Motel
A motel is a hotel designed for motorists and usually has a parking area for motor vehicles. Entering dictionaries after World War II, the word motel, coined as a portmanteau contraction of "motor hotel", originates from the Milestone Mo-Tel of San Luis Obispo, California (now called the Motel Inn of San Luis Obispo), which was built in 1925. The term referred initially to a type of hotel consisting of a single building of connected rooms whose doors faced a parking lot and in some circumstances, a common area or a series of small cabins with common parking. Motels are often individually owned, though motel chains do exist.
As large highway systems began to be developed in the 1920s, long-distance road journeys became more common, and the need for inexpensive, easily accessible overnight accommodation sites close to the main routes led to the growth of the motel concept. Motels peaked in popularity in the 1960s with rising car travel, only to decline in response to competition from the newer chain hotels that became commonplace at highway interchanges as traffic was bypassed onto newly constructed freeways. Several historic motels are listed on the US National Register of Historic Places.
Motels (album)
Motels is the first studio album by new wave band The Motels, recorded in the spring of 1979 and released in the fall. It was produced by John Carter. It peaked at #175 on Billboard's album chart in December.
The first single, "Closets and Bullets", did not chart anywhere, but the second single, "Total Control", became a Top 10 hit in Australia and went Top 20 in France. (It 'Bubbled Under' at #109 in Billboard in the US.) A third single, "Anticipating", was released in Japan in early 1980 but failed to chart. The album was certified Gold in Australia in 1980.
Track listing
Singles
"Closets and Bullets" (Capitol Records 4167) Released: 15 Sept 1979
"Total Control" (Capitol Records 4796) Released: 05 Nov 1979 Charts: Australia #7 / New Zealand #11 / US #109 / France #19
"Anticipating" (Capitol Records ECR-20651) Released: 21 Jan 1980 (Japan only)
200 Motels
200 Motels is a 1971 American-British musical surrealist film cowritten and directed by Frank Zappa and Tony Palmer and starring The Mothers of Invention, Theodore Bikel and Ringo Starr. A soundtrack album was released in the same year, with a slightly different selection of music. In 2009, 200 Motels was restored with an audio commentary by Tony Palmer and is currently available on an England-sourced for-retail DVD.
Plot
In 200 Motels, the film attempts to portray the craziness of life on the road as a rock musician, and as such consists of a series of unconnected nonsense vignettes interspersed with concert footage of the Mothers of Invention. Ostensibly, while on tour The Mothers of Invention go crazy in the small fictional town of Centerville ("a real nice place to raise your kids up"), wander around, and get beaten up in "Redneck Eats", a cowboy bar. In a long cartoon interlude bassist "Jeff", tired of playing what he refers to as "Zappa's comedy music", is persuaded by his bad conscience to quit the group, as did his real-life counterpart Jeff Simmons, who was fired for insubordination before the film began shooting. Simmons was replaced by Martin Lickert (who was Ringo's chauffeur) for the film. Almost every scene is drenched with video special effects (double and triple exposures, solarisation, false color, speed changes, etc.) which were innovative in 1971. The film has been dubbed a "surrealistic documentary".
Podcasts:
The Motels
ALBUMS
- Motels / Careful released: 2010
- All Four One / Little Robbers released: 2009
- This released: 2008
- Clean Modern and Reasonable released: 2007
- Essential Collection released: 2005
- Classic Masters released: 2002
- Anthologyland released: 2000
- All Four One released: 1996
- No Vacancy: The Best of the Motels released: 1990
- Shock released: 1985
- Little Robbers released: 1983
- BBC Rock Hour released: 1980
- Careful released: 1980
- The Motels released: 1979
Anthologyland
Released 2000- Every Day Star (demo)
- Route 66 (live)
- Boys (outtake)
- Total Control (live)
- The Big Hurt (live)
- Celia (live)
- Counting (live)
- Amigo (outtake)
- Careful (alternate take)
- Danger (alternate take)
- Slow Town
- Lost But Not Forgotten (outtake)
- Only the Lonely (alternate/early version)
- Mission of Mercy (live)
- Some Things Never Change (demo)
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Kix
by: MotelsDowntown in the apartment
Where mama lives
Downtown all the big cars
In the fancy garage
Downtown baby he's so smooth
He's really smart
Downtown all the young girls
With all their broken hearts
Now he goes to the store to buy some more kicks
Then he goes downtown to try some on tricks
Kicks
What the hell you do
With these kicks today
Kicks
What the hell you do
With these kicks today
Kicks
He's got all the kicks that he wants
Kicks
He's got all the kicks that he needs
Kicks
He's got all the kicks he can use
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