It’s week 27 of Bottom Feeders and you know what that means.

What? You don’t know what that means? Actually, neither do I. But what I do know is that we have only eight songs left to get through by artists whose names begin with the letter D, so I’m giving you a quickie this week and jumping right into it. Enjoy more songs from the ass end of the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the ’80s.

George Duke
“Shine On” — 1982, #41 (download)

George Duke has his jazz side and he has the funky side you hear on “Shine On.” Duke has an eclectic resumé: he’s worked with Jean-Luc Ponty, Frank Zappa, and George Clinton, and he did a few albums with jazz guitarist Stanley Clarke among countless other keyboard sessions with various artists.

Duke Jupiter
“I’ll Drink to You” — 1982, #58 (download)
“Little Lady” — 1984, #68 (download)

Why do I feel it’s been a while since we’ve had a really decent rock song in this series? Both of these could fit the bill since Duke Jupiter has a classic ZZ Top feel that’s helped along by “Little Lady,” which is about a girl and a car. The video didn’t hurt that notion one bit either. (It seemed to teach you how to handle tricky curves while drunk.) “Little Lady” is from Duke Jupiter’s album White Knuckle Ride, which has the distinction of being the first release on Morocco Records, the short-lived rock imprint of Motown.

Robbie Dupree
“Brooklyn Girls” — 1981, #54 (download)

I’ve heard on multiple occasions how Robbie Dupree’s style was a complete rip-off of the Michael McDonald-era Doobie Brothers. There are definite similarities, but Dupree handles himself well enough that he’s really a compliment to the Doobies’ sound. His first two records yielded three Hot 100 hits, but he didn’t make another album until 1989. The most startling piece of trivia about Robbie Dupree is that the WWF tag team Strike Force used his song “Girls in Cars” as their entrance music. Robbie Dupree isn’t the first person who’d come to mind if I wanted to commission a good song for wrestlers entering the ring.

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This year’s newest music festival, the New American Music Union, takes place in Pittsburgh on August 8th and 9th — and Popdose has two tickets up for grabs!

Created by Red Hot Chili Peppers frontman Anthony Kiedis and hosted by American Eagle Outfitters, New American Music Union will feature Bob Dylan & His Band, the Raconteurs, Gnarls Barkley, the Black Keys, the Roots, Spoon, and others (but not Red Hot Chili Peppers, oddly enough). Stage Two will feature 15 college bands, competing for the chance to win a recording session in LA. The whole shindig takes place in Pittsburgh’s South Side Works.

Who wouldn’t jump at the chance to see Dylan, Cee-Lo, and ?uestlove on the same stage? We thought so. So here’s your chance to win two tickets to the festival — just answer this simple trivia challenge, devised by Popdose’s own Ken Shane …

Connect Bob Dylan to Sitka, Alaska.

First person to leave the correct answer (or a correct answer) in the comments wins the tickets! Please note that this concert is only for the tickets themselves; you’re on your own for transportation and lodging.

Good luck! And check out more information on the festival here!

Bob Dylan - “Like a Rolling Stone”

Robert: Rolling Stone magazine named Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone” (1965) the greatest song of all time in 2004. It certainly contains the best Rolling Stone product placement of all time — it predates the magazine’s existence, making it a truly impressive example of forward-thinking marketing — but is it really the best song ever? For the purposes of this edition of Song-Off, you bet your ass it is! Some say this immaculate kiss-off to a privileged bohemian girl who wants to be a starving artist (but without all that icky starvation) was blown in the direction of Edie Sedgwick or Joan Baez. But others say it’s Dylan turning his poison pen on himself, that he’s the one “with no direction home” after embracing electric guitars and alienating his folk-music fans. But as he says in the song, “When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose.” Dylan goes for broke in “Like a Rolling Stone” and comes up with a song for the ages.

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Some people are just flat-out smart-asses.

It’s not necessarily a bad thing to be at times, mind you, but a good smart-ass pulls it off with a modicum of grace and might give you a chuckle for it. In the music world, there are relatively few of the latter. Instead of a wink and a nod, they just about knock you unconscious and then ask if “you saw that.” You can tell one from the other by their choices in the realm of cover songs.

A word of note to anyone who is not a music nerd accidentally finding themselves at this site: a cover song is when an artist records another artist’s song, hence covering it. The term ‘remake’ fits as well. The term ’smart-ass’, at least relative to this article, refers to those who decide to go all hipster and record something that bears no relevance, charm or wit toward their own sensibility. I’m thinking of Madonna’s cover of “American Pie” or that godawful A Perfect Circle CD where the songs weren’t just reworked, they were worked over, until all that was left was roadkill disguised as tribute. Then there’s the Bluegrass Tribute to Pink Floyd’s The Wall. More notoriously, I’m thinking of the late-’50s pop songs from black artists covered by teen idol white artists because, you know, if it comes from a white guy in a sweater, the subtext can’t be about sex. Right? Pat Boone? Tutti Frutti?

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