But I still had fun spending a night wandering around the Place des Festivals play area checking out the scene. That is when I could see the stage. Photo above is exhibit one – the giant pylon right in front of my daughter and I.

But what I liked was just strolling around the site. What you have, in effect, is nine or ten different bashes going on. Near the stage, it’s a rock concert. Back on Ste. Catherine St. near Starbucks, it’s just a hanging-out-on-the-street scene. Over on the esplanade of Place des Arts, it’s a watching-the-B-52s-on-TV-scene.

One downside though is that on this site a cultural event gets kinda dumbed down. Right in the middle of the crowd, a teenager walked by us and said, in seeming surprise - ‘Oh, it’s a concert.’ That’s exactly it – this is just a street gathering with a soundtrack provided by an aging band of new wavers from Athens, Georgia. And that maybe is what the Place des Festivals is all about. It’s a gigantic outdoor hall built to accomodate 150,000 of your closest friends and you, and it doesn’t necessarily make for the most nuanced of cultural experiences.

A couple of other things. After the show, Bleury St. was jam-packed with tens of thousands of people milling in the middle of the street, and cars were driving in off President Kennedy and turning right into the crowd – with not a police officer in sight! Did the police not hear about this show?

Same thing with the STM bosses. There was, by the look of it, well over 100,000 folks visiting Planet Claire but after, there seemed to be fewer not more buses on the road. With every Bixi in town taken, the 24 on Sherbrooke was absurdly packed – which made for a just hilarious ride to the west end with one of the funniest, most rock’n'roll bus drivers I’ve ever had the pleasure to spend time with.

A finales de los 70s, un nuevo sonido llamado new wave comenzó sonar en las radios y discotecas, principalmente de Estados Unidos. Esta mezcla de música dance, surf y algo de rock, se popularizó de inmediato entre los sellos disqueros y rápidamente nuevos artistas aparecieron en la escena musical diaria.

Así, en un restaurante chino, el día de San Valentín de 1977, Cindy Wilson y Kate Pierson alzaron sus voces para algunos pocos amigos. No estaban solas; acompañadas por el baterista Keith Strickland, Ricky Wilson (el hermano mayor de Cindy) y el vocalista Fred Schneider. Se distinguían por su vestimenta, los extraños sonidos emitidos por la guitarra de Wilson y una cantidad de cuidadas pelucas que ellas paseaban por los escenarios en cada presentación.

Algunos piensan que el nombre que le pusieron a esta banda es consecuencia de los bombarderos estadounidenses Boeing-52; otros lo atribuyen a los peinados que ridiculizaban la nariz de estos aviones pero, pocos recuerdan que Ricky Wilson asumió en unas primeras entrevistas, que todo sería consecuencia de uno de sus sueños donde visualizó una banda llamada The B-52s.

Así fue como los cinco grabaron su primer single en 1978, llamado “Rock Lobster” para el sello DB Records y sin darse cuenta se convirtieron en un éxito underground que los impulsó a grabar un álbum con 7 canciones adicionales que titularon (originalmente) “The B-52s.” El inesperado boom the disco se transformó platinosamente agradable en Australia y los encontró trepando el Billboard Hot 100 mientras lanzaban su segundo trabajo de estudio en 1980: “Wild Planet.”

“Private Idaho” los condujo a presentarse en distintos festivales y programas de tv que hicieron de los B-52 figuritas repetidas cada vez que sacaban al mercado un nuevo single.

Para 1980, las grabaciones realizadas con David Byrne (de Talking Heads) fallaron y fueron relanzadas en dos álbumes que luego serían re-mezclados en un solo CD llamado “PartyMix! Mesopotamia.”

Pasaron los años y los problemas legales de copyright con Yoko Ono llevaron al grupo a remplazar “Don’t Worry” del álbum “Whammy!” (1983) por una variación de “There’s a Moon in the Sky (Called the Moon)” de su primer trabajo.

Entrado 1985, Ricky Wilson fallece a causa del SIDA y un año después se conoce “Bouncing Off the Satellites”, lo que fue su último trabajo con la banda.

1989 los atrapa en una exitosa nube internacional a medida que “Cosmic Thing” disparaba canciones como “Love Shack” y “Roam.”

Los años 90s fueron los dorados de algún modo para The B-52′s mientras aparecían en el film “Meet the Flinstones” con sus respectivos atuendos prehistóricos cantando “The Bedrock Twitch” para entrar luego por la puerta principal de Nickelodeon interpretando la canción central de la serie animada “La Vida Moderna de Rock.”

El último trabajo de estudio de The B-52′s lleva el nombre de “Funplex” y se remite al 2008, en el cual decidieron realizar una gira europea para demostrarle al mundo que siguen en perfectas condiciones y llenos de esa alegría que los caracterizaba en sus comienzos.

Actualmente, la banda se encuentra enfocada a muchas tareas comunitarias asociadas a diferentes ONGs en temas de salud y medio ambiente.

