Home and Dry

Earlier this week I found myself thinking about Gerry Rafferty songs for no apparent reason, and remembered the old song "Home and Dry." Here's a video of the song, created by hodgepig007.



Then on Wednesday morning, I read the news of his death.

Oh boy.

Before my mind meanderings earlier this week, I had only thought of Rafferty a couple of times in the last few years - when I heard Blacksteel & Badger's "Toxic Jerry,", and when I heard the odd stories about Rafferty's disappearance.

Obviously the song "Home and Dry" (lyrics here) was written decades before Rafferty's more recent troubles, or non-troubles, but at least now Rafferty is at peace.

The Gifford Children's Choir in Racine, Wisconsin presents "A Christmas Trololo"

A brief history - back in March, I wrote about a video performance that appealed to both the Tall Ships (Keith Andrew is a member of that band) and Josh Haley (who used to be one of the ukelele players in the Ffundercats). That performance, which could be found on YouTube and elsewhere, was sung by Soviet-era singer Edward Anatolevich Hill. Although the name of the song is something along the lines of "I Am So Happy to Finally Be Back Home," it is commonly referred to today as the "Trololo" song. See my March post for more extensive details about the song and the singer.

It turns out Andrew and Haley weren't the only musicians who enjoyed the song. If you scroll down to the comments for my post, you'll see a comment from Jack Senzig, who was trying to find an orchestral score of the song. I wrote about Senzig's search in September. Senzig is with the Gifford Children's Choir at Gifford Elementary School in Racine, Wisconsin, and he wanted the orchestral score so that the children's choir could perform the song.

As it turns out, Jack Senzig received responses to his request:

A man named Alexander Kuznetsov from Russia was very helpful in finding a piano vocal score of the piece. Alexander surprised the choir earlier this year by donating a few dollars on our blog. I emailed him a thank-you and asked if he could help find the score. What an amazing world we live in where people who don't know one another are willing to help with out thought of reward! The choir has had many experiences like that in the past 6 months. We are still looking for the orchestral score and for the copyright holder.

Senzig forged ahead, and now you can see the result - "A Christmas Trololo" as performed by the Gifford Children's Choir. Arkady Ostrovsky's song has been married with costumes and children's dancing moves.



Also note the audience participation. As Senzig notes in the Gifford Children's Choir blog, he was very pleased with the result:

What an incredible event! The kids did an amazing job, the audience participation was great, the band played so well, props and solos went as planned. We had three hours to rehearse and record....

Live, this was nothing short of incredible. I think you are going to be treated to an unique entertainment!

However, Senzig's enthusiasm was topped by the comment from one of his readers:

Did everyone remember their lyrics?

So a hearty congratulations to Jack Senzig, Alexander Kutznetov, Donovan Senzig, Jeni Balch, Keri Bieri, The Gifford Children's Choir, members of the Gilmore Middle School Choir, members of the Racine Community Choir, members of the St. Louis Church Choir, students from other schools (Case H.S., Walden III, 21st Century Prepatory School, and Gifford Elementary), Katie McCormick, Angela Janota-Peavler, Ken Norman Kathy Gabbey, Eric Weiss, Russell Skewes, Mike Cobb, Hallie Senzig, Brad Karas, Jeff Eben (the principal!), Santa Claus, Brett Halladay, Lance Peavler, Gary Alvarado, the Gifford PTA, the parents, and Chris Janus.

Now I have to share this with both Keith Andrew and Josh Haley...

What difference does it make? The ease of making some sort of music

One of the wonderful things about music is that it's very easy to create it. Now it's hard to create professional-quality music, but it's very easy to create music in general.

Let me cite an example.

As my friends know, I'll often get in moods in which I listen to a single song over and over. Last weekend, the song in question was "What Difference Does It Make?" by the Smiths. I found a YouTube video of a performance of the song on Top of the Pops, and just listened to the video (embedding disabled by request) again and again.

Then I had to go gas up my car.

So, as I was driving alone to Costco to gas up, you can guess what I was doing in the car.

