I’d meant to blog about this over a month ago! I found this while watching What a Way to Go with Gene Kelly and Shirley MacLaine.
Wanna see where the name “Flaming Lips” came from? Watch this clip.
Xanadu
I’m kind of obsessed with Gene Kelly right now. I revisited Singin’ in the Rain a few months ago, then I saw him in What a Way to Go, and now I can’t get enough of him. He makes singing and dancing seem so easy, so joyful, like anyone could do it, despite the fact that he’s an athletic, acrobatic dancer who can sing as well as anybody in the Rat Pack. His smile, the way his eyes light up, and the way he coos while he talks just make the whole world cheer up a bit (And no, I’m not gay. I think.).
So I let my girlfriend talk me into watching Xanadu last night, the insane musical from 1980 that featured him, Olivia Newton-John, and Michael Beck (the dude from The Warriors). I guess every great star caps their career with a weird half blunder (think Bela Lugosi in Plan 9 from Outer Space, or Robert Preston in The Last Starfighter), and Xanadu was no different–a neon-infused cavalcade of colors and rollerskates that’s part Tron, part 1980 Floor Show, part Superman II, part Starlight Express, and one of the most over-the-top movies ever to barely break even. As Michael Beck put it once, “The Warriors opened lots of doors for me that Xanadu closed.”
Gene Kelly was around seventy at the time, but he performed with as much vim and vigor as he ever had. I was obsessed with how well he’d preserved his voice all those years, so that it still sounded light as a feather–my girlfriend was more impressed with the fancy footwork he could still do. Both are great achievements for a senior citizen, though perhaps his greatest achievement in Xanadu was a constant look of delight that in hindsight must have been an utter fabrication. I mean, look at this scene, and tell me the man dancing and smiling was really convinced this movie was a good idea:
Despite the fact that this movie is just so, so wrong, I loved it. Olivia Newton-John is cute as a button and sings and dances pretty damn well, and a lot of the music is done by ELO (you know, Jeff Lynne’s pre-Wilburys project). And a lot of the scenes are filmed in Santa Monica (one at the very same bluff used in Lovedoll Superstar). My only regret is that the movie didn’t end ten minutes earlier than it did, before the opening of Gene Kelly’s club resulted in a never-ending rollerskating ruckus that left me yearning to see more tap-dancing Gene. My galpal liked it, though, because they let Olivia go through six or seven costume changes in a row real quick, and she gets to sing an ELO song. They used the ELO version, not hers, on the official Xanadu soundtrack, so you can only hear her sing the title track in the movie itself.
Update: For a more thorough history of the production, check out wetcircuit.
Pump It Up! March 27, 2008
My band recorded a video last night until almost four in the morning, which accounts for my dour expression and bloodshot eyes today.
Originally I’d wanted some kind of concept video–like, maybe we could be running from zombies, in a neon-lit cave made of wrinkled black trashbags, while scantily-clad heavy metal vixens struck menacingly robotic poses. But our singer/guitarist/band-leader had us go with something more simple, something modeled heavily on this:
After seeing what we could achieve with just a pure white background and some good lighting, I think I’ve rediscovered the joy of a basic music video. I mean, look at Elvis Costello and his gang in the video above (and not just his jelly ankles). They’re posed as though all set up for a photo shoot that someone just coincidentally brought a motion picture camera to. The simplicity of it allows the music to stand center stage, and really articulates the attitude of the band and the song in a way even a live concert setting couldn’t.
Even the worst band looks less retarded playing in front of a simple white background. I remember seeing the video below as a teenager and thinking “My god, these guys may not be total douchebags after all!” Admittedly, the song itself is a cut above their regular tunes, but doesn’t this video make you hate Stone Temple Pilots a little bit less (even the renfair looking guy)?
Of course, it’s much better to reminisce about good grunge bands than bad, so to change topics slightly, thinking about the song “Pump It Up” always makes me think about the Mudhoney version that appeared on the awesome Freedom of Choice compilation that came out in ’92 or ’93 so. It has an organ in it, a first as far as I know for Mudhoney, so as a kid I was thinking “this is where Mudhoney turns the next corner!” Instead, music changed for the worst, and Mudhoney treaded water, recording the song again for the guilty pleasure I call P.C.U.
