2011 Tour de France images. The Atlantic vs The Boston Globe: fight!

Al Kooper’s tribute to songwriter & producer Jerry Ragavoy:

In 1963, Frank Sinatra booked a session in a New York studio with 46 musicians, then canceled less than a week before the session. So the record company (Warner-Reprise) sent out notices to all their producers that if anyone wanted to use the musicians, it was theirs because Warner’s had to pay for it anyway. Jerry grabbed it and then stayed up for three days with arranger Garry Sherman, as they feverishly wrote out the parts for 46 musicians to be ready on time. 

At 7pm Jerry convened the session, gave out the parts, and began rehearsing the band. Lorraine was singing live on the session and Phil Ramone was engineering. At 7:30, they took take one. It was perfect except that Lorraine had flubbed the first line in the second verse. They gave the band a break and Lorraine punched in the mistake, also in one pass, and at 7:45 they thanked the musicians and bade them goodnight. Phil Ramone’s stereo control room mix was used as the final mix. This track you are about to listen to was recorded and FINISHED in 45 minutes! It is a legendary, one-of-a-kind performance.

Cadel Evens: “Start as fast as possible and finish as fast as possible, and hope it’s fast enough.”

More than fast enough.

Beasties Boys vs Sesame Street.

(via kottke.org)

Hunter S. Thompson in fine short form.

Hoping to convert the youth who wrongly left them off the triple j 100, The Triffids will reform to play through Born Sandy Devotional at Victoria’s Queenscliff Music Festival.

Mess & Noise break down triple j’s Hottest 100 Australian Albums (more readable list), including the preponderance of ‘bogan prog’:

Bogan prog is a genre that originated either in Bondi or Perth (no one’s really sure) featuring men with weird goatees and Tool t-shirts (dreadlocks optional); loud-soft-loud dynamics; emotive “yardling”; odd time signatures; five string basses; and more notes than sense.

I’m still mourning the absence of The Triffids classic Born Sandy Devotional.

So nice to see a skater doing their own thing. As one of the comments says, “who cares about being president i want to be like that guy”.

On the set of Pearl Harbour:

One day, I was on the way to meeting with Michael on a battleship at Ford Island. Complete Bayhem. I passed a squadron of Zeros chasing two P-40 fighter planes forty feet above the deck, guns blazing, followed by the camera ship. Then watched fireballs exploding on a nearby frigate as burning stuntmen leaped into the water. Then saw another Zero come around and buzz our battleship as Cuba Gooding Jr. fired back with a .50 caliber fifteen feet over my head. It wasn’t even 10 a.m.

Classic.

Miles Davis, 1962:

Look, man, all I am is a trumpet player. I only can do one thing - play my horn - and that’s what’s at the bottom of the whole mess. I ain’t no entertainer, and ain’t trying to be one. I am one thing, a musician. Most of what’s said about me is lies in the first place. Everything I do, I got a reason.