Day: June 25, 2012

A Modified Evelyn, A Modified Dog

2012-06-25, 9:00 pm
Categories: Music

Found this one last night and I love it. It is a Japanese man singing Evelyn, A Modified Dog. (Well, the first minute or so is. The rest he's just talking, and, well, let's just say his English is better than my Japanese. I have no idea what he is saying.)

I mentioned the other day that you can hear Zappa's inflection in Bozzio's vocals on Titties 'n Beer. Similarly, this nice young man copies Zappa's inflection perfectly, and though his accent is overwhelming he enunciates each word precisely.

My Japanese is rusty (I took one year back in college) so I'm not sure where this was or why they picked Zappa, but it appears that they performed the entirety of One Size Fits All (with Zomby Woof from Over-Nite Sensation replacing Can't Afford No Shoes). The videos are all titled "Live'98", so that's presumably the year they were recorded -- which means that's actually a surprisingly high-quality video, considering.

Great Opening Titles: Mad Men

2012-06-25, 8:44 pm
Categories: Cartoons, TV

All right, another one of these. Like the last one, it's recent, it's obvious, it's Emmy-winning, and Simpsons did it.

Mad Men -- the falling, the skyscrapers, the sexy ads. In thirty seconds we've got a picture of the glamor and the horror, the loss of control and even identity -- but, at the same time, the slickness, the class.

The black-and-white figure is presumably Draper, but it could be anybody -- he's literally faceless. Draper may have the most obvious and literal identity problems, but the entire cast grapples with them. The figures in the ads on the walls -- they're otherworldly, they're a little creepy; they're not more real than the falling figure, but they're certainly more defined.

And here it is on Simpsons.

And here it is on Daily Show three weeks ago.

And once again, Art of the Title has more.