tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-82475590636652189162024-03-06T18:36:06.479-08:00Jelly Roll for the EarholePassionate messages from a music evangelist's lifetime of listening (and some playing).Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger323125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8247559063665218916.post-11255550824493219312022-02-26T12:09:00.011-08:002022-03-23T07:48:38.900-07:00Mancini the Melodist: Why Charade Slayed<p><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></p><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; font-style: normal;"></p></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><div style="text-align: left;"><i><span style="font-family: georgia;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgapQ-uorl0VkzIZlWvVc8f86qZWPprQ7wxkjCJRkQf1vgWjVC2fkk2FXIUpdR_VGQeWheg-Q6rge0Ya67EtlqF98oRmg4I8hu8s0ivrH3eeJ776qLoXgQWA_0kavuf3eQZzLBV4_r8lFKSmgdJYwRl2NGrb9xhoUH3P6raS6dXAUzoGnx1ih5bGMhn=s630" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="630" data-original-width="630" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgapQ-uorl0VkzIZlWvVc8f86qZWPprQ7wxkjCJRkQf1vgWjVC2fkk2FXIUpdR_VGQeWheg-Q6rge0Ya67EtlqF98oRmg4I8hu8s0ivrH3eeJ776qLoXgQWA_0kavuf3eQZzLBV4_r8lFKSmgdJYwRl2NGrb9xhoUH3P6raS6dXAUzoGnx1ih5bGMhn=s320" width="320" /></a></div>Melodist: A composer/songwriter known for writing great melodies.</span></i></div></span></span></div><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Henry Mancini</b>, <b style="font-style: italic;">Charade </b>(1963): Someone once described the greatness necessary for winning a pro golf tournament as something within the reach of a rarified group of extraordinary players. Some may have a moment when they're able to transcend limitations, anxieties, etc., and do the unlikely. But the circle of greatness is far smaller for those that can do it again and again. Same with music: The Beatles are used often as exemplars of the pinnacle of extraordinariness. But considering the history of pop music, they were many progenitors of serial slaying – Richard Rogers, Scott Joplin, George Gershwin, Brian and Eddie Dozier, Duke Ellington, John Barry, Michael Stoller (of Lieber & Stoller), Stevie Wonder, Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff, Carole King, Brian Wilson, and somewhere near the heap’s top: </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Mr. Versatile, Henry Mancini.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">But unlike most of the above, he was exclusively a composer of soundtrack music. The demands on his compositional and color range were far greater than any of those other nine-to-fivers. Compare <i><a href="https://youtu.be/b1z4JfxFb6c" target="_blank">Baby Elephant Walk</a></i>, <i><a href="https://youtu.be/MIKSQT-oXfc" target="_blank">Peter Gunn</a></i>, <i><a href="https://youtu.be/vJgGs9WpGt0" target="_blank">Moon River</a></i>, <i><a href="https://youtu.be/Jjq0WDvapow" target="_blank">Shot in the Dark</a></i>, <i><a href="https://youtu.be/jBupII3LH_Q" target="_blank">The Pink Panther</a></i>, or <i><a href="https://youtu.be/RmHkaCAt9vM" target="_blank">The Days of Wine and Roses</a></i>. Also, no small accomplishment, he may’ve co-invented the spy genre with Monty Norman (the <i>James Bond Theme</i>) and John Barry (<i>Goldfinger</i>, <i>Thunderball</i>, <i>Diamonds Are Forever</i>, etc.). And while Henry was no rocker, rock and roll without Peter Gunn would be too awful to imagine.</span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj1O-LP38QnB35uYPrpgP87Q3ul3fr25ZHhLdDR7tGSWFers_KLIUd0_P1nth5oURp7kfPRpgvXpJuIFuo2UoOio7i32PZH8SESZlA8CfkmI-8aJ0VRW78rjJEftXY4JF-hfjAdLDPG-urBzEBTAJPAbIwHN7Q1qMxinKExAoJz5MLoph7OWZsKM71_=s600" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="393" data-original-width="600" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj1O-LP38QnB35uYPrpgP87Q3ul3fr25ZHhLdDR7tGSWFers_KLIUd0_P1nth5oURp7kfPRpgvXpJuIFuo2UoOio7i32PZH8SESZlA8CfkmI-8aJ0VRW78rjJEftXY4JF-hfjAdLDPG-urBzEBTAJPAbIwHN7Q1qMxinKExAoJz5MLoph7OWZsKM71_=s16000" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The maestro getting to the chorus</td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">And this: a suite from the 1967 suspense film, </span><i style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-bi8YyVZIo" target="_blank">Wait Until Dark</a></i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> – a phantasmagoric outline of insanity. The detuned piano is transcendently horrifying.</span></div><p></p><p><span style="color: #b45f06; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">As to why Charade slayed</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>That</i> melody: It's been argued that music <i>is</i> melody, way on top in a hierarchy including rhythm, harmony, timbre, and form: Music is the emulsion and melody are the flavor bits that separate, say, the dull greasy saltiness of canned gravy from the sensual orgy of a Bernaise. It's also something humans have a knack for recognizing beginning at birth. Melodies connect with us emotionally, like a virus to some cellular receptor. The best of them fit instantly. And that some melodies will connect profoundly to millions while others don’t is the mysterious voodoo that is music.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Mancini was a master at understanding the colors of the emotional spectrum and how they converted into manipulative sounds. The <a href="http://www.mindbodyheartandsoul.org/video/melody-and-how-music-works/" target="_blank">pointy heads describe it</a> thusly:</span></p><blockquote><p><i><span style="font-family: georgia;">Different types of melodies also help to convey different emotions, for example chromatic melodies or melodies belonging to a minor scale...the emotions of melodies mirror the emotions of speech. Just as sad people tend to talk in a monotone, sad music tends to move in very small intervals within a narrow range. In contrast happy people talk within a greater tonal range, and happy music follows this pattern using larger intervals over a wider range.</span></i></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Charade from four angles:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">1) <i>Charade</i> elevated on the ridiculously smooth bordelaise that is Johnny Hartman’s voice.<br />2) The master’s original from the film it was written for.<br />3) A loungey, <i>fake</i> jazz version from the cool 90s San Francisco outfit, Oranj Symphonette – their roster included Dave Brubeck’s son Matt and P.J. Harvey alum Joe Gore, to whom we owe the ingenious guitar riff.<br />4) My Canadian crush, Holly Cole: breathy and mature, satin and gloves to the elbow, knowing and still cute.<br /><br /><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/AoVplYV8-e8" width="560"></iframe><br /><br /><iframe frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/3Ptu0A_8WQs" width="480"></iframe><br /><br /><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/6sxZBoiaS3s" width="560"></iframe><br /><br /><iframe frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://youtube.com/embed/q0gw44syfN0" width="480"></iframe></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8247559063665218916.post-59696077320812333222022-01-29T14:24:00.004-08:002022-02-28T23:05:12.429-08:00Music That Matters, Pt 28<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKly0JyPFTJi27JJQrfoecxLvIk91Ry6GNzip06IcyeFFFMl1YzCCgCqQ5FLWCEC-dYTTUJZJb2Nc6D3IEV7Sv9szqub8G7atvjgFeDZjbkbCWDaaJS8a5aB3zGpoYKKTDV7-cP_jboBY/s1600/SM_Cover.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><img border="0" data-original-height="885" data-original-width="375" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKly0JyPFTJi27JJQrfoecxLvIk91Ry6GNzip06IcyeFFFMl1YzCCgCqQ5FLWCEC-dYTTUJZJb2Nc6D3IEV7Sv9szqub8G7atvjgFeDZjbkbCWDaaJS8a5aB3zGpoYKKTDV7-cP_jboBY/s640/SM_Cover.png" width="270" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;">274) <b>Garbage</b>, <b style="font-style: italic;">Garbage </b>(1995): From the rough coupling of a nascent Pro Tools and a blossoming remix culture came this beautiful bastard, Garbage. If you were alive in the 90s, you might remember a culture besotted and remade with software tech – music, graphics, video, design, etc. – and Garbage was one of the more visible parts of that steaming heap. The band’s scaffolding would form from a meeting of a sound engineer and two musicians who’d migrated into producing. Based in Madison WI, these three nerds appealed to a singer a world away (Scottland) after they’d seen her on MTV’s 120 Minutes ca. 1994. At the time, Shirley Manson was showcasing with the local band Angelfish. To this stateside squad of knob-twirlers and mouse-jockeys, she represented a fresh departure from the grunge that was both the trend and their bread and butter as producers. She had the darker quality they were seeking – not Riot Grrl nor Lilith Fair – and had none of the “chirpy or light” vocal sound they wanted very much to avoid. What they got was a tone as cold and gray as the fall North Atlantic sky.<br />
<br />In among all of the classic rock retreads of grunge that was raging at the time, Garbage seemed like a breath of brisk air and they hit immediately. It helped they debuted with a trove of radio-friendly ware. And despite the overly unctuous hunger for the slicing and dicing of ProTools, these production veterans – unlike many of their studio tanned peers – discovered more of its potential: Note the guitar break on <i>Only Happy When It Rains</i>. </span><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Also interesting to note that Manson had never written a song before joining up. Clearly, she was a natural.<br />
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<br />275) <b>XTC</b>, <b style="font-style: italic;">Travels in Nihilon </b>(1980): Harder and longer than just about anything else in their extensive catalog, this song nearly strays into jam band territory. Composer and singer Andy Partridge often reveals himself as a passion advocate in the singing of his songs, but here he’s shown in rare power. The guitars worm in and out of power chords, funky riffing and the droning provides muscle to the tension. <i>Nihilon</i> adds another facet to the already well cut and polished jewel that was XTC.</span><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="305" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/I6y3RQEPkpQ" width="495" youtube-src-id="I6y3RQEPkpQ"></iframe></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">276) <b>The Decemberists</b>, <b style="font-style: italic;">The Wanting Comes in Waves (Repaid) </b>(2009): The Decemberists had already proven themselves able modern advocates for the legacy of murder ballads. Songwriter Colin Meloy’s blend of gothic folk, Grand Guignol pathos, and crunchy guitars is given a rocket burst with the muscly guest vocal of My Brightest Diamond’s Shara Nova. Altogether, the mix enforces this <i>Repaid</i> like a loan shark’s debt. Nova’s final breath of <i>repaid</i> at the close pushes the song into an entirely other dimension. This song demands to played on a loop.<br />
<br /><iframe frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5--ZQMmkkV0" width="480"></iframe><br /><br />277) <b>Thin White Rope</b>, <i><b>On the Floe</b></i> (1990): Rootsy faux Nashville riffs and a hard trucker groove matched with a gravelly voice that’s worn like an 80-year-old long shoreman’s tattoo. It all begins with filigreed delicacy and transitions into a full bats-on-oil-drums groove when the chorus kicks it up. The final out-chorus organ sweeps add a deathly ethereality as the song disappears into a cold horizon. </span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">If you don't know, a floe is a sheet of floating ice. In this, broken-hearted losers left to wither on a floe like elderly Inuits of legend going to meet their gods. (And it’s not <a href="https://www.straightdope.com/21343302/did-eskimos-put-their-elderly-on-ice-floes-to-die" target="_blank">entirely legend</a>.) In the barfly version, the ice floats in a double bourbon with a Budweiser back.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i><div></div></i></span></div><blockquote><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i><div>There is a song so hard to steer</div><div>I thought it would capsize in bitterness and fear</div><div>I look to the sky when I'm tired of the sea</div><div>Constellations are moving, they're useless to me</div><div><br /></div><div>And it seems we've been stranded on the floe</div><div>Watching distant shorelines as we go</div></i></span></div><div></div></blockquote><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><iframe frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://youtube.com/embed/yHkB9Dge5kA" style="background-image: url(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/yHkB9Dge5kA/hqdefault.jpg);" width="480"></iframe></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">278) <b>Peeping Tom</b> (featuring Mike Patton & Massive Attack), <b style="font-style: italic;">Kill the DJ </b>(2006): It’s the opinion of the team at Jelly Roll that Mike Patton has collaborated on more vitally interesting work than just about anybody over the last 35 years. His deep résumé combines both the avant garde (Mr. Bungle, John Zorn, Fred Frith) and the more mainstream-ish (Faith No More, Björk, Fantômas) and Peeping Tom fits somewhere to the right of middle. The album was a one-time project taking six years to create and Wiki says this about it: [...<i>Peeping Tom</i>]</span><i style="font-family: georgia;">...is a tribute to Michael Powell's 1960 film Peeping Tom. The album was created by swapping song files through the mail with collaborators such as Norah Jones, Kool Keith, and Massive Attack, among others.</i></div><div><i style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></i></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">This joint’s got more than enough mood for the darkest game soundtrack, dynamics enough for serious head bang on a movie chase scene, and spunk enough to shake dance floor bound asses —a total package.</span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">
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<br />279) <b>Pointer Sisters</b>, <i style="font-weight: bold;">Going Down Slowly </i>(1975): For those not alive at the time, The Pointer Sisters would become <a href="https://youtu.be/8iwBM_YB1sE">mega-sellers in the 80s</a> (13 Top 20 sellers). By that time they’d mostly wiped clean most of their early soul-shouting edge to improve their market prospects, though stains of the church remained. Some of their early vocal rave ups – <i><a href="https://youtu.be/FVxv6AFt7YM" target="_blank">Yes We Can Can</a></i>, </span><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://youtu.be/1gaT59Jf2HA" target="_blank"><i>How Long</i> </a><i><a href="https://youtu.be/1gaT59Jf2HA" target="_blank">(Betcha’ Got a Chick on the Side)</a> </i></span><span style="font-family: georgia;">– are now classic including this Allen Toussaint roundalay. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">In this singing family slugfest, they brought the brass knuckles. I can’t think of another vocal group, family or otherwise, that ever went this hard and long.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">
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<br />280) <b>Bulgarian State Television Female Choir</b>,<b> </b><i style="font-weight: bold;">Kalimankou Denkou (The Evening Gathering) </i>(1990): Sometimes, cultures across seas and continents can discover joy in similar sounds. Strains of Middle Eastern, East Asian, and some Celtic sounds seem to have been birthed from a similar umbilical cord, united across time and space. I find the strains here remind me of North American indigenous chants. There’s also a soul-scraping quality that communicates beyond language, it’s more like the code of experience—not a word but a sound in a voice, an emotional salt. Language may be superfluous to the ancient vibe they’re elevating here. Just under three minutes in you can even hear some Westside Story dance choruses. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">And yet it’s also completely it’s own thing, which the best music, not matter where or when, always is.<br />
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<br />281) <b>Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band</b>, <i><b>Bat Chain Puller</b></i> (1978): This is a sound found nowhere else on the planet: Nightmare rhythms of lurching mummies and the anthraxed footfalls of death-spiraling animals mixed with nursery rhyme bursts of melody, the blues, the anxious vibe of horror movies, souls leaping from bodies, and all capped with the voice of Howling Wolf intermittantly having psychotic episodes and an announcer reading ad copy. Not a bad way to spend 5 minutes and 27 seconds on a sleepless pre-dawn Saturday morning.<br />
<br />From the French Chorus television show ca. 1980:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />
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<br />282) <b>Tanya Tagaq</b>, <b><i>Aorta</i></b> (2016): To distill the pain and trauma of a people in song, you can do no better than Tagaq. Her voice is a bleeding flag to be planted into the center of our skull.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><iframe frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/SGNpz5tFUEE" width="480"></iframe> <br />
<br />283) <b>The Fall</b>, <i><b>Theme from Sparta F.C.</b></i> (2003): </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">Screams that siphon the flames of every trauma you’ve endured, words twisted to become brilliant effigies of every revulsion and rage that was visited upon you – those would both be wonderful ways of squeezing raw emotion into the kinetic earspace and many of the songs I’ve enthused about here in <i>Music That Matters</i> over the years. But there’s something extraordinary about Mark E. Smith’s utter disdain for melody and the acid-drenched spew of his upper-class insolence (whether he was ever upper class, I don’t know, but he’s got the arrogant disdain down like a pedophile princeling) delivered whenever that voice is paired with whatever version of The Fall is behind him. The revolving door of Fall bandmembers must be like the staff of a fast food franchise. (The working conditions must be insufferable.) Too bad for those itinerant kids. For us, <i>Sparta FC</i> is the dividend of their pain and discomfort.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">
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<b><span style="color: red;">Bonus!</span></b> <b>George Clinton</b>, <i><b>Bullet Proof</b></i> (1985): Here, Clinton captures some of the jagged juice missing from P-Funk in the late 70s-80s. Forget about the sound’s datedness, the passé synths, the MIDI beat. When it’s alloyed with such an impervious melody, vocal interplay, and hard energy riveted to gated drum thunder like this, it’s a joint as sharp and timeless as anything on this list. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><iframe frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://youtube.com/embed/i8kBk8XxOIg" style="background-image: url(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/i8kBk8XxOIg/hqdefault.jpg);" width="480"></iframe><br /></span>
