#he wants NOVELTY. not a musical career

[hostilemuppet]

Saw the JD & Floyd post and was about to say “Maybe he should” but then it just made me sad. Like damn he cares about his family to the detriment of himself, what does that say about his relationship with Creek. I think I remember you writing something about Floyd realizing he’s genuinely fallen in love with him.

you want me to show how much thought ive put into tdau floyd? the funny cokehead with commitment issues? the guy who posts thirst traps out of spite? okay (keep in mind that most of this is just what *I* think and hasnt been cleared with alex, but when i write for floyd its genuinely what i consider in the back of my mind)

i think he was 13 y/o when he went out on his own (1999), began seeing the rest of the troll tree for himself, until he finally escaped on his own at around 15 (2001), a year before the entire tribe was evacuated (2002). he hitch hiked a bit and got to see a bunch of tribes but he only really got to see techno reef and volcano rock city, staying in vrc a lot longer (LONG before barb was in power and turned rocks view on pop from "they fucked up a really long time ago but were safe from them now" to "we need to colonise them back") and discovering a lot about himself in the process

he turned 18 (2004) and, as most ex-child stars do, immediately went IN on hard drugs and sex with strangers, as if thats the test for proving your adulthood. and he had a good time! he spent most of his life drugged to the gills and unable to look himself in the mirror the rare moments he was sober, but, yknow. details. then he got bored. and he went travelling again

at the age of 20 (2006) he left troll kingdom entirely. obviously he stayed CLEAR of bergen town (and silently prayed to whatever god pop trolls typically believe in that his family were safe and undigested). but he saw all sorts of places! places we havent seen yet, with species we havent seen yet, of extremely varying sizes! hell, he mightve met a species or two that are smaller than trolls! imagine that. but spending years travelling, it gets lonely. he never got to connect with anyone. hell, he never even had a real boyfriend! the most he had was that situationship he had that lasted 5 weeks before he got ghosted when that techno troll got back with his girlfriend. (its okay though, he channels his pain into his art, and that was one became his most popular song on bandcamp by a significant margin!)

at 27 years old (2013) he arrived in mount rageous. sure, they were huge, and he was terrified of being eaten, obviously. but they didnt want to eat him! they thought he was cute. and, he wont lie, he liked the attention. he became a novelty, that tiny little creature with his even tinier guitar, who apparently built up such a tolerance he can handle mount rageon drugs. imagine doing blow with stewert little. they loved him, as entertainment. he still didnt have anyone who loved him as a person, but at that point he was willing to settle.

when hes 36 (2023) he gets kidnapped by velvet & veneer, and of course no one thought to look for him. you wouldnt notice if the mouse in your house suddenly went missing. at most youd think someone you live with finally took care of it, and youd move on with your life.

the events of the movie happen, hes reunited with his siblings, he actually feels valued as a person again, AND to top it all off, those two months in the bottle did WONDERS for detoxing. next time he tries pop troll coke he actually feels a buzz! he never thought hed see the day!

brozone reunite, we see the early days of their career carry out in the au. floyd feels like hes on top of the world. hes got his family back, hes back in pop village (albeit, its a different pop village than he knew. hell, they used to all it troll village back then!) hes releasing actual music again, and not just busking for tips (its okay he didnt need much, he rented out a mouse hole for cheap). but he wants an actual connection. he wants a relationship. but hes never actually had that! hes never even felt respected by a potential partner! so he goes back to random hookups. and, yknow, its fun, he guesses. but he wants more

the first troll who seems to actually take interest in him as anything more than a hot piece of ass or "that guy from brozone" rocks his world. hes ashamed to admit that after knowing the guy for 3 hours he already thought about spending the rest of his life with him. he just wasnt used to being spoken to like a person by anyone other than immediate family members! its okay though, he couldnt scare him off, because he was being paid to be there, and after recording himself getting in floyds pants (the only way he knows how to show affection at this point) it was all over the internet

so, you know, obviously floyd wasnt doing great. hes gotten good at hiding his feelings (not like anyone really cares about them anyway) but he was clearly struggling. he did what he does best, and turned it into a joke, so maybe itd hurt a little less. he probably made it worse, but at least he was numb now. he goes back to hookups, deciding hell never have an actual boyfriend, hell never get married, and hes okay with that. well, hes clearly not, but its not like anyone ever asked, so he has to deal.

then he meets creek. and at this point hes not stupid. hes not that naive little kid anymore, and when he wakes up the next morning and realises his newest one night stand was that guy, the asshole, the one who everyone hates, he knows hes the butt of the joke, again. theres probably a camera, again. he leaves before creek wakes up.

but then he meets him again, a few days later. and creek says how much of a shame it is he never got his digits. and floyd doesnt know what to make of this. but he knows he shouldnt trust him. he heard everything riff said about him, everything BRANCH said about him. he knows every one of creeks crimes. but maybe he just wants to have some fun, yknow? everyones always fucking with him, maybe he wants to play around sometime. show the world hes not some little helpless doll.

what follows is about a year and a half of gay chicken on expert mode. creek pretends to love floyd. floyd pretends he doesnt know creeks pretending. floyd feels in control, almost. he gets comfortable. he refuses to believe its love, how could it be love? theyre awful to each other. but its, technically, his first real relationship. he tries not to think about it.

maybe encouraging creek to propose was a little more than seeing how far he can push him before he snaps. maybe he wanted to prove that hes worth it, even if the other guy wasnt. maybe he genuinely cried when he got angelinas egg, even if hed rather die than let creek see him express genuine emotions. he knows hes the sensitive one, but hes more than brozone. hes a person. a person that people dont ever seem to want to know.

then he realises. hes not the only one whos gotten comfortable. creek looks... not happy, exactly. but content. and floyd thinks thats terrifying. its too far, thats not how any of this was supposed to work. it was REVENGE. floyd was fucking with him, because creek was fucking with him first! now hes married, hes MARRIED, with KIDS, TWINS! THAT HE NAMED! and he loves them! and he loves creek! and creek loves him! hes gonna be sick. he cant do this. he cant be here. he lives in a mansion but its suffocating him. he leaves. he divorces creek.

hes miserable again. jd doesnt notice bc hes "the sensitive one", and his other brothers dont know how to bring it up without making it worse. branch is the only one who asks how hes holding up, but he just says hes fine, hell bounce back. he doesnt bounce back

when he meets creek again, he wants to cry. he wants to get on his hands and knees and beg him to take him back, but he has a LITTLE bit of self respect left. when he finds out creek missed him too its more than he can take. when they get drunk, and floyd forces jd to re-marry them, floyd actually feels like a person. a broken person, who healed in a creek-shaped mould, but a person nonetheless. and maybe thats all he can ask for

#ask #tdau #yeah ik i always insist its a comedy au. okay. there has to be a bit of bitterness so you can taste the sweetness of the comedy

[mayordoi]

songwriting with meiko 🎙️

i have a few things to comment abt this which will be isolated under the cut so the post doesnt get too bloated :] mainly small hcs about meiko/kaito/miku hhhh

an idea that briefly popped in my head when i was brushing my teeth that i did not want to let get away. it was ambitious and i liked the concept of using my hc'd versions of the younger crypton vocaloids (miku's beta design and meiko/kaito's v1 designs) interacting with each other, so i went for it. i designed the general vibe of the background in animal crossing, ol reliable for these kinds of things, since i knew i wanted to cram as much detail in the environment as i could. i made a post about it on my personal account here since i was quite proud of this build.

