Look at all these rumors...

Did you hear that one about Susan?

Hello there!

First, let me apologize for the long absence.  A few things happened in life (law school graduation, marriage, bar exam, etc.), but now that that is all over I am free to pursue the finer things in life like crafting witty blogposts about inane subject material that four people will read.  Pretty fantastic.

This post came to mind as I was reading a book recently - the first book I've read that was not law-related in over a year, mind you.  That book was The One, by RJ Smith.  It is the newest biography about "Mr. Please, Please, Please" James Brown.  For a review/interview with the author, go here.  I'm not here to review the book, granted it was decent (for me, it was too broad in scope (his entire life) so it left out some things I would have like to have known more about), instead I'm interested in a little footnote of a story that Smith mentions.  And that story involves another favorite of mine:  Bill Withers. 

Before we get to that, though, allow me to set the tone of what we're really talking about here:  Celebrity Gossip.

Not pictured:  journalism

  

Now, celebrity gossip is nothing new.  Americans have loved gossiping about their favorite (or least favorite) celebrities for as long as there have been celebrities (which were created by William Randolph Hearst in 1880, I believe).  We love stories of their love affairs, their break-ups, their triumphs and tragedies, and their communist activities.  What we really love, though, are those stories of celebrities acting crazy.  This is because a) celebrities pretend for a living and thereby live in a world that is not real, and are thus allowed to act in outrageous ways; and b) celebrities are, indeed, crazy people.  We like to hear about how they push the boundaries of decency, of what is acceptable behavior, and of what they can get away with.  It seems their creativity in acts is matched only by their need for attention.  And we, myself included, love to hear about it. 

This post could easily turn into a recitation of crazy celebrity stories, but that's not my bag.  You can go here, here, or here (definitely!) to do that.   But just the same, here's a quick top three of celebrity stories that came to mind when I was thinking about this post:

Gary Busey

is crazy, as you know.  But even his level of insanity can reach drug-fueled lows (highs?) that are as sad as they are unbelievable.  If you haven't heard the story, he once snorted cocaine off his dog's back.  Yep, his dog rolled around in his yayo one day and Gary "MacGyver" Busey did what any successful actor would do:  grab a straw and not waste that blow!

Mötley Crüe 

Left to Right:  Liza Minnelli; Bret Michaels; Captain EO; Sgt. Pepper of  XFL team The Hollywood Glambots

Now, there is no shortage of crazy stories regaling the exploits of these four gentlemen-ambassadors of rock n' roll.  Often involving sex, drugs, and sex, the Crüe was a force to be reckoned with during their hard-living 1980s.  Sure, one of them killed his friend in a car accident and spent a mere thirty days in jail, but look at them and their teased hair, ruffles, and kissy-face makeup.  You can't hate them!
The story that comes to mind here is not the death-life-death-life of Nikki "Lazarus" Sixx, but instead what he and drumming god Tommy Lee cooked up for one of their groupies.  In one of their saddest and least arousing escapades, they persuaded their groupie-du-jour to place a phone call to her mother from a most-unorthodox phone booth.  Details here.

Prince

You know, I'm not even going to try with this one.  Just go here (on why he can't have a camel for his living nativity scene), here (spark-shooting roller skates) or here (declaring the internet to be "over") . . . seriously, Prince is too crazy for me to sum up.

So that brings us back to the top, the one if you will, and to one of my personal faves, "Butane James" - James Brown.

No crazy here, move along.

Back in 1974, Brown agreed to appear at a music festival held in conjunction with the "Rumble in the Jungle" Ali-Foreman fight in Zaire.  Also on that bill were Bill Withers, B.B. King, Celia Cruz, Ray Barretto, and the Fania All-Stars.  The whole thing is documented in Soul Power, a film about the concert released in 2008.  Needless to say, this concert was a pretty big deal (dubbed "the Black Woodstock" by some uncreative journalists):  you've got some hard-hitting (no pun intended) music acts headed to a country that was eager to have them, combined with some hard-hitting (pun intended) heavyweight boxing, and Soul Brother Number One at the top of the bill.

As I was reading about this in The One, though, I read the following sentence regarding James Brown's unwillingness to sit in coach on the plane flight over to Zaire (and thereby balance the weight of the plane, which was weighed down by all of the equipment Brown insisted on bringing with him):

According to [Hugh] Masekela, during a stopover in Madrid, Bill Withers bought a dagger and held it to Brown's throat, suggesting he sit in economy with the rest of the folks.

