Roy’s right hand was an instrument in itself. Stunning strumming.
Honeybus
For whatever reason, I found myself revisiting cult faves Honeybus over the weekend. If you’re unfamiliar and craving some late 60’s psychedelic/baroque/folk/pop, they could be your fix. I recommend streaming the anthology pictured above. Some good hooks and harmonies throughout, though I found myself skipping a good amount of songs. Your mileage may vary. Perhaps due to the drug-addled times, there are some oddities, such as this otherwise good song marred by a fucking kazoo. They had a top ten UK hit with this, which almost, just-about sounds like it could be a parody of the baroque pop of the time.
Speaking of twee pop parodies, nothing will ever surpass this masterpiece (said to be a parody of Ray Davies’ “Funny Face”) from Neil Innes, the man who would one day compose the entire Rutles catalog in something like a week.
Glory On His Face
Church drummers just can’t get a break.
This Is Not About A Car
Watched a pretty decent Netflix documentary about Mr. Johnson last night, which sent me back down the rabbit hole.
And I feel so lonesome, you hear me when I moan
And I feel so lonesome, you hear me when I moan
Who been drivin’ my Terraplane for you since I been gone?
I’d said I flash your lights, mama, you horn won’t even blow
Somebody’s been runnin’ my batteries down on this machine
I even flash my lights, mama, this horn won’t even blow
Got a short in this connection, hoo well, babe, it’s way down below
I’m goin’ heist your hood, mama, I’m bound to check your oil
I’m goin’ heist your hood, mama, mmm, I’m bound to check your oil
I got a woman that I’m lovin’, way down in Arkansas
Now, you know the coils ain’t even buzzin’, little generator won’t get the spark
Motor’s in a bad condition, you gotta have these batteries charged
But I’m cryin’, please, please don’t do me wrong
Who been drivin’ my Terraplane now for you since I been gone?
Mr. highway man, please don’t block the road
Please, please don’t block the road
‘Cause she’s reachin’ a cold one hundred and I’m booked and I got to go
Mmm-mmm-mmm-mmm-mmm
You, you hear me weep and moan
Who been drivin’ my Terraplane now for you since I been gone?
I’m gon’ get deep down in this connection, keep on tanglin’ with your wires
I’m gon’ get deep down in this connection, oh well, keep on tanglin’ with these wires
And when I mash down on your little starter, then your sparkplug will give me fire
This Took A Lot Of Balls
2,000, in fact.
I Am Everything
Hell yeah, I’m in! Anything more cringe than Pat motherfucking Boone singing “Tutti Frutti?”
Produced by Bungalow Media + Entertainment for CNN Films and HBO Max, in association with Rolling Stone Films, director Lisa Cortés’ Sundance opening night documentary LITTLE RICHARD: I AM EVERYTHING tells the story of the Black queer origins of rock n’ roll, exploding the whitewashed canon of American pop music to reveal the innovator – the originator – Richard Penniman. Through a wealth of archive and performance that brings us into Richard’s complicated inner world, the film unspools the icon’s life story with all its switchbacks and contradictions. In interviews with family, musicians, and cutting-edge Black and queer scholars, the film reveals how Richard created an art form for ultimate self-expression, yet what he gave to the world he was never able to give to himself. Throughout his life, Richard careened like a shiny cracked pinball between God, sex and rock n’ roll. The world tried to put him in a box, but Richard was an omni being who contained multitudes – he was unabashedly everything. Directed by Lisa Cortés, LITTLE RICHARD: I AM EVERYTHING is produced by Robert Friedman, Cortés, Liz Yale Marsh and Caryn Capotosto and Executive Produced by Dee Rees.
Cello!
I watched Tár this week. The featured musical pieces include Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 and Elgar’s Cello Concerto in E Minor (above). The subtleties are lost on my underdeveloped musical perceiving apparatus, but I rather enjoyed the passages from Elgar.
Also, and independently, I learned that the lyric from “A Quick One While He’s Away” is not
cello cello cello cello cello cello cello
but
jerrald jerrald jerrald jerrald jerrald jerrald jerrald
Incroyable!
Remember Yoyoka? She’s even better now! Watch as she effortlessly replicates Bonham’s Purdie Shuffle.
Diabelli Variations
I’m sort of a theme & variations junkie. From Bach to Coltrane, they show just what a musician can do when taking a single melody and running with it. A while back I posted Bach’s Goldberg Variations, which didn’t really improvise the main melody but came up with new ones while repeating the bass line. Subsequent composers usually varied the melody by elaborating on bits of it, like in this Beethoven set. This set came about after the musician and (more importantly) publisher, Anton Diabelli, sent a waltz melody to the leading German composers of the time and requested each of them to write a variation on it. Beethoven thought the melody was garbage and ignored it at first. One story has him changing his mind when he learned that other respected composers (Czerny and Hummel, a sometimes rival) were doing it. Or maybe he decided that the melody was pliable enough to accomplish something. Most likely Diabelli simply offered Beethoven money to compose multiple variations; he knew they’d sell. Beethoven wrote 33 variations. Like Coltrane working a show tune, these 33 get pretty far out there, way ahead of their time. There’s everything from mockery of the melody (“this melody is shit”) to transcendance (“look what I can do with even a shitty melody”) and, well, who knows what to call it. There have been plenty of great theme and variation works since, but none have put a melody through the wringer quite like this.
Beethoven was a master of improvisation; he wrote other such sets, but also worked variations into his symphonies, piano sonatas, string quartets, etc. If you want a shorter example, try the second (and final) movement of his piano sonata #32, his last, where he twists a hymn-like melody all over the place before landing in long, brutal, and otherworldly trills that would cripple a normal hand. The second movement starts at 9:00 if you don’t want to hear the first.