as i was decorating, i kept spontaneously making headcanons for the younger meiko/kaito/miku unit in order to understand how to populate their living space with accurate clutter. i ended up totally overdecorating the whole thing and only referenced a small portion of the interior (like, why'd i go so hard on thinking about the yard? thats just what happens when i try taking this route) but i did like some of the ideas i came up with to explain my decorative choices. here's just a ramble.

oh yeah i guess i should get something i mentioned in the tags of that art i made w all the crypton gang's "younger" versions out of the way: i hc the character vocal gangs' "younger" designs to be their "IF" or beta designs. and meiko and kaito's younger versions are their V1 designs, mainly inspired by how they appear in the earlier project diva games (every time i look at them i just see them as awkward teens still trying to figure out who they are lmao)

also mentioned there that sakine meiko and meiko are one in the same and the fanloid and vocaloid arent separate entities. sakine meiko was meiko in her early music career as a relatable teen pop idol, with the "sakine" family name being made up to create that image. once meiko grew into an adult, she put the persona behind and just went by meiko, and around that time she met kaito and theyd be musical partners for a while

meiko sort of adopts miku into their unit when she recognizes her potential and serves as a mentor to her after then. kaito is the same but acts more as a supportive guardian in comparison. rin, len, and luka would come along later of course.

yeah i really fuck with the idea of the crypton gang being a little family :] i think it's neat! and this art/animal crossing build was a fun way to explore that hc a little

meiko is a physical media fiend, especially for music. loves collecting cds and vinyls and the like; they're littered all over the house. loves rock music too

kaito on the other hand has a knack for gardening and tends to the very modest garden outside their house. also collects a lot of art he finds in thrift marts and such for novelty's sake

miku always dedicated herself to improving her craft and finding her voice thanks to the help of meiko. she was also kind of a nerd at this era. very serious and dedicated

these folks did not know how to clean shit up, everything left lying on the floor ends up being an intentional decoration (probably not clear in this but i did like scattering stuff around to the best of my ability in the AC build)

ummm that’s it for now i guess i had less than i expected? but i’m glad to get this down somewhere lol feel free to share your own hcs if you wish, i love hearing them

#mayor doidles #fanart #vocaloid #hatsune miku #miku #hatsune miku if #meiko #meiko v1 #kaito #kaito v1 #digital art #cell shaded #art #artists on tumblr #illustration

[hooked-on-elvis]

So, this post made me think about some conviction of mine and I wanted to know your opinions too.

For me, Elvis' voice is better in the 70s, end of story, which is not novelty for any one but naturally we have diverse opinions on the fandom, that's why I like sharing my views on it. I'm not going deep dive about the technical aspects on Elvis' voice because I'm no music teacher, vocal trainer or anything so I'll stick to my feeling as a mere fan. You may love Elvis' 50s voice better, nothing wrong about it since he rocked at all eras - no question about it - but denying his voice was way more amazing in the 70s is like saying Elvis didn't improve himself as a singer over the years which is totally untrue. Let me say it... My fav thing is hearing him singing the 50s songs in the 70s (and late 60s). On the '68 Special when he sang "When My Blue Moon Turns to Gold Again" I was like... literally hollering at my seat (and kept listening to the song over again, each time bringing me closer to watery eyes).

Understand what I'm saying? Both versions amazing, but the 60s one it's just... flawless!

Another of the '68 special's rendition of a 50's song I love happened when Elvis said Scotty Moore asked him to perform "Lawdy Miss Clawdy"… I gotta say, the first time I heard him singing this second song was the '68 version but a few days ago I played the 50s version and… not even close to impress me as much. Although is fairly good, it doesn't hold a candle for Elvis' voice in the late 60' and all the live 70s versions of it.

Anyway... Elvis' from the late 60's on voice is the most! I mean, listening to the 50s version of "Lawdy Miss Clawdy" don't you miss the Sweet Inspirations singing "Bye bye, baby" and "Won't be coming no more..." on the background? The 1972 "Elvis On Tour" version is the best one EVER! And that's what I mean… Elvis kept improving himself as a singer year after year! It doesn't matter how sometimes his sicknesses affected his vocals during the late 70s, because that's very understandable (even tho is a shame) and even when his voice was a weaker (in an Elvis to himself comparison scale), his voice through the 70s is better than his 50s voice alright anyways. C'mon! That's true! By the way, for me, Elvis singing with a sore throat sounds better than 95% of other performers (and the 5% that could possibly outshine him around the time his voice was weak are the 50s-70s ones - his own fellow music performers. Not even one of the today's artist could come close to what Elvis' voice was, even when he sounds a little weak during some late 70s live performances, much less at his voice's best powerful and full vitality moments). That's my opinion.

Anyway... sometimes I wonder: Was Elvis really "the King" in the 50s? I'm not talking about his numbers, the amount of fans, money or fame here, guys. I don't either wanna sound like I'm belittling Elvis' amazing, not ever seen before or after, tremendously impressive successful career. He totally earned being dubbed "The King of Rock Roll" in the 50s considering he's done what no one had ever done before and was really successful at it. We can say he was "the King of Hearts" since the 50's but in music... Okay, all his bold wild dance moves live onstage and his big charisma did it for him to earn the title "the King" too, but even so his voice was great and unique, it wasn't perfect... just yet. I think of him being crowned "the King" in the 50's somehow as "being a promise to be fulfilled" — and it was. During his career he was year after year getting better and better as a singer and performer, showing everyone he indeed was "the King", in spite he was doing movies or recording albums, Elvis never ceased to keep the world's eyes on him and he did it so effortlessly. Even tho he worked his ass off, his charm and talent was natural as day light. Elvis Presley definitely wasn't a regular performer and maybe that's why he was crowned as "the King of Rock and Roll" so early in his career but to me, the moment he absolutely triumphed and proved nobody could ever hold a candle to him was from the late 60's on.

The Elvis we see from late 60s on, performing soulfully onstage is undeniably "THE KING".

What are your thoughts about this? Do you prefer Elvis' voice in the 50s, 60s or 70s?

#elvis presley #elvis the king #elvis fans #elvis fandom #elvis #50s elvis #60s elvis #70s elvis #elvis history #elvis music #rock and roll #Youtube

[d-criss-news]

Kick Off the Christmas Season at the Parker with Darren Criss

Since making a splash in the Hollywood scene over a decade ago by playing Blaine Anderson on Fox’s critically acclaimed series Glee, Emmy and Golden Globe winner Darren Criss has epitomized a vibrant artistic expression unrestricted by conventional forms or genres. On Tuesday, November 28, 2023, the star will make his way to South Florida’s Parker Playhouse for A Very Darren Crissmas, where he will perform songs from his recent holiday album of the same name. Made with Ron Flair, multi-Grammy nominee and producer of several Grammy-winning hits, A Very Darren Crissmas showcases Criss’ artistry delivering both thrilling unpredictable moments and a timeless sense of Christmas magic. From big band Christmas classics and novelty tunes to modern-day folk-pop ballads, this set has something for everyone, and OutClique had the opportunity to sit down with Criss and talk more about it.

Denny Patterson: Thanks for taking some time to chat with me, Darren! How excited are you to bring A Very Darren Crissmas to South Florida?