Kate Pierson opera su rústico motel en las afueras de Woodstock, New York, junto a su pareja Monica Coleman. Fred Schneider ha lanzado varios discos como solista y colaborado con otros tantos grupos, entre ellos Foo Fighters. Su estilo vocal denominado “Sprechgesang” sigue vigente al dia de hoy.

Disfrutar a los The B-52s puede convertirse en una experiencia poco apta para malhumorados y amigos de las caras tristes.

Our dear friend Lucas Barbosa has written this amazing text because it is always a good day for discovering, r-ediscovering or simply to listen to the B52s.

When the 70s were already over, a new sound called new wave started to grow in radios and discos in the U.S.A. This mixture of dance and surf music, with a little bit of rock, got immedialety popular in daily radio shows.

One Valentine’s Day in 1977, Cindy Wilson and Kate Pierson sang for a few friends in a chinese restaurant. They weren’t just alone. The drummer Keith Strickland, Ricky Wilson (Cindy’s old brother) and vocalist Fred Schneider were there too. They went all freaky.

Some people believe that, their name is taken form the U.S’s Boeing-52 bomber. Some others, believe is it about a hairstyle but some less with the words from Ricky in an interview talking about his dreams.

In 1978, they recorded their first single, called ‘Rock Lobster’ on DB Records,  facing the underground success and then recording 7 songs to fill their first album, which was originaly tilted ‘The B-52′s’. That was a platinum boom in Australia, while reaching Billboard Hot 100 when presenting their second work ‘Wild Planet’ (1980).

‘Private Idaho’ made the band appear in several festivals around the and turned them to known faces in the music market.

The time passed. Some copyright conflicts with Yoko Ono forced them to replace ‘Don’t Worry’ from ‘Whammy!’ (1983) for a version of  ‘There’s a Moon in the Sky (Called Moon)’ from their first work.

In 1985, Ricky Wilson was iof AIDS, and one year later his last work with the band was presented as ‘Bouncing Off the Satelites’.

Then, the The B-52s catched international success with ‘Cosmic Thing’, ‘Love Shack’ and ‘Roam’ in 1989.

The last work from The B-52′s is called ‘Funplex’, from 2008, taking an european tour. Showing the audiences that they’re in shape and totally funny like back in the old times.

Nowadays, the band is focused on community helping a long side with some NGOs.

Kate Pierson works in s rustic motel near Woodstock, New York, with his partener Monica Coleman. Fred Schneider made a few solo-albums with his “Sprechsang” (vocal style.)

Enjoying The B-52′s could be no recommended for grumpy and cranky people.

The B-52′s – Private Idaho (1980)

The B-52′s – Hot Pants Explosion (1992)

The B52′s – Love Shack (1989)

The B-52′s – The World’s Green Laughter & Vision Of A Kiss (1992)

On the first evening of the Spark and Hustle Dallas event we heard from Cindy Morrison, Tory Johnnson’s (event organizer) favorite social media marketing guru. That evening I selected the next tool I will review for my Social Media Marketing Project, Twitter. If facebook is the family reunion and Linked In is the boardroom (2 tools up for review later in the project), Cindy explains Twitter is the cocktail party!

Here, Cindy explains you begin to find conversations that apply to you. On Twitter, you must listen and have conversations, but do not shout. She asked “if you go to a cocktail party would you throw open the door and yell at the top of your lungs, “Helllloooo! I”M HEAR!” Well no, you would walk around and strike up conversations with friends or new acquantances who you then might find have similar interests.

In fact, Jill, Cindy’s photgrapher, explained that is really a great analogy for all of social networking… it provides a way to meet new friends by bumping into them on the net!

I have a Twitter account but just recently start using it. The savy 22 year old Spark and Hustle attendee, Amanda, who is President of the SMU Student Publicity Firm, told me that Twitter is THE BEST way to build business on the internet. This week, I am going to give it a shot.

20 BC coronation ceremony of Liu Bang as Emperor Gaozu of Han takes place, initiating four centuries of the Han Dynasty‘s rule over China.

870 The Fourth Council of Constantinople closed.

1261 Margaret of Scotland, queen of Norway, was born  (d. 1283).

1638 The Scottish National Covenant was signed in Edinburgh.

1710  In the Battle of Helsingborg, 14,000 Danish invaders under Jørgen Rantzau were decisively defeated by an equally sized Swedish force under Magnus Stenbock.

1784 John Wesley chartered the Methodist Church.

1787 The charter establishing the institution now known as the University of Pittsburgh was granted.

1824 Blondin, French tightrope walker, was born  (d. 1897).

1827  The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad was incorporated, becoming the first railroad in America offering commercial transportation of both people and freight.

1844 A gun on USS Princeton exploded while the boat was on a Potomac River cruise, killing eight people, including two United States Cabinet members.

1849 Regular steamboat service from the west to the east coast of the United States began with the arrival of the SS California in San Francisco Bay, 4 months 21 days after leaving New York Harbour.