Yes, I was creating music.

And even though I was facing several handicaps, I was still able to create music.

The first handicap that I faced was that I don't know all of the lyrics to the song "What Difference Does It Make?" In fact, I only know five of the words in the lyrics. (No extra credit if you can guess those five words.) So my vocal performance sounded like this:

What difference does it make?
What difference does it make? Oh oh oh...
Da da da,
Da da da da-da da...

At this point, I encountered the second handicap - I did not have a guitar with me in the car. And even if I had a guitar with me in the car, I was driving and therefore unable to play it. And even if I were parked and had a guitar, my guitar skills are, to put it mildly, deficient. (I can play a C chord, and I could probably pick out the riff to "What Difference Does It Make?" but it would be at a VERY slow speed.

So you can guess what I did next:

Da da da da
Da da-da da da
Da da da da
Da da-da da da...

So, as you can see, it's very easy to create music. And it's even possible to expand on it. When Morrissey sang the chorus, he had a hint of a yodel in it. As a lover of Slim Whitman, I wondered what would happen if that were converted into a full yodel, with an octave jump.

What difference does it ma-AKE...

And obviously I'm not the only one. All sorts of people, with all sorts of musical skills, have a desire to perform a song that they like. In the car on your morning commute, in the shower before your morning commute, or in your cubicle or dorm room with the headphones on, many of us are creating music.

And some people create videos of themselves making music. For example, here's a video of laydjay (Jacqueline Sinclair of All About the Dots on MySpace and Facebook), possibly in someone's apartment, singing the song (unfortunately, without any Slim Whitman touches, although she does some interesting vocals toward the end). I'm not sure who is accompanying her.



Here's a video of a guy who started playing the Smiths' recording of the song, then played along on the lead guitar part.



Here's another video of another guy who did the same thing.



Here's yet another guy who not only videoed himself playing "What Difference Does it Make?" but also played a bunch of other riffs. ("Difference" is about four minutes into the video.) His name's Johnny.



Seriously, this guy Johnny shares some interesting observations about guitar sound and guitar culture. I guess he knows what he's talking about.

New Jersey

I was in one of my "Wanted Dead Or Alive" moods one evening and ended up finding this video in which Jon Bon Jovi sings "It's My Life." But Richie isn't playing the guitar on this performance; instead, some guy name Bruce is playing.



That video serves as a reminder that New Jersey produced both Bon Jovi AND Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. Oh, and Frank Sinatra also.

But when you're talking about New Jersey music, that's just the tip of the iceberg. Here are 10 other musicians who have been associated with New Jersey.

Count Basie
David Cassidy
George Clinton
Lesley Gore (see my 2008 post)
Ice-T
Wyclef Jean
Les Paul
Eddie Rabbitt
Patti Smith (see my 2003 post)
Gary Wright

Again, there are many more New Jersey musicians listed here.

Opposing views - people who think that Eddie Van Halen is the best guitarist ever

There are plenty of very good guitarists out there. For example, I have a high regard for the guitar playing of Martin Gore. I believe that Gore's guitar playing (beginning in the late 1980s) is a perfect complement to Depeche Mode's music.

But I wouldn't call Martin Gore the greatest guitarist ever.

In my view, the three greatest guitarists ever, in alphabetical order, are Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, and Jimmy Page. In my view, these three made their guitars sing, and were the equivalent of an excellent vocalist in that regard.

I do not include Eddie Van Halen in that rarefied company of guitarists. In fact, I don't rate Van Halen as great, or as good. In my view, the ability to play guitar really really fast does not necessarily indicate good music.

However, there are those who disagree with me. Let's start with 330 guitarists surveyed by Roadie Crew Magazine, who ranked Eddie Van Halen as the second best guitarist of all time. Ahead of Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Brian May, Slash, and everyone except for Hendrix.

Of course, any such list is going to have its detractors. Let's look at someone who thinks that Hendrix should not have had the number one spot:

I think Ed should be in the #1 spot. Jimmy droped some jaws but Ed re-invented the guitar.