What?  "bought a dagger and held it to Brown's throat...."  Bill Withers did this?  "Grandma's Hands" Bill Withers?  "Still Bill" Bill Withers?  I have never heard this story before.  Mister "Lean-on-me-when-you've-got-a-heavy-load" threatened to kill The Hardest Working Man in Show Business?  This seems like something that would have made the rounds, right?  Bill Withers is not exactly a gangster with all that "Just the Two of Us" and "Ain't No Sunshine" business.  It's not like he's Sid Vicious.  And RJ Smith says no more about it!  No commentary on whether it was true or not, no mention of how this played out, nothing. 

Stone cold.

And it's not like James Brown is some wuss.  This is a guy that worked over 300 days a year, was incarcerated as a youth (and as an adult), was pretty much always carrying a gun, and would sometimes fire his band not by telling them but rather by leaving them stranded in California while he went back to Augusta - he is not to be messed with.  Just ask his bodyguards.

Stone to the Bone.

So, if it was true that Bill Withers threatened to kill The Godfather, then surely I would be able to corroborate this story somewhere else.  Also, I think I gained a little more respect for Mr. Withers (as I'm sure you just did, too, by reading the above anecdote).

Guys in rugby shirts are known to be a little unhinged.

After looking around the intehnets a bit, I came across a different version of the story.  Leon Gast, director of When We Were Kings (a different documentary about the "Rumble In the Jungle"), told the story in an interview with True/False Film Fest:

The Vanya All Stars [Latin band, subject of Our Latin Thing] played their instruments on that flight [to Zaire] all throughout the 15 or 17 hours. James Brown, BB King and his band were also on that plane. Some people wanted to sleep, and became offended. At a stopover in Madrid, Bill Withers got off, went and bought something threatening looking, like a fake plastic knife or something, came over the intercom and said, “My Latin brothers and sisters, I know you love your music, but if you don’t stop for a minute I’m gonna slit somebody’s throat” while waving that knife around.

Oh.  So that's maybe a little more plausible, right?  This keeps Bill Withers as the smiley-songwriter-guy-who-just-wants-some-sleep and James Brown as the top-billed-showman-supreme who, like his papa, would clearly "Take No Mess."  

Everything in its right place.

However, it does make one wonder where the "Bill Withers threatening JB" version comes from.  I mean, there are definitely some folks in the industry that did not like James - that much is well-known.  That's what happens when you have a history of paying yourself more than your band, assaulting your female singers, and (as mentioned before) firing your band by leaving them stranded somewhere.  But does it serve Still Bill's legacy to make him into a tough guy capable of cutting up JB?  He is currently a music industry recluse, having given up recording and performing sometime in the late 80s, so maybe this just adds to the mystery.  Or, maybe Masekela just remembered it wrong and harbored some ill-will for JB himself, so he told people Bill Withers got him to change his mind?  Who knows.

The point is, I love stories like this.  Whichever version you accept, this gives a lot of insight into the dynamics at play between music industry stars, some more famous than they can handle at times (i.e., James Brown), others just wanting to play music for people and the love of music (i.e., Bill Withers or the Vanya All Stars, for that matter).  We like this because it presents context for history and shows people acting like people - though let's be honest, I don't think I could get away with threatening James Brown's life simply for not sitting in coach.  But then, I didn't write "Use Me," either.

Regardless, it's not like Bill Withers had this tough persona right?  He wasn't hanging around with murderers or anything like that.

Left to Right:  The Greatest of All Time, Still Bill, a convicted murderer. 

Is this Swedish girl from the Future? Pt. II

Funny, she doesn't look like a Japanese robot. Because, seriously, Japan has singing robots.

So, after a long (like, very long) absence, I have returned to satisfy the 10 or so of you out there who have been patiently awaiting our follow-up to the "Is this Swedish girl from the Future?" post from almost a month ago.

In our last blog, we explored the first part of my two-part thesis to explain the Swedish musical phenom known only as "Robyn". Recall that the first prong of my thesis was that Robyn was a musical genius, akin to WC Handy or Little Richard. Further recall that this prong was thoroughly and quickly debunked when it was revealed that it was not Robyn who was the musical genius after all, but her songwriter, Max Martin.

Crestfallen, we dive into prong two of the two-prong thesis: that, in the alternative, Robyn is from the future.

Now, I know this is yet another incendiary thing to say. Surely Robyn cannot be from the future, for time travel has not been invented, right? And if it was invented, surely it was not invented by the Swedish, as they spend their time inventing safe automobiles and expensive-yet-cheap furniture for young professionals to covet.


"Use the giant screwdriver on the giant screw and hold a map in front of your upset tummy while putting together this miserable furniture." - IKEA instructions for the Bjarnum.

Or, no, only the Japanese are from the future, because that's the only logical explanation as to why they would produce such weird toys, literature, and anime?


I mean, seriously, this is weird, right?

