Rock Lyrics as Spoken Word

Another random, throwaway creation made possible by the fun diversion known as Xtranormal. I heard this on the way to work and decided it would sound good as a poem. It doesn't really. Rarely do rock lyrics translate well when spoken aloud, but this little Lego man puts in a nice effort in what Xtranormal calls the "Australian English Male" voice, one of a few accent options. We'll pretend he's standing in the middle of a street in Adelaide.

Final stanza of "Hump de Bump."



See the real video (directed by Chris Rock) associated with these lyrics here.

Note for the audiophiles: On the original song, after the drum break when the trumpets get going, (which is where this stanza occurs) adjust the balance fully to the left speaker and enjoy the very cool fills that get lost in the regular mix. Rick Rubin, you should've listened to me.

Sweet Soul Alabama

Who says you can't dance to really, really white music?

I don't know what prompted me to create this, but it sure makes me smile. Maybe I just love to see weird juxtapositions and revel in the bizarre, but here we have Redneck Southerners and Urban Blacks finding common ground.

The concept is simple: do a YouTube search for "Soul Train," then do a search for the whitest music known to man, then combine the two. You'd think they'd have nothing in common. Think again. No video editing was done to sync the dancing with the music. So, as it happens, Lynryd Skynryd could be considered funky. Or Soul Train dancers from the 70s could interpret 70s Southern Rock. Who knew? I may have found a new hobby.

This could do more for race relations in our country than the candidacy of Barack Obama. Even more than that Red Hot Chili Peppers video directed by Chris Rock.

Yes We Can put Country First.



And if it makes HighJive laugh, I'm halfway home.

You Tubery Musical Friday Flashback

Seven old songs that could start a weekend. Crack open a brew or two and crank up the speakers. (But you gotta watch, too.)

• In a nice companion piece to a Jeremiah Wright sermon, a couple of blind Black superstars rip into Livin' For The City.
• Beck and his secret homage to Shatner that occurs at about 2:25.
• From the 1966 film Blowup, Jimmy Page, (Jeff) Beck and the Yardbirds rearrange Train Kept a Rollin. An extremely bizarre scene.
• The Eels reenact many of my dreams in this video of a song that won't grow old: Novocaine for the Soul.
• The wit, art, fun and funk of RHCP.
• Tracy Chapman ruled the world with this song for a month a long time ago. Heard it in a store this afternoon, prompting this post.
  
• A Sony/BMG Market Research team took CAKE's "Short Skirt Long Jacket" out into the streets of LA to see how it would play to a broad focus group. They got some funny, honest results.

Open Mic Night - Opening the Mic

An Open Mic Night host who doesn’t share the mic is not really hosting an open mic night, but is instead subjecting you to his or her own creations ad nauseum. I have been guilty of this practice in previous open mic night posts and will now step aside for a week and treat you to a true master of the mic, Sylvester Stewart.

If you’ve ever tapped your foot to a Red Hot Chili Peppers* song; if you’ve ever said to yourself, “Wow, Prince has got real presence,”; or if you’ve ever appreciated how Aerosmith is so much funkier than other traditional rock acts, then you owe a debt of gratitude to Mr. Stewart.

I first heard this song as a narrow-minded little rocker kid, when a much more musically adventurous friend found it in the back of a bin at a seedy used record store on a dirty side street in Frankfurt, Germany, almost a decade after the song had been popular. In it I heard everything I liked in rock; prominent bass, an unapologetic attitude of self-assurance mixed with laid-back cool, and the ability to bend a single sung syllable into a contorted and drawn-out display of passion.

This is one of those songs that will never leave my iPod: Sly and the Family Stone’s "If You Want me To Stay." I would recommend you crank it up very loud. You can even unplug the headphones or earbuds and let your office mates jam with you. I would never suggest such a thing for my own music.

Find it at top in the sidebar until next week’s song replaces it.

Archived Open Mic Night music is found here

*They covered the song, but not nearly as well as the original.

Believin' - Is That so Wrong?

This is not about advertising, just a music video for a great song with a nice concept and fun direction. My TV is not often on MTV or Fuse, so I'm new to this one, apparently released in the States mid-March.

Anthony Kiedis of the Red Hot Chili Peppers asked Chris Rock if he'd direct the video for "Hump de Bump." Rock responded, "I'd love to, as long as you don't mind being the only white people in it." Not since Halle Berry and Warren Beatty got together for Bulworth have American race relations had the potential to be so positively energized through the arts. This is happy stuff.