Sat Playlist: Soul Men

 

pic: yaledramacoalition.org

What a week. The word soul came up a lot. Mostly in terms of "selling ones soul to the corporation." But also, with the things I've got in my back pocket, I see that my own soul is creeping back. Norfolk's going to go places and so am I. Cubicle be damned. So in honor of this wave of optimism, today's playlist is full of one thing baby.

S-O-U-L

pic: pastemagazine.com

Otis Otis Otis. Great start to a Saturday morning. Wish I was alive for seeing this live. The emotion in singing. The bursts of wind instruments. It's romantic and real in a completely different way than most of the music I listen to. I'm woman enough to admit that I thought Black Crowes sang "Hard to Handle" until not so long ago. Otis really rocks...and it's so awesome to see the progression of rock and roll from soul to Crowe.

"I've Been Loving You too Long to Stop Now" It's like not exhaling for three solid minutes and then whooosh!! His voice is power. The simple piano keys that rarely change tempo for the whole song are like an actual heartbeat...going going going. Guitar at the beginning of "I've Got Dreams to Remember" is grunge. It could be in "Black Hole Sun." And "These Arms of Mine" has never not given me physical, visible goosebumps. Ever.

Finally, obviously: "Try a Little Tenderness." Let's, shall we?

 

Mr. Sledge is my favorite soul artist. He also has the best name. Sledddjjj. Say it like that. It's better that way.

Most of you probably know him based on "When A Man Loves A Woman." That's nice. Now let's move on to the good stuff. I'm actually very lucky to know this "good stuff," as I'm a white girl raised deep in the hills of Appalachia, where there was very little soul music, and exactly one African American family in the whole county.

My parents, who are more of the 70s rock variety (CCR, Eagles, Doobies, you get the picture) somehow discovered Percy Sledge's greatest hits and had my sister and I spend entire Saturdays with it on repeat at close to full volume. Thanks guys.

This music (Percy's, but soul in general) has this combination of God and Devil that's more real than rock-n-roll. You're mentioning Ava Maria in one lyric and "foolin' round" in the next. It's a barer reflection of who we are, or at least who I am. Spiritual, spitfire...there's a sheen and a scar. It's here in this music.

pic: New Yorker via a friends Facebook

There's a factory element to Sledge that's somewhat apparent in all soul (and pop and country) from the 1960s. More of a teamwork element at play for a lot of these recordings...studio musicians, producers who were also songwriters, etc. While today's generic pop, country, and rap acts' obvious lack of creativity.

Another lesson in soul: sharing. You'll hear Percy Sledge do "Love Me Tender," which is associated with Elvis.  Or Otis Redding do "Respect," which most people think Aretha owns right out. Or "Satisfaction" of Rolling Stones fame. Back then, everyone sang everyone else's songs--even across genres...mainly because all genres outside of classical or big band were considered a sin to the older generation....they young musicians were all outlaws together in song if nothing else.

And I say we're ready for a change around here--Norfolk, America, etc. We've got to share our songs too. Loan me your iPod and I'll loan you mine. Give me your committment and I'll give you mine. We'll sing together and pound pavement together and change the world.

Rock never died. Who listens to big band these days? Just sayin...

On Norfolk in 1855

"It had a harbor so calm and naturally deep that, upon looking over it, President Millard Fillmore once had expressed surprise that East Coast trade was dominated by New York. The London correspondent of a New York paper proclaimed that Norfolk should be one of the great ports of the United States."

"In spite of itself, Norfolk had been in the doldrums for decades. The city’s potential had been strangled by a state legislature dominated by rural slaveholders not keen on costly improvements for urban dwellers. Most local businessmen were not big thinkers and seemed satisfied to wait their turn for greatness. As Norfolk slumbered, Northern cities locked in their futures by improving and expanding railroad connections."

This was written years ago, regarding a yellow fever outbreak in Norfolk...replace "slaveholders" with "sprawlers" and looks like not much has changed. Go Light Rail!!

Dragons. Tattoos.

pic: asset3.artabase.net

(Definitely not Lisbeth Salandar, but a beautiful picture and tattoo nonetheless.)

Anyway, Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is out in theaters. I could go on for hours...or you could read my AltDaily article instead.

Look at them

pic: www.nyc.com

The Times of London came out with a list of its Top Ten Most Fashionable Films. Here's my take...keep in mind this is fashion--not style--for which I would assess differently.

#1: West Side Story (1961). Um...no. I completely disagree with this assessment. There were a lot of clashing colors and polyester in that film.

#2: Belle de Jour (1967): Never saw it. First two pages of Google Images were nudes. Not sure what that says for fashion. I do like the look of the above pic, though...so the clothed scenes may have been great.