Mudhoney didn’t like the movie version, as I’m just discovering now through their Flipside interview (by Bob Cantu, 1998):
Bob: Did your cover of “Pump It Up” end up in the credits of a movie? Some comedy?
Mark & Steve: “P.C.U.”
Bob: Is that the one with Rodney Dangerfield?
Steve: No, David Spade. Some eighth generation knock off of Animal House.
Mark: They’re calling it “the Animal House of the ’90s.”
Bob: I just saw the credits in the video store.
Steve: Not one of our higher moments.
Mark: It’s probably one of my least favorite things that we’ve done.
Steve: I don’t mind it that much.
Mark: I think it’s bad.
Bob: I thought it was kinda cool at the time.
Mark: We had a perfectly good eight track version of it that we did for this benefit compilation “Freedom Of Choice.” It’s all New Wave covers and it was for Planned Parenthood and it was perfectly fine. And then this guy, Ralph Saul, was that his name? – we may as well let people know who it was – he was putting together the soundtrack to this movie. He had this brainstorm, why don’t you guys do “Pump It Up”? We’re like, we already did it. So, he takes us into this studio and he’s got two twenty four tracks slaved. We’re on forty eight tracks here and we’re doing a song that we’ve already done on eight track! Me, Steve and Matt did like, what?
Steve: Twelve different tracks of backing vocals!
Mark: I just had this horrible feeling, like, I should just go now. So instead what we did was we went into the back room and watched the Playboy Channel while this guy did whatever he did in that other room.
Steve: We didn’t care anymore.
Mark: It’s out of our hands. It’s nothing like I want to be a part of. It’s too late. The damage is done.
Bob: Is it on the “P.C.U.” soundtrack, if there is such a thing?
Mark: Yeah.
Steve: There’s a single of it.
Mark: With George Clinton’s P Funk All Stars on the other side.
Bob: How did that happen?
Steve: It’s one of our stranger split singles!
Bob: Often the best collectable items are really someone else’s mistakes.
Steve: Yep. But they paid well for it. It’s forgotten.
Bob: Do you get a little something every time it runs on cable?
Mark: An angry call! “What the fuck were you thinking!” Click.
Ah, Mudhoney. To be young and enjoy contemporary music again!
Of course, I loved P.C.U. at the time. Still kinda do. Unfortunately, when I arrived at college shortly thereafter, I found it much more similar to Higher Learning (just replace the skinheads with crystal meth), but that’s a story for another time.
The Lemon Pipers on LSD! March 26, 2008
Of course they took acid. You know when you hear a song about love’s world of blueberry blue, you’re probably hearing something influenced by the wide world of pleasure-enhancing, mood-altering, hallucination-enducing psychedelic drugs. And though they are pegged as a bubblegum band (hell, they’re on Buddah Records), in many ways the Lemon Pipers fall into the Syd Barrett/Lewis Carroll side of sixties rock, with music that sounds almost sinister in its sweetness and childlike lyricism.
But few bands in the sixties actually appeared on television clearly zonked out of their minds on LSD! The way these guys attack the set they’re on, bashing stuffed animals with guitars and growling for the camera, proves they’re true flower punks in a way the Jefferson Airplane never were. Check out this footage, and make sure to watch the interview at the end where the singer keeps talking even when he doesn’t have the microphone.
Chichen Itza – the Pyramid of Kukulcan at the vernal equinox
We finally got some good photos up of the pyramid at Chichen Itza that we took two weeks ago. Here’s one taken by my glorious girlfriend. Since it was nearly the vernal equinox, notice that the shadows from the corner of the pyramid align themselves against the right stairwell, so that it appears there are seven triangular shadows and six triangles of light, making thirteen triangles in all going down the length of the stairwell. Note the head of the serpent at the bottom–the stairwells are basically statues of Kukulcan, the feathered snake god, and the triangles are the zig-zag pattern of his scales. According to our Mayan guide, even after the population of Chichen Itza left en masse to avoid an invasion, the peoples of nearby cities would make pilgrimage to Chichen Itza every year on the equinoxes to worship Kukulcan.
