Today we mourn the passing of Bobby "Boris" Pickett, who died of leukemia earlier this week. You know Bobby's novelty hit, "Monster Mash," which topped the charts in October 1962, and again, inexplicably, in August (!) 1970, and May (!!) 1973. That's pretty interesting. As is the fact that a then-unknown Leon Russell played piano on the recording.
But there is one reason and one reason only we're posting the obscure obit: without Pickett's graveyard smash, there would be no "Monster Parties: Fact Or Fiction," the greatest (don't argue with us) Mr. Show sketch of all time.
I can't really stand commercial radio. Between the bland sameness of
the music selection ever since Clear Channel slithered its way into
nearly every station, the repetitive, idiotic commercials that seem
custom designed to drive me insane, and the loud, obnoxious djs who do
their best to make the commercials seem intelligent in comparison,
I've basically sworn off listening to commercial radio for the last
decade.
My one exception for the last few years has been WQXR, the classical station here in
NYC.
I'm an insomniac, so I've become quite familiar with Nimet Habachy's
"New York at Night" program that runs all night. It was her show and
her voice that got me listening to the station, even. I remember being
up one night and flipping through the dials on my crappy little clock
radio, probably searching for NPR. Her voice stopped me dead in my
tracks. It's hard to properly describe, but if you've heard it you'd
understand.
Part of her immediate appeal was her accent. There's something more
elegant about it than a regular American accent. But you can't
immediately place it. I would listen carefully every night trying to
figure it out. There was a hint of a British accent, but she
pronounced all her "r"s and there was still something slightly
non-native in the rhythm. When she mentioned a French composer or a
French word it pronounced with a perfect French accent. Well, at least as
far as I can tell; It was definitely not how an American would
typically pronounce it. But then it was the same for German and
Italian words. I was more mystified than ever, but it made me realize
something important about her english pronunciation. It was
perfect. Every syllable perfectly enunciated with none of the laziness
of a particular regional accent.
It reminded me of a time in China when a Chinese professor corrected
one of my American classmate's English grammar. He was surprised and a
little ashamed that a non-native speaker knew his own language
better than he did but I thought about it and explained that while he'd
been more or less passively learning English for about 20 years, the
professor had been actively studying English for probably
twice as long.
I eventually gave up trying to figure out the mystery of Nimet's
accent and looked up her bio on
the WQXR website. Then it all came together and made
sense. Indeed, she's not from America; she's Egyptian, learned English
at a British run school in Cairo but moved to the US at a young
age. Furthermore, she used to be the French and Italian language coach
for the New York City Opera, which explains the degree of precision to
her speech in multiple languages.
Sadly, Nimet is retiring
from WQXR after 26 years of doing the overnight show. I'm sure I'm
not the only one who will dearly miss her voice, her stories, and her
selection of classical music.
I've learned a lot from her and been exposed to a wide range of music
that I might otherwise have never encountered. To give you a taste of
that and make sure that there's a little actual music in this post,
here's a video of Maxim Vengerov playing Ravel's "Tzigane", which is
one of my favorite songs of all time and which I distinctly remember
hearing for the first time on Nimet's show.
It takes a special kind of band, and a special kind of slow news day, for us to get excited about an album cover preview. We heard enough new material Monday night to know we're gonna dig the new album (seriously, have Spoon ever put out a bad album?) and now we know what the album's gonna look like as a fly-sized square on our Nanos.
The Shortlist Music Prize announcement is here! Remember, last time it was renamed the New Pantheon Prize? Now it's called the Shortlist Music Prize again. And you still don't care!
But for the trivia fiends and listmakers, here's who the panel (i.e., members of Franz Ferdinand, Panic! At The Disco, Snow Patrol, the Killers, Flaming Lips, KT Tunstall, and Sufjan Stevens) chose...
Lewis & Clarke is the brainchild of mountain man Lou Rogia, a "rat-race expatriate" who moved his family to the Delaware Water Gap. (We dig backwoods troubadours.) Some call his music freak-folk, but it isn't all that freaky. Elements of eastern instrumentation blend with acoustic plucking, sounding at once exotic and accessible, à la Macha on morphine, or, on this track, Kings Of Convenience.
So, Lewis & Clarke -- not a duo, but not a one-mand band either. Man Man's Russell Higbee plays harp and and Eve Miller of Rachel’s joins on cello. They call their sound "Post-Folk Neo-Baroque."
"Before It Breaks You" is the finest moment on the record, stretching over ten minutes, moving through autumnal chamber folk, ending with group harmonies over a tanpura.