#3: The Big Sleep (1946): Oh how I wish this was in color. I agree with the assessment wholeheartedly.

#4: Atonement (2007): I liked the clothes in this movie. It doesns't hurt that Kiera Knightley is pretty much a model. The way she looks is ten times better than the way she acts.

#5: Bonnie & Clyde (1967): YES! YES! YES! This movie has fashion. Faye Dunaway as Bonnie wears clothes set for the 1930s in the 1960s that I wear in the 2010's.

#6: Annie Hall (1977): I get it. Diane Keaton wears khaki's and changes the world. Perhaps if I'd lived in those times, I would feel  more inspired by this...but I honestly think she looks blase...not groundbreaking.

#7: Factory Girl (2006): Edie can do no wrong. Of course the fashion was good in this...it's about Edie Sedgwick-the fashion model, modqueen, Warhol muse. Love it. Need to rent it again asap.

#8: Coco avant Chanel (2009): Another cheat. Movies about fashion will obviously have good fashion. They should have been excluded. And the fashion in this was not the best ever. It wasn't Coco Before Chanel--so a little more vagabond than Venice. I blogged about it a while ago, if you're interested.

#9: Gone With the Wind (1939): Great costumes, yes. Great fashion? Negatory.

#10: The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999): Another agree. Like Bonnie & Clyde, they're able to keep the clothes in the times of the story, the times of production, and now over a decade later. True fashion (like true film) is timeless.

Saturday playlist

Got inspired by the Secret Dance Night poster and set my ipod to Joy Divison for the entire morning. I have around 90 songs from this late 70s super-influential British band and listened to all of them via headphones.

The raw emotion and nerve-y twitchy feeling one gets when immersed in Joy Division is not dissimilar to early Nirvana or early 1950s country-rock. It’s groundbreaking and courageous. One can’t listen to The Killers or The Bravery without hearing Joy Division. In context, I find it ridiculous The Bravery is called what they are. What’s brave about ripping off a relatively mythic band that never played on MTV to a bunch of Americans born after Ian Curtis’s 1980 suicide?

Answer: N-a-d-a.

I don’t mean to hate on Bravery, but had they called themselves something a little less incorrect, I’d like them better. Interpol, for example, they copy Joy Division more than any other band, but not in a pretentious way, there's more honor there.

Anyway, Joy Division are bomb. They don't lift your spirits in a Smiths way. They don't make you laugh. It's smart people music so do with it what you must.

The energy of "Digital" gives me wings--kind of like Red Bull. "Insight" via headphones is ear candy, bouncing back and forth like your skull's a pinball game--in a good way.

And The Taphouse's pool room has a bunch of their stuff on the jukebox :)

Oh Rocky...

Oh Rocky...

I’ve loved you for years. From Time Warps with my sisters on our living room carpet to time spent figuring out how to get Columbia’s fake eyebrows, to live shows around the globe, I’ve always talked you up. You’ve always been a good friend to me, so I to you.

Last night you were, sadly, not cool. I had talked you up to Mo for months. I heard mutual friends were gonna go see you. Perfect. No one should visit you solo—you’re much better in a group—preferably a drunken group, so seizing opportunity, I informed her we had better act. Your friendship is fickle, generally more accepting during the Halloween season, I’ve found.

You showed signs of your old self in the beginning. Some great misfit freaks were hanging on Colley. Leathers, feathers, and all the rest. Good good.

Then you just derailed. What was up with an hour of b.s. before you “let us see lips”? Were the previews to children’s movies from 2006 supposed to be a joke? Or was your DVD an old copy you couldn’t get edited? Either way, I must say you embarrassed me with your irresponsibility last night. My friends thought you looked a little lazy and I had to agree.

And this new crowd you’re hanging with. Quite the aggressive bunch, aren’t they? Remember how your old friends in New York and London used to dance and sing together? How they got in watergun wars and laughed? Remember when we all sang along to your songs and didn’t yell the ENTIRE time so that no one could hear the story itself? Your leather chap boy sort of ruined my night by reading every single shoutout in all Rocky Horror Picture Show history out from his smartphone. His smartphone!! He didn’t even have the traditional shoutouts memorized. And he was aggressive. You should dump him. Brad’s better looking anyway.

So Rocky…I’m glad we had this little talk. I still love you. Your fashion, your insanity, your camp. But this chaos and aggression…I can’t be having it. I’d hate for us to turn into Facebook friends, with me occasionally pulling out my DVD or quoting from you in some ironic pop culturally stunted way. We should remain in each other’s lives. Perhaps you should check out ODU or CNU? A theater group with professionalism keeping the games on par and the volume up loud enough to actually hear “Sweet Transvestite.”