Darren Criss: I’m happy to bring it anywhere, man! With no discredit to South Florida, I’m just happy that I get to do it at all. The whole reason for making a holiday album, other than the fact that it was very fun to me, is to play it live. A lot of recording artists see playing music live as sort of a drag, and I’m the complete opposite. I make music to play it live, and given the ecosystem of the holiday music thing, which is performative, communal, and traditional for a lot of people, I look at my work as an entertainer like I’m in the service industry. I enjoy bringing that spirit to people in any way I can. When you make a holiday album, there is hope that you’ll get to tour and share this music live, hopefully for the rest of the foreseeable future. Let’s hope the holiday season doesn’t get canceled (laughs). So, I’m very pleased to do it anywhere, but I’m excited to come to South Florida because I haven’t been able to perform this down there yet. I did this in residency in New York last year at the Carlyle, and a mini thing on the east coast, but this tour includes parts of the Midwest and the South, so I’m thrilled.

Denny Patterson: What do you ultimately hope audiences take away from this production?

Darren Criss: I just hope it gets them in the Christmas spirit. Unfortunately, it is wrought with a lot of cliches, but they’re all positive cliches, so anything to get them in a good mood. This show is essentially the album that I made, and the album was to take people on this little journey through my musicological brain. It’s not just playing songs, it’s a bit of a holiday music TED Talk that relates to my own experience. It’s a cabaret of my life via Christmas music, so if people are interested in me, they might learn something new about me, but even more, hopefully they’ll learn something about music, the origins of these songs, and why they are significant to me. The hope of the album was to introduce people to music that they didn’t know, but hopefully feel familiar with. Or on the opposite side of that, have people experience music that they are familiar with in a different way, and that’s something I try to do across the board in my career. I try to make unfamiliar things feel accessible, and accessible things feel new and different.

Denny Patterson: Have you always wanted to do a Christmas album?

Darren Criss: Yes. If you have the ability to do something, like if you have a really good throwing arm and you watch somebody play catch or football, you’re like, okay, I’m going to do this one day, and here’s how I would do it. I’m like that with music. As a journalist, I’m sure when you read an article, you’re like, this is how I would have done it. We’re introduced to a whole lexicon of music every year, and consistently, one can’t help but go, well, here’s what I would do if I made a holiday album. So, I’ve been kind of inventorying my version of what this would be for my whole life, prior to 2021. I was always going to do this, so I made a list of songs I would do, and I knew exactly how I would do them. The hardest part of the album was whittling that list of 100 ideas down to 10-12.

Denny Patterson: Which song from the album is your absolute favorite to perform, and why?

Darren Criss: It varies depending on the audience. I don’t know, you never know what resonates with people more. I enjoy getting to introduce new things to people in general. I’m the kind of guy that if I find something I love, I really want to share it with people, and it gives me great joy to share something that hopefully has a positive reaction. But you never know what that’s going to be, so I suppose it’s the new stuff that I know they don’t know. Playing it live, hopefully there’s an opportunity for that song to maybe become part of their holiday experience or holiday music rotation. So, anything that’s a little left to center. There are a few songs on the album that I know people will not be familiar with, but while I have their attention, I love auditioning them to possibly become a more prominent fixture in their Christmas listening experience.

Denny Patterson: Do you have any plans to do a second Christmas album?

Darren Criss: Like I said, I had to whittle it down from 100, so there’s definitely `1a few albums in there. It’s just a matter of time, energy, and I tend to keep a lot of plates spinning. So, I think we’ll ride this one out for a little bit before we get to that, but sure, there’s bound to be a sequel. If you make something you like enough, in the back of your mind, you’re always ruminating what a sequel could be. It’s definitely in there somewhere!

Denny Patterson: What are the holidays typically like for you? Are you usually working, or do you try to take some time off and spend it with your family?

Darren Criss: It’s funny you say that because the irony of all this is now that I have this album, Christmas has become the busiest time of my entire year. Between a strike, the pandemic, and a lot of other stuff, I haven’t really been working to the degree that I probably would have pre-2020. For better or for worse, my work schedule hasn’t been as congested, so ironically, making this Christmas album has made what is ordinarily the time of year to unplug the most hectic. The new sort of Christmas tradition has been like, alright, I guess we’re going to be playing this album. And if I’m lucky enough to have people who want me to do it, then I’m happy to.

Denny Patterson: What is one of your absolute favorite holiday memories?

Darren Criss: I kind of talk a little bit about it on the album. My father is an excellent chef, and he had this wonderful tradition in our house, and the joke that I use is that he was somehow like a character from Dickensian England. He’s the only guy I knew growing up in San Francisco in the 90s that made a Christmas goose. I don’t think that’s happened beyond old fashioned English novels, but he threw this party that was a huge family and friends tradition called “The Goose Night,” and it was something everybody looked forward to. I always looked forward to his cooking and baking, and he was just like an unbelievable chef. I have a lot of nostalgia for those sights and smells of my father in the kitchen around the holiday.

Denny Patterson: Unfortunately, there are many LGBTQ+ people who struggle during this time of year. What advice or words of comfort can you offer them?

Darren Criss: Yes, a lot of LGBTQ+ and marginalized people are suffering during one of the happiest times of the year, but I think the flip side to that is those people do have each other. In times of joy and despair, we have our communities to hold us up. There’s an incredible ecosystem that exists, particularly within the queer community, which is something that has always been a stronghold of support for a lot of trials and tribulations. The queer community has been ravaged by so many things, but they have been so supportive of each other. There’s so many different resources, centers, and places that really do look out for members of that community, as well as communities outside that are also going through hard times during an otherwise pretty joyous time. I would say, whether you’re talking about Christmas, December, New Year’s, or anything that is symbolized by this time of year, it is pretty extraordinary, and this is the romantic in me talking, despite everything that goes on during the year, it is pretty wild that for a few days of the year across the globe, we subscribe to the idea that we should be nice to each other. Whether or not people do it is another thing, but the fact that mainstream media, movies, culture at large around the world suddenly decides to be warm, cozy, and cuddly. It’s amazing that we all decide collectively to do that, despite all the terrible things we do to each other. So, I would advise people to lean into that encouragement.

Denny Patterson: Before we wrap up, are there any other upcoming projects or anything else you’d like to mention or plug

Darren Criss: Nope! Right now it’s all about Christmas!

#darren criss #outclique #avdc 2023 @ ft. lauderdale #avdc 2023 #press #nov 2023

[coolertheory]

anyone want my curious family headcanons. yes you do come here. long post warning

VIDCUND

post-psp he becomes the estranged relative that fucks off and disappears. he comes back about 10 years later like… surprise 

in those 10 years i like to think he lived in some apartment in belladonna cove as a horticulturist or something to do with plants

his natural hair is dark brown due to recessive genes or however genetics work idk man

he started dying his hair blonde sometime before he started college to “reinvent himself” but oops! once a loser always a loser. also to fit in more with his family

besides circe and his brothers his only friend in school was the librarian. they were on first name basis

everything about his life is just profoundly Sad and Pathetic. look up the price is right losing horn sound effect his whole life can be summed up with that

his wardrobe is stuck in the 1970s and only wears warm tones

had a really close relationship with his mom. slight daddy issues

extreeeeme perfectionism. probably wont even do anything if he know the outcome isn’t going to turn out well

secretly jealous of his siblings for various reasons but will he ever admit that? fuck no

JENNY

jenny is actually just a nickname, her full name is genevieve! i feel it fits in more with how her other brothers are named 

also her green eyes are actually eye contacts, her natural eye color is brown. all the curiouses have shitty vision

was good friends with lyla grunt in high school

dropped out of college after finding out she was gonna have johnny

had him without the rest of the family knowing, they just assumed she was busy with her nursing degree and only had time to call instead of visit

her favorite song is our house (the one by graham nash) she hums it a lot!