Every Indio-bound indie rock fan will be crowding around Coachella's cleverly named "Coachella Stage" tonight at 7:40 for a performance from reunited Scottish alt-rockers Jesus And Mary Chain. No competition, there (sorry, Felix Da Housecat).
Last night, however, Pomona's Glass House hosted the real first reunion show since 1998. And LAist was there for the reunion tour preview...
The Reid Brothers started off rocky, kept it slow, and seemed generally disinterested to be there. Or perhaps they were still pissed off at Rock for not delivering them all the riches they so deserve.
Singer Jim Reid seemed pissed off. Maybe he's always like that. Who knows? But after they had played a few songs he asked the crowd, "Happy we're back?" Which of course got a huge cheer. He replied, "fuck off" and looked at the drummer.Fun! At least Jim wasn't drunk enough to warrant refunding ticketbuyers (that actually happened at the last show at House Of Blues, 9/12/98).
Free booze + good friends + amazing music = great times. I know this was sooo last month, but Matt & Kim may have been my favorite performer at SXSW. Such good memories… though we may have harassed them a little too much afterwards. Ah well.
When we caught Ocelot’s dj set a few days later exhaustion had already set in… but it was one of the most refreshing dj sets of the entire festival. It was nice to hear something that wasn’t burdened down by the latest blog tracks. Anyway, so totally psyched for this remix. We actually had a mini dance party in our ghetto Austin hotel room with it. Totally ravetastic. So far I’m liking everything that Ocelot does.
And if that doesn’t get your lights blinking then head over to IHEARTCOMIX brand spankin new website to download the Flosstradamus remix. The site was a long time coming and looks a m a z i n g.
Speaking of indie labels and djs — Bang Gang just started up a blog too. Notice a trend here? I’m sure there’s gonna be loads of goodies over there.
You better not stop visiting us. Serious.
And and and… last but not least: our buddy It’s The Money Shot posted the Matt & Lil Kim ep a while back. “Double Ice Creams Tonight” makes me laugh.
For many a scenester on this side of the Atlantic, 'it' is cool if Pitchfork says so. Funny to think that, on the other side of the ocean, it's a nod from (or at least association with) Mark Ronson that dubs thee hip. (Just ask the "LDN Is A Victim" kids.) So what we have here is a slow-brewing duel of cool. Via NME:
NME: Hello, Mark. Does the weight of cool hang heavy on your shoulders ... Every day, you get out of bed, 'God God, I'm cool Mark Ronson, what cool things can I do today?' You go down the shops and you have to buy something 'cool'...
MARK RONSON: (Laughs) Well, I've never really been 'cool' before. Especially in New York. There's a lot of those really 'crusading' and very serious music websites such as Pitchfork and I specifically can't stand that one. They wrote about Amy Winehouse. 'She's terrible, she should go fuck off.' I mean, that's some serious bullshit.Sure that was an unnecessarily harsh news item from P4K, but maybe this, too, informs your opinion, Mark?
I must say that I love this incestuous dj remixing circle happening lately. Para One’s been remixed by Boys Noize, Surkin and Mstrkrft but has also done remixes for Teki Latex, Daft Punk, Block Party and now Datarock. ‘So and so’ is getting remixed by ’so and so’ who is also producing for ’so and so’ who is remixing for ’so and so.’ It’s like high school all over again, or even better, Hollywood. I just happened to cross paths with this delicious little remix of Datarock’s “i used to dance” by Para One. I’m having a hard time typing this up b/c I can’t stop dancing….I think these two need to make some more musical love babies.
So there's this joke that goes, "there once was a band in a bubble..." And the punchline comes June 12th when, after 20 days of living and recording an album in a televised, Dr. Pepper-sponsored bubble/studio on NYC's Pier 54, pop-punkers Cartel will emerge to perform tunes from their new LP and absorb an undetermined mix of laughter, cheers, and jeers.
You'll be able to watch 'em live in the studio from May 24th on at drpepperbubble.com, and eventually on the four-part MTV reality show Band in a Bubble presented by Dr Pepper.
On one hand, with every Thom, Ben, and Swede getting into the studio-video-update thing, we know it's not an entirely deplorable idea (i.e. you'd watch if they did this with Arcade Fire), but bringing on a brand name cola, throwing it all on MTV ... makes you wonder about Cartel's integrity. Wait, does a band like Cartel even believe in integrity? After taking a shot from rabble-rousing rapscallion Bob Lefsetz, Cartel's Will Pugh wrote Bob with a two-steps sideways-one-step back response.