Here’s hoping we can work this out. I shutter with anticipa……tion.

Vanity

All is Vanity by Charles Allan Gilbert

I just bought a print of this after being haunted by it for about 20 years. I first saw it in elementary school as some sort of "trick of the eye" exercise. This was when art class existed in elementary school--or in school at all for that matter.

It's not the best done work of all time and I'm not sure if the original is in a museum or anything like that but I can't stop staring at it.

Saturday Playlist

pic: thelineofbestfit.com

Brian Jonestown Massacre: 3 Albums

 Started with Strung Out in Heaven. My favorite kind of poprock. I wish more people loved him. He’s prolific and schitzophrenic and has swagger and sadness.

Songs like “Love” “Wisdom” or “Maybe Tomorrow” are simple, like most BJM songs. There’s a sweetness mixed with wisdom and then complete blotto lyrics like calling a rival “shit for brains.” Classy.

He’s into instruments. Banjo’s and tambourines aren’t uncommon in the grungy hippie rock he produces.

pic: farm1.static.flickr

Moved on to My Bloody Underground.

Piano is as good as anything in a Polanski movie on songs like “We Are the Niggers of the World.” And the orgy that is “Who Cares Why”—dontcha wish you were in a New Year’s Eve firedance while this is being conceived? It’s sooo communal.

I also like the unprofessionalism that goes with most BJM. If it sounds like it was recorded in a garage, there’s a good chance that it was. For anyone who has seen Dig!, you know BJM fluctuates wildly between rock star hedonism and full on gutterville. The music’s no different, except it’s all good. It just ebbs and flows from beauty and melody to anger and distortion in the span of two or three tracks.

pic: punkglobe.com

Kept it going. Listened to Tepid Peppermint Wonderland next. The first track, “All Around You” is tongue-in-cheek and druggy and Monkee’d. You have to admit Anton is a weird wicked genius, just screaming and cackling through the song.

“Open Heart Surgery” reminds me of my cousin Boop’s recordings. Sad melancholy pop 90s smile :)

“It Girl” is Lee Hazlewood meets Raveonettes.

from their Myspace

pic: ascap.com

Moved on to Delegate.

This was a Richmond rock band in the mid 2000’s who were so amazing. They played Norfolk a lot. They opened for Franz Ferdinand at the 930 in DC. We hung out at SXSW once. The first song is “And the Lights Just Flickered Out.” So did they, which is a bummer.

“If tears were years then I’d be dead by now.” The way Darren sang this in “Modern Man” melts my ears a little. Sad I only have this recording. I remember the way the sounds hit you from all angles at their live shows, especially the smaller ones at places like Belmont or Backstage Café.

The falsetto’s in “All My Alibis” are some of the best you’ll hear. There’s a Smiths or Cure misery to it wrapped in swirly Snow Patrol-ey clouds.

from their Myspace

In keeping with the DIY spirit, I went to Children of Spy out of Murfreesboro TN. They'll be playing Winston's here on July 15.

IMMEDIATELY--INSTANTANEOUSLY-I thought Eagles of Death Metal. This quickly swerved south...like Neko Case South. I like it for the car. Need a few more songs to see if I might like it live.

A few minutes later: Not 100% in love. Must say, if you like this, Winston's Cafe couldn't be a more perfect venue for this band. Unless we could get some sweet outside picnic & wine indie action going on--because that would, in fact, be better.. Another place I'd dig these guys would be at 6pm Saturday at Bonarroo. I dug Bright Eyes that way.

And I realize....Murfreesboro is by Bonnarioo--it's the nearet town. I keep hearing new bands all the time out of there. I just saw Glossary (also from there) open for Lucero last month at Jewmom. And I hear more and more people speak positively about it. I've been there a handful of times and thought it was nice.

In livin la vida local this week, I thought a lot about the goods and bads of Norfolk. I shant be travellin' soon, but I did wiki Murfreesboro and it sounded up and coming. Kudos to Winston's for booking them and all the other super DIY bands trying their hardest. Here's Hannah & Jesse's take on the best venue in Chesapeake.

They get a solid B- with added sweet tea (peach schnapps optional).

pic: amdoc.org

Then went to Johnny Cash. Learned the words to "The One on the Right is on the Left." This was, ironically, the second most prevelent theme of my week after the aforementioned "livin' tha local life." Thanks Art/Everywhere and Cooch. You both made me pace, laugh out loud, and drink. No matter it was for different reasons.