oh trust me shes a huge fucking nerd just like the rest of her family. was very apparent when she was in school but after college you’d have to really get to know her to know that

puzzle enthusiast of all kinds. (crosswords, jigsaw, sudoku etc)

was the photographer/spread designer for the yearbook committee

adds a smiley face at the end of all her messages :-) just like me fr

PASCAL

he had a pet lizard that he got when he was 8. her name was eunice and he took her everywhere. to the dismay of literally everyone

his childhood dream? to become a mailman. 

sparkling water enjoyer…

most definitely becomes a pta parent when tycho starts going to school. also chaperones for all of his field trips

proud member of the neighborhood watch. which contains literally only 2 other people 

favorite genre of music is songs that sound like if you just spammed the auto predicted words on the keyboard over and over again (stuff is way by they might be giants, once in a lifetime by talking heads, yaknow)

in his free time hes always on some forums about obscure topics. sorry to say this but he’d probably be a redditor

somehow ended up on a gameshow once. didn’t win anything though. he thinks being on it is the crowning achievement of his lifetime 

his car looks like this 

LAZLO

his favorite movie is bill and ted’s excellent adventure (i promise my profile+pinned has no influence on this what do you mean guys hahahaah) and the other quintessential stoner movies 

because of his high cooking skill and scientist career, his career ends up being in the field of molecular gastronomy. food science, baby!

shared a room with vidcund before jenny moved out for college

oh in middle school he absolutely had that like, that gelled spiky porcupine looking hair that boys had in the 90s-early 2000s

i feel like he’d be the perpetrator of some in-universe version of an early 2000s meme in the same vein as none pizza with left beef or operation baja blast

speaking of baja blast. his favorite fast food chain is taco bell. 

favorite mode of transportation? rollerblading. 

collects novelty mugs

one of those guys that can solve a rubix cube in under 10 seconds

MISC

the smith family house is actually the curious family’s childhood home

they all have matching “C” middle names:  jenny celeste curious, pascal calliope curious, vidcund cecil curious, & lazlo caelum curious. vaguely space related except for cecil i just liked how it sounded

they’re mixed white/filipino from kitty and glarn respectively ;-)

okok this is a general headcanon but. i like to strangetown “takes place” in 2008, because my timeline is:

base game [2008] -> psp [2008-2009] -> strangerville [2018-2019]

anyways this is relevant because birthday headcanons! i havent come up with actual dates but... jenny (1968), chloe & lola (1972), pascal (1974), vidcund (1976), lazlo (1980)

yes chloe & lola are 3 years younger than jenny but i like to think aliens age really slowly so they still look like they’re young adults  

#leaving these untagged but feel free to rb them i guess #i love how. my headcanosn for everyone is fun stuff like :) he collects novelty mugs and then you go back to vidcund and its just about #how sad his life is. haha whoops sorry vidsie #the things id do to make a sims story for them. unfortunately i do not have the patience and only have a dogshit laptop

[alarrytale]

my biggest grief with the larry denial is that it puts louis in the spotlight, but not for the right reasons. when he talks music and his thoughts on the industry and his other projects and what he likes and dislikes and when he’s his silly self onstage and with fans and when he’s soft and flamboyant and yes sarcastic and funny and just louis, that’s when he’s his best. that’s the louis we know. he’s so much more than his relationship with harry, but well, many people are more interested in reading some quick cheap gossip than what this musician has to say about his career experiences. i want to be optimistic and think this is the end of the denials, at least the harsh ones, as it’s being spread like wildfire and his wording looked final. i want louis to succeed, and i’m not really talking about taylor swift or harry levels of fame, but just have a good stable career with his own accomplishments and being a respectable name. while i think he’s getting there slowly, many times his team has lacked and i’m afraid that if this pattern continues he will be stuck forever. but well, as i said i’m optimistic and i’ll keep supporting louis because i know he has the ability to get far

Hi, anon!

It's difficult for him, that's for sure. He is a musician, a songwriter, has a fashion company, he's touring and he's got his own festival. The problem is that his artist image is so fake that no matter what you ask him about you won't get a straight answer out of him. You ask him who his inspiration is, you'll get a rehearsed answer that is in line with this fake laddy and indie image. You ask him about his documentary and he'll answer it's 110% authentic, when we all know it's not. You ask him about his career experiences and you'll get a fluffy answer, because he isn't allowed to talk about the abuse, manipulation and the dark sides of the industry that he's experienced. People are able to recognise that he isn't being genuine and authentic, so they don't tune in. He needs attention on him to be able to sell tour tickets and festival tickets. The one thing that's guaranteed to give him said attention is larry.

I would love to see Louis being himself fully, like you said his silly self, sarcastic, funny, flamboyant and soft. He hardly ever get to show those sides of himself because of the image he needs to uphold. Those are also sides that will show he's an interesting person and attract an audience without having to pull the larry card to get attention.

As long as he isn't in a postition where he can be himself he'll only attract those type of fans who knows he isn't being himself and knows the reasons why he can't be. To other people he looks like someone who either needs to drop H's name to get attention, an absent father, a boybander who wants to be an indie artist for male validation, a homophobe and someone who's fans irritate him. That's not good at all. They don't get to see those sides of him that makes being a fan worth the gaslighting, lies and lash outs.

I'm happy you're optimistic. But i think as long as he has this image among the gp, he'll face an uphill battle. The gp who didn’t previously know of him will now know him as the artist who's rumoured to be in a relationship with Harry Styles. People know Harry Styles, so that makes them curious about Louis. If they do some research and check him out they'll no doubt become larries if they decide to stan him. Because of his image i don't think Louis is able to have gp fans or casual fans. His fake image is too repellant to them. You need to look past the surface to find him likeable, interesting and a good guy.

There is no way forward for him with this current image i'm afraid. The only way forward is for him to be allowed to be freely himself, and that would entail coming out and reveal his relationship with Harry. After a few years as an out artist the novelty of larry would wear off in the gp and he'd be able to build a broad fanbase who is fan of him for different reasons, like his music and artistry, and not only larry. He'd be able to build some independence then.

#solo louis #louis image #lthq #larry denials #so be it

[terrence-silver]

Do you have any headcanons about Terry McCain's younger life? His childhood, parents, family, time in high school, college etc?

---

― Born into a background just about as traditional as can be, I imagine, somewhere in rural Illinois on the outskirts of Chicago, on a big farm. Father might've been in law enforcement himself (a running multigenerational tradition, from grandfather, to father, to son?) mother a classical homemaker and Terry himself --- a good Catholic boy from a good Catholic household. The type that helps out at his local parish. Volunteers around the church or a soup kitchen. Feeds local stray animals around the neighborhood. Gets into fights with other kids he figures abused them, acquiring a taste for dishing out justice and pursuing what is right quite early on. Singing as a choir boy during Sunday mass, yes. Perhaps, taking up the occasional extracurricular of some local folklore troupe and getting into Irish dances and singing --- playing an instrument, sure, proving he has a knack for music; his first passion in life. Going on a heritage trip to Ireland? Maybe indulging in some occasional (and yet still weirdly innocent) mischief and pranks by switching out the local nuns' rosaries during prayer, for all we know. Nothing unconventional or controversial to see or read here. In fact, you can slap the man's face on a Norman Rockwell painting and you'd fit Terry McCain's upbringing fits the bill quite well.

