When script guru John August, writer of films such as Big Fish and Go, posted a fairly casual post advocating teaching children piano and guitar over certain woodwind instruments, the response was fairly heated and resulted in Mr. August putting his blog on a comment holiday.
posted by smithsmith on Dec 12, 2011 - 106 comments

Happy birthday John Lee Hooker! Let's celebrate by listening to some of your older tunes! "Gonna take you down by the riverside, gonna tie your hands, gonna tie your feet, got the mad man blues" ... "Now the war is over, and I'm broke and I ain't got a dime" ... "You know I'm a crawling king snake, baby, and I rule my nest" ... "Gonna get up in the mornin', goin' down highway 51" ... "Well I rolled and I tumbled, babe, I cried the whole night long" ... "I feel so good, let me do the boogaloo"
posted by flapjax at midnite on Aug 22, 2011 - 19 comments

Here come old flat top, coming down fast, standing by a parking meter, oh what joy, I'll never do you no harm, and you're working for no one but me. [more inside]
posted by flapjax at midnite on Aug 1, 2011 - 22 comments

Who's that writing? [MLYT] [more inside]
posted by chaff on Jun 26, 2010 - 10 comments

Just ease on into one of the most laid-back grooves to ever weave its way through a New Orleans junkyard, and join the procession as the estimable Dr. John is led through the rusting automobiles on a mule. After that, you'll be ready to enter the Inner Sanctum of Deep Mystic Hoodoo, with the good Doctor as your intoning, night tripping guide through the Zu Zu Mamou hallucinations. You won't be the same, afterwards...
posted by flapjax at midnite on Nov 27, 2009 - 22 comments

It's harder to be more obscure and unheralded than John Henry Timmis IV. He barely even tried to sell his own music, almost always giving copies away of his impossibly rare loner-punk 45's. Dieing in 2002, almost 15 years after his last single, from complications resulting from alcoholism, after suffering from the degenerative ear/skull disease mastoiditis-- his potential hardly tapped... until now. Film buffs may know him as the director/producer of the longest movie ever made, The Cure for Insomnia staring Lee Groban reading his same titled 4,080 page poem spliced with porn and heavy metal, clocking in at 87 hours. Virtually unknown until the song "Death Trip" appeared on an obscure bootleg punk compilation Staring Down the Barrel. Interest peaked enough for Plastic Crimewave's Secret History of Chicago Music article to have a write up on him and Drag City/Galactic Zoo to reissue his forgotten masterpiece, Cosmic Lighting. [more inside]
posted by wcfields on Mar 17, 2009 - 7 comments

Spy music! Whether it's Lalo Schifrin's theme for Mission Impossible, or Jerry Goldsmith's theme for Man from U.N.C.L.E., or the greatest of them all, John Barry's iconic James Bond theme, you know it when you hear it. Now, for my money, the best spy music in recent years wasn't from a spy movie at all, but an animated superhero film: the action-packed theme and soundtrack for The Incredibles, in which the very talented Michael Giacchino was clearly (and brilliantly) channeling John Barry. And of course, you'll all want to head over here and see what your fellow MeFiers have lately been doing with the genre. [note: see hoverovers for link descriptions] [more inside]
posted by flapjax at midnite on Aug 1, 2008 - 54 comments

John Adams. NIXON IN CHINA. Excerpts: News has a kind of mystery. Act 1 Scene 3. Act 2 Scene 2a. I am the wife of Mao Tse Tung. Chairman Dances.
posted by wittgenstein on Jan 4, 2008 - 16 comments

John Peel's box of 142 favorite singles discussed in The Times and The Observer. These guys are collecting the whole set (NSFMPAA). [via Stereogum]
posted by Armitage Shanks on Oct 31, 2005 - 83 comments

Celebrating the life of John Peel: as we approach the first anniversary of John Peel's death, the BBC are preparing for the first John Peel Day on 13 October (marking the day of his last ever Radio 1 show). Things kick off with a concert tonight at the Queen Elizabeth Hall (broadcast tomorrow night on Radio 1) and over 300 gigs across the country. Meanwhile, Radio 4 will be broadcasting a special edition of Home Truths from John and Sheila's home in Suffolk on 22 October, including the naming of a locomotive diesel at Bury St Edmonds.
posted by ceri richard on Oct 12, 2005 - 13 comments