night out

Funk Friday: “They Say I’m Different,” Betty Davis

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To say this is one of my personal theme songs – me, a woman who lives for music –  would be like a devout Christian saying that the ten commandments were the rules they lived by.  It’s so obvious it sounds dumb.  It’s not at all lost on me either that there are few well-known female funk musicians, so I also bow down to Ms. Davis for kicking it in a male-dominated field.  And finally, she’s belting out a funk song about how people think she’s weird for loving the music she does.  That’s a pretty baller combination.  So, whenever I’ve been made to feel weird, or whenever someone patronizes me because I’m a woman, I lean on Ms. Davis for a little pick-me-up.  Works like a charm.

—

They say I’m different ’cause I’m a piece of sugar cane
Sweet to the core that’s why I got rhythm
My Great Grandma didn’t like to foxtrot,
no instead she spitted snuff and boogied to Elmore James

Spit On!

They say I’m different ’cause I eat chitlins
I can’t help it I was born and raised on ’em
That’s right, oh, every mornin’ I had to slop the hogs
and they be gettin off humpin to John Lee Hooker

Gettin off!

They say I’m different ’cause I’m a piece of sugar cane
and when I kick my legs I got rhythm
My Great Grandpa was a blues lover
He be rockin his moonshine to B.B. King and Jimmy Reed

Rock on pappy!

That’s why they say I’m different
That’s why they say I’m strange

Talkin bout Big Mama Thornton
Talkin bout Lightning Hopkins
Talkin bout Howlin Wolf
I’m talkin bout Albert King
Alright
Alright
Chuck Berry, Chuck Berry, Chuck Berry
When I was sweet sixteen

And that’s why they say I’m different
That’s why you think I’m strange

I’m talkin bout T. Bone Walker
I’m talkin bout Muddy Waters
I’m talkin bout Leadbelly, Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee, Son House, and Freddie King
Bessie Smith!
Bessie Smith! Oh, Oh, Hey

Oh Bo Diddley have you heard it?

That’s why they say I’m different
That’s why they say I’m strange
and that’s why they say I’m funky

Little Richard, Wild Lou, sunshine you sure can sing
Robert Johnson, Robert Johnson, Robert Johnson!
You play the blues for me

That’s why, That’s why, That’s why they say I’m different
That’s why, That’s why, That’s why they say I’m strange

Funk Friday: “! (The Song Formerly Known As),” Regurgitator

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So, like everyone, I have a number of circles of friends.  Some of them overlap, some of them don’t.  Within each circle is a person or set of people that know me really well.  And these people form their own special little subgroup – the sanctum sanctorum, if you will (or even if you won’t.  This is my blog.  Get you own, you crank).  These are people I tell everything to, who let me be crass and laugh at my dumb jokes, and don’t wig out when it’s a Friday night and I all want to do is hang out with them in our PJ’s and enjoy some microwavable chicken pot stickers and crap $3 wine from Trader Joe’s and ask questions like, “how weird would it be if humans evolved to not need noses anymore?”  People who would be down to join me if I said “I’d rather dance in ugly pants in the comfort of a lounge room in suburbia.”  Parties are where your people are.  So thank you, sanctum sanctorum.  You know who you are, and man, “things don’t get no better – better like you and me.”

Termagant Tuesday: “Big Noise from Winnetka,” Cozy Cole

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FB-s-pMt-9U

A Western, a Tarantino film, a Dragnet episode, and a burlesque show walked into a bar.  Cozy the bartender put them in a blender, added some rum, and poured the results into some instruments and called it “Big Noise From Winnetka.”  This song makes me want to race out to the nearest store and get some leopard-print horn-rimmed sunglasses, cigarette pants, a pack of smokes, and a guy who calls me a “broad.”  This song sounds so raunchy – I mean the whistle sounds like a cat-call, for one thing.  But there’s a real disconnect between this song, written in 1962, and American culture at the time.  For one thing, fashion.

Oooh...how alluring.

Oh baby.

Does that woman look like this song sounds?  Correct!  Not even close.  That’s a Doris Day woman.  What does her family look like?

Oh stop - stop - you're driving me crazy.

Oh stop – stop – you’re driving me crazy.

Yep, like that.  What television shows do they watch?  The Andy Griffith Show, Gunsmoke, Bonanza, Red Skelton, and Danny Thomas.

So there is some serious cognitive dissonance going on between saucy Cozy Cole’s jazz track and “normal” American life.  This is another reason, Tuners, why music is my favorite art medium.  It’s always ahead of the curve, carving out space for new ideas and feelings and emotions.  Without Cozy Cole, there could be no Prince.  Without Prince, there could be no Common.  I would also argue, without Cozy Cole there could be no feminist movement, but that’s another argument for another day.  People get so wrapped around the axle about time-travel when really, all you have to do is turn on your stereo.

Funk Friday: “Make Me Believe In You,” Patti Jo

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Happy Fear Day, Tune-Up fans!  (Or, Valentine’s Day, if you’re committed to living a life of mindless literalism and social norms and having people actually understand what you’re talking about.)