The reason I'm positing that Robyn is from the future is because after she had moderate success as the proto-Britney Spears, she went on to have (probably) less-than-moderate success being the progenitor of another pop singer: Fergie from the (hopelessly embarrassing) Black Eyed Peas.


U-g-l-y, Fergie has no alibi.

Now, wait a minute, you say. How can this Swedish chick be both the forerunner or Brit-Brit and the forerunner of meth-faced Fergie? There hasn't been that much talent in one person since at least Michelangelo!


At least not since this Michelangelo...

But yes, I do believe Robyn was the talented forerunner of the talentless Stacy Ann "Fergie" Ferguson. And here is the song that helps me prove it:

Robyn - Konichiwa Bitches.mp3

That's Konichiwa Bitches, from Robyn's 2005 self-titled album. For those scoring at home, Robyn also speaks Japanese (or at least knows the same amount of conversational Japanese as I do), which helps lend some credibility to the whole future hypothesis a little more, don't you think?
Also, check out this creepy video with a sock-monkey playing drums while she inhabits a 2D cut-out world reminiscent of a Tex Avery/Pee-Wee's Playhouse acid trip:



But back to the music, doesn't that song sound a whole lot like a little hit Little Miss Devil's Dust had in 2006, Fergalicious?

	Fergie - Fergalicious .mp3
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

I know the songs are not EXACTLY the same...but just like in our Britney/Robyn comparison, I think there are strikingly similar elements in the delivery of the lyrics and some of the melodic content. Not literal copying here, but copying of the "essence" of Robyn, which I think lends credence to Robyn's talent outshining the talent (or lack thereof) of Stacy Ann "Hillbilly Crack" Ferguson.

Now, this time around we don't have the songwriting link between the two works (will.i.am wrote Fergalicious, while Robyn and Klas Ahlund wrote Konichiwa Bitches. Actually, there were ELEVEN writers listed for Fergalicious. Yeah, ELEVEN. I guess it's really difficult to come up with lines like: "My body stays vicious/I be up in the gym just workin' on my fitness" or to rhyme "I'm tryin' to tell" with "clientele"), so it's not a Max Martin-type thing. Further, we don't have the connection of working with the same producers at subsequent times, either (as Britney Spears worked in Sweden with the same team that had worked with Robyn). So, without any other evidence, I think it's pretty obvious: Robyn brought back her musical genius from the future.

Or, said another way, Robyn was simply born too early. The world wasn't ready for the slow-rhyme-talking and disinterested style of Robyn in 2005. Perhaps it was the inclusion of the Japanese word that people didn't respond to? Perhaps it was the "Bitches" in the title, as the world was maybe a much more conservative place in 2005 than it was in 2006?


Glenn Beck didn't get on TV until 2006, so there was no one in the country to compare Hitler to everything while using "air" "quotes" in 2005.

Probably not. I think it's just another case of poor Robyn getting passed up, in the right place, but a little bit early.

Or...maybe they're just both rip offs of this (start at the :29 second mark):

Supersonic.mp3

That's JJ Fad's Supersonic, from 1988. I definitely spent some time roller skating to this jam back at Doyle-Ryder.


Uh...yeah, something like that.

Turns out Arabian Prince (a former member of NWA, no less, which proves that gangster rap was not nearly as threatening as white people would have you believe) wrote and produced this song. He eventually sued will.i.am for the striking similarity to Supersonic. Looks like he won, or at least settled, too, as 3 of those 11 writers on Fergalicious are the writers credited on Supersonic.


Arabian Prince is the guy you don't recognize over there on the far right.

So, perhaps my second prong of a well-crafted thesis has also been disproved: it wasn't that Robyn was some Swedish angel from the future coming back in time to give us a glimpse of the music Americans would spend their dispensable incomes on; it wasn't that Robyn was only a conduit for the fame and fortune achieved by a Crank Skank and a man who uses lower-case letters and punctuation in his own moniker in order to appear ironic or artistically wisened (Fergie and will.i.am, respectively); it wasn't that Robyn really got screwed over for being too talented, either.


"Scante" Ferguson and Billy "i.am.william" Adams, Jr.

It was that they both probably had old copies of the same JJ Fad record.


Stockholm was rotten with copies of this record in 1989.

Not nearly as groundbreaking or sexy a proposition, if you ask me.

Is this Swedish girl from the future?

Robin Carlsson - the Swedish Marty McFly?

