Hello gang. We talk a lot about music here and I found some real gems through the members of the Crasstalk community. We are a diverse bunch and that is reflected in the kinds of music we like. So today let’s do a little sharing (or oversharing, as is our way). What are your recommendations? What can’t you stop listening to? I’ll start off with a couple old school suggestions from a former rocker girl.
This is Visqueen a pop-punk, super band that formed from the members of Hafacat and The Fastbacks in 2001. Rachel Flotard, the lead singer is still rocking it out although the rest of the band line-up has changed over the years. This is pure, happy, music sugar and this song always makes me feel a little better about life. I defy you to listen to it and not smile.
This is Kinski. A sort of art/hard rock/punk band. They are all amazing musicians and they rarely clutter up their shit with lyrics about getting dumped or whatever. They frequently also do multi-media projects with other kinds of artists that are inevitably really cool. Also, Barrett Wilke is the best drummer, ever. I’m totally serious.
All right, that is enough to start us off. Show us your good stuff gang.
This is not good. This really is not good. When the night starts off with the singtestants who have been voted off in the prior weeks: Gloria Estefan, Jr., Earth Mother Naima, Not Diana Ross, Pocohantas, Clever Girl, and the man you shield your child’s eyes from, it is not a good sign for the rest of the night. They came out screaming Pink’s redemption song, “So What,” and I couldn’t agree more. No, you are not a rock star. Not at all. In fact, you didn’t even win the tenth season of American Idiot. Who’s gonna win, asks the Fly Girl. The reason she asks is because no one knows. That’s how bad this week was.
Let’s just reflect for a moment on the twatwaffle that is Paul McCreepster. He was brought back and allowed to wear the only clothes in his bedazzled hobo bag. You see, after spending his last sheckels on this Elvis Impersonator knock-off, it’s all he’s has to wear (the last one being his selection for last night’s thing of my nightmares). Here’s the evidence:
Look McCreepster. We see you AND your magic suit of roses. We do. Now, go take a nap somewhere with Solange Knowles, Karina Smirnoff and the Karadashians. Moving on to the performances that actually matter.
I will not slash your tires this week:
It’s so nice that Courtney Love got a weave and a gig singing back-up for Idol singestants. She did a great job singing with that little trollop from high school, Hailey. Hailey has the crazy phantom Mariah hand but the love-child of Joan Osborn and Natasha Bedingfield chose a song that fit that gritty voice of hers and oh how she growled. How has she not lost her voice yet? Better yet, why? Adele will always and forever do everything better than this little captain of the cheerleaders, including breathing, but her performance didn’t make you scrunch your face up and cry into a pillow like when she stole your boyfriend.
One thing that is missing on the regular from Idol is someone who brings the R&B. And not in the Luther/Teddy Bear way but someone more like an Usher or a Ne-Yo. Not since that kid who wore the hat every week has any man tried to dance and sing at the same time. No, not George Huff. The other guy. So for that reason, I appreciated Stefano’s performance. Plus, arms.
Have an antifreeze-laced smoothie:
Overgrown Baby Gay Kurt has completed his move into Adam Lambertsville. He unpacked his chains, hung the leather curtains and sound-proofed the boudoir. What in the Mad Max and the Thunderdome is this, anyway? Watch if you dare, but I do not recommend it. My ears are bleeding and every dog in the neighborhood is at my door.
Get that aw-shucks-country-bumpkin offa mah tee vee. “Run around like you did for you last girlfriend,” says The Old Lady to Alfred E. Newman. Oh right. Like he’s had one. YOU HAD A DECADE WORTH OF SONGS AND THIS IS WHAT YOU PICKED?! This was something that some dudes in Nashville drummed up over their Starbucks venti mocha frappaccinos one afternoon. And shut up, audience. Stop clapping. You too, mee-maw. You know what? You are all kicked out. Every last one of you. My laser site (relax, it’s a cat toy) was on Alfred E. Newman’s wiggly bobblehead within 2 seconds of him singing “we were swinging.” I wish I could sweep his legs like Ralph Macchio did at the end of Karate Kid. Wax on, get off.