And another one:

In a century’s time, Edward may very well take over that #1 position. Think about it.

And then there was one person who, while agreeing that Van Halen was only number 2, made his case for Van Halen occupying that position:

There has not been a more exciting guitar player since van halen. Edward is still the king. He is the Michael Jordan of our time on Guitar. Good luck to all the rest who are really cool to listen to…but not nearly as fun and as original as Edward.

But among the thoughtful (and less than thoughtful) comments regarding the greatest guitarist, there were some real groaners. Or some really bad jokers. Take Mark Johnson:

Who the hell is Yngwie Malmsteen? And whys isn’t Elton John on this list?

Is music with a purpose good music?

A lot of us live in this dreamworld that music is created by artists and is destined to become artistic.

To quote a songwriter or two, "dream on."

All music is written for a purpose. Perhaps a song is written specifically so that it will hit number one on the charts. Perhaps a song is written because the rent is due next week. Perhaps a song is written because the people in the indie club or the indie radio station will really really like it.

Regardless of why it is written, the song is written to appeal to some audience - if not the millions of people who purchase songs on iTunes or Amazon, then perhaps it's written for the 20 people that will gather at the local bar on Thursday night.

Lennon/McCartney, John/Taupin, Page/Plant, Gore, whoever - in the end, they're all hacks who are writing songs for a purpose.

Of course, there are more overt cases of writing songs for a purpose. For example, you might co-write a song to feed the world. When you write such a song, you want to make sure that it is most effective in achieving its purpose of feeding the world.

But is the song any good? Well, why don't we ask Bob Geldof?

I am responsible for two of the worst songs in history. One is Do They Know It’s Christmas? and the other one is We Are The World.

Any day soon, I will go to the supermarket, head to the meat counter and it will be playing. Every ****ing Christmas.

Spinner offered this critique:

Most of us have mixed feelings toward deathless charity anthem 'Do They Know it's Christmas?' -- on one hand, it has raised millions for good causes and become something of a yuletide institution, on the other, it features groan-worthy lyrics like "There won't be snow in Africa" and Bono's anguished yelp of "Tonight, thank God it's them, instead of you."

And let's face it, "We Are The World" will probably not be performed in formal live shows in the year 2200. Even when it was being recorded, there were misgivings:

Billy Joel told Rolling Stone in 2005, "Most of us who were there didn't like the song, but nobody would say so. I think Cyndi Lauper leaned over to me and said, 'It sounds like a Pepsi commercial.' And I didn't disagree."

Of course, "We Are The World" also suffered from its being recorded out here, in California. The British recording session for "Do They Know It's Christmas" was laid back, but when Geldof arrived in El-Lay to support the American effort, he noted that Los Angeles was not so casual. Or, to put it more accurately, some people were relaxed about the whole affair, while others were not:

Springsteen flew to L.A. immediately after his Syracuse shows to participate in the recording. Arriving at the Los Angeles International Airport, Bruce rented a Corvette, and drove to the studio, parking in a lot across the street. In a humorous anecdote from his autobiography, Is That It?, Geldof recalled that Kragen at one point walked in and said, "'Bruce Springsteen has just parked his car on the other side of the road and walked across -- by himself -- to the studio. Can you believe it?' I could believe it. 'No, I mean he drove himself, no chauffeur, no limo. Then The Boss walked across himself, no bodyguards, no security.'"

The whole scene was parodied by Billy Crystal, who performed (as Prince) the song "I Am Also The World."


Billy Crystal, Hulk Hogan & Mr. T
Uploaded by mjdwfan. - Sitcom, sketch, and standup comedy videos.

At the end of the day, both songs (and all of the related songs) were Events with a capital E.

Led Zeppelin, "What Is And What Should Never Be"

The reason for my posting this video will become apparent on Monday. But even if you don't care about what I'm going to say on Monday in my Empoprise-BI business blog, you have to admit that this is a good song, with a good Jimmy Page solo.

