ipodshuffle

Strive at all times to bend, fold, spindle, and mutilate.

Les Crane, 1935-2008

So I guess it's an indication that the unnecessary music trivia is finally seeping from my mind, that I didn't see the Les Crane obit yesterday and immediately think, "Oh yeah, the guy who did 'Desiderata,'" as I probably would have 10 years ago. But lately between everything I haven't had much time to 'go placidly amid the noise and haste' and retain stuff like that (or upkeep a blog apparently). So I didn't pick up on the the fact that Crane was the 'recording artist' behind the 1971 pop-mystic novelty hit until I discovered it buried at the end of the NYT piece, which included a quote from Les basically disowning the song.  (“I can’t listen to it now without gagging,” he told The Los Angeles Times. - way to dis your loyal fans there, Les!)

But anyway, 'Desiderata.' Kitschy, certainly, and ripe for parody (see below). But it holds up in the line of spoken-word one-hit wonders that would stretch at least from 'Ringo' to '(Everybody's Free to Wear) Sunscreen'. And a fine tradition it was, too - though is there still a place in the world for the spoken-word novelty record? Probably not at this point...

Of course no discussion of "Desiderata" would be complete without its answer song "Deteriorata." This one from '72 comes courtesy of the National Lampoon, and was in fact written by Tony Hendra and Christopher Guest, who went on to greater things as manager and lead guitarist of a band of some note 10 years later....

Va Va ...

More than a few times over the past few months a song's come upin the shuffle and I've thought 'I'm not sure who this is but it's cool, let me check what it is,' and it turns out to be Varnaline. Seriously, like 15 times this year - it's gotten so common it's become a little private joke (and what better use for a blog than to discuss one's interior private jokes?)

Anyway, I had SONGS IN A NORTHERN KEY in my collection for while but never really gotten around to it - then during my last burn/transfer marathon I remembered it was supposed to be pretty cool so dug it out and put it on the machine. And the rest as they say is history...

So anyway note to self, figure out more about Varnaline. Should be more there to enjoy.

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Update: 12 Hours after posting this item I'm greeted by the Rhapsody Home Page, with the message "Fans of Varnaline will love former frontman Anders Parker's" new album, etc... So how do I resist? Dude, it's like synchronicity - whoah...

The Cramps: "Sunglasses After Dark"

Apropos of nothing, except it just came up on the player and I really *listened* walking home from the train. And what a f**king amazing song. Such a distillation of their incredible live power - joyfully stripped-down and sloppy, but a true Wall of Sound consisting of one fuzztone rhythm guitar, one piercing semi-lead guitar, and some no-friils drums. Plus of course, the inimitable wail of Mr. Lux Interior. If it wasn't recorded live, the producer (Alex Chilton if memory serves) did an amazing job of recreating their live sound - all on a studio budget of about $22.50, one presumes. Listen and learn, kiddies... .

Thoughts on Rock Movies

So Coolfer commented on the Gothamist comments on The Independent's story of Top Rock Movies a couple weeks back.

Lots of great comments and suggestions, and overall I'd agree with a lot of the posters. My personal list would probably include a lot of the obvious, including Hedwig, Spinal Tap, Rock and Roll High School, etc. But I haven't seen any mention of two prototypical Rock movies from the late 60s - Wild in the Streets and Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. They both came out of the great low-budget quicky teen fad movie tradition (a tradition that was later resurrected for R&R HS).

Wild In the Streets, from '68 I think, concerns one Max Frost, a Rock God who gets into politics, doses the DC water with LSD, lowers the voting age to 14, and gets himself elected President. Following which, of course, he locks up all the grown-ups in Concentration Camps. (wouldn't you?) Max's big hit single is the Mann-Weil proto-punk gem "The Shape of Things to Come," which makes the Soundtrack worth digging up.

Meanwhile Beyond the Valley of the Dolls came along a couple years later, apparently the first "major studio" release from the king of the T&A quickies Russ Meyer, along with a sometimes hilarious screenplay by young Roger Ebert. The movie's tagline - "The world is full of them - the super-octane girls who are old at 20 ... if they get to be 20!" says a lot about what you're in for. It's a pretty convoluted story but it features all those great trashy Russ Meyer elements, along with a much stronger (but just as dated) collection of songs on the soundtrack.

Needless to say, neither soundtrack album is available on domestic CD, but they're both worth digging up from a collector's store or import dealer if you're in need of the perfect gift for your aging "High Fidelity" geek friends...

Seems like the main issue with rock movies overall is, the great dynamism and shared passion of a great rock show just doesn't translate to a movie or tv screen, which is a more attenuated viewing experience. The concert sequence in Rock and Roll High School is great, but only because it's a reminder of so many great Ramones concerts. In fact the first time I saw the movie was as the opening act to a Ramones show... And this also kind of explains why so many people point to Stop Making Sense as one of the greatest concert films ever - because it does a better job than other movies at capturing the experience of that particular show. Talking Heads shows were as strong on intellectual appeal as visceral rock power, and a movie can do a much better job at recreating that intellectual stimulation.

Do the Funky (Insert Animal Name Here)

Presented as a public service, here are some Rufus Thomas song titles:

Can Your Monkey Do the Dog
Can't Get Away from This Dog
Do the Double Bump
Do the Funky Chicken
Do the Funky Penguin, Pt. 1 & 2
Do the Funky Somethin'
Do the Push and Pull, Pt. 1 & 2
Funkiest Man Alive
Funky Hot Grits
Funky Mississippi
Funky Robot, Pt. 1 (can't find a mention of Pt. 2 anywhere for some reason)
Funky Way
Itch and Scratch, Pt. 1 & 2
Miss Bunny
Old MacDonald Had a Farm, Pt. 1 & 2
Somebody Stole My Dog
Stop Kicking My Dog Around
The Breakdown, Pt. 1 & 2
The Dog
The Funky Bird
Turn Your Damper Down
Walking the Dog

Great one-chord jams

Who needs changes? Sometimes the band can just lock onto a groove on a single chord and ride it out to heaven ... The king of one-chord jams is "Electric Avenue" by Eddie Grant, and I could probably come with a few more by digging in the Sly Stone or George Clinton crates... But a more recent great one is "Wogs Will Walk" on the last (and apparently final) Cornershop album HANDCREAM FOR A GENERATION. There's a little accent note but the song is essentially one chord one groove one love...