― Had an equally Catholic educational phase too. St. Mary Institute or whatever it was called, and these years --- college and further studies pretty much left a pristine mark on his future too as someone diligent, hardworking and multitalented, considering how I envision Terry was groomed to be a cop very early on and that was a career choice that was simply a given he'd go into. Something, he in equal measure wanted to be, as much as it was a calling he inherited. As such, he attended an All Boys institute where he made lifelong friends (like Dylan) and later, a Police Academy and I imagine he got employment in this field extremely early on, possibly immediately post-graduation, which means by his early twenties, Terry McCain was probably already climbing the ranks within law enforcement, being a workaholic overachiever and fully dedicating himself to the job, fully detecting himself to his specialization and fully dedicating himself to martial arts; perfecting his weapon usage, combat skills and the pursuit of becoming just about as excellent as he can be in every regard, because I do believe Terry McCain is an idealist at heart and always has been, entirely convinced the myth of the 'good cop' doesn't just have to be a myth, especially how it might've been a career path numerous men in his family were in and the issue hit close to home.

― Was a definite country boy in the big city, and the somewhat drastic switch rendered him both hypersocial and introverted at the same time, meaning that in equal measure, a young Terry McCain was capable spending whole nights at the novelty that were jazz clubs, performing on stage, schmoozing at bars, honing his love of music, entertaining a crowd, being a generally liked, universally popular guy...and then retiring to his bachelor pad and being solitary for weeks and weeks, entirely bubbling himself in with the sole exception of being a cop. I think it is because Terry is a family guy at heart, plucked from his roots. Growing up in a tightly knit family unit. Instilled with family ideals. Possibly an only child who missed his family home and 'the good old days' or someone with a huge amount of siblings and nothing in between, being away from this traditional, post-card worthy environment due to the callings of his profession made it difficult to wholly adapt which he coped with by making his colleagues at the police force his adoptive family, in a sense --- which is exactly why their subsequent deaths were such a major blow to Terry. Why he went on such a rampage of revenge in their name.

― In spite of winning the genetic lottery in the looks department, being a star pupil in nearly everything he pursued, being athletic, tall, something of a jock and being undeniably popular in a sense, Terry McCain as a teenager was uncharacteristically humble about it. He might've been brash, a hothead, but, he was never a jerk. Never was a heartbreaker either, even though he very much could've been where young love was concerned. In fact, it is a shocker that Terry McCain doesn't have an extensive dating life behind him or nearly any at all, with rare exceptions. In fact, he seems like the type who would cordially take to prom someone who's parents know his parents and be a perfect gentleman about it and throw hands with anyone would be disrespectful about it. Pretty chaste about it too, as I do see that his later dedication to his profession consumed so much of his time that even as a young adult, Terry had no opportunity to put himself out there, regardless if he constantly turned eyes his way simply by walking into a room. Nobody would ever guess that this man had his first kiss relatively late and became sexually active relatively late as well just because he had this firm belief that he should do all of these things with someone he profoundly cares for and that the wait is worth it.

― Yet, I do imagine that there's a price to pay for being quite so continuously perfect in every regard and that's, yes, a whole load of pent-up repression accumulated over a great many years. Anger. Aggression. Being a bit of a pervert. Yeah, Terry has it all. And he's had it all since childhood, which means that in his adulthood and his continued career as a Detective, it actually takes anywhere from very little to a lot to trigger this man into turning a whole city upside down and leaving a literal trail of body bags behind him to enact what he sees as justice, righteousness, vigilantism, revenge, settling scores, tit for tat. You name it. Man has issues with rage galore. Issues with stubbornness. Issues with tense emotions. Issues with taking 'no' as an answer. To the degree he not only managed to hook up with a foreign model simply by being in relentless pursuit and then refusing to break up. I envision that as far back as his childhood or teenage years, Terry simply had a naturally fiery temper. That he was a kid of raw emotion and impulse. That he'd be capable of going toe to toe against a group of children all by himself because they bullied someone he considered a friend, even if the odds were stacked against him. It was the right thing to do, though, so he did it regardless.

#terry mccain #excessive force #excessive force 1993 #character analysis

[byneddiedingo]

Oscar Isaac in Inside Llewyn Davis (Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, 2013)

Cast: Oscar Isaac, Carey Mulligan, John Goodman, Garrett Hedlund, Justin Timberlake, Adam Driver, F. Murray Abraham, Stark Sands, Ethan Phillips, Robin Bartlett. Screenplay: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen. Cinematography: Bruno Delbonnel. Production design: Jess Gonchor. Film editing: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen. 

The flashback is a time-honored storytelling device in movies, but if virtually the entire film is a flashback, the device better have a purpose for its existence. In Sunset Blvd. (Billy Wilder, 1950), for example, the film flashes back to tell us whose corpse is floating in that swimming pool and why. Inside Llewyn Davis starts with Davis (Oscar Isaac) performing in a Greenwich Village club, then being beaten up for some unknown offense by a man outside that club. The film then flashes back to several days in the life of Davis in which, among other things, he becomes encumbered with a cat, learns that a woman (Carey Mulligan) he knows is pregnant and wants him to fund an abortion, travels to Chicago to try to find a well-paying gig, tries to give up his music career and rejoin the Merchant Marine, and then finally returns to the night he performed at the club and was beaten up, whereupon we learn that he had cruelly heckled his attacker's wife the night before. Is there a meaning to this method of storytelling? If there is, it's probably largely to make the point that Davis is caught in a vicious circle, a spiral of depression and self-destructive behavior. Llewyn Davis is a talented folk musician in a business in which talent alone is not enough: As the Chicago club-owner (F. Murray Abraham) tells him after he performs a song from the album Davis is trying to push, "I don't see a lot of money here." Davis doesn't want a lot of money, just enough to pay for his friend's abortion (which it turns out he doesn't need) and to stop couch-surfing, but every time he is on the verge of making it, something rises up to thwart him. In the movie's funniest scene he goes to a recording gig to make a novelty song, "Please Please Mr. Kennedy," which his friend Jim (Justin Timberlake) has written about an astronaut who doesn't want to go into space -- or as Al Cody (Adam Driver), the other session musician, intones throughout the song, "Outer ... space" -- but he signs away his rights to residuals because he needs ready cash. Of course, the song becomes a huge hit. As unpleasant as Davis can often be, his heart is really in the right place: Not only does he agree to fund his friend's abortion, even though the baby may not be his, he conscientiously looks after the cat he accidentally lets out of the apartment where he has been sleeping, and when the cat escapes again he nabs it on the street -- only, of course, to find out that the cat he has picked up is the wrong one. Are the Coens telling us something about good deeds always being punished? Are they telling us anything that can be reduced to a formula? I think not. What they are telling us is that life can be like that: random, unjust, bittersweet. And that, I think, is enough, especially when the lesson is being taught by actors of the caliber of Isaac (in a star-making role), John Goodman (brilliant as usual, this time as a foul-mouthed junkie jazz musician), and a superbly chosen supporting cast. The Coens always take us somewhere we didn't know we wanted to go, but are glad they decided to take us along.

#Inside Llewyn Davis #Joel Coen #Ethan Coen #Oscar Isaac

[thisaintascenereviews]

Seth MacFarlane & Liz Gillies - We Wish You The Merriest

Note: This review was meant to go up before Christmas, but I kind of forgot about it, and I still want to post it, so oh well.

