23 posts tagged “music”
I had Thriller. Somewhere out there, 36 million (or thereabouts) did, or still do. I remember how it folded out in gatefold style (albums, folks, albums) to reveal Michael Jackson lounging in a white suit, black shirt (unbuttoned just slightly) and a tiger cub crawling on him. I can't say it was sexy, I don't think I ever thought of MJ as sexy, but he was cute at times, and this was a pretty cute setup.
It was 1984, and I was 14. My tastes were more Duran Duran and Howard Jones and Steve Winwood, but you'd have to be some kind of alien not to have liked at least one song on Thriller. And I do remember at some point hearing every single song on that album on the radio -- even if "The Lady in My Life" was never released as a single, it did get radio airtime. I can't think of any other album -- though Jagged Little Pill comes close -- in which you can make that statement. It was, quite simply, a phenomenon.
But I was never manic about MJ. I left that to others. And when I began hanging out with the cantor's daughter, a lovely redhead named Rebecca -- hi there, you! 'Cos we're still friends -- I discovered at least one person who was mad for Michael. Through her I got reverberated fervor, saved pages out of my teen magazines so she'd have them, and probably got more into the MJ spirit than I would have had we not met.
Then we went to our Jewish youth group's convention in Ocean City in the dead of winter, and while there were plenty of bouts of madness, the thing I remember best is our little music bubble. We just blathered on and on about the genius of Peter Schilling's "Major Tom," for one thing ... and then we learned that mid-convention, the NBC series Friday Night Videos was going to world-premiere the Jon Landis' directed, long-form video "Thriller." The whole thing. Top to bottom. Maybe MTV had it already; VH1 I don't think even existed. But neither of us had cable. So we made sure to leave whatever dance or event or what have you was going on and race like someone was after us up to the hotel room in time to see the premiere.
Puts a lot of change in perspective: We didn't have TiVo, we didn't have Hulu, we didn't have YouTube. Miss it right then, and miss the moment. Miss the zeitgeist as it whistled down the hallway.
So despite what Michael Jackson ended up becoming, both physically and in peoples' minds, I still have that enduring memory of sitting on the edge of a double bed in a hotel in Ocean City, Maryland with a person who would become one of my oldest, dearest friends, watching one of the most talented pop musicians of our time do the zombie dance.
Musicians create the music, but it's the fans who give it meaning.
And just at this exact moment, someone has driven by my window blasting "Billie Jean."
We were all in on it, and we still are.
Keep moonwalking, MJ, wherever you are now.
(Crossposted on Facebook)
One of these days I'll have a TV in the same room as my computer (or my TV and my computer will have made sweet, sweet love and joined together in holy matrimony) and I'll be able to liveblog "Rock of Love Bus."
Since I can't, I'll just have to scamper off to watch it in live realtime because I can't wait to see what the skanks are up to this week.
You'll just have to wait.
Toodles!
But the badge did get us into a nice buffet dinner and open bar pre-show, which was the last ever (tune in in 5 years, folks) Police show, held at Madison Square Garden on August 7. Unlike a lot of other bands, I do believe this is the end of the Police -- I think there's some brotherly love there, but it's way deep down and on the surface I think they're well rid of each other -- and so that made it a big important evening, at least for me and 18,999 other fans, including my friend Kelly (hook 'em horns in that there photo).
I'd never seen the Police (unless you want to count the taping for a new TV show called "Spectacle" that'll be on the Sundance Channel in December, with Elvis Costello hosting, interviewing and playing with select musicians -- the Police started things off; I went there on the 6th) and while it was a good show it wasn't quite the barn-burner I'd seen in video form from the "Synchronicity" tour back in the 1980s.
Still, they kept things lively: The NYPD drum corps filed on stage to play along with "Message in a Bottle" while Sting donned a policeman's cap); there were two covers ("Sunshine of Your Love" and "Purple Haze") and the lute stayed well tucked away, though there was a gigantic gong for Stewart Copleland (so precious in his gloves) to use. I tried taking photos, but the best I could manage was of the gigantic screen suspended above the stage; loads of people brought digital cameras, which officially aren't allowed but nobody seems to stop them coming in any more, and I know there are loads of better shots out there.