<br /></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8247559063665218916.post-7687326916171132252022-01-22T12:23:00.040-08:002022-02-28T23:11:07.504-08:00Rush Revulsion:<div style="text-align: left;"><h2 style="text-align: left;"><span><span style="color: #ffa400; font-family: helvetica; font-weight: normal;">A Love for Hating On a Profit-Gulping Dinosaur</span></span></h2><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span><b>I hate Rush</b>—</span>irrationally, hallucinogenically, and with utter malice. Hate is not what this blog does: this will be the one exception.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">I’m not alone:</span></div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(71, 71, 71);"><a href="https://www.salon.com/2013/08/06/rush_how_i_learned_to_forgive_and_even_like_the_most_hated_band_of_all_time/" target="_blank">This often-cited article</a> calls Rush the </span><i style="caret-color: rgb(71, 71, 71);">Most Hated Band of All Time. </i><span style="caret-color: rgb(71, 71, 71);">This claim, while entirely agreeable, is unsubstantiated</span><span style="caret-color: rgb(71, 71, 71);">.</span></span></li><li><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://www.iheartradio.ca/chom/music-news/online-data-reveals-most-hated-rock-bands-of-all-time-1.14607541" style="caret-color: rgb(71, 71, 71);" target="_blank">iHeartRADIO</a>, <span style="caret-color: rgb(71, 71, 71);">substantiates their claim with </span><i style="caret-color: rgb(71, 71, 71);">compiled data and algorithms – </i><span style="caret-color: rgb(71, 71, 71);">Science!</span><i style="caret-color: rgb(71, 71, 71);"> –</i><span style="caret-color: rgb(71, 71, 71);"> ranking Rush a modest 18th on a list of the 21 </span><i style="caret-color: rgb(71, 71, 71);">Most Hated Rock Bands of All Time</i><span style="caret-color: rgb(71, 71, 71);">.</span></span></li><li><span style="caret-color: rgb(71, 71, 71); font-family: georgia;">The <a href="https://www.laweekly.com/top-20-worst-bands-of-all-time-the-complete-list/" target="_blank">LA Weekly</a> put them at #9, calling them <i>the anchovies of rock music</i>. </span></li><li><span style="caret-color: rgb(71, 71, 71); font-family: georgia;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Rolling Stone </span><a href="https://buffalonews.com/news/why-do-so-many-rock-critics-hate-rush/article_9a5898dc-32ed-59bb-88af-3b3eca01fe7a.html" target="_blank">Senior Editor David Wild</a><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">: “Regardless of their success, Rush has never achieved critical acclaim... most of it gives me a headache...Rush really hasn’t done anything unique.”</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" /></span></li><li><span style="caret-color: rgb(71, 71, 71); font-family: georgia;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Brian Cogan, PhD., author, professor, media consultant, pop culture expert, and <i>Rush hater</i> consulted for the <i><a href="https://linktr.ee/convinceMeToLikeThisBand">Convince Me to Like This Band</a></i> podcast: “Rush are overrated and pretentious hacks who, with Neil Peart’s lyrics, have provided reckless creedence to offensive political ideologies.” </span></span></li><li><span style="caret-color: rgb(71, 71, 71); font-family: georgia;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">In 2007, <a href="https://ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com/16643617.html" target="_blank">Blender Magazine’s Worst Lyricists in Rock</a> named Neil Peart #2. (He was robbed.) As one blogger avered on Peart: <i>An ace on the rototoms, a train wreck on the typewriter.</i></span></span></li><li><span style="caret-color: rgb(71, 71, 71); font-family: georgia;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Spin Magazine: <i><a href="https://www.spin.com/2019/02/travis-scott-rush-t-shirt-not-cool/" target="_blank">Rush isn’t cool</a></i>.</span></span></li></ul></div><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjmCRZ1pmexccpJHl_1KtQrnzeTP1ny9BhCiyGRHaefJUVWpbtVWrL61aIXx2tTkJBndUUEAS15QyP9I10l6UKBGwF-29GSr8J9FoYeUvFWMjYOHlQoGptScuJRyP2aY0ak7wNntBZNZp1V66_iUYzgOQ9uvo3pJWPAqAPDKlJ0eUklEYjclExJQ4RL=s3840" style="clear: left; display: inline; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"></a></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEij_pAh7PG-Jqvzod4saFDjuzBSkKg5b5cLsMnn16EGsfA-5W4srpdf2VOl6dgajrMoYyctNtv9dEiR7NKFlqGp741apmFm3aq-c8R0gmUaThdnFL__h6qsjH-5iQV9lkUQ9ymmL93xU2qlbMBA7vsUzTsnyuPXGiUWCJDba2nTQdAq-DSOMOlZpVxf=s576" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><img border="0" data-original-height="324" data-original-width="576" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEij_pAh7PG-Jqvzod4saFDjuzBSkKg5b5cLsMnn16EGsfA-5W4srpdf2VOl6dgajrMoYyctNtv9dEiR7NKFlqGp741apmFm3aq-c8R0gmUaThdnFL__h6qsjH-5iQV9lkUQ9ymmL93xU2qlbMBA7vsUzTsnyuPXGiUWCJDba2nTQdAq-DSOMOlZpVxf=s16000" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /><br /></span><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">And yet, <b>Rush has cultishly devoted fans</b> – though, the band’s fanbase scaled past cult status back in the Carter administration. They’re rabid, hypertrophic, and raging with album-cover-tattoos levels of psychosis. See r/Rush Reddit and the forums and marvel at how fans pour over song minutiae with an OCD perseveration as if they were Dead Sea Scrolls. It’s fandom at a blazingly insurrectionist level of alarming.</span></div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjthM_QulT_Vpgte4pGtNNz1Ic67zbfGixAmoBw6iC3VCWlLnDmspRb2xUdx509W5-vRW8wR5CakEeDUFu0aJ1fjSpAiErmnRAJNzMtimlJ9xo42_uujIEBKILKK9FE242r-Djfsc_nKO8KOzX7Hs_fas8_iT0EyJWY_l6s6vayaZSHXshUuG4kgl32=s3263" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3263" data-original-width="2400" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjthM_QulT_Vpgte4pGtNNz1Ic67zbfGixAmoBw6iC3VCWlLnDmspRb2xUdx509W5-vRW8wR5CakEeDUFu0aJ1fjSpAiErmnRAJNzMtimlJ9xo42_uujIEBKILKK9FE242r-Djfsc_nKO8KOzX7Hs_fas8_iT0EyJWY_l6s6vayaZSHXshUuG4kgl32=s320" width="235" /></a></div></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">And their fans have only bred like flies: <a href="https://www.blogger.com/u/0/#"><b>Rush is ranked third for most consecutive gold- and platinum-selling albums in rock history</b></a> (<a href="https://www.askmen.com/entertainment/special_feature_250/276b_5-things-you-didnt-know-rush.html" target="_blank">askmen.com</a> claims they come in fourth)—behind only The Rolling Stones and The Beatles. This devouring public can’t all be incels.<br /><br /><b>About those incels: The trope is that women hate Rush too.</b> Women have never been big consumers of Prog—not even in this homeopathic, middle school, technophobic version of dystopian sci-fi. Rush concerts were famous as gyno-deserts. (This <a href="https://www.salon.com/2015/06/17/im_a_woman_and_i_love_rush_and_i_am_not_alone/" target="_blank">Salon article disagrees</a>.) But to be fair, near-desert conditions: these audience photos show that there are at least two women <a href="https://www.cygnus-x1.net/links/rush/images/concerts/rush-stpaul-05.12.2015/41.jpg" target="_blank">here</a>, and a couple more <a href="https://www.cygnus-x1.net/links/rush/images/peart-nws/06-01-2011-16.jpg" target="_blank">here</a>.<br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Many have argued that Lee’s voice is the problem.</b> The most often reason cited for Rushophobia. Geddy’s refusal to rein it in was an act of defiance and, maybe, for that he deserves some props. Also t</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">o his credit, when Rush began, no one sounded remotely like Geddy </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">(nee Gary Lee Weinrub)</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">—except maybe </span><a href="https://youtu.be/zcSlcNfThUA" style="font-family: georgia;" target="_blank">Tiny Tim</a><span style="font-family: georgia;">. After the rise of Rush, the world would be lousy with Geddy Lee-type squealers—Bruce Dickinson, Sebastian Bach, Justin Hawkins, Vince Neil, etc. In the beginning, Rush was a Canadian bar band version of Dreadful Zeppelin, without the testosterone. But by album #2, Rush knew the hard bar band sound wasn’t going to serve their arena-sized ambitions. For them, the smell of napalm in the morning was the legitimacy of Prog Rock, and they threw in with the tropes of the time. Then, Prog was already rife with Tolkeinisms and anachronistic fantasy. Rush wasn’t the only band to plod through musical suites that clocked in longer than heart-transplant surgery. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><img border="0" data-original-height="397" data-original-width="576" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhZ3rB3WZHOnxoDw9P3oZfgHmAlJvWH1lgo-CdCrnUeq9vMvTar1mo3h4iHH50nbvSU7h9QFcl7iZAKFiHKno78363ybH0Yt7TCUOT-57vpAV68nFhLLSp8mmUyoqTb31uneYosAk8ZDsP0DMnyZgdJ-aHaXXG79Q1KqkcJEcmBBUINNNhzxMHeXkYY=s16000" /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span><b>Back to those vocals:</b> Lee’s sphincter-clenching caterwaul was Rush’s most distinguishing feature—like an incel car alarm receiving a surprise prostate exam. Other, even less charitable descriptions: </span></span></div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">S</span><i style="font-family: georgia;">oprano-ish banshee wail</i></li><li><i style="font-family: georgia;">Dog-calling falsetto shriek</i></li><li><i style="font-family: georgia;">A near-chipmunk bawl</i></li><li><span><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Cat being chased out a door with a blow-torch up its butt</i></span></span></li><li><i style="font-family: georgia;">Sounding less like a bird of prey than a castrato with a gerbil up his ass</i><span style="font-family: georgia;">. </span></li></ul></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">(The last two were a bit much, even for me. Mine was better.) </span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span>The second time I heard Rush, it was <i>2112 </i>(1976). <i>The Temple of Syrinx</i> (see below) was like a CIA renditioning technique. And those liner notes: </span><i>Dedicated to the genius Ayn Rand</i><span>.</span><span> (A claim even Peart would later find embarrassing.) Over the years, the band would be accused of being</span> rightwing propagandists.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span>Sample lyric: </span></span><i><span style="font-family: georgia;">I stand atop a spiral stair/</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">An oracle confronts me there/</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">He leads me on light years away/</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">Through astral nights, galactic days</span></i></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">(At least Peart shares Ayn Rand’s need for heartless editing.) </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">That’d be the last time I’d ever here Rush again—unforced anyway. Their creep into rock radio was, however, already tragically underway.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>I do get why suburban cracker boys worshipped them.</b> They looked like them – the boys left in the grass after the teams were chosen. Rush is The Revenge of the Nerds in band form. (They were famously not a great attractor of groupies.) Rush fanboys may be blinded by the band’s technical proficiency. And the haters, they say, will never understand music as deeply intellectual and arcane—like some kind of Masonic David Foster Wallace. Guitarist and drummer—Alex Lifeson (nee Zivojinovich) and Neil Elwood Peart, respectively, always wielded every chop at their disposal at every opportunity. If they were playing actual axes they could’ve deforested the Great White North long ago. Some of their mid-period work got rather fusiony (like <a href="https://youtu.be/LdpMpfp-J_I" target="_blank">YYZ</a>), and deftly so. I’ll give that to them: Props for platinum-selling an otherwise unpopular, esoteric, and meandering genre to the multitudes.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">The Fanboy zeal has allowed Peart to publish a load of books as a writer or co-writer, including seven of fiction. He even has an illustrated quote book. Despite his fan-reputation for “erudite” lyrics,</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> I submit </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Virtuality </i><span style="font-family: georgia;">(still milking the computer anxiety)</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">:</span></div><i><span style="font-family: georgia;"><div><i><br /></i></div></span></i><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Like a shipwrecked mariner adrift on an unknown sea</i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Clinging to the wreckage of the lost ship Fantasy</i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>I'm a castaway, stranded in a desolate land</i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>I can see the footprints in the virtual sand</i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Net boy, net girl</i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Send your signal 'round the world</i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Let your fingers walk and talk</i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>And set you free</i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Geddy would say: “Even I can barely make sense of our concept albums.”</span></div><div><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><iframe frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/m_6dkzL4VS4" width="480"></iframe></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>And then, the evolution of the Rush aesthetic:</b> 17 years after their debut album, Geddy Lee matured from his unctuous helium-registers and began to move, at last, into his adult period. While Rush were not Prog innovators, they did help ride its wave into the enormous profitability of Arena Soft-Prog (think Asia, Genesis, Supertramp, Moody Blues). </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><iframe frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://youtube.com/embed/YLTFbtOfmxk" style="background-image: url(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/YLTFbtOfmxk/hqdefault.jpg);" width="480"></iframe></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">With that, the band did something I would’ve thought impossible: they also became less hatable. They became shopping mall music: Whether they went to the mall or the mall came to them is hard to know. Though, until </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">the glorious day when </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Tom Sawyer</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> takes its</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">spin</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> on the world’s last Classic Rock station, the battle between the haters and the stans will rage on. </span></p></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8247559063665218916.post-85943052064716739042021-05-28T15:18:00.014-07:002022-03-19T13:38:13.212-07:00The Big Stink Over Lil Nas<h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #b45f06; font-family: georgia;">A Biblical Breakdown of MONTERO (Call Me By Your Name): </span></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #b45f06; font-family: georgia;">& Why Lil Nas X Is More Saint than Satanette</span></h3><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;"><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">What is blasphemy & did MONTERO commit it?</span></h4></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">To blaspheme is to commit an offense or sacrilege against <b>God</b>. It’s fair to say that MONTERO offers no direct offense to God.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">MONTERO, the video that is, </span>is all about Satan. Satan is Christendom’s ultimate villain – the symbol of all that’s evil, vile, and unholy. Taking liberties with Satan, it could be argued, could be seen as taking liberties with Scripture – because by doing so for a literalist, you’re not taking the Good Book nearly seriously enough. </div><div><br /></div><div>As you may’ve heard, Scripture has some things to say about homosexuality. And for a tradition that’s as doctrinally anti-sex – Hello? Circumcision? (FYI, in removing the foreskin the boy loses 20% of his member’s nerve endings and sensitivity) – and virulently anti-woman as Christianity, and since homosexual sex is about sex for its own sake and not about being<i> fruitful and multiplying</i>, well, you can see the problem. </div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">The fact that MONTERO is so open and assertive with its homoeroticism, that it also tripped the ire of Christians should’ve surprised no one.</span></div></span></div><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">What about the outrage, then?</span></h4><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">Projectile eye-bleeding from the graying Reactionary punditry, that was to be expected. But what</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> of the Millennial Barbarians of the Junior Punditry like Candace Owens, Tomi Lahren, Ben Shapiro, and Tucker Carlson? (Owens gave Nas credit for <a href="https://www.the-sun.com/entertainment/2598164/candace-owens-slams-lil-nas-x-destroying-youth/" target="_blank">destroying the youth of America</a>.) While their slang may be fresher (if awkward), their ideology appears to be just as fusty as their </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">redneck </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">Preparation H Generation grandparents.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifBaArqmBdq9kr3hXncEfGvMYhj7K4L2iHocePwOhcLMV1fq_BhyphenhyphenuJVRwaI8_aaExSBRJs5cDHeM7tm2HtP3ZLw-gk4o1bEjW6fwca0KHViI6SPED5ejpkT4o3vgghb4jjHdC_XDO9Wp8/s1120/LilNas_full.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="630" data-original-width="1120" height="366" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifBaArqmBdq9kr3hXncEfGvMYhj7K4L2iHocePwOhcLMV1fq_BhyphenhyphenuJVRwaI8_aaExSBRJs5cDHeM7tm2HtP3ZLw-gk4o1bEjW6fwca0KHViI6SPED5ejpkT4o3vgghb4jjHdC_XDO9Wp8/w649-h366/LilNas_full.jpg" width="649" /></a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><div style="text-align: left;">Nas has been accused of creating the MONTERO controversy intentionally and strategically. <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/04/10/lil-nas-x-montero-satan-devil-politics-controversy-religion-480655" target="_blank">Politico</a> said he “flipped the book of Conservatives’ culture war playbook” and beat them at their own game. Despite the intensity of the caterwauling, the reactions of the Outrage Industrial-Complex have only backfired. Not only did the opponents get served a full Twitter roasting, their whinging fueled enough interest in the song to make it the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/05/arts/music/lil-nas-x-montero-billboard-chart.html" target="_blank">#1 single upon release</a>. (And as you may’ve heard, Nas also did <a href="https://youtu.be/SbqLa4uOzo0" target="_blank">SNL</a>.) </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">By any standard of Cancel Culture, the hissy was a total fail.