Pinky's Paperhaus

Don't dis the Zep

Pittsburgh Pirates fans, who've been hanging in through a pretty dismal season, got treated to post-game fireworks shows this week. And there was a live band! Problem is the band, Me First & The Gimme Gimmes, is a collection of punk rockers who play cover songs (blues, country, even classic rock). The satiric crew includes punk rock legend Fat Mike (lead singer of NOFX and proprietor of Fat Wreck Chords) and lead singer Spike Slawson, who grew up in Pittsburgh. They began their set playing songs the baseball team liked, including "Stairway to Heaven."

"There's a fine line between irreverence and lampooning," said Mr. Slawson, "and [the Gimmes] kind of ride that line. It's not supposed to be a homage -- that's not what we do. 'Stairway to Heaven' is, like sacred, though, and everyone started booing. I felt it in the pit of my stomach. That's the most people that ever booed me in my life."

Although the band was booked to play 3 nights under the fireworks, they won't be back. I love their response to the debacle. Spike Slawson tells the Pittsbugh Post-Gazette: "We're a punk band. Getting booed by a sports crowd makes us viable."

That's the way to white trash it, baby

The brilliant Jason Toney puts up "officially the whitest thing I've ever posted" on his blog, Negro Please, and it is so excellent I'm teary-eyed. Kelly Clarkson clambers on stage with her boyfriend to sing along with hairmetal cover band Metal Skool and it's boozy and while definitely well shot and edited, feels unscripted. MetaFilter loves it, I love it. How do you do white trash right? Swig from the Chivas bottle and sing "Sweet Child O' Mine."

In more Friday-is-the-Day-to-Watch-Videos-on-the-Interwebs news, I caught this funny short Everything I Know About Drugs I Learned From Hollywood on LAist -- it's an excellently compiled drugtaking collage from movies and TV. Defamer thinks it's funny, which is good for the budding LA filmmaking collective pixelpushers in general and director/editor Elina Shatkin in particular (go, Elina!) Frank Sinatra writhing in withdrawl from The Man With The Golden Arm? You know it's in there. As is Punky Brewster asking the local ponytailed pusher about "Nose candy." Trust me. The first time you watch is free.

Ladies of song, 1920s style

As a fan of 1920s music I'm always a little frustrated by recording quality. Sure, it's kind of charming to hear the scratchy reproduction, the hollow sound of too-big rooms, but not that charming. That's why it's great that a few contemporary musicians are doing 1920s music right. Right now.

Janet Klein is interviewed by LAist this week. Back when I had a short-lived indie rock column on ArtistDirect.com, I talked to Janet and discovered that she was a longtime collector of music from the early 1900s -- before the internets, she and other enthusiasts would swap sheet music and cassette tapes through the mail (talk about old-fashioned!). So her song selection is off the beaten path and has a marvelously sassy twist, like "How Could  Little Red Riding Hood?" and "Real Estate Papa, You Ain't Gonna Subdivide Me." Her backup band, the Parlor Boys, are terrific live, and rumor has it they include a fellow who plays in R. Crumb's band. Some song samples here (scroll down).

All of which reminded me that the Ditty Bops are about to hit Pittsburgh -- this Saturday, the 19th, at Garfield Artworks. The Ditty Bops are a pair of girls who (mostly) write their own music which is very 1920s influenced and kinda folk-ish (take a listen to "Moon Over the Freeway.") But they're entirely 21st century: they're a couple and they're doing their band's tour of the US via bicycle. And I thought my trip from Los Angeles to Pittsburgh was long!

So this week, both LA and Pittsburgh can rock out like Cole Porter. It's De-Lovely.

 

There's just no getting over you

Arthur Lee has died.

The founding member and lead singer of Love (a pre-google band name if I've ever heard one), Lee crafted psychedelic, sometimes symphonic rock that had clear catchy melodies, shiny horns and  lyrics that were both straightforward and bafflingly new.

He convinced his label, Elektra, to sign this local band called The Doors. He had good taste, if not good sense; after shooting a gun in the air during a dispute, he spent 5 years in prison in the 1990s; he was on the wrong side of California's 3 strikes law.

He did tour in recent years, but his backup band was the atrocious LA pop band Baby Lemonade (note, if you dare, this execrable harmonizing on the fantastic "Alone Again Or." LAist has a couple of watchable videos, tho). I was waiting for him to get a new backup band, and I never saw him. What an idiot.

I learned about the band from my friend Elizabeth in college; she knew more about music then than I did, and still does. How about this song from 1967's Forever Changes:

Live and Let Live

Oh, the snot has caked against my pants
It has turned into crystal
There's a bluebird sitting on a branch
I guess I'll take my pistol
I've got it in my hand
Because he's on my land

And so the story ended
Do you know it oh so well
Well should you need I'll tell you
The end-end-end-end-end-end-end-end
And...

Yes I've seen you sitting on the couch
I recognize your artillery
I have seen you many times before
Once when I was an Indian
And I was on my land
Why can't you understand

Served my time
Served it well
You made my soul
a cell

Write the rules
In the sky
But ask your leaders
Why       Why

Oh, the snot has caked against my pants...

Beck bombs in LA

If you remember Beck as a guy who used like to put on a show, you won't want to read about his puppet-heavy appearance at the Wiltern in Los Angeles last week.

Those Scientologists. They can ruin anything.

When a book becomes a band

Yesterday I heard about a band called Blood Meridian -- I'm a little late, since their second record is coming out in the US in August. Thing is, I didn't actually hear what they sounded like. So I tooled around the internet and found this recent live performance on Canada's CBC3. And I wonder, is this what Cormac McCarthy would imagine Blood Meridian should sound like?

I know there is the band The Books ... are there lots of bands named for books?