Anyone out there heard of Robyn? If you were graduating from high school and watching a lot of MTV back in 1997 like I was, then you've answered "yes" to the preceding question.
Robyn is the Nordic pop-princess that brought us such hits as, "Do You Know (What It Takes)", "Show Me Love", and "Konichiwa Bitches" (to which we will return).
I remember seeing the video for "Do You Know (What It Takes)" on MTV (at a time when they still showed music videos) and really liked it. I mean, I was admittedly a music snob back in high school, with music snob friends, so for me to admit this was pretty difficult to do. I think that I had earlier admitted that I did, in fact, like Duran Duran - and this was a breakthrough that allowed me to publicly approve of Robyn in the summer of 1997. I liked Robyn so much, in fact, that I purchased the CD-single of the song, "Do You Know"...perhaps it was because I thought it was funny, perhaps it was because I really liked songs with parentheticals, or perhaps I really did enjoy the new sounding pop of this Robyn with a 'y'. Either way, I was pretty happy with my purchase (and now-defunct Tower Records was happy for me to have their overpriced CD).

Fast forward to 1999. I'm living in San Jose, CA now, working at Warehouse Music and am introduced to a new pop-princess, American style: Britney Spears. I'm sure we don't need to go over this, but, Britney Spears was the high school girl that couldn't really sing but looked great in her 'not-yet-barely-legal' Catholic schoolgirl uniform dance video that took over pop music for a few years (500,000 copies sold of her debut single in one day) because she preyed on statutory rape fantasies and the dispensable income of young people aged 13-21 (these two phenomena are not related).


"These are the furry epaulets that will change music...forever!" - Britney Spears

As you recall, her debut single, "...Baby One More Time", was a monster. The video was everywhere, it was played all the time, and the whole country now had a female analogue to their fascination with the Backstreet Boys and N*Sync. Perfect.

I heard "...Baby One More Time", but I wasn't struck with Britney's bad singing, I was struck by the overwhelming similarity to a one-named Swede who was pretty much forgotten by now: Robyn.

Listen to the two side by side, and you've got pretty much the same song. All the way down to the vocal stylings of Ms. Carlsson (who can sort of sing) and the vocal impressions of Britney Spears (who cannot), the two songs are strikingly similar (to use copyright infringement parlance) to me. Maybe not the same exact melody or chord progression, but the style is certainly the same, right on down to those eighth-note synth parts and the ultra-clean harmonies (well balanced, to boot).

Compare for yourself (we can wait 9 minutes):

Baby One More Time.mp3

01 Do You Know (What It Takes).mp3

I was upset by this. No one remembered poor Robyn, with her bleached blonde anime bangs from 1997; everyone wanted Britney Spears to save pop music, to bring back its youthful glee (largely absent since the over-exposure of David Cassidy, et al.), and to rake in millions of dollars. All Britney did was steal Robyn's style and put a youthful face on it. No justice.

So this leads me to the first prong of my thesis: Robyn was a musical visionary, and Britney Spears is akin to Elvis Presley.

That sounds incendiary, I know, to equate Louisana/Mickey Mouse Club trash with Mississippi/Memphis/gospel music trash 'The King', but think about how similar the situation is: Robyn puts out her album in the US, it does ok (maybe that's an understatement, it did go platinum), but she is largely forgotten. Britney comes along 2 years later, does pretty much the same thing but puts her plaid skirt and pigtails on it and it's a sensation (like, 14 times platinum). Just like Elvis stealing rock n' roll (whether he stole that from Little Richard is for another time). Right place, right time. Sorry Robyn.


The possibility of an NSFW up-skirt shot surely contributed to at least 1 million of those sales.

Well, it turns out that Robyn and Britney's striking similarities may not have been due to musical prolepsis/Britney Spears-being-like-Elvis after all. I did a little research on the matter (not that you're surprised by this), and found that the link between Robyn and Brit-Brit is actually this man:


Max Martin - a Swedish musical badass that is always getting chased by sharks.

Max Martin is a Swedish music producer/writer that has pretty much written most of the popular songs from the end of the 90s and on into today (a quick resume? "Everybody (Backstreet's Back)"; "Since U Been Gone"; "California Gurls" to name a few). I mean, really, you look at the guys resume and you can't really believe he was involved in so many hits! He's like Lionel Richie, but Swedish! He did a lot of work with American pop acts (Britney, Backstreet Boys, and Kelly Clarkson, to name a few), but he started with hometown artists like Robyn. That's right...this guy wrote "Do You Know (What It Takes)" a couple years before he wrote it again for Britney, this time as "...Baby One More Time". Lightning strikes twice, I guess.

As a side note, although Martin did write many of Britney's best songs ("...Baby One More Time", "If You Seek Amy", and "3" *a fantastically underrated song, I might add*), he did not write her best work, which is obviously (and undisputed-ly) "Toxic".


Thanks to two ridiculously-named producers (Bloodshy and Avant) we have this masterpiece of synth-pop and surf guitar.

