Pop Culture Pop Quiz 1: Bond Villain or Rock Star Part 2

Bond Villain or Rock Star Answers

1. Fugazi – Rock Star
Fugazi is a punk band from Washington DC formed in the late 1980s. Their first album was 13 Songs (1989). They went on to record six more. Their last CD was The Argument which came out in 2001. The band is currently on hiatus. Drummer Brendan Canty worked on Bob Mould's 2005 CD Body of Sound .

2. Bjork – Rock Star
Bjork was the lead singer of the Icelandic band The Sugarcubes. She started her solo career in 1993 with her Debut CD, aptly titled Debut . She made her presence know at the 2001 Academy Awards show when she appeared in a “swan dress”. Her latest CD, Surrounded, was released in June, and it features re-mastered and re-mixed songs from her first five CDs.

3. Blofeld – Bond Villain
Ernst Stavro Blofeld is the arch rival of James Bond. Blofeld was the founder of SPECTER, the terror organization who bedeviled Bond for many years. Blofeld killed Bond's wife, Tracy, at the end of Her Majesty's Secret Service, when his assassination attempt of 007 failed. Bond vowed revenge, and finally killed Blofeld at the beginning of For Your Eyes Only . Blofeld is the inspiration of Dr. Evil from the Austin Powers films.

4. Rammstein – Rock Star
Rammstein is the German band who are the founders of “Dance Metal”. Although their music is recorded in German, the band's music has been featured in many American films, such as Lost Highway , Resident Evil , XXX, and the new movie See No Evil .

5. Jaws – Bond Villain
Jaws, played by Richard Kiel, was one of the more intimidating Bond Villain. Standing at 7'2”, and armed with metal teeth, the menacing bad guy was featured in both The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker.

6. Oddjob – Bond Villain
Oddjob was the Korean right hand man of Auric Goldfinger. Oddjob's deadly aim with his killer hat cut down Bond Girl Tilly Masterson. Oddjob met his demise by electrocution at Fort Knox .

7. Dio – Rock Star
Ronnie James Dio was a featured guitarist in Black Sabbath and his own band, Dio. Dio's best known song is “Holy Diver”, which was featured in an episode of South Park.  The latest CD, Holy Diver Live is due out later this year.

8. Zorin – Bond Villain
Played by Christopher Walken in A View to A Kill , Max Zorin tried to undermine the American Computer movement by destroying Silicon Valley . To do so, Zorin placed bombs at the San Andres Fault in San Francisco. While doing battle with James Bond (Roger Moore's final appearance as 007), he plummets to his death off the Golden Gate Bridge.

9. Dr. Rain – Rock Star
A dirty trick. Dr. Rain is a College Rock Band from the UK that recorded one notable CD, The Knife Ran Away With The Spoon (1992).

10. Col. Klebb – Bond Villain
Col. Rosa Klebb was a former KGB operative whose defection to SPECTER was kept under raps. In From Russia With Love , she hires the beautiful Tatiana Romanov to seduce Bond, and to help him steal a Soviet lektor. Tatiana, unaware of Klebb's defection, goes along with the plot, but ultimately kills Klebb while she's trying to kill Bond.

How did you do?

9-10 Right - Double Agent
Congratulations, you have out foxed the master, and you are knowledgeable enough to carry this rank.

7-8 Right - Q Branch
You're still quite clever. You can come up with the right answer at the right time, but not suave enough to carry the Double 0 licence.

5-6 Right - Opening Act
Not bad, but you aren't the main attraction. Maybe a few more years of practice, you could be a rock star.

3-4 Right - Roadie
Um--ROCK ON DUDE will be your mantra for many years.

Less Than 3 Right - Boy Band
Nice try. You'll get it right someday.

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Pop Culture Pop Quiz 1: Bond Villain or Rock Star

So this is another repost that was posted on the current ianshane.com, back in the day. This started out as a classroom project, and I thought that it would make a great blog post. I challenged my students to a pop culture pop quiz. Some did well. Others…well, there are no losers in this test. April fill month continues with Bond Villain or Rock Star Part 1, originally posted on August 18, 2006

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First off, let me give you some context to this little exercise. I recently challenged my Intro to Radio Studio Class to a "Pop Culture Pop Quiz" to inspire them to think about things that they may not know a lot about.


As an on air personality, your listeners will ask you a score of pop culture questions, and you'd better know the answer. This is the first of soon to be many quick quizzes for my newbies.

Bond Villain or Rock Star

Identify the following names as either a Rock Star of Bond Villain. Don't worry; I'm not going to use a trick question, like Goldfinger (which is both).

1. Fugazi

2. Bjork

3. Blofeld

4. Rammstein

5. Jaws

6. Oddjob

7. Dio

8. Zorin

9. Dr. Rain

10. Col. Klebb

Jot down on a piece of paper your answers and compare them to the answer sheet on page 2. Good luck. MI-6 is counting on you.

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Across the Universe

I'm going to lose some street cred on the initial statement, but by the end of this, I believe my point may be made. Since nobody else will say it, I will. The Beatles are overrated.

Now, let me clarify that statement. The later Beatles catalogue makes up for the earlier work, but if you're grading on an average, the Beatles are far from being the A students for which almost everyone gives them credit. If you step back and take into account what was going on in the United States on February 9, 1964 you'll understand the inflated stock. We were only 2 months removed from losing John F. Kennedy, and there was a troop escalation in a faraway place called Vietnam. The collective mood of the country was extremely low (except for Jimmy Hoffa and the CIA), and we were looking for something to lift our spirits. Enter four well dressed lads from Liverpool. They crossed the pond to the right place at the right time to hang out with Ed Sullivan. The country was taken by storm with such inane lyrics like "She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah," and "I want to hold your hand." Suddenly we had found the youth, charm, and innocent optimism that we lost in Dallas on a Friday afternoon. If the Beatles had missed that window by four months either way they would have been no bigger in this country than say, Queen.