HILARIOUS! Better lyrics than "I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die." Click the link for the full, but here's a sample from the chorus:

They were long on musical ability
Folks thought they would go far

But political incompatibility led to their downfall

Well, the one on the right was on the left

And the one in the middle was on the right
And the one on the left was in the middle

And the guy in the rear was a Methodist

 

pic: farm3.static.flickr.com

 

On to tonight's local scene: Today the Moon Tomorrow the Sun are back and I am stokey-stoked. Click here for my thoughts from last fall's AltDaily.

 

Still riding a good culture wave between Phoenix and Art/Everywhere, I think The Boot tonight is indie pop dance dessert.

On the Road On the Screen

They're making it into a movie. Hopefully it doesn't suck, as it means a lot to me and many others. Kids who are going to see it because Bella from Twilight is in it kind of makes me nervous.

This is Sam Riley. He will play Sal Paradise (aka Jack Keruoac).

This is Garrett Hedlund. I couldn't find a non-douchey picture of him, which means I'm not thrilled he's playing Dean Moriarty (aka Neal Cassady).

This is Kristen Stewart.  She bites her lip a lot.

Behind the Lens

I just rented Black, White + Gray, which likes to market itself as the documentary on curator Sam Wagstaff's relationship with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe and poet/musician Patti Smith. This is up front at Naro I'm sure due to the success of Patti's Just Kids, which I wrote about this past winter and is in my top favorite books of all time. This documentary says that's what it's about.

It isn't.

Sam by Robert

It's complimentary mainly to Sam, showing us how important his contributions to art have been. He is the one responsible for bringing photography to us in a way that isn't simply documentary, but emotive, passionate, and alive. He is absolutely the person all photography fans owe your thanks to. He made it okay for galleries to show.

pic: Teacher Dude's Grill and BBQ's Flickr

He made it art.

pic: diaphotography.files.wordpress.com

Prior to Sam's amassing the insane collection of historical and modern photography (a collection that ended up being the Getty's), he worked in fine art, curating paint and sculpture mediums. He started getting more interested in photos. The onset of his relationship (partnership would not really be the correct word) with Robert changed directions for the older, richer, more educated Sam, resulting in the merging of worlds

pic: Divya Srinivasan/New Yorker

Robert's art in the beginning was shocking to many. My favorite outlook comes from Patti Smith's Just Kids, when she lovingly and eloquently--girlishly, even--recounts Robert's overwhelming need to produce art as well as immerse himself in all the sensations surrounding his subjects. He had a need to shock because that would ensure his success. There was no alternative to being an artist and no alternative to a certain dark side he wanted to document. She didn't always understand his art, but always understood he was an artist and none of this could be helped. Sam liked to call him "my shy pornographer."

Though Robert's art can easily be described as perverse, there is no doubt he had a very talented eye. Had Sam and Robert not linked up, I'm not sure either of them would have been as prestigious in the photography world. Robert needed Sam's money to promote his art. Sam needed Robert's venomous inspiration to urge him further into collecting and promoting the medium as a whole.

"This book is about pleasure, the pleasure of looking and the pleasure of seeing, like watching people dancing through an open window. They seem a little mad at first until you realize they hear the song that you are watching."

This is entire text of A Book of Photographs, Sam's coffee table book.

Andy by Robert

The film discusses how in the 1970s, Sam purchased a photograph of a shell for $10,000, the highest amount ever paid for a photograph at the time. Everyone thought this was the pinnacle, that the photography market couldn't go any higher. According to Wikipedia, that record now stands at $3.34 million. Ironically, Robert Mapplethorpe makes the top ten list as of 2010 with his photograph of Andy Warhol, which sold for over $600,000 in 2006.

Sam by Robert

Patti by Sam

Patti says she felt Sam's life was a purgatory, where he had to move among different strata, be different people, always hoping to get to his personal paradise in the end.

Tragedy of AIDS struck them both down. Sam died first, and left his entire art collection and most of his money to Robert. Two years later, when Robert died, he had sold a large lot off to Christie's for a huge profit. His estate established the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation with these funds, with an initial mandate of furthering the recognition of photography as an art form of the same importance as painting and sculpture. During the last weeks of his life, he added the second mandate of supporting medical research in the area of AIDS and HIV infection.

Patti is mentioned on the Foundation's website. Sam is not.

Cyclones

I have this Coney Island state of mind. Wherever I look, whatever I find, it's nothing if not second rate to a Nathan's and a ride on rickety wooden cars overlooking hope and madness and never hate.---jESiO

 

As I blog from time to time, Coney Island is one of my muses. Photographer Bruce Gilden spent the 1970s and 1980s there taking pictures which are now going to be on exhibit at the Amador Gallery in NYC. Wish I was there. Instead, below are a few more of my favorite pics from his collection.