No, not the cartoons. But Will Ferrell + cowbell = forever funny:

Labels: comedy, Green Day, music

You know, I love a dorkalicious surrealist art video of a cat in a shark costume riding a Roomba as much as the next person. But for sheer glad-to-be-alive silly, nothing beats Stephen Colbert and friends busting a move -- and making lemonade out of band-booking lemons.

Labels: music, Stephen Colbert, Teh Silly

Dear Youth of America:

This is why you ought to be careful about your online and video image. Behold seventeen-year-old Bono, 1978:



Let this be a lesson to you. In thirty years, you too could be rich and famous and respected and still have stuff like this out there, ripe for the picking.

(And The Edge is still playing the exact same style as he did back then.)

Labels: music, Teh Silly

Yesterday was the 60th anniversary of Motown Records.

When I was a little white kid in the suburbs, I wasn't crazy about Motown. I was eight years old in 181963, not much older in the years that followed, and I just didn't get it. The one Motown act I did like was the Four Tops, but how could you not? Levi Stubbs' voice was like a cry in the darkness, and that mournful quality clearly resonated with a depressed pre-adolescent living in an emotionally chaotic home.

Many decades later, I sometimes listen to "Rhythm Revue" on WBGO on Saturdays and realize just how AMAZINGLY GOOD this stuff was. One of the reasons for that was the most unappreciated musicians in the history of popular music, the Funk Brothers. The 2002 documentary Standing in the Shadows of Motown gave a detailed look at the band that made the Motown sound what it was. If you've never seen it, you shouldn't miss it.

Listen here to the late Marvin Gaye lip-syncing "Ain't That Peculiar" on one of those now-hilarious old music variety shows and try to tell me that it ISN"T the band that makes this song great:





That's James Jamerson on the bass.

Now check out "Can't Help Myself" with the vocals stripped out:



Sure, the vocals were great. But it's the band that made the sound.

Labels: music

This is what happens when you start poking around the Intart00bz. One of my old compatriots from the Morning Sedition days posted a link to the video I posted earlier, which led me to a one-hour documentary about Squeeze. Then I saw a link to this article about Hillary Clinton's 2006 prospects:



...which immediately made me think of this song:



And of course if Hillary Clinton runs again, we'll have to listen all over again about that time that Bill was Tempted by the Fruit of Another.

At this rate, soon I'll be catching a local high school production of Annie Get Your Gun, then coming home and Pulling Mussels from a Shell for us to have for dinner, then getting Slightly Drunk, , and then waking up tomorrow and having Black Coffee In Bed.

Labels: Hillary Clinton, music

It's the Dave Edmunds and the Steve Cropper that does it:

Labels: music

The Fifth --gypsy style!

Labels: music

This time of year always makes me nostalgic for those good old days when I spent half of every Saturday and often a good chunk of Sunday sitting in a darkened movie theatre with a small notepad, scribbling notes to refer to when writing a review later. I never had the sense back then that time was getting away from me, that I'd blink and the weekend was over. Of course I was younger then, and was working low-stress jobs where I either had nothing at all to do and could spend the day writing, or where I had enough to do to fill up a normal eight-hour day with only a 20-minute drive each way. Long about 2005, I decided I'd had enough and hung up my movie review had largely for good. Once a year, at Christmas time, I try to meet up with my old friend Gabriel for a "Critics over Coffee", just for old times sake and because I miss his company, for he is always modern and fabulous, just as his old blog says. But this year, despite the fact of the entire week off between Christmas and New Year's, Other Things of which you all are well aware got in the way. (I'm still waiting to hit a wall about that one, because I know that sometime, probably long about March, I'm going to find myself curled up in a fetal position in the corner as the end of fifty-seven years of Very Complex and Troubled Relationship really hits me with a two-by-four. She would want it that way.)

But tomorrow night is the first night of the Silly Season for movie fans and those for whom entertainment consists of snarking at people who have more money, often for less reason, than we or anyone we know will ever have. It's the NLCS of movie awards, or the NFC Championship series, or the Grand Prix of Figure Skating final in an Olympics year.

In the years since that group of starfuckers known as the Hollywood Foreign Press Association learned their lesson from the Infamous Pia Zadora Fracas of 1981, the annual Golden Globe Awards show has become the Academy Awards' hipper younger sibling. I actually prefer watching the Globes, not only because the very name of the award -- "Golden Globes" -- evokes what pops out of the bodices of the lookalike trophy wives, girlfriends, and miscellaneous escorts of the women in attendance, but because the Globes just don't take themselves seriously as much other than an excuse for a bunch of Hollywood names to dress up, get plastered on national television, and perhaps make some connections with people more famous and popular than they are. You never know what could happen at the Globes, unlike the Oscars®, where it's inevitable that some actress who was a shoo-in from the very beginning will get on stage as if her award was a complete surprise that came out of the blue, cry uncontrollably (*cough* Halle Berry *cough*), and thank her agent before she even thanks her own spouse (*cough* Hilary Swank *cough*). You do get this at the Globes too (*cough* Kate Winslet *cough*), but at least then someone else will get up on stage and make fun of her, everyone will laugh, and no one will think that the little statue is somehow the Nobel Prize.

I also prefer the Globes because they are now way ahead of the curve in that they have always recognized television as well as movies. Given that shows like Boardwalk Empire, Game of Thrones, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, and others have not just shown that great work can be done on the smaller screen, but have also started to attract actors who at one time would never even have considered doing television. For my money, the really good stuff is happening in my living room, not at the local Clearview Cinema.

Then there's the thankless job of hosting. Ricky Gervais, a comic whose charms have always escaped me, had an interesting run, but this year the Globes are being hosted by Amy Poehler and Tina Fey, which promises some interesting times and jokes that go over the head of most of the audience.

But the real jewel in the crown of Hollywood self-congratulation is still the Oscars, as it allows the film industry to think of itself as something other than the creators of Honest Stories of Working People As Told By Rich Hollywood Stars. The Oscar® broadcast has never seemed stodgier than last year, when a clearly "I'm So Done With This" Billy Chrystal labored through the two-hour show like an aged Borscht Belt comic with a heart condition, wondering why no one laughs at his jokes anymore. After the horrible James Franco/Anne Hathaway disaster of 2011, anything would have been an improvement. But this year the Academy did something amazing, surprising everyone with their jaw-dropping pick of Seth MacFarlane, the multi-talented creator of Family Guy and American Dad, music lyricist, Nelson Riddle-wannabe, crooner of obscure American standards and overall Rat Pack-channeler, to host the awards.

It's impossible to be on the fence about MacFarlane. Either you love him or you hate him. Either you think he's a ferociously talented, handsome if smarmy and lounge lizardish throwback to a sexist, misogynistic time who also has a wicked sense of humor that he doesn't always know how to control and a glorious singing voice that could open anyone's ears to the charm of American schmaltz music, or you think he's just a smarmy, lounge-lizardish throwback to a sexist, misogynistic time who has a sick sense of humor that isn't even funny and thinks he'a Frank Sinatra when at best he's Frank Sinatra, Jr. And that he's a hack to boot who doesn't write every word of his shows himself the way Trey Parker does. Here at Casa la Brilliant, we loves us some Seth MacFarlane, so if you fall into the latter category, you can stop reading now.

MacFarlane is a man both very much in his time and oddly out of it. The preposterous success of Family Guy, with its boorish alcoholic patriarch, savvy if ineffectual mother, hopelessly unpopular daughter, vaguely intellectually disabled son, at times variously homicidal and sexually confused infant, and a dog that is the only intelligent one in the family, often goes too far. It has a tendency to become not just unfunny but cruel, seeming to endorse what I think it intends to ridicule. The show relies too much on gimmicks like ending the show with a Conway Twitty clip only because the writers had no idea how to end it, and shock humor that often seems like Howard Stern circa 1987. But when the show hits its mark, it's hilarious, and there's always just enough sweetness to the hapless Griffins to redeem whatever shocking, outrageous things they do. They're the Simpsons in gargoyle form, and they get away with things that often leave me saying, "Did they just really do that?" Because MacFarlane and his writers are always pushing the Fox censors to see at what point they'll have to stop. These days there doesn't seem to be one, unlike a few years ago, when the censors prompted this number, which didn't even appear in television until recently:



It's also in numbers like this where that you see where MacFarlane's heart really lies -- in the music. The best part of Family Guy is the musical numbers, which MacFarlane writes along with composers Walter Murphy and Ron Jones. MacFarlane has a feel for the Big Showstopper Number and it is no doubt this talent, along with his now-immortal comeback from what in anyone else would be a jaw-dropping mistake at the Emmys, and what is perceived at least to be his appeal among "the kids" that made the Powers that Be tap him to host the Academy Awards. Because let's face it, after the Big Opening Number, what does the host really have to do?

On Thursday, MacFarlane, along with rapidly physically disappearing actress Emma Stone, announced the Academy Award nominees, which predictably resulted in a whole lot of pearl-clutching from those who think that an announcement that Silver Linings Playbook is nominated for Best Picture is akin to finding Shakespeare's Long Lost Plays. Yes, MacFarlane made the obligatory Controversial Hitler Joke^TM, but it sounded more like it was scripted by Bruce Vilanch (who writes most of the Academy Awards show gags) than by MacFarlane, whose outrageousness runs more towards jokes about S&M, menstruation, public drunkenness, flatulence, and other sophomoric topics. Someone needs to tell these people that it's mostly Jews who joke about Hitler (see also: Mel Brooks) anyway.

Anyone who thinks that the Academy Awards are about the Gravitas of the Great Art of Film is delusional anyway (A Beautiful Mind? Shakespeare In Love? Really? Rocky winning instead of Taxi Driver, Network, AND All the President's Men? Forrest Gump over The Shawshank Redemption? Crash rather than Brokeback Mountain? Seriously? Seriously?). I'm sure that MacFarlane is more than game to pop those balloons when they show up on Oscar® night. I think the outrage about MacFarlane is more a function of resentment at the increasing incursion of what the stodgier folks at the pretentiously-named Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences think of as the inferior medium of television. Ted may have grossed a half a billion dollars worldwide, but as far as these folks are concerned, it's a gross-out movie about a talking teddybear done by a TV hack.

Consider this, though: Ordinarily Mr. Brilliant would watch Downton Abbey before he'd deign to watch the Oscars®, and he would rather have hot metal spikes shoved through his eyeballs than watch Downton Abeey. This year he can't wait for the Night of the Chick Superbowl. And THAT, my friends, may be the REAL reason why the Academy picked the voice of Peter, Brian, Stewie, and Quagmire.

And since I have no idea how to end this post, I'll just take a page from MacFarlane's book, but instead of Conway Twitty, here's Seth MacFarlane singing "Ain't That a Kick in the Head." and "Come Fly With Me".

Labels: Academy Awards, movies, music, Seth McFarlane

I heard this no less than twice on the radio today on my way to work. It's a 40 minute ride.

I can't say I was a big Dave Brubeck fan, but Take Five always makes me think of orange sofas, kidney-shaped coffee tables with drink rings on them, shift dresses, beehive hairstyles, everyone smoking cigarettes, green wall-to-wall carpet, and other assorted midcentury Mad Meniana.

R.I.P. Dave Brubeck, who had a good long run.

Labels: jazz, Mad Men, music

She's Lesley Gore & she approves this message.

Labels: 2012 election, Barack Obama, feminism, music, video, women, Women's bodies

The kids listening rapt or dancing just slay me.

Problem is, every time I hear this, I keep expecting someone to say, "I was cured, all right." at the end.

Labels: music, sheer awesomeness

If you think every pop song sounds the same, perhaps this is why:

Labels: music, Teh Funny

The great toddler punk conspiracy:

Labels: music

In a Nick Lowe video!!

Labels: Marc Maron, music

Etta James lives on...

At Last:








I'd Rather Go Blind





Lo unto the many generations....

Labels: music, obituaries

This is dedicated to Miss Maggie, who has been utterly and irresistably kittenishly adorable since she's started recovering from her own upper respiratory infection:

And here she is, for the uninitiated:

Labels: cat blogging, classic animation, cute things, music

I would say hell has frozen over, but the Eagles already did that.

The on-again-off-again Beach Boys reunion to commemorate the 50th anniversary of one of America's most enduring contributions to the history of rock and roll is on again.

Brian Wilson, Mike Love, Al Jardine, Bruce Johnston and David Marks (a rhythm guitarist who played on their first four albums) are recording together and hitting the road on a 50-date tour set to kick off in April with a headlining performance at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival.

The anniversary will also be commemorated with reissues from the Beach Boys catalog, another greatest hits collection and a box set.

Oh. THAT's why.

Wilson says, "This anniversary is special to me because I miss the boys and it will be a thrill for me to make a new record and be on stage with them again."
wU

Really?

Labels: money, music

I realize that if you're going to be part of the zeitgeist in America today, you have to watch all of these competition shows. The problem is, I'm over here still listening to the Allman Bros. Band and even Green day; and I also like Railroad Earth and Leftover Salmon and the Flecktones (four of the best damn musicians you will ever hear) and Hot Tuna (who are playing at the Beacon Theatre this weekend, and if you didn't get to see any of last winter's shows with Charlie Musselwhite and G.E. Smith, and you're in the New York area, GO!). I like swing. I like bluegrass until they start singing "I'm going to heaven and you're not because I love Jesus and you don't" through their noses. I love black gospel music because it feels like praise and joy and not like smugness and elitism the way white gospel does. I love Motown. I love 1920's jazz as rendered by Bix and Tram and Satchmo and Sidney Bechet. I love acoustic blues and electric blues and the blues shouting of Wynonie Harris. I love the music from Tin Pan Alley that collectors are thankfully digitizing from old 78s and Edison cylinders. My musical taste is far and wide and eclectic. And if it doesn't include hip-hop, well, I'm 56 years old and I guess that's just going to have to be my excuse.

What I don't care for is what I think of as current pop music -- the stuff purveyed on talent shows like American Idol and Simon Cowell's Fall 2011 entry which I keep thinking of as the Rollerball of talent shows, The X Factor. I would have had ZERO interest in this show were it not for a promo that ran during The Simpsons one night in which a girl who was just a kid was belting out "Mercy", sounding like the love child of Janis Joplin and Axl Rose. And I was utterly blown away. This must be what it must have been like for the people at Island Records hearing Amy Winehouse for the first time, long before she became a hot mess.

Of course I have my pride, so it's not like I was going to sit there for two hours a week watching a parade of cookie-cutter shrei-ing pop divas trying to be the next Mariah or Whitney or Britney or Beyonce or Rihanna -- those overproduced divas who to my aged ears are completely and utterly interchangeable. But as little Rachel Crow, the chubby Betty Boop-faced kid with the infectious grin, the heartwarming backstory, and the ferocious confidence, charmed her way through this weekly mess of American decadence, growing as a singer even while we watched, it was hard not to get sucked in.

And I'm so glad I didn't (well, not too much). Because for all that Rachel Crow has the heart and soul and voice of a long-downtrodden blues singer, I'm not sure I could have watched her be eliminated this week.

The entertainment industry is littered with kids who starred early and flamed out quickly. For every Leonardo DiCaprio there are twenty River Phoenixes and Corey Haims. For every Justin Timberlake there are twenty Britney Spearses. And the trainwreck that was Michael Jackson is in a league by himself. So it's probably a blessing in disguise to not score a $5 million record constract at thirteen, I don't care how centered and sane her family seems to be. But while Rachel Crow may be able to sing like Etta James, this image:



...drives home that this is still a very little girl. The talent is there. The opportunities will come. There's too much money to be made off this kid for them not to.

Labels: music, pop culture, The Decline and Fall of America

I'm sorry, but when my good friend DCap chooses his 10 Greatest Instrumentals and doesn't include Green Onions by Booker T. and the MGs, I shall have to ask him to step outside!



Or, if you prefer to travel forward in time from then:



Or the late, great, criminally underrated Roy Buchanan:

Labels: Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, music

It just does not get any better than this.


Except maybe this:


Maybe.

Labels: music