Jesus, this track is blowing up my ears just now: Check out this link and listen to “She Came Along” by Sharad Feat. Kid Cudi. I never thought I’d hear Patsy mashed up successfully, nor indeed hear country music of any kind getting along with Hip-Hop but this is quite beautiful.
You know, I’m kind of surprised at myself getting all emotional over the Michael Jackson ta-ta revival yesterday morning. I think it’s being a new parent and Rory being in the room or something – I’m getting soft. Anyway, as my old pal Mon, a heavyweight Western Scots cynic like myself, points out to me on Facebook this morning – a lot of stuff is being swept under the carpet in the endless re-spins of “Billie Jean” this past week. He also points me to this article, written by yet another Western-Scots cynic in The Independent. It’s important to keep a balance and, you know, until last week I also thought of Michael as a kiddy-diddler. I need to give myself a shake here!
I’m not unaware of the fact Jacko has moonwalked off this mortal coil – don’t get me wrong. I’m just having trouble getting gloomy about it when there are so many fantastic jokes about it coming out of the UK already, in typical British style. My favourite remains the headline “King Of Pop Michael Jackson dies, Madonna has contacts family, asks how much they want for the kids”. Another reported that Eric Clapton had enisted a medium to warn his son Jacko was on his way up. Yet another reports that In light of Michael’s UK contractual commitments, Gary Glitter has been in touch with Jackson’s management to offer to take care of some of Michael’s dates….. And finally, the Jackson family is said to be considering having Michael’s body melted down and turned into toys so that kids can have a play with him for a change….ow! Okay, that’s enough and bear in mind none of them were my own creations.
Sadly, I look on Michael the way I look on Phil Spector: a tragic example of how boundless fame, wealth and bloodthirsty public scrutiny combined with some leftover childhood issues is a recipe for sure disaster. I feel his downfall and subsequent death is at least 75% attributable to us and how we adore fame for any sake. That’s a sad thing. I think his musical legacy from the J5 and the first few years solo when Quincy Jones was at the helm is absolutely immense and will always stand strong as some of the best pop music ever made – that is a really good thing. A man of immense talent and charisma, bludgeoned by fame and poor guidance.
Rest in peace, MJ, you’ve been responsible for some happy, happy moments of dancing (both alone and in public) in my life and I truly wish you hadn’t become a figure of fun in your latter years but that’s how the game goes.
My old mate Michael, Canada’s top music writer, has posted a link to this clip of Julie Driscoll, whose more pop-ish work I used to have a Best Of LP ful of, tearing it up with The Brian Auger Trinity, a red hot blue-eyed soul combo. This, my friends, is my kind of music. Writ large. Listen to the drummer at the breakdown just before the end – weaving in and out of the organist’s percussive stabs. Pure magic. And Julie Driscoll, whom I’d thought of as a kind of folky-pop covers artist – wowee! She captivates in this clip. Absolutely spellbinding – her look, as TSO and I just agreed – is timlessly awesome, ditto her moves. Whoosh! That’s good.
God, you really wonder if a body cares a darn cahoot what anyone thinks of him any more when he behaves like Billy Bob Thornton behaves in this interview. It’s a totally credible music program on Canada’s CBC and not a fucking E Entertainment soundbyte jackoff interview by some gormless blonde face. And yet Billy still manages to find something to protest in the opening seconds of the interview. Well! Any respect I might have had for him as an actor (and I did) is henceforth tainted indelibly by the fact he’s a total ham-shank in real life.
You need to listen to this.
God forgive me, this gave me the best laugh I’ve had in ages. I love how the chorus just jumps out like the carny in the mask on the Ghost Train now and again – no real bar count or timing – you’re not ready for it and POW! Out it jumps at you again “It’s so CAAAAWWWLD ina D…” That gets me in the gut every time. And how the lead, er, vocalist, feels it necessary to remind us with two spindly fingers where our “mind” is every single time she says “it’s all on a niggah’s mi-hind” – that’s cash money stage presence right there.
Addendum: I’ve just discovered that TBaby here is a bit of an internet phenom. You can catch her live in a radio station here on Youtube. And you can hear someone interpret her work here. Her story is roughlky outlined in this magazine article from Detroit. Awesome. Latonya Miles. AKA TBaby – we salute you.
“I heard people say things that weren’t very friendly. I knew what they were thinking,” she says. “I saw people laughing and I knew they were laughing at me. But I thought, well, they’ll soon shut up when they hear me sing. And they did. I’ve never thought my voice was outstanding but I’ve always known I was a good singer.”
