Category Archives: music

James Brown, hardest working corpse in show business

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Talk about hardcore! James Brown, the legendary entertainer, addict, and hardest-working man in show business, has been dead for three days and he’s still touring. Not only is he Doin’ it to Death, he’s Doin’ it In Spite of Death. Lying in state at the James Brown arena in Augusta, Georgia (playing to a capacity crowd), touring New York City by horsedrawn carriage, or receiving the adoration of thousands at the historic Apollo Theatre in Harlem, Brown hasn’t been this popular since he was pulling stickups back in Augusta. And thanks to Defamer for the news that there’s a … er … um … livecam outside the theatre.

The background, from the Guardian:

…by 1962 Brown was breaking box office records in major black venues throughout the US with a whirlwind revue of his own creation that synthesised all of his roots into a shockingly unique new persona. Live at the Apollo, the resulting LP recorded at the top New York venue, smashed him into the face of white recognition.

What followed did not go according to anybody’s plan. Brown formed his own independent company, Fair Deal Productions, and rebuilt his band into a sizeable orchestra with the intention of crossing the tracks at Tuxedo Junction. The prevailing social climate in the US, Brown‘s responses to the situation, and the fact that his new recruits were mostly restless young jazzers, sparked them all off into uncharted territory. It was Out of Sight, Papa Got a Brand New Bag. A Man’s World bathed in Cold Sweat. He Said it Loud, was Black and Proud and danced the Popcorn. In a New Day it was Funky Now. He was Super Bad, a Sex Machine with Soul Power. He had his Thang and Papa Didn’t Take No Mess, he demanded Payback. This litany of just a few of his more familiar titles does little justice to the underlying tour de force, involving three effectively different bands over 10 years, that changed the direction of black American music.

By 1975, James Brown was showing the first signs of insecurity since the 1950s. In the charts he was being outflanked by many of the younger acts he had inspired, he was on shaky ground with his record company, Polydor (a dispassionate international corporation, unlike the seat-of-the-pants operation with which he had grown strong), some of his leading musicians left him, and the Internal Revenue Service was on his case.

It was then that he apparently began smoking something rather more confusing than the occasional menthol…

To say the least. But, like Frosty the Snowman‘s very special hat, there must have been some magic or at the very least, preservatives, in the toxic miasma in which Brown marinaded his lungs, for when he keeled over from his penultimate heart attack, he didn’t cease to bop around. He hosted a Christmas toy giveaway the day the day he was admitted to the hospital, and has appeared before tens of thousands of people in the days since.

He’s STILL big. It’s the arteries that got small.

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Technorati me!

Princess Mulan speaks

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Princess Mulan

It’s not easy being a princess (tell me aboudit), particularly when one is a Disney Princess. We all know the rigors that American Imperialism can subject one to when one is, say, Iraqi or Navajo, but I beg you to indulge me as I lay out for you the innumerable small sufferings that are the lot of the Disney Princess.

I met her at a Christmas Eve dinner. She was young, she was beautiful and she was no longer, although she had been, Princess Mulan on a Disney Caribbean cruise.

She was still in recovery.

Naturally, the world is in thrall to the glamour of cruising through the Caribbean; however, when asked to describe the crew’s living quarters she paused thoughtfully and long. Eventually she sighed and volunteered that they resembled “some kind of internment camp, really.”

Talk about living the dream.

For two hours, twice a day, she was a Princess, and for the rest of the time she was a dangerous free radical that had to be contained in the belly of the ship, lest she blow up some poor, chubby, suburbanite’s kid’s dream.

And so…

When the ship docked, which was often, Caribbean islands being accustomed to company and clustering together for immoral support, the passengers would go ashore. And so would the entertainers, having no-one left to entertain but the skeleton crew, and as anyone knows, skeletons are not easily entertained, particularly when they’ve seen your “Milton Bearle as Ace Ventura, Pet Detective” routine a hundred times already.

But…

If you are known far and wide on the ship as Princess Mulan, you can hardly be seen sneaking ashore hung over, wearing a ratty death metal t-shirt and cutoffs, leaning on the arm of some stevedore you picked up last night at closing time. Little Timmy’s dreams, and more importantly, Big Timmy’s dreams, must be protected. Because we all know who pays for those gowns, sweetie.

So, every time the ship docked, Princess Mulan would layer on more pancake makeup than Marlene Dietrich, don a wig that would shame a drag queen, plop on dinner plate-sized sunglasses, wrap her throat in a scarf, and hope to sneak ashore looking totally unremarkable, like a five-foot-nothing Asian replica of Greta Fucking Garbo.

Still, every damn time some smartass parent would ask, “So, aren’t you Princess Mulan?”

Billy Idol, Yellin’ at the Christmas Tree

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Because I still can’t get the damn podcast to work, and I refust to post the vid of his surgically transformed face producing “Jingle Bell Rock,” surely the most insipid, heartless and banal seasonal tune ever committed to vinyl/digital.

the Monkees: Ríu, Chíu

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So what if they’re a little drunk? The a cappella harmonies are beautiful, and it’s great fun watching Davy and Peter try not to crack up. Bonus: at the end they introduce the whole crew. Looks like it was a fun place to work, even with the ridiculous outfits.

English Translation:

River, roaring river, guard our homes in safety,
God has kept the black wolf from our lamb, our lady.
God has kept the black wolf from our lamb, our lady.

Raging mad to bite her, there the wolf did steal,
But our God almighty defended her with zeal.
Pure he wished to keep her so she could never sin,
That first sin of man never touched the virgin sainted.

River, roaring river…

He who’s now begotten is our mighty monarch,
Christ, our holy father, in human flesh embodied.
He has brought atonement by being born so humble,
Though he is immortal, as mortal was created.

River, roaring river…

A Christmas Carol, by Tom Lehrer

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UPDATE: Fixed. Click and play.

Stole this from the Padgett blog, because after wasting a good $6 trying to get the “Upload to Odeo” and “Podcast” thingies working on this goddam rented public computer, I finally figured I’d just go ahead and steal it from someone who’d already ripped it.

Have I mentioned that I’m somewhat peeved at Messieurs Gates and Jobs? Somewhat.

I assume anyone reading this is familiar with Tom Lehrer, but that’s mostly because I assume everyone worth knowing is familiar with Tom Lehrer, being as he’s arguably the greatest musical satirist ever. If, for some reason, you’re not, I would highly recommend you drop everything and pick up a copy of the multi-disc retrospective Rhino put out a few years back. Of course, now that you’ve got that album, you’ve got this song as well (two versions of it!), but I suppose that’s all right.

Lehrer, FYI, is the man who says he got out of political satire because it became redundant when they gave the Nobel Peace Prize to Henry Kissinger.

[ odeo=http://odeo.com/channel/207473/view ]

fuckit, click here for the mp3.