If @scobleizer were an AM DJ (MySpace and music)

After the Lakers loss on Wednesday night, I started fiddling around with my AM radio. After sunset, I am able to pick up radio stations from multiple locations, including northern California. While moving up and down the radio dial, I ran across a radio station in Half Moon Bay that I had never heard before. In fact, I'd be willing to bet that none of you has heard this station either. Because the deejay's discussion is germane to the Empoprise-MU music blog, I thought I'd reproduce it here.

Yes, this portion of the KRS Evening Show is brought to you by Rackspace. And we're back, and you're here with your evening deejay, Bobby Scoble the Scobleizer!

(SOUND EFFECT from James Earl Jones: "This is THE SCOBLEIZER.")
(SOUND EFFECT: standard AM zoo cowbells and whistles)

Yes, it's your good friend Bobby, the original Valley Boy!

(SOUND EFFECT from a Frank Zappa sound-alike: "Valley Boy, he's a Valley Boy")
(SOUND EFFECT: standard AM zoo cowbells and whistles)

And we're broadcasting and podcasting and videocasting live from Half Moon Bay, counting 'em up, counting 'em down, counting 'em left, counting 'em right, down for the count, up for the count, and did I mention we're counting?

(SOUND EFFECT from an old commercial: "Count Chocula!")
(SOUND EFFECT: standard AM zoo cowbells and whistles)

Now I know that you've been submitting your music requests to the @scobleizer Twitter account -

(SOUND EFFECT from a Gilbert Gottfried sound-alike: "FAIL WHALE!")
(SOUND EFFECT: standard AM zoo cowbells and whistles)

Hey, Patrick, let's stop the wacky AM radio sound effects for just a moment, because I want to talk about something. A lot of people accuse me of only pursuing shiny new things and ignoring anything old. And while I do like to explore new stuff, I also like to check out some things that have been around for a while. No, I'm not going to actively participate in FriendFeed again. But earlier this evening, some of you may have noticed that I began playing around with my MySpace account again. In fact, because MySpace can publish your data stream directly to Facebook, a lot of my Facebook friends saw all of the bands that I just liked on MySpace. Sorry about that, guys.

I figured that since I'll be interviewing MySpace's CEO at LeWeb next week, I should do my homework. And since MySpace has turned itself into a music center, I started listening to Neil Young and friending artists such as The Black Eyed Peas and The Doors.

So I know that you have some requests that you've been tweeting to me, but I'm going to close tonight's radio show with a song from one of my new friends. Here's Neil Young with "Walk With Me." And after this song's done, stay tuned for Techno Louie Louie, the Graymaster!This is Bobby Scoble, the Scobleizer, signing off!



My, my.

Hey, hey.

Incidentally, Scoble's session with MySpace CEO Mike Jones is scheduled for 8 December 2010 at 10:50 am local time.

Waylon Jennings cover versions

In some ways it's ironic that the early 70s "outlaw" country musicians spent a lot of time covering some decidedly non-country songs, but that's exactly what Waylon Jennings was doing.

On Wednesday night I was messing around with YouTube and blip.fm, and I found two Waylon Jennings cover songs that are highly recommended.

The first one that I found was a Waylon & Willie cover of the Fleetwood Mac song "Gold Dust Woman." (My blip of the song is here.) Perhaps Waylon's version isn't as mysterious as Stevie's original, and the drums aren't featured, but the vocals - especially on the chorus - are equal to if not better than the original. (And it's rare that people can vocally measure up to the "perfect" vocal harmonies of the mid-70s Fleetwood Mac.)

But hearing that song just left me craving another, so I found Waylon's cover of the Steely Dan song "Do It Again." (Here's my blip.) Depending upon your point of view, you could argue that Waylon's vocals here far exceed the original - especially when Waylon growls "Wheels turnin' ROUND and round."

But when looking over the Covers Project page on Waylon Jennings (which doesn't discuss "Gold Dust Woman," by the way, unless it's on a separate Waylon/Willie page or something), I was surprised to learn that one of Waylon's most famous songs, "Amanda," is itself a cover of a Don Williams song. (Here's that blip.)

