The Reemergence of Sly Stone
Vanity Fair has a great, in-depth piece on Sly Stone featuring the first interview with the man in a couple of decades. He’s playing the Montreaux Jazz Festival this year and a few other European dates before allegedly going into the studio to record his first new music in over 21 years.
Among the many great songs he wrote and recorded before his decline and eventual seclusion, I consider “Hot Fun in the Summertime” one of the greatest pop songs ever recorded — a deceptively complicated piece of music that combined doo-wop, funk, swing, jazz and classic pop music, and yeah, you’ve heard it, but listen to all the chord and stylistic changes in the song and it will blow your mind several times over. For a relatively smooth song, that’s saying something.
Read the whole thing here.
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Adventures in Ancient Meat-Rock
Any way you don’t want it
First came its revival on MTV’s “Laguna Beach” a couple of years ago, then the song was chosen to abruptly end the most revered television drama of our time. For a relic from the days when giant beetle-shaped warships were considered perfectly fine album art material, Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” suddenly has disproportionately huge cultural cache.
So this morning, Staticblog received a press release from the last remaining Journey-men, saying that the second guy they have hired to sing their arena-rock castrato arias since Steve Perry jumped scarab, Jeff Scott Soto, and the band have “just decided to go our separate ways, no pun intended,” according to lead guitarist/Catskills comedian Neal Schon.
Now, if millions of people just listened to your song on “The Sopranos,” wouldn’t it make sense, in these reunion-mad times, to collect your old soprano and go out on tour? You just know that “Journey Featuring Steve Perry” is going to happen at a casino near you, and we only have David Chase to blame.
Now, what’s the proper way to express gastric distress in print? Blurg?
The Chase Scene
David Chase
Alan Sepinwall at the Newark Star-Ledger scored an interview with David Chase, but the “Sopranos” creator is keeping mum on his intentions regarding the cut to black at the end. The ball is clearly in our court. Find it here.
Don’t Stop — On Second Thought…
This morning, I watched a particularly moronic report on CNN’s “American Morning” offering ill-informed analysis of the Sopranos “Made in America” finale. Much of it focused on viewer reaction to the episode, which was anedotally hostile toward the abrupt ending, and Kiran Chetry’s superficial comments about the supposedly shocking discussion of President Bush’s Iraq policy and gas-hungry SUVs.
As a rule, I stay out of discussions involving the cost and availability of Starbucks Coffee in Kuala Lumpur, sports medicine and trigonometry because I know absolutely nothing about these subjects. It’s a good policy, Kiran. A great one, in fact.
All CNN had to do was get this guy into the studio — he was 30 minutes away in Newark, and could have offered superior insight into what was ultimately a fitting and superior sendoff to the fairweather viewers’ desire for a “Say hello to my little friend!” cataclysm.
And you can hear our podcast response to the final episode here.
Video: Crime, Wrongdoing, Evil and Sin
Born Under a Bad Sign With a Blue Moon In Your Eyes
This weekend marks the end of possibly the greatest series in the history of television. On Thursday, join me along with managing editors Mike Shannon and Joe Hight and metro editor Kathryn McNutt for a special “sit-down” podcast in honor of the final episode of “The Sopranos.”
The body count in last weekend’s episode is particularly high and tragic: anti-heroes fell, the most important hit ever ordered by Tony Soprano got botched, and the final scene showed Tony alone, clutching an automatic weapon on a bed, and the camera panned away ominously to the bedroom door. We will discuss how Tony got there, and what is possibly on the other side of that door.
The podcast will be available for download Thursday evening. We’ll see just how right Tony was when he once told Silvio, “All due respect, you got no … idea what it’s like to be Number One. Every decision you make affects every facet of every other … thing. It’s too much to deal with almost. And in the end, you’re completely alone with it all.”
Cast your vote – will Tony Soprano get whacked in Sunday’s finale? Vote here.
I’m Listening to the Worst Song I’ve Head This Year
Back in 1990, I was solidly in the Madchester camp and had the floppy hair to go with it, and so “Pills, Thrills and Bellyaches” by Happy Mondays was standard listening — it was twisting my melon, man, and while the disc is more of a time capsule of Tony Wilson-led Hacienda excess and doesn’t really achieve anything close to timelessness, it is not without its long-lasting charms, particularly “Step On,” which George Michael stole from with great abandon for “Freedom 90.”
But thanks to the fine folks at Idolator, I’ve now heard the worst song of the year. “Jelly Bean” is the first new song from the Mondays since the drug meltdown that rendered 1992’s “Yes, Please” one of the most horrendous discs of the decade. But “Jelly Bean” is easily more abysmal than anything on “Yes, Please,” a five-minute exercise in sound waste. If there is any possible way to recall this sludge from cyberspace, do it.
Parliament should pass laws against Shawn Ryder being allowed near microphones. I’m not a physically violent person, but this song made me want take up hockey just for the fighting.
First Response: The White Stripes, “Icky Thump”
I’m possibly in the minority on this one, but I don’t consider 2005’s “Get Behind Me Satan” that much of an outlier in the White Stripes catalog — I would rather a band do exactly what it wants rather than settle into a pro-forma stylistic march that merely gives people what they expect. Real White Stripes fans know this, and fairweather “Seven Nation Army” fans who got thrown off by the marimbas and piano on “Get Behind Me” should have known from the beginning that the White Stripes aren’t your standard-issue alt rock radio fist-pumping band.
But having said that, “Icky Thump” is so ridiculously good at being exactly what we love about the White Stripes. This is Jack and Meg in full-on Led Zeppo stomp, but then those guitar arpeggios and keyboard filigrees kick in at the half-way mark, and the band almost sounds like they spent time “In the Court of the Crimson King.” Bizarre and beautiful — it’s begging for a Roger Dean gatefold sleeve.
It’s also an unusual step for Jack to stick his neck out politically — he took his lumps for statements he made a few months ago about rock stars staying out of politics — but there are some pointed observations on immigration here. They seem to come out of nowhere, but Jack makes it interesting and scores a great lyrical jab. All in all, the title track’s a great opening salvo, and “Icky Thump” goes wide June 19.
For All Your Buddy Hackett and Oingo Boingo Needs
Thanks to Idolator, a magnificent clip of Oingo Boingo winning “The Gong Show” in 1976. This, of course, proves the direct link between So-Cal po-mo godliness and Gene Gene the Dancing Machine. Want to be the greatest film composer of your generation? Run around in a papier-mache spaceship.
Of course, all it takes to get a “10″ from Bill Bixby is a hot accordionist.
Question: has anyone seen Rodney Bingenheimer and Chuck Barris in the same room at the same time?
