While most people’s job on a musician’s tour is to air out the band’s dirty laundry, it is Hans-Jürgen Topf’s job to actually clean them.
He told The New York Times that back in 1982, he saw that Ted Nugent’s bus was lost so he offered to give them directions. In return, they gave him free tickets to the show. Thus, he asked them if they wanted him to do their laundry and the rest is rock’n’roll history.
He has washed the costumes of everyone from U2 to Madonna to Janet Jackson to Elton John. Has he had any mishaps? Joe Cocker was mad when a line showed up in his pants. He accidentally shrank a pair of David Hasselhoff’s pants, and we know there is no room for shrinkage.
While most rockers’ attires are covered with sweat and aluminum dust, some are little dirtier than others. Who had the dirtiest clothes of them all? That honor goes to…Slipknot. He said, “were coveralls worn by the metal band Slipknot that had been sprayed with beer, cream and fake blood, and left in garbage bags for three days.” I don’t even want to know what it smelled like when he opened the bag. Probably as bad someone who goes to a 3-day festival and never changes their clothes.
The dirty world of rock’n’roll is a little cleaner thanks to Hans-Jürgen Topf.
I would like to declare I am going to boycott The Lego Movie 2 when it comes out on February 8th because of the theme song from the movie. I thought it was bad having Everything is Awesome stuck in my head for weeks, but they came up with a tune that is even more of an earworm. So much so, they could not even hide the fact, thus they called it Catchy Song. That is exactly what the Dillon Francis feat. T-Pain and That Girl Lay Lay track is to our grey matter.
Since I do not believe in suffering alone, I am sharing thius melody with you. I challenge you to not get Catchy Head stuck in your brain. Impossible, no?
Back in 1991, Rockapella sang the theme song to Where In the World Is Carmen San Diego?. Now, nearly two decades later the A Cappella group reworked the tune for their new album Jams Vol. 2.
I normally love their sound, but this not so much. They took all the fun out of it. I guess they felt the need to do something with it since Netflix is not using them for the cartoon version of the show. Which makes no sense to me. Who doesn’t love their song? Well, the original catchy tune?
Even though most of us were not around in 1969, it is still hard to believe that this summer will mark the 50th anniversary of Woodstock. To honor the occasion, Bethel Woods Center for the Arts will open their land up again for a 3-day music festival starting on August 16th that will also include TED Talks and exhibitions.
Since they are in the early phases of planning, we do not know who will be playing there and how much the tickets will cost. I would expect them to be expensive.
As cool as I think this is, I don’t think you can ever recreate that once-in-a-lifetime experience. Plus, you don’t have performers today like Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison. Not only because they are dead, but also because their music had a much deeper meaning. Now it is all about selling out and autotune and not about getting the message across to their fans.
I am sure they are going to try to get the Beyonces and Lady Gagas, but they are not The Who, Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane and Sha Na Na. How did I not know that Sha Na Na performed at Woodstock?
Are you going to go or are you like what the world does not need now is another music festival?
A few years ago, I heard this great medley of the year beforehand’s biggest hits and I loved the song. I used Shazam to find out who did it and it was Anthem Lights. I found out that was one of their many year-end medleys.
Well, it is that time of year for 2018’s version and they mashed together Maroon 5’s Girls Like You, Ariana Grande’s no tears left to cry, Drake’s Gd’s Plans, The Greatest Showman’s This Is Me (although wasn’t that 2017) and Zedd’s The Middle for one awesome tune.
Sit back and listen to it and then listen to their other mashups on their YouTube page.
