Fat Enough to Rip the Mic

Whatever god it is that rules over synchronicity is throwing a literal ton of fat singers at me these days. It started a few days ago when Recon and another old friend entirely independently posted some old Fat Boys videos. In case you missed out on the 80s, the Fat Boys rocked the house. The human beat box alone should have an entire wing in the hip hop hall of fame to himself and don't get me started on "Disorderlies."

Then, this came up and has been making the rounds on the feminist blogs. The singer Amanda Palmer got into a bit of a tiff with her record label because they wanted to digitally alter her image and she refused. They wanted to make her look less fat. Oh, and by less fat, I mean that they wanted to move her from the normal human look to the grossly underweight look. If the music industry wasn't so consistently incompetent, I might think the whole thing was a publicity stunt to stir up some buzz amongst online feminists.

Those of you who read my blog should know by now that I have a history of complaining about the music industry and the Amanda Palmer incident seems more of the same. Palmer is the real deal. In that vein, I thought that I would mention a certain woman named Etta James.

Plenty of people have great voices but few people can actually sing. Mariah Carey and Christina Aguilera both have astonishing vocal skill and wail on some classic jazz numbers but to what end? I know people who love these singers but when I listen to them I hear the ability and it doesn't do much for me otherwise. Here are links to "At Last" as sung by Christina Aguilera and by Etta James. Take a listen and see what you think.

FYI this is what Etta James looked like as a young singer:



Another great photo and yet I shudder to think what a music industry exec would have to say about the girl in it if she was trying to break into the business today. Luckily, we'll all avoid such showbiz cruelty since the new movie about Etta's life will star Beyoncé and I doubt that she'll be putting on weight for the role.


Update!
Pandagon has a post on the new movie "Cadillac Records." It includes a this video of James singing "Something's Got a Hold on Me."

Looks and Sounds

A few weeks ago, I happpened upon a brief newspaper snippet about the jazz singer, Sophie Milman. In the article, the writer tells the story of how Milman's CD came to a local promoter without a cover. This promoter listened to some of her songs and liked her Ella Fitzgeraldish voice. "I figured it was a 40-something singer," he's quoted as saying. He goes on to mention that this type of voice is usually the purview of large people.

And then, story takes a delicious twist. You see, Sophie Milman actually looks like this:


The article then implies that once the promoter saw a picture of Milman, he just had to sign that voice. Apparently, it's the head shot and measurements that get you the gig and 40 year old overweight black women need not apply.

I'm not saying that Milman is not a good artist or a great singer; She has a technically gifted and well trained voice. My problem is that the 18-25 year old white girl that sounds even remotely like a 40 year old black woman is a recipe that never fails to make the music industry drool itself. This has nothing to do with her talent, desire or personality but has everything to do with the shallow vision of the entertainment machine.

What I'm talking about goes beyond "video killed the radio star." It's the matter of mere facade versus real depth and the newspaper story about Milman is a mild example of it. Milman has depth but depth isn't what sells her. The facade is more important.

For a stronger case, let me just say that I can do nothing extreme enough to avoid hearing about Brittany or Christina while at the same time the singers that I would like are probably considered too old, too black and too plain looking to merit any coverage. A lot of the best artists today have been forced into the independent music scene whether they like it or not.

By the way here's what Ella Fitzgerald looked like at 23:


There is an incredible honesty in that photo yet when was the last time you saw an album cover or promotion like it? As much as I like this picture, it would be unusable in today's mainstream music industry. It's not sexy enough, not trendy enough, not underground or buzz laden or edgy enough.

The whole thing reminds me of this Dan Kennedy quote that he got from the chairmen of the record label he worked for, "I don't tell people I'm in the record business, I tell people I'm in the business of delivering a lifestyle - hooded sweatshirts and other merchandise, merch that features various band logos, licensing soft drinks, everything. There's no limit to how this business can become a business of selling a way of living more than simply selling music".

Sonic Boom-erang

Isabout time that 80's Brit synth pop came back in vogue.

The Black Kids

Chocolate Reign

As a follow up to earlier posts about race in America (a definite possible trend lately), let me introduce you to a man that I think has this racial thing in a headlock:

TAY ZONDAY BABY! POW!

Yes, youtube's favorite son is more than just a pretty face with a sweet baritone voice. He's been hitting social issues on the interview circuit with the surgical precision of a robot trained by a kung fu master.

Exhibit A - an interview for HHNLive. It's filled with choice quotes.

Seriously, is race something you choose? The whole point is that I don't choose it. It is somebody else's shortcut to my soul.

I guess I just respect any musician who puts themselves out there.

