Category Archives: music

Oct 23 3 comments
Nostalgia, music

Rex Manning Day

When I was a young girl of 12 or 13, I had myself an obsession.  It was the mid-nineties, so popular culture dictated that I be into Leonardo DiCaprio or one of the Lawrence brothers, but I couldn’t be bothered. Instead, this era ushered in a weird musical zeitgeist that I had no real business indulging in  –  grunge and angry women singer-songwriters. I’m not really sure what angst could have possibly erupted from my Mayberry-like West Michigan upbringing, but Lilith Fair and “Alternative Rock” seemed to hit the spot.

Of the bands to come out of that time, I lived and breathed the band Bush. If you’ve been around TYK for a while, you’ve read some gems from my diary that show the extent of my fixation on Bush and my obsessive infatuation with Gavin Rossdale. But very, very few people have read the eight-page concert manifesto I wrote after I saw them in concert in 1997. That, dear readers, is the piece de resistance of my fanaticism. You thought Jingle Jam 2003 was intense? WAIT FOR IT.

If you have some time to kill and want some chuckles, you can download the PDF here. For everyone else, here are some of my favorite highlights…

You guys, I legitimately thought I was going to marry Gavin Rossdale, and no one understood my love for him.

I THINK YOU GET THE IDEA.

Well, you probably aren’t aware of this, but Bush (at least Gavin and the drummer, Robin) released a new album and went on tour this fall. My BFF Katie and I decided to go to the Cincinnati show, and she SURPRISED ME with SOMETHING CRAZY: she got us on the list for the meet ‘n greet.

Remember Rex Manning Day in the movie Empire Records?

Katie gave me a pep talk about how NOT turn the Meet ‘n Greet into Rex Manning Day. You know - don’t gush to Gavin Rossdale about how much you loved him WHEN YOU WERE THIRTEEN - that just makes everybody feel old.

But you guys? I was so geeked to meet Gavin Rossdale I might as well have been clutching a copy of “Bop.” The meet ‘n greet was composed of around 20 people, and it was super contrived - you know, wait in line, stand here, here’s the picture they’ll sign, blah blah blah.

When we walked up to the table, while my heart was palpitating and I was sweating profusely, I must have looked pretty cool, because Gavin said to us, “Wow, you girls look great.” Wait, what?

Giggle.

Blush.

“You guys definitely win. You win the best looking award.”

We got together to take this picture and we were instructed to move closer together. “C’mon,” Rossdale said. “Let’s pretend like we like each other.” AND HE PULLED ME TO HIM AND THAT’S WHY MY FACE IS SAYING, “OMG, there is only a layer of jeans and jeggings between me and Gavin Rossdale’s junk.”

Also, can I just say…

It was like 1997 all over again.

Except now I have this awesome rack.

And Spanx.

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Sep 06 0 comments
music

Happy Birthday, Freddie.

About this time last year, a fixation on Queen hit me, kind of out of nowhere. Especially “A Night at the Opera.” My best friend had just moved away, I was in-between apartments, the weather was getting cooler, and I just felt out of sorts. I’m not really sure what was so grounding about Opera, but I listened to it daily for about a month.

My favorite story to come out of this album is the one about Mary Austin, whom Freddie Mercury often described as the “love of his life.”

mercuryaustin

The two were lovers for six years before Freddie decided he preferred men. (Mary: “He said, ‘I think I’m bisexual.’ I told him, ‘I think you’re gay.’ And nothing else was said. We just hugged.”) The two remained the greatest and most loyal of friends. She was his rock from the early stages of Queen to his skyrocket to stardom, and he became the godfather of her children. Mary was also the first person Freddie confided in about contracting the AIDS virus, and she was at his bedside as he lived out his last days. Their friendship ran so deep that they spoke of their relationship as of it were a marriage:

“All my lovers asked me why they couldn’t replace Mary, but it’s simply impossible. The only friend I’ve got is Mary and I don’t want anybody else. To me, she was my common-law wife. To me, it was a marriage. We believe in each other, that’s enough for me.”

- Freddie Mercury in People, 1977.

“I lost somebody who I thought was my eternal love. When he died I felt we’d had a marriage. We’d lived our vows. We’d done it for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health. You could never have let go of Freddie unless he died - and even then it was difficult.”

- Mary Austin in OK! Magazine, 2000.

Freddie left his Kensington dream home to Mary and her sons, along with 50% of his multi-million dollar fortune and a steady income from portions of record sales and publishing rights. She left everything in the home just as it was when Freddie was alive, although she did admit that it took her five years before she could sleep in his bright yellow master bedroom.

Freddie also left her a beautiful gift in the form of this song, which is one of my favorites:

And here’s the studio version, because while that live version packs a punch to the gut, the layered vocals on the album version are STUNNING and also BRIAN MAY IS PLAYING THE HARP:

Freddie Mercury would have been 65 today.

freddie-mercury

So this evening, take a second to put on your checkered jumpsuit and STRUT.


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Aug 22 0 comments
music

My Odd and Mostly Self-Absorbed Goodbye to Jerry Leiber

Jerry Leiber of the legendary songwriting team Leiber and Stoller died today of cardiopulmonary failure. He was 78.

While “Leiber and Stoller” might not be a top-of-mind songwriting pair, their influence over popular music as you know it is ridiculously immense. Think “Hound Dog” and “Jailhouse Rock.” Yeah, no big deal.

Here are some of my favorites from the duo:

Love Me:

[I'm putting this one out front, because if you watch ONE of the following videos, let it be this epitome of heaven on earth.]

Truth: The unplugged set of the Elvis ‘68 comeback session is my porn.

Yakety Sax, or “The Benny Hill Theme”:

While in the car with my dad, researching this post:

Me: Huh! Leiber and Stoller wrote the theme to Benny Hill.

Dad: Cool!

Me: How does that one go, again?

Dad: It’s like…’Menomena..doot doooo do doo do…menomena, doot d-

Me: Yeah, that’s the Muppets.

On Broadway:

There must be something about this song that implores choreographers to think, “CLASSIC JAZZ LINES and HATS!” because I’m pretty sure I’ve performed this exact routine…unfortunately minus the cool costume budget:

Stand By Me:

Songwriting-wise, does it get better than this? Spoiler: No. No, it does not.

Is That All There Is?:

#baller

Let’s break out the booze and have a ball
If that’s all there is

UNOFFICIAL TYK THEME SONG!

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Aug 19 1 comments
indianapolis, music

Stranger in a Strange Land

or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Enjoy a Pop Concert

Here’s the thing I’ll say about mainstream pop shows: people get fired UP. That’s kind of nice.

These little indie rock shows I attend are amazing and intimate, but on some nights, the people who show up are…how do I say this…too cool for school, I guess? There is an art to hipster nonchalance and non-committal dancing – which is fine, that’s the scene, or whatever. But let me remind you that I’m the girl who drunkenly yells at people for not being awed in the presence of Harry Belafonte.

So I went to a Maroon 5/Train concert last night.

First of all, I was sober, which is the weird thing, because I really quite enjoyed myself (At one point in the night I actually exclaimed to my party, “Aren’t you proud of me that I’m not DRUNK right now?” Classy.) But this concert really ended up taking on a special meaning as a benefit show for the Indiana State Fair Remembrance Fund. Everything from the talent’s performance fees to ticket sales, venue cost and labor, catering and concessions, etc - all went to the cause. I heard the bands’ costs totalled at least $500k alone, and the Indy Star is estimating it will likely be a seven-figure fundraiser, which is awesome.

Bess and I grabbed our Conseco Fieldhouse dinner and were just about to sit down when the show started. We both wished for Train to be first so we could sit and eat. No such luck. Maroon 5 came on playing their latest single, and because this is Bess’s Song du Jour, she glared at the hot dog I was shoving into my mouth and yelled, “PUT THAT DOWN! IT’S MOVES LIKE MICK JAGGERRRRR!!!”

It was fun. Maroon 5 was fun. I just wish they’d embrace being poppy and dancy, instead of ending songs with these weird “rock” interludes. Hey Adam Levine, “This Love” does NOT need a five-minute guitar solo. The disco ball above your head should be your first hint. Earlier I claimed no knowledge of any songs beyond their first album, but was surprised to know EVERY chorus of every song, because of POP MUSIC OSMOSIS. A song would start and we’d be like, “I’ve never heard this song in my life,” and then the hook would come in and we’d mysteriously belt out every word. POP.

