The Danger of Billy Joel

 

We don't talk about the raw sexual danger that is Billy Joel and that's a damn shame. This is the man who has been stranded in the combat zone, and walked through Bedford-Stuy alone, and rode his motorcycle in the rain. Clearly, he's been thinking about how, by being a backstreet guy, he can cruise naive uptown girls in a way that might make their peers very nervous. Note the aggression behind "Only the Good Die Young". against the rearing of a good Catholic girl. 

He wants to pervert her virginal upbringing by suggesting her lily-white frigidity vis a vis her upbringing is what is damaging their relationship, not his transgressive representation as a "Bad Boy."  He shapeshifts himself as "Billy the Kid" and "The Stranger". By creating a litany of leftist complaints in "We Didn't start the Fire", he absolves himself of his own generations' participation in the globalist  clownshow that is the forever wars relating to terrorism as a resistance-movement that totally is not in any way fucked up so stop saying that! 

So actually, what I am getting from this is the modern cover of "We didn't start the fire" is so bad it is giving more briquets and hasn't reintroduced Joel to the kiddos,  and Gen X horror auteurs need to recognize our 90's pop bullshit is mad scary. This song is threatening. Billy Joel is fixing to do the bad thing with a privileged debutante and this young have the open mouth. Say what? 

Billy Joel, y;all. Scary motherfucker. 

Nirvana Unplugged--One of my favorite things

 

On this day in 1994 Nirvana released “MTV Unplugged in New York”

It is considered the greatest Unplugged ever made pic.twitter.com/iA6pymphBM

— 🎸 Rock History 🎸 (@historyrock_) November 1, 2024

I don't know if there is a single CD I got from Columbia Music House that I played more. I mean, I played Hole's "Live Through This" and NIN's "Pretty Hate Machine" a lot and some Tool also, but this one was special to me because it was issued so close to Cobain's unaliving and displayed Cobain's untapped range and what this whole band was capable of. 

I love the covers. To me, Nirvana's cover of "Man Who Sold the World" hits me better than Bowie's does in roughly the same way Guns'n'Roses' cover of "Live and Let Die" (and, to be honest, "Knockin' on Heaven's Door") give me more than the originals. The sheer haunting that is "Where Did You Sleep Last Night"!

This was that band. 

It was a mood in a way I don't think anything I ever heard before was. The songs were cultivated mood. The performance was an entire mood. 

I implore the children to hear it in the way I was cultivated to listen to the Doors and the Beatles. It is the good shit. You hear the good shit in your life one time, and it breaks you down and you can't accept the music that doesn't reach you that way ever again. You go and search "where is that good shit music"? 

You go and search your own Nirvanas, you beautiful rainbow children. But if your mom and dad came up on NKOTB and Britney Spears I do not know how to introduce so much funk into your life. 

I can point you to Black Sabbath, Genesis, the Commodores ("Night Shift" is CHURCH) and Lionel Richie. And Billy Joel. Mike McDonald. The good shit is out there. Billy Ocean. Sade. Public Emeny, The Clash and The Police. 

Metallica. Bonnie Raitt. The son of a bitchin' Rolling Stones.

The real-ass play from your heart vistas. I want you all to get it, experience it, know it. Blisters on the fingers. Blood on the stage. 

It even explains the life we are in. I am not making this up. It does. 

Taylor Swift's "Bad Blood"

I believe in better living through pop music and science fiction. Taylor Swift has a nice little song, but a big freaking video. You can mull over all the sf tropes, but also see where this pop song is working out how to detonate an ass-kicking musically.

I think Taylor Swift will be among the pioneers of pop weaponization. God if there is one have mercy on all our souls.

Punk Syndrome

All I can say is, they are hella punk.  Their sound is tight and their band has a quality that is kinda transgressive.   The trailer to the film shows what the road is like. And I think what they are doing is pretty cool. Hearing about them makes me want to hear more.

OK--Hozier & Annie Lennox

I do not know how many awkward intersections I've been at where I've been singing my ass off to this song in the car with the radio cranked.  Don't judge me. But hearing his pipes up against Annie Lennox was so cool.

Probs because I was singing my ass off to Eurythmics songs on the radio 20-something years ago...

Beyonce Takes Us to Church

You know, there was this weird poll out of Iowa that 40% of likely GOP caucus participants thought that Beyoncé was "mental poison" following 2016 hopeful Mike Huckabee's very tacky slams of her relationship with her husband and her performing persona. I'm not sure what they'd make of that performance. Beyoncé is one of the most nominated and winning performers in Grammy history. It's true part of her stage persona is her sensuality. But I'd compare her to Elvis Presley in some ways--he "scandalized" America with his performances. But I'd say his gospel work was every bit as real. (And yes, it is very bizarre that I am talking 1950's folks shaming "the Pelvis" for his gyrations when talking about Mrs. Carter--which is I think more about how far some people have not, actually, come.) Artists are complicated. Maybe they don't appeal to all audiences--but "mental poison"?