I’m going to be frank for a second — I’ve only truly gotten into Christmas music within the last couple of years. I just never got into it growing up, whether it was the same handful of songs that are popular, and that get replayed each year, or how most Christmas music sounds the same, or has the same message. It gets tired, and even after getting into some Christmas music, I still feel that way. I’ve been real picky with the Christmas music I’ve been listening to, and I’ve found that I really enjoy the jazzier side of Christmas. Albums from Ol’ Blue Eyes himself, Frank Sinatra, as well as Dean “The King Of Cool” Martin, and Ella Fitzgerald are all ones that I’ve come to really get into, but one artist that I’ve talked about before is Seth MacFarlane, and his jazz career. Known as the creator and the main voucf actor (he hasn’t written for the show since 2010, give or take), of a little show called Family Guy, as well as American Dad, and the Ted movies (and the upcoming show), along with lesser known projects, he also has a music career. Inspired by mainly Frank Sinatra, he has released a bunch of albums in this retro jazz and big band style, covering a lot of standards from that era.

He just put out an album last year called Blue Skies, and it was one of my top albums of 2022. I had it at number three, but in retrospect, I should have put it at number one. I absolutely loved that album; it was so fun, upbeat, energetic, and catchy. MacFarlane really nails that style, and he sort of did it again with his newest album, We Wish You The Merriest. This time, though, he doesn’t do it alone — he teams up with Victorious actress, Liz Gillies. He did put out an EP with her a few years ago, during the pandemic, entitled Songs From Home, and it, too, is really fun. Their chemistry is great, Gillies can sing insanely well, and I never realized that until now. They had a couple of Christmas songs on that EP, but they’re different versions than what we got, which I like, because they could have slapped those on and called it a day, but they sound different and better.

I hate to say this, although I really don’t, but I love this album so much, it’s one of my favorites of the year, because it combines a few things — jazz, Seth MacFarlane, and Christmas music. The Christmas aspect could be a novelty for some people, and in a sense, it is, but here’s the thing that elevates this album — the song selection. I recently listened to an interview that both Seth and Liz did on the Zach Sang show, and they talked about how they wanted to put every Christmas song that doesn’t mention “Christ” on the album, and all of these songs are timeless and secular songs that anyone can enjoy. There are a lot of very well known song, such as “A Holly Jolly Christmas,” “Santa Claus Is Coming To Town,” “Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer,” “Frosty The Snowman,” and “Winter Wonderland,” but a few lesser known songs are here, including the title track, “Christmastime All Over The World,” and “That Holiday Feeling.”

Another thing I love here is that Seth MacFarlane dropped a Christmas album back in 2014, entitled Holiday For Swing, and it’s another solid record, but the cool thing is that no songs from that album show up here — except for one. That song is, understandably, “The Christmas Song,” and instead of a solo cut, it’s a duet, which makes it stand out. That album features a few other duets, as well as some more classic Christmas tunes (and some obscure ones), but this one is a bit different, as I think it has more energy. Holiday For Swing has a lot of energy, too, but We Wish You The Merriest is such a blast to listen to. I always have a smile on my face when listening to this record. It always breezes by, too.

I could go into a bit more about how both Gillies and MacFarlane sound, and how their chemistry is great, too, or how the arrangements are done well, but these are mostly songs that people know well. You’ve heard these songs before from various artists of various genres, but maybe not always in a duet form. This album, whether it’s the overall sound, the album art, or their voices (and their playful banter they have on a few tracks) reminds me a lot of albums from the 1950s and 1960s, but in a really good way. Honestly, this is the Christmas album I’ve been playing more than anythjng else, and it’ll surely be on the rotation every year from now on.

#christmas #seth macfarlane #liz gillies #christmas music #holidays #we wish you the merriest #pop #jazz #jazz music

[gggoode]

a little bit of writing for u !