Britney Spears - Toxic.mp3


With the first prong of my thesis so thoroughly disproved, we'll put that aside and continue forward into the second part of this post and prong two of thesis:

Robyn must be from the future.


With our limited research, we believe this to be the most likely means of travel for Robyn.

...to be continued in Part 2!

Sample Example, pt. 2

I'm sure you've all seen this strange, but effective KIA commercial:


Who wouldn't take their sock monkey to a club with them? And a robot doing the robot is just perfectly post-modern.

The music used in that commercial is "How Ya Like Me Now?" by The Heavy. Who is "The Heavy" you ask? I have no idea, but I bet they're British - because British bands use samples of American music to make American-sounding music, right? (see, e.g. EMF, Big Audio Dynamite, Stereo MCs).


Different kind of 'British sampling'.

The reason C-Murder is bringing this to your attention is because of the too, too funky sample used in the song.


...or as they say in Italy, "Tutto funky!"

That sample is, "Let A Woman Be A Woman - Let A Man Be A Man" from 1969 by Dyke and The Blazers.

Let a Woman Be a Woman.mp3

Fantastic, isn't it? I think my favorite part (other than the break), is the dialog:

DYKE: "hey fellas!"
THE BLAZERS: "Yeah!"
DYKE: "Ya'll see anything wrong with Sally's walk?"
THE BLAZERS: "Naw!"
DYKE: "All right then...tell me 'bout it...hah!"

According to the little info available on the intehnets, three guys from Buffalo were in a band called The Blazers that backed up the "before-they-were-riding-on-a-Love-Train" O'Jays (also from Buffalo). Those three (Arlester "Dyke" Christian - bass, Alvester "Pig" Jacobs - guitar, and JV "No Nickname" Hunt - saxophone) were stranded in Phoenix after the O'Jays couldn't afford to get them back to Buffalo. As a result, the three hired an organist, a bassist (so Dyke switched to vocals), a drummer, and another saxophone player. They became Dyke and The Blazers and a made a big impact on the local Phoenix soul scene.


Any band with a guy named "Arlester" and another guy named "Alvester" has to be pretty good...

Dyke and The Blazers were well on their way to being a heavy-hitting soul/funk outfit of the 60s and 70s. Their first record, "Funky Broadway" (the one Wilson "Wicked" Pickett covered and scored a #1 hit with), is often thought to be the first time the word "funk" was used as the title to a record. From this, Dyke was makin' bank (since he was the writer), while his band was making about $100 a show. The rest of The Blazers eventually quit on Dyke, but it didn't matter because he started working with the guys that would become the Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band (you know them from "Express Yourself")...and got even funkier.

The reason you may not have heard of Dyke and The Blazers by name, though, and the reason they didn't get famous, was because Dyke was shot and killed in an altercation in 1971, just a few short years after he got the band going in the right direction. A tragic end to a short climb. I personally think they would have been huge, since Dyke sounded a lot like Otis Redding (another tragic story of a life cut too short, too soon), and the band was as good as The JBs and Booker T. & the MGs over at Stax.

What you hear in "Let A Woman Be A Woman" are those Watts 103rd St. guys. In particular, you hear the funkiness of James Gadson, a sorely underrated, yet supremely funky drummer.


James Gadson - with a wig like that...this guy means business.

James Gadson went on to be the drummer for Bill Withers, played on "Dancin' Machine", "I Will Survive", "Love Hangover", and countless other amazing funky soul tracks. And this guy is STILL working today!

Since we're talking about the greatness and obscurity of Dyke and The Blazers, allow me to share a couple other great tracks:

The Wobble.mp3 - This tune is just a great slice of funk. According to what I can find, this may be Dyke's third drummer, Wardell "Baby Wayne" Peterson, coming after James Gadson.

Runaway People.mp3 - This one is about, as the title indicates, people that runaway. Not sure if this was a big problem in the late 60s, but it was on Dyke's mind. My favorite part is probably the break, which was sampled here by Mr. Tracy Marrow (doing business as Ice-T) on "Microphone Contract" from his 1991 classic, "OG - Original Gangster":


You won't find a better use of the phrase, "You better be a good bullet-ducker".

So, in short, check out these tracks, in fact, if you Right-Click them, you can save them (FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY). Just doing my part to share great music with the masses.
I would also recommend picking up "So Sharp!", a collection of their hits.



Until next time...

Genius at Work

True genius knows no bounds.


The title of this post is "Genius at Work", and it in no way reflects the author, but people the author considers genius.

There's something about people that produce great things (whether they be works of art, music, literature, etc.) that I find completely compelling. In fact, I have no problem DVR-ing an hour-long documentary about the making of the Sydney Opera House (Jorn Utzen you clever bastard!) or full length features on the evolution of 8-track recording (about that rapscallion Tom Dowd, see "Tom Dowd and the Language of Music") or the making of Duran Duran's Rio on VH1 Classic.