Always learning...

P.S. If you want to see the songs that I blip, and the YouTube videos that I share, why don't you consider liking the Empoprise-MU Facebook fan page?

Families have parents - what preceded the King Family

As someone in the 1960s said, "I should have known better."

When I was a kid, one of the big TV shows was "My Three Sons." I was familiar with the later color version of the show, rather than the original black and white version. In this version of the show, oldest son Robbie (actually the middle son) was married to a woman named Katie who in real life was Tina Cole, part of a popular singing group called The King Family.


Tina Cole Pictures

When not running around with Fred MacMurray, the King Family was appearing on their popular TV show, singing ultra-psychedelic versions of Jimi Hendrix and Grateful Dead songs. OK, not exactly.



But I wasn't aware of the earlier history of this family until The Music's Over reshared a 2009 entry on Yvonne King Burch.

Yvonne King Burch was a member of the popular singing group, the King Sisters, who came to prominence during the swing era....

Considering their style of music, I shouldn't be surprised that their history predates the Beatles...and Elvis.

Be sure to read the rest of the Music's Over entry for more about Yvonne King Burch.

As it turns out, Tina Cole was Yvonne King Burch's daughter.

I can't escape the Electrical Parade - "Above the Northern Lights" (Gene Nery/Mannheim Steamroller)

Those close to me know that I usually equate Mannheim Steamroller with Disney's (Main Street) Electrical Parade.

I HATE Disney's (Main Street) Electrical Parade.

But on Monday evening I heard a Mannheim Steamroller song that I truly enjoyed - "Above the Northern Lights." The vocalist is Gene Nery. Yes, Gene Nery. Oh, you haven't heard of Gene Nery? Neither had Chip Davis:

The new album features vocals by Johnny Mathis, Olivia Newton-John and Gene Nery. Gene who? "Believe it or not, he was some random guy that a friend of mine knew — Ed Wilson, who wrote the words for the song 'Above the Northern Lights.' He sent a demo with Gene singing on it. I called and said, 'Hey, Ed, the words sound great. Who is this guy you've got singing it?' He sings in clubs and stuff. He lives on Orcas Island, off the coast of Washington State. We just met the other day when we played Everett, Washington."

For more about Gene Nery, see this article.

But back to "Above the Northern Lights." So anyways, I looked on YouTube for a video that included the song. And what was the first video that was listed? A video in which the song is linked to a Christmas lights display.



Well, at least there aren't twirling Disney figures.

Rob Michael "White Christmas" (solo, and with Rahsheen)

I missed these videos last year when they were originally shared, but it's about that time of year.

The first video is a Rob Michael instrumental solo of "White Christmas."



The second is the same guitar solo, with vocals from Rahsheen.



As far as I know, there is not a third version that incorporates Josh Haley's ukelele or Helen Sventitsky's keyboards.

Prey Before Prey Before Prey Before Prey

Continuing my previous thought, there's also Blacksteel & Badger's "Toxic Jerry," which obviously includes both Gerry (with a G) Rafferty's "Baker Street" and Britney Spears' "Toxic."

I wasn't familiar with one of the songs in the mix, so I looked into it and found out that it was Fatboy Slim's "Sunset (Bird of Prey)."

(Embedding disabled by request.)

The vocals are by Jim Morrison and were released posthumously.



But Jim Morrison wasn't involved with the next little bit in "Toxic Jerry." I don't know whether Fatboy Slim did it or Blacksteel & Badger did it, but someone mixed "Sunset (Bird of Prey)" with another Fatboy Slim song, "Star 69." And no, I'm not linking to that song - too much Wisconsin Tourism Federation for me, if you get my drift. And the Wisconsin Tourism Federation stuff is itself a sample from Roland Clark's "I Get Deep."