We started making bets on how long we were going to last through Train’s set. I withheld my guilty desire to at least stay for “Drops of Jupiter,” because it reminded me of being in love the summer after my high school graduation. (If you’re playing the home game, getting drunk on Nostalgia is a common thing we like to do here at TYK.) Train’s set starts with - I shit you not - the sound effect of a train pulling into the station, and Bess’s sister Carrie, who drove us, was ready to bolt. We were like “NOOOO GIVE IT A CHANCE?”, which is something I never thought I’d say about Train, ever (but also, DROPS OF JUPITER, shhhh).

The Train set was WEIRD - like, there were awkward audience participation segments, and this cello player danced the flamenco, and the lead singer did a yoga pose on a stage ramp? In the row behind us were three sets of teenagers, all couples, and during that ”Marry Me” song, one pair got up and started dancing. I was like, “You can’t be more than SIXTEEN! WHAT ARE YOU DOING? YOU KNOW NOTHING OF LOVE!” and then…Drops of Jupiter. Goddammit. Touche, Train.

I was entertained, though. The lead singer changed shirts multiple times and his pants were SO TIGHT! They also did a surprisingly great cover of U2’s “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.” I’m a bitch for saying anything critical at all, really, because this concert was about something vastly more important than my music snobbery. Conseco Fieldhouse was full of sincere and supportive hoosiers, coming together. Bottom line.

And this Hoosier pride is powerful. “HOW POWEFUL IS IT?” you ask. Well, dear readers, so powerful that I stood up and sang to what is perhaps one of my least favorite songs of all time, “Hey, Soul Sister.” I was ADAMANT about my hatred for it earlier in the night, but I’ll be damned if I was not the first person in my row telling people to get up and dance.

After the show ended, Bess turned to me and I poked her in the collarbone — “You tell ANYONE that I was dancing and singing to ‘Hey, Soul Sister’ and I WILL CUT YOU.”

…..

Hey, I just wanted you to hear it from me, first.

———————————————–

From WISHTV:

Donors can now text FAIR to 27722 to make a $10 donation.

Up to three donations ($30 total) may be given this way from a single cell phone.

The fund will benefit those injured in the stage rigging collapse Saturday at the Indiana State Fair, just before a Sugarland concert, as well as the families of those who died.

Donations can also be made online , or by mail; Checks should be sent to CICF, ATTN: Indiana State Fair Remembrance Fund, 615 N. Alabama St., Indianapolis, IN 46204-1498.

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Aug 18 1 comments
Nostalgia, music

Jingle Jam: A Retrospective.

Many people don’t know this, but I’ve been actually been blogging since November 2002. This was pre-Facebook, so the only people who were linked to my “journal” (on a now-ancient platform called Blurty) were high school and college friends in my AIM buddy list. (Remember those? Those were A Thing.)

Seventy percent of my Blurty entries were song lyrics, quizzes (”What is Your True Aura Color?”), and poorly crafted images with overlaid emo lyrics that are now all the rage of teens on Tumblr. There are a lot of **asterisks** and ~~misuses of the tilde ~~. Occasionally, you’ll find a paragraph of substance or an interesting glimpse into my life at what was then the “#1 Party School in the Nation,” but mainly I come across as a manic mess of a girly girl.  This is probably a prime example.

But the entry that has given me the most shit over the years has been the Jingle Jam 2003 post. The thing about documenting your life on the internet from age 19 is that it becomes both a touching pseudo-memoir and also the bane of your existence. The Jingle Jam post is, essentially, the portrait of a fangirl.  But for those who can’t get through the first paragraph (I surely can’t, anymore) let me spare you some secondhand embarrassment and sum it up: it is a detailed account of my after-party experience of a holiday show featuring Howie Day, Guster, Maroon 5, and Jason Mraz.  (Oh, and Jared the Subway guy is also involved.)

Sometime my Freshman year, my friend Lauren burned me a mix CD of music she liked, which included Maroon 5. This was at least a year before their first single dropped, so it’s probably the first instance I can think of where that hipstery, “Oh, I knew about them WAY before…” tendency presented itself.  At that time, Maroon 5 was “indie” to me, because apparently “indie” was any band that wasn’t Dave Matthews.