I made a video of it myself, but it's already up all over YouTube, so there's no point in contributing to the bandwidth, but the thing almost everyone seems to remember from the show was how between the end of the main set and the start of the Obligatory Encore Set, the band left the stage and Sting, who had been bearded and looking pretty grizzled all through the show, sat down and got shaved by two blondes, while someone else buffed at his fingers and a third person shone his shoes. On the one hand, tres amusing. On the other hand, how bloody typical of Sting, who while still dead sexy in his late 50s still has the ego of a redwood forest. There was something deeply attractive and yet off-putting about the whole display, but in the end, I guess it is all about Sting after all.
The end.
Okay folks, time to play a game. Name this chick! (Or at least where you know her from.)
Hint 2: Yes, it's music-related.
Hint 3: Imagine her in a coffee shop.
Answer tomorrow! I'll do more of these if y'all like 'em.
Hey, so Loud Boy is back.
Not sure what the context was, but I overheard this today:
Loud Boy (on the phone with a colleague): ... Yeah, it was pretty exciting, Bloomberg was there, so was Lance Armstrong --
Colleague (who I can hear because they're sitting nearby): Yeah, so was David Byrne.
Loud Boy: David Byrne? Who's he?
Colleague: You know, the Talking Heads guy.
Loud Boy (baffled silence): I don't know what that is. (Pause.) But it was really cool that Lance Armstrong was there, don't you think?
I can't decide if this means I'm old and he's ignorant, or he's just ignorant. But c'mon, folks. David freaking Byrne!
Sigh.
Growing up in Maryland, we had crabs. We had Ocean City, we had bragging rights to Washington D.C., and we had crabs. What I was too young to realize was that we also had John Waters.
Until I saw "Hairspray" (the movie) in the theaters, with mom. She hadn't grown up in Baltimore, but she loved musicals and so did I and we just swooned over "Hairspray." Somewhere, Waters was snickering.
In the years since, the rise of the king of disgusting films Waters has probably been doing a lot of that, as our basic culture has lowered to his expectations, while simultaneously he's gone more legit (no more feces-eating in his films, thankyouverymuch). And nothing is more legit than Broadway, or a Broadway musical. I didn't care all that much for "Hairspray" on Broadway (although the rest of the world did) and I've never had the urge to see the second "Hairspray" musical. But once I heard a friend of mine (Adam Schlesinger, the genius in Fountains of Wayne and Ivy, among other things) was part of the musical team for "Cry-Baby" on Broadway -- another Waters film -- I was definitely charged up to go.
And last night was the Broadway debut. Waters was of course in fine form, striding in with a blue blazer lined in white and camouflage pants; he wasn't mobbed but he was certainly the center of a lot of attention. The show itself was about 60% entertaining. It's got some fun lines and one amazing dance routine where Cry-Baby is in jail and breaks out, and in the process everyone ends up tap-dancing on license plates (seriously, it works) but I'm not sure about the rest of it. Poking fun at the '50s feels ... dare I say it, dated.
"I think it celebrates old-fashioned juvenile delinquency, which is a term that no one uses anymore because juvenile delinquents now kill people," Waters told the San Francisco Chronicle, and that is what makes it fun -- but there's something rather ho-hum once you know how he defines crass. You get pregnant juvenile delinquents dancing up a storm, an anti-polio picnic, elaborately choreographed make-out sessions and a lot of wink-wink behavior. I know this isn't his film, and it gets away from the film in a lot of ways but ... there's nothing shocking here. And that may be the most bizarre part about the show.
However.
The party afterwards, held at Mansion downtown -- that was incredible! I ran into some industry friends (a lawyer, his co-worker and an aspiring actress) at the coat check, and as we headed into the main area we were handed large brown shopping bags and told to go pick up stuff. But before we did that, libations were in order. I'd put in an order for a boring vodka-Coke, then saw one of the special drinks of the night was absinthe poured over a sugar cube. Nobody else in our group was willing to sample, so what the hell, and I ordered it. The bartender turned on a tap from a raised vat filled with a watery liquid and ice cubes and let it dribble over a suspended sugar cube balanced on a glass. Classy.