At this point I probably haven't identified half of the samples in "Toxic Jerry," but the ones that I know about include Roland Clark, Jim Morrison, Gerry Rafferty, and Britney Spears. Plus some instrumental music from Norman Quentin (Leo) Cook. Now that's an interesting...um...mix of people.

P.S. If you clicked through to the embedding disabled by request video and would like more information about the filmed flight sequences, go to http://www.flight-logistics.com/Bird_of_Prey.html.

Day After Day After Day After Day

I had been listening to "Toxic Jerry" by Blacksteel & Badger, and ended up going to last.fm to see what other downloads were available. There really weren't any details on what songs were included in the mashups, so I figured I'd listen to a 30 second sample of the song "Day After Day." Maybe there's some Badfinger in there, I thought.

I listened to the 30 second sample, and all that was in the sample was the Paul McCartney/Michael Jackson song "Say Say Say." That was enough for me to commit to the download.

I was pleasantly surprised to find Kelly Osbourne's "One Word" was a major component of the mix. It turns out that "day after day" are the last three words of the chorus.

No Badfinger though.

You can download the song at http://www.last.fm/music/Blacksteel%2B%2526%2BBadger/_/Day+After+Day. The Blacksteel & Badger website is no more, but their podcast blog is still online.

Control - the history behind "Love on the Run"

Back in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Human League had released two albums with minor success (despite highlights such as "Circus of Death"). Then the band ruptured into two parts, with the remaining Human League part achieving stratospheric success with "Don't You Want Me" and other songs such as "Seconds." The band continued to play with their sound, most notably on the guitar-based "The Lebanon," but the record label wasn't pleased because the band wasn't enjoying success similar to that of "Don't You Want Me." In other words, the record label was asking, "What have you done for me lately?"

That's when the "hot producers" idea kicked in, and an agreement was reached to have Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis produce the band. Jam and Lewis, ex-members of the Time, were the hot producers of the moment. Three facts about Jam and Lewis were pertinent:

First, they learned their chops under Prince, who was well known for his controlling nature over projects.

Second, they had just finished working with Janet Jackson on an album called "Control."

Third, the majority of the songwriting credits on the song "Control" were held by Jam and Lewis.

Even if you had never heard the story before, you can probably guess how it's going to end. Robert Windle:

Four solid months of stressful recording followed that were full of vocal retakes and some days would end in creative disagreements. In the end, session musicians and backing singers were brought in as Jam & Lewis sought a level of pitch perfection that was simply alien to the appeal of The League. The production team's trademark was that of polished soul with plenty of treble, whilst the League always favoured an understated and sometimes harsher sound of leftfield pop that would stray from obvious.

Adrian [Wright] eventually gave up on trying to record soul styled keyboard rifts that he was completely unfamiliar with and decided to spend the rest of the sessions playing table tennis....

The recording sessions reached breaking point when it became apparent that only six of the League penned tracks would make it to the album with Jam & Lewis adding a few tracks of their own.

Song writing credits were essential when it came to the bread and butter payments once an album was released.

Jam & Lewis were already receiving a huge production fee from Virgin, and the League felt they would receive little in the way of royalties that were so desperately needed.

As a result, the sessions ended in acrimony even though the personal relationship between the band and the production team had been a relatively good one.

The band reaped material success from the collaboration when the Jam/Lewis-penned "Human" reached number one. But was that the destiny for the Human League - to record songs that could have just as easily been recorded by any other male-female singing group?

However, the band wasn't COMPLETELY shut out of their own album, and the song "Love on the Run" is a bright spot for fans of the band.

Genius is pain - the whiners

Now that I've gotten the introductory post out of the way, I can get to my thesis.

Good music is painful. There is certainly pleasant, soothing music that is produced, but music doesn't really grab you unless there is an element of pain in it. While the pain is sometimes lyrical (for example, all of the tragic teenage death songs), the pain that is inflicted on the listener is often musical.

And that pain may be inflicted by the singer's voice. There are a number of examples of singers with voices that are not soothing, but attention-grabbing. In this post, however, I'm going to talk about the whiners.