Anyway, my current circle of friends never let me forget about Jingle Jam. How could they not? Here are a couple excepts:

Last night, I went to Indianapolis to see Z99.5’s “Jingle Jam”…Hands down, one of the top five BEST nights of my life. I was just incredibly giddy with happiness, and it’s one of those random nights I’ll always remember . . .

JINGLE JAM ‘03: NEVER FORGET.

Maroon5 was my favorite act. I was introduced to them a year ago by my friend Lauren, and got the cd not so long ago. But live? Oh. My. God. Adam Levine, the lead singer is like this sexy little rock god, performs beautifully. The seats vibrated when they played. Award for Most Sex-Charged Set…

Gross.

…So afterwards, Em and I call Micah, the audio engineer for Mraz that we had met in Ball State on Halloween. He invites us over to their hotel, to the VIP After-show party. We got temporarily lost as we drove around Christmas-y decorated Indy, giggling about what the night would entail.

We had no idea.

I think this stemmed from that MTV show, “Diary”? Where the celebrity would always say in the intro: “You THINK you know - but you have NO IDEA.”

…I did meet the lead singer for Maroon 5, who was pretty cool, but toward the end seemed pretty bored/tired by the whole party thing. Transitioning into my tipsy stage by this point, we talked about how this wasn’t a true party because there was no music and how I was pissed because there was no dancing. (I’m sure Adam Levine was impressed by this. God I am such a dork.)

At least I was a little self-aware. I’m trying to picture what I was wearing this night, but I guarantee I was wearing a choker necklace (despite the fact that they had gone extinct by ‘97), bootleg jeans, and a fake tan. WHY DIDN’T YOU RAVISH ME, ADAM LEVINE?

Now, eight years later, I find myself about to attend another Maroon 5 show. You might be asking yourself, “Why, Jenn? And how? With your snooty music opinions, and the knowledge that TRAIN is co-headlining?”

Well, Bess and I were supposed to see Janet Jackson last night at the Indiana State Fair, but she cancelled. Super bummed, we decided we’d go to the fair anyway and eat our feelings, replacing Janet with meat on a stick and fried kool-aid. Unfortunately, Bess had to work late, so we missed out. Womp, womp. She mentioned she could get free tickets to the Maroon 5 show at Conseco. So why not, I guess. Janet was supposed to be my birthday concert, but I’ll see Adam Levine slink around for the sake of nostalgia.

This morning, Matt asked what I ended up gorging on at the fair:

“We didn’t GO because BESS had to WORK LATE. So I had a SALAD, which I’m pretty sure is the opposite of FRIED THINGS. But we’re ironically going to the Maroon 5 concert tonight?”

“I think this worked out for the best,” he said. “You don’t hate yourself today, and you get to see Adam Levine pretend to be relevant.”

But c’mon. We all know that while I’m rolling my eyes behind my big, judgey Ray Bans that inside me there is a 20-year old girl in a choker and bootleg jeans, ~*fah-REAKING OUT. *~

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Aug 13 0 comments
music, shopping

Check It: Ezra Furman

Baby’s First Black-Out Drunk Purchase:

Sometime in April, I came home one afternoon to find this in my mailbox:

This is an autographed copy of Ezra Furman and the Harpoons latest, Mysterious Power. I was happy to receive it; however, I had no recollection of ever ordering it. I checked my bank statement and it turns out I purchased this after coming home from the bar at about 3am. A brilliant choice, nonetheless.

I’ve had the pleasure of seeing Ezra Furman twice live here in Indianapolis, and I have no idea why he isn’t famous yet — his music is so sincere and awkward and fun. A lot of indie music nowadays is so calculated and precise but I love a band that’s off-kilter and perfectly unperfect. Music blogs draw a lot of comparison between Ezra and Bob Dylan/the Violent Femmes/David Byrne, but what I really hear is a beautiful, rambling poet who was clearly influenced by music I’ve always loved.

This is one of my favorites from this newest album:

“Something about her reminds me of the United States, sprawling across the west in all their glory.” I just love the way he looks at the world. Okay, yes, I kind of have a crush on him too, after reading his blog.

I’ll profess my love on a Saturday because no one reads blogs on Saturdays.