"Kinda nice that you can get this stuff now, since it used to be illegal," I noted. They were actually paying attention, so you know I had to go there: "After all, you know what they say about absinthe ... it makes the heart grow fonder."
And then they kicked my ass to the curb.
Actually, no: the lawyer said that was just exactly his type of humor and I survived another very bad attack of punning. The drink arrived. Kind of, um, dull: Only about 1/3 of the glass was filled with what looked like water , with a small mountain of sugar piled on the bottom. But what the hell, I tried it. Vaguely licoricey, but no kick. I passed it around. We all shrugged. I figured I'd end up on the floor later if this stuff had a delayed reaction, and off we went to do some grown-up trick or treating.
The main level had a dance floor, and hired dancers in 50s-dress were doing the Lindy and all kinds of fantastic moves; trannies and cross-dressers wandered the room in full regalia, and stations of goodies drew us forward to filil our bags. There was a kissing booth around which mounds of Altoids gum canisters were arrayed; we picked some up but no smooching went down. Further along, a makeup stand handed out some high-end "makeup couture," while cigarette girls bumped into us, offering candy smokes.
Upstairs we got our pictures taken at the "prom" by standing behind cardboard cutouts (and I got a paper "corsage"), we visited a "doctor" and his "nurses" who asked where it hurt (I poked at my elbow) and got a bag of candy (Neccos, Clark Bars, Smarties) to ease the pain. We were escorted out of the badly-protected VIP area and briefly met one of the big cheese Nederlander clan of Broadway theater owners/producers. We stopped by a table where we approached one of three primly-dressed 50s ladies who asked us questions in return for goodies.
"What did they make in the prison?"
"License plates."
"Correct! But how do you know so much about what goes on in jail?"
"Don't tell anyone!"
"I have no secrets from the LAWD."
But she reached down and gave me a box of butterscotch Tastykakes for my trouble.
Hello! HEAVEN.
We headed back to the dance floor, which had quickly filled up, and tried to get new drinks. I'd finished my "absinthe" but, well, there was something absent in the absinthe, so we bellied up and ordered more. This time, they did it right: The alcohol went in first, then the vat of ice water over the cube. Duh. Apparently I'd had a virgin absinthe, aka sugar water, last time. And this stuff definitely had a kick. The lawyer also got one; later the co-worker got an absinthe mojito. So we were all well and pleasantly toasted as we headed to the dance floor.
Now, I don't dance well, but I love to do it. And most people I dance with either can't, or don't like to, or are just all bashful, so I don't get much opportunity. Turns out our lawyer friend knows how to dance, at least far better than I do, so I actually got to twirl and do a few funny moves while the 50s classics moved into 60s classics and John Waters took Kathleen Turner (aka Serial Mom) out for a spin. After a James Brown song we collapsed into the sofa seats and played "Name that Band" and added lyrics to "Mony Mony" when it came on. But slowly the songs segued into "Hollaback Girl" and worse (I do like HBG, though) and it became far too loud to talk, and that's the sign to go.
We redeemed our raffle ticket at the Taste truck outside for a selection of cookies and Rice Krispie treats and got a cab. I think I finally crashed out at home around 2. Now, that's a party.
Moral of the story: None. But if you're going dancing with John Waters and drink absinthe and get home past the witching hour, try not to do it on a weeknight. Oy!
But tonight is the "Rock of Love 2" finale. And not that I care who wins (Ambre) but I know the getting there will be hilarious and raunchy.
As it's been all season.
So I have to watch it in realtime. Sorry, folks, the phone is off for the next hour.
Seeya.
Well, I know how I'm spending my federal rebate check:
And based on the ticket prices, I'm going to need every penny. But I missed Wham and any solo tours back in the day, so it's payback time. I want to shake my shimmy at Madison Square Garden and just enjoy the sheer entertainment of it all.
I'm sure George Bush will be thrilled to know that the money he's sending me is going to a liberal gay British pop star. Come to think of it, I think he'd sell a million more tickets if he marketed the tour that way.
Laws, I hope GM does "Love Machine," but I think there's as much chance of that happening as there is of him opting out of unfortunate facial hair.
UPDATE: I now have a ticket for the July 23rd show -- on the floor! Hurrah!
