Aug 212020
 

In Memoriam pays tribute to those who have left this world, and the songs they left us to remember them by.

Joe Strummer covers

John Graham Mellor was born on August 21st, 1952 in Ankara, Turkey. He entered a boarding school in London at the age of 9. He was obsessed with music and went by the nickname “Woody” (he was quite the Woody Guthrie fan). In 1970 he had to identify his brother’s body after his estranged sibling committed suicide three days prior – something that would haunt him forever. After graduating he attended the Central School of Art and Design in London, and in 1973 he moved to Newport, Wales where he played guitar and sang for a band called The Vultures. In 1974 he moved back to London and started the band The 101ers. The following year, he told his mates to stop calling him Woody Mellor. He had adopted a new moniker, and for the rest of his life he would be known as Joe Strummer.
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Nov 302011
 

Every Wednesday, our resident Gleek Eric Garneau gives his take on last night’s Glee covers.

In “I Kissed a Girl,” Santana (Naya Rivera) grapples with being forced out of the closet while the show’s two elections (Kurt Hummel for student body president and Burt Hummel for Congress) enter their last days. Meanwhile, the competition between the New Directions glee club and rivals the Troubletones cools down as the groups come together to help Santana through her identity crisis.

Before we get too deep into this week’s episode, we need to backtrack a bit to our previous entry. I had mentioned how much I enjoyed last episode’s closing Adele mash-up, “Rumor Has It/Someone Like You,” and apparently I wasn’t the only one. Besides commenters and friends of this site, the music-buying public also voiced their support, giving Glee its best-performing single by far in a long, long time. “Rumor Has It/Someone Like You” hit number 11 on the U.S. charts; the next highest-charting song from this season, a cover of Coldplay’s “Fix You,” didn’t even crack the top 40 (it settled at 59). The last Glee song that did so well was actually one of their original numbers from the middle of season two, “Loser Like Me.” The last cover to rival the Adele mash-up’s performance was “Forget You,” which you may recall unfortunately featured Gwyneth Paltrow. Not a bad accomplishment for Glee‘s 300th song then, eh? Perhaps that mash-up signals a return to a more pop-oriented soundtrack after a first few months dominated by musical numbers. Continue reading »