Video of the Day: Taken By Trees, “My Boys”
Former Concretes singer Victoria Bergsman gender-flips the Animal Collective single and achieves balance on this quiet, acoustic treatment.
Conan O’Brien On His Concussion
This clip from “The Tonight Show” is one of the reasons why Conan O’Brien has always been more Letterman than Leno: he has almost no vanity and is willing to bring the viewer into his experience, even when that experience is embarrassing or potentially tragic, as was his extremely hard fall on the set last week during a sketch with Teri Hatcher.
Kate Minus Jon Plus 8 Plus Hate
TLC announced today that “Jon & Kate Plus 8,” the cable channel’s hit reality show and tabloid magnet, will evolve into “Kate Plus 8″ starting Nov. 2. Due to the separation and pending divorce between Jon and Kate Gosselin, and the escalating rancor between the split parents of multiples, the show is retooling by simply not including Jon Gosselin in the proceedings.
Of course, the writing has been on the wall for several weeks: recent episodes of the series, which has taken a sharp nosedive in the ratings since the split was announced, have been all about Kate anyway, and Jon’s recent interview with Chris Cuomo on “Prime Time Live,” in which he said he “despised” Kate, looked like it pretty much sealed his departure. The man is a disaster — I don’t care how much of a banshee Kate might be, you don’t say that about your children’s mother on national television and the ever-preserving Internet.
As I’ve written before, I watched “Jon & Kate Plus 8″ starting about 2 1/2 years ago — long before the tabloids, long before Jon’s Ed Hardy shirts and pierced ears, long before Kate’s badger hair — because my wife loved watching how people dealt with six toddlers just slightly older than our own son, and I basically thought it was the scariest thing I’d seen since I shut off all the lights in the house at 13 and watched “The Shining” by myself.
But they seemed like real people back then.
To borrow and paraphrase from Bill Cosby, what happened is that reality television is like cocaine — it magnified Jon and Kate’s personalities. A responsible production company would have halted the series once it became clear that tension was resulting from living in a terrarium, but there really is no such thing.
I will no longer watch “Jon & Kate Plus 8,” but it’s not purely out of disgust with the Gosselins. The last few episodes I’ve seen mostly centered on Kate coming up with fun and exciting situations, like an overly complicated movie night in the backyard and a visit to a dude ranch. Mostly, the tone of these episodes, centered on a single mother going forward and putting the past behind her, has been to shore up Kate’s image. I want to see something real about parenting, and since Kate is now in the business of reality television, there is no reality involved anymore — everything is engineered and cultivated for public relations and viewership, which is dwindling rapidly: only 1.7 million viewers tuned in for the Sept. 21 episode.
Now, TLC is exploring another project with Kate, reportedly a talk show. Guess they needed to use that love seat in the basement for something.
Video of the Day: Meagan Smith, “A Little Love”
Somewhere, Max Fleischer is smiling through flickering, scratchy celluloid.
Video of the Day: Fool’s Gold, “Surprise Hotel”
You know what you need with your Township Jive? How about two old guys spraying cheap soda (note: not Insane Clown Posse), a kemodo dragon and a saxophonist in a bikini (note: not Wreckx-N-Effect)? Smile — it’s going to be a good week.
Mackenzie Phillips’ “High On Arrival”: How Terrible Revelations Affect Our Entertainment Choices
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Choosing music or movies based on the moral standing of the artists involved can whittle the media buffet down to nearly nothing, but Mackenzie Phillips’ recent revelations in her memoir, “High On Arrival,” is perhaps the greatest challenge facing music fans who prefer to look past the personal failings of artists. Phillips’ story about being molested, then having several years of consensual sex, with her father, John Phillips of The Mamas and the Papas, is a horrible and unimaginable story for most people, and if anything good is to come of it, perhaps it will help others with similar stories deal with their own trauma.
The less serious but long-lasting impact on the public at large is that this story about John Phillips is likely to forever shadow our perceptions of his band’s music. As my friend Phil Bacharach wrote in a Facebook post, “I seriously will never be able to listen to one of my favorite all-time songs, ‘I Saw Her Again,’ in the same way.”
Pop culture is packed with sickos, and the roll call almost goes without saying: Jerry Lee Lewis, Roman Polanski, Serge Gainsbourg, Michael Jackson (yes, allegedly — don’t start) — and depending on the breadth of their influence, occasionally their art can transcend whatever damage has been done by their personal proclivities or outwardly bad behavior. There’s probably several shoes waiting to drop with Jacko, so it’s hard to tell if “Thriller” survives the stories to come, though “P.Y.T.” is fairly impossible to listen to now, no matter what happens.
As for John Phillips and The Mamas and the Papas, we already knew that Phillips had severe problems, but nothing on the order of this. It will be interesting to see if oldies stations curtail their daily plays of “California Dreamin’,” “Monday, Monday,” “I Saw Her Again” and “Dedicated to the One I Love.”
