BATTLE OF THE BOOGIES

Sunshine.. moonlight.. good times.. boogie..!! If you're NOT thinking Michael Jackson now, the odds are that you know your way around UFO's and have funny ears. Either way, you better think twice.
Because in September 1978, it were good times indeed for the Jackson brothers who, after five consecutive flops, reentered the higher echelons of the Billboard Hot 100 again. At the same time, a certain Michael Jackson got no further than #61 with his single Blame it on the Boogie. This second Michael, usually referred to as Mick, was the 30 year old bearded Brit who actually wrote the disco hit that was sold by his manager to Joe Jackson who was in dear need for an edgier sound to feed to the money machine that sprang from his loins. Not only did this manager 'forget' to inform Mick, he also failed to get that royalties thingy in the sales contract. The rest = history. 
Mick Jackson, now working from Germany, is still very much enjoying his good health and career, in which he worked with musical misfits as David Knopfler and Lisa Stansfield (not getting any Boogie bucks, a man has to do the occasional dirty job to make some money) but also with the gorgeous Barry Manilow. The full documentary about the Yorkshire Jacko is found here.

VACANCES J'OUBLIE TOUT

Did I already state somewhere that I love the Eighties? This 1980 clip by French synthesizer band Elegance features quite a few things that were cool once. Such as: dorks with moustaches, dorks working BIG computers, women in lust for dorks in white suits, dorks flying a glider, see-through bikini's closing in on the dorks' face, dorks singing and laughing with other dorks at the bar. And, of course, a dork fiddling with a bike  (at 0.35). All this magic (OK, maybe they should have had that lame hotrod crashed by Samantha Fox in a DeLorean, but still: magic) was brought to us by Patrick Gilbert, Daniel Bourges and Pierre Antonio Zito, who I think deserve more fame than being virtually intracable, even with the help of Brother Google.

LET'S GET AWAY FROM IT ALL

Ray reminding us what to do on a sunny day. Walk out of the office, round up three fit birds in bathing suits and gear up for an afternoon you will remember. On Let's get away from it all (Columbia CL 1097), Ray Ellis (1923-2008) treats us on some 40 minutes of Big Band, not entirely unlike Quincy Jones' Soul Bossa Nova which, as any Snag* should know, is of course the soundtrack to the only white boy who could ever upstage James Brown: Austin Powers.  Now go and Behave!

* Not the Australian sausage but the Sensitive New Age Gentleman who, it cannot be stressed enough, is a completely different animal from the Sensitive New Age Guy.

HELP!

Ringo, George, John & Paul in the movie Help! from 1965. They also wet themselves.