</div><h4 style="text-align: left;">Who is Satan?</h4></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><div>All Abrahamic traditions have some version of an evil arch-character. In Christianity, Lucifer is a non-physical entity <i>that seduces humans into sin or falsehood</i>. In Judaism, Satan is seen as an agent subservient to God or typically regarded as a metaphor for the <i>yetzer hara</i>, or “evil inclination” of mortals. In Christianity and Islam, the Devil is usually seen as either a fallen angel or a jinn.</div><div><br /></div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">The closest the Christian Bible gets of a description is from 2 Corinthians 11:14: “Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.” The surrounding verses refer to Satan as having human servants that disguise themselves as “apostles of Christ” and “servants of righteousness.” In context, these descriptions are referring to false teachers. (The Bible spends a lot of time gassing the competition.) Doesn’t this description imply that most faithful wouldn’t recognize him if they saw him?</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">For his part, Nas says was inspired by his own experience. In response to all the booloo and net rage, Nas posted this to Twitter: </span></div><div><blockquote><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>I spent my entire teenage years hating myself because of the [expletive] y’all preached would happen to me because i was gay. So i hope u are mad, stay mad, feel the same anger you teach us to have towards ourselves.</i> </span></blockquote></div><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">So, why all the stink?</span></h4><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">The anti-Nas reactions seem mostly like performative pissing down the blowhole. You wonder if anyone has been watching television or YouTube lately. Is it that Nas satirized Satan or that he gays it all up with the lap dance and a happy ending? Satan gets killed in the end. Why isn’t that a good thing? </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Conclusion</b>: For religionists, a sacrilege against the very symbol of sacrilege is also a sacrilege. That’s so meta it’s dizzying.</span></div><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Some Biblical Context: Why insulting Satan is a spitball at his employer</span></h4><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">According to the Bible, as the creator of all things, <a href="https://biblia.com/bible/esv/colossians/1/16" target="_blank">God also created Hell</a>. <span>God is the architect of EVERYTHING and </span><a href="https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Isaiah-45-7/" target="_blank">boasts</a><span> of creating the <i>light and dark, peace and evil</i>. </span>It was also Him that installed Satan as His subcontractor – Chief Operating Officer of the Dirty Deeds and Punishments Department. Together, Satan and the Fallen Angels are God’s C-Suite. But ultimately <a href="https://biblia.com/bible/esv/luke/12/5" target="_blank">it’s God</a> who decides who goes down there (or wherever).</span></li><li><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span><span>As a Fallen Angel #1, Satans’s job description was to </span><i>tempt humanity to sin</i><span>. Then, when successful to that cause, mete out utterly heinous eternal punishments – again, according to his job description. Where does he do this? In the Lake of Fire – or Hell, Sheol, Gehenna – <a href="https://biblia.com/bible/esv/matthew/25/41" target="_blank">those places created by God</a>.</span></span></span></li><li><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">By seducing Satan, Nas is only repeating plots from Biblical stories like </span><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salome" target="_blank">Salomé and King Herod</a> – where a young woman seduces the king through dance – and </span><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_beheading_Holofernes" target="_blank">Judith and Holofernes</a> – where a beauty wines and cruises a general as part of her ruse to kill him.</span></span></li></ul><h4 style="text-align: left;"><b style="font-family: georgia;">Fun facts</b></h4></div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">According to the </span><a href="https://www.vocativ.com/news/309748/all-the-people-god-kills-in-the-bible/index.html" style="font-family: georgia;" target="_blank">Scripture of record</a><span style="font-family: georgia;"> (AKA as the Bible and Torah), a total of 2,821,364 deaths are specifically given in scripture as either directly manifested by God or carried out with his oversight or approval. </span></li><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">Satan kill count? Only 10. And if you add in the multitudes lost in The Flood, that makes for an estimate closer to 25 million. To also include other genocides, famines, various massacres, and all other cataclysms that YHWH watched with indifference from on high, the count gets closer to Thanos territory.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">By one estimate, <a href="https://www.quora.com/How-many-people-were-killed-in-the-noahs-flood?share=1" target="_blank">somebody did the math</a> and put the totals of Flood deaths at 40,000 to 1,067,000.</span></span></li><li><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Again, according to Scripture, <a href="https://www.wired.com/2007/04/old-testament-m/" target="_blank">God’s stats beat Satan’s kills</a> by 227,037% – and that doesn’t even include women and children. (Go to the link and see a graph.)</span></span></li><li><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Nationally known radio pastor Alistair Begg described the dilemma Christians must have as followers of “the most loving person who has ever lived” (Christ) who also spoke “straightforwardly about the awfulness of hell.” A place, presumably, He could change if He so desired. But he doesn’t. </span></span></li></ul><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div></div><div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><iframe frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/6swmTBVI83k" width="480"></iframe></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></div></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8247559063665218916.post-74262995421941267202021-04-23T19:50:00.027-07:002021-05-17T15:49:09.086-07:00Getting Under Todrick Hall's Nails, Hair, Hips, Heels<h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #b45f06; font-family: georgia;">And Why – Like Your Boss, Teacher, & Parents – He’s an A**hole</span></h3><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">The tea was spilled on Hall back in 2019, so I won’t waste time explaining. Here’s <a href="https://www.insider.com/todrick-hall-allegations-against-entertainer-are-piling-up-2019-10" target="_blank">a refresher</a>.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">In brief: Todrick Hall was a contestant on American Idol in 2010. He was able to parlay that exposure into a successful YouTube presence. Then came a stint on Rupaul’s Drag Race and starring role in <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinky_Boots_(musical)" target="_blank">Kinky Boots</a> </i>in 2016. He claimed he aspired to be an LGBT role model. He released the first of three albums that year.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZVs2anEtVq4L7DOWfFYUNNUorHqDEPkmPFnI2PfQtlMjBUbmz9xwrH9qwgDdK5KXpQ7aZETTt8Wt3I97VQIczrPS0_6Rs1duObWnszSgNsbju_8qGcRC0ITfGRB3n51beqxLuw4kQGBc/s585/THall1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><img border="0" data-original-height="330" data-original-width="585" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZVs2anEtVq4L7DOWfFYUNNUorHqDEPkmPFnI2PfQtlMjBUbmz9xwrH9qwgDdK5KXpQ7aZETTt8Wt3I97VQIczrPS0_6Rs1duObWnszSgNsbju_8qGcRC0ITfGRB3n51beqxLuw4kQGBc/s16000/THall1.jpg" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Then in 2019, <a href="https://www.pride.com/celebrities/2019/10/21/todrick-halls-ex-assistant-spills-slew-accusations-twitter">it all started to unravel</a>. People that’d worked for him began accusing him of all kinds of steaming mess. Said a former assistant: “I know every detail of his life including deliberate non-payment to people, racism, sexual assault, sexual harassment, online bullying, exploitation, illegal business practices…the list goes on.”</span></div><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">But in particular, this non-payment issue, coming at him from several accusers, is interesting. His cast must’ve swallowed their gum every time the refrain came around: <i>I don’t work for free/that's the tea, hunty/so make it rain on me. </i>Some of the video’s featured dancers went public with allegations of non-payment. Hall <a href="https://dlisted.com/2020/01/03/todrick-hall-addressed-the-allegation-that-he-doesnt-pay-his-dancers/" target="_blank">responded</a> in January of 2020 claiming ignorance of the alleged non-payment. Hall responded by saying that the dancers making the accusations hadn’t been paid <i>yet</i>. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">A lawsuit brought against Hall for sexual harassment would be settled out of court.</span></p>
<span style="font-family: georgia;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/TQ04gPb4LlY" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe></span><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><h3><span style="color: #b45f06; font-family: georgia;">So, Here's Why Hall, Like Most Authority Figures, Is an Asshole:</span></h3></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">It’s <i>The Human Power Dynamic Differential</i>. (While undeniable, the phrase itself is something I made up, but you get the idea.) The scale of the dynamic, the players, the culture – it doesn’t even matter. It could be two toddlers. The behaviors are the same.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">The differential is the result of that dark sorcery that seizes otherwise good consciences whenever one gains power or advantage over another. The degrees of imbalance can even be slight. The important thing is perception. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">This dynamic can be expressed in endless ways: </span></div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">by older siblings over younger </span></li><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">by parents that believe their children's lives should be an expression of their own </span></li><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">by bad teachers that hate their jobs or use shame as a form of control </span></li><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">by compulsively controlling lovers</span></li><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">by contemptuous bosses</span></li><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">by those with “boundary issues” </span></li><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">and at the tip-top of the toxic emotional slag heap – the police; and their ever-repeating toxic code that says a civilian’s life has a fraction of the value of their own – even less if that civilian is Black or some other PoC (but especially Black) </span></li></ul></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Privilege spreads the poison. As does wealth.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Copious research supports this: <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/26/world/expensive-car-drivers-study-scli-scn-intl/index.html" target="_blank">People that drive expensive cars</a> become arrogant, greedy drivers. People that overvalue their positions are <a href="https://www.livescience.com/54646-expectations-unethical-behavior.html" target="_blank">less likely to be ethical and more likely to cheat</a>. The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment" target="_blank">Stanford Prison Experiment</a> found that those with power became more authoritarian, more harassing, and more likely to inflict psychological torture against their otherwise peers. A study of bosses willing to @#$% everything up <a href="https://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/article/why-bad-bosses-sabotage-their-teams" target="_blank">to make themselves look good</a>. And even our tech is working against us: Algorithms are written to increase profits and efficiency at <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2017/02/08/theme-3-humanity-and-human-judgment-are-lost-when-data-and-predictive-modeling-become-paramount/">the expense of everyone else</a>. (This explains <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/the-worst-parts-about-working-at-amazon-according-to-employees-2015-8?op=1" target="_blank">Amazon</a>.) <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/cutting-edge-leadership/200908/how-power-corrupts-leaders" target="_blank">An ethicist explains </a>this as <i>exception making</i> — “believing that the rules that govern what is right and what is wrong does not apply to [the person with power]." They can still think it’s wrong for other people, just not for them.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Even in microdoses, it can be intoxicating. The basic seductiveness of “because I can” (or it’s parental variant, “because I said so”) is an entitlement too tempting to resist. There were stories of Bill Cosby, when he wasn’t committing more heinous offensives, using his authority to callously toy with the people at his disposal. Assistants, hotel staff, and anyone in his sway were made to watch him eat or tuck him into bed just “because he could.” One observer noted that in Cosby’s perverted vision, he thought people should’ve been honored to do his bidding. Harvey Weinstein had even cowed journalists into not reporting public outbursts with fear of reprisal. The examples are endless.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #b45f06; font-family: georgia;">And, the Squishy Antidote</span></h3><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">When people have the ability to empathize with other people, this doesn’t happen. They hold onto humanity over humiliation. When the mindful don’t get dope drips in their brains by exploiting others, they allow others to feel some drips of their own. For Todrick Hall, it took the exploitation of a cast and underlings to get the dope leaking. He may wear the heels, but it’s everyone else that’s going to tuck.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Maybe when enough people see value in other people’s positive experiences, maybe one day we can all sing together in a sort of Mr. Rogers Neighborhood Wakanda. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">But until then, the world won’t have room enough for too many <i>tens</i>:</span></div><div><div><i><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></i></div><blockquote><div><i><span style="font-family: georgia;">I'm so fab, I'm gone with the wind bitch</span></i></div><div><i><span style="font-family: georgia;">Y'all six, seven, eight, nines, I'm a ten bitch</span></i></div></blockquote><div><i><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></i></div></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8247559063665218916.post-61424067349087047882021-04-20T12:24:00.006-07:002021-04-23T09:45:15.409-07:00Song Reassignment Surgery; Bold Covers 7; An old Road gets new brick<h4 style="text-align: left;"><i><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"> Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (Elton John), 1973; Sara Bareilles (2013)</span></i></h4><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">The brand of Sara Barielles is wringing out the kind <i>soft rock</i> pop you could imagine soundtracking the naps of sagging Millennials when their time comes. Her decorous mainstream-ness may be just the sort of nectar that was to attract the Grammy honeybees again and again – she’s been nominated eight times, won once; plus two Tony nominations. As a performer, her experience in theater (she wrote the hit musicals <i>Waitress </i>and <i>SpongeBob SquarePants</i>) and television must surely inform her seasoned and proficient performing skills. That musical theater wanders through the corridors of her voice comes as no surprise. VH1 gave her the 80th spot of their <i>Top 100 Greatest Women in Music</i> (2012)<i>.</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">What might not be expected from such institutional bonafides is an interpreter prepared to scorch the earth of the original and rebuild. Traditionally, Elton John’s work eludes easy covering – as if the maestro embedded his tunes with an unhackable code – his songs were always best left to the maestro himself. But Bareilles offers <i>Road</i> a significant repaving. Within a woman’s voice, the naïve protagonist’s first encountering the hard law of the jungle lofts the song’s purpose way beyond what was previously expected of the melody and chords. She births an entirely new character.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">And all of this she does from her occupation in the middle-of-the-road. I’ve heard other work of hers and, based on her approach of her career’s deep cuts, this jewel is a ear-poking surprise.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Credit where it’s due.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><iframe frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/Ozd2ja7mAgM" width="480"></iframe></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8247559063665218916.post-63630435858465257322021-03-28T23:53:00.010-07:002022-02-06T19:23:08.865-08:00Song Reassignment Surgery; Bold Covers 6<h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Rape Me</i> (Nirvana), 1993: Tanya Tagaq (2016)</span></h3><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtdn2Q2OC0gEgD9kdSWe3FU8NW05oEjDsfWxFwcdfaPPJlCuaItcMW7i1L5cmkWNkeuzI_or7cbDIDOoNLSTrPcaa7EXLy-c2ptDN1f3PmsSuATBqwMQpiVvzgYHUKPRE8W9NomTDTBEc/s800/TT8.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><img border="0" data-original-height="398" data-original-width="800" height="290" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtdn2Q2OC0gEgD9kdSWe3FU8NW05oEjDsfWxFwcdfaPPJlCuaItcMW7i1L5cmkWNkeuzI_or7cbDIDOoNLSTrPcaa7EXLy-c2ptDN1f3PmsSuATBqwMQpiVvzgYHUKPRE8W9NomTDTBEc/w585-h290/TT8.jpg" width="585" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i></i></span></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>...voices ought not to be measured by how pretty they are. Instead, they matter only if they convince you that they are telling the truth.