One interesting archaeological feature of this plaza is that if you stand across from the pyramid, in front of the Kukulcan stairway, and make a loud clap or bang, you hear exactly seven echoes! The site was built for acoustics as well as for the seasonal shadowplay.
The little doorway under the stairs is not original–this leads to an excavation of the smaller pyramid beneath the larger one, which the Mayans covered over when they supersized it over a thousand years ago. It’s one of the many places that tourists can’t go anymore, just because some stupid kids tagged the ruins to the point where archaeologists feared for the preservation of the site. But I was there a decade ago, and really missed returning to the haunting chamber within, that still houses a jaguar throne encrusted with jade.
Cozumel has its own song! But don’t ask this guy for any Sabbath. March 21, 2008
When my gal and I and my brother and future sister-in-law were exploring the Yucatan a couple days ago, we made our first exploration of the island of Cozumel. Though the beaches weren’t as nice compared to Playa del Carmen, it was much more laid back, cheaper, and tastier! Also, the traveling street musicians were a bit better, doing interesting and melodic stuff on guitar and xylophone, and generally earning their pesos.
At one point, though, a fellow with a loud voice and guitar was serenading a couple of folks at our outdoor taco stand with a Led Zeppelin song! I wanted to have a little fun, so I asked him if he knew any punk rock, like the Ramones, or maybe some Ozzy Osbourne or Black Sabbath. I thought it would be a funny little gag and that he’d maybe laugh and then play something more traditional. Instead he kind of got ticked off and said he could play Ozzy, but it was too simple–and showed us by angrily jamming out a couple bar chords really quick. I finally mollified him by asking if he could play “Perfidia,” but he was peeved at us, peeved at the restauranteurs (who clearly didn’t want him there unless he was buying something to eat), and it just went down badly.
Anyway, anonymous street musician guy, someone else caught you on YouTube playing the traditional (and much more enjoyable) “Cozumel” song (I have to find out its origin, because it’s really good and catchy, and we heard it at least three or four times from different folks that night). Sorry we couldn’t become buddies, because after watching you get all Vegas-y on the streets in this clip, you seem like a fun guy! I hope I can make amends by spreading your fame a little.
Igloo Tornado show at the Black Maria gallery tonight
This isn’t a review, but a reminder–the Igloo Tornado art show ends tonight. Go to the wrap-up showing/party tonight at the Black Maria gallery in Atwater Village (if you’re lucky enough to be in the L.A. area tonight).
The Goldbug Variations, Glenn Gould, and William Gillespie
I was supposed to be writing a blog about Richard Powers’s The Goldbug Variations, and how I finished the book while on a plane to Mexico, with Glenn Gould’s 50′s and 80′s recordings of Bach’s Goldberg Variations tinkling in my ears via the power of my new iPod, and how once again I was overwhelmed by Powers’s genius, in his ability to weave science and literature and music into a book that actually teaches you about fields you are unfamiliar with, and then compares bits from the knowledge you just learned to bits of things you already know about, making new metaphors that you now desperately need to resolve puzzles you never even knew existed before. It’s not my first Powers novel nor my favorite (that would be Gain), but it’s the only one with such a direct link to music, with a pattern roughly based on that of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, and which basically is a companion piece to Bach and specifically to Glenn Gould’s recordings (really, one cannot enjoy this book to its fullest without being familiar with and possibly simultaneously listening to Gould’s Goldberg Variations, as both works inform the reader/viewer about the other to a great degree).
But in researching the blog I wanted to write about, I got distracted and wound up being mesmerised by another author I’m sure will soon become a favorite of mine–William Gillespie, whose essay “Mapping The Gold Bug Variations” did a great job of covering all the bases I wanted to but also involved more research than I’d cared to do, including two interviews with Richard Powers that, like a smart-aleck, he only used a one-sentence quote from. I briefly checked out some works Gillespie had been involved with (including a book called 2002: A Palindrome Story in 2002 Words that is one giant palindrome), as well as his publishing company over at Spineless Books, and I’m going to be doing a lot of reading over at this site in the next week or two.