Jacob is a trickster. He knew what day it was. He knew was Luther’s birthday yesterday. He chose that day to bring out his Luther and it was so NOT Luther. I suppose Jiminy Cricket just gave up and gave in to Jacob and his cheeseballs. So he got to tell us that his father died when he was young, and that he wanted to sing this song for him. That’s sad, truly. But to sing this song about Luther’s deceased father, on Luther’s birthday, and dedicated to his own deceased father? Pass the bottle.
Speaking of hitting the bottle, The Old Lady got bleeped twice. TWICE! This is American Idol, lady. A family show. Despite Fozzie Bear’s increasingly crazy eyes (during a Maroon 5 song?), the judges tripped over themselves to praise the gingerbread headed wonder. No talking about choosing a Maroon 5 song, huh? Nothing at all? And adding to the silliness, Seacretin came out wearing a beard. No, Julianna Hough was not draped over his shoulders. He was making a funny by fake gluing on a fake beard. Oh Seabiscuit, we are so on to you.
So little Lauren got a gift certificate to Wet Seal and sang some stupid song that would have made Simon’s eyes roll so far back into his head that they would have been lost like your poor meatball all covered with cheese. This was 100% Velveeta and she knew it. Everyone knows it. Has anyone on this season’s Idol heard of any of the following country artists: The Dixie Chicks, Alyson Krauss, Dolly Parton? Apparently not. Truth is, there is no one here this season to put the fear of Gawd in their little patoots. Simon would have taken a lightsaber to this night. Here we are, a perilous six weeks away from the next Idol being crowned and we are being served up benign drivel in a denim and lace mini-skirt.
So the interns at Jive Records are staying up late tonight, trying to get ready for whichever singtestant manages to outlast the others. After tonight, there is no winning, there is only staying alive – and by that, I mean those of us who watch the show every week.
**Author’s note: Upon review, I have noticed that I have twice practically quoted The Old Lady’s comments. I’m going to take some time, get jury duty drunk, and think about my life choices.
Bottom Three: Jacob, Alfred E. Newman (ohpleaseohpleaseohplease), Stefano
UPDATE: For the love of humanity, Idol. As if “Soul Sister” has not invaded every elevator, commercial, grocery store and orifice in America, you inflict it upon us. And it only gets worse, I don’t care how you feel about Coldplay (you’re probably wrong) but to have Baby Lock Them Doors to utter any lyrics from this band is like a lizard walking upright. I saw my future, and it was not pretty.
So Jacob gets his chance to speak the most, which everyone knows, means he’s on the chopping block. Diva? Defend yourself. Technical glitch? Defend yourself. Also, sit down…in the ejector seats.
Oh David Cook is there! Remind me again of who he is, mamma forgets. He’s last season’s winner? You don’t say? Why is every single thing he did on Idol better than that crap he sang? He looked hot, though.
Okay! Back to the dramz. Whatever on the dramz – Stefano got sent to the plastic chair of death. Surprise, surprise, surprise – not!
Then normally candy coated Katy Perry came out as Sigourney Weaver from Alien and sang with fake Kanye. Wait a minute! Kanye showed up in his ferret pelt coat that has been around the world maybe on too many times. I get the feeling that thing stinks as bad a roadkill. Good performance, though (for the people there).
The show returns and they do the lovefest “dim all the lights” [sweet darlin’ cuz tonight is on its way]. Our little rigatoni is going home. Our David Archuletta the Second is gone. Is R&B dead? Is it? Ursher seems to be doing okay but maybe this genre is experiencing a lull. Maybe, perhaps ‘Muricah wasn’t ready for the Italian Stallion to sing and hip thrust. So here we are. Carol King is next up. Best be ready to cut a bish.
Well it looks like everyone is having a pretty shitty day out there. Let’s try to to spread a little cheer to everyone feeling like crap tonight. Here is some happy stuff to get us started. Continue reading →
Radio was that nifty gadget that broadcast news, entertainment, and music wherever you went. You listened to it in the kitchen while getting ready for work in the morning, and in the car while commuting. Radio was around for a long time. It documented the battles of World War II for the living rooms of America, bringing, for the first time, the horrors of war to the parents of the kids over there fighting as it was happening. That was astonishing. It had never been done.