One of the first whiners that came to mind was Tom Petty. While Petty sometimes sings in a fairly low register, he's often up in treble-land, and he can get pretty whiny up there. He first came to national attention with "Refugee," but Petty's whiniest performance is probably his duet with Stevie Nicks.



But Petty isn't the best whiner out there. He certainly has competition from Canada's contribution to supergroup-dom and grunge hero worship. I speak, of course, of Neil Young - a man who can whine with the best of them when in electrical mode, but who surpasses all when he's in an acoustic mood, as he was during Farm Aid.



Of course, the painfulness of this song, with its delivery and its references to Elvis Presley and the Sex Pistols, was made even more painful several years after this concert, when Kurt Cobain quoted it in his suicide note. (I briefly referenced this noted in a prior post about Steve Taylor, Jim Morrison, and Cobain.)

But Petty and Young, excellent whiners though they be, are exceeded in whining by a man named Billy. I could choose from a number of examples, but in this case I've gone for the song "Eye" by Smashing Pumpkins and lead singer Billy Corgan.



And now that I've presented Billy's whining ways, I can tell you of my dream duet - one that will surpass Petty and Nicks. If only Billy Corgan and Gwen Stefani would sing a duet, the world would truly be a magical place. (Yeah, I know that Moby and Stefani performed together, but it's not the same.)

Genius is pain - the origins

I plan to write a future music post that will emphasize the point that genius is pain, but some people may not be familiar with the origin of the line.

Back during the heyday of the National Lampoon (before the low days of the National Lampoon), one of their albums included a rather wicked parody of John Lennon's primal scream period, entitled "Magical Misery Tour." A downloadable MP3 of the parody can be found at this 2005 WFMU post.

Since it IS the Lampoon, it probably goes without saying that there is a language warning here. My favorite line, however, is "The sky is blue." Oh, and a reference to the "the Walrus was Paul" line from "Glass Onion." The latter song, of course, was the one that made fun of all the Beatles rumors...but a year later became the basis for the biggest Beatles rumor of all, the one about the death of Paul McCartney.

That's not funny, that's sick.

But returning to the other National Lampoon album, the lyrics to "Magical Misery Tour" were not written by the Lampoon, but by...John Lennon:

This is an unrelentingly brutal parody of John Lennon made all the more pointed due to the fact that the lyrics are Lennon's own words taken from an interview he granted to Jann Wenner of Rolling Stone in 1970. The interview itself is legendary. At the time it was conducted, Lennon was still hopelessly trapped under the vast, oppressive shadow of The Beatles, and he was angry, whiney, and petulant. With his characteristic cutting wit and candor, Lennon held nothing back and unearthed intensely personal details about his experiences with LSD, heroin, his petty ego issues with Paul and Mick Jagger, and the pain of seeing Yoko publicly maligned and almost universally hated.

Kinks reunion - if I may quote Romeo Void...

Stereogum recently ran something entitled Kinks Reunion Impossible Because “Ray Davies Is An Asshole”. The anatomical assessment of Ray came from his brother Dave; Stereogum notes that the Davies brothers were the "Mendelian blueprint for Noel and Liam’s bro-bickering" (Noel and Liam being the Gallagher brothers, formerly of Oasis).

But it's dangerous to bandy about the word "impossible." Remember that the Sex Pistols reunited (with Glen Matlock), the Eagles reunited (in the Hell Freezes Over tour), and that the death of John Lennon didn't stop the Beatles from reuniting.

Quoting Romeo Void, "never say never."

P.S. Although I haven't heard it, there is a link between the Kinks and Romeo Void - namely, the Queens of the Stone Age album Rated R (Deluxe Edition); the bonus disc includes covers of the aforementioned "Never Say Never" from Romeo Void, and the Kinks' "Who’ll Be The Next in Line."

It's just another town along the (Bermuda) road

I previously posted a link to an interview with Jon "Bermuda" Schwarz, long-time drummer with Weird Al Yankovic. In the interview, Schwarz took time to point out that a tour doesn't depend upon the musicians alone. First, Schwarz talked about road life for Yankovic and his band.