Before you all inundate me with messages about the glories of love and life and birds and bees and whatnot, let me pause for a second.  Love is great.  Love is glorious.  Love is also terrifying, difficult, and a royal pain in the ass.  Think of all the hundreds of billions of inputs that endlessly feed into making you who you are – the person who takes their coffee black, who prefers staying up late to getting up early, who prefers big groups to small gatherings, and will never under any circumstances wear pleat-front pants.  You and everyone you see every day are Olympic-sized swimming pools of memory-infused preferences and experience-born trigger points, some conscious and some so parked in your subconscious you don’t even know it.  In a way, there are seven billion unique languages on the planet.  And yet, in the midst of all of this, we meet people, we fall in love, and, sometimes, we find our languages have a common root.  Amazing.

This is what I ponder every February 14th that rolls around, and it always makes me think of those people who are in the beginning stages of the whole love saga.  No matter how much sang-froid one was born with, it’s impossible not to wonder about the future.  And because, in my mind, V Day is also Fear Day, it does kind of put one on the offensive.  Hit it, Patti Jo.  “You’re gonna be downright in shame if I find that you’re playing any game.  Make me believe in you.”

Modernism Monday: “Mr. Dabada,” Carlos Jean

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JTjWY8RwUQ

Have a good weekend?  That’s nice.  Get some sleep?  Have a few drinks?  Went for a hike, caught up on your scrapbooking, maybe tagged some buildings?  Did you “kick back” and maybe even “chillax?”  Cool, cool.  You know what?  Monday doesn’t care.  Monday thinks your social life – if that’s what you call your improv classes and the occasional “Thirsty Thursday” with those holier-than-thou Levant desk officers – is about as exciting as a Bob Ross marathon.  It’s kind of cute, in a way, how you saunter around on Saturday and Sunday, feeling all pleased with yourself, deliberately choosing to forget that Monday is going to jump off the top rope and drop a knee to your lower back as soon as you crank up your computer.  Five minutes until you present your new project idea?  Printer chokes on the sides.  That thing you delegated to that new guy to do last week?  Not only did he do it wrong, but he undid some of your own work, too.  Like yogurt?  Great!  It’s now all down the front of your black dress.

What Monday doesn’t know is that you have a secret weapon: Mr. Dabada.  Your music shields are up and your phasers are set to stun.  “Hey man – what the hell you doing?!”  “I…I’m going crazy!”  

Okay, Monday… let’s dance.  

Funk Friday, Part II: “(There’s A) Freeze On Funk,” Olympic Runners

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OH SNAP!  Didn’t see that coming, did you, Tune-Up fans?  I had to split today into two parts.  Part One: Normal funk Friday to get you in the mood.  Part Two: Funk appropriate for the Winter Olympics Opening Ceremonies!  The only people I could call on to help us get down to the Sochi groove is, obviously, the Olympic Runners.  This song in particular is apropos – not only because it’s mind-bendingly cold in Sochi, but…how to put this delicately…Russia’s government has been an active participant in every aspect of planning for these winter games.  (See: euthanizing roaming packs of dogs, hotel rooms so unfinished the guests are bartering lightbulbs for door handles, the whole “there are no homosexuals in Sochi” thing, the list goes on.)  I for one am extremely curious to see how Russia will portray itself during the ceremonies tonight.  As a serious aside, let’s all toss in some good thoughts that things will stay safe and calm.

Funk Friday: “Straight Fire,” The Jive Turkeys

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Damn, I love The Jive Turkeys.  This awesome, relatively new quartet is from Cincinnati, Ohio, one of our funkier states.  There isn’t a single song they’ve put out that’s been dull or sub-par.  I highly recommend going on a YouTube walkabout to discover their other stuff.  “Straight Fire” is a pretty solid place to start.  I mean how can you resist that organ?  You can’t.  It’s not possible.

Funk Friday: “Chuck Berry,” Feature Cast

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You know what Friday’s problem is?  Friday’s problem is that it convinces you that the week is over at 12:01AM on Friday morning.  I’m sorry, Tune-Up fans, but that’s wrongedy-wrong-wrong.  But!  Feature Cast has served up a tasty portion of motivation that – are you ready for this? – you can play during the day, and after the day is over.  “Jump up, freak, or hustle – do what you want, but move every muscle.  Ain’t no time for playing around!  Only one thing to do when you hear this sound.”  Consider this song the equivalent of that ever elusive day-to-night outfit that you’ve tried for years to find.  I lost count of how many other funk songs this one samples.  I know for sure there’s “Cissy Strut” by The Meters (that’s the “ahhhhh YAH” vocal).  There are about six others, but I was too busy dancing to identify them.  Party on, y’all!

 

Funk Friday: “Stranger to my Happiness,” Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings

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There are a few songs that you can honestly say are perfectly constructed.  This is one of them.  The interplay between the sax and the guitar is so incredibly fun I laughed out loud when I first heard it; the trumpet punctuates the melody at exactly the right time; and the tempo is just spot-on.  (Also – the visual difference between the ebullient back-up singers and the staid bass guitarist is pretty hilarious.)  And finally, there is the force of nature that is Sharon Jones singing the lyrics – Sharon Jones who is, by the way, battling cancer and winning.  What a boss.

The Yankette would like to dedicate this song to one of her best friends, Deputy Tar Heel, and owes her lovely friend Mr. Bloomingtonian a bourbon for sending this song her way in the first place.  Keep your ears open and happy Friday, y’all!