Radio went on to bring us life as it happened. My generation was probably the last to gather round the on speakers on snowy mornings, cheering like mad when our school was declared canceled. We listened on election nights, to hear who was in or out in our town, too small for the big city media to care about. We listened to local talk shows during the day, to debate why our tax dollars were being used for this, instead of that. We listened on our commutes, to see if we should take I-93 or Route 128 to get to where we were going. It was a community.
Then Radio got greedy. It lobbied the government to get rid of the ownership rules, so a handful of companies could control all the stations in America. Then those companies tried to squeeze more profits out of stations, replacing local talk shows with syndicated shows like Rush Limbaugh. That made money. So then the companies pruned the newsrooms, arranging for two or three anchors to handle the news on multiple stations. There was no budget for street reporting. After a while, the conglomerates asked — why bother with local at all? Handing over those top of the hour newscasts to the national networks. As for music — well, that could be cheaped down, too. DJs were canned, and replaced with automation systems. What played on the classic rock station in Detroit was played on the classic rocker in New York.
After a while, Radio sounded the same in every town. It didn’t sound good. It sounded cheap. The same voices, up and down the the dial. The same subtle clicks as the computer shifted from canned music to canned announcements to commercials. After a while, the listeners stopped tuning in. Why bother, when nothing interesting, innovative, or exciting is going on? An iPod can give you music, without the commercials. And a person who slowly falls out of touch with the news no longer cares about it.
If this sounds familliar, it should. Now, this is network television’s story. TV: You’ve blown up the vast majority of your international news bureaus. This, when what happens abroad affects us back in the States in a way not seen since the 50’s. Your morning news programs have descended into something best branded as infotainment, where anchors undergo pedicures involving flesh-eating fish, and the Today show is essentially free entertainment for tourists on the streets of New York. You’ve made sure people don’t understand national and international news, cutting your own throat as the demand for hard news ebbs. People are getting their TV news dose from The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, shows that manage to be informative and mesmerizing. Not to mention — the questions asked of newsmakers on those shows are much more pointed than the softballs tossed on the nightly news. Your prime-time schedule is no longer built on scripted shows — instead largely consisting of a motley collection of characters willing to sell their souls for a few moments of airtime. NBC attempted the cheap road, sticking Jay Leno into the ten o’clock slot. The argument — from network brass — was that it may not attract a big audience, but would attract enough of an audience to make it’s inexpensive production worthwhile. We all know how that worked. Instead of holding onto a gem like the cop drama Southland, nursing it, and letting it build an audience; NBC let it go to TNT, where it has a devout following among a desired demographic. Your desired demographics are fleeing to cable — turning to AMC for Mad Men and Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead. They’re turning to HBO for Boardwalk Empire and True Blood. Viewers want to be surprised, and charmed, and thrilled, and swept up by emotion. You’re still giving them Survivor, which jumped the shark years ago; you’re still giving them Desperate Housewives, which hasn’t been fun for a couple of seasons; you’re still giving them The Bachelor, and pretending it’s a romantic thrill; until very recently, you were still giving them Two and Half Men, and pretending it’s funny. Your building is on fire, and you’re not listening to the smoke alarms. You’re losing your audience to the Internet, which offers entertainment far more original and fun than the stuff you’re putting on the air. You’ve lost your reputation as the go-to place for shows that trigger laughter and surprise; for news that isn’t lifted right off a politician’s press release.
Keep it up, Network TV, and it won’t be long before you’re on Skid Row drinking cheap gin from a paper bag, just like Radio.
In the early 90’s the UK was the epicenter of a new genre of music: rave. Otherwise known as breakbeat hardcore, UK hardcore, “rave” was an amalgamation of US techno with UK acid house. This was before the music branched off in to house, breaks, techno, trance, and jungle. This was an era when taking a couple E’s and dancing all night in a dirty warehouse was a new thing. If you like any genres of current dance music, it pays to know where it came from. Its also Friday. This music will literally make you flash back … the last time you heard it was in 1993 and you were on a tab of acid and a couple hits of E.
