DrW

A double dose of Pink Floyd They could be funny and whimsical even without Syd Barrett...

Man - Brother Arnold's Red And White Striped Tent

Eleanor Rigby - The Beatles Here as a psychedelic cover version...

Does humor belong in music? Yes, yes, yes... Another shining example, Molly Tuttle and Golden Highway (before today, I had never heard of them) present an acoustic cover of Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit". While the vocalist (I assume it is the eponymous Molly Tuttle) falls short of Grace Slick, their instrumental skills are obvious. Especially, the young lady on violin is impressive. Moreover, you get a one-minute banjo extension beyond the end of JA's version.

Another one of my favorites, "Pearls Before Swine". I especially like his older ones where Stephan Pastis made fun of fellow cartoonists (here, The Family Circus) and did not shy away from political themes.

Well. the A/V is not up to today's standards, but that is the only live version of Mountain's "Theme for an Imaginary Western" that I could find with Felix Pappalardi on vocals and bass.

Well, this was pretty daring. Converting one of the greatest movies of World Cinema, Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal, into a 5 minute pop song. I love this comment: "This is The Seventh Seal reimagined as a Spaghetti Western. I feel the spirit of Morricone in the bells, the Mariarchi guitar and trumpet and the choir. I love it." Another daring approach: Have a white guy front a black band (remember that this was more than 50 years ago). However, this works on every level...

A unique sound from more than 50 years ago: Marc Bolan and Tyrannosaurus Rex (before they turned more commercial as T Rex). Marc died in a traffic accident in 1977, two weeks before his 30th birthday.

When I was a student back in Hannover in Germany in the mid-1970s, one of the student organizations had a weekly "Saturday Night Party" with on average more than 500 attendants. The crowd had two favorites, Iron Butterfly's In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida (which I find pretty boring) and Deep Purple's "Smoke on the Water". Here is the earliest live version I could find... This version one has a better video and a beautiful guitar intro... And here is a cover version with a different approach to the guitar solos (sorry, no video)

OJ Simpson Detective Nordberg in Naked Gun 33 1/3

I am extremely right-handed. If I am forced to write with my left hand, I need a couple of seconds for each letter, and even then it is barely legible. Interestingly, is seems to be more of an arm problem. My left hand is perfectly fine when playing piano or organ.

For me, the best horror movies are more haunting and atmospheric than slasher-type scary. My favorites: Nosferatu (1922) and Vampyr (1931).

As to the bolded, you might want to have a look at 1880 - 1920.

Most religions and moral belief systems are based on the Golden Rule, “In everything, do to others what you would have them do to you. . . .” (in the Bible, Matthews 7:12) or, more commonly, its negative formulation “Do not do to others what you would not like done to yourselves” (Tobit 4:15). Thus, it is easy to see that killing and stealing are immoral. However, who is affected negatively by homosexual relations between consenting adults? There is no religion or belief system that forces you to have sex with a person of the same gender.

In live concerts, I always appreciate when the band members are introduced individually, perhaps giving them the opportunity for a (brief) solo. A prime example (and a wonderful song)... Well,I do not know if you can access the previous clip. Here is an audio.

This is an overly simplistic point of view. Even if we do not consider anything that can happen after the fertilization of the egg, strictly on a genetic basis Science tells us that things are more complicated. You might know that the sex chromosomes of a "normal" male are XY, that of a female XX. However, there are all kinds of chromosomal aberrations affecting more than 1 in 450 individuals, a bit less than 1 million Americans. There are individuals with Turner syndrome (X-), Klinefelter syndrome (XXY), Swyer syndrome (women with XY chromosomes) or male XX syndrome. Furthermore, and probably statistically much more important, during development of the embryo there are factors that can affect the brain and the gonads (the sex organs) in different ways, resulting in gender dysphoria, “a conflict between a person’s physical or assigned gender and the gender with which he/she/they identify”. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7415463/ Do you think you can treat all these people fairly by your man/woman differentiation?

Three comments: First, awesome clip; thanks for sharing. Second, sadly, Spirit's front man, Randy California, managed to save his son from a rip current in the Pacific Ocean in 1997, but Randy himself drowned. Third, there are not many bands with a full-time tambourine player and back-up vocalist, as Jay Ferguson in Spirit. Another example: Brian Jonestown Massacre (what an awesome band name!), with Joel Gion on tambourine. Here is a full concert by the Brian Jonestown Massacre...

Ten Years After (on German public TV)

This seems a fair evaluation. However, one question remains: How did all the other countries shown on the graph avoid this "cultural and societal decay"? Or, at least, how did they avoid the dire consequences we experience in the US?

Remember Keith Emerson? Unpopular opinion: The Nice were better than ELP. Greg Lake and Carl Palmer (ELP) were certainly technically better than Lee Jackson and Brian Davison (The Nice). However, The Nice had the far better selection of material to cover..

One of the first all-female rock bands, Fanny. June Millington plays a mean guitar. And again, it is German public TV that made these live performance videos possible. And here is a very competent cover of one of my favorite Beatles' songs.

Grace Slick is one of my top female rock vocalists. However, it should be remembered that Jefferson Airplane did exist before Grace Slick joined the band, with Signe Toly Anderson on vocals. Sadly, Signe died in 2016, the same day as JA's Paul Kantner.

It is a pity that they did just this album. Well, perhaps it is a blessing. The mastermind behind it, Joe Byrd, did a follow-up record, and it is boring. My favorite songs of their album: First, "The American Metaphysical Circus" was the song that introduced me to this band; I heard it first on German public radio. To me, it sounds like the Beatles' "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite" on speed. Second, a scathing comment on American family values, wrapped up in a very nice melody...

I agree with your statement. However, do you really think that he succeeded in making the government less corrupt?

I do not think this type of anecdotal "evidence" is very helpful. I could counter that I am in a science department in a university in otherwise very conservative West Texas, and most of my fellow faculty members lean moderately Democratic.