In truth, the Beatles were nothing more than the boy band of its day. With songs like "I Saw Her Standing There" and "From Me To You", they would have been touring malls if they debuted in the late 80's. Even the British icon of cool dissed the Beatles in 1964. James Bond in Goldfinger remarked "there are some things that just aren't done, such as drinking Dom Perignon '53 above the temperature of 38 degrees Fahrenheit. That's just as bad as listening to the Beatles without earmuffs!"

The Beatles started to make some strides, and by the time Revolver came out, the new Beatles sound was mature, serious, and had the hint of some major drug induced writing sessions. In the later years, there were only a few missteps the fab four had. Yoko and letting Ringo sing seems to top the list. Musically, there was one song that stuck out…"Across the Universe".

Until several years ago, I never liked that song, and I still don't like the Beatles version. To me, the mood of the vocals just didn't match the mood of the guitar. I have always thought that George Harrison's guitar begged for John Lennon to sing the song with more melancholy. To me, it was obvious that George and John were not in the studio at the same time. Such promise for a lyrically beautiful song that just wasn't realized.

Since then, "Across the Universe" has been covered many times in many different styles. There are over 150 different versions that you can buy on amazon.com (however the original isn't one of them). There are versions by David Bowie, Jackson Browne, the cover from the crappy movie of same name (another post for another day), and a beautiful solo piano version by André Mehmari.

One of the more notable covers in the last 15 years was released in 1999 for the Pleasantville soundtrack. Again the voice was a miscast. The producers of the film wanted to make a splash for the soundtrack, and they brought in Fiona Apple. She was off the heels of her phenomenal debut CD Tidal, and was preparing her second album. Fiona's jazzy low vocals didn't match the instrumentation. A nice try, but I still couldn't hear that song and feel the way I had always thought I should.

Then by chance, a second generation recording artist nailed the song three years later. Rufus Wainwright's bonus track from the CD Poses possesses everything that I was looking for in the song. His voice blends perfectly with the guitar, and feeds the need to close your eyes and just enjoy the song. For the first time, the mix was right, and Rufus's version had become the gold standard.

There have been two versions released this year. I have yet to hear the Cyndi Lauper version, but I did hear the unfortunate cover by Minnesota native Nicholas "The Feelin" Mrozinski. We'll just add it to a list of others who tried to match what Rufus did.

Vegas, Baby! Vegas!

Originally posted on ianshane.com 10 June, 2005

In honor of this year's Vegas trip, I figured that finding the Top 5 Vegas movies was a worthy and noble quest. There are many fine movies about Las Vegas (like Oceans 11) and there are some God-awful flicks about Nevada 's number 1 vacation destination (Showgirls). Refining this list wasn't an easy task, but one I took with great enthusiasm.

1. The Godfather/The Godfather Part II
I have to group these together. Although it would be naïve to think that the mob was not in Vegas until the early 1960s, the story details how the Corleone Family took control of the Tropicana from the unlucky Moe Green (unlucky as the casino lost money under his management…oh yeah, and getting shot in the eye was unlucky too). Las Vegas isn't mentioned much in Part II, but the base of operation for Michael is still Sin City. I learned a valuable lesson from these two movies…never go fishing with a ruthless killer friend of your brother.

2. Swingers
Mike and Trent are in Vegas for only 10 minutes of the movie, but it still ranks #2 on the Top 5 list. From Swingers, we learn to always double down on 11 even if you're betting with “blood money”, Vegas waitresses are easy if you're money and you don't quote Voltaire, and to always wear a suit if you want free stuff in Vegas. I'll even forgive that Trent valet parks at the Stardust (on the Strip), and end up playing blackjack at the Fremont (downtown), and the shots of Strip are out of order if they are driving from the south (as they would be coming from LA).

3. Diamonds Are Forever
Vegas and Bond both featured in one flick? I'm in! The last real Bond movie with Sean Connery (Never Say Never Again doesn't count) takes 007 to Vegas to stop the flow of smuggled stolen diamonds from South Africa . Bond not only battles the first openly gay super villain couple, he also has to endure the worst Bond girl, ever (Jill St. John as Tiffany Case? What the hell was Guy Hamilton thinking?). Bond protects a guy who was more of a Howard Hughes than Leonardo DiCaprio in the Aviator (which isn't saying much), while Q wins big at the Circus Circus casino thanks to a smart looking device he created.

4. Very Bad Things
How many times have you gone to a bachelor party, only to have one of the group accidentally kill a hooker in the throws of some cocaine enhanced bathroom sex? This foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little bachelor parties everywhere. Even though it didn't do well in box office and in video sales, and the critics hated it, Very Bad Things deserves to be on this list. Jon Favreau (which if you're keeping score at home, is the only actor to be on this list twice) delivers a flawless performance in a dark comedy with shades of an Alfred Hitchcock story.

5. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Sure, logic would dictate that Las Vegas is not the city you want to be in if you're on psychedelic drugs, but the movie proves this theory hands down. The first time I saw it, I hated it. However, since I've read the Hunter S. Thompson classic, I understand where director Terry Gilliam was coming from with the unusual animations. Fear and Loathing is a great insight on what being on drugs must be like.

Also receiving votes: Oceans 11 (the original), Rain Man, Bugsy, Honeymoon in Vegas, Leaving Las Vegas (even if Nick Cage is in the last two, they were still pretty good.)