Blog Posts by John Kordosh

Country music, like the country itself, just keeps getting better, readers! And the best new group yet is the Pistol Annies, a trio of skilled and purty gals whose first two albums have been Top 10 smash hits.

The Annies consist of Ashley Monroe, Angaleena Presley, and Miranda Lambert, who are from (respectively) East Tennessee, Eastern Kentucky, and East Texas. We're not, but sharp-eyed readers may be seeing a trend here. And their fathers all mined for coal , possibly believing climate change to be a myth.

Anyway, the ladies found each other and decided to form a band. They were going to call themselves the Calamity Janes, but a stripper already had that name. Incredibly enough, their first live performance ever was on national TV, on the Academy of Country Music’s "Girls Night Out Special" in 2011. They played their hit tune, "Hell on Heels," and the rest, as they say, is history.

To quote from their bio: " The Pistol Annies’ performance that night of their original song, 'Hell on Heels,' hit the proverbial bull’s eye."

They'd been aiming for the actual bull's eye, of course, but what the hell. Proverbial's good, too.

Our video this week is "Hush Hush," in which the Annies take us to a Southern church potluck dinner. It's all in good fun and our captions -- if we may say so -- are flat-out terrific. It's kind of scary, but we may actually be getting better.

Enjoy the Pistol Annies and our captions, and be right back here next week, when we pretty much do the same thing again.

Of all the great British groups that emerged in the 1960s, few were greater than this week's guest stars, the Who. Their early albums remain unbeatable, but they really hit the heights with their Live At Leeds, Tommy, and Quadrophenia LPs.

And, although the litany of their hits -- "My Generation," "Can't Explain," "Happy Jack," "I Can See For Miles," "Pinball Wizard," "Won't Get Fooled Again," and many more -- is amazing, the band had only one Top 10 hit in the U.S. ("I Can See For Miles" made it to #9 in 1967.)

This week's video, 1978's "Who Are You," is another of their big hits, and an interesting look at the original band in the studio. Although they have, sadly, passed on, the Who's rhythm section, John Entwistle and Keith Moon, are featured prominently, as are Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey, who continue to carry on the band's name in concert. They performed the song live at Super Bowl XLIV and, more recently, at the Concert For Sandy Relief last year.

What more can we say? Ladies and gentlemen, the Who!

Important blog note! Framed has to travel on "business" next week, so we'll see you in a couple of Mondays! Have fun!

Hello, users of modern technology, and welcome to the blog that features original content and only original content, week-in and week-out.

Unless, of course, we have a chance to use that "out standing in his field" gag as a caption. Then all bets are off.

The second Framed ever --and this is going back a ways! -- featured the great Canadian songstress Avril Lavigne doing her smash hit, "Girlfriend." That was almost six year ago, readers! And Avril and Framed are still going strong!

This week we welcome her back, since she has a terrific new song and video, "Here's To Never Growing Up." Let's steal some content from Wikipedia to see what everyone's been sayin'!

Hi, everybody, and welcome to Framed, the blog that promises nothing... and delivers!

Our very special guest stars this week are the Police, a band that dominated the '80s like nobody's business. Their five studio albums all went platinum. They had six Top 10 singles in the U.S. -- 10 in the U.K. -- and went on to win six Grammys. And they were inducted into the prestigious Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame back in 2003.

Led by bassist/singer/songwriter Gordon Sumner, better known as Sting, the Police's novel reggae sound wowed the simple folk of the 1980s and propelled the band to superstardom. This week's video is one of their earlier songs: "Message in a Bottle," the sensational castaway-looking-for-love metaphor. Readers may recall that Sting performed it solo on the Hurricane Sandy telethon last year.

Please forgive the lousy quality of the video -- it was made in the days before science, after all -- and, instead, enjoy our very funny captions, which, as always, are "aces!"

Absolutely shocking and completely unexpected news, readers! After Y! Music's Dave DiMartino reviewed the new History of the Eagles LP in his blog last week, it seems the Eagles themselves read his comments!

And the comments weren't kind! Not by a long shot!

Now we hear that the band, dispirited by what they saw as a well-written and well-informed indictment of their entire career, have abruptly given up on their signature country-rock sound and taken up (holy cow!) death metal!

Needless to say, the world of music has been taken aback by this ... huh? ... what's that? Is somebody out there waving at us, trying to get our attention?

