Its Friday kids! Let's kickoff the weekend with this song from The Eagles of Death Metal. One Rockin' Tune + A Frontman with a Cape + Sexy Go-Go Dancers = One Fantastic Video Enjoy!
Great HBO-produced documentary on The Eagles of Death Metal aka the band that was playing the night of a coordinated terror attack in Paris, France.
On Friday night, November 13, 2015, fans were rocking out at the famous Bataclan Theater in downtown Paris to The Eagles of Death Metal, who were in the middle of a European Tour promoting their really good 2015 record, Zipper Down.
In the middle of the EODM set (and right after frontman Jesse Hughes told the crowd how much he loved them), three gunman armed with machine guns, suicide vests & grenades raided the venue and began firing indiscriminately. Mass confusion ensued as the concertgoers, band members and Bataclan employees ran for the exits, tried to hide, ducked for cover (some even beneath corpses) or played dead and prayed. The attackers took hostages and threatened beheadings. By the time it was over, they killed 89 innocent rock & roll fans and injured over 200.
Two of the terrorists blew themselves up; the third was shot & killed by the French police.
The documentary (directed by Colin Hanks) takes us back to the night of this devastating nightmare told through the eyes of the band and a small group of fans. Spoiler Alert: Its fucking horrifying.
Hughes is a great interview. He's got rock star swagger and charisma galore, but he cannot help (or hide) being truly and terribly disturbed by the events of November 13, 2015. The film follows Hughes and the band as they ready themselves for their "back to Paris" concert in February of 2016 with hopes of gaining/providing/understanding some semblance of insight and, perhaps, closure. Here's a guy who's at his best when singing about tits and asses; now all he can do and return to the scene of the tragedy and sing his T&A songs like he's never done before.
Hey, you do what you're good at!
Joshua Homme (Kyuss, Queens of the Stone Age), who plays occasional bass & drums in EODM, provides the yin to Hughes's yang. Homme is soft-spoken, reflective and very, very protective of best bud, Hughes. Homme, himself, was not present at the Bataclan show, but breaks down when describing his outsider's perspective as to that fateful night.
The documentary skillfully, and appropriately, evades any geo-political opinions and even manages the improbable task of making Bono & The Edge seem like really cool guys! (In the aftermath of events, U2 became big supporters of EODM.)
Ultimately, the heart of the film is the strange and beautiful friendship of Homme & Hughes. Two misfits and outsiders, who although they cannot physically appear any differently, somehow found each other and bonded over a love of rock and roll. This, at its essence, is proved time and again to be a much better and more effective way to deal with your inner (and outer) demons rather than going into a building and blowing a bunch of innocent people up on a Friday night.
Check out the doc. Its definitely worth watching. (Even if you're not necessarily fans of the band... or U2!)
Offenbach: Gaite Parisenne (1962) - Parliament Records
Hello Friends,
Cranking out the classics on another hungover Sunday.
This recording of Jacques Offenbach's 1938 ballet about a wild and crazy night out at some Parisian cafe is waaaaaay too manic for be appropriately dealt with in our current state!
Here's the description of what's going on from the liner notes:
The action of the ballet takes place in an elegant cafe in the course of a single evening. As the curtain rises, waiters are preparing tables for the evening's trade. A dainty flower girl sets up her stand . A half dozen Bohemian students and their blowsy girls clatter... A pretty glove seller sets out her wares. She is followed by a foreigner - a South American - rich, rather pathetic, ready to be fleeced. He tries his luck with the disdainful glove seller, and then hopefully with the flower girl. The cafe grow more crowded. A Austrian baron struts in, his eye wandering to the glove seller; she lets him waltz with her. The South American is so obviously eager to spend money in good company that the girls abandon their student escorts ad oblige him by drinking the champagne that he so generously provides. This pleasant state lasts until a jaunty officer and some soldiers swagger into the cafe. The girls switch allegiance to the soldiers and each dances off with her man. Once more, the South American is alone. His hopes rise momentarily as a glamorous lady in red makes a flashy entrance, but she has a duke in tow... the pointless evening finally fizzes out. To the strains of a barcarolle the clientele departs - the girls with the soldiers, the beauty with the officer, the duke with the flower girl, the baron with the glove seller. As these last two leave, one figure - un-partnered and desolate - watches enviously. It is the South American. The gayety on close examination proves to be merely noise to ward off boredom; the romance is nothing more than greed, vanity, hope of gain, or an effort to avoid loneliness.