Bomb Scare – 2 Bad Mice:
This is the prototype of all breakbeat-orientated tracks to come. It was a dance music first- produced at home in someone’s bedroom and not in an expensive studio with racks full of equipment. It gave hope to anyone with a synthesizer and a sampler, that you COULD produce a track that would be played in clubs all over the world. This tune was limited by the technology of the time: 8 second mono samples. It works though. This tune blew up, to this day its played in clubs. Pretty good for no budget bedroom production.
Goldie – Kemistry
The sweeping synth lines of this tune made it stand out to listeners. Rave music gets pretty. Its still slow, but gives a hint as to what dnb will be in the future.
Top Buzz – Living in Darkness
This seminal tune from ’92 incorporates a 4-on-the-floor “house” style kick with breakbeats. Genres like hardcore and gabber took the same formula, distorted the kick drum, and sped it up. Very innovative for the time. Its about 143 bpm, about the speed of modern day breakbeats or trance.
Rufige Cru – Terminator
Ok, so even as a DJ who specializes in breakbeats, I’ll admit that a lot of tunes are unforgettable and are meant to be thrown away after six months or a year. A lot of production is driven by the new *hot* sample cd, or synth lines are taken directly from the presets of brand new synthesizers. The early 90’s had a revolution in how music was produced due to cheaper and more powerful samplers. Before 1980 the only way to play a sample (a snippet of audio) i.e. the cash register sound in the Pink Floyd tune “Money” would be to either play it off of analog tape, or actually hold a cash register up to a microphone during a live performance. In the early 80’s samplers came around. A sampler is basically a computer that you can record a snippet of sound on to, that’s triggered when you hit a key on a keyboard or synthesizer. Early samplers could only hold small amounts of sound … we’re talking 8 seconds, maybe … at a resolution between “crap” and “1920’s telephone.” In the 80’s samplers became affordable as computer processors became ubiquitous, and those 8 seconds of crappy sounding sound could now be 20 seconds of tape-quality sound. This tune is important because of the drum sample (the breakbeat during the breakdown.) Notice how it plays at a very low pitch, then keeps pitching higher and higher? If you were to play a sample with an 80’s sampler, the only way to make a sampled sound increase its pitch would be to increase its speed. Increasing its speed doesn’t really work if you’re making dance music that’s trying to keep a constant beat. This tune was THE FIRST ever piece of music to have a sample that increased in pitch, but its speed stayed the same. This blew minds in the early 90’s. Cher’s song “Believe” was the first to use autotune as an effect, this tune was the first to use pitch adjust. It wouldn’t have happened if the producers hadn’t bought a brand new, top of the line sampler a couple of days before they produced this tune. Not only was it something that ravers got down to, but audio engineers bought the crap out of the tune to listen to it and be BLOWN AWAY by the drum beat pitching up. Yeah, kinda lame now, but trust me, it was a BIG deal.
Q Project – Champion Sound – Alliance remix
This tune sort of epitomizes the stripped-down ragga sound that would become popular in the UK during the mid-90’s. A ragga vocal sample, a breakbeat, and a HARD bass was all you needed. “Rave” became serious right here. (UK Electronic Dance Music always had sort of a Jamican thing going on, but this tune made a lot of Black kids get in to “Jungle”.) A note on the “Jungle” term. At this point people weren’t referring to tracks like this as “Rave” but rather “Jungle.” “Jungle” is synonymous with “Drum and Bass” however most people will agree that “Jungle” tends to be more stripped down, incorporate Ragga/Hip Hop samples, and isn’t as “techy.”
LTJ Bukem – Atlantis (I need you)
Most of the tracks I’ve put up have so far been sort of … hard. This tune proved that not all breakbeat had to be hard and in your face for you to dance to it. A “chill” breaks tune? NEVER!
Origin Unknown – Valley of the Shadows
By this time, there was “house” and “trance” and a separate “jungle” room at raves. This was the TUNE back in the day. A vocal taken from a US Space launch, a cheesy Brit sample that could be about taking drugs (more like seeing God or an angel or something) coupled with a BOOMING sub bass. The synth used here was a Roland Juno-106, one of the classics of all dance music. They really went wild with the arppegiator, but this tune is still rocked, in its original form, today.