</i> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Sam Cooke</span></p></blockquote><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Measure Tagaq as a truth genius. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Listen to her TedTalk performance (below). Note the dervish intensity and human-to-animal sound spectrum ratio. If you can absorb her assault without your eyes guttering with tears, then your heart’s far sludgier than mine. Next, go to her version of <i>Rape Me</i>. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Nirvana’s version – with Cobain’s lamentation on fame and as a victim of the zeitgeist – was the thesis; Tagaq writes the dissertation. </span></p><p></p><span style="font-family: georgia;">In Tagaq’s mouth, </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Rape Me</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> describes suffering</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib4vkOYXNbAvVkQs6DzX-ckFAk0mV72bHRmiCVm4kBHzW_K-bCFhw5Uh8pbHOm7JzLBqhHdVCE_YT7edmjtOuPCof96URC-RlKtYOtCbE3qR2eKejSqJ1I0CcS_AASNKIxiNjOD_iUlX0/s432/TT-Edit.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="366" data-original-width="432" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib4vkOYXNbAvVkQs6DzX-ckFAk0mV72bHRmiCVm4kBHzW_K-bCFhw5Uh8pbHOm7JzLBqhHdVCE_YT7edmjtOuPCof96URC-RlKtYOtCbE3qR2eKejSqJ1I0CcS_AASNKIxiNjOD_iUlX0/w320-h270/TT-Edit.png" width="320" /></a></div>that’s less existential and far more literal: her whispers channel the agonies of ancestral generations and tortured contemporaries. And her whispers don’t just speak for the indigenous – as tragic and well-documented as their struggle has been – but for all women. Hear the heartbeat and the quiet restraint that imagines a victim’s solitude, soaked in toxic memories. Add to that whatever other tinglings you may get: patriarchy, parentage, class, duty, fear, etc. But there’s much more than rage at work here. Her registers, her guttural modulations, her sweetness and rage, the emotionality – her voice may be the chaotic psyche’s ultimate delivery system .</span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Tagaq says she didn’t begin throat singing herself until college. Though her indigenous culture had no history of throat singing, she’d re-engineer it to such a scale, it sounded like it was. And her record collection must be eclectic and edgy. Her approach ranges from uninhibited to feral. She’d first be introduced to a broader audience by another fellow warrior and vocal innovator, Björk. Tagaq would follow similar paths as her mentor’s but in an entirely different way. Both are aggressively elusive and hard reduce to something as simple as a category. Both sing with an intensity and commitment that is truly rare.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">In the first video, see Björk and Tagaq join another aggressively elusive singer – <br />Mike Patton. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><iframe frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/vKcOqZFkzdw" width="480"></iframe></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">In her TedTalk, Tagaq only sings. Her voice arrives from another plane entirely. Her throat astrally projects the spectrum of human emotional experience. Like a shaman from another dimension, she drops into a trance, channels voices, personalities, shadows, light, and other species. This is the kind of ecstatic performance Pentecostals dream of hacking but get nowhere near. She collects the essences of Yoko Ono, Shirley Temple, Diamanda Galas, Meredith Monk, Nina Hagen, the B-52s, throat and overtone singers, Asian traditions, Ornette Coleman's saxophone, animal and outer space noises. Her vocal palette, the colors and sounds at her disposal, are expansive enough to be seen from space. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><iframe frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://youtube.com/embed/dumvYzfuT0w" width="480"></iframe></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><iframe frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://youtube.com/embed/pCsCKKt-wac" width="480"></iframe></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8247559063665218916.post-75392456721642243732020-10-05T14:59:00.006-07:002020-10-26T19:52:04.970-07:00Sexy Attempts to Hack Your Playlist 2: Five Feats of Funky + 3—Old Skool Dip<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1K51nCaHXIT3g1D6ewnZdaiaDcgzY0WusG7frkCt2zrBzeuRqvfoFbTdAFeeTJxLHH-bLU-O1kq4OTjwPTktqcQmIpYB4dTNh6JZDfRtJhQ5-2cEiDPiT_RijmzCuh7DZWdlkTHETpmg/s592/Bootsy-res.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><img border="0" data-original-height="312" data-original-width="592" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1K51nCaHXIT3g1D6ewnZdaiaDcgzY0WusG7frkCt2zrBzeuRqvfoFbTdAFeeTJxLHH-bLU-O1kq4OTjwPTktqcQmIpYB4dTNh6JZDfRtJhQ5-2cEiDPiT_RijmzCuh7DZWdlkTHETpmg/s16000/Bootsy-res.jpg" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Bootsy's Rubber Band, <i>I’d Rather Be With You</i> (1976):</span></h3><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Sexy bass mud and the P Funk family are all over this classic joint. If being picked over by subsequent generations of sample vultures is cred, then this jam is a topper. Bootsy signed on to play with James Brown as a teenager and was an original J.B. In 1972 he joined P Funk and played on all of the classic-period albums. Bootsy’s solo version of the P Funk shizz is cooler, steezier, and is more restrained than the sometimes riotous P Funk. Still, it deserves to be considered a part of that impressive legacy. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://youtu.be/uBV73PmgKGs">Listen to this</a> and admit that this may be one of the greatest backing bands in rock and roll history—special props to Bernie Worrell. </span></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="320" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/0tgYr03o3dE" width="475" youtube-src-id="0tgYr03o3dE"></iframe></span></div><i><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></i><p></p><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Childish Gambino, <i>Riot </i><span style="font-weight: normal;">(2016)</span>:</span></h3><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">I’ve wondered on this blog as to where are the next generations of hybrid rock, funk, and soul artists to take up the edgy mantle that was P Funk, Sly and the Family Stone, The Isley Brothers, et. al. at their peak? </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">That long-awaited answer may be Childish Gambino. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">I wanted not to love <i>Riot</i> just because Donald Glover already has his fingerprints over way too many successes as it is. But this piece is undeniable—the vocal, the groove, the vibe, and its jacked exuberance: What is there to say but <i>Respect</i>?</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="326" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/3c7vtes2ViQ" width="462" youtube-src-id="3c7vtes2ViQ"></iframe></span></div><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The Gap Band, <i>Burn Rubber on Me (Why You Wanna Hurt Me)</i> <span style="font-weight: normal;">(1980)</span>:</span></h3><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Once, there was a boundary that stood like the Berlin wall between drums and drum machines. The tradition was too entrenched and few would dare to scale that wall. Then, the 90s, hip hop, and sequencers would tear that wall down. But even now, live drums with a Moog bass—and electric piano to twerk that fat bottom end—is a sound as funky as a gumbo left out in the summer sun. Stevie Wonder worked this signature to enormous effect. So did The Gap Band.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="344" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_NXjQk6PinY" width="466" youtube-src-id="_NXjQk6PinY"></iframe></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Tom Browne: <i>Thighs High </i><span style="font-weight: normal;">(1980)</span>:</span></h3><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">At the apex of disco’s full cultural assault in the mid-70s, jazzers like trumpeter Tom Browne were in a life and death struggle for existence. Not that disco had anything to do with it—interest in jazz, in terms of market share, was on a serious wane (a trend that has since only worsened), and jazz musicians were forced to adapt or die to keep their livelihoods. Either retool with a rock beat a la rock fusion, funk, or disco—or find a day job. As it turned out, disco seemed like the best option for many. <a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/8247559063665218916/7539245672164224373#">Pandering to the throbbing 4/4 wasn’t a humiliation only felt by jazzers</a>—rockers were also feeling the pressure. Take note of singles from <a href="https://youtu.be/hic-dnps6MU">The Rolling Stones</a> and <a href="https://youtu.be/eUDcTLaWJuo">ZZ Top</a> at the time. But as history shows, jazzers adapted to disco with a ferocity unlike any other genre.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Despite the apparent pandering, it wasn’t all bad. Hot and plucky bass lines were essential. A clavinet was good. A steppin’ horn line and porn suggestive lyrics were also a bonus. Tom Browne threw it all together in this smooth-thumping dance floor-filler. Produced by film and television scoring great <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Grusin">Dave Grusin</a>, this dirty little ditty would climb to #4 on the charts.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/wUXzgmssifw" width="481" youtube-src-id="wUXzgmssifw"></iframe></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">George Duke: <i>Reach for It</i> <span style="font-weight: normal;">(1977)</span>:</span></h3><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As another disco refugee, jazz nerds gave Duke much grief for “abandoning jazz” at this career stage. As a veteran of the bands of Billy Cobham, Cannonball Adderly, Jean-Luc Ponty, and Frank Zappa, for the case of “Reach for It,” Duke’s betrayal would win him a #2 single. The bass fury is the propulsive work of Charles Icarus Johnson. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">F**k jazz: if this was a devil’s bargain, the devil was a good negotiator.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="359" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/sOVGlDC633w" width="492" youtube-src-id="sOVGlDC633w"></iframe></span></div></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Gil Scott-Heron, <i>Me and the Devil </i><span style="font-weight: normal;">(2010)</span>:</span></h3><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Though considered one of the progenitors of rap, Gil Scott-Heron’s work is a bit more academic than the hip hop we’ve become accustomed to—aggressive yet jazzy, more streetwise than street, and far more measured than the spittle-machine gun style of latter-day gangstas. The fangs of his social commentary were about far headier things than mere boasting. Heron himself called it <i>bluesology</i>. </span></div><div><i><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></i></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Me and the Devil</i>, a reworking of the Robert Johnson classic, would be released less than a year before his death and the self-conscious specter about a life about to end too quickly is all over this. Like Billie Holiday’s late-career period, every bit of Heron’s hard life is embedded in the lyric and vocal. It’s equal parts confessionary plaint and an artist‘s raging last will and testament, delivered as a desperate howl against the unbendable schedule of the universe.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="289" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2hwHEGCPnqY" width="477" youtube-src-id="2hwHEGCPnqY"></iframe></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Heatwave, <i>The Groove Line </i><span style="font-weight: normal;">(1978)</span>:</span></h3><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Heatwave was an eclectic mix of American and European, white and black players and would most significantly become the résumé builder for Brit <i>Invisible Man</i>—songwriter, musician, vocalist, and record producer—Tod Temperton. Out of Heat Wave, Temperton was recruited by Quincy Jones and others to work for a roster of artists including Michael Jackson, Donna Summer, The Brothers Johnson, Lionel Ritchie, and Herbie Hancock. Most famously he was the songwriter of Jackson’s megahits <i>Thriller</i>, <i>Off the Wall</i>, and <i>Rock with You</i>.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>The Groove Line</i> has a kind of New Wavey disco vibe—which had more influence in the UK than in the US—to go along with its flurry of melodic invention that seemed to spurt in all directions. As far as disco goes, this may have been among its peak.</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="357" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/EhXQXuIksXY" width="458" youtube-src-id="EhXQXuIksXY"></iframe></span></div><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Funky Destination:<i> The Inside Man - Soopasoul Remix </i><span style="font-weight: normal;">(2013)</span>:</span></h3><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Funky Destination is the nom de funk of Croatian musician Vladimir Sivc. While the sound is not untypical processed ProTools hobo stew, it comes fresh with the use of mostly live instruments. Bandcamp describes Sivc’s retro groove thusly: broken beat, breakbeat breaks, dub funk, nu disco; nu funk; nu jazz; rare groove, soul—whatever any of that means. The track may not break new ground but it smacks hard and that trombone line might just kick <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Wesley">Fred Wesley</a>’s ass. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/MFWRUKpgTO4" width="479" youtube-src-id="MFWRUKpgTO4"></iframe></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: georgia;"><iframe allow="encrypted-media" allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="380" src="https://open.spotify.com/embed/playlist/6X1hXpc0k4y1CkzgfmTB4v" width="300"></iframe></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8247559063665218916.post-76599552284251625952020-09-02T14:04:00.004-07:002021-05-01T12:10:53.453-07:00Song Reassignment Surgery 5; Bold Covers<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHzrxJb1vrrBux9IhlXc_PS-7mZqmZ3TFKFpIuQ5Ij40ixKBkCaeTxiIxCBDt-sBYrfWMuE-oevZhdWQPsiGpMOTXLWAIMKxrMxCYAgl_9evs-ACBEU_zTbpNFWHq58MSWEDJuwe1t6ww/s474/Stina+Nordenstam1.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></a></div><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: medium;">People Are Strange <span style="font-weight: normal;">(The Doors),</span> 1967<span style="font-weight: normal;">:</span> Stina Nordenstam</span> <span style="font-weight: normal;">(1998)</span></span></h3><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5s4lzJM38V1y1QDKr3lFSewi0J47dxUh0LAZn9q6p0EOgAH1IjM6MiuzI0fEZTsDALZhHnDcGBPQPvqaBG6eWidhOfd3s0AZnyq1hS9HyDYxINJ3ak5gqwlLXQR6ycCb14hNIVoPcAEM/s474/Stina+Nordenstam1.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><img border="0" data-original-height="474" data-original-width="474" height="303" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5s4lzJM38V1y1QDKr3lFSewi0J47dxUh0LAZn9q6p0EOgAH1IjM6MiuzI0fEZTsDALZhHnDcGBPQPvqaBG6eWidhOfd3s0AZnyq1hS9HyDYxINJ3ak5gqwlLXQR6ycCb14hNIVoPcAEM/w303-h303/Stina+Nordenstam1.jpg" width="303" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><div><span style="font-weight: normal;">Fun fact <a href="https://interestingengineering.com/due-to-the-space-inside-atoms-you-are-mostly-made-up-of-empty-space" target="_blank">about atoms</a>: </span></div><div><i>Everyone in the world is made up of nothingness. While that may sound grim, it's the truth.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>In fact, everyone currently on earth, all 7.6 billion of us, we could all fit into the room you're in right now. The entire human race, every single person, could all be compressed into a solid cube with the equivalent size of a sugar cube – all because we are made up of nothingness.</i></div><div style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></div><div><span>So, to extend the metaphor, space can be as significant—or more, even—as the material, in both matter and <g class="gr_ gr_329 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear Grammar only-ins replaceWithoutSep" data-gr-id="329" id="329">art</g>. It’s often the very place where the most interesting things happen.</span></div><div><span><br /></span></div>To wit: Swedish singer Stina Nordenstam’s reworking of an album’s worth of severely reductive and nearly unrecognizable covers, including her arduous filleting of <i>People are Strange </i>(from her 1998 album of the same name). On Nordenstam’s <i>Strange</i>, the formula brings new and uneasy new layers to the sound while adding other dimensions to the lyrics—larding even more to the original’s ethereal dread and intrigue.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span>On The Doors’ <a href="https://youtu.be/sezc05A4s2g" target="_blank">original</a>, the vibe was that of a kind of Weimar Republic cabaret, much of that launched on it’s mid-century striding rhythm and what one contemporary critic called “whorehouse piano” (</span>actually a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tack_piano" target="_blank">tack piano</a>), the sci-fi tremolo on the Vox “Connie,” and the guitar’s unrelieved tension fade-out on the finale. Nordenstam takes the whorehouse and adds some David Lynchian surrealism, and ladles on even more dream space and whatnot. For the listener, it’s an utterly barren landscape to be dropped into, leaving them to make whatever archetypal jungle out of it they may.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">And while she may be adding to the ambient nothingness, her<i> nothingness</i> seems only to make the whole even greater.</span></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="320" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/T6jV1n_1qZQ" width="485" youtube-src-id="T6jV1n_1qZQ"></iframe></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span><p></p><p><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8247559063665218916.post-23979124198925115582020-08-25T14:50:00.000-07:002020-08-25T14:50:37.014-07:00A Sick Beat and Killer Rhymes for the Nappy Demo<p><span style="font-family: georgia;">You think genius has to be big? Like, a singular theory of everything or totally disruptive art? <g class="gr_ gr_636 gr-alert gr_spell gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear ContextualSpelling multiReplace" data-gr-id="636" id="636">Sometimes,</g> genius is just a matter of seeing that thing that was right in front of you all along and seeing it suddenly anew. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">And for that, this completely qualifies: this is genius of the everyday. To <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@officialvrock" target="_blank">Valentin Coronado</a>: Props, sir.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Once, I did a lot of time with this book. A lot of kids’ books parents will come to dread, but this one was a classic. I’d take my daughter’s toddler hand and drum on the book for the <i>dum ditty dum ditty dum dum dum</i> bit. She loved that. (*Sniff, <g class="gr_ gr_393 gr-alert gr_spell gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear ContextualSpelling" data-gr-id="393" id="393">sni</g>ff*)</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="320" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8AOAVV3nw_I" width="485" youtube-src-id="8AOAVV3nw_I"></iframe></span></div><p><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8247559063665218916.post-59670396285878281282020-08-21T09:29:00.013-07:002020-09-28T02:35:57.911-07:00A Wandering Grayhead in the Millennial Jungle, Vol 4:<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWFZXNeKRKHmWSYAZfxbhldVL9LISFttuEj_Un8inSoOf2-yNQlVYYWj1J_aVxuW-7C0tmllRLcSznDf055obRqo4XwdREze1Mi2tLAhaDk-9W-563uF8SbSjbAkBnbQZLEjnkiJEuzsQ/s1600/SofiTukker1-res.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><img border="0" data-original-height="382" data-original-width="580" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWFZXNeKRKHmWSYAZfxbhldVL9LISFttuEj_Un8inSoOf2-yNQlVYYWj1J_aVxuW-7C0tmllRLcSznDf055obRqo4XwdREze1Mi2tLAhaDk-9W-563uF8SbSjbAkBnbQZLEjnkiJEuzsQ/s1600/SofiTukker1-res.jpg" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The eyesome <b>Sofi Tukker</b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: georgia;"><span face=""><br /></span> <span face=""><br /></span> <span face=""><br /></span> <span face=""><br /></span> <span face=""><br /></span> <span face=""><br /></span> <span face=""><br /></span> <span face=""><br /></span> <span face=""><br /></span> <span face=""><br /></span> <span face=""><br /></span> <span face=""><br /></span> <span face=""><br /></span> <span face=""><br /></span> <span face=""><br /></span> <span face=""><br /></span> <span face=""><br /></span> <span face=""><br /></span> <span face=""><br /></span> <span face=""><br /></span> <span face=""><br /></span> <span face=""><br /></span><span face=""><b><br /></b></span></span><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span face=""><b>The Premise</b>: Boomer dude—he/his/him—attempts to move away from the music that made his high school and college years more bearable and sexier. Instead, he spins joints created in the last 10 years (or so) to see what he can find. When he finds stuff he likes, he yuks it up like a used car salesman. His great hope is to bring new stuff to old ears, and maybe – in his wildest dreams – hookup some of the kiddos. In the process, he hopes to bridge the yawning divide with Zoomers and Millennials for the damages his decrepit generation wrought on the world—and bring world peace.</span><br />
<span face=""><br /></span> <span face=""><b>Another 10 to add to the list:</b></span><br />
<span face=""><br /></span> <span face="">31) <b>Brittany Howard</b>, <i><b>History Repeats</b></i> (2019): Howard led the Alabama Shakes, of which I know little—the name puts me right off—is a former postal carrier, and has created music <i>worthy</i> of striking gold from the Grammy establishment. And this from her solo record of last year—classic level stuff:</span><br />
<span face=""><br /></span> <span face=""><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/RwD9S4onuQ0" width="560"></iframe><br /></span> <span face=""><br /></span> <span face="">32) <b>Sofi Tukker</b>, <i><b>Drinkee</b></i> (2016): Of this new phase of musical minimalism, I’m a fan. (I’m not ashamed to admit an affection for some Billie Eilish also.) This duo may be too pretty by half but the groove is sickly sticky, from the Portuguese signature to the vapor-light guitar filagrees.</span><br />
<span face=""><br /></span> <span face=""><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/dlF1KxtArCg" width="560"></iframe><br /></span> <span face=""><br /></span> <span face="">33) <b>Graham Coxon</b>, <i><b>Bus Stop</b></i> (2018): Coxon, a founder of Blur, offers nothing new here. In fact, the song sounds as if it were built on the platform of Devo’s <i><a href="https://youtu.be/Cwx_Qq56YTA">Gut Feeling</a></i>. But no matter – what’s good is good. If you saw the series, the song fit perfectly.</span><br />
<span face=""><br /></span> <span face=""><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5AoxVxuIMXQ" width="560"></iframe><br /></span> <span face=""><br /></span> <span face="">34) <b>The Plastics</b>, <i><b>Stereo Kids</b></i> (Reprise) (2012): Influential Japanese “technopop,” name-dropped by Polysics, Pizzicato 5, and Stereo Total for their short stint in the late 70s and early 80s. They also made fans of Talking Heads, Devo, and The B-52s. Disappeared shortly thereafter but must’ve decided in the early 10s that working day jobs was no way to live, and have recorded 4 albums since 2011.</span><br />
<span face=""><br /></span> <span face="">Unlike what usually happens—and if this song is any indication—they got far better with age.</span><br />
<span face=""><br /></span> <span face=""><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/3_Ye1JZAWtI" width="560"></iframe><br /></span> <span face=""><br /></span> <span face="">35) <b>Everything Everything</b>, <i><b>The Night of the Long Knives</b></i> (2017): This Mancunian outfit birthed in 2007. Described by Wiki as <i>art-rock </i>but I don’t hear it. A lot of time was invested in cool synth sounds and the intricate vocal harmonies—those are the elements that lead the circus here, but it’s the production that takes the most turns in the spotlight. S</span><span face="">omeone really labored over twirling the knobs here—and the result is </span><span face="">a sound they’ll never recreate live. But the song’s ultimate booby trap is that sweeping wall of electronic clangor that erupts for the choruses. That orgasmic sound is the one that’ll make you hit <i>Repeat</i> again and again.</span><br />
<span face=""><br /></span> <span face=""><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/LR3nXuBwGcI" width="560"></iframe><br /></span> <span face=""><br /></span> <span face="">36) <b><g class="gr_ gr_194 gr-alert gr_spell gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear ContextualSpelling multiReplace" data-gr-id="194" id="194"><g class="gr_ gr_192 gr-alert gr_spell gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear ContextualSpelling multiReplace" data-gr-id="192" id="192"><g class="gr_ gr_197 gr-alert gr_spell gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear ContextualSpelling multiReplace" data-gr-id="197" id="197"><g class="gr_ gr_211 gr-alert gr_spell gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear ContextualSpelling multiReplace" data-gr-id="211" id="211"><g class="gr_ gr_203 gr-alert gr_spell gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear ContextualSpelling multiReplace" data-gr-id="203" id="203"><g class="gr_ gr_194 gr-alert gr_spell gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear ContextualSpelling multiReplace" data-gr-id="194" id="194"><g class="gr_ gr_200 gr-alert gr_spell gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear ContextualSpelling multiReplace" data-gr-id="200" id="200"><g class="gr_ gr_200 gr-alert gr_spell gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear ContextualSpelling multiReplace" data-gr-id="200" id="200"><g class="gr_ gr_101 gr-alert gr_spell gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear ContextualSpelling multiReplace" data-gr-id="101" id="101"><g class="gr_ gr_101 gr-alert gr_spell gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear ContextualSpelling multiReplace" data-gr-id="101" id="101"><g class="gr_ gr_98 gr-alert gr_spell gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear ContextualSpelling multiReplace" data-gr-id="98" id="98">Kiev</g></g></g></g></g></g></g></g></g></g></g></b>, <i style="font-weight: bold;">Rational Animal/Layered Line </i>(2010): The band’s been banging around Orange County (i.e. the one in CA) since 2007 and by The OC standards, they’re practically legend now. (They’re <a href="https://www.axs.com" target="_blank">Orange County Music Award</a> winners.) (I, for one, couldn’t wait to leave OC. But good for them.) Their sound schtick was described by tour mates Bad Suns as “metropolitan techie hi-fi nerd guys.” It sweeps dreamy with funky touches and academic flourish (a couple of members have music degrees). Their sound is expansive with a fastidious technicality – note how <g class="gr_ gr_4929 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear Grammar multiReplace" data-gr-id="4929" id="4929"><g class="gr_ gr_190 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear Grammar multiReplace" data-gr-id="190" id="190"><g class="gr_ gr_193 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear Grammar multiReplace" data-gr-id="193" id="193"><g class="gr_ gr_193 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear Grammar multiReplace" data-gr-id="193" id="193">it comes</g></g></g></g> off as both tight and airy. </span><br />
<span face=""><br /></span> <span face=""><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/FOK4ERCWaEI" width="560"></iframe><br /></span><br /><span face="">A live in-studio performance:</span><br />
<span face=""><br /></span> <span face=""><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/O4_TeWHM2Bs" width="560"></iframe></span><br />
<span face=""><br /></span> <span face="">37) <b>Caleb Landry Jones</b>,<b> <i>Flag Day/The Motherstone</i> </b>(2020): Texan Jones is better known for acting (he was in an <i>X-Men</i>, <i>Get Out</i>, and episodes of <i>Twin Peaks</i>) than for his time as a musical mastermind. His affection for Tin Pan Alley song smithery, via George Martin’s Beatles’ orchestrations, and his cop of Lennon’s psychedelic era voice are both obvious. <i>Flag Day/Motherstone</i> spared no expense on arranging, charts, and orchestral puffery and the results are impressive. His toe dips between the pools of music hall and prog. I also hear early Split Enz, The Divine Comedy, Monkees ca. <i>Head</i>, the histrionic scale of Queen, bits of Esquivel, and a number of contemporary bands namechecked on my <a href="https://jellyrollfortheearhole.blogspot.com/2020/01/beatles-juice-their-greatest-songs-they.html">Beatle Juice</a> post. If his work meanders it’s only part of the fun.</span><br />
<span face=""><br /></span> <span face="">He’s getting his due: this is some sh*t.</span><br />
<span face=""><br /></span> <span face=""><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/YUjl5KLxz28" width="560"></iframe><br /></span> <span face=""><br /></span> <span face="">38) <b>Anderson<g class="gr_ gr_207 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear Style replaceWithoutSep" data-gr-id="207" id="207"><g class="gr_ gr_209 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear Style replaceWithoutSep" data-gr-id="209" id="209"><g class="gr_ gr_221 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear Style replaceWithoutSep" data-gr-id="221" id="221"><g class="gr_ gr_214 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear Style replaceWithoutSep" data-gr-id="214" id="214"><g class="gr_ gr_209 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear Style replaceWithoutSep" data-gr-id="209" id="209"><g class="gr_ gr_209 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear Style replaceWithoutSep" data-gr-id="209" id="209"><g class="gr_ gr_208 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear Style replaceWithoutSep" data-gr-id="208" id="208"><g class="gr_ gr_221 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear Style replaceWithoutSep" data-gr-id="221" id="221"><g class="gr_ gr_134 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear Style replaceWithoutSep" data-gr-id="134" id="134"><g class="gr_ gr_207 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear Style replaceWithoutSep" data-gr-id="207" id="207">.Paak</g></g></g></g></g></g></g></g></g></g></b>, <i><b>Come Down</b></i> (2016): From Oxnard, CA—where agriculture meets the sea (and all that it entails)—a place where no one has ever come from, least of all sounding like this. Paak is a hyphenate musician so sure his of the walk his music talks, his website doesn’t even offer copy. (Besides, judging from his website photo gallery and collaborations, he’s well hooked up.) His 70s record collection, particularly the funk, is all over this and his ’20s update is deft—like a household where multiple generations live. <i>Can’t we all just get along?</i> Paak’s loaded grooves say we can.</span><br />
<span face=""><br /></span> <span face=""><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-OqrcUvrbRY" width="560"></iframe><br /></span> <span face=""><br /></span> <span face="">39) <b>Soko</b>, <i><b>Just Want to Make It New with You</b></i> (2013): On her debut album, <i>I Thought I Was <g class="gr_ gr_174 gr-alert gr_spell gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear ContextualSpelling ins-del multiReplace" data-gr-id="174" id="174"><g class="gr_ gr_174 gr-alert gr_spell gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear ContextualSpelling ins-del multiReplace" data-gr-id="174" id="174"><g class="gr_ gr_180 gr-alert gr_spell gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear ContextualSpelling ins-del multiReplace" data-gr-id="180" id="180"><g class="gr_ gr_194 gr-alert gr_spell gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear ContextualSpelling ins-del multiReplace" data-gr-id="194" id="194"><g class="gr_ gr_187 gr-alert gr_spell gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear ContextualSpelling ins-del multiReplace" data-gr-id="187" id="187"><g class="gr_ gr_183 gr-alert gr_spell gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear ContextualSpelling ins-del multiReplace" data-gr-id="183" id="183"><g class="gr_ gr_182 gr-alert gr_spell gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear ContextualSpelling ins-del multiReplace" data-gr-id="182" id="182"><g class="gr_ gr_182 gr-alert gr_spell gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear ContextualSpelling ins-del multiReplace" data-gr-id="182" id="182"><g class="gr_ gr_104 gr-alert gr_spell gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear ContextualSpelling ins-del multiReplace" data-gr-id="104" id="104"><g class="gr_ gr_104 gr-alert gr_spell gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear ContextualSpelling ins-del multiReplace" data-gr-id="104" id="104"><g class="gr_ gr_101 gr-alert gr_spell gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear ContextualSpelling ins-del multiReplace" data-gr-id="101" id="101">an</g></g></g></g></g></g></g></g></g></g></g> Alien</i>, French singer <g class="gr_ gr_176 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear Punctuation only-ins replaceWithoutSep" data-gr-id="176" id="176"><g class="gr_ gr_176 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear Punctuation only-ins replaceWithoutSep" data-gr-id="176" id="176"><g class="gr_ gr_181 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear Punctuation only-ins replaceWithoutSep" data-gr-id="181" id="181"><g class="gr_ gr_196 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear Punctuation only-ins replaceWithoutSep" data-gr-id="196" id="196"><g class="gr_ gr_189 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear Punctuation only-ins replaceWithoutSep" data-gr-id="189" id="189"><g class="gr_ gr_185 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear Punctuation only-ins replaceWithoutSep" data-gr-id="185" id="185"><g class="gr_ gr_183 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear Punctuation only-ins replaceWithoutSep" data-gr-id="183" id="183"><g class="gr_ gr_196 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear Punctuation only-ins replaceWithoutSep" data-gr-id="196" id="196"><g class="gr_ gr_107 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear Punctuation only-ins replaceWithoutSep" data-gr-id="107" id="107"><g class="gr_ gr_107 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear Punctuation only-ins replaceWithoutSep" data-gr-id="107" id="107"><g class="gr_ gr_105 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear Punctuation only-ins replaceWithoutSep" data-gr-id="105" id="105">and</g></g></g></g></g></g></g></g></g></g></g> actress Stéphanie Sokolinski made music raw, unschooled, and understated to a level of near pathology – her arrangements and production sound like a homeopathic version of The Velvet Underground. The songs are butterflied versions of scars – laid on a table, lit, and ready to be mapped. She’s needy and exposed and sings of depression, mental health, and self-mutilation. She was willing to shovel up the kind of sludge that’d surely scare off the swipes-right on Tinder. Though she was 28 at the time, it has a refreshing teenaged awkwardness about it. Altogether, it’s the kind of shambolic sound and stories of someone still new at love—a seedling preparing to reach for the sun but soon to be crushed underfoot.</span><br />
<span face=""><br /></span> <span face="">Her more recent material has taken on a more produced and polished sound. The <i>Alien</i> record offered a diary level of intimacy and a sound that could’ve been recorded in a bedroom. Soko shares a rare and startling nakedness that reveals a profound vulnerability, even for a confessional of one’s own self-abuse.</span><br />
<span face=""><br /></span> <span face=""><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/YOswe_JW02o" width="560"></iframe><br /></span> <span face=""><br /></span> <span face="">40) <b>A.A. Williams</b>, <i><b>Love and Pain</b></i> (2020): The song begins in a whisper. G<g class="gr_ gr_189 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear Grammar multiReplace" data-gr-id="189" id="189"><g class="gr_ gr_198 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear Grammar multiReplace" data-gr-id="198" id="198"><g class="gr_ gr_200 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear Grammar multiReplace" data-gr-id="200" id="200"><g class="gr_ gr_208 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear Grammar multiReplace" data-gr-id="208" id="208">ive</g></g></g></g> it two and a half minutes and, as her Bandcamp page explains, it’ll go <i>from serenity to explosive drama</i>. Those <i>Smells Like Teen Spirit</i> operatic sweeps can be cloying in lesser hands but they’re done with proper finesse here. Dig into her; she’s onto something.</span><br />