Duran Duran: Genius comes a-yachtin'.

What intrigues me about these endeavors is the process involved. We look at something like the finished product of the Sydney Opera House, for example, and we see a cool looking building with some spheres and cones and shit. Pretty sweet. But what's more interesting to me, is how in the hell:

1. They came to that design.
2. They actually made it!


The Sydney Opera House, which its architect has never seen in person.

I think we take for granted the process of execution when we see the finished product. I don't have to be a world-famous (or relatively obscure) architect to appreciate how f***in' hard it must have been to create those spheres out of concrete, put them up, and make sure the building didn't crash down around them!

So, yeah, I'd say that's pretty genius. Now, that's genius by committee, but still pretty bad ass.

The same can be said for the way I approach music. Now, this is not to say that all musical endeavors are genius (see Michael Bolton, The Jonas Brothers, and Soulja Boy), but there are some that certainly are.

To wit:
"Wouldn't It Be Nice" by The Beach Boys.

	BEACH BOYS - 01 - Wouldn t It Be Nice .mp3
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

Now, it seems rather innocuous on its surface, as a lot of Beach Boys' songs do, but I ran across this, and it helped further embed Brian Wilson as a genius of popular music and music production. Take a look:



Listening to Brian Wilson direct that assemblage of studio musicians (that's the "Wrecking Crew" who played on just about every song that came out of LA in the 60s/70s) I am blown away at how he can put those layers together.
Keep in mind that this is also 1966. At most they had 8 tracks (if Tommy Dowd was there, see supra note), but they probably had 4. So, they had to have all the music played live, no room for overdubs, no individual tracks to punch in and out of, and according to [*ahem*] Wikipedia, it only took 21 takes...pretty amazing. Then you've got the tight harmonies of the vocals, that blend with that overall production. It really is amazing (and this is before The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper, too, an album that everyone tried to replicate once it came out in 1967...yet that album and Pet Sounds, from which "Wouldn't It Be Nice" comes, sound like peers).

My appreciation for it skyrocketed once I saw/heard the process of recording. There is so much value to the end product that is not seen because the end product is so good! The process is invisible, and you're left with a work of art. Also, I find this stuff incredibly interesting. To see Brian Wilson's process is to peer inside of his creative mind a bit. Obviously, he's not the best communicator, but the ends justify the means here, for sure.

I also think the construction of the song itself is pretty genius. To me, as is said in that short tube YouTube documentary above, it's "a happy song about not getting what you want". That's pretty apt. And pretty genius. Brian Wilson wrote a song that could come across happy, and yet be pretty depressing when you look at it through that lens.


Robert Smith of The Cure did not invent 'happy to be sad', after all.

That's how I've always viewed the song. Though, in my frame of reference, I don't even think it's all that happy.

Wouldn't it be nice if we were older, then we wouldn't have to wait so long,
And wouldn't it be nice to live together, in the kind of world where we belong?

That's not really that "happy" of a sentiment, you know? It's framed by the "Wouldn't it", which really makes it a song that laments the current state of the singer, while couching it within an upbeat context. He's saying, it's not great or nice right now, but wouldn't it be if the following things happened? Really, it's no different than the lamentations of say, "Somewhere Over The Rainbow", "I'll Follow the Sun" by The Beatles, or "I Wish" by Skee-Lo.


Skee-Lo probably wishes he had 8 'D' batteries.

Wouldn't it be nice if we could wake up, in the morning when the day is new,
And after having spent the day together, hold each other close the whole night through?

Ouch. That right there is heart-wrenching, isn't it? I mean, if you've ever loved and lost (author's note: check that box, 'yes'), then this is a kick-in-the-stomach kind of line. When you find yourself in that category of people then that's how you feel: it would be nice to do those things, but they are past. So this can also be read as a lamentation of the past, when things were better, and you wish you could return to them (see also, "I Wish" by Stevie Wonder, and "Glory Days" by Bruce Springstein). And yet the music remains pretty happy throughout. Damn you Wilson!


5 out of 5 experts agree: getting dumped feels like this.

Maybe if we think and wish and hope and pray it might come true,
Baby then there wouldn't be a single thing we couldn't do
We could be married
And then we'd be happy

Wouldn't it be nice?

Again, taken from the perspective of the singer that wants these things but can't have them, or has lost them along the way, this takes us further down the spiral of depression. He says "maybe if we wish and think and hope and pray"...so he's trying to be positive about the possibility of all these future things out of reach that might make him happy, yet he really can't bet on it. How true is that, Brian Wilson?