1865 Wilfred Grenfell, medical missionary, was born  (d. 1940).

1870 The Bulgarian Exarchate was established by decree of Sultan Abd-ul-Aziz of the Ottoman Empire.

1883 The first vaudeville theatre opened in Boston, Massachusetts.

1897 Queen Ranavalona III, the last monarch of Madagascar, was deposed by a French military force.

1900 The Second Boer War: The 118-day “Siege of Ladysmith” was lifted.

1912 Clara Petacci, Italian mistress of Benito Mussolini, was born  (d. 1945).

1914 The Autonomous Republic of Northern Epirus was proclaimed in Gjirokastër, by the Greeks living in southern Albania.

1922 The United Kingdom accepted the independence of Egypt.

1925 Harry H Corbett, English actor, was born  (d. 1982).

1928  C.V. Raman discovered Raman effect.

1933 Gleichschaltung: The Reichstag Fire Decree was passed in Germany a day after the Reichstag fire.

1935 DuPont scientist Wallace Carothers invented Nylon.

1939 The first issue of Serbian weekly magazine Politikin zabavnik was published.

1939 – The erroneous word “Dord” was discovered in the Webster’s New International Dictionary, Second Edition, prompting an investigation.

1942 Brian Jones, English musician (The Rolling Stones), was born  (d. 1969).

1942 The heavy cruiser USS Houston (CA-30) was sunk in the Battle of Sunda Strait with 693 crew members killed.

1943 Charles Bernstein, American composer, was born.

1945 New Zealand soldier David Russell was executed by a Nazi firing squad in Italy.

1946 Robin Cook, British politician, was born.

1947 228 Incident: In Taiwan, civil disorder is put down with the loss of 30,000 civilian lives.

 The 228 Monument located near the Presidential Office in Taipei

1953 Paul Krugman, American economist, Nobel laureate, was born.

1957 Cindy Wilson, American singer (The B-52′s), was born.

1958 A school bus in Floyd County, Kentucky hits a wrecker truck and plunged down an embankment into the rain-swollen Levisa Fork River. The driver and 26 children died in what remains the worst school bus accident in U.S. history.

1970 Daniel Handler, American writer, better known as Lemony Snicket, was born.

1972 The Asama-Sanso incident ended in Japan.

1972 The United States and People’s Republic of China signed the Shanghai Communiqué.

1974 Moana Mackey, New Zealand politician, was born.

1975 A major tube train crash at Moorgate station, London kills 43 people.

1985 The Provisional Irish Republican Army carried out a mortar attack on the Royal Ulster Constabulary police station at Newry, killing nine officers in the highest loss of life for the RUC on a single day.

1986 Olof Palme, Prime Minister of Sweden  was assassinated in Stockholm.

1991 The first Gulf War ended.

1993 Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents raided the Branch Davidian church in Waco, Texas with a warrant to arrest the group’s leader David Koresh. Four BATF agents and five Davidians die in the initial raid, starting a 51-day standoff.

1995 Denver International Airport officially opened in Denver, Colorado to replace Stapleton International Airport

1997 – The North Hollywood shootout took place.

1998 – First flight of RQ-4 Global Hawk, the first unmanned aerial vehicle certified to file its own flight plans and fly regularly in U.S. civilian airspace.

1998 – Kosovo War: Serbian police begin the offensive against the Kosovo Liberation Army in Kosovo.

2001 – The Nisqually Earthquake measuring 6.8 on the Richter Scale hits the Nisqually Valley and the Seattle, Tacoma, and Olympia area of the U.S. state of Washington.

2001 – Six passengers and four railway staff are killed and a further 82 people suffer serious injuries in the Selby rail crash.

200 More than 1 million Taiwanese participating in the 228 Hand-in-Hand Rally formed a 500-kilometre (300-mile) long human chain to commemorate the 228 Incident in 1947.

2005 Lebanon‘s pro-Syrian prime minister, Omar Karami, resigned amid large anti-Syria street demonstrations in Beirut.

2005 A suicide bombing at a police recruiting centre in Al Hillah, Iraq killed 127.

2007  Jupiter flyby of the New Horizons Pluto-observer spacecraft.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia

The B-52′s have earned the tagline of ‘best party band.’ They’re silly and fun and nearly everyone likes them. But besides high-test party music, I think they offered a very real and serious lifestyle ethos. They created and popularized their own thriftstore hipster aesthetic, which a lot of people did and still do strongly relate to. Their style was a both a pastiche and celebration of sixties kitsch. It did fit into the loud and exuberant design ethic of the 80′s, with its taste for eye-popping colors, big shapes and general over-the-top-ness. (They’ve become associated with the 80′s even though they’ve been in action since as early as 1976.)  It was also in a way an antithesis of mainstream glamor, a rejection of the vulgar excesses of disco/new romantic style in favor of the equally excessive but charmingly retrograde look of early sixties mod. I think Kate Pierson and Cindy Wilson deserve more credit than they get as fashion icons. They wore vintage clothing and self-consciously adopted outmoded styles, making a fresh statement in the process. Traditionally, of course, wearing out-of-mode fashions and secondhand clothing has been stigmatized, the negative association being that if you’re wearing such things you must be too poor to do otherwise. Freely choosing to wear old, unfashionable thrift store clothing effectively undermines class expectations. Today mixing high and low, old and new, is itself highly fashionable. Wilson and Pierson were icons for young women who wanted to embrace the style of earlier generations. Now it’s very trendy for girls to seek out the clothes of their mothers’ youth and find vintage pieces in thrift stores. This has helped erase the conventions of ageism, making the idea of  ’dressing your age’ passé. It’s a big change in attitude, away from the old convention of wearing a a particular ‘uniform’ as one passes the different stages of life. That’s a lot of heavy credit to give to a couple of high-pitched pop singers, but there it is. Kate Pierson and Cindy Wilson were part of a cultural change in the way women dress – which is, as ever, about more than mere items of clothing but about self-presentation, identity, choice and freedom of expression.

Hi Readers! At the conference on the importance of play that I went to last week, I met Cindy Wilson, the communications director at Playworks. Playworks helps ensure kids get the chance to play at school every day. Yay! Their “recess coaches” taught some unbelievably fun games at the conference that had me — who literally got a “D” in gym  – running around and laughing and not feeling like the girl who could never touch her toes. (Which I am. But still. Here’s where you can find how to play a lot of their games.)

Anyhow,  Cindy’s husband is a scoutmaster in Oakland, Cal., and here’s the speech he delivered last night at his troop’s “Court of Honor,” where scouts advance to the next level. I loved it, and not just because my boys are Scouts:

Court of Honor Scoutmaster Moment, by Rick Prime

Tonight I thought I would reflect on how Boy Scouts is relevant today, especially in the modern world.  To a certain extent, I am talking to our older scouts tonight. We have five juniors in our troop who are contemplating the challenge of making Eagle rank. I want to address some of the social pressures they will encounter and why staying with the scouts is the right thing to do.

There were three things that made me think of this topic. The first was the story of Steven Fong, a recent Eagle from this troop, on the way to Philmont (which is considered a Mecca of sorts to Boy Scouts).  The second is from a book, Boys Adrift, which I read recently about the wrong way boys are being raised.  And the third is my own personal experience in high school.

I learned the Steven Fong story at our last Eagle court of honor, in January 2009.   We were honoring four Eagles, Steven Fong, Robert Amy, Mark Bennett, and Derrick Breska. Mr. Kelley, who is here tonight, gave a speech about Steven Fong which summarized his accomplishments and touched on his personality. Part of it was a funny story about traveling in uniform to Philmont. We travel in uniform, particularly high adventure, because it is the BSA policy and as such we are covered under their liability insurance. The boys were at the airport on their way to Santa Fe, on their way to high adventure at the Philmont Scout Reservation. Steven kept ducking into the bathroom and Mr. Kelley was wondering if he had an acute case of diarrhea because he kept running into the bathroom. Turned out he was embarrassed to seen by some girl from his high school in his Boy Scout uniform. I am sure Mr. Kelley gave him a speech about being comfortable in his own skin and I am sure Steven is today.

Steven Fong, and any Boy Scout, is in incredible demand in today’s world because people with character are a scarce resource.

To a certain extent, our world needs more leaders. Yet I feel the bar has been lowered as far as the job our society is doing in raising them.

I recently read a book, Boys Adrift, recommended by one of our scout moms, Diane Jacobson. The thesis of the book is that we have the wrong formula for raising boys. This is due to starting school before they may be ready, tending to over prescribe them to ADD drugs, and letting them spend too many hours on video games instead of reality.  The thesis about school is that everything has moved up. Kindergarten is now what first grade used to be like. If a boy acts, well, like a boy, teachers begin to have awkward conversations with parents about medicating them. The book describes how being overly politically correct, we may be stifling creativity in boys. If a boy writes a story that would be akin to a chapter out of a Earnest Hemingway book, he is expelled for writing about guns or violence.

The symptom of these problems with education and using video games as an inexpensive baby sitter is the trend of less boys going to college. 40 years ago, the majority of college graduates were men. Now, it has been reported, 60 percent of college graduates are women. For the first time in our history, we have as many women PhDs as men.  Because our culture has glorified escapism and the slacker anti-hero, we are raising a nation of slackers. I feel even worse about the women. The challenge for women who graduate from college is to date a man that is not still living at home with his parents at age 25.

The boys in this room are fighting this trend.  I know it because I have met some of the scouts that graduated from our troop. Dennis Fong, Steven Fong’s dad, would have an annual Christmas Party that I was fortunate to attend. Some of you may know Mr. Fong because he was one of the adult leaders who gave back to the troop tirelessly. In Mr. Fong’s case, he was our recruiting coordinator.