Anyway, Ezra Furman is now working on a solo record, which you can support at Kickstarter. According to his video, his new work is the result of breaking through artistic boredom by getting into intentional fistfights at bars. Totally.

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Aug 09 2 comments
lists, music

10 Things You Didn’t Know about Harry Belafonte

About a year ago, I went to my first major league baseball game with my friends Katie and Nick. Katie had to work the event, so we had to get there super early. Nick and I, naturally, headed across the street from the ballpark and started drinking. It was Cardinals v. Reds, but I can barely remember that, because I was drunkity drunk drunk by the time the game started. BASEBALL!

Here’s what I do remember: it was the Civil Rights Game, and HARRY BELAFONTE WAS THERE to win an award. They drove him around the diamond in a little golf cart and he waved, and from the upper deck, I “Woo”ed like I’ve never wooed before. Then I accosted everyone in a ten-row radius by slurring, “WH..WHY AREN’T YOU CLAAPPING? It’s…that’s HARRY BELLLLAFONTAAAY, PEOPLE. Yooo…you people don’t know ANYTHING.” And then Nick told me to sit down because I was spilling my beer all over him.

This is all to say, I LOVE HARRY BELAFONTE. And you should too.

Stud.

Stud.

Ten Things You Didn’t Know about Harry Belafonte:

1. He served in the U.S. Navy during WWII.

2. In the late 1940s, he took classes in acting at The New School in New York alongside MARLON BRANDO. SIDNEY POITIER. AND BEA ARTHUR. What a lunch table that must’ve been.

3. His breakthrough album Calypso (1956) became the first LP to sell over 1 million copies.

4. His album Midnight Special (1962) featured the first–ever record appearance by a then young harmonica player named Bob Dylan:

5. Belafonte was the first African–American to win an Emmy, with his first solo TV special Tonight with Belafonte (1959).

harry-belafonte-emmy

6. Belafonte supported the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and was one of Martin Luther King Jr.’s confidants. He provided for King’s family, since King made only $8,000 a year as a preacher.

7. In 1968, Belafonte appeared on a Petula Clark primetime television special on NBC.

In the middle of a song, Clark smiled and briefly touched Belafonte’s arm. This made the show’s sponsor, Plymouth Motors, nervous. Plymouth wanted to cut the segment, but Clark, who had ownership of the special, told NBC that the performance would be shown intact or she would not allow the special to be aired at all. Newspapers reported the controversy and, when the special aired, it grabbed high ratings.

(You can watch the video here. “Scandal” at 2:13.)

8. BELAFONTE BEAT PROSTATE CANCER.

9. Harry Belafonte IS RESPONSIBLE FOR RAP IN CUBA.

According to Geoffrey Baker’s article “Hip hop, Revolucion! Nationalizing Rap in Cuba,” in 1999, Belafonte met with representatives of the rap community immediately before meeting with Fidel Castro. This meeting resulted in Castro’s personal approval of (and hence the government’s involvement in), the incorporation of rap into his country’s culture.

10. During the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day speech at the Duke University in 2006, Belafonte said that if he could choose his epitaph, it would be, “Harry Belafonte, Patriot.”

How about, “Harry Belafonte, LOVE OF MY LIFE,” AM I RIGHT?

(Source: Wikipedia, all of it.)

—————————--

BONUS VID:

Harry Belafonte singing “Turn the World Around” on The Muppet Show.

(fact: this was said to have been one of Jim Hensons’s favorite performances. Belafonte was asked to perform this number at Henson’s memorial. WARNING: Do NOT youtube Jim Henson’s memorial because I believe it to be the saddest thing on the internet.)

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Aug 06 1 comments
Nostalgia, music

Hot Licks on the Licorice Stick

What I really wanted to do was play the French Horn.

I don’t know how a child of six or seven manages to fixate on the idea of playing a particular musical instrument. I don’t know if I saw it on Sesame Street, or if a character from Punky Brewster played the French horn. Either way, I was obsessed with it. It’s weird, but considering the kind of adult I grew into (see last night’s post about purchasing a ukulele), no one should be surprised.

My parents took me to the Grand Rapids Symphony a lot when I was little. One evening they had an “instrument petting zoo” in the lobby, where you could walk up to the musicians and test drive their instruments. (O HAI, GERMS!) I remember walking up to the lady with the French horn. “This is my destiny, lady, I got this,” my little self thought. She explained how to buzz your lips into the mouthpiece. I took a deep breath, put my mouth to the brass, and…Pffffft. Nothing. “Fuck your horn, lady!” I snarled. Just kidding. I was seven.