I said I would post this and here u go bon appetit!!! trying to remember that not everyone is in my time zone and posting this at a time x

~~~~~~

Crystal was literally obsessed with Gigi. 

In all the time they’d been together, people kept warning them that the novelty would wear off. The honeymoon period would be over and it would become monotonous and they’d become one of those couples who did nothing but complain about each other. 

It hadn’t happened yet, though. They’d been together for six years, married for four, and if anything Crystal was only getting more enamoured with her. 

She’d watched her develop into a more confident and assured version of herself, achieving more and more in her career. She’d made a name for herself in fashion, still professionally going by Gigi Goode since she thought the alliteration was nice. Crystal agreed. 

Tonight they were at a fashion show. Crystal used to feel out of place at these things but despite being a fairly private person Gigi always gravitated to her as soon as she could, always proud to be on her arm despite Crystal dressing a bit less ‘conventionally’ than most other people at any given event. 

There was a runway at tonight’s event which Crystal always liked. She kept her phone close to her chest, snapping pictures and videos when she particularly liked a look. 

She’d been with Gigi for long enough that she thought she’d be used to her appearance by now, but she still lost her breath when she stepped onto the runway. 

Today she was in white, a short floaty dress with a long train fluttering behind it. Her red hair was curled and piled elegantly on top of her head, and Crystal didn’t think anything in the world could look prettier. 

She couldn’t stop herself from grinning as she walked the runway. Gigi looked serious and professional and sexy until she made eye contact with Crystal on her way past. Then she grinned and pressed a little kiss to her fingertips, throwing it Crystal’s way with a wiggle of her fingers. 

Crystal caught it and pressed it to her cheek, but she was distracted by the man beside her speaking. “I think she just blew me a kiss,” he said. 

Crystal was so bewildered that she couldn’t control her expression. 

“What, you think it was for you?” the man asked incredulously. 

“Maybe,” Crystal said. 

The man just snorted. 

The models walked again at the end of the show, Gigi looking stunning in the midst of them, and Crystal applauded until the lights came up again and the music stopped. 

Everyone filed out of the hall to the reception area. Crystal snagged a glass of champagne and hung back to wait. She was happy to stand alone, but the man who’d been beside her earlier sidled up and stood a little too close. 

“I hope there’s no hard feelings from earlier,” he said, hand on his hip as he loosened his tie. “I guess everyone wants to believe they could get a bit of attention from a girl like that.” 

Crystal hummed. “I guess so.” If she were drunker she might have made a comment about how much attention she’d gotten from Gigi in bed last night but she didn’t bother. 

Instead she’d just bide her time. 

“Do you think she has a boyfriend? I know the career types pretend not to be interested but the biological clock is always ticking,” the man said. 

Crystal made a face. 

“Pull all the faces you want, it’s the truth,” the man said, giving Crystal a condescending pat on the shoulder. 

Crystal wanted to hit his hand away but there was a little commotion at the other end of the hall as the models and designers emerged from backstage. Most of them milled around in a group, but one broke away. 

Gigi. She literally got prettier every time Crystal saw her and it was getting ridiculous. 

The man leaned closer when he noticed her approaching. “Guess I was right,” he murmured. 

Crystal paid him no attention. She opened her arms and Gigi sped straight into them, throwing her arms around Crystal’s neck. “You’re not supposed to look so hot in the audience, it’s distracting,” she said, leaning heavily against her. 

It was everything Crystal could do not to spill champagne down her back, but she managed to keep them both upright and dry. “It’s your fault, you dressed me this morning,” she reminded her. “You look so beautiful, Geege.” 

Gigi smoothed down the front of her outfit and Crystal tried not to let her eyes linger too long on the deep V-neck of the dress which went almost all the way to her belly button. “I think I’d like to wear something like this if we ever do one of those second wedding things,” she mused. 

Crystal bit back a smug little smile. Just like always, Gigi had said the perfect thing and it meant she didn’t have to say anything obnoxious to clarify that they were in fact married. 

Her expression made Gigi pause, and she seemed to notice the man for the first time. “Was I interrupting something?” 

“No, we were just talking,” Crystal said, wrapping her arm tight around Gigi’s waist and letting her take the barely-touched glass of champagne. She’d never thought of herself as a possessive person until she’d seen the way some of the men letched over Gigi at shows like these, but now she kind of enjoyed getting to whisk her wife away from them. 

Gigi was happy to press herself close to Crystal, hooking her free hand over her shoulder. “Yeah? Did you enjoy the show?” she asked, the question directed at the man. 

“It was good,” he said shortly. 

“He thought you were blowing kisses at him,” Crystal said before he could make his escape. He gave her a dirty look. 

Gigi laughed in his face and Crystal had to turn her face into Gigi to try and hide her smirk. “Sorry,” Gigi said after taking a sip of champagne. “It’s just funny to think i'd be blowing kisses to random strangers.” 

“But you’ll do it to her?” the man asked. 

“She’s my wife,” Gigi said simply, cuddling closer to Crystal and resting her head on her shoulder. 

The man didn’t stick around for long after that, disappearing into the crowd suitably embarrassed. Crystal turned to hug Gigi with both arms, pressing a kiss to her jaw. “You’re the best,” she told her. 

“Why would anyone else think I was blowing kisses to them?” Gigi grumbled, squeezing Crystal tight against her. 

Crystal pressed her fingers into the small of her back. “I guess they all want to think they could get a bit of attention from a girl like you,” she said mock-seriously.

Gigi pulled back to look at her, nose wrinkled. “Ew, Crys.”

“That’s what he said to me before you got here,” Crystal said, heart fluttering when Gigi’s expression changed to one of relief. 

“What did you say?” Gigi asked. 

“Nothing. I knew you’d come out and either hug me or kiss me or talk about how much you love me,” Crystal said. 

Years ago she wouldn’t have been nearly confident enough to say that, worried that Gigi would make a face and say she wouldn’t want to do that in public because she was embarrassed, or that Crystal was being clingy. Now she didn’t think twice. Gigi might have been the most beautiful thing on the planet but she just so happened to love Crystal, that much she was confident of.  

“Do you think I did enough?” Gigi asked, craning her neck to see if she could spot the man anywhere. 

Crystal nodded and squeezed her one more time for good measure. “Definitely. Mentioning vow renewal was just like the cherry on top,” she said fondly. 

Gigi seemed pleased, kissing Crystal’s lips. “Would you want to marry me again if I wore this?” 

“I’d want to marry you again if you were wearing a potato sack,” Crystal said, which made Gigi laugh brightly and press her face into Crystal’s shoulder. 

She stayed there for a moment before saying, “I’d prefer to wear this though.”

#an elegant ending? i dont know her #writing #crygi

[dollarbin]

Dollar Bin #26:

Bob Dylan's Bringing it All Back Home

Ah, the initially alarming, deeply flawed, but ultimately classic, transition album:

Neil Young started his deep dive into the ditch with Time Fades Away's bungling fever; Tom Petty crept off the plantation in search of SoCal zombies and skateboards with the hodgepodge airplane crash of Let Me Up; Joni Mitchell jumped off her increasingly precious clouds and instead fed us mysterious brownies, terrifying electric piano trance music and street corner clarinet; Paul Simon abandoned Artie on their graceful bridge and dove straight into the troubled water he'd formerly avoided at all costs, determined to reunite Mother and Child; Ringo and his clever lads joyfully totaled their quaint and geriatric tour bus so as to embrace rampaging chaos.

Each of these artists would have made their fans happy by staying the course. The public wanted endless choruses of All Together Now from each of them. After all, no one ever wants to see their hero just do it in the road.

But thank god they all swerved into the ditch, transitioning through straight up weird songs like L.A., Duncan, Woodstock and All Mixed Up to new, previously undreamt heights with Tired Eyes, American Tune, Blue and Free Fallin'. Thank God Paul McCartney shrieked about monkey sex long enough to give us Hey Jude.

Like most concepts in the Dollar Bin, Bob Dylan charted the seemingly reckless course for each of these vital transitions. And so let's talk about Bob's own transitional mess/masterpiece of a fifth record, Bringing it All Back Home.

It's of course tempting to think of the record in terms of Sides A and B: Like the 66 tour that followed, Bob makes an electric declaration alongside a conciliatory acoustic compromise.

But I think that assessment is all wrong, or at least too elementary (for the tour and the album). Rather, I think Bringing it All Back Home has four different, mingled song sets to consider: there are a) two tossed off novelty songs, b) three hastily recorded future masterpieces, c) three sprawling problems, and d) two songs that are total filler.

Add a fifth category: there's also one - and only one - full success on Bringing It All Back Home. That's right, it's one of my favorite albums of all time and yet I think there is only one song on the record that Bob did right the first time:

Despite the popular imagination there are plenty of Dylan tracks which feature great singing. At least once a decade Dylan reminds us that he's capable of nailing a melody alongside surprising and perfect phrasing.

Want a handy, 70 year long, left field list from off the top of my head? I'm happy to provide!

60's Moonshiner

70's Knocking on Heaven's Door

80's Blind Willie McTell

90's Lone Pilgrim

00's Nettie Moore

10's Long and Wasted Years

20's Key West