<span face=""><br /></span> <span face=""><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Z2k99rLcOQg" width="560"></iframe><br /></span> <span face=""><br /></span> <span face=""><b><span style="color: red;">Bonus! </span>Supergrass</b>, <i style="font-weight: bold;">Road to Rouen </i>(2005), <i><b>Mary</b></i> (1999): When the band debuted in the mid-90s, they were met with a lot of unctuous <g class="gr_ gr_3209 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear Grammar multiReplace" data-gr-id="3209" id="3209"><g class="gr_ gr_198 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear Grammar multiReplace" data-gr-id="198" id="198"><g class="gr_ gr_190 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear Grammar multiReplace" data-gr-id="190" id="190"><g class="gr_ gr_185 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear Grammar multiReplace" data-gr-id="185" id="185"><g class="gr_ gr_114 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear Grammar multiReplace" data-gr-id="114" id="114"><g class="gr_ gr_112 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear Grammar multiReplace" data-gr-id="112" id="112"><g class="gr_ gr_108 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear Grammar multiReplace" data-gr-id="108" id="108">clamor</g></g></g></g></g></g></g>. Their first album was at least as worthy of anything Blur or Oasis were doing. Since, they’ve plugged along, wrote strong material with consistency, throwing up the masterful gem here and there. It seems they stopped in 2008, but their legacy, IMO, has been tragically overlooked.</span><br />
<span face=""><br /></span> <span face=""><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/33UsMzJmDQw" width="560"></iframe><br /></span> <span face=""><br /></span> <span face=""><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/IC7oQYRKKKA" width="560"></iframe></span></span><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">See also <a href="https://jellyrollfortheearhole.blogspot.com/2020/01/a-wandering-grayhead-in-millennials.html" target="_blank">Vol 3</a>, <a href="https://jellyrollfortheearhole.blogspot.com/2019/05/a-wandering-grayhead-in-millennials.html" target="_blank">Vol 2</a>, and <a href="https://jellyrollfortheearhole.blogspot.com/2019/01/a-wandering-grayhead-in-millennials.html" target="_blank">Vol 1</a>.</span></div></div>
<iframe src="https://open.spotify.com/embed/playlist/4LCmPVEkbl2koNm5vjHINU" width="300" height="380" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="true" allow="encrypted-media"></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8247559063665218916.post-31900512649119920472020-08-17T08:24:00.002-07:002020-08-17T08:47:59.630-07:00Song Reassignment Surgery 4; Bold Covers: "Changes" Changed<h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Changes</i> <span style="font-weight: normal;">(Black Sabbath),</span> 1972<span style="font-weight: normal;">:</span> Charles Bradley <span style="font-weight: normal;">(2012)</span></span></h3><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Charles Bradley (1948-2017) hadn’t heard of Black Sabbath. But once he heard the song—<i>Changes</i>, originally recorded by Sabbath in 1972—he <i>heard</i> it. The song bit into his own grief and complicated relationship with his mother as he explains below.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">The lyrics aren’t profound but they’re felt, in this case, through both performances. Ozzy’s face seems to be haunted by something in his rendition; for Charles, it’s clear his mother was still very much rattling chains in his head. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">You could say his she sang it for him.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Bradley_(singer)#Early_life" target="_blank">As to his mother</a>: After abandoning Charles at eight months old, she reclaimed him from his grandmother at eight years and took him to live in Brooklyn, NY. By 14, Bradley would escape his poor living conditions—his basement bedroom had a sand floor—and sleep in subway cars for 2 years. He wouldn’t live with his mother again until the 1990s. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Bradley would work as a chef, part-time singer <g class="gr_ gr_1353 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear Punctuation only-ins replaceWithoutSep" data-gr-id="1353" id="1353"><g class="gr_ gr_18 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear Punctuation only-ins replaceWithoutSep" data-gr-id="18" id="18">and</g></g> James Brown impersonator. He signed with Daptone records at age 55 but didn’t take to music full-time until his debut solo album in 2011. It’d be a brief career but an impactful one.</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zfaOf70M4xs" width="475" youtube-src-id="zfaOf70M4xs"></iframe></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/sa4bq_Lj0mg" width="520" youtube-src-id="sa4bq_Lj0mg"></iframe></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><p><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8247559063665218916.post-21466536798202230902020-08-09T17:56:00.395-07:002021-05-01T12:16:45.004-07:00How "House of the Rising Sun" Rose<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiT5Dsm7QOqJzSFD0KYfilw_LMbi76ZsRIYt3Jns4jMo-Psd8iHQ4Pg-wAT_a_Y7xZTm6E8T9AW7z440SIruQ0UsHY_axHKZNEjIuCwhDWkNiRZKZHJLYn6YkKiJs_2VWanYvlk0ElrfhE/s686/StoryvilleProssie-w_lyric-02-01.png" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="686" data-original-width="550" height="410" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiT5Dsm7QOqJzSFD0KYfilw_LMbi76ZsRIYt3Jns4jMo-Psd8iHQ4Pg-wAT_a_Y7xZTm6E8T9AW7z440SIruQ0UsHY_axHKZNEjIuCwhDWkNiRZKZHJLYn6YkKiJs_2VWanYvlk0ElrfhE/w328-h410/StoryvilleProssie-w_lyric-02-01.png" title="One of the "poor girls"" width="328" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A “poor girl”<br /></td></tr></tbody></table></div></div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span face=""><span style="font-family: georgia;">In 1937, music archivist Alan Lomax recorded a 16-year-old miner’s daughter, Georgia Turner, as she <g class="gr_ gr_725 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear Grammar multiReplace" data-gr-id="725" id="725"><g class="gr_ gr_38 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear Grammar multiReplace" data-gr-id="38" id="38"><g class="gr_ gr_41 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear Grammar multiReplace" data-gr-id="41" id="41"><g class="gr_ gr_90 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear Grammar multiReplace" data-gr-id="90" id="90">sung</g></g></g></g> an early a cappella iteration of what came to be known as </span><i>House of the Rising Sun.</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> She called her version </span><i><a href="https://youtu.be/wxt1FYnTt1U">Rising Sun Blues</a>. </i><span style="font-family: georgia;">As was common of the era and her locale, Georgia had likely learned the tune from her parents or grandparents. (Two years later, Lomax would record another take by Tennessean Clarence Ashley. Ashley had also learned the song from his grandparents.) </span></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span face=""><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span face="">Many early generations of <i>Rising Sun</i> recordings were first made by Lomax. (An earlier version of the song was often <a href="https://www.allmusic.com/artist/texas-alexander-mn0000031908/biography">misattributed</a> to African American bluesman Texas Alexander for his recording of <i>The Rising Sun</i> in 1928. As it turns out, the two songs have nothing in common.) The version Georgia sang had origins going back possibly hundreds of years, making it older than the New Orleans itself. Musicologists say that it was based on an epic of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadside_ballad" target="_blank">broadside ballad </a>tradition, a musical form popular from the 16th to 19th centuries. (It most resembles <a href="https://youtu.be/1aQd99zfIRo" style="font-style: italic;" target="_blank">The Unfortunate Rake</a>—which musicologists date to around 1740—a lamentation on a dead man that’d succumb to syphilis.) Songs with similarly difficult-to-trace origins are called <i>floating songs</i>—songs with a long history of being passed around that transform in the process. Much has been speculated about the significance of the name “Rising Sun”—suggestions include a prison, a brothel, and a gambling house. </span></span><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">The melody was likely from a traditional well-known English ballad, but the song would gain popularity in the US as an </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">African-American folk song.</span><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span face=""><br /></span></span></div><div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">To the brothel theory: Legend says the local bordello name-checked in the song would’ve been run by a madame known as Marianne LeSoleil Levant (LeSoleil=</span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Rising Sun</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> in French). Her establishment would’ve opened for business in 1862. It closed in 1874 due to neighbors’ complaints. </span></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span face=""><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7EnzBMh5SK1ZPgthpfSun4n1g-145Vkwy4gV41XCnagEgbzwHVOSIiiQEmJEn3mz3OOapjuTxp7r2T_Za9wmhKEYsNI5neUXnOI-rlMJlLrOWkXXS9oYAvz55BvuAecz6EmHkZTPbzaw/s887/VoxContinental.png" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="887" data-original-width="727" height="262" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7EnzBMh5SK1ZPgthpfSun4n1g-145Vkwy4gV41XCnagEgbzwHVOSIiiQEmJEn3mz3OOapjuTxp7r2T_Za9wmhKEYsNI5neUXnOI-rlMJlLrOWkXXS9oYAvz55BvuAecz6EmHkZTPbzaw/w215-h262/VoxContinental.png" width="215" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Vox “Connie”<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: right;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7EnzBMh5SK1ZPgthpfSun4n1g-145Vkwy4gV41XCnagEgbzwHVOSIiiQEmJEn3mz3OOapjuTxp7r2T_Za9wmhKEYsNI5neUXnOI-rlMJlLrOWkXXS9oYAvz55BvuAecz6EmHkZTPbzaw/s887/VoxContinental.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7EnzBMh5SK1ZPgthpfSun4n1g-145Vkwy4gV41XCnagEgbzwHVOSIiiQEmJEn3mz3OOapjuTxp7r2T_Za9wmhKEYsNI5neUXnOI-rlMJlLrOWkXXS9oYAvz55BvuAecz6EmHkZTPbzaw/s887/VoxContinental.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7EnzBMh5SK1ZPgthpfSun4n1g-145Vkwy4gV41XCnagEgbzwHVOSIiiQEmJEn3mz3OOapjuTxp7r2T_Za9wmhKEYsNI5neUXnOI-rlMJlLrOWkXXS9oYAvz55BvuAecz6EmHkZTPbzaw/s887/VoxContinental.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br /></a></div></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Lomax also claimed that “Rising Sun” was the name used for a bawdy house in two traditional English songs. As the eminent American collector of folk songs during the 20th-century, Lomax suggested “Rising Sun” was also a common English pub name. In addition, the location may have been changed from England to New Orleans by American white southern performers. </span></div><div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span face="">As for the age of <i>House of the Rising Sun</i> lyric, by using the song’s internal clues, such as “blue jeans,” a railroad that would’ve served travelers arriving into New Orleans at the time, and the gambling houses of New Orleans, musicologists date the lyric from around 1895—the earliest printed version being 1925.</span><span face=""> </span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span face=""><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span face="">As to how it came to the ears of our contemporary pop culture, it could’ve been among a number of likely sources, sung with musical or lyrical variations: <a href="https://youtu.be/uX_bEDqxHFw">Woody Guthrie</a>, 1941; <a href="https://youtu.be/M8Ueo7r2nbA">Josh White</a>, 1942; <a href="https://youtu.be/y5tOpyipNJs">Leadbelly</a>, 1944 and 1948; <a href="https://youtu.be/J_hUr3O7aI8">Glen Yarborough</a> (a popular folk singer of the 1950s), 1957; <a href="https://youtu.be/rD80eZ6Gxz0">Joan Baez</a>, at age 18 in 1960; <a href="https://youtu.be/RP_caKDfoyU">Bob Dylan</a> (stealing an arrangement from Dave Von Ronk), 1961; <a href="https://youtu.be/d3z_wip6WA0">Nina Simone</a>, 1962.</span></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">And this: Clearly, Griffith had a cool record collection—a version from 1959:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/P_2gdg17rtw" width="560" youtube-src-id="P_2gdg17rtw"></iframe></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">This is most likely the version most of us heard first, from 1964. It would become a number one in France, the UK, and the US:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/0Fy7opKu46c" width="520" youtube-src-id="0Fy7opKu46c"></iframe></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">The indelible Vox Continental (“Connie”) hook heard on The Animals’ version had its vibe pinched from, according to organist Alan Price, Jimmy Smith’s <i>Walk on the Wild Side</i> from 1962:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span><div style="height: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding-bottom: 56.25%; position: relative;"> <span style="font-family: georgia;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="100%" src="https://www.dailymotion.com/embed/video/x1p04f" style="height: 100%; left: 0px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 0px; width: 100%;" type="text/html" width="100%"> </iframe> </span></div></div><div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />
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<span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Oh, to be a George.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">As I was discussing the legend of Harrison’s carnal guzzling, my partner said, “<g class="gr_ gr_51 gr-alert gr_spell gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear ContextualSpelling ins-del multiReplace" data-gr-id="51" id="51">I’d’ve</g> done him. I don’t care if he was a ‘ho. He was George Harrison.” </span><br />
<span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Even for the Beatle described as the "melancholic” and “quiet” one, he</span> still managed to get himself, well, up in more p*ssy than a bidet. Beatles expert <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Harry">Bill Harry</a> claimed Harrison had “hundreds and hundreds of affairs.” (According to Harry, even at that George still came in second to Lennon.) And like any (quiet) champion, the playa didn’t have to boast about life behind the zipper—certainly not in song.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">(Some of the <g class="gr_ gr_106 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear Grammar multiReplace" data-gr-id="106" id="106">history</g> of Harrison’s amatory exploits were covered in Scorsese’s documentary—co-produced by Harrison’s wife—<i>Living in the Material World</i> in 2011.)</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="329" data-original-width="500" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix4310X9vPk77wChPD_t9Lkac9xwy-fjAVnuMowU5ax60sW9R1gY_8wBg6gPSNTytfVcCAV-GfT0JZZ5CaoFnJXaeUoY-3VO6CVnvypBM6UwUmjZwRwvA-JKvYNiwQp90eR8pzPqcX9Zg/s1600/GeoHari1.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Oh Boy George</td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix4310X9vPk77wChPD_t9Lkac9xwy-fjAVnuMowU5ax60sW9R1gY_8wBg6gPSNTytfVcCAV-GfT0JZZ5CaoFnJXaeUoY-3VO6CVnvypBM6UwUmjZwRwvA-JKvYNiwQp90eR8pzPqcX9Zg/s1600/GeoHari1.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><br /></span></span> <span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">In George’s two marriages, both wives claimed he was an inveterate philanderer: the first, Patti Boyd (1966-1977), would get some side action herself—she <g class="gr_ gr_256 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear Grammar multiReplace" data-gr-id="256" id="256">being</g> the actual <i>Layla</i> of Eric Clapton’s imagination, as well as being the muse of George’s <i>Something</i> and a few others<i>;</i> the second, Olivia née Arias (1978 until his death in 2001), knew from the beginning what she was getting into. She’d refer to his assorted peccadillos as “hiccups.” </span>She told <a href="http://topicshttps//www.theguardian.com/music/2011/sep/04/beatles-george-harrison-martin-scorsese">The Guardian</a>: <i>He liked women and women liked him. If he just said a couple of words to you, it would have a profound effect. It was hard to deal with someone who was so well-loved.</i> </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHc7Hryaa_kdpgXp5hxTwqdI64VaV0khp7qMtkhuYikvVqI58BMkGWQ9GH84Kwk2ZW9c-GBrZjvy-xKDYWb8Sv1IWhIsNEMT2BN-OGsG2yKq0iMSF7l-FcbQLZCoy9fba6qMgzBtW-1Wk/s1600/OH1.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="575" data-original-width="500" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHc7Hryaa_kdpgXp5hxTwqdI64VaV0khp7qMtkhuYikvVqI58BMkGWQ9GH84Kwk2ZW9c-GBrZjvy-xKDYWb8Sv1IWhIsNEMT2BN-OGsG2yKq0iMSF7l-FcbQLZCoy9fba6qMgzBtW-1Wk/s400/OH1.jpg" width="347" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Olivia sitting through a hiccup</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">For most of us, faithfulness in relationships is relatively unchallenging, if for no other reason than our general limitation of opportunities. Reasonably attractive celebrities—and some not so, including renowned braggart Dustin Hoffman—have no trouble spinning the WAP counter. While no doubt his Rolodex was loaded with many anxious possibilities, the obstacle of Harrison’s marriage was a slight one, made easier through the many chemical-fueled parties at his Friar Park estate. (A glimpse of its Downton Abbey scaled gardens were featured in the cover shot of <i>All Things Must Past</i>.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Even so, given Harrison’s history, it seems likely that a simple hookup wouldn’t be nearly enough. This may explain his pouncing on both Ringo’s and Ron Wood’s wives.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Here’s what the Wiki page for his <i>Dark Horse</i> album had to say:</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfkjm866cQzU5p3vC3fXIoVYLRZBvX8CIIC1Q7Yn3wrNdLJVBopUkEv6oHIzfx9DqwCy_ndYAM2MJJacSvcVW1wMjAzyYmIMVqljkdEkoH3vj9NnSH_PMGGSXLVZTGEZ1jCahd1MeRd_0/s1600/PB3.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfkjm866cQzU5p3vC3fXIoVYLRZBvX8CIIC1Q7Yn3wrNdLJVBopUkEv6oHIzfx9DqwCy_ndYAM2MJJacSvcVW1wMjAzyYmIMVqljkdEkoH3vj9NnSH_PMGGSXLVZTGEZ1jCahd1MeRd_0/s320/PB3.jpg" width="240" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Patti Boyd in her Layla garb</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><i>Wounded by Harrison's frequent infidelities, Boyd left him for Eric Clapton in July 1974, having previously had an affair with another of her husband's guitar-playing friends, Ron Wood of the Faces. Both of these dalliances would also receive attention on the </i>Dark Horse<i> album, which Harrison's musical biographer, Simon Leng, has described as "a musical soap opera, cataloging rock-life antics, marital strife, lost friendships, and self-doubt". In his rewrite of the Everly Brothers' “Bye Bye, Love”, Harrison declared: “There goes our lady, with a-you-know-who / I hope she's happy, old Clapper too”; while his handwritten liner notes listed one of the guest musicians on “Ding Dong, Ding Dong” as “Ron Would If You Let Him”. For his part, Harrison had taken up with Starr's wife, Maureen Starkey, and the UK tabloids soon reported him as being romantically involved with model Kathy Simmons (ex-girlfriend of Rod Stewart) as well as Krissy Wood (wife of the Faces guitar player). Shortly before </i>Dark Horse<i>'s release, Harrison would dodge reporters' questions regarding his private life with a suggestion that people wait for the new album, saying, “It's like Peyton Place.”</i></span><br />