Now, if you start cutting out all the people with less than squeaky-clean lives, eventually you’re down to an empty playlist and that’s no way to live, but sometimes it’s impossible to compartmentalize our perceptions. This could be one of those situations. Unlike Phil, I don’t really go back to the well much with the Mamas and the Papas — I discovered them around the time I discovered most of my Sixties favorites, and for whatever reason, they never really stuck as part of my canon.
But I’m certain that those who grew up with their music during the mid-to-late ’60s probably face something more difficult, since Phillips’ songs are more likely to be wrapped around memories and personal associations. For many of those people, Mackenzie Phillips’ dark stories about life with “Papa John” could introduce a dissonant chord to the band’s crystal harmonies — one that never really fades out.
Video of the Day: Air, “Sing Sang Sung”
That pleasant, warm and fuzzy feeling you’re experiencing is the subtle joy of hearing perfectly rendered, gorgeous soft-pop with fluffy nonsense lyrics. Love 2 arrives Oct. 6.
Happy Birthday, Bruce Springsteen
The Bard of Asbury Park turns 60 today and he will indeed be “Blinded By the Light” — from all those candles!
I’ll be here all week. Try the veal.
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 2010 Inductees Announced
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s 2010 inductees were announced today. LL Cool J, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, KISS, ABBA, Genesis, the Stooges, Jimmy Cliff, the Hollies, Donna Summer, Darlene Love, the Chantels and Laura Nyro all get the nod this year, and one of the Rock Hall’s greatest failings, the deficit of votes needed to get Iggy and the Stooges into the I.M. Pei pyramid once and for all, is finally corrected.
Of course, guitarist Ron Asheton died earlier this year, and in 2009 the Stooges narrowly missed induction, but it’s amazing how quickly death can push voters into action on these things. Honestly, it should not have taken this long — Iggy and the balance of the reunited band (which now includes Raw Power-era guitarist James Williamson) should not have to wait to be inducted in the same year as Anthony Kiedis and the Chili Peppers — there is no Antwan the Swan without Iggy. I’ll never understand how these things work, and for that matter, how is it that Darlene Love never received enough votes until now?
Okay, so enough carping. As I go down the list, my greatest hope is the obvious one: that the induction of Genesis results in that full-scale reunion that as rumored to be going down a few years ago: one in which Peter Gabriel and Steve Hackett are on board. Who rightly cares if Collins, Rutherford and Banks get back together again? As recently as a November 2008 interview with Billboard, Tony Banks said that Hackett was on board — they just need that old facepainter to register a thumbs up and take a break from working on that alleged I/O album that has allegedly been gestating since the turn of the century.
And speaking of facepainters, KISS finally gets it, too. For a long time, Gene Simmons has said it does not matter (he made this point to me in an interview about seven years ago), but KISS has been deserving of this honor nearly as long as the Stooges. Overall, a good year — ABBA notwithstanding.
LL Cool J
Red Hot Chili Peppers
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KISS
ABBA
Genesis
The Stooges
Jimmy Cliff
The Hollies
Donna Summer
Darlene Love
The Chantels
Laura Nyro
Random 10 for September 23, 2009
1. The Cure, “Hot Hot Hot.” Robert Smith gets just about as funky as his dreary Gothic self will allow in this classic from 1987′s Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me. When glorious tracks like this one from the days when I could chew on my bangs reassert themselves on the iPod, I have to ask why Smith cannot seem to make a record now that is more fun than your average traffic ticket. Nobody wants their favorite bands to break up, but there’s always a worse alternative.
2. Lily Allen, “—- You.”
3. Chris Walla, “Geometry &c.”
4. Datarock, “True Stories.” No, these Norwegians didn’t simply drag out a copy of the amazing Once In a Lifetime box set and start scribbling song titles — well, clearly they did do something like that, but not just that. The music on this great single is an unexpectedly strong homage to the Eno/Byrne African high-life rhythms found on Fear of Music and Remain in Light, so these goofballs clearly did their homework.
5. Metric, “Stadium Love.”
6. Menomena, “Wet and Rusting.”
7. Radiohead, “All I Need.”
8. King of Prussia, “Misadventures of the Campaign Kids.”
9. Marissa Nadler, “Your Heart is a Twisted Vine.”
The Bird & The Bee - Love Letter To Japan
10. The Bird and the Bee, “Love Letter To Japan.” If Greg Kurstin and Inara George weren’t over 30 in this “Logan’s Run” chart environment, this song could have easily been a huge pop hit. The video was clearly shot in Los Angeles, not Shinjuku — and labeled as such for your convenience — but both Bird and Bee are LA creatures, so we expect nothing less.