So here's Elvis.

Except she nails it for me where Elvis seems tame.  I dunno. Comparisons are odious. But I don't like people putting down Beyoncé, that's all.

Ken Curtis Fan Club.

So, "Gunsmoke" is a show that is actually new to me, because I never really got to see it in syndication until recently on ME TV. The run of "Gunsmoke" overlapped my early years, but my memories of 1972-5 could be called hazy at best. I was too busy learning to walk and talk and use a big girl potty to pay much attention to tv, and westerns weren't really my parents' bag, anyway. For some reason, the character of "Festus" bothered me. The idea of the rural character who can barely be understood isn't too much of an oddity--Boomhauer on King of the Hill boasted a dense patois that I vaguely understand. Brad Pitt's character in Guy Ritchie's "Snatch" was well nigh incomprehensible, and one of the running gags in the long-running Italian police drama Commissario Montalbano is that the character of Catarella is barely understandable and frequently gets big words and proper names wrong.

But Ken Curtis, who portrayed Festus, had a voice that didn't match up with his face. But I recognized it. So, I had to look into it, and he was a big-deal singer with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra and the Sons of the Pioneers. And, while his character on Gunsmoke was notoriously scruffy, Ken Curtis himself cleaned up beautifully. And in early episodes of Gunsmoke, they even let him sing. So weird he played such an odd character, but then had, you know. That voice. Glad I checked it out.

NASA is "All About that Space"

In a darn fine parody of Meghan Trainor's "All About that Base", NASA is bringing space travel back. No, this is sublime.

Sting and Lady Gaga--King of Pain

You all probably realized I love the hell out of Lady Gaga, but I also love Sting, like I can not adequately express. Coming across these two on Youtube  made my evening, people. Made it.

Knowing that Robert Downey Jr. who in roles like Tony Stark and Sherlock Holmes and Chaplin pretty much comes off as totally brilliant, himself, and not just playing brilliant people, is also a really good singer, is a nice lagniappe to a fun Youtube indulgence. Also, for some crazy reason I dig hearing Tom Hiddleston rap.

Jukebox: Al Green How Can You Mend?

Okay--I like this that much more than the BeeGees version, not to knock them but? Um, Al Green. SO, Uh, enjoy.

Lou Reed RIP

It's odd. The moment I was most happy to hear Lou Reed's voice was at my old school, which was kind of particularly Christian and white and heard "Walk on the Wild Side" and I was still conflicted--neat enough that the song that mentioned Candy Darling and those colored girls singing was playing just before a kind of karaoke night thing the school held, and also feeling a little bittersweet that a song made the same year I was born was still radical enough if you listened, but familiar enough that its radicalism didn't, like, filter through to make some nun turn it off.

I like Lou Reed and I liked Velvet Underground--but I admit I like the Cowboy Junkies' version of "Sweet Jane" better. I've liked a handful of covers of "Perfect Day" more than most any version of Lou Reed.



Because his voice always seems to remind it's like, the last day. Doesn't it?

(Anyone hear echoes of it in Radiohead's Creep--just askin'?)

But he fucking wrote Candy Says and oh. He was a poet of people and pain and things that aren't cute but real. That mattered a lot. It always should.

Linda Ronstadt: Blue Bayou

Very sad news from one of the great voices. I think this is one of the best songs I associate with her--and for some reason I've had it in my head all week.

The Red Army Sings!

I just... well...here it goes:


Good memes.

RIP Ray Manzarek, Founding Keyboardist of the Doors

Very sad news. The Doors' music was probably the first music I heard in the cradle. Manzarek's at turns jangling and haunting organ did a lot to shape their unique sound. He'll be missed.

RIP Chrissy Amphlett

I remember the video for "I Touch Myself" making my jaw drop just a little. That was just so hot, and 53 is just too young. Amphlett had just such an amazing rock persona. She'll be missed.

Just Like A Chap--Mr B The Gentleman Rhymer

I say!

Jukebox: Ray Charles: Ring of Fire

Well, this is pretty neat--

My admiration, nay, crush, for Hugh Laurie continues unabated as an actor and a comedian. As a vocalist, it seems he's continuing a bit of an American accent, but being the possesor of a ridonckulous American accent myself, I can't kick at what is a pretty good rendition of a sweet standard. So, here's a little jukebox for your Sunday wee hours.

Notorious B.I.G. calms crying baby.

Smart baby--her face is like, "What are these delightful beats?" My parents had to drive me around with the car radio on when I was a fussy wee one so I don't doubt they tried a lot to figure out what she liked!

Louis CK--Being Broke

This routine is like 99% awesome, and about 1% awful that I totally know what he's talking about.