<i><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><br /></span></i> <span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">That scamp Harrison also reportedly did some serious <g class="gr_ gr_104 gr-alert gr_spell gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear ContextualSpelling ins-del multiReplace" data-gr-id="104" id="104">cupcaking</g> and maybe more with Madonna on the set of <i>Shanghai Surprise</i> (his Handmade Films produced—a film that did so badly at the box office it was dubbed <i>Flop Suey</i>)<i>. </i>She was still married to Sean Penn at the time. George was also known to</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> pick through the stable of secretaries and office personnel at his film company over its 15 years. (He met Olivia working for his record company.) </span><br />
<span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">George and Paul are also known to have shared at least one girlfriend in the early days and George and John both picked a Ronette on an early tour.</span><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8247559063665218916.post-51727252138173180862020-07-13T15:13:00.003-07:002020-07-23T15:37:04.808-07:00Song Reassignment Surgery: Bold Covers 3<br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>Diamond Dogs</i> <span style="font-weight: normal;">(David Bowie),</span> 1974<span style="font-weight: normal;">: </span>Beck <span style="font-weight: normal;">(2001)</span></span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Enter the name of any song on YouTube and you’ll likely find covers aplenty. Most will be pale recreations of the original source material. Even fewer will add anything new or insightful along the way. Instead, what you’ll find are fans playing songs they love: affectionate but, as an artistic endeavor, pointless.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The best covers will offer something new. They’ll add something to the song’s language, changing it’s tone and personality, even it’s face and body—hence the “reassignment surgery.” Doing it well is a tall order and that’s why the good ones are such a rarity. As I said here, a <a href="https://jellyrollfortheearhole.blogspot.com/2019/01/polishing-springsteen-jewel-for-haters.html">good cover</a> will even make you hear the lyrics in a new way—adding more subtext to the original.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>Some Cover Champions of Note</b>: </span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Jeff Buckley, <i>Hallelujah</i></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Janis Joplin, <i>Me and Bobby Magee</i></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">David Bowie, <i>Wild Is the Wind</i></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Johnny Cash, <i>Hurt</i></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Earth, Wind, and Fire<i>, Got to Get You Into My Life</i></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Talking Heads, <i>Take Me to the River</i></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Bryan Ferry, <i>A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall</i></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Jimi Hendrix, <i>All Along the Watchtower</i></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Nina Simone, <i>I Put a Spell on You, </i>especially<i> <a href="https://jellyrollfortheearhole.blogspot.com/2010/09/nina-simone-feelings.html">this</a>, </i>and just about anything else she’s done</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And <a href="https://jellyrollfortheearhole.blogspot.com/2019/03/creep-serving-higher-purpose-truly.html">this</a>: two Dutch teens wring depths of emotion from <i>Creep</i> you never knew was there, while betraying the emotion with grinning faces</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>And Cover Losers</b>: Mostly everyone and everything else.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>Another add for the Champion List</b>: This diamond<i> </i>from the <i>Moulin Rouge!</i> movie soundtrack.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GTnX9yAVZS8" width="560"></iframe></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8247559063665218916.post-9544454520508495882020-07-10T07:58:00.002-07:002020-07-12T15:06:35.826-07:00The Heads Burn Without Byrne<br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The album was <i>No Talking, Just Head </i>(1996). The band was the Talking Heads without figurehead David Byrne. In his place would be a roster of luminary guest vocalists also contributing to the material, including lyrics. At the time of its release, the album was met with considerable skepticism. The result was immediately dismissed by critics and fans alike: sales tanked.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I’m going to guess that, like me, most never bothered to listen to it. I still wouldn’t have had it not been for drummer Chris Frantz’s <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/talking-heads-drummer-chris-frantz-memoir-david-byrne-reunion-odds-1023773/">recent interview</a> in Rolling Stone to push his recently published memoir, <i>Remain in Love</i>. In it, he mentions the album. It turns out, the album wasn’t the turd we were led to believe it was.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Like this one with Concrete Blonde’s Johnette Napolitano:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/wgy3_kmYZ3Q" width="560"></iframe><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">By 1984, at the Talking Heads’ commercial peak, at Byrne’s insistence, the band stopped touring. By the later years the band’s music had become less collaborative and Byrne would eventually leave the enterprise behind by 1991. I’ve heard it said that bassist Tina Weymouth had been wanting to get Byrne out for some time and hoped to replace him with guitarist/vocalist Adrian Belew. If you don’t know, Belew had toured with Talking Heads in both 1980 and 1981 and also played on the Tom Tom Club’s 1981 debut album—a Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz side project that would go on to do very well. (Belew would join King Crimson in 1981.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">XTC’s Andy Partridge also <a href="https://youtu.be/9vpAZ1_lepw">makes a contribution</a>.</span><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8247559063665218916.post-28746661761542789382020-06-22T11:59:00.004-07:002020-10-09T13:57:19.940-07:00Sexy Attempts to Hack Your Playlist 1: Five Feats of Funky<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">AJ Haynes of Seratones</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b><br /></b> <b><br /></b> <b><br /></b> <b><br /></b> <b><br /></b> <b><br /></b> <b><br /></b> <b><br /></b> <b><br /></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Lettuce</b>, <i>Phyllis</i> (2015): </span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Lettuce is a six-man squad churned out of the famous Boston Berklee School of Music that plays funk in the tradition of <a href="https://youtu.be/rK14QTKOWgw">Dennis Coffey and <i>the Detroit Guitar Band</i></a>, Tower of Power, and the large ensemble sound version of Prince—guitars rhythming unassumingly and unashamedly out front. With a debut that dropped in 1991, Lettuce—like Fishbone—maybe hoary enough to be second or third-generation old skool. The sound is intricate and deep, swerving into the middle-of-the-road lane at times, but overall worthy bearers of the standard, whichever direction it goes. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Seratones</b>, <i><b>Gotta to Get to Know Ya </b></i>(2019):</span></h3>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Shreveport, LA’s Seratones have been compared to Alabama Shakes but I don’t hear it. They’re both white rhythm sections fronted by black women but that’s where the resemblance ends—though, I’ll confess to know embarrassingly little about the Shakes (the name put me off). The Shakes are rootsier and the ’Tones are punkier but otherwise, it’s a useless comparison. I prefer Seratones.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">As far as this tune goes, the opening shrieked whoos alone ought to be enough to bring you in. Passed that, it’s all hard candy funk and butt-shuffling melody to follow. In another age, it’s the kind of territory Ike and Tina might’ve inhabited.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Cory Wong</b>, <i><b>Cosmic Sans </b></i>(2017):</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The wah-wah and Stratocaster groove here drops like nuclear fallout. The chorus goes a just slightly north of schmaltzy but the thumb-heavy bass thump counterbalances. Altogether, it’s a smoker.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Fishbone</b>,<b> <i>So Many Millions </i></b>(1991):</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Nineteen ninety-one seems so old skool now but the cascade of analog layers bring the Funkadelic like no one else—save peak Funkadelic. The drummer drives the herd like a border collie but what follows in its wake is nothing less than reckless joy.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Curtis Harding</b>, <b style="font-style: italic;">Dream Girl </b>(2017):</span></h3>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Harding’s sound is syringed deep from the gravy of the classic early 60s period but he also provides plenty of young blood to go with it. Territorially, he’s not far afield from what Amy Winehouse was doing though his affections and affectations can tip more toward the garage than Winehouse’s big production sound would’ve. This is a groove you and your parents can listen to together.</span><br />
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<span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">She played the same Greenwich Village folk clubs that Dylan did when he was coming up. They’d even play together on occasion. Of her, Dylan would say: “Karen had a voice like Billie Holiday’s and played the guitar like Jimmy Reed and went all the way with it.” Folkie Fred Neil (he wrote <i>Everybody’s Talking</i> from the movie <i>Midnight Cowboy</i>) said: “The greatest female singer I’ve ever heard.” Tim Hardin (he wrote <i>Reason to Believe</i> which both Dalton recorded and Rod Stewart made famous) said: “She’s an incredible broad.” Billboard magazine called her “spellbinding.”</span><br />
<span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><br /></span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Dalton didn’t care much for the Billie Holiday comparison.</span><br />
<span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><br /></span> <span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">She loved the music but hated the business. Her recording sessions were reportedly difficult and she didn’t do many. Many of her songs were recorded in a single take. Her style was soft and slow and restrained and her voice was perforated with pain. She was twice divorced and the mother of two children </span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">by 21</span><span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> and, according to her daughter, had lost her bottom incisors breaking up a fight between two boyfriends. Her managers didn’t know what to do with her. After her last album in 1971 didn’t sell, she quit music, worked as a domestic and lived out her days in a trailer in Woodstock, New York. “I like being alone,” she said.</span><br />
<span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><br /></span> <span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Her small but loyal cult of fans included Nick Cave, Devendra Banhart, Joanna Newsom, and Lacy J. Dalton (no relation). They’ve all cited her influence.</span><br />
<span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><br /></span> <span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">She also struggled with drugs and alcohol. (She <g class="gr_ gr_62 gr-alert gr_spell gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear ContextualSpelling" data-gr-id="62" id="62">may’ve</g> been wrong about that <i>being alone</i>.) In 1993 she’d walk out on her rehab and died soon after of an AIDS-related illness.</span><br />
<span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><br /></span> <span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Fred Neil: “Her voice is so unique, to describe it would take a poet. All I can say is she sure can sing the shit out of the blues.”</span><br />
<span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><br /></span> <span face="" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Read more <a href="https://www.rocksoffmag.com/karen-dalton/">here</a>.</span><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8247559063665218916.post-51726808654906637562020-06-09T09:59:00.002-07:002020-06-10T11:46:40.093-07:00Song Reassignment Surgery: Bold Covers, 2<h3>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>Black Dog </i><span style="font-weight: normal;">(Jones, Page, Plant)</span>,<i> </i>Franck Tortiller—Orchestre National de Jazz<i> </i>(2009)</span></h3>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq8r9P8oUKOzVYbMWdlNdbti_HsoStm9ClvoLlUhofF07Vze6kFCs7FQD6zoowT53Cu6Yx600Oi1DEvFCrkkdebnMBnIqUGv8fHPYmizwp_3aFxulqYyThnRt5I6kZeiW-n11OaGfS68Q/s1600/AngriestDog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="221" data-original-width="258" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq8r9P8oUKOzVYbMWdlNdbti_HsoStm9ClvoLlUhofF07Vze6kFCs7FQD6zoowT53Cu6Yx600Oi1DEvFCrkkdebnMBnIqUGv8fHPYmizwp_3aFxulqYyThnRt5I6kZeiW-n11OaGfS68Q/s1600/AngriestDog.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Appropos of nothing but black: <i>The Angriest Dog </i><br />
<i>in </i><i>the World</i> by David Lynch</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Led Zeppelin’s <i>Black Dog</i> (1971) was built on a dynamic of a call and response between singer and band—its format of start and stop <i>a cappella</i> verses was said to be inspired by Fleetwood Mac’s <i><a href="https://youtu.be/VQmmByJwKFI">Oh Well</a> </i>(1969). According to Zep biographer Dave Lewis, the title references a nameless black labrador wandering around the studio at the time the band was recording. Otherwise, the dog had nothing to do with anything. The term <i>black dog</i> itself is often used as a metaphor for melancholy or depression. About half way in, after Robert Plant’s requisite rounds of salacious plaints, the song goes darker:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span> <i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Didn't take too long ‘fore I found out/</span></i><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">What people mean by down and out</span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The riff was devised by John Paul Jones. It would also be his first compositional contribution to the band (it was originally written on the back of a train ticket). The phrase was based on a reworking of a Muddy Waters riff. Its angular sound comes from its three measures of 3/4 (the first measure pausing a beat and a half before starting) and ending on a measure of 5/4. Drummer John Bonham ignores all of that and plays a straight 4/4 throughout. On the turnaround—a quirky 9/8—Bonzo accents with a cymbal crash that somehow smears it all together neatly. Jonesie thought the fraudulent beat was the necessary element that brought it all together: It managed to reach the Top 15 </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">(U.S)</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> singles chart. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Those who’ve analyzed Zep’s rhythms and tempos know that they defy quantizing—i.e., while it sounds good, mathematically they’re a beautiful mess. The songs breathe.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Hearing that riff described through horns gives it a kind of stitched together polka feel. The song comes from an album of Zeppelin covers by French vibraphonist and bandleader Franck Tortiller.</span><br />
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<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/pOfyJj0YzHU" width="560"></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8247559063665218916.post-76135256802488086572020-06-01T13:10:00.008-07:002023-05-18T08:39:36.926-07:00Billy Stewart and Summertime: Sultry Goes Banger <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhG8Zlj1sVwveAjy8uujOBWh61QafocXTMHn3WAQtNJDNbCqkC95c2V_5rROaE7R38uHNN-MCXOsO9MQoDHYYR5NsIdOFlZrwwP8Bzi1zH3LVt1HUtAknMi0MuR8qlUsu4yIXc_2DsX_hc/s1600/BStew-Blue.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="641" data-original-width="623" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhG8Zlj1sVwveAjy8uujOBWh61QafocXTMHn3WAQtNJDNbCqkC95c2V_5rROaE7R38uHNN-MCXOsO9MQoDHYYR5NsIdOFlZrwwP8Bzi1zH3LVt1HUtAknMi0MuR8qlUsu4yIXc_2DsX_hc/s320/BStew-Blue.jpg" width="311" /></a></div>
<span face=""><span style="caret-color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>Summertime</i>: A song, I’d argue, that’s one of the sexiest to ever scrape a chord and float on <g class="gr_ gr_85 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear Grammar only-ins replaceWithoutSep" data-gr-id="85" id="85">drawn</g> breath. </span></span><br />
