Rock Massacres, Vol. 5: Van Morrison

Today's massacre features one of the all-time greats, in my humble opinion: Mr. Van Morrison. The "song" he is singing here, simply known as "Thirty Two," comes from a one-day session at Bang Records in 1967 where Van spontaneously creates 31 songs in order to get out of his recording contract. It's a hoot and a holler, believe you me.

WFMU's Beware of the Blog not only provides some more detail on the subject, but streams all 31 songs for your listening pleasure. I especially recommend "Ring Worm" and "Want a Danish" for starters.

Click on the image to view the video.

Rock Massacres, Vol. 4: John Cale

Here's the latest massacre, and this time the honor goes to Mr. John Cale. Now, you at home may be asking "Why would you do such a thing to John Cale? I thought you liked John Cale." And it's true, I do. But these massacres aren't intended merely to punish substandard artists (except for Robert Plant; that was intentional), they are more a kind of love letter in the form of a brutal stabbing or beheading. As Noam Chomsky would say: "To truly love your idols, you must first depict them being horrifically slaughtered in some way, perhaps in a 30 second web-based video, just off the top of my head." I'll tell you, that Chomsky was a true prophet.

I should also point out that the image used is from an old vinyl compilation called Guts, which came out in 1977, a full three years before an enormously popular slasher film. Yeah, that John Cale was a true prophet.

Click on the image to view it.

Rock Massacres, Vol. 3: David Bowie

Here's the latest installment of Rock Massacres. This time, it's David Bowie's turn. Now, you may accuse this of being an inadvertent piece of commentary on Bowie's chameleon-like artistic nature which has allowed him to sustain a career for decades without entirely forming a concrete artistic identity. If ever he should discontinue adopting the "masks" of other artists, you may argue, he would artistically cease to exist.

I know that's what you're all thinking. Oh, don't try to deny it. It's perfectly natural to draw parallels like this.

But the truth is, I was just trying to be funny. And isn't laughter the greatest gift of all? No? Damn, I honestly thought it was. Sorry. Try to enjoy it anyway.

Click on the image to view it.

Rock Massacres, Vol. 2: Peter Gabriel

Well it looks as though this might become a series after all. Massacring rock stars is fun stuff. This one utilizes Peter Gabriel's second album cover in a way that makes me uncomfortable. But I'm easily made to feel uncomfortable. You'll notice that I sound uncannily nothing like Peter Gabriel, but this shouldn't prevent you from enjoying this bit of fluff.

Enjoy. Click on the image to view it.

Rock Massacres, Vol. 1: Led Zeppelin

My video shorts are beginning to make less sense as the days progress. Anyway, this one may become a series if you're not careful. VH1 is craving something just like this, I can feel it.

Enjoy. Click on the image to view it.