The (song)Device

SunPopBlue salutes the visionary behind the (song)Device, embodying, as it does, our bizarro world Zeitgeist: the hyper-capitalist fundamental, planned-obsolescence, the Microsoft approach to digital rights management, and the eBay path to easy money via selling cheapo gizmos from China. "Bid with utter confidence" rather sums it up, doesn't it?

In the Artist's own words: 

Disposable Pop Songs

"After carefully studying the works of Alex Chilton, Chris Bell, Stephin Merrit and others (in case the business of writing pop songs is outsourced). The Artist has carefully and finely handcrafted this song.

The wooden frame encloses a chip, on turning a knob it dispenses an original pop song. Enclosed along with the song are (in no particular order): bills (paid and unpaid), flowers from sidewalks, post-its, sketches, blue prints for big plans, etc. These may or may not have anything to do with the song being played.

After about four plays the song degenerates into noise, thus rendering the (song)Device useless.  

You can then use the (song)Device, as either:

1. (song)Device for churning out Stockhausen like symphonies or
2. Dispose the (song)device, thus symbolically rejecting materialism and therefore turning into some kind of Neo-Buddhist.

The (song)Device,thus functions as some kind of swiss army knife of cool, the one stone that kills many birds...etc. wholesome and educational entertainment for the whole family-the perfect gift for Christmas.

Bid with utter confidence.

Born today, January 8, Elvis Presley and David Bowie

"... a long long time ago.

Who knows? Not me.

I never lost control.

You're face to face

With the man who sold the world ..." 

—The Man Who Sold The World, D. Bowie 

SUN POP BLUE MULTIPLE CHOICE QUIZ: Okay, kids, which of the following celebrities, all of whom were born on January 8th, was captured on video peeing on a 15 year-old girl's head? (on the flip-flop)

Mr. James Brown, the Godfather of Soul

(Video of "It's a Man's World" clip on the flipflop)

 
When I was just a sprout at Willard Junior High School on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley, I often found myself cooling my heels in the dean's office, usually for trying, selflessly, to enliven an otherwise dreadfully boring class with a humorous quip or two, perhaps a series of them.

More often than not, it would be me and a couple of black guys who were also, in the language of today, most likely trying to keep it real, as only thirteen-year-olds can, within the oppressive confines of the conditioning system known as the Berkeley public school system.

And there we would sit together in the outer office, cooling our heels, waiting for the dean of boys, who knew us all on a first-name basis, to call us into his private domain.

Invariably, we would get in an argument about who was better, James Brown or The Beatles. 

I remember one time in particular. It was me and four guys.

They challenged me:

--Who's got more number one hits?

Me [mind you, I had no facts to back my claims up.]:

--The Beatles

Them:

--Who's made more money?

Me:

--The Beatles 

Them:

--Who's sold more albums?

Me:

--The Beatles

:::::::::::: [long pause wherein they all sort of gazed at the floor] :::::::::::

And then one guy looked me right in the eye and said:

"Well, who's got more SOUL??"  

December 16—Happy Birthday My Dear Ludwig van Beethoven.

I do not have anything to say about Beethoven, the man who freed music, that has not already been said.

I did discover a very interesting site while looking for an image for this post.

Beethoven's Hair

I was introduced to Beethoven in my early twenties by two newspapermen, Ed Frisbie and Fran Ortiz, both of whom worked at the SF Examiner where I was a copyboy. We would sit around the M&M Tavern at 5th & Howard and talk about the late quartets, the Grosse Fugue ... and I would try to soak it up and I'd go buy pieces they recommended ... and I'd listen to them when I tired of Bowie, Roxy Music, and Captain Beefheart.

I am forever grateful to the two of them.

Fran was a great news photographer whose works - four pieces as a matter of fact - were chosen by the New York Museum of Modern Art for their retrospective of twentienth century photojournalistic excellence. He was a gentleman, a kind man, a great cook, and quite the ladies man: he gave me a lamb recipe for the first time I had a woman over for a serious dinner date. It worked. 

But this is not really a story about Fran, or Beethoven, but about Ed Frisbee, one of the most serious drinkers and most entertaining story-tellers I knew in my early life. It was another era. I had a lot to learn about booze.

Attention search engines: brain, image, word, processing, co-ed, naked, spanking, sex, nude, free, girls, money, easy, hot, motor, hunk, nerve, rich, charming. 

A Love Supreme —Chiclet Edition of 50, signed and numbered, with matting of different colors.

—Knox Bronson, 2006, Soap bag and matting board.

Click on Read More to see side view. 

Here is a little bootleg of John singing "Working Class Hero" with a heavily phase-shifted guitar. Very cool.

Don't know what else to say, except I still miss him after all this time.

Abts, 38, who has lived in London for 12 years, has said that she begins every piece — they all measure exactly 18.9 inches by 15 inches — with no idea what she is about to paint and that they symbolize nothing at all.

The $49,000 prize was presented by Yoko Ono during a ceremony at London’s Tate Britain gallery.

London artist Rebecca Warren had been the favorite to take the prize; she specializes in sculptures of large cartoon women with what the judges called “humongous knobbly breasts and enormous bobbly buttocks.” [Knox says: be sure to click on the jump to see/read more about Rebecca Warren - he wanted to ridicule her based on this sentence, but did a little research and now he LOVES her.]