Before Tyra Banks decided that her future lies in becoming a sexier version of Oprah, she was just another working model peddling pantaloons in the pages of Victoria’s Secret. She was also a frequent ‘contributor’ to SI Swimsuit Edition. And why not? She was obviously designed by God himself to look good in lingerie. All that and jobs with respectable publications like Elle. She also played, literally, a living doll in the kids’ movie Life Size (opposite a pre-trainwreck Lindsay Lohan). A more inspired piece of casting I can’t imagine. Tyra looks so much like a Barbie it’s insane – and she’s all natural. In fact she recently underwent X-rays live on her show to prove her breasts are really real. Her green eyes are real too.
I luurve Marc Bolan so muuuchh. Fun trvia fact (?): Bolan was so tiny he wore size five shoes. Women’s size 5 shoes. UK size. That’s a 7 in America. My size, coincedentally.
This is a song, that I wrote when I was young,
And I call it, the broken hearted blues,
The air on that night, was tempered like a knife,
And the people wore the face masks of a clown,
Don he was long, mis-shapen and forlorn,
And his woman ran away without a smile.
Days of the earth, are unbroken changeless turf,
But the faces of the men are something else.
In the wind, as a boy, was a spacious sexual toy,
But baby, now he’s a toothless baggy man,
When the hills of the sun, make you feel that you are young,
Get good now, and face your face into the wind.
This is a song, that I wrote when I was young,
And I called it the broken hearted blues
So usually, when I’m playing catch-up with something that didn’t make the list the first time around I’m not going to bother posting unless I can find a good video. All I could find for All We Have Is Now was this and a handheld live clip with terrible audio. But I’m posting it up anyway, because it is such a beautiful song and I love The Flaming Lips and I’ve not even mentioned them before. Flaming Lips are new to me, although they’ve been hard at work for almost as long as I’ve been alive. They’ve been faithfully putting out great albums since 1986, without ever touching the charts. Then in 2002 they suddenly became very popular. I think this is in thanks to the change from mainstream to alternative media. The internet age allowed a band who never got a wink from Jann Wenner et al or got on MTV to finally find well deserved popularity. When users control the channels of mass communication, such inspiring success stories are made possible. Which is why I so love eCulture, and it’s one of the only reasons why now is good time to be alive, and why I’m proud to be part of the internet generation. I can feel the zeitgeist moving beneath me.
Tonight is 80′s night, and I have big plans to go out and dance to 80′s music. In honor of that, we need some Duran Duran. I don’t think you need to look any further for the ultimate image of cheezy, flamboyant, brainless 80′s pop. Duran Duran pretty well embodies all the evils, real or imagined, of 80′s blockbuster pop music. Let’s see, there’s nonsensical but catchy songs, priapic heterosexuality disguised under globs of makeup and ozone-burning amounts of hairspray, heavy use of newfangled electronic nechnology, big budget but nonsesical videos featuring prancing models, terrible clothing, Patrick Nagel designed album covers, vocals technically excellent but emotionless and impersonal, love of electric keyboards, supermodel marriages and their own line of dildos (true!) – yes, it’s 80′s teen pop at it’s love-it-or-hate-it best.
Who’d have thought that one of the most seminal and iconic works of music to come out of the punk movement would be made by someone long left for dead? The whole punk revolution may have sprouted from the wretched emotions of miserable youth, but it took someone who had really lived (and nearly died) to make turn all the anger and despair into a valid artistic statement.
Marianne on the song Broken English:
It was inspired by the German terrorist Ulrike Meinhoff. The Baader-Meinhoff Gang had just been arrested, and the phrase “say it in broken English” came from soemthing that flashed on the TV screen, this mysterious subtitle: “broken English…spoken English…” I don’t know what it was in reference to, but I wrote it down in my notebook. I identified with Ulrike Meinhoff. The same blocked emotions that turn some people into junkies turn others into terrorists. It’s the same rage.
I completely forgot this song existed until I heard it on the radio the other day. When I went to look for it, I realized that I didn’t even have the album it’s from. As much as I propose ignoring the top hits in favor of obscure material, when it comes to Led Zeppelin, I still find myself happily spinning IV over and over. Of course I now have In Through the Out Door, Coda, et cetera. And if this one flirts too hard with the realm of the cheesy, as Page claims, well, Page can suck it. Sometimes a string section can be an excellent thing. Plant wrote this song for his dead son, and if that doesn’t make you weepy, you’re a cold bastard indeed.
Broken Chairs, Built to Spill, Keep It Like a Secret, 1999
Built To Spill are an indie rock band from Idaho who have been recording since 1993, unbeknownst to me. A friend turned me onto their music, and I find it very chill and enjoyable, although I do resent it when people blow a hole in my “every 90′s band sucks ass” thesis. I couldn’t find any footage of this song that had decent acoustics. For best results, download Keep It Like a Secret and Ancient Melodies of the Future. C’mon it won’t kill you.