In any case, Steven and his cohorts, who were other Boy Scouts from our troop that had gone to college, were at the party during their winter break.

I was struck by the quality of the girlfriends they brought with them. But I guess I shouldn’t be. What women wouldn’t want a guy sent to college who already knows how to cook and clean? What can be worse during a romantic moment in front of a fireplace than a man that doesn’t know how to start a fire? I don’t have to worry about it in this room.  In all seriousness, our boys are successful because they understand leadership, have character and they know critical life skills.

My own personal story validates this in an indirect way. Unfortunately, I dropped out of scouts early because I didn’t know anyone in the troop my parents put me in. However, my best friend in high school in Wisconsin was a Boy Scout. I remember in my senior year biology class when the class was planning a field trip to go rafting all day on the wolf river, in northern Wisconsin. It is six hours of class 3 and 4 rapids. We were to split into groups of two to a raft. To my astonishment, the two most attractive and popular girls in the class came up to me and my scout friend and asked if they could pair up with us. In my adolescent mind, I thought that god was wiping the slate clean in one magnanimous act for all the perceived injustices I had endured as a middle school and high school boy.

So we got up a 6 am and took yellow school buses 3 hours north on that cool fall day to the Wolf River outside of Green Bay. It was a drizzling rainy grey morning as we rafted in pairs pass Birch trees with fall leaves everywhere. It was fun but we got soaking wet and capsized on many of the rapids.  One of the girls started to get mild hypothermia.  My scout friend knew what to do. We went into the woods and he put together a roaring fire. I was standing there watching these appreciative girls warm up and it finally struck me what was going on.  My experience wasn’t divine intervention. This girls knew the best one to be with was my Boy Scout friend and me by association.

In closing, I believe in our program of developing leadership, character and life skills because it is more relevant than ever. I suppose there are some things I would change, like make the BSA image more inclusive or outsource the design of the uniforms to REI or Nike.

However, I also see is that the desire for quality men is the same today as it was 35 years ago. What has changed is it is harder to develop good men because there are so many distractions in our world that did not exist like the Internet, electronic devices, and 24 hour media. The world is more complicated because we live more complicated lives. And yet, the demand for leaders is greater because of the challenges we have in the modern world.

It is the same earth, but we have grown in this short time from 3.5 billion to 7 billion people.  The outdoor code, to be conservation minded is no longer quaint — it is part of the solution. To do your best, To be prepared, To have character and leadership… This is what we need.  And this is what I expect. Thank you. — R.P.

It’s hard to believe that it’s been 25 years today since [lastfm]B-52s[/lastfm] founding member and guitarist [lastfm]Ricky Wilson[/lastfm] passed away due to complications from AIDS.

Wilson was the brother of fellow founding member [lastfm]Cindy Wilson[/lastfm] who is still with the band today.  He was a Pisces and liked computers and Hot Tamales.

Take a look below at Fred Schneider’s recent visit to the SUNNY studios.

[worldnow id=4856092 width=385 height=288 type=video]

Plinky, Plinky, Plinky. I’ve already talked to you about playing the “favorite” card. It looks lazy. High-school yearbookish. But that’s not the worst problem with this question. Here, let me ask you a question, Plinky. You know that we’re all writers here, right? That’s why we use you? That’s why we ever know that you exist? Yes? Then why would you mis-use the word “quote,” when you clearly mean “quotation?” Are you trying to get on our nerves?

But on to the question that I know you meant to ask (which is, of course, what is a thing that somebody said that you think you could write an interesting post about). Here’s mine.

In “Dance This Mess Around,” Cindy Wilson of the B-52′s said, “Why don’t you dance with me? I ain’t no limburger.” What she meant by that was fairly clear, though it must be noted that later she backed off a little bit from this strong statement, by acknowledging that she (or somebody, or something, at any rate), was “just a limburger.”

Just a Limburger, and Some Bread

Why is this my favorite quotation? When I was in middle school, and heard this song for this first time, it made me realize strongly and emphatically that nobody would dance with a limburger. I immediately resolved never to become one.

This is the only reason I was ever able to dance, and I love to dance.

God bless the B-52s.  Each member is in their 50s and 60s and still going at it as if they’re in their 20s.  Front man Fred Schneider (frequently spotted on the 1 train), beach blond Cindy Wilson, guitarist Keith Stickland (who has aged the best, looks 30) and lone maraca player/vocalist/goddess Kate Pierson make up the original party band from Athens, Ga. I’ve seen them four or five times over the years, but tonight’s show was the best of them all.  The last time I saw them was last summer on Governor’s Island in New York harbor when a monsoon cut their gig short so this year they played safely indoors at my favorite venue in the city: Highline Ballroom.

