So I did pull off the masterstroke, the (bloodless) coup that I promised last post. And it's pretty grand. Pretty epic, like the better-known version of this song:
-- Please download this fresh-from-vinyl version, of Belafonte's version of "Unchained Melody" -- ( I also have, all ripped from vinyl, Charlie Rich, Al Green, Ricky Nelson, and Sonny & Cher covers. I can post those, of you'd please. )
Of course, the better-/best-known version of this song is by the very righteous Righteous Brothers. And I post Harry Belafonte's version, not because their version lacks anything- No, quite the contrary- but just to show what changes Belafonte has wrought.
Margeaux and I were talking at her house (that's the coup, FYI), and she posited her general rule about covers: Don't cover a song that you cannot improve. I like this rule; it makes sense. If you just want to play the damn song, sure: play it. But to record it and send it out there, why?, unless you have done it one better.
Now, we could, with all good reason, say that nobody can improve on the Righteous Brothers' version. However, in Belafonte's slowed-down version, there is a delicacy that is not present in the Righteous Brothers' version.
Oh And Also, I failed to mention this little historical tidbit: Belafonte covered this song in 1956, on the album pictured above.
The Righteous Brothers covered it on this album, in 1965:
So Belafonte did not violate Margeaux's good rule about covers.
The original? It's from a movie about prison!, which is where the 'Unchained'-name comes from. Oh, and somehow, Belafonte was Oscar-nominated for Best Original Song for this, even though he did not write it, and it had already been covered a few times by then.
Anyhow, his is not the original, but it is less a cover or less un- an original (if that makes sense), than the Righteous Brothers version.
1.28.2012
"Brevity: soul of wit": here we go. Trying to give a little taste of some recent musical acquisitions. Haven't even told you yet what I got in Portland, let alone given you a taste! For Shame.
Okay, so Teddy Pendergrass again, a solo joint this time. (Not HMBftTP)
Got this after Portland, in Philly, mais oui, at Molly's Outlet in South Philly- 1117. E. Passyunk Ave. You can still check out their special outlet sale this weekend. All records a buck, and a much sharper selection than a thrift store.
Haven't copied It's Time For Love yet to hard drive, because 1) très cray busy and 2) got a new laptop to replace my worn-out "CRAPtop" and haven't loaded the requisite software yet. Busy for the normal reasons,.... plus... I am plotting something big right now. I'm about to pull off a real coup, wait and see. A masterstroke, to cap all things good.
My new place is shitty. Quite shitty. For instance, just seconds ago, the front door is open, as it sometimes is. There is of course snow on the ground right now, but sure, let’s get a little fresh air in here.
The place is literally so shitty, that when we were unloading the moving truck,
There was feces in the toilet.
And there was no handle on the toilet. There was, generously, a coat hanger attached to a string for flushing… but the water was off.
That is sort of the low- highlight. But there’s more. One day, someone let the air out of both my bike tires in the hallway. The door is left open randomly, and is almost never locked until sometime after dark. Actually, maybe it’s best that they let air out of my tires- since the door is wide open, flats would make my bike more difficult to walk away with!
There is a full size window in the shower. I have since painted over the window (to keep the children at the school across the street from learning too much); the previous solution, which was left for me to remove, was car window tinting. I doth not jest! The car tinting had a wonderful dual nature: I could see out, and, right, we have to trust, still be unseen as I looked out on the neighborhood! So the trashy local kids who drink and shout and cuss and spit and cough and yell and laugh (the demons) directly under this window, could perhaps be spied on while I take care of my hygienic needs.
Right after I moved in, someone left a couch (too big for the stairs) in the hallway. For ten days. Eventually, we all stopped being polite (like the Real World!) and shoeprints and bike tires began to leave their marks.
When I moved in, no cleaning or anything resembling cleaning had been done. Compounding this, I have a Chinese-style oven, which means two fans, high gas flames, and… covered with wok grease. The fans and hood had so much ‘ambient grease’ covering them, that there were little stalagtites of (somebody else’s!) fat hanging down. (still can’t remember difference between ‘tites and ‘mites)
On the food tip, it’s South Philly, so there are plenty of bugs. And the fridge, until I divined the Goldilocks temp, alternated between freezing my lettuce solid and melting my just-bought ice cream. It also runs all the time. Ah yes, the fridge also is in front of one of two electric outlets in the entire house. None in bathroom (how am I to curl my hair?), one in bedroom, just one plug left in kitchen, so my sous-vide process must be done in the bedroom (not really). But there are two cable outlets in the bedroom, so we have the essentials covered.
The cabinets were perhaps put in by a sadistic child with a learning disability, since one door opens into the side of another cabinet (i.e. opens 2 inches), and all of them have an inaccessible top shelf, unless you have a step ladder. They were not so kind as to supply a step ladder, although they did leave other furniture.
There also was no working smoke detector (took them a month to replace it), which became an even more pressing issue when my brand-new flouro bulbs kept burning out, just weeks after I put them in. I looked at the lighting (as if I’m some fucking electrician) and the copper wiring was so old, it was green.
There is a lot of great stuff about my neighborhood (not so much ‘a lot’ about my house though), and maybe I will share that with you all later. But right now, I feel like complaining, because I am like that wiring: old and fussy and smoldering.
Which is why I played you J Mascis: he’s like that too.
Here we go, here's a little uplift, to match our weather today:
Oooooh, if only "everyday" felt this good! Going to go eat goose with friends tonight (my idea), doing research on Stoic philosophy in combination with Foucault's use of their ethical care of the self, sat in a park where they were mulching Xmas trees, which smelled better than you could possibly imagine.
