Showing posts with label early 20th century. Show all posts
Showing posts with label early 20th century. Show all posts

Monday, November 12, 2012

I'm back baby! And fittingly, I bring you some of the dirtiest songs I know

I'm terribly sorry for the several month absence. The best excuse I can come up with is that I've been distracted by life, both wonderful and annoying. Let's just say that I'll get through all of it and life is grand.

At a recent Conspiracy of Venus retreat (my all women's pop choir) up at the American River, it was pointed out to me that I know lots of silly and dirty songs. Yes. I. Do. And I'm very proud of it.

So I figured I'd share some of them with you.

1) "Sit On My Face" by Monty Python. This song was first played for me in High School and I nearly peed my pants it was so funny.

For more, see Python's "The Penis Song".  I do love this one.

2) "Jizz in My Pants" by The Lonely Planet. The song has Justin Timberlake painted all over it, making it pop-tastic.
 

For another Lonely Planet classic, watch "Motherlover" featuring Justin Timberlake. This one of the most hilarious video I've ever seen and features Patricia Clarkson and Susan Sarandon.

3) "Till the Cows Come Home" by Lucille Bogan. Kim Kattari brought this vocalist to my attention. She is astoundingly dirty. I love that this music existed one hundre years ago. It makes even the dirtiest Top Forty tunes seem like church hymns.


For more info on Bogan see this article, and for another insanely dirty awesomeness song see "Shave 'em Dry" with lyrics like:
I got nipples on my titties
Big as the end of my thumb
I got somethin’ between my legs
That’ll make a dead man come.
I f***ked all night And the night before, baby
And I feel like I wanna f*** some more
Oh, grind me honey… and shave me dry
 You're welcome. 

Thursday, November 5, 2009

T.R. Knight stars in "Parade": a sobering reminder of Red/Blue State politics, racism and anti-semtism. Jamie's Dad reports

T.R. Knight stars as Leo Frank in "Parade"

This blog entry was written my my Dad, Jeff. Every so often I ask him to write a review of a show he's seen in Los Angeles. Check out his review of "Howling Blues & Dity Dogs."

Who was Leo Frank? No, he was not Ann Frank’s father. And, while he was also a Jew, he was an American and not a German. And no, he did not die at the hands of the Nazis. He was lynched by Georgia whites in 1917 for a murder he may not have committed and after the Georgia Governor had reduced his sentence from death by hanging to life imprisonment.

Why are we talking about Leo Frank? It’s because the play with music Parade is currently being performed at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles . Fresh from runs in New York and London, where, respectively, it won a Tony award and was nominated for an Olivier award, an ensemble of about two dozen talented men and women deliver a powerful performance of this “musical” about a subject which, although almost 100 years old, still has relevance today in our “red state vs. blue state” reality.

Here’s a quick summary of the story...

READ MORE OF JEFF'S REVIEW HERE

Saturday, November 8, 2008

New Yorkers trying to save historic Tin Pan Alley


Tin Pan Alley, the half-dozen or so 19th century brownstones in Manhattan's Chelsea District, is up for sale and marked for demolition.  And a group of concerned New Yorkers are trying to save them and get them recognized as a national landmark, which would keep the buildings from getting destroyed.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries a number of sheet music publishers, composers and lyricists setup shop on West 28th Street between 5th and 6th Avenue.  Among the American songwriters to work in these buildings were Irving Berlin, Scott Joplin, Fats Waller, Hoagy Carmichael, Ira and George Gershwin, James P. Johnson, Jerome Kern and Cole Porter.  Many got their start here writing songs in a factory-like environment, not too different from how songs are written for Nashville or contemporary pop music.

Before the rise of radio and audio recordings, the music industry revolved around the sales of sheet music.  "Song pluggers" (often the songwriters themselves) would go to commercial locations and play these songs enticing consumers to buy them.  

If you think we have schlocky pop music now, you should hear some of this stuff... can you imagine Britney Spears singing something like Ernest Ball and J. Keirn Brennen's "Good-bye, Good Luck, God Bless You"?
It's hard to part when heart to heart 
We've lived and loved and dreamed.
It came to naught, although I've thought
That you were all you seemed.

Good bye, good luck
God Bless you, is all that I can say.
But when you leave, my heart will grieve
Forever and a day.
Although, "Womanizer" is *hardly* better.  

But, of course, there were some diamonds in the rough that we still know and love today (or not), like:

"God Bless American
"After the Ball"
"Take Me Out to the Ball Game"
"Give My Regards to Broadway"
"Alexander's Ragtime Band"
and  
"A Hot Time in the Town Tonight"

I'm pretty confident that these buildings will be saved.  But we'll see how this situation shapes up.

See the AP article here.