Here’s a treat for those of you who like drum and bass or have an interest in copyright and creativity — a YouTube video that covers the history of one of the most-sampled drum breaks in current pop music, the “Amen Break”, named after the drum break in the song Amen, Brother by the Winstons. Although it’s a video, the visuals are mostly of a record player spinning — it might as well have been an audio recording.
By way of the MP3 blog The Catbirdseat, I found an interesting album by Clawjob called Space Crackers. It can very aptly described as an Space Rock Opera Concept Album. That may not be descriptive enough for you, but luckily the folks at The Catbirdseat have come up with this diagram that graphically explains what the album is like:
The first four tracks on the album are available for download at their site. I’ve listened to them and enjoyed the nerdy sci-fi lyrics and indie-pop chords and plan to buy the whole thing. Give it a listen!
Gotta love YouTube — someone’s posted the video for Lee Aaron’s Metal Queen! For those of you who didn’t watch MuchMusic in the 1980’s, this video was a key element in my sweaty teenage fantasies. It featured the lovely Lee Aaron (nee Karen Lynn Greening, according to her Wikipedia article) as the Metal Queen, who wore a buckskin bikini and wielded a big sword. She’s captured by evil druids, who chain her and try to sacrifice her on a large pyre. She does a lot of sweaty thrashing about before being resuced by a giant laser robot spider, which I always thought was a bit too expeident in its rescue. You could let her thrash about just a little more, couldn’t you, Spider?!
Everybody sing!
She come like thunder.. risin’ from the ground
She’ll bring you under she moves without a sound
She holds a passion, like no other could
Now when she talks the word’s understood
Writin’, electric song
So get a ticket you jus’ got to get on
(Metal Queen…)
(Metal Queen…)
They come to see her move across the stage
One single motion, turns into a rage
She holds a power, like no other man
Now when she runs catch ‘er if you can
Writin’, electric song
So get a ticket you jus’ got to get on
(Metal Queen…) (rocks your soul)
(Metal Queen…) (takes control)
(Metal Queen…) (rocks your soul)
(Metal Queen…) (takes control)
Oh… oh… oh… oh…
Oh… oh… oh… oh….. oh!
She come like thunder risin’ from the ground
She takes you under she moves without a sound
She reeks of power, like no other man
Well now she’s runnin’.. catch ‘er if you can
Writin’ electric song
So get a ticket you jus’ got to get on
(Metal Queen…) (rocks your soul)
(Metal Queen…) (takes control)
(Metal Queen…) (rocks your soul)
(Metal Queen…) (takes control)
Yow!
“Yow”, indeed.
Every couple of weeks, Carson T. Foster, host and creator of Kick Ass Karaoke, hosts a karaoke night at The Social, one of the spots that’s making West Queen West an increasingly popular destination. Not only do you get karaoke; you also get spaghetti (meat or veggie) at $2 a bowl and there’s always a chance that Rachel McAdams, who hangs out in the area, will drop by. Wendy and I dropped in early, which gave us a chance to hang out and chat with Carson, which is always interesting and always a pleasure.
I like the crowd at the Social, and Carson’s karaoke night there has an interesting feel to it that I think has been missing from the Sunday karaoke nights — it feels like his nights at the original venue, the Bovine Sex Club, circa 1999 when they were still new. Maybe it’s the crowd (a rather indie rock hipsterish bunch), perhaps it’s the Social’s nice open space; it might even be just having a new crowd to surprise with the accordion. I can’t put my finger on it, but I really like the vibe.
The other thing I like is the projector, which allows the lyrics to appear in large type behind the performer. With my flash turned off and the exposure turned up high, I was able to get some pretty nice arty shots:
This is a priceless moment in Canadian rock history: John Mikl Thor, better known as “Thor”, performing on Merv Griffin’s show in 1976. Not only does he perform a number called backed by Merv’s band, but he also performs his trademark hot water bottle stunt. This is rock cheese at its best and worst.
Standing behind Thor is the Watermelon Jug Band, who must be thinking “The long nights rehearsing, the long days in the studio, the endless touring, the sacrifices…it’s all come to this.”
I caught Thor’s live show a couple of years back; I wrote about him here.
(By the bye, I think that the number Thor performs, Everybody Wants a Piece of the Action, would make a terribly fitting anthem for ICT Toronto.)
Back in 2000, I made a little extra pocket money with the accordion thanks to a club booking agent named Joa. Joa worked for a club called This is London, a “meet market” for the investment bankers, Andersen consultants and the like, and the women who wanted to hook up with them.
Joa hired me to add strange twists to the evening. Sometimes the job was simply to stand on top of the DJ booth and play Deee-Lite’s Groove is in the Heart (a terribly easy song; it’s got a I-IV pattern in the key of A flat) on the accordion along with the DJ. Othertimes, it was a little mor einvolved, such as the time when she put a beret on me and had me perform a Paris-in-the-twneties version of Fatboy Slim’s Praise You (another easy song in A flat; this one’s got a VII-IV-I pattern).
These gigs never lasted longer than three minutes, after which I was given $100 and asked to promptly leave the club. Although anyone who performed at the club was allowed to enter without forking over the $20 cover — clubs often use ridiculous cover charges as a sort of “class filter” — performers weren’t allowed to be part of the club crowd on the night they performed.
“Nothing against you, Joey darling,” as Joa would constantly remind me, “but there needs to be a wall between artist and audience, you see.”
Since I was effectively being paid $2000 an hour and since my friends were waiting for me at the dance club down the street, I didn’t complain. Besides, the drinks at This is London were ridiculously overpriced and I often overheard banter like “If you stand him on his money, he gets taller.”
In May of that year, Joa called me and asked if I’d like to try something a little different. She also booked acts for a club called “Money” (for an idea of what the club is like, see this photo gallery).
Money’s dance floor had a really high ceiling, over which the storage rooms and offices were located. Someone had cut a hole in the floor of the storage room/office level, through which they often lowered go-go dancers in a harness to swing high above the audience. Joa had come up with the idea to lower me, with my accordion, and have me play along with a DJ tune while suspended above the audience. They gave me a trial run, during which I played along with I Will Survive. Hooking up a microphone to me seemed to be more work than the sound guy wanted to do and the manager wasn’t terribly enamored with the whole accordion concept, so the plan was scrapped. Still, for a brief shining I moment, I got to have my own wire team and I did play accordion in mid-air.
Although nobody shot any pictures of me in the harness, I took some pictures of one of the go-go dancers, who took the harness for a test before I was strapped in. This shot is one of my favourites:
I got some really good photos at Hawksley Workman’s gig in December 1999. I really should post these on the blog and to my flickr set.