I then approached the guy with the clarinet. I played a note. The note was “E.” “Rad,” I thought (because it was 1991 and that was something we said back then). A few days later, my mother asked nonchalantly, “Do you want to play the clarinet?” And I was like, “Okay?” because, why not, I had nothing else to do.

In third grade, I started taking lessons from an old gentleman named Mr. Emerson. When I say old, I mean Mr. Emerson was the band director of my dad’s high school, WHEN MY DAD WAS IN HIGH SCHOOL. But he was kind and patient as I honked my way through Hot Cross Buns. Mr. Emerson would look at the scales I scribbled out, remarking, “Your notes! They’re so fat and happy.” When I got visibly bored playing classics, he brought out a book of Elvis tunes and let me play from that. Despite all this, I decided to quit after the first year — to which my mother said, “How about you give it just more year. After that, if you don’t like it, you can quit.”

I didn’t quit for another 8 years. (MOMS, how do they work?!)

And I was good, for a while. But somewhere, atop my throne as first chair in my high school’s highest band, playing music stopped being fun. It got ridiculously competitive, and I just wanted to play some Benny Goodman and call it a night, man. I packed my clarinet up in the summer of 2000, only breaking it out on a handful of occasions. . . .until now.

[An aside: I was inspired by the weirdest source. A few years ago I was watching "Cathouse" on HBO - you know, the one about the Moonlight Bunny Ranch? One of the girls plays the French horn. Like, in between banging dudes for money, she sequesters herself in a corner and busts out an etude or two. She said it was relaxing and kept her mind sharp, or something. "I should be more like this prostitute," I thought.]

So on my way home from work last Wednesday, I stopped by a music shop on the eastside and bought the thinnest clarinet reed possible. I smiled as I put the clarinet together; I imagine this is what it feels like to lock together the pieces of an old, familiar gun.

I took a breath, blew into the mouthpiece, and awaited the rich, sultry tones of my yesteryears.

Instead, I heard a goose, dying a violent death.

Yep. I sucked. So back to Hot Cross Buns.

THIS CHICK KNOWS WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT:

I like how she runs this video like it’s a lounge act. “Aaaand that’s my interpretation of Hot Cross Buns, everybody. Remember to tip your waitresses.” Julia, if you’re reading this, please do a mic drop in your next video.

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Aug 05 0 comments
music

In Which McCartney Wins All the Concerts.

This is the setlist for last night’s Paul McCartney concert at Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati. As a special treat, I highlighted the songs that made me cry! Just call me Sentimental McSap! Shocker.

Highlight = Tearduct Fail.

Best. Show. Ever.

And I’m not saying that in the way my generation so often does - when something’s good, maybe even great - and you say, “Best. ____. ever!”

No.

I’m saying this was the best concert I’ve ever been to, and I’m not sure any performer I see after this will top it. That’s a weird thing to grapple, when you’re in it, slowly becoming conscious of the fact that your live show experience is right now peaking, here at this Ohio ballpark, in the Summer of 2011.

Nostalgia was punching me in the face with every intro. I thought about how “Hey Jude” was the first song I knew by heart. How I blasted Sgt. Pepper in my Fisher Price boombox at 1st grade recess.  How “Blackbird” was playing on the radio the morning I left for college. How I can’t recall half of what I learned at that college, but I can rattle off hours of minutiae from a “History of the Beatles” course.

So I’m sitting there, nursing my sentimentalism, coming around to realize that, oh yeah, Paul McCartney’s right there. That guy SOUNDTRACKED THAT MEMORY FOR ME. And sure, I’m somewhere behind home plate and he’s so tiny! but yet not! Macca didn’t come to shortchange nobody.

Highlights:

  • That triple acoustic threat of I’ve Just Seen a Face / I Will / Blackbird (Face is one of my fave Paul songs). I died.
  • Only a handful of numbers deep into a 30+ song set, and I thought, “One hundred seventy four dollars and ninety cents, Jenny. Best money you’ve ever spent.”
  • Something may have provided the final push to finally buy that ukulele I’ve had my eye on.
  • Live and Let Die FIREWORKS? WHAAAAT??