Chichen Itza – why do selfish brats spoil everything? March 19, 2008
Y’all miss me around here? I just got back from visiting Playa del Carmen and other parts thereabout in the Yucatan, so haven’t been able to do much writing or editing.
I went for a wedding, but of course my group did a bunch of site-seeing at the various Mayan ruins in that stretch of Mexico. And for the first time in ten years we revisited Chichen Itza, once the religious center of the Mayan world in the Yucatan, and one of the most lovingly restored of all the sites. It has one of the hugest ball courts, a well-excavated cenote, a grisly execution platform covered in stone-carved skulls where the heads of enemies were once displayed on pikes, and a rounded observatory once used to study the night sky for its secrets about time and the planet Venus.
It has a huge pyramid too, the Pyramid of Kukulcan the snake god. But here’s one thing you won’t see people doing:
They won’t let you go up the pyramid anymore! Almost everything in the whole place was roped off!
I’d visited this site in my college days, and this time around was excited to show my girlfriend all the cool stuff I’d seen there before: the spectacular view from the top, the penthouse temple, and inside the pyramid, the excavations of the older pyramid that preceded it, including a preserved anthropomorphic altar and a jaguar statue encrusted with jade. But apparently due to graffiti people have been leaving inside the pyramid’s temple walls, they have closed the stairways inside and out for good. I’m sure it didn’t help that a woman fell to her death from the stairway a while back, but our guide said it was primarily the graffiti that caused the closure. Some dude tagged a temple, and now nobody gets to see it.
I am so pissed off at this nameless stranger or strangers. What royal fuck would go to an ancient site, venerated by the Mayan people (and yeah, this region is still mostly Mayan ethnically), and write “Z-Krew” over an ancient stucco painting that’s survived a thousand years of tropical humidity? Graffiti and tagging has arrived at a bad, bad place in our culture, to the point where I really think kids who tag have lost all sense of etiquette and propriety.
There was a time when taggers spared murals and works of art, and sprayed their larger-than-life pseudonyms on billboards and the sides of subways. But the early days of tagging, when New York slum kids righteously forced their way back into the debate about who owns the public space, have long since passed–now it’s suburban white kids, rich kids, who think their name deserves to be on everything, and criterion or talent be damned! The type of kid who can afford to jet to the Yucatan and drink Cabo on the beach has no excuse for destroying the culture of a proud and forgotten people with his own bullshit, stolen attempts at self-expression, but I’m sure that’s who this kid was. I’d like to see his head of a fucking pike. What a douchebag.
P.S. Despite this unfortunate setback, we were lucky enough to be there in the afternoon, a couple days before the vernal equinox, when the shadow from one corner of the pyramid forms a diamond-shaped snake’s body along one stairway of the temple as the sun sets. Photos will be posted here very soon.
Pocahaunted and the silent screen March 13, 2008
I picked up a recent print version of L.A. Record from the floor of our house (left there by one of our constant steams of guests and well-wishers) and saw that local L.A. noise band Pocahaunted was on the cover. Though I prefer their previous incarnation, Knit Witch (R.I.P. or on hiatus?), I’m glad to see these gals have been playin’ out and opening for folks like Sonic Youth.
One weird thing from the interview, though, was when Bethany revealed that she hates silent films. I mean, whaaa? Who hates silent movies? I know they can be creepy, but that’s part of the fun, and dammit, Pocahaunted is kinda creepy too. Look at the film below, and tell me this ain’t awesome (music by Fantomas):
More importantly, think what a powerhouse combination it would be if Pocahaunted actually did a show where they scored a silent film! I’ve seen so many silent films with live accompaniment, and it’s an experience that combines the being-there realness of theater with the spectacle of film–and yet at the same time you almost get the quiet contemplation of seeing still photography in a gallery. Pocahaunted seems uniquely suited to lend a hand for such a venture.
I do agree with Bethany, though, that pretty much all sea creatures are creepy.
P.S. Here’s another clip of The Golem that skips straight to the witchery! I love this fucking movie.
P.P.S. For some reason they’re not putting the interview online, only in print. So you’ll just have to go find it.
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