one dream made true for Spielberg and George Lucas, and  he was the Russian nuclear submarine captain (with a Scottish accent :) in The Hunt for the Red October ! In the 90's he was great in The Rock and his last film was The League of the Extraordinary Gentlemen in 2003, as Allan Quatermain. I loved him as Ramirez, the Spanish mentor of MacLeud in Highlander (1986) and he came back for Highlander 2, and his introduction there was great too (in the theatre where they played Hamlet). There can be only one... Sean Connery ! RIP  :(