I’m watching the arc of Susan Boyle’s success with a mixture of disbelief, pride, disgust and unbridled cynicism. I saw it less than 24 hours after it had aired, as acquaintances scrambled to spread the good word. I was watching Britain’s Got Talent a few years back when Paul Potts had his audition – it came a good way into the show’s run, and right as viewer interest (if the people at my work were anything to go by) for the show in general was waning a little.
Shortly thereafter I’m walking down the street in Glasgow and there’s a poster advertising Potts at a huge concert venue, part of his nationwide tour. Shortly after that, I’m walking down a street in Auckland, New Zealand and see a poster for Potts’ world tour now. What. The. Fuck?
I confess I am as stricken as anyone to see a person not so fair-of-face opening their mouth and singing. Like the blind couple in the middle of Dumfries on a Saturday morning – horrible, smelly looking people but when that old woman at the Casio opens her tooth-free gob, boy, you’d swear Patsy Cline was standing behind her. I love that shit man – it makes me cry sometimes. So I’m not immune. But after seeing Boyle’s performance and quickly realizing it was not now coming halfway through the show but practically in the first episode, and thinking back to Pottsy’s meteoric rise, and knowing the sheer ruthless business nous behind shows like X-Factor and so on, I’m wont to believe Boyle was no accident. Simon’s company was looking actively seeking a homely Caruso sequel.
Even if we leave that point for a second – lets take the past week’s media coverage of the issue. I’ve just listened to Marcus Lush on Radio Live talk radio here in Wellington, interviewing Elaine Paige… about Susan Boyle. The twin central premises of everything that’s been said is one thing that’s spoken about openly (Boyle’s voice) and an unspoken or danced-around thing (her un-bonny looks). Can you imagine how it would feel to hear the world discussing your amazing voice, but only in the same breath as the fact you’re ugly and a good singer? Jesus Christ, has the world of reality TV fallen so low that we are no longer entertained enough by people who look like us having a good singing voice and getting on in life because of it? Have we taken that next step down the staircase of taste whereby we now are only impressed if the person with the amazing voice is uglier than us? Man, that’s a worrying thought – to me at least. We find ourselves again only yards away from the lion pit full of people who are different from us, aren’t we? I mean what’s next? Will all the hopefuls from X Factor suddenly be getting monstrous makeovers – getting a bad set and dye, wearing their grannie’s frock? Will you be nothing without a harelip? It sounds ridiculous but how ridiculous is it already?
So I admire Susan Boyle for that uniquely Scots sense of indignation – that she’ll show the public with her voice, that she is somebody, that she won’t be kept down. I just feel a bit sad that we’re only getting to hear about her because she’s not young, pretty, her voice isn’t salable enough in its own right.
Good quote here from Tanya Gold in the Guardian who, I’ve just discovered, appears to feel the same:
“Why are we so shocked when “ugly” women can do things, rather than sitting at home weeping and wishing they were somebody else? Men are allowed to be ugly and talented.”
(N.B. Marcus Lush just came back on and said that he’d forgotten to mention Elaine Paige’s tour later this year – which, he said, was the only reason she agreed to talk to him about Ms. Boyle!!)
Can I just say how crestfallen I am that Phil Spector has finally done his dash in court and is on remand? Not that I don’t think he’s guilty. Even as a huge fan of his body of work and someone who’s read the biography (and, more tellingly, Ronnie’s) I’ll admit he’s a misogynistic lunatic that’s truly a danger to the public a large. I’ll just miss his court wigs and my endless inward speculations on what variety he’ll show up with next. I half expected him to turn up in a judges’ wig one day, or a Louis XIV powdered court wig – perhaps a nylon-y middle aged ladies model in orange or lilac or even a glitter disco one from the novelty shop.
I’d encourage anyone with the slightest interest to read the Mick Brown bio – it’s huge but it’s a rip-roaring yarn of a life, old Phil’s – a long, steady rollercoaster/ghost train of a ride with him playing all the ghouls. I’ll close with a quote that sums half of him up:
“I just didn’t give an infinitesimal fuck about anyone. You count your success by how many enemies you’ve made. My enemies are now dying off which is a sadness, because they define me.”
A couple of times in the last few years, I’ve heard covers of “It’s A Heartache” made famous by Bonnie Tyler. First, Rod Stewart was on X-Factor as a mentor and did a balls-out version of it with little more than acoustic backing. Then, here in NZ, a mother of four did a great version of it on Stars In Their Eyes NZ which I also loved. When on a weekend in the Coromandel last year with Pete & Soph, Pete and I knocked out a pretty together version of it too. It’s an awesome, timeless pop song, to be honest – written by Ronnie Scott and Steve Wolfe – Bonnie’s producers, and I find that I love it quite considerably.
