dennis yang dot com

The Whitehouse has an official flickr stream that has some pretty awesome photos from Obama’s first 100 days..

One of the best photos (as pointed out by @acardwell) is this one:

Official White House Photo by Pete Souza

And I’m particularly proud of myself for my “they’re looking for change” comment on it. hehe.

I’m such a nerd.

Apparently, there’s another Dennis Yang running around, and he’s on “the rich list” in China.  Check it out:

Nina Simone’s jazz singer daughter is coming to New Zealand. Lisa Simone Kelly, left, is Ghanaian royalty and also a philanthropist she set up a charity in her mother’s name to help communities living in poverty. Now she has agreed to support a new one, Art For Love, and she will sing at the launch evening in April. One of China’s Rich Listers, Dennis Yang, who is now a Kiwi, is behind the charity, which aims to sell the works of China’s foremost contemporary artists to raise money for various charities around the world. Auckland is the first stop and from here Art For Love will go to Sydney, Monaco and San Francisco. Each event will be different but this inaugural gala night will see Simone singing her own music plus one or two Nina Simone songs that have never been released.

So that charity thing is coming here to San Francisco — maybe I’ll go check it out.  I’m always interested in seeing what the other Dennis Yangs in the world are up to (and actually, I really wonder if they’ve ever googled themselves and gotten me).  None have ever contacted me like the Mike Hos of the world.  Nor has This American Life made a documentary about “Dennis Yang” like they did for “John Smith.”

Hmm.. this gives me an idea…

Hey Dennis Yangs of the world, let me know how you’re doing!  I can offer you an official dennisyang.com email address!!  Ie.. Mr. Rich List guy: you can be iamtherich @ dennisyang.com — Professor dude: you can be professor @ dennisyang.com and etc etc etc..

So, I’m listening to my good ol’ iTunes DJ (dutifully renamed from “Party Shuffle” for some reason) and “Earth Angel, by Weezer” comes on…

I’m not sure where (ahem) I got this song from, but it got me wondering.. damn, this is a good song, but is that really Rivers singing?  I mean, the album listed in the ID3 tags is “Rare,” but I’m not able to actually find any reference to this recording anywhere..  Well, imeem has a copy, but that just means that this person got it from the same place I did..

Weezer – Earth Angel (Platters cover) – Punk Ska Covers

And.. that one is even worse.. I mean, Earth Angel is NOT a Platters song (it’s originally by the Penguins), and that song is definitely not Punk Ska.

So.. I dig a little deeper.

A search on YouTube turns up this same version of the song, now attributed to the Temptations:

Uh.. ok.  This is clearly not the Temptations..

Seeqpod?  They think that this version is sung by The Temptations and Buddy Holly.

So, I ask shazam, on my iPhone — that has to be a good way, right?  

Shazam identifies this song as Earth Angel, by Bones Howe, from the Back to the Future Soundtrack.  Aha!  That’s a little better.  And that’s why this version sounds so familiar, right?

But.. who the F is Bones Howe?  Voila, thanks Wikipedia, he was the music supervisor for Back to the Future.  Ok, that makes sense, but I don’t think he actually sang the song did he?

More digging lands me at the Amazon page for the soundtrack, where the song is listed as “Earth Angel – Marvin Berry.”  Uh, great.  Marvin Berry, of course, was the fictional character from the movie (he was supposedly Chuck Berry’s cousin).  I mean Marvin Berry & the Starlighters may have a mySpace page and all, but considering that they describe themselves as “a swing band in Hill Valley, California” it’s clear that they’re more fictional than real.

Ugh.. so yah, I still don’t know who actually sang this track, since according to the internet, it was sang by Weezer, The Temptations, Buddy Holly, Bones Howe, or Marvin Berry.

Yah, if it’s on the internet it must be true.