But you can't blame this prejudice on everyday people. Because the fantasy that all young black males must be hypermasculine, whereas young white males can be wholesome boy-band members, is promoted by business interests that need categories in which people will be predictable consumers. People are sick of these categories.

Exhibit B - an interview for MSPMag.com. Zonday takes the high road.

What Ralph Ellison was saying, echoing other black intellectuals like Zora Neal Hurston and his mentor, Richard Wright, was, “No, no, it’s not that simple. Hollywood is really the shadow, and society is the act.” It’s a fallacy that if there’s a stereotype in Hollywood, the people will go, “Gosh, that really does reflect what black people are like.” How can that stereotype be effective unless people are actually watching that, consuming that, in a life situation where they are not encountering other black people to begin with?

Exhibit C - Chocolate Cherry Rain. In this song, Tay Zonday performs a triple axle in a hall of mirrors. He rewrites his original hit "Chocolate Rain" into a completely different song about the original song. Dude is Brilliant.

DMX is Rubbish

So, I just finished reading an interview between XXL Magazine and DMX. I have my own opinion, but would like to hear someone else's thoughts first. Here you go:

Are you following the presidential race?
Not at all.
You’re not? You know there’s a Black guy running, Barack Obama and then there’s Hillary Clinton.
His name is Barack?!
Barack Obama, yeah.
Barack?!
Barack.
What the fuck is a Barack?! Barack Obama. Where he from, Africa?
Yeah, his dad is from Kenya.
Barack Obama?
Yeah.
What the fuck?! That ain’t no fuckin’ name, yo. That ain’t that nigga’s name. You can’t be serious. Barack Obama. Get the fuck outta here.
You’re telling me you haven’t heard about him before.
I ain’t really paying much attention.
I mean, it’s pretty big if a Black…
Wow, Barack! The nigga’s name is Barack. Barack? Nigga named Barack Obama. What the fuck, man?! Is he serious? That ain’t his fuckin’ name. Ima tell this nigga when I see him, “Stop that bullshit. Stop that bullshit” [laughs] “That ain’t your fuckin’ name.” Your momma ain’t name you no damn Barack.
So you’re not following the race. You can’t vote right?
Nope.
Is that why you’re not following it?
No, because it’s just—it doesn’t matter. They’re gonna do what they’re gonna do. It doesn’t really make a difference. These are the last years [ what in god's name is he talking about]
But it would be pretty big if we had a first Black president. That would be huge.I mean, I guess….
What, they gon’ give a dog a bone? There you go. Ooh, we have a Black president now. They should’ve done that shit a long time ago, we wouldn’t be in the fuckin’ position we in now. With world war coming up right now. They done fucked this shit up then give it to the Black people, “Here you take it. Take my mess.” Right, exactly.It’s all a fuckin’ setup. It’s all a setup. All fuckin’ bullshit. All bullshit. I don’t give a fuck about none of that.
We could have a female president also, Hillary Clinton.
I mean, either way it doesn’t matter. I don’t care. No one person is directly affected by which president, you know, so what does it matter.
Yeah, but the country is.
I guess. The president is a puppet anyway. The president don’t make no damn decisions.
The president…they don’t have that much authority basically?
Nah, never.
But Bush pretty much…
You think Bush is making fuckin’ decisions?
He did, yeah, he fucked up the country.
He act like he making decisions. He could barely speak! He could barely fuckin’ speak!Can’t be serious. He ain’t making no damn decisions.
Well Barack has a good chance of winning so that might be something.
Good for him, good for him.

Spanish League Jazz

Once again, time to revisit the beautiful game. Today, I want to show a clip of highlights from a recent match up between two top notch teams in the Spanish League.

Athletico Madrid 4-Barcelona 2 (01-03-08)

Two things about this clip moved me to write this post. The first thing that you're sure to notice is the music of St. Germain. I found the combination of football and jazz to be shockingly natural. I consider both endeavors to be forms of art with a great deal of room for freedom of expression. Football and jazz also share a tension between individual expression and group cohesion. It makes me wonder if the success of Brazilian jazz and Brazilian football are related?

The second reason for sharing this clip is Ronaldinho's goal at 1:33 (play starts at 1:21). I don't think that I can convey just how difficult it is to do what he does here to someone who's never tried it before. The timing required to make contact with a ball that's speeding along perpendicularly to the direction of a strike is impressive but then to connect with a bicycle kick while being manned and hit the low corner of the goal... Yowsa. He makes it look easy.

Actually, that first shot (at 0:22) by Zambrotta looks deceptively ordinary as well. The combination of power, angle and accuracy that he gets on that is far from ordinary or accidental. If you watch the slow motion replay, you can see exactly how straight and low to ground the ball flies with almost no spin. Like a knuckle ball in baseball, a ball moving without spin can shimmy in the air and is difficult to track.

Music and Video

In this post, I want to collect three great music videos together in one place, a kind of variation on a theme in three parts. These videos each make creative attempts to translate the musical structure of particular songs into a visual objects.

The Avalanches - Frontier Psychiatrist Directed by Tom Kuntz Mike Maguire

If you need hard evidence of how awesome post modernism and the concept of collage can be I suggest this video. It's a basic visual realization of the extensive sampling found in the song with a virtual big band of actors taking on the style particular samples. The work overlays the contexts of big band music, stage musicals and plays, music videos and electronic music.

Daft Punk - Around the World Directed by Michel Gondry

More nuanced than Frontier Psychiatrist, we have Around the World, a brilliant song and video that was one of the first chances the world had to experience the genius of Michel Gondry. The thing to note about this video (and this is difficult to see if you don't have a background in music) is that the visual elements are an almost allegorical representations of the song's musical structure. For example, the base line is manifested on the stage as the four small headed track suit guys. These guys step to the rhythm of the base and go up the stairs as the notes ascend and down as they descend. Every actor in the video can be related to musical elements in this way.

Yet, the characters are not rigidly bound to their corresponding musical elements. There are moments in which the cast breaks from the algorithm and dances to the song as a whole in the manner of a more traditional music video.

Chemical Brothers - Star Guitar Directed by Michel Gondry

The video takes Gondry's previous work in Around the World to the next level. A comparison brings out some of the more subtle aspects of the videos. Around the World exists in an abstract circular space (circular like a record or turntable). Star Guitar is a concrete and linear space (linear like a bar of music). Star Guitar is much more fluid about how it's visuals connect with the music. The visual elements almost become extra instrumentation. This is one of my favorite videos of all time.

Here's a better quality clip of Star Guitar

The Police

Now, this band hasn't lost anything for me in 20 years. I listen to their stuff today and it feels just as dynamic, inventive, upbeat and thoughtfully constructed. They had a whole pile of songs that hit the charts and those songs were decent but buried under that pile are some solid gold tunes. I just thought I'd share one:

circa 1978.

The Italian Space Program

Here's a fun band from Rome that I've been listening to.



The name of the band is La Etruria Criminale Banda. Most of their music sounds like a parade on the international space station. You can go to their myspace page for the rest of the song and a few others.

The Good News is Rock and Roll

Last weekend, Sarah and I went to the Caribbean Festival at the local community college. The first tent we came up to was a prayer tent. That's weird and not very Caribbean I thought. The next tent had people donating and picking up clothes. In the large, tent after that people were picking up free hamburgers. Then, another prayer tent.

Turns out we went to the I Love the Church of Whatever Festival across the street by mistake. You know what finally tipped me off? Rock music. To be more specific, Christian Rock Music.

The term Christian Rock has become redundant since rock ceased to be a part of popular music a long time ago. All new rock is Christian Rock. Leave it to churches to consistently remain at least 20 years behind the musical mainstream. I guess all popular musical styles from classical to folk to rock can expect a late boom in the Christian music scene. One of the days, we'll get to enjoy Chrisp Hop and Christian Indie.

Swoonable

I've fallen in love with this song.

Link to live version.

Here's my attempt at cultural triangulation of the Avett Brothers.

The Beatles : Hank Williams : Wilco

Down Time

I'm excited to have figured out how to embed sound links in a flash player on my blog. Go ahead and see if it works.



Ah, Devo.

I know that it doesn't seem like I'm doing much blogwise but just so you know I've been laboring behind the scenes just like your favorite sports team does in the off season. Setting up deals, training up key players, stealing the other team's playbooks and such. Let's just say that I've got my proverbial finger in many pies. Let's also just say, I feel like one of those jugglers trying to keep two balls in the air at once. It's hard work.

UPDATE!
Due to space constraints, I've removed the old Odeo flash player and just embedded live version of the song from boomp3.

Channeled Awesomeness

The Bad Plus was interviewed on Weekend America today. They're an acoustic jazz trio that tries to convert famous and worthy pop rock songs into improvisational works of art. The interview was just a few minutes long but it conveyed the sense of fun and respect for music that these guys have.

As for their music, it's really hit or miss with me. One song that they hit out of the park on the radio was Chariots of Fire. Listen to it and tell me you don't love it.

Concrete Thinking

Recon tells this hilarious story about how when he was a small kid he thought that the Miami Sound Machine was an actual machine operated by Gloria Estefan. I think that he cried his virgin eyes out when he learned the truth.

So, yesterday, I almost cried my virgin eyes out when my girlfriend was surprised to find that Phil Specter's Wall of Sound wasn't an actual wall.