Aphrodite – Summer Breeze
Aphrodite was/is known for producing a whole heck of a lot of jungle hip hop remixes. Kind of nice that he took an old (lame) Seals + Croft hit from ’72 and re-worked it.
Omni Trio – Renegade Snares – Foul Play Remix
The drums. Every effect that the most modern samplers could throw out was used in producing this track. Like Terminator before it, it blew minds. Heck, it even charted in the Pop charts in the UK. Pretty nice for a vinyl that was being sold out of the back of someone’s car. UK Pirate stations by now were playing pretty much all “Rave” music, and Jungle/breakbeats were a staple.
Deep Blue – The Helicopter Tune
That intro is clever synth work, not a helicopter sample. These guys hit it out of the park in terms of drum programming. Listen to this tune, and one of the earlier ones, and the first thing you’ll notice is the fidelity. Whereas the first tunes sounded like they were being played out of a speakerphone, the drums on this tune are crisp, clear, and have some depth. You can thank technology.
Alex Reece – Pulp Fiction
Gone are the synths, the pianos, the over-enthusiastic MDMA references. Jungle was here. Stripped down, deep, dark, moody, and danceable. Jazzy too! Breaks were never the same after this tune. Live Jazz musicians started having their drummers bang out drum and bass beats. You can’t go to a jazz concert nowadays without hearing an “amen” break. This beat is indicitive of a “2 step” beat, which spawned the “2 step/garage” fad to come at the early 90’s.
DJ Zinc – Super Sharp Shooter
In the 90’s, “urban” stations didn’t play UK hip hop, they played stuff like this. Jungle. Samples are taken from “Release yo ‘Delf” by Method Man and “It Gets No Rougher” by LL Cool J. UK hip hop labels SCRAMBLED for producers to remix US Import Hip hop after this release. This tune also completely started the whole “Jump Up” Jungle craze.
DJ Zinc – Ready or Not (Fugees Remix)
This tune was so massive it got airplay on US Hip Hop stations. When the whole “Mash Up” genre started to get big around 2006, some jackasses tried to press up copies of this tune and pass it off as new. Sorry! After this tune, DJ Zinc was booked at raves worldwide. Hey, its fun!
Congo Natty – Junglist
Okay, so by this time, it wasn’t “Rave” music. It was “Jungle.” Congo Natty is a group of rastas who were associated with the Greensleeves Reggae/Ragga label, who branched out to Jungle when it got hot. They were sort of notorious. Usually when one presses up records, you’ll press up a batch of say 1500 or 2500 and send them to record distributors for consignment. A distro then holds on to them, sells them, and sends you money at the end of the quarter. These guys made distros pay UP FRONT, and instead of charging like $3/record they charged something like $5. As a result, a lot of distros didn’t carry Congo Natty releases. That didn’t stop this record from completely blowing up, because it increased its value. You could go to shops in 1995 and they’d be selling this plate for $40. It was outrageous. However, people LOVED this tune. I remember even a couple of years ago people asking me if I could play it at clubs. This record did have negative consequences though. Every raver wearing camo now became a “Junglist” and a lot of Black Jamacians in the UK took offense to its supposed racial undertones. “The Jungle” was a part of Kingston that a lot of these guys were from, they coined the term, and it had no racial “Black people are uncivilized and from Africa” meaning, but still, shortly after people started calling this music “Drum and Bass.” “Rave” was dead.
So yeah, that’s Drum and Bass until about 1995. Those tunes are in roughly chronological order and they’re some of the standouts from that era. I’ll be posting more stuff to annoy your neighbors with later on!
Bursting onto the music scene from one of the least angstiest places in the world, Seattle, grunge took over the airwaves like the smoke from a campfire when the wind shifts. It was angry, intense and generally listened to in darkened basements filled with blacklights. Just me? Okay, then.
Kurt Cobain is the undisputed King of Grunge. He died when his wife Courtney Love killed him at his own hands and despite Pearl Jam’s attempts at dominance, Nirvana’s instant classic album (and cover), Nevermind, really signified the entire genre.
Maybe this is post-grunge but I like the lead singer’s voice, so screw it.