And again, it closes out with "wouldn't it be nice", which is a question, not an answer to all the problems the singer has presented us with throughout the song. Does the person he's singing about know he feels this way? Does that person want these things, too? Does the singer even want them, or is it just a comfortable nostalgia for a relationship that never was? At the end of the song, there isn't an answer to Brian Wilson's question; we don't know if it "would be nice". We think it would, but instead of answering definitively, he just lets it linger.

I'd call that genius.

Further proof of the powerful juxtapositioning this song can provide can be seen in Michael Moore's film, Roger & Me, a fantastic little piece about my depressing hometown of Flint, Michigan. Seen in the clip below is Ben Hamper, an auto worker who had a bit of nervous breakdown the day he lost his job and heard "Wouldn't It Be Nice" on the radio on the way home. He recounts a bit of the story below, and then Moore uses that to jump into a montage about the Flint of 1985. Check it out:



So, yeah, that's kind of what the song embodies for me, too: a lost ideal that we will still hold on to, even when everything around us begs us to question the ideal's very existence. But for me, I believe it does exist - and it would be nice.

Genius.

Cover Me 2

Just a quick one today.

Here's something I found over at one my favorite audio blogs, The Funky 16 Corners.



Ray Charles, covering Livin' For the City.

Now, like I said in that post about Stevie Wonder covering the Beatles...it's a little pointless to cover someone as great as Steven Wonderland.

Unless you're Ray Charles, and without you, there really wouldn't be any American Soul music. So, with that in mind, go on, Brother Ray. Do your thang.
Ray Charles, "Livin' For The City"

I particularly like the preaching portion, but the background vocals aren't too shabby either, right?

Hopefully you'll enjoy it, too. And in case you hadn't heard the original (and shame on you if that is the case...):


How 'bout that sweet vest on the drummer!

-C Murder.

Free cover tonight!

Ok, so that's a cheap trick to get you to read this new post that has nothing to do with paying/not paying $5 to get into a bar that is too crowded/loud to have fun/enough drinks in. With it being St. Patrick's Day, though, I figured there would be some expectation for pub-related titles.

This post, however, is about covers, though. Covers of the musical variety, and covers of a musical giant, no less. As I was listening to the iTunes recently, I think what has become my favorite cover song of the moment came up: Stevie Wonder's "We Can Work It Out".

Now, you've got two things going against you here:

1. No one should really cover The Beatles, right? I mean, they pretty much got it right the first time around. To me, they're an entirely un-fuckwitable band. Plus, "We Can Work It Out" was one of those perfectly blended Lennon-McCartney gems, to wit:

• Paul writing the verses, John getting in there on the chorus/bridge with some sweet harmonies;
  
• an inordinate amount of harmonium (the thing that sounds like an accordion) that does not sound cheesy (even 40 years later);
• the song is in 3 bar phrases, instead of 4 bar phrases, giving it a totally different feel than most pop-songs;
  
• those 2 bars of quarter-note triplets that end each phrase of the chorus/bridge that sound like they're in 3/4 (because the tambourine plays the 2nd and 3rd triplet like they've become quarter notes), but aren't;
  
• the song was a double A-side with "Day Tripper", and it went to Number 1 quickly.

2. Stevie Wonder is pretty un-fuckwitable himself, so what's he doing covering somebody else's song? Especially one as popular as "We Can Work It Out"?

Well, let me assure you, these two factors are quite diminished in the resulting cover:



Yeah. That's pretty great, right? Some highlights for me (this might get a little technical...):

• the opening fuzzy clavinet/electric piano...you know you're in for something funky, ya'll;
  
• the "Hey!"s on beat 4 of the first and last bar of each phrase of the verses. Reminiscent of all those current hip-hop songs that have the annoying "Heeeey" in the background (see also, T.I.'s "Live Your Life", most Lil' Jon club bangers);
• the fact the he starts the "We can work it out" line on the '&' of 4, and not the next downbeat like Paul did;
• the fact that Steven Wonderland forgoes the quarter-note triplet-not-3/4 bars and keeps it straight ahead;
• the incredibly high parts that Stevie is singing in the harmony, bridge, and the harmonica solo (those, "ah - ah - ah" parts)!;
• the harmonica solo itself;
• the general badassery of the Motown sound and backing band ('nuff said).

So, yeah, Stevie got it right. And it earned him a Grammy nomination.


"No big deal that I didn't win this time, I've got 25 others." - Stevie Wonder

Are there other good Beatles covers, you might ask? Not many. Again, I think trying to cover the Beatles is pretty pointless - if you stray too far from the original, people won't like it because it's not like the one they know; if you just try to play it like the Beatles play it, then people won't like it because they'd rather listen to the Beatles version. Catch-22, indeed.