Yes! Somebody is! Why, it's our old friend and fellow Y! Music blogger, Rob O'Connor! Everybody likes Bob-O!

Come on in, Bob-O!

What's that? Hmm. Um hmm. Really? You're kidding!

Really?

Wow. OK, OK. Well, thanks for the heads up. Seriously, man. Yeah, yeah, we'll bring the hot dogs to your thing. Again. Hot dogs can be expensive, you know.

Important blog note! This week, Framed welcomes the amazing Eagles of Death Metal and their great video, "I Want You So Hard."

We're starting to like this guy, PSY. He's the Korean rapper genius who gave us "Gangnam Style," the worldwide smash that inspired dozens of humorous knock-off videos... even one by the insane North Koreans... and made Seoul's Gangnam District an internationally-known locale.

It's probably because, the way we see it, Framed and PSY have a lot in common. PSY is a satirical artist, as are we. We both target the privileged and self-satisfied. Plus, you've got those one-point-five billion page views.

And those are just ours! PSY gets a lot of views, too!

Ahem.

This week's video, of course, is "Gentleman," another great Vevo premiere, and another feather in the rapper's cap. The vid gathered almost 19 million views on YouTube within 24 hours of its release, totally eclipsing the previous champ, Justin Bieber's "Beauty and a Beat." We're not really sure what it's about, but PSY is still pretty funny, as always, with the goofy dance moves.

Please enjoy this great new video and let us know what you think! We're going to make some Lipton's Noodle Soup!

Important blog note!

If you were with us two weeks ago, when we featured Creedence Clearwater Revival, you may have noticed that readers kicked us in the teeth with their comments. "Not funny," decried many. "Ageist tripe," said one. "Delusional," noted another. "Where are the funny captions?" said more than one. We could go on.

It would be fair to say that well over 98% of the many hundreds of posts opined that Framed was stupid, a stupid idea, and very stupidly executed.

It's a brutal verdict, but we still want to thank everyone who took the time to post. Heck, everybody's got a right to their opinion.

We'd also like to thank a friend of ours for subbing at the last minute and actually writing the CCR captions. Thanks, Dave!

You rock!

Years ago... many, many years ago... essentially, we're talking about minutes after the Big Bang here... there was a band called Creedence Clearwater Revival that was a hit-making machine. Although they never had a song hit #1 in the U.S., they had five that hit #2. And a couple of their albums did hit #1.

CCR, as the now-old people called them, offered a memorable bluegrass/swamp rock sound driven by guitarist/singer John Fogerty's catchy songs. Many of them, like "Proud Mary," "Fortunate Son," and "Bad Moon Rising," are now regarded as classics.

This week's video, "Lookin' Out My Back Door," is a down-home tune from 1970, and features some rare Creedence footage, with Fogerty kickin' it on a couch while the band pretends to play. There's no doubt you'll enjoy this nostalgic number, and -- as always! -- our very humorous captions!

Important blog note! Framed will be taking next week off, as we're driving Jim The Bird to his new home at the San Diego Zoo aviary. Jim -- perhaps Framed's most beloved continuing character -- will be in the company of Toucan Sam, Chilly Willy the Penguin, and other celebrated birds in his new digs!

See you in two weeks!

Hello, everyone, and welcome to Framed. We'd like to remind you that Framed is always brewed at 34°.

We've featured much-loved rapper 50 Cent many times in this blog, so when we heard there was a 50 Cent debut on Vevo -- Robert of the Radish texted us! -- we were all over it. We downloaded it, froze pictures, wrote captions, drank to excess... all the stuff you've got to do in this business. And, when we were done, we thought, "Well, we still got it. Our captions not only rule, they super-rule! Captions that merely 'rule' run and hide from our captions!"

We did mention the excess drinking, right?

Ahem. Anyway, we were getting ready to send it in to Y! Music, when we had a thought.

"Hey!" it went. "Was that actually a music video?"

"What do you mean, thought?" we replied. "We just got it off Vevo. What else could it be?"

"Maybe it's part of Vevo's 'Music Is My Sport' series," the thought said.

"What? What the...?"

"You may have just written the first installment of Framed that actually doesn't feature a 'music video,' per se," the thought continued.

"Well, we will be darned!" we said. "Do you think the folks at Y! Music will notice?"

We both laughed merrily, and then went out for more drinks. We got into a bit of trouble over on Lankershim, but that's a story for another day.