Kicking off the night was the surprising “Wig,” from their 1987 album, Bouncing Off the Satellites.  “Cindy’s got a wig! We all got wigs on!” perfectly set the tone for the night.  I love that they started with this song because it represents the tenacity of the B-52s.  Released just before their breakthrough Cosmic Thing album, Bouncing was their first record after guitarist and Cindy’s sibling Ricky Wilson tragically died of AIDS.  I always think of him when I hear this song.  It’s always a nice sentiment.

Through their 90-minute set, they played a wide mix of songs ranging from their 1979 debut to their last album of original work, 2008′s Funplex.  Off the severely under-rated Funplex they played “Love in the Year 3000,” “Ultraviolet,” “Dancing Now,” the title track “on a diet pill” with Cindy’s “I’m your daytime waitress at the Taco Tiki Hut.  I’m you’re daytime waitress, here’s your f-ing 7-Up!” and my favorite, Athens-inspired “Hot Corner,” with Fred commanding Kate to do a “white hot shimmy in a lurex gown.”

But the best material is their older material.  And fortunately for me and the crowd at Highline, we got to see them perform their best, at their best:  “Private Idaho” and “Mesopotamia” came first and then a few songs off their 1989 hit album Cosmic Thing, including “Channel Z” and “Roam.”  I could not have been happier to finally hear them sing “Deadbeat Club.”  I have always loved this song, but have never heard them sing it live.  “Let’s go crash that party down in Normaltown tonight.  Then we’ll go skinny-dippin’ in the moonlight.  Were were wild girls, walkin’ down the street.  Wild girls and boys going out for a big time.”  “Cosmic Thing” was great too and a song that I have forgotten.  No longer… I put it on my iPod this morning.  There’s nothing better than Cindy Wilson and Kate Pierson singing “honeybun!” in unison.  “Shake your honey bun!“

The highlight of the evening was Cindy’s solo on “Give Me Back My Man” from the 1980 album Wild Planet.  I’ve always liked Cindy, but I’ve been drawn to Kate in the past, and for good reason.  But tonight Cindy seemed to be in her element, having the time of her life.  She killed on this song. “I’ll give you fish, I’ll give you candy, I’ll give you everything I have in my hand. Give me, give back my man.”  Amen, sister.  The crowd responded with a prolonged applause, nearly causing Wilson to shed a tear.  Moments like these are why I haunt music venues like this… glimpses of magic.  And don’t think it was glitter on the highway that made magic, it was her spirit.

In the end, they played their best known song, “Love Shack,” a staple from my freshmen year in college, and an encore featuring two songs, Kate’s outer space killer shrills on “Planet Claire” and the party anthem of all time, “Rock Lobster.”  I’m especially fond of the animal sounds Cindy and Kate have a to muster when Fred tells them to.  My favorite is Cindy’s dolphin call.  Hilarious.

A lot of my friends saw Lady Gaga at MSG last night, and I wondered if she has ever seen the B-52s live.  I’m glad I made the decision to put Gaga off by a few nights to see the originals who brought the weird, quirky and obtuse to pop music coupled with the talent, hooks and heart.  I bet Gaga could learn a lot from the B-52s.  Think she’ll be around when she’s 60 and playing Highline?  Let’s hope so.

These people were smokin’ hot.  Though older (I guessed mid fifties, but Wikipedia quickly corrected me: Pierson turned 62 last week!) they proved that old can still be fabulous and ab.so.lute.ly rockin’.

I’m talking about the B-52s, of course.  I saw them last week at the Memphis in May Beale Street Music Festival and oh my god, they were worth every penny spent on the trip; all the dire predictions of rain; and the massive head cold that I’ve been nursing for a week (I think I could only technically hear them out of the one ear that wasn’t completely stopped up).  I’m not kidding, they were amazing.

Prior to seeing the Bs we had been down the road at another stage listening to Blues Traveler.  During their set some guy standing behind me said, “Wait. Didn’t these guys used to be good?”  Which made me think: no, it just used to be 1993.

Going in to see the B-52s it’s likely I could only have pulled Love Shack and Roam (though not even Roam by title) from the fuzzy edges of my memory. But two things happened during the concert: it turned out that not only did I know a lot more of their music than I thought I did, but I also LOVED their new stuff. While I may have been prepared to cut them some slack because they’re old, they wasted no time on my ignorant presumptions — they got busy right quick putting on a ridiculously good show.  Here’s a partial set list:

• Private Idaho
• Rock Lobster
• Funplex
• Pump
• Mesopotamia
• Quiche Lorraine
• Roam
• And, of course, Love Shack!

If you’re like me, then you totally missed their 2008 release of Funplex.  They played a bunch of songs from Funplex, and if you’ve ever been a fan of the Bs, then do not miss this album!

Anyway, of course I recorded Love Shack!  It came toward the end of their set and I tried my best to stand still, but I may have shimmied a little bit. Could you have stood still? I don’t think so. I was also hollering. It was so fun I couldn’t help myself. It’s in two clips — I took a break during the bridge because I thought my arm was about to fall off.