I know YouTube doesn’t do this beat justice, but “Saxon” by Nicki Minaj (actually a dubstep beat by Chase & Status) is the dopeness. This track makes me wanna get hype. HOLLA. Continue reading →
Welcome to Hollywood! What’s your dream? Is it to sing a song from a forgettable movie? You’re in luck! American Idol will promise you the world and then crush your dreams, in one fell swoop. Elvira is there? Is she going to be revealed as Seacretin’s mother? She truly is the Mistress of Milking of 15 Minutes of Fame. Take lessons, Idol Singtestants, because we won’t remember any of you in 6 months.
Reaching for the stars and catching them:
Witch! She’s a witch! Lauren made me like a Miley Cyrus song. I love that Kelly Clarkson is on tonight because you will understand what I mean by the comparison between Lauren and Kelly – The Greatest Idol of All Time (TM). I hope there’s a grand sing off a la…
VH1’s Divas Live. Dammit I miss that show. I mean, really. Dream pairings of real life divas sanging their ayasses ouff. BOW DOWN! BOW DOWN BEFORE THEM (not because you want to see what scraps Aretha left behind…Yeah. I said it!)! The trailer battles on 42nd Street. The hapless interns running to and fro trying to get the starlettes out of their ego-induced comas.
What I’m getting at is that Jacob took on one of the most incredible songs written and performed as demonstrated here and here (pass the tiss-ewes). So Jacob sang it with the restraint of a forewarned and humbled singtestant and took us to church. Apparently, his voice comes “from the place it’s supposed to come from” as Jenny from the Dump said. Where is that, exactly? I would have said it’s supposed to come from the baby of Whitney and BOB-AAAAAAY! But we know that’s not what happened. So, I guess she means it’s supposed to come from Fatburger.
Stefaaaanooooo. Weeeeelcome to Lavender Hill (*whispering* – I’m not wearing any panties). Really, I would have thrown mine onto the stage (despite his moon boots). I wanted to catch a rose that he tossed from the stage in me teeth. I wanted to go backstage and “surprise” him in his dressing room. Marry me, Stefano. We will have babies with great ass…ets.
I had some help this time in reviewing the show and that helped tremendously because I would have turned off Overgrown Baby Gay Kurt’s performance after the first two seconds. BUT! My headbanging friend jumped right in and sang the lyrics to the chorus as if OBGK was speaking English. I didn’t have a clue what that guy was screaming. Let’s not kid ourselves, having Ozzy’s guitarist out there was the tits and pretty much made that performance what it was.
I don’t know why the The Old Lady thinks it’s appropriate to continue to hit on the girl you hated in high school but he does. I thought Haley the show’s resident ho was pretty darn good belting out “Call Me.” Maybe she was singing it straight to The Old Lady so that she can get a “record contract” after she goes home because the other judges hated it with two snaps in a circle.
Did you see that advert for So You Think You Can Dance? Hooooo doggy I cannot wait to recap the shizzle out of that show!
Sleeping with the fishes:
Muuaahahahahaha! Goodbye, Scotty Alfred E. Newman Baby Lock Them Doors! You stunk up the stage worse than a circus elephant just off the Tallahassee to Nashiville train! No! No! No! Don’t tell me that he will not be in the bottom three! Nahnahnahnahanahaaa I can’t hear you.
Fozzie Wozzie was a bear. Fozzie Wozzie was not there. I thought we had established that close-ups of Fozzie’s eyes were NOT a good idea. Yet, I could have been his aesthetician at more than one point last night. Aside from him needed a good pore and pupil reducing treatment, that was way too Esperanza Spalding for Idol AND ESPERANZA SPALDING RULES! But she also got death threats for beating Justine Biebette for Best New Artist at the Grammy and now Casper the Floating Head Gingerbreadman will be ded. Ded, I say. Stoopid judges for their stoopid standing O.
The Sanjaya of season 10 is still there. I refuse to talk about him.
Bottom three: That guy, OBGK, Gingerbreadman.
UPDATE:
Hallaleezy praise Weezy! Before we get to the good news, I’m going to drive to LA and punch the Idol producers square in their necks for continuing to pair up Alfred E. Newman and Trisha Yearwood for a good ol’ ‘Murican hoedown. Just have them sing “Islands in the Sea” and get it over with. And then what in the name of Sarah Vaughn and Louis Armstrong what that? I’m tired. So tired. Because he was part of the last group of singers, I’m going to ignore their weird rendition of the evil and delicious “Sound of Silence” and “Here’s to You Ryan Seabiscuit.”