I can’t believe that in all this time I haven’t touched on Harry Nilsson. Total unfairness, because he is one of my favorites. Nilsson had a golden voice, a gift for beautiful melody, a sharp wit, and the patronage of John Lennon, which should have been enough to propel him to global stardom. Unfortunately, what he had in talent, he lacked in charisma and the success and acclaim he so richly deserved never materialized. And BTW, the cover of Nilsson Schmilsson is exactly how I’ve always imagined Arthur Dent to look.
You may have noticed that I have strong worshipful feelings towards Jack White. In a nutshell, I believe Jack is the most earthshatteringly important person in the world of music, the first real god to come along in decades, a brilliant and prolific musician, and basically all kinds of wonderful. There is no one else of his generation who I’d put on a par with people like Bowie, Jagger, et al. So you see, I have a major obsession going on. Perhaps it’ s because most of my favorite stars were already past their prime by the time I was even born, but I feel insanely lucky to have at least one person whose career I can follow in real time. The reason I have to say all this is because Jack White officially owns my soul. He signed for it and everything. I’ve been sitting on this story this whole time, waiting for the appropriate moment and now it’s time the tale were told.
It was the week of 9/11, 2006, coincedentally the second time I’d booked a New York City vacation for that particular time of the year. It was, as should be, a splendiferous vacation, with the money saved by staying in a $20-a-night hostel going towards thrice-daily adventures in world cuisine. A large sum of New York’s appeal is the constant thrilling possibility of catching the scent of fame and encountering historic events. I had once come close to witnessing a historic event, but missed it by days, and my people watching had yielded the weird and beautiful but never the well known. The day was begun with a fortifyingly educational jaunt to the Natural History Museum, where I was sorely let down by lack of giant squid exhibits. The plan was to then head south through the park while thinking of what the next item to eat would be. Under an archway, I joined a crowd watching what turned out to be the bizarre performance artist Thoth, who was once the subject of an Oscar-nominated documentary, and if not exactly a qualified star at least someone known to me. I didn’t watch the whole show. Too weird, I thought, but felt satisfied to have had some small brush with fame. Moving along, thinking about what to eat and where to eat it, I heard music. I thought it sounded like a band practise, and I thought it sounded like a lousy band, because the beat was off. The drumming was irregular and slow, but I gravitated towards it. I found a small film crew set up underneath a patch of trees. The odd nature of the music made sense; the drummer was playing in an approximation of slow motion, accompanied by a strummed guitar. The closer I got, the more intensely familiar the guitar player appeared. He looked, I decided, a lot like Jack White. There was a moment of doubt and second guessing my own senses, and I realized that I was actually standing a few feet away from the living, breathing, actual Jack White. I hadn’t felt a purer jolt of delight since I was a child. I had forgotten that it was even possible to feel so strongly. It was surreal in the utmost, to say it mildly. So they played and they filmed, and I gawked and I marveled. Then they called break and the crew dispersed somewhat, and I found Jack sitting under the tree with a cup of coffee, and I knew that if I didn’t jump in and approach him I would regret it every minute of every day of the rest of my life. Jump-off-the-bridge moments like that don’t come along very often, and when they do, it’s best to jump. So I jumped. I have little recollection of anything I said, except I’m pretty sure I told him the gist of what I’ve written above, that is, I told him how great he was, and he seemed to appreciate it, that is, he was extremely, extremely nice. I had him sign my Natural History Museum flyer (yellow), which he thought was a parking ticket, which was funny, and which has not left my wallet from that day forth. I’ll show it to you sometime. I do think I kept it together and didn’t sound like too much of an idiot, and I did back off and leave him to his coffee in a polite manner. It did take several hours afterwards for me to stop shaking and stuttering. For the record, in person, Jack White is tall and has huge muscles, and his hair is shiny and he’s really really nice and gorgeous and muscular and cute and very friendly and nice. And so forth. Since then I’ve seen him in concert a couple of times and he never fails to blow me away, and it really makes it special to know that he’s really real. That was undoubtedly the apex of my life so far. That I once had a whole five minutes of Jack White’s undivided attention can only be the final proof of God’s love. And that is why Jack White owns my soul, and I will continue to write up slavishly flattering blog posts about him for as long as we both continue to exist.
P.S. It later turned out that the video they were filming was Broken Boy Soldier, and that the director was none other than my beloved Floria Sigismondi, who I’m sure was also present that day in the park, but since I had no idea what she looks like, and still don’t, I have no way of knowing.
After the sad and acrimonious breakup with Simon, Artie never found another collaborator so good.Simon conquered the world. Garfunkel noodled around making pretty cheesy soft rock albums. Nor did he have much luck finding material worthy of his talents. He did make one album that was outstanding, his debut Angel Clare. In the rock world, where technical prowess is the least of a star’s concerns, there was never much use for Garfunkel’s soaring high notes, sadly.
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