  • Standing in line to get a beer and turning to Melissa, and saying, “A Day in the Life is playing and I’m getting a beer. Surreal.” “As long as we don’t miss Golden Slumbers,” she said. And I kept quiet, thinking, “There’s no way he’s playing Golden Slumbers.”  I had skimmed the setlists of his earlier shows, somehow missing that he closed with it every night. That made the surprise that much better. Boom, McCartney’d.

Anyway, it seems so silly to say you feel rejuvenated in the afterglow of such a spectacle. But I do. I feel changed, in the slightest but best of ways.

Also, “Singing the Na-Na-Na part of Hey Jude with Paul McCartney and 40,000 People” was an item for my Bucket List that I didn’t know I needed, until it happened.

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Aug 03 0 comments
music

In Which I Try to Sum up a Lifetime of Fandom in a Paragraph.

I have to see Paul McCartney before I die. Well, before he dies.  I just have to.

- Me, February 9th, 2006.

Guess who I’m seeing tomorrow?!?!

Paul McCartney

Me, tomorrow night:

beatlemania-001

I’ll probably cry. Just a warning, Great American Ballpark. It’s just that - there’s no one bigger for me, concert-wise.

I have an hour in which to make my NaBloPoMo deadline, but I’m not sure I can sum up what the Beatles have meant to me over my lifetime. With regards to McCartney, I just think there are certain people on this earth with the inherent gift to give us the melodies that our souls want to hear. I think about this often, ever since I saw this thing with Bobby McFerrin on the pentatonic scale:

I don’t know enough about this shit to draw a direct comparison, but I do believe that the best pop artists pluck chords and transitions straight out of nature. I think the best “guilty pleasure” songs get to us that way - whether we know it or not, our ears want to hear a certain sequence or theme, and we are futile to resist it. (Ugh. TYK Rule #1: Don’t let me write about music.)

Before I go to bed, a few trinkets:

This was always one of my favorite performances because they seem so legitimately happy. The Beatles kind of sucked live, mainly due to incapable stadium PA systems and the fact that they couldn’t hear themselves over all screaming. My mom saw the Beatles in 1964 in Detroit, but she’ll be the first to tell you that she couldn’t hear a damn thing, and she was 14, and she cried. But even after all the in-studio masterpieces, you always got the sense from Paul that he lived for the live performance, that he wanted to tour until his dying day. I feel lucky for that.

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Jul 14 0 comments
movie films, music

Guess I Must Be Having Fun

Busting out of blog hibernation to ask: you guys have all seen this, right?

Good. Because I need one person to agree with me when I say…Sean Penn is TOTALLY channeling Marcel, the Shell with Shoes On, AM I RIGHT? You guyyyzzz.

(I’m right.)

For the mathletes:

PLUS

edward-scissorhands

PLUS

marcel-the-shell

EQUALS

sean-penn

Related Aside and Required Viewing:

My infatuation with this ditty came from my girl Lauren over at Hipstercrite. I dare you to read her ode to “This Must Be the Place” and not fall in love with it yourself.

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May 05 2 comments
music

Sweet Charity

Today, May 5

11:20 AM Bess: omg did you see beyonce is doing a cover of god bless the usa?
11:21 AM Me: did you see that you just said a sentence OF MY DREAMS?

(video)

Okay, you know I love you, Beyowulf, but this was a little lackluster. And let’s be honest, Gurl — if I can call you Gurl — your timing is a wee bit suspicious. Regardless, this is for charity, and I love a good cause (I’ve already boned a fireman AND a policeman since Sunday), but…

This seemed a bit slapdash.

Bin Laden is DEAD, B! This resurgence of patriotism calls for MORE than the mere resurrection of what is perhaps the most cheesy example of nationalistic warbling of all time.  Bin Laden is DEAD, B. I want big instrumental swells and vocal runs so complex that when I attempt them in my Disney show choir voice, I look like I’m having a seizure. And for Christ’s sakes, would it have KILLED you to use a GOSPEL CHOIR, for which this arrangement SO DESPERATELY CRIED OUT? Bin Laden is DEAD, B.

But it’s cool. I think there’s a way to make it up to me.

