Linescratching Post for the week of Feb 28, 2011

Vol 1 No. 2, Week of February 28, 2011

In this issue: Gladys Knight, The Aquabats!, bands and people with rather more tenuous connections to Mormonism, a story about a ward talent show that you’ll not soon forget, Porter Rockwell, Spencer W. Kimball, and much more.

Yawn, another predictable mega-music fest. I once dreamed I went to a Wire/Big Audio Dynamite/Kanye West/The Aquabats! show. Then I woke up. (Linescratchers note: Brandon Flowers, Jimmy Eat World, and The Arcade Fire and many gentile acts are playing too.)

Pips jokes never get old, do they? Even when the joke is just saying the word “Pips.” Gladys Knight will be performing at the White House this Sunday. Her last appearance at the White House was performing for Bill and Hillary Clinton. (Thanks, Dallin)

There was once a brutal, vulgar Mormon who would speak his mind and was not above using violence to achieve his goals. There was also once a man named Porter Rockwell. Porter Rockwell never had an album out though.

Idiot Glee finally free to go on publicity spree. Whee! Idiot Glee sign to Moshi Moshi Records, announce release date of debut LP, and spell out upcoming tour dates.

Mormons storm Grammys. Hyperbole? Yes, absurdly so. But this may have been the most Mormony Grammys since the Mormon Tabernacle Choir won in 1959. (I remember once reading a Jehovah’s Witness critique of the church that included this award as evidence that the Mormons were in the world AND of the world.) Robert Plant’s cover of a Low song was nominated, and The Arcade Fire won big with hilarious internet results.

Obligatory American Idol post. We just can’t give up those goofy ward talent shows, can’t we, folks? I once played trombone at a talent show–a ditty sometimes known as the Mexican Hat Dance–while my stepbrother played the clarinet. Yes, a classic trombone/clarinet Mexican Hat Dance duet. The rest of our family comically switched around oversized sombreros while we played. Some said it was good. Some said it was the best they’d ever seen. One man offered me a recording contract on the spot. But I left that nonsense behind when I became a man. What was I talking about again? Oh yeah, David Archuleta was dropped from his label but seems pretty cheerful. (Thanks again, Dallin.) A Mormon cowboy idol is facing charges of having released an album prior to his appearance on American Idol. If found guilty, he could face up to 25 years in prison and a one million dollar fine. Americans take their idols pretty seriously.

In 1951, Spencer W. Kimball denounced the fashions of the day and famously called for “a style of our own.” It took 60 years, but according to NME, we have arrived(or one of us has, anyway.)

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