I wish I could tell everyone that it's vacation and that we have a lot of personal time for sightseeing or recreation, but traveling by coach to five or six cities a week is grueling and gets disorienting. A lot of time is spent just going from city to city, and most days off are better described as travel days; it's rare to have an entire day and night free in the same location.

However, we are pretty comfortable on the road. Al and the band have a coach with satellite TVs, videos, stereos, kitchen, lounge, and plenty of room to move. After each show, we're usually in a hotel to get some real rest, but most of our waking hours are spent traveling.

Then he told the rest of the story.

I have to also mention that the crew works VERY hard, and operates on a somewhat different schedule than the band. They are almost always traveling overnight after a hard day's work, so they can start all over again in the morning setting up the next show. I don't envy them but I do respect them, and we all get along well. There's no 'us' and 'them' in our organization.

Of course, then there are road crew members who will stab the artists in the back. Take Reno 911 refugees Tom Lennon and R Ben Garant, who joined Yankovic's road crew and released a lurid expose with shocking revelations:

Dr. Demento is not a real Doctor.

Three really good parodies

I was musing about parody songs, or cases in which someone takes a song originally written by someone else and modifies it, usually (but not always) for comic effect. I thought I'd list three of my favorite ones here.

I applied a rule to the list - Weird Al Yankovic would only appear once on the list. So what Weird Al song do I put here? I was originally leaning toward "Amish Paradise," but then decided to go in a different direction. Yankovic's mid and late period songs, whether parody or not, are always inventive, professionally done, and the videos are also executed well. But one song of Yankovic's that stands out is one of his early ones - his parody of Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust," called "Another One Rides the Bus." Unlike his later productions, this one consists of Al, his accordion, and a guy playing "drums" on an accordion case, all recorded during a live airing of Dr. Demento's radio show. The story of the recording can be found here. The randomness and exuberance of that event is more magical than the most complex device that is planned deep in the bowels of Cupertino.



For more information on that life, and how it changed Jon "Bermuda" Schwarz's life, see this interview.

My second parody is one of those which is not entirely comedic in nature, although it has its comedic elements - heck, when Cheech and Chong do something, there's bound to be comedy in there. The original song, Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA," was one that was misinterpreted as a patriotic jingle, but in actuality was a song about injustice. So it's fitting that Cheech and Chong's parody, "Born in East L.A.," also has a serious message embedded within it - namely, the fact that Mexican-Americans who have lived in the U.S. for multiple generations cannot always be equated with the newer arrivals. "Cheech" Marin later turned the song into a movie; here's the trailer.



And if you don't necessarily think of "Born in East L.A." as a serious song, note that Rosa-Linda Fregoso has written a scholarly article on it.

But since this blog (and all my blogs) are all influenced in some way by "The Beatles" (the album, not the band), it's fitting that my third parody choice should be off of that album. The Beatles and the Beach Boys - or, more specifically, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and Brian Wilson - had a friendly rivalry in the mid-1960s which led to such "top this!" masterpieces as Pet Sounds and Sergeant Pepper. Wilson began having problems after Pepper (or, more accurately, after other substances), so the rivalry had pretty much ended in the Beatles' favor by 1968, but the band played homage to their American label-mates by constructing a thematic parody of one of the biggest Beach Boy hits, "California Girls." Except, instead of talking about east coast girls, southern girls, and the like, the English version talked about Ukraine girls and Georgian girls (from the then-province of the USSR, not the US state). "Back in the USSR" was a literally wicked opening to the Beatle's double album, and as the Cold War began to thaw, many Western musicians got to sing the song in the USSR itself. McCartney eventually joined them in heading east, not only to Moscow, but to the Ukraine girls themselves, as this 2008 concert clip from Kiev shows:



For a little more background, including who played drums on the original recording and why, consult John T. Marck's site. (And if the Beatles inspired you to find a Ukraine girl, check the ads at the top of Marck's page; you just might get lucky.)