I’m just gonna leave this here….

(video)

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May 04 0 comments
music

Stevie & Lindsey 4eva

My father bought Fleetwood Mac’s “Tango in the Night” when it came out in 1987. It was always played in the car, when my parents dragged me along as they scouted for a lot upon which to build our new house. I’d also put this CD on and play “Fleetwood Mac Barbies,” despite having no clue about the true drama of the band, as the “Behind the Music” hadn’t exactly come out yet, and also I was five. My Stevie barbie and my Lindsey ken doll were ALWAYS duking it out during “Tell Me Lies.” But they always made up, probably because they were doing tiny little lines of Barbie coke off the back of my Barbie toilet in the bathroom of my Barbie Dream House when I wasn’t looking.

I was fourteen when “The Dance” came out, ten years later. The concert special was on MTV and it JUST SO HAPPENED that I was BLOCKED from MTV, because that’s how my mom grounded me. They granted me a pardon for this special event, but that evening I was so excited that I became visibly restless and impatient at our dinner at Arnie’s. “JENNY,” my mom growled, “we will NOT be rushed through this family dinner.”  “MAAAAWM. It’s Stevie Nicks. YOU’RE RUINING MY LIFE,” I shot back. And then I probably slammed a door. Even though we were out in public, at a restaurant. I probably looked around for a door, any door, and slammed it.

Despite my teen angst, I did catch The Dance, and the part that has stuck with me ever since — and if you’ve seen it, you KNOW what I’m talking about — is that crazy tension between Stevie and Lindsey during the climax of “Silver Springs”:

HOLY SHEEEYIT. It’s all RIGHT THERE. It’s like they’re having a moment and maybe we, as an audience, shouldn’t be looking but oh my GOD I can’t stop looking. Needless to say, I bought the album post-haste and belted the chorus of that song into my bed posts (which make the best mic stands, duh). At the time, I was thinking of my high school crush that didn’t know I existed. But goddamn it, I was going to follow him down til the sound of my voice would haunt him. And the truth is, the man has changed many times over, but the song hasn’t. To all the boys I’ve loved and lost: Chances are good that I have scream-sung the lyrics “I KNOOOW I COULD HAVE LOVED YOU, BUT YOOOU WOULD NOT LET ME” with you in mind, careening down the highway, doing the Ugly Cry.

These memories were kicked up as a result of last night’s Fleetwood Mac-themed episode of Glee. I’m still kind of upset that they failed to include “Secondhand News.” It has all the markings of a duet between Puck and that confident chubby girl, and they’re always singing songs about sex and rendering us slightly uncomfortable. However, it did have me digging through my Fleetwood Mac stuff and yearning for the intense passion that Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham had — knowing glances across stages and scarves and twirling and coke.

I’ll leave you with a sweeter moment, from the pre-Fleetwood era - Buckingham Nicks.

Stevie: ”We had gone to some party and he was sitting in the middle of this gorgeous living room playing a song. I walked over and stood next to him, and the song was ‘California Dreaming,’ and I just started singing with him. And so I just threw in my Michelle Phillips harmony, and…he was so beautiful.”

Unrelated Epilogue: Is it sad that I can’t remember life before the wistful YouTube photo montage?

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Jan 19 0 comments
music

The Start

Any playlist that starts with Fleetwood Mac’s “Never Going Back Again” is good in my book.

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Jan 07 0 comments
music

Your Friday Night Anthem

I’m not going out tonight.

Still trying to dry out from last weekend. Matt and I will probably have a couple glasses of wine and finally watch that documentary on the making Sondheim’s Company. We just LOVE Elaine Stritch. #thingsgaycouplessay.

(”Jenny, we need to find you a fella. First thing you need to do, is stop hanging out with only gay guys.” #thingsmymothersays.)

Anyway, YOU’RE cool, right? YOU’RE going out tonight.

You need a theme song.

Might I suggest Stray Cat Blues? This might be my favorite Rolling Stones song of all the Rolling Stone songs. It makes me want to get pushed up against the wall in the bathroom of The Mousetrap (YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE).

Download now or listen on posterous

08_Stray_Cat_Blues.mp3 (4142 KB)

It is A THEME SONG for ALL THINGS RAUNCHY — and that’s YOU, TONIGHT, you SLUT.

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