<span face=""><span style="caret-color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span> <span face=""><span style="caret-color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">For the inspired listener, the song’s traditionally sultry and languid journey into the earhole can drip straight to nipple and flap, thicken the pipe, and dry the mouth ever so. With a libation or two, what panty or zipper could resist the urge to drop? <i>Summertime</i> does all of this with an old fashioned and naïve grace and subtlety AKA as metaphor and double entendre. More contemporary expressions <g class="gr_ gr_69 gr-alert gr_spell gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear ContextualSpelling ins-del multiReplace" data-gr-id="69" id="69">perfer</g> the direct (like <a href="https://jellyrollfortheearhole.blogspot.com/2020/02/pedo-defiler-drops-out-then-comes-back.html">Cupcakke</a>). While I can appreciate the brevity and laser focus of directness, there’s an argument to be made when the brain is left to do some of the work itself. The best art—be it an advertising headline, jokes, a plot device, entendre, etc.—always has layers. So, when the lyricist refers to <i>fish</i> and <i>cotton</i> as a stand-in for horny, the effect goes much deeper. Add to that, the song’s glistening descriptions of a world popping out all over with fecundity and a turgid impatience: It’s a <g class="gr_ gr_78 gr-alert gr_spell gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear ContextualSpelling ins-del multiReplace" data-gr-id="78" id="78">boojie</g> and banger universe where there just <g class="gr_ gr_76 gr-alert gr_spell gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear ContextualSpelling ins-del" data-gr-id="76" id="76">may be</g> something for <i><g class="gr_ gr_77 gr-alert gr_spell gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear ContextualSpelling ins-del" data-gr-id="77" id="77">every body</g></i>—but you’d better act now, it’s a limited-time offer:</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span face=""><span style="caret-color: rgb(29, 33, 41);"><br /></span></span> <i><span style="caret-color: rgb(29, 33, 41);">Summertime/</span><span style="caret-color: rgb(29, 33, 41);">And the livin’ is easy/</span><span style="caret-color: rgb(29, 33, 41);">Fish are jumpin’/</span><span style="caret-color: rgb(29, 33, 41);">And the cotton is high</span></i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> <i><span style="caret-color: rgb(29, 33, 41);">Oh, your daddy’s rich/</span><span style="caret-color: rgb(29, 33, 41);">And your ma is good lookin’/</span><span style="caret-color: rgb(29, 33, 41);">So hush, little baby/</span><span style="caret-color: rgb(29, 33, 41);">Don't you cry</span></i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><br /></i> <i><span style="caret-color: rgb(29, 33, 41);">One of these mornings/</span><span style="caret-color: rgb(29, 33, 41);">You’re going to rise up singing/</span><span style="caret-color: rgb(29, 33, 41);">Then you'll spread your wings/</span><span style="caret-color: rgb(29, 33, 41);">And you'll take the sky/</span><span style="caret-color: rgb(29, 33, 41);">But ’til that morning/</span><span style="caret-color: rgb(29, 33, 41);">There’s </span><g class="gr_ gr_75 gr-alert gr_spell gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear ContextualSpelling ins-del multiReplace" data-gr-id="75" id="75">a’nothing</g><span style="caret-color: rgb(29, 33, 41);"> can harm you/</span><span style="caret-color: rgb(29, 33, 41);">With daddy and mammy standing by</span></i></span><br />
<i><span style="caret-color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></i> <span style="caret-color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">A word about the source material: For those who don’t know, <i>Summertime</i> was from the operetta <i>Porgy and Bess—</i>with a libretto based on a 1925 novel by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DuBose_Heyward">Dubose Howard</a>. It’d be easy to dismiss the material as <g class="gr_ gr_80 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear Grammar only-ins doubleReplace replaceWithoutSep" data-gr-id="80" id="80">more</g> white appropriation of black culture but the work’s immortality, and the only reason we’ve any interest in this anachronistic work now, is wholly due to the career-peaking tunes of George Gershwin and lyrics by his older brother Ira. </span><br />
<span style="caret-color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span> <span style="caret-color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Just to note: Howard received praise for presenting black culture without condescension—no small achievement in the 1920s. The corpse of minstrelsy was still relatively fresh. Howard had gotten props from no less than poet <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langston_Hughes">Langston Hughes</a>. </span><br />
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<span style="caret-color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Back to the song: Despite my argument for the song’s potent swirl of aphrodisia, Billy Stewart’s 1966 rendition has none of that. His has way too much bounce and agitation, way too much Las Vegas showroom in the arrangement for the sexy: This version is for standing up and moving, not laying down. But what Stewart does do is freebase the tune with a hyper-exuberance that’s like blue crystal meth to the song’s original cup vibe of spiked chamomile passion potion—a feel the composers had clearly intended. Between his violent alveolar trill that starts the song, and his ululating vocal run that ends it, in between we have four minutes of pure high impact aerobic joy.</span><br />
<span style="caret-color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span> <span style="caret-color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Early in his career, Elton John was in a band that had opened for Stewart. On Elvis Costello’s television show <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectacle:_Elvis_Costello_with..."><g class="gr_ gr_81 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear Punctuation only-ins replaceWithoutSep" data-gr-id="81" id="81">Spectacle</g></a></i> he told a story of a night when an audience member had foolishly thrown something at the 300+ pound singer as he was singing. Stewart dropped his hulk off the stage and chased down the evening’s anarchist. </span><br />
<span style="caret-color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span face=""><span style="caret-color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It is that very same kind of intense spunk that’s all over this song. That spunk will force exhilaration into your earhole by the fistful.</span></span><br />
<span face=""><span style="caret-color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></span> <iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/XWxYx9mmr7U" width="560"></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8247559063665218916.post-21804002627416230192020-05-27T15:05:00.003-07:002020-06-09T12:42:31.053-07:00Song Reassignment Surgery: Bold Covers, 1<h3>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>Take 5</i> (Paul Desmond), 1959: The Dave Brubeck Quartet</span></h3>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The brilliant guitarist Marc Ribot and his Ceramic Dog rhythm section take a musical ball-peen hammer to the otherwise dusty bronzed American standard. Ribot’s fingers leave little of the original. Instead, he treats the tune like a textbook, leaving his highlights, notes, and doodles all over the pages. The original rhythm remains, if less recognizable, and the melody gets battered and deep-fried like a county fair Twinkie. By the time he gets into deep space with it, what’s left kind of skips off towards Neptune.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">As a pilot, Ribot has never navigated anywhere straight, but if you’re prepared, the trip will be extraordinary.</span><br />
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<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/SDsyTms4pD4" width="560"></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8247559063665218916.post-87433457189946530542020-05-19T09:39:00.001-07:002020-06-09T12:43:37.244-07:00Icons in the Orbit of Karl Denson's Tiny Universe<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">So who’s carrying the stank funk buckets of the 70s masters? Who’s casting a cosmic slop worthy of <a href="https://youtu.be/A_Z7HwDnuNI" style="font-weight: bold;">Sly Stone</a>, <b><a href="https://youtu.be/Ev3_4sJnaBA">Slave</a></b>,<b> <a href="https://youtu.be/zSsXRWhfN3w">The Gap Band</a></b>, and <b><a href="https://youtu.be/bN1xFZ2vfwY">Funkadelic</a></b>?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Karl Denson may be a contender. Maybe it’s his vintage (b. 1956), and journeyman trips around the sun with Lenny Kravitz, Blackalicious, Blind Boys of Alabama, and The Rolling Stones. His has been a career worthy of being called illustrious.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">When it came to sculpting the sound for his own joint, you can assume his record crates are loaded with the above iconic classics. Like his 2019 album with the band Tiny Universe suggests, it’s an influence that digs into the dog of his jam <i>I’m Your Biggest Fan</i> like foxtails. While he’s no Sly or George Clinton at the mic, he floats well enough across the groove and offers enough jazzy space in his changes to sink a pocket respectably deep.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">For those longing for the otherwise neglected harder edges of 70s funk, Denson is giving them props and abundance they rightfully deserve. Tour Spotify and you’ll find no shortage of classic funk pretenders and dilettantes – particularly those peddling <a href="https://youtu.be/r_IPV2zeDIc">Zapp</a>’s brand of synth clappy disco. Even among the betters in the field – here’s <a href="https://funkatopia.com/funk-news/20-best-funk-albums-of-2019/">a list of somebody’s idea of the worthier candidates</a> – most are a long way from rising to Denson’s elevation.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">When it comes to the hard funk bucket, Denson delivers.</span><br />
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<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Ud_sWGKl_AA" width="560"></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8247559063665218916.post-66553476750750581712020-05-09T02:04:00.000-07:002020-06-09T12:44:03.678-07:00I Should Fly Soars<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTiJAbOdDPOlVZj_9I6CB5B37w6PgYHWYdrbACLnnzwR02qGO7WHsnLC561uMYrjCQNgPxpxP0s27CpuKjrnv-iMm-Na4mcMMOcka1TBDBNObfpIcs1EcPJzMXds1qe9G0xnePY67lS-M/s1600/VermillionLies-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="300" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTiJAbOdDPOlVZj_9I6CB5B37w6PgYHWYdrbACLnnzwR02qGO7WHsnLC561uMYrjCQNgPxpxP0s27CpuKjrnv-iMm-Na4mcMMOcka1TBDBNObfpIcs1EcPJzMXds1qe9G0xnePY67lS-M/s200/VermillionLies-1.jpg" width="133" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">This Oakland based, self-described “sister caberet” duo was active from 2006 to 2009. Their bio blurbs include terms like “noise witch,” HBIC (Head Bitch In Charge), and positive expressions of body hair, gender fluidity and pronoun eschewal.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">This song, from their 2006 debut album, isn’t emblematic of their sound so much – sounding here like a hempier <a href="https://youtu.be/-4jXfMEu1YY">Pentangle</a> channeling through Nashville – but it’s one of their best.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">See for their <a href="https://vermillionlies.bandcamp.com/music">Bandcamp</a>, <a href="http://www.vermillionlies.com/">band site</a>, and their individual pages: <a href="http://www.zoeboekbinder.com/">Zoe Boekbinder</a> and <a href="http://www.kimboekbinder.com/about/">Kim Boekbinder.</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I’m guessing the video isn’t canon.</span><br />
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<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xDjnx9A8sGE" width="560"></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8247559063665218916.post-39336663307749344822020-05-01T15:38:00.001-07:002020-09-04T17:18:24.040-07:00(Hey) Joe Returns to Kill Again<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjP-bLbmmIWh-BZtMBJoBjtoYvKuJFadWAND8iqso-whDDMxumvW3k6H4xt5j0s3-uh3N27dTLz5v7CJnWTgFbUg3isX-HUX7VYP0GBaGJbv0MvSNpf0SAmQdOejq68zlwUsKVPcyVzKA/s1600/HeyJoe1.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="1117" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjP-bLbmmIWh-BZtMBJoBjtoYvKuJFadWAND8iqso-whDDMxumvW3k6H4xt5j0s3-uh3N27dTLz5v7CJnWTgFbUg3isX-HUX7VYP0GBaGJbv0MvSNpf0SAmQdOejq68zlwUsKVPcyVzKA/s320/HeyJoe1.jpg" width="238" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Songs of the folk tradition can have long umbilical cords stretching back hundreds of years. (<a href="https://youtu.be/sMCA9nYnLWo">This one</a> is over 800 years old.) More recently, a song like <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streets_of_Laredo_(song)" style="font-style: italic;">Streets of Laredo</a> has a musical and lyrical DNA that can <g class="gr_ gr_96 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear Grammar multiReplace" data-gr-id="96" id="96">been</g> traced to Irish ballads and British sea chanties from the19th century. In America, these Anglo progenitors of tune- and wordsmithery were added to a cultural gangbang of cowboy ballads and laments on the American frontier. A tradition built on a platform of African American cowboys, Mexican troubadours, and even a wank by way of New Orleans. By 1924, all of this cultural spunk ended up in the mouth and pen of cowboy singer Frank H. Maynard who was bestowed with <i>Hey Joe</i>’s official attribution by a journalist and academic. What exactly was Maynard’s contribution we’ll never know but before <g class="gr_ gr_100 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear Punctuation only-ins replaceWithoutSep" data-gr-id="100" id="100">him</g> there was likely a hundred years of curation by, and with the fingerprints of, <g class="gr_ gr_101 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear Punctuation multiReplace" data-gr-id="101" id="101">others.</g> So, <g class="gr_ gr_94 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear Grammar only-ins replaceWithoutSep" data-gr-id="94" id="94">music</g> of the folk and minstrel traditions, and likely all music to a degree, is like a whorehouse child – aside from its mysterious progenitors, there was also a lot of stepparenting. Such is how culture is made.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">This is also the history of <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hey_Joe">Hey Joe</a>, </i>though <g class="gr_ gr_93 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear Grammar multiReplace" data-gr-id="93" id="93">less</g> plains, deserts, and ocean crossings and more of an urbanized terrain – coffeehouses, taverns, and clubs. <i>Joe</i> also has the parentage of many donors. After this trajectory of borrowing, thieving, plagiarizing, and various appropriation, we’re left with the hard polished nugget that has been through the mouths of hundreds of recordings and performances.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And while the family tree may not be nearly as leafy as <i>Streets of Laredo</i>, thanks to attorneys and publisher privateers, <i>Joe’s</i> paternity was also forced into the possession of a stepfather with one name: <a href="https://youtu.be/OmrGOXJMQj0">Billy Roberts</a>, a California-based folkie who’d register the song’s copyright in 1962.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Then comes <a href="https://pleasekillme.com/dino-valenti/">Dino Valenti</a>: Best known as the composer of The Youngblood’s <i>Let’s Get Together</i> (still a much-used song for period soundtracks) and Quicksilver Messenger Service’s <i>Fresh Air</i>, Valenti would be sent to Folsom Prison from a police shakedown and a marijuana possession charge. To pay for his defense, Valenti sold the rights to <i>Let’s Get Together</i> for $100. While at Folsom, Valenti would meet Billy Roberts who at the time was playing with Johnny Cash’s band when he famously played there. Valenti would talk Roberts into transferring the rights to <i>Hey Joe</i> to help him woo the parole board with his status as a working musician. The ruse worked and Valenti was released and soon would be peddling the song to Los Angeles record companies. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mira_Records">Mira Records</a> would be the first to buy. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">At Mira Records, and the reason we know the song at <g class="gr_ gr_89 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear Punctuation only-del replaceWithoutSep" data-gr-id="89" id="89">all,</g> was the Angeleno garage band The Leaves. Their version would at last free the song from the folk clubs and put it on the radio </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">with <a href="https://youtu.be/XPa2HzDV7-0">their </a></span><a href="https://youtu.be/XPa2HzDV7-0">hit 1965 recording</a>. T</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">heir version that would be the conduit that brought </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Hey Joe</i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> to Jimi Hendrix’s attention. His iconic version would appear less than a year later.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">After Hendrix, the tale of the gun-wielding rake of the song would receive many injustices from <g class="gr_ gr_90 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear Grammar only-ins replaceWithoutSep" data-gr-id="90" id="90">voices</g> and fingerings of many along the way. Yet, it still bears the spunk of its stepparents The Leaves and Hendrix.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And then in 2002, Robert Plant and his rootsy outfit Strange Sensation offered a revitalized and reductive slow-burn take of the erstwhile overworked jewel. In Plant’s retelling, the circle of fifths refrain was diluted, droning and other non-bluesy elements were offered, and a nod of tribute to the Stratocaster of Hendrix. All coming together to <g class="gr_ gr_97 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear Grammar multiReplace" data-gr-id="97" id="97">gave</g> this <i>Joe</i> an understated power that patiently bides its rage until nearly the end, waiting almost four minutes before releasing the full furious extent of its, er, payload.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">After 55 years – and 36 after Hendrix – dusky <i>Joe</i> once again is fired from a gun worthy of his caliber.</span><br />
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<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/q4TVmvpTzgc" width="560"></iframe><br />
<br />And Billy Roberts; the father no one remembers:<br />
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/OmrGOXJMQj0" width="560"></iframe><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8247559063665218916.post-89199133473585730012020-04-16T12:10:00.000-07:002020-06-09T12:45:04.416-07:00Bambi Bongo<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It may’ve started <a href="https://youtu.be/BOyDI-M4f2c">here</a>. Bambi wins.</span><br />
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<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2ft954vXPa4" width="560"></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0