Iron Man Sings!

Robert Downey Jr. joins Sting on stage (and kisses his hand). I suppose we shouldn't be surprised, he's pretty good.

Mo' Dancin': Au Go Go

For you oldsters, see if you can spot Joey Heatherton, Teri Garr, and Toni Basil. Reportedly they're in there somewhere.



Thanks to Art Chantry for the alert.

Slammin' Dancin'

This has been around the world a few times but it's still worth seeing. There's a certain element of violence here that makes it almost uncomfortably intense. And brilliant. 



Compare it to this rather polite description of Jitterbugging.

Whitey Powers

We spend much of our time on Jelly Roll touting music of a certain vintage. But we also listen to more contemporary music on occasion. (I'm a father of a teenager, I'm subject to hearing all kinds of, er, product. Especially on long car rides.) And once in a while we come across something we like:

His name is Nathan Joseph White, his nom de musique is Whitey. His recent demurral written to a large production company wanting free use of his music free went viral. (His music has been featured in films and television shows like Breaking Bad and Grand Theft Auto IV.) He tried going the traditional music industry route with the release of his album but in his disgust decided to go his own way with Bandcamp. We like what we're hearing (admittedly, it does have a kind of retro appeal). Maybe you will too. The album for your delectation is linked below. Buy it from Bandcamp here.

Pushing

Tom Thum: The Michael Jackson is corny but the didgeridoo is brilliant.



Reggie Watts is a genius and proves that music is much more and much less than you think:




"Three Beats for Beatbox Flute" by Greg Pattillo: Going new places.











Guy turns kitchen into giant synthesizer:




That fusty old tool of lederhosen-wearing oompah bands, ultra-square band leaders, and other musical misfits, just got totally sexed up. 

Meet Greek babe Zoe Tiganouria. Before Zoe, you may not have noticed the accordion required so much spreading of the legs to play – a point made very clear here. While she may be pushing perceptions of the accordion, her boundaries aren't musical: where that's concerned you'll find she's firmly in the middle-of-the-road. That aside, she's a lot more than a spike-heeled and pouty-lipped tart – she's got chops. If her larded résumé is any indication, she's played with a who's who of Greek musical elite and has even clocked some time with James Brown (!). She may be the instruments first superstar, at least for the Cyrillic parts of the world. 

A little off theme but I just love this piece: Horowitz and Sriabin proving that the piano my be the best drum ever created: the beatbox abstracted.

Benjamin Franklin, the Robert Moog of His Day

Ever run your wetted finger on the rim of a wine glass? It produces a sound. Cover a table with wine glasses tuned to various pitches and it's called a glass harp. Benjamin Franklin heard someone play a glass harp and, because he was Benjamin Franklin, invented the Armonica, a kind of 18th century Theremin or Georgian era synth. An explanation of the curiosity below:



Sounds like a pipe organ with a single high stop pulled. No matter what's played on it sounds like a funeral. In any event, it's curious.

Momma, can you hear me yell, Your baby boy's gone back to hell: Jacques Brel in Spirit and Word

I've made my case for Jacques Brel before (here and here). Brel ( 1929-1978) was the Belgian singer/songwriter capable of wringing more expression from his teeth than a legion of vocal contestants from The Voice/American Idol/etc. His performances were a masterful balance of black comedy and heart shattered pathos delivered like a meth-crashing Pagliacci. And if the vocal and facial intensity weren't enough, watch him sweat buckets enough for a menopausal squad of Tina Turners. Intensity was his meat.





But what of the songs? Even in their English "translations" his lyrics are the opposite of cloying and sentimental. He seemed incapable of seeing love as anything other than humiliating, doomed, or worse, cancerous; or, as in Mathilde, all three together. (Not ironically it was lung cancer that took Brel's life at 49.) Purists have argued that the only way to understand the true depths of Brel is to hear him in his original French. No doubt this might be the preferred vehicle for the French enabled but that's not to say that some of the third-party English reworkings don't have a power of their own. (The title of this post is a line from one such translation.) As representatives of the translations, both Dusty Springfield and Shirley Bassey make cases of their own, understatement in the former and eye-shifting displays of power in the latter.

See Brel in action with a series posted at Network Awesome.


Below, Scott Walker—who famously recorded a hefty number of Brel translations—takes a crack at a reworking of Mathilde.



It's been argued that Michigander creative writing professor Dr Arnold Johnston may be the best translator for locating the truest spirit of Brel. As he notes in the video below, after Ne me quitte pas was voted Love Song of the Century in Europe, Brel asserted that it was not a love song at all but a description of one man's humiliation. Vocally, Johnston's performance will never suspend beliefs that he's anything but a professor singing in a small town library, still, he manages to get his point across.

Below, two Brel chestnuts offered with a little perspective and translations that promise to be more in the maestro's spirit: