Earlier today I was chatting over IM with my friend Anil, and in reply to a story he told, I wrote "I hate meeces to pieceeeees." His response was to ask, sincerely, why I hate mice because he knows me as an animal lover.
me: "i was quoting Mr. Jinks" Anil: "i don't know who that is"
Anyone who knows Anil "seen it." Dash knows it's really hard to stump him, especially when it comes to pop culture references.
The quote is from Pixie and Dixie and Mr. Jinks, a Hanna-Barbera cartoon from the late 50's/early 60's. Mr. Jinks is a cartoon cat whose incredibly entertaining voice sounds as if he's just polished off his fourth martini. His nemeses are Pixie (blue bow tie) and Dixie (red vest and Southern drawl).
YouTube has a bunch of episodes of the cartoon, but of course I couldn't easily find one with the famous "I hate meeces to pieces" catchphrase. But here's a great episode that'll give you the gist of their personalities:
Things I love in this episode:
Old school cartoon sound effects are the greatest.
"Ahem"
"Must be somethin' you et."
Those mice have swank furniture, and they read in their downtime. Classy.
Brazilian Girls is one of those bands which I've heard of over the years, listened to once or twice, but never really formed a positive or negative opinion about. Yesterday I happened to click to watch this live performance from KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic, and I was charmed:
The song didn't really grab me in the beginning - her whistling is quite impressive, but I let the song run in the background while I read some other blogs. But when she began the chorus, I stopped in my tracks. There's a sensory shift from the jaunty, plonky verse as the chorus quiets (ethereal, melancholy) then opens up (arching, angelic). "Do you like my accent..." she asks, singing foreign words, playing with pronunciations. Even her body language shifts; she closes her eyes in the denouement, reaches her hands skyward, calls out in that language, words I imagine are endearments, entreaties. I've listened to this song over and over, just for the reward of the chorus.
Then the spell is broken each time with those la-la's.
I've posted many times about my love for Chad VanGaalen's music and my awe for his animated videos. Here's his latest, a video he animated for the song "Molten Light" off his new album Soft Airplane, out today on Sub Pop. (Go buy it!)
(Warning: The video features a nude monster-woman prominently throughout, so it may be a little NSFW depending on the standards of yourself & your coworkers.)
The beautifully sung variations on the chorus of "I'll find you and I'll kill you" reminded me of two other songs that feature jilted women and stalker-worthy lyrics.
First up is an old Fleetwood Mac song that was written in the 70's but made it to most people's ears when it was resurrected as part of Fleetwood Mac's reunion in the late 90's. Stevie Nicks wrote "Silver Springs" about Lindsey Buckingham when she was angry with him, knowing their relationship was over but reminding him he'd have to listen to her on the radio for the rest of his life. (She was right.)
"Time casts a spell on you, but you won't forget me I know I could have loved you, but you would not let me I'll follow you down til the sound of my voice will haunt you You'll never get away from the sound of the woman that loves you"
The other song that sprang to mind was PJ Harvey's "Rid of Me" off her second album, released in 1993. Here's a live performance from 2001:
"I'll tie your legs Keep you against my chest Oh, you're not rid of me Yeah, you're not rid of me I'll make you lick my injuries I'm gonna twist your head off, see Till you say, don't you wish you never never met her?"
I don't mean to make light of stalking or threats here, but I do think it's far better for a person to express anger or bitterness through art, rather than taking any action in real life. (All the same, it is an odd feeling to find myself inadvertently singing along with Chad's "I'll find you and I'll kill you, I'll find you and I'll kill you"...)
I find her to be marvelously unique and original. To my ears, her music spans from absolutely genius to utterly unlistenable, but I'm always impressed by someone who pushes their own creative boundaries and continues to try new things. She's been a pioneer and an inspiration to so many artists, and you have to respect that.
A few interesting facts about Kate:
David Gilmour helped her record the demo that eventually got her signed to EMI at the age of 16
She only toured once in her career
She was the first female to top the UK charts with a song she wrote herself (with this unlistenable number)
In the song "Π", she sings the number to its 137th decimal place
She was the first singer to use a wireless headset radio microphone onstage
The reason she needed that wireless headset mic? To accommodate extensive dance routines into her shows. (You're welcome, Janet Jackson, et al.)
Now let's watch a perfect example of her musical genius and love for dance in this video for "Running Up That Hill":
Bonus video: Here's a live version of "Running Up That Hill" with David Gilmour, which I'm sharing mostly because I want you to check out the bassist's phenomenal hairstyle:
I've been listening to Lykke Li's Youth Novels, thinking I might need to add it to my Best of 2008 albums list. In the meantime, as I've been digesting the record and feeling captivated by Lykke's voice and melodies, I've also been captivated by the way she moves.
Watch this performance of "Breaking It Up" from Late Night. You can't take your eyes off of her:
That's not pop choreography, that's her voice and music moving through her. She's feeling it.
She likes to dance:
"Having troubles telling how I feel
But I can dance, dance, dance
Couldn't possibly tell you how I mean
But I can dance, dance, dance
So when I trip on my feet
Look at the beat
The words are, written in the sand
When I'm shaking my hips
Look for the swing
The words are, written in the air
Dance
I was a dancer all along
Dance, dance, dance
Words can never make up for what you do..."
Are you enjoying what you're doing? Or are you overwhelmed, at a loss for words? Show me some stomps, some shimmies, put some angles in your elbows.
I'm counting down the minutes until dance class tonight.
Yesterday afternoon I was leafing through my albums, looking for the right record to lift my mood. I settled on Crowded House's eponymous debut from 1986, the one with their biggest U.S. hit "Don't Dream It's Over".
I know every single word to this record, and being able to sing along to it was part of the reason why I put it on. It's also a fantastic record from start to finish, and it began my love affair with Neil Finn's voice and songwriting skills.
What occurred to me for the first time yesterday is how morbid the lyrics are across the entire album. Here is a sampling of the dark topics found on this melodic and upbeat(-sounding) pop masterpiece:
Mean To Me: "now her parents are divorced and her friend's committing suicide... I was thinking of a padded cell"
World Where You Live: "friends come round you might remember and be sad behind their eyes is unfamiliar"
Hole in the River: "Theres a hole in the river where my auntie lies From the land of the living to the air and sky Left her car by the river left her shoes beside... We were touched by a cold wind, my father and I The sound of desperate breathing her fear inside us all She was coming to see him but something changed her mind Drove her down to the river There is no return"
I Walk Away: "Reveal whatever you desire To you it may be death defying Black day In the coldness of winter Black words Slipping off my tongue I say forget it - its over As a dark cloud covered up the sun"
That's What I Call Love: "Feeling devastated Thats what I call Hangin on and fallin over Thats what I call Tired and deflated Thats what I call Love... I got a little room The air's still pretty bad I die tonight"
I would love to know what Neil was going through when he wrote these songs. As a lyricist he consistently valued creativity over cliche, but I don't recall many of his other albums being quite this dark. If you just listen to the music and his buoyant voice, you'd never know he wasn't going along, feeling just fine.
Let's watch some Crowded House videos from this era.
A live version of "Mean To Me" from '87:
Surely you've seen this video for "Don't Dream It's Over". Speaking of his creativity as a lyricist, I love the thought of millions of people singing along to lines like "try to catch the deluge in a paper cup..." This is such a beautiful song:
Uno mas. The video for "World Where You Live" is pretty great. This song describes a whole genre of people I've known in my life:
"Tell me, I don't know where you go. Do you climb into space? To the world where you live."
Aside from being an astounding vocalist and quite a showperson (she really knew how to put together a band), Teena Marie also wrote and produced many of her biggest hits. (You can tell she's serious-business by how high she wears her Strat.) She also made inroads for recording artists. After a nasty legal battle with Motown Records, courts passed what is known as "The Teena Marie Law" which prevents labels from keeping an artist under contract without
putting out an album by him or her.
Teena Marie is for the real.
"Lovergirl" has been in my head all day. Crank it:
I need your love and I won't bring no pain
A little birdie told me that you feel the same
I'm for the real and for you I'm true blue
Let's make a deal, sugar, all I want to do is be your one and only lover
I just want to be your lovergirl
I just want to rock your world
Hey...hey...hey...
Today, the company I work for launched a really cool new website at http://www.blogs.com**. A team of editors is curating lists and picks of the best of the blogosphere, so you can go there to discover new blogs to read.
One of the coolest features is a bunch of Top 10 Blogs lists created by web personalities and a few celebrities. I couldn't resist clicking on Alyssa Milano's 10 Favorite Blogs, and I was shocked to find amongst her recommendations a link to a blog post I really wanted to read:
I love Chad VanGaalen, so I clicked right over to 3Hive and found a link to the song "Willow Tree" off his forthcoming album Soft Airplane out on September 9th on Flemish Eye Records.
VanGaalen can careen stylistically from fuzzed out lo-fi punk to lullaby-worthy ballads, and this song lands in his underwater-y Neil Young-ish milieu, which we've heard on his prior two albums. In a short description of the forthcoming album, his label references his characteristic genre-hopping and even the rare gem that is Neil Young's On the Beach. But you can't get a read on a VanGaalen record from a handful of words or with just this one song. I'm very much looking forward to buying this record -- on vinyl as it'll have two bonus tracks -- as soon as it's released.
And now for some Chad VanGaalen appreciation videos:
CVG animates some of his own videos. Here's a great one:
CVG performs live from his basement, when he couldn't get across the US-Canada border to play at SXSW last year:
**I promise this isn't a thinly veiled promotion for Blogs.com, because I make it a point to keep my work blogging and personal blogging separate. This is just me marveling at how Alyssa Milano inadvertently led me to a new Chad VanGaalen mp3. Who would have thought?
I've taken five dance classes in three days. I'm tired, but the soundtrack in my head is keeping me awake.
To add to yesterday's r&b mini mix, here are two more dance class warmup songs I'm totally obsessed with:
Morgan Page feat. Lissie "The Longest Road (Deadmau5 Remix) - We start out on this song doing 20 pushups, but other than that it's a lot of fun stretching and doing situps to it. The version we work out to is 7+ minutes long, but unfortunately this video only gives you about four minutes:
Black Spade's "Actioneer" - This track reminds me of something TV on the Radio might make. I definitely want to check out the rest of this album when I have time.
Who still has cassette tapes anymore?
Keep the dream alive: send a photo of yourself holding a cassette tape to kteeger AT yahoo and I'll add it to the gallery.
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