If by chance I am committing some sort of copyright violation by posting these clips, please have Ms. Pierson contact me directly and I’ll be more than happy to take them down.  [If you're reading Kate, I love you.]

This is for Andrei, without whose request I’d never have known about this song.

Cindy Wilson, American singer (The B-52’s)

20 BC coronation ceremony of Liu Bang as Emperor Gaozu of Han takes place, initiating four centuries of the Han Dynasty‘s rule over China.

870 The Fourth Council of Constantinople closed.

1261 Margaret of Scotland, queen of Norway, was born.

1638 The Scottish National Covenant was signed in Edinburgh.

1710  In the Battle of Helsingborg, 14,000 Danish invaders under Jørgen Rantzau were decisively defeated by an equally sized Swedish force under Magnus Stenbock.

1784 John Wesley chartered the Methodist Church.

1787 The charter establishing the institution now known as the University of Pittsburgh was granted.

1824 Blondin, French tightrope walker, was born.

1827  The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad was incorporated, becoming the first railroad in America offering commercial transportation of both people and freight.

Francis Blackwell Mayer. The Founders of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (1891), represents the B&O’s history (left to right) beginning with its founding in 1827 to 1880. Philip E. Thomas, George Brown, Charles Carroll of Carrollton, and others are gathered at left. Samuel F. B. Morse is seated at center left (with telegraph tape) and John W. Garrett is seated at right.

1838 Robert Nelson, leader of the Patriotes, proclaimed the independence of Lower Canada (today Québec).

1844 A gun on USS Princeton exploded while the boat was on a Potomac River cruise, killing eight people, including two United States Cabinet members.

1849 Regular steamboat service from the west to the east coast of the United States began with the arrival of the SS California in San Francisco Bay, 4 months 21 days after leaving New York Harbour.

1865 Wilfred Grenfell, medical missionary, was born.

1870 The Bulgarian Exarchate was established by decree of Sultan Abd-ul-Aziz of the Ottoman Empire.

1883 The first vaudeville theatre opened in Boston, Massachusetts.

1897 Queen Ranavalona III, the last monarch of Madagascar, was deposed by a French military force.

1900 The Second Boer War: The 118-day “Siege of Ladysmith” was lifted.

1912 Clara Petacci, Italian mistress of Benito Mussolini, was born.

1914 The Autonomous Republic of Northern Epirus was proclaimed in Gjirokastër, by the Greeks living in southern Albania.

1922 The United Kingdom accepted the independence of Egypt.

1925 Harry H Corbett, English actor, was born.

1928  C.V. Raman discovered Raman effect.

1933 Gleichschaltung: The Reichstag Fire Decree was passed in Germany a day after the Reichstag fire.

1935 DuPont scientist Wallace Carothers invented Nylon.

1939 The first issue of Serbian weekly magazine Politikin zabavnik was published.

1939 – The erroneous word “Dord” is discovered in the Webster’s New International Dictionary, Second Edition, prompting an investigation.

1942 Brian Jones, English musician (The Rolling Stones), was born.

1942 The heavy cruiser USS Houston (CA-30) was sunk in the Battle of Sunda Strait with 693 crew members killed.

1943 Charles Bernstein, American composer, was born.

1945 New Zealand soldier David Russell was executed by a Nazi firing squad in Italy.

1946 Robin Cook, British politician, was born.

1947 228 Incident: In Taiwan, civil disorder is put down with the loss of 30,000 civilian lives.

 The 228 Monument located near the Presidential Office in Taipei

1953 Paul Krugman, American economist, Nobel laureate, was born.

1957 Cindy Wilson, American singer (The B-52′s), was born.

1958 A school bus in Floyd County, Kentucky hits a wrecker truck and plunged down an embankment into the rain-swollen Levisa Fork River. The driver and 26 children died in what remains the worst school bus accident in U.S. history.

1970 Daniel Handler, American writer, better known as Lemony Snicket, was born.

1972 The Asama-Sanso incident ended in Japan.

1972 The United States and People’s Republic of China signed the Shanghai Communiqué.

1974 Moana Mackey, New Zealand politician, was born.

1975 A major tube train crash at Moorgate station, London kills 43 people.

1985 The Provisional Irish Republican Army carried out a mortar attack on the Royal Ulster Constabulary police station at Newry, killing nine officers in the highest loss of life for the RUC on a single day.

1986 Olof Palme, Prime Minister of Sweden  was assassinated in Stockholm.

1991 The first Gulf War ended.

1993 Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents raided the Branch Davidian church in Waco, Texas with a warrant to arrest the group’s leader David Koresh. Four BATF agents and five Davidians die in the initial raid, starting a 51-day standoff.

1995 Denver International Airport officially opened in Denver, Colorado to replace Stapleton International Airport

1997 – The North Hollywood shootout takes place.

1998 – First flight of RQ-4 Global Hawk, the first unmanned aerial vehicle certified to file its own flight plans and fly regularly in U.S. civilian airspace.