Well, I won't bore you with all the rest of my "day, people"-- for it is not your duty to mark down and be concerned with my joys and ills, nor mine to fret and tut-tut over yours. As Epictetus tells us:
But the judge condemns you on the charge of impiety. And did not the judges similarly condemn Socrates? Surely it is no concern of yours... Your father has a certain function, and if he does not perform it, he has destroyed the father in him, the man who loves his offspring, the man of gentleness within him. Do not seek to make him lose anything else on this account... Again, it is your function to defend yourself firmly, respectfully, without passion. Otherwise, you have destroyed within you the son, the respectful man, the man of honour. What then? Is the judge secure? No; but he too runs just as great a risk. Why, then, are you afraid of what decision he is going to render? What have you to do with another man's evil? (Discourses, Book III, xviii)
So, if I be condemned, I will not let that affect the respect which I hold for myself, nor will it affect my judgment on what a nice fucking day it is.
I am pretty sure I have mentioned before: Lou Rawls is so good, he even makes Christmas music good. Great, really. It's like he's the King of Kings or something!!
Download Lou Rawls, "Little Drummer Boy" If your heart is not putrid and upside-down and evil and filled with snuff, you should continue listening to all Rawls' Xmas goodness on YouTube . There is nary a cheeseball in there. Maybe a snowball or two...
...also, Operation SnowDump begins tomorrow! Ask Kyle, if you're intrigued: "Op S" is the secret title for all our big secret Portland plans...
Speaking of intrigued, when I began search-typing "Lou Rawls Christmas" (because I mean it, his whole Christmas album is good, so I didn't know just which song I wanted to play) well shucks, I got to the "C" of "Xmas", and what popped up?!?!
It's in English, as the clip title helpfully states, but let's remember: Christmas is not just for Chris, nor just for English-speakers. Christmas is for everybody.
Oh, by the way, I meant it when I put an enema on my Christmas list. Nuh Be Afeared: go ahead and buy me one. In fact, be really not scared:
Since today's is an anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, I am throwing this at you. Put it on blast- Team America!; Team Isley!
Download Isley Brothers, "Ballad of the Fallen Soldier" here
I didn't say "blast" to be funny. It was an accident; yet, since it is a little bit funny, I will leave it. Another happy accident: I googled 'peral harbor' first (to check if today was the day or not ... shameful not to know, isn't it?). What if it were called "Feral Harbor"? Wouldn't that be wild?!?! That's a feral pig, dummy.
Jay-Z sampled the Isley Brothers' "Ballad of the Fallen Soldier": the keyboard hook and some guitar...
And you know what? The hell with Jay-Z. That's right, I said it. Why is that fool rapping about marriage? Just because he is married is not a good excuse! I do not want to hear songs about marriage right now- that is why I am listening to the hip-hop radio station. Only NPR stations give you less about marriage than hip-hop radio. Well, NPR talks all the time about GayMarriage (...liberals...) fair enough. But I thought I could count on rappers to uphold their fine tradition of pretending like love and ruinous heartbreak simply never happen.
(Download Happy Music by The Blackbyrds at Mediafire)
The Internet doesn't have the full lyrics anywhere- so I will supply the missing lyrics which are relevant for our purposes:
" when you get up/and you gotta / start your day feelin' lazy/and confused / you can find your way Happy music/is the music / you need to play if you want to/it will help you / save your day "
Good thing I am not writing my dissertation right now, because today, and the days that are like, have been and will be like, today, even preparing for class seems a chore. Confused and Lazy.
Happy Music, sure, but also pretty dark for this band. Sort of the inverse of a point I've made before: The Stooges' "No Fun" is actually probably their most fun song.
For the Blackbyrds (most of their songs are fun, and light 'n' mellow), this actually has a pretty dark edge.
Now, dark and happy are not strictly opposed- but neither do they have any necessary connection. You could be both dark and happy at one moment, but that would be a bit of the old "cake and eat it too," wouldn't it?
So certainly these days (late-year, ... etc. ...) are dark, but ideally, they would be happy, for you, as well.
I found $5 on the sidewalk the other day: good luck. Other than that, I've had only Bad Luck these days (not to be self-indulgent). I mean, even the $5 had been sitting out in the rain. Got all wet.
{jump to 3:00 if you don't want to see Richard Pryor chat with them}
This Bad Luck started months ago. Of course, I know someone else who had the very same run of bad luck. Very sad and very true. But I won't go on about it here- blogs aren't the place for showing your face.
"Blue Notes" indeed.
Anyhow: this is a good dance song about bad luck. [as Teddy states: "Ain't it a groove!"] Bad Luck as a danceable theme may seem strange- but then, think of Stevie Wonder's "Superstition." Stevie's song came out in 1972, and the above song (with Teddy Pendergrass and the rest of Harold Melvin's Blue Notes) came out in 1975. Was Bad Luck in the air, in the æther, those days, as it seems to be today?
Music; musing; must-haves.
The curatorial agenda. Sealing up a void whose vacuity was a source of distress to no one. The seed I am most likely to sow is a certain jargon. Built on tilt. The center of a new universe of counterfeit. Increasingly random and increasingly increasing.
ALFREDO LINARES + LAT-TEENS: LATIN WHALES
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[image: linares pito.jpg][image: lat-teens.jpeg]
*Alfredo Linares: El Pito
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From El Pito (Adria, 1960s). (First two songs also on ¡Gózalo! Vo...
