Oh man, this article on Dangerous Minds—"I Wanna Be Your Frog"... Obscure French 80's rock band is being compared to Iggy Pop and the Stooges. But are they punk, or are they metal?

Sorry some of them are hard to make out. They took away my computer with Photoshop on it and replaced it with a word processor when they moved me from the web department to the editorial department (aka, The Room Where Computers Go to Die). I found them in an old box. The rubber band holding them all together just crumbled when I pulled on it.

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The ones that are really hard to see are NOFX and Rockstock '94. All I remember about the latter was that we snuck into the hotel lobby bar, and because I didn't know what to order, I ordered what the older hot girl we were with ordered: a Midori Sour. That and the I think the Beastie Boys and Tool played. The one from Western was to see Good Riddance. We left before Less Than Jake even got on the stage. There you go, a bunch of my musical skeletons in the closet. Have at 'em.

If you can guess the show stub I left off because it wouldn't fit on the scanner bed, you win the next shopping cart I spot on Green Lake Watch and a paperclip!

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Welcome to the Post-Mortemists Ball at CZ Gallery on 3rd. It makes me wonder what year this is from. Did Belltown used to have lots of fun shows (at non-Crocodile venues)? Excuse my naïveté, I didn't move here till '98!

Tell you what, if the U-Men were playing, I'd be there.

• EMI

If you like Kraftwerk and Yello, but find them a little too robotic and/or quirky, allow me to introduce another outfit that may meet your need for German synth-pop (assuming you share my need for same): Rheingold. Even if you prefer their better known peers, it's always interesting to hear from fellow musical travelers who found fame domestically, but failed to break out internationally.

Then there's their name, which brings to mind the image of a dry Bavarian beverage, misleading Wagnerian reference, or condescending cartoon character known for wearing a monocle (it's also the name of a Brooklyn brew that featured everyone from Jackie Robinson to the Marx Brothers in their advertisements).

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• Rough Trade #R2902

No, not that kind of ball! If the Osmonds could go wig-out metal, their only sister, Marie, could surely go Dada, right? Well, she could and she did.

I've known about the 1993 soundtrack to Greil Marcus's Lipstick Traces ("A Secret History of the Twentieth Century") for awhile now, but I didn't actually listen to the 27-track set until a few days ago, thanks to the keen archivists at UbuWeb. According to Richard Metzger (Dangerous Minds), "A twentieth anniversary edition [of the book] was published by Harvard Press in 2009."

Some of the tracks are great, some merely interesting, but all have some bearing on Marcus's mapping out of the connections between Situationist International, Surrealism, Dada, R&B, punk, post-punk, and other styles and movements.

A few tracks are grating, especially Gil J. Wolman's "Mégapneumies, 24 Mars 1963 (Face 1)" and the Mekons' "The Building," but the biggest revelation is Marie Osmond's recitation of a nonsense-word poem from 1916. (In Lipstick Traces, Marcus describes her as "an over-publicized exponent of traditional values.")

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Lest we forget.

Recently, Buzzfeed dug up this classic. The Westboro Baptist Church wasn't even a household name/national shame yet! Have a look:

Lenny Kravitz burst into public consciousness in 1989 as "that guy who's boning Lisa Bonet." His debut album, Let Love Rule, made enough of a splash to infuse the huckster hippie-wannabe with the deluded chutzpah to believe his own pose. Kravitz has been making a fortune giddily raping the graves of his elders (Jimi, Sly, Prince) ever since.

Ouch.

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The LA Times recently ran a worthwhile trend piece by former Stranger freelancer Andy Beta about the resurgence of interest in and impact of new-age music among and on hip, youngish musicians. Thesis statement:

Despite its association with crystals, color therapy, holistic medicine, incense, lucid dreaming and chakra manipulation, New Age music — once resigned to the dollar bins of record stores and the vitamin section of health food stores — has somehow entered into the misty echelon of coolness.

Beta makes some solid points, but this feature seems to be coming a bit late, as new age began accruing hipster cred at least a few years ago (right, Mr. Baxter?). However, if Beta's article lures virgin ears to the works of crucial composers and instrumentalists like Terry Riley, Paul Horn, Deuter, Manuel Göttsching, J.D. Emmanuel, and Edward Larry Gordon (aka Laraaji), his work will not have been in vain.

DAMN. This is dirgy as hell.

I love the Temptations, natch, and at some point I posted THIS live version from the Smother's Brothers show...it's better than the dirgy Mods version, however I DO LOVE the Mods version, but, really, I could dig on different versions of "Losing You" all day long.

While rushing to post yesterday's Tonight in Music post before running out the door to catch a bus to visit my grandparents, I couldn't easily find a video or track for Olympia's LAKE. I did, however, find this, which I had completely forgot existed:

According to Wikipedia, which is never wrong:

Lake was a German rock music band that formed in the early 1970s under the name Tornados, changing their name to Lake in 1973. They mostly covered material by other bands in their early years, but released three singles, Come Down/We're Gonna Rock, King Of The Rock'n Roll Party, and Sailor. In 1975 they were joined by lead singer James Hopkins-Harrison, who gave them their signature sound for the remainder of their recording career.

They achieved modest success in much of Europe from the mid-1970s through the early 1980s, particularly in Germany where they were named artist of the year by the German Phono Academy in 1977. more info on link