After The Greatest Idol of All Time (TM), Kelly Clarkson schooled them fools on how to last in the bizness, Seabiscuit dimmed the lights to watch someone go, like he has so many times before. One, two, three, they went off to the cheap seats – Haley the Show’s (well, you know), Peeping Tom McCreepster, and the little prosciutto, Stefano. Would the female tweenie-boppers of America send another chicky packing? We would have to wait until Hip Hop Ragedy-Anne sang something about how she wants a California King bed (can’t she just order one?).
So! Who was going home? Take off your rose-covered suits, kids, because it’s now in the safe recesses of McCreepster’s suitcase. Good bye, Paul! The only way you out-shined the rest was with your neon sign-bright teeth! Maybe you can go be Rod Stewart’s understudy while he is on tour. He’ll probably break a hip within the first couple of weeks, anyway.
Aw, memories. Mine get hazier by the day due to age and certain “lifestyle” choices I have made over the years. I used to be cool (I think) and I used to listen to good music before my responsibilities got in the way. However, my sweet neighbor kid is in high school and he always enthusiastically shares what he is listening to with me. He is crazy for Jay Z. Crazy on the way that only a teenager can be for music. Before pretension, before bitterness, and before life attaches too many memories to your music.
I love it when I hear him singing this in the hallway:
So Crasstalk, what was your favorite band or artist in high school. Who spoke to your little rocker?
Living with Mom and Dad in the Ancestral Family Split-Level was quite an experience, and law school was boggling. When I moved back home after college, I was unprepared for the efforts of my Old People to stay young.
I don’t know if it’s a Scot thing or a Milanese thing, but we all tend to sing when we think we’re alone and are doing a domestic task. Mine tend to come from VH-1’s Top 20, and Mom and Dad tend to Motown, since in 1961 that was the thing.
The central staircase of a split-level separates the living areas by function, which is cool. It also enables one to spy on what’s going on on other levels without being seen.
So, when I came home from work and discovered that my Jamiroquai CD was missing from my car, I was a tad startled to hear it blasting from the stereo in the dining room.
Mom.
She had her friend Pam in the living room and was dusting. There was wine – a huge bottle of Pinot Grigio. She sang “You know this spooky is for real!” and Pam folded up on the sofa in a pile of giggles. I stood there on the stairs to the den with my jaw unhinged as Mom pranced around with a can of Pledge. Canned Heat with lemon freshness. “I threw my caution to the wi-hi-hind! Oh. Hi. I borrowed your CD. Do you want some wine?”
“Mom, I think you’ve had enough for both of us.” The crazy bitch was actually speaking LOLcat.
Finally, I tottered out to the terrace and called my friend Bill. After telling him what was up, I asked if I could move in with him. “My Mom sings ‘Stairway To Heaven’ when she dusts.” he informed me. “You’re better off.”
Then, the next day, I was watching HGTV in the den with the kitty, and Dad was working in the garage with the door open just a bit. It was just enough to hear him yell along with Boston “I closed mah eyes and she slipped away-ayyy-hay! She slipped away-AY-HAY! It’s moar than a feeeeeling (moar than a feeling) when I hear that old song play woo-ooh-ooh-hoo!” The cat cocked an ear in that general direction, then shook his head, like “Christ, make it stop.” My sentiments exactly.
I peeked in, and there he was at his workbench – making a goddam birdhouse, so that the goddam blue jays have a haven from which to dive-bomb our outdoor meals.
“Are both of you batshit?” I asked him.
“Maybe, a little.”
“Great. That looks terrific for me and my future.”
“Heh-heh-heh.”
Don’t get me wrong. If I had boring Old People I’d be bored and more than slightly irritated. I just wish they were a little less musical about it.
And I’m so glad I live 20 minutes away now, with my Cap’n. Though he thinks I’m a bit kooky when he catches me singing Colbie Callait to the cats.
But we know that’s not what happened. So, I guess she means it’s supposed to come from Fatburger.