The 80's weren't necessarily a kind decade to rock stars who came of age in the 60's.
(McCartney & Wonder's "Ebony & Ivory", Bowie's "Blue Jean", Lou Reed & Sam Moore's "Soul Man" cover, Elton John's "I'm Still Standing", Rod Stewart's "Some Guys Have All The Luck", The Stones' Dirty Work LP, pretty much anything released by Clapton, to name just a few.)
The Kinks were definitely an exception (for the most part).
Here's a 1983 video for "State of Confusion" featuring a very-confused looking Ray Davies in a muscle shirt. Will he make the gig on time? Hmm.
The Kinks - "State of Confusion" (1983) - Arista Records
Hello Friends, The Kinks have, in our opinion, never done a bad record. Sure, they can't all be Something Else, but in general, even mediocre Kinks is still better than pretty much everything else. 1983's State of Confusion definitely falls along the more mediocre side of the spectrum, but its still a very, very good listen. The biggest complaint is probably that it suffers from sounding slightly dated. I mean they released stuff in the 60's that could pass for a song from this year or last, but there's no mistaking this album is from the early 80's. Ray Davies is in fine form throughout the record. The album kicks off with three solid, fists-in-the-air rockers, "State of Confusion", "Definite Maybe" and "Labour of Love" all with plenty of Davies' tongue-in-cheek cynicism right from the get go. Songs like the heartbreaking "Property" (about sifting through your stuff after a bad breakup) and the surprisingly-sweet "Heart of Gold" can almost pass for Pretenders' songs (Davies was dating Chrissie Hynde at the time.) Side Two is home to a nice ballad, "Don't Forget to Dance"; a couple of more decent rockers, "Young Conservatives" & "Cliches of the World (B-Movie); and the record ends with the Dave Davies-sung 12-bar screecher, "Bernadette".
The album's standout track is, of course, "Come Dancing", which would oddly enough become one of the band's biggest hits! (It would reach # 6 on the Billboard Charts, their highest since 1965's "Tired of Waiting for You".) The song got a lot of radio play in the 80's and is, at its core, a heart-breaking remembrance of a young Ray Davies, who would lie awake in bed on Saturday nights, waiting for his older sister to come home from the local dance hall where the "big bands used to play". To young Davies, every one of these late Saturday nights represented an epic tale of young lovers acting out with reckless abandon, unattainable fun, broken hearts, shattered dreams, disappointments and bright-eyed hope for what was to come. The song reeks of nostalgia, but not without a hint of cynicism. In typical Ray Davies' fashion, the dance hall closed down years ago; it became a bowling alley for a little while, then a supermarket. Now, its a parking lot. Guess they paved paradise. RATING: 4 days they knocked down the pally out of 5
Happy Friday Friends! We've been really digging stuff released on Brooklyn's Daptone Records record label. We think Charles Bradley is the greatest soul singer since Josh Groban James Brown and Sharon Jones is another marquee name on the label. She's nearly as amazing. Nice job Daptone! "Stranger To My Happiness" is from her 2014 release, Give The People What They Want (not to be confused with the 1981 Kinks album!) She's definitely worth checking out!
Also kids, don't plan on seeing her on tour anytime soon. Sadly, Sharon Jones died last year at the much-too-young age of 60 from pancreatic cancer. RATS! I guess you can say heaven gained another (sassy) angel!*