1998 – Kosovo War: Serbian police begin the offensive against the Kosovo Liberation Army in Kosovo.

2001 – The Nisqually Earthquake measuring 6.8 on the Richter Scale hits the Nisqually Valley and the Seattle, Tacoma, and Olympia area of the U.S. state of Washington.

2001 – Six passengers and four railway staff are killed and a further 82 people suffer serious injuries in the Selby rail crash.

200 More than 1 million Taiwanese participating in the 228 Hand-in-Hand Rally formed a 500-kilometre (300-mile) long human chain to commemorate the 228 Incident in 1947.

2005 Lebanon‘s pro-Syrian prime minister, Omar Karami, resigned amid large anti-Syria street demonstrations in Beirut.

2005 A suicide bombing at a police recruiting centre in Al Hillah, Iraq killed 127.

2007  Jupiter flyby of the New Horizons Pluto-observer spacecraft.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia

The Larry Mullen Jr. Awards are presented by TWIRFMR to recognize excellence in aging.

…and the Larry goes to…The B-52′s! Hailing from Planet Claire via Athens Georgia, the B-52′s have been recording and touring since 1978, the year their fantastic debut album, The B52′s, was released to an unsuspecting Earthling public. Thirty years later, Fred Schneider (58), Kate Pierson (61), Cindy Wilson (52), and Keith Strickland (56) have maintained the camp aesthetic and retro-vibe that contribute to their timeless mystique without losing a shred of dignity. The B-52′s are  still rockin’, still fruggin’, and seemingly nowhere near membership in the AARP.

Congrats to The B-52′s…Lookin’ good!

July 19th, 2008 brought America’s long-reigning party band to Europe’s premier party city, Amsterdam. For 32 years, The B-52′s have thrilled fans with their hedonistic blend of killer hooks, bizarre lyrics, 60′s girl group vocals, and of course the sprechgesang of the irrepressible Fred Schneider. While their profile had been significantly lower in recent years owing to a 16 year gap between albums, to the faithful The B’s were never truly away, and are received with a riotous welcome from Paradiso’s sold-out crowd.

There can surely be no stronger argument for music retaining youth than the B-52′s. The glamourous-as-ever Kate and Cindy, have maintained their remarkable vocal chops and dance throughout, spurring on the audience from opposite sides of the stage like the experienced party hosts that they are. Fred, naturally, stalks the stage fully immersed in his carnival-barker mode, reminding all present of why he is possibly the most original and charismatic frontman to emerge from the late 70′s. Over to the side, original B’s drummer-turned-guitarist Keith Strickland (looking roughly half of his 54 years) provides solid musicianship throughout – the backbone of the whole show. Of the three backing musicians, only a slightly stone-faced keyboard player appears immune to the festivities. From the opening, a rollicking-rendition of Pump (from the new album), the audience are eating out of the band’s collective hands.

It’s a testament to the strength of the new material (largely written by Keith) that it stands so well along such all-time classics as ‘Rock Lobster’ and ‘Love Shack’. The band too, appear delighted that the new material is so popular with the crowd – indeed after 16 years without new material, it must be a huge relief. This is not to say that ‘Lobster’, ‘Planet Claire’ and even the money-track ‘Love Shack’ aren’t performed with all the flamboyant vitality that they deserve. Quite the opposite, and the clear affection that both the fans and the band have for these gems is undeniable.

Special mention must go to Cindy, who has on occasion been unfairly criticized for perhaps seeming a little less than exuberant. Tonight, she steals the show, dancing and rocking her way throughout the entire set with boundless energy and a smile on her face. Her gutsy, wild rendition of fan-favourite ‘Give Me Back My Man’ deservedly receives the biggest applause of the night.

Great chemistry, all the classics, excellent new songs and raucous performances from a band who stubbornly refuse to grow up. A party out of bounds, indeed.

Review by Michael Escritt. Photos by Merel Herder and Michael Escritt.

Please do not reproduce without permission.

The B-52′s new album ‘Funplex’ is in stores and online now.

Catch The B-52′s on tour in the U.S. this summer as part of the True Colors tour.

Visit www.myspace.com/theb52s for details

You can currently watch the entire concert for free at www.fabchannel.com!

Biography by Jason Ankeny
[Bio & Info © allmusic.com]

The first of many acts to cement the college town of Athens, GA, as a hotbed of alternative music, the B-52′s took their name from the Southern slang for the mile-high bouffant wigs sported by singers Kate Pierson and Cindy Wilson, a look emblematic of the band’s campy, thrift-store aesthetic. The five-piece group, which also included founding members Fred Schneider, guitarist Ricky Wilson (Cindy‘s older brother), and drummer Keith Strickland, formed in the mid-’70s after a drunken evening at a Chinese restaurant; the bandmembers had little or no previous musical experience, and performed most of their earliest shows with taped guitar and percussion accompaniment.<… Read More…