Since being here in New Zealand, I’ve heard the odd snippet about The Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra but never seen them live yet. I love the Uke too, you see, and the thought of a dozen grownups with a Uke the piece, playing classic hits really appeals to me. Imagine my surprise and delight then, to discover that the WIUO have covered Bonnie’s classic:
Sometimes on TV here, on the Maori Channel, you come across blinding flashes of great stuff – strong documentary footage primarily but occasionally good music. Last night at bed time, we tuned in to the Friday night karaoke contest (The Maori Channel is very under funded, generally) called “Homai Te Pakipaki” just in time to catch their special guest. Maisey Rika is a 25 year old kid (but a deep, old soul at the same time) from Whakatane, mother of one and my lord can this girl sing? Her voice is enormous – a wavering, delicate effortless thing weaving in and out of Arabic trills and classic soul-isms as if the two entities had always lived together. And she has a social conscience – the song was “Children Of Romania” written after she’d seen a segment on the news about the plight of orphans in Romania. Can you believe this girl is not huge? She doesn’t even have a deal, it appears. the chances of that lasting are remote, surely. Here is Maisey, in her bedroom with her pal Scruph on guitar.
Oh I hope they are careful not to over produce her or fit her into a style to market more easily. This needs delicacy.Her message when the host thanked her and praised her work was so beautifully simple “No need to thank us, we’re just the messengers.”
Read this great article in the Observer Magazine last week there about a long forgotten musical style called Khmer Rock – from pre-Pol Pot Cambodia. The artists there were for the first time exposed to western music via the AFN booming over the hills from Vietnam where an early prototype of the War On Terror was going on. They immediately plugged in cheap, nasty guitars, organs and started howling their own primitive version of what they heard. I love it! I love it in the weird way I love Bollywood music – it just sounds so damn, foreign and thus has a great mystique and appeal to me. you can get a taste of some of the original artists here, at Khmer Rocks. However, my main discovery from all this has without doubt, been the exciting sounds of Dengue Fever – a modern-day US outfit doing their own tribute version of Khmer Rock with some other little flavours in there. their version of Ros Sereysothea’s “I’m Sixteen” is burning up the iPod here at New Soup.
I am hot for a look at this documentary about the genre, mentioned in the article, and uncovering the deeply moving history behind this music and the desperate tragedy that its joyous, innocent sound preceded.
I’ve been really beating the pavements of Manhattan this week, and I’m developing a great playlist on the iPod that fits the mood perfectly. Here are some samples:.
Anyone got any suggestions for additions? I’m fine tuning every day, finding that certain songs really lend themselves well to the landscape.
(Incidentaly, I Took this picture from the Brooklyn Bridge the other day when the sky was cooperating)
I’m listening to a lot of music at work these days, mainly KCRW online out of Santa Monica, California, which has been a love of mine for many years. It’s sent me out on a few errands to pick up new sounds as it always does. The new album from Band Of Horses is due out and the first ‘single’ has become the anthem of my last month, really. “Is There A Ghost” can be downloaded for free from the band’s Myspace page and I’d encourage you to do so. It’s a haunted, echo-y ballad, or mantra of a few choice words, sung over a building guitar pop background. The singer’s voice has me floored – a Neil-Young-ish falsetto that occasionally trails to a throaty rip at all the right moments. You can watch a session with the band on Morning Becomes Eclectic with the inimitable Nic Harcourt and it’s a pretty good session. There’s a pretty decent article on the band here as well.
Unexpectedly, on Friday night, I stumbled upon a 1974 live performance at the BBC by Bill Withers. Now let me say I’ve always loved his songwriting, his albums are among my most prized vinyl and his voice has always melted me. But to watch him, in his prime, performing in a studio setting with a tight combo of musicians – man! It was a treat and a half. I was absolutely transfixed and was reminded with a shovel-in-the-face wallop, of the power of soul. What a performer, what a laid-back, in-it bowl-o-soul and a what a handsome bastard too. His understated delivery, his ability to let the song breathe and leave out all the right things – the TRUTH in his performance was so damn moving and so very refreshing. To say that it was an inspiring performance would be to do it a great disservice – it moved me to tears repeatedly and raised every hair on my body. I hope some of you can get a portion of what I’m talking about from these tastes and if you ever have the chance to see this whole concert – take it.
A clip from that performance
A taste from a slightly later period but equally good
A great interview