A couple that I dig, though:


Rufus Wainwirght, "Across The Universe"


This one works because Rufus Wainwright is a good singer already, and he has taken the more direct approach on this cover. I also love the fact that he added harmony to the second chorus and subsequent verses (probably his mom, Kate McGarrigle singing). [*note: I had never seen this video before...not sure about the Rene Magritte imagery (see, "Le Fils De L'Homme"), but is that Dakota Fanning? Somebody (the director) certainly has a hard-on for French art!]

another:

Ramsey Lewis, "Cry Baby Cry"


This one works because it is a departure from the original, but then it's not. It's familiar, but doesn't get too out there to still be the song you know (how 'bout that vibra-slap!)? Plus, soul jazz usually doesn't come out this good (the string arrangements are great, and the drums stay hard). Ramsey recorded a whole album of Beatles' covers called, "Mother Nature's Son", and it's worth checking out.

one more?

William Shatner, "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds"


This is not a joke. This is real. Musicians were hired, producers sat at the controls, marketing execs had the album distributed. Money was spent. Oh, what a time 1967 must have been.

The worst? Maybe this:



That's Kylie Minogue, singing "Help!" at a concert for John Lennon. Why Milli and Vanilli are up there dancing so close to her is unknown. Why the concert promoter decided to get Kylie Minogue to do this embarrassing version of a pretty great song is further unknown. The rapping bridge had to be included, however, to complete the affront to a musical legacy that this is. I think the inclusion of a dance break is pretty obvious, too.

So, that's just a sampling of what's out there. Be careful on your journey through Beatles cover songs, for every Aimee Mann/Michael Penn "Two of Us", there's usually twice as many Bee Gees "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" original motion picture soundtrack cuts.

Finally! Music Ed. and Funky Soul gets its due!

This is amazing news:



There is a documentary coming out about the Kashmere Stage Band!

Who is the Kashmere Stage Band, you ask? This was the high school jazz band at Kashmere High in Houston, Texas that performed from the late 60s to 1978. The director, Conrad Johnson basically taught these kids how to be a funk band...and the results were incredible! Seriously, before I knew these kids were in high school, I figured they were pros.

As a result of their badassery, Johnson had them record a number of 7" singles and 12" albums.

Once these masters were rediscovered, it didn't take long for DJs and crate diggers (like DJ Shadow, in particular) to get in on the action.

Check out the following:



This is from 1973, and was famously sampled in "Holy Calamity" by Handsome Boy Modeling School. High school drummer on this = fantastic.



Their cover of Dennis Coffey's "Scorpio". More breakdown niceties (maybe a little loose on those sextuplets, this time, but the flute solo is a welcome surprise).



Their cover of Sly & the Family Stone's "Thank You". A little on the front of the beat, and the percussion break almost falls apart, but nice guitar work.



The Kashmere Stage Band as sampled by DJ Shadow and Dan the Automator.

So yeah, that's a high school band.

Don't know when the movie comes out, but check out a review over at http://www.aintitcool.com/node/44272

This is fantastic news for me and you:

I was recently made aware that there is a soon-to-be-released documentary about Bill Withers.
For those of you that don't know who Bill Withers is, you'll probably find out that you do know who Bill Withers is. I have done what I can as one man to spread the gospel of Bill Withers (more than one person has recounted to me how turning them on to Bill has 'changed their life a little bit'), and I always thought someone should make a movie about him.

So who is Bill? He was a regular guy from West Virginia working on 747s installing toilets when he decided to take music more seriously, and when he did that at 32 years of age, he got a record deal. What followed? -

Ever heard, "Lean on Me"? Of course you have. In fact, you already know the words to it and don't even remember how you learned them.

Yeah, well, Bill Withers wrote that gem back in 1972. In addition to that, Withers penned "Ain't No Sunshine" (an oft-covered classic), "Use Me" (which you heard on the "American Beauty" soundtrack), and "Lovely Day" (which was used in that Gap commercial a while ago).

After Bill had all these hits (there were more that you should check out...a list is coming), he quit the music biz completely in 1985. Poof. Gone. Into reclusive-mode like Sly Stone and JD Salinger (RIP). From what I understand, he didn't like the way the music business worked (not too shocking of an indictment) and so he left it. Big balls on Bill Withers, it turns out.

So this documentary is a long time coming...to me this will hopefully be not only the story of a fantastic artist who is one of the best living songwriters, but it should also be a great way for people to learn about the greatness of Bill Withers, someone who really has languished in obscurity in my opinion. Plus, there aren't too many successful artists that will tell you how much they hate the biz.

Not sure when it will be released (website just says "Spring 2010"), but I look forward to it.