Dylan sings She Belongs to Me with similar elegance and personality, yes? The song is built on repetition and yet nothing seems to occur more than once. He tells us twice that his lady friend is an artist, he bows down to her twice and describes her firm footwork, you got it, twice, but he does so in such different fashions, stretching the second phrase in the second line of each verse just so, like a tableau vivant that has obviously changed - but how? - while you were blinking.

Indeed I've always thought of She Belongs To Me as the musical version of the album's cover, the most staged and ambitious of Dylan's career. Albert Grossman's impossibly elegant wife, the piles of rick rack and the precious kitty cat in Dylan's lap: like the song's title itself, none of these things actually appear in Dylan's perfectly paced, intimate and stately song. But every detail seems borrowed from the song's missing verses.

(It's too bad a literalist approach was taken for the Basement Tapes cover. I'd prefer images from the absent songs rather than the drunken tea party dress up vibe that was chosen. Dylan, at least, seems to understand this: while everyone else mugs for the camera he flips his stringed object 90 degrees and dreams about the door...)

Dylan of course opened his 66 tour each night with She Belongs to Me, and all the versions are successful. But none of them touch the arrangement from the album track: Bruce Langhorne's swaying, gurgling lead guitar, the unobtrusive but burgeoning drums: everything waltzes along perfectly together and insists that Bob keep up. And keep up he does, still finding chances to linger without ever getting sleepy. It makes for lovely, lovely music: perfect from the beginning.

But most of all we think of Bringing It All Back Home as an introduction to masterpieces that Bob, and everyone else, has been wrestling with ever since. Dylan recorded the whole album in 3 days so it's no wonder that songs like It's All Over Now Baby Blue, Love Minus Zero/No Limit, and Mr Tambourine Man are so complex that we're still getting to the bottom of them.

I'm not going to spend much time on Mr Tambourine Man here; check out the Dollar Bin (#6?) on Judy Collins' Fifth Record. Suffice it to say that Dylan's first version is great, but is obviously not the master take in that there were at least two competing versions that same year that were just as good.

But let's linger over Love Minus Zero/No Limit. It's one of my all time favorites, period. I have no real idea what Dylan is trying to tell us but the poetry never fails to knock me out. Consider the third verse, which echoes Proofrock's yearning, anticipates Get Smart and makes touchstones out of everything from chess to Daniel's prophesies about Nebuchadnezzar's faulty artistic future. This is Dylan and his most obtusely wonderful:

The cloak and dagger dangles, Madams light the candles. In ceremonies of the horsemen, Even the pawn must hold a grudge. Statues made of match sticks, Crumble into one another, My love winks, she does not bother, She knows too much to argue or to judge.

And yet the album's dense arrangement simply does not understand the song's greatness. The same backing players who both corralled and gave Bob space on She Belongs To Me here force Dylan to rush through his thoughts and linger over nothing; we don't need complexity behind such lyrics and the melody: works of art always look better without gilded frames.

Dylan knew as much; he knew he couldn't hope to contain the song's multitudes on first attempt so he gave up after two series of rushed attempts over two days. But on The Other Side of the Mirror, recorded the following summer at the Newport Folk Festival, we see him come much, much closer, as the wind howls like a hammer no less, to unveiling the song's full greatness.

I'll make a nerd club comment quickly, however, about Bringing It All Back Home's mono mix. I grew up listening to this record on an 80's era CD that made everything sound like it had been recorded in Dylan's private vomitorium. Listening this morning to my more recently purchased, but almost 60 year old, mono record, I wondered if the album track is way better than I claim here.

When it comes to others trying to touch Dylan's own interpretration of the masterpiece I usually groan (when Eric Clapton tried to play it at Bob Fest, I, listening live on some barely-there FM station, almost shouted my famous farmer buddy Ned, who was driving his dad's ancient suburban, off a very windy mountain road. Thanks for not letting us die Ned!).

The best cover of Love Minus Zero that I know of is hardly a cover at all. Witness the Go-Betweens sneaking it in to their song Clouds (no, not that song Clouds; this is one of their own with that title):

But even so, I'm sticking to my guns: Love Minus Zero is best unadorned and sung by Bob.

The album's other lyrical masterpiece, It's All Over Now, Baby Blue, has an even richer history and an even more questionable start. I can understand, wholeheartedly, while Dylan felt done after the album's eventual take was in the can. The swirling, melodic bass alone makes the track worthy of inclusion on this, or any other, record. Dylan adds impassioned vocals and sensitive harmonica; it all comes together into a marvelous flotilla of music.

But the song still includes a straight-up, gasp-worthy, mistake. Check out the third verse, second line. According to Bob himself, the lyric is, and always has been, "all your reindeer armies, they're all going home". Following up on Bob's seasick sailors rowing home, this is a bizarre and perfect lyric for a bizarre and perfect song.

But Dylan sings nothing of the sort. Instead we get something that sounds like "your empty handed army-ers are going home." That's not the same thing Bob! Indeed it sounds like you were so into this take 1/2 way in that you blew it, then shrugged and went out to kick it with Nico or something. Dude, Bob, give us another take!

He did of course. Like She Belongs to Me, he made the song a centerpiece of his 66 tour, usually nailing it. And many others have given us earnest versions of their own, from Them's Beck-worthy cover to the obligatory Byrd's version, and so on.

But this entire post was inspired by Chan Marshall's just released take of Baby Blue. If you haven't heard all of the Cat Power re-creation of Dylan's Judas concert, get your act together, stop reading this and do so right now.

Why, oh why, doesn't Dylan tour and record his next album right now with Chan and Fionna Apple sharing the vocals with him? You know both women are game, and I guarantee you both of them would remember it's reindeer we're talking about here, not armyers.

Okay, that covers the initially tossed off classics-to-be. Let's talk about the problem songs: It's Alright Ma and Gates of Eden. There's a lot to be said in favor of these songs. They both feature dense writing with bumper-sticker-ready tag lines. "Even the President of the United Sates Sometime Has to Stand Naked" and "The Savage Soldier Just Sticks His Head In Sand and Then Complains" are a bit wordy but there's plenty of room on the back of my 08 Honda Civic Hybrid. I'm ready to make people tailgate me and squint.

But Dylan delivers both numbers as dirges. Frankly I have to take a deep breath to get through them back to back. Listening is like doing your homework, and, while I'm a pretty good teacher, I'm a lousy student. Thus, they are problem songs.

But Dylan figured out one of them, It's Alright Ma, in a big way in 74 while on tour with The Band. He belts it out in frantic double time, creating the perfect Watergate Era protest song. Obtuse and direct, vague and fierce:

I was negative 2 years old at that point but I swear I heard Dylan's holler in utero, beckoning me to join the argument here on Earth. I'm happy to have answered the call, and I hope I never see Trump naked. But jail would be sweet...

As far as I know, Gates of Eden has never been similarly salvaged but I'd argue it's ready for resuscitation. Bob's dense Adam and Eve tale is just sitting around 60 years later, waiting for someone other than Bob to finally give it some life. Check out the lyrics to the second verse; there's plenty worth wrestling with here:

The lamppost stands with folded arms, its iron claws attached To curbs 'neath holes where babies wail, though it shadows metal badge All and all can only fall with a crashing but meaningless blow No sound ever comes from the Gates of Eden

I don't know how a lamppost can shadow a metal badge under wailing toddlers, but the whole thing freaks me out in good ways. I wish Leonard Cohen had given Phil Specter the boot and sung this with Bob instead of Don't Go Home With Your Hard-On.

The third of the problem songs is problematic in an entirely different sense. Yes, I know that Maggie's Farm is historically important because Bob used it to help create punk rock in 65 by lighting up Newport's speakers and driving Pete Seeger into an axe-wielding rage, but the song has basically no melody and is, to my ears, pretty dull. Name me a good version. Dare you! Meanwhile, I ain't gonna talk about this song no more.

I'm afraid to say that the remaining two categories, Bringing It All Back Home's novelty songs and its filler, are less rich pastures for us to dwell in, but let's visit anyway, shall we?

First of all, I'm here to tell you that one of Bob Dylan's masterpieces, Subterranean Homesick Blues, is nothing more than a novelty song. By that I mean it's a gimmick: awesome once and then never worth redoing by anyone, ever again. I've never heard a Dylan live version of any kind - he knows better - and I dare even my famous brother to produce a quality cover. (And if he plays me the Red Hot Chili Peppers' take I will declare him no longer famous.)

Simply put, I think the song is a fantastic and spontaneous piece of wit that would go stale the moment it is ever retold. Do I like the song and its sweet one liners? Sure! I dare say I have even taken a fair bit of Bob's advice to heart over the years. No one's ever caught me hanging around an inkwell, that's for damn sure. But I never want to hear the song in any other context beyond the opening two minutes of this record or in the poster flinging alleyway bit.

Thankfully Bob feels the same way. Can you imagine a Budokan version, slowed down to a reggae beat and chanted with the ladies while Dickicus Maximus on the sax shows off his swaggering mass? Or imagine a Jesus phase rewrite accompanied by auto-harps entitled Jesus is the Answer Blues (Christ's in his Heaven's, mixing up the punishments; I'm on the pavement thinking about the rapture..), or a Neverending Tour take wherein no one other than Bob, including the band, even knows the song is happening (must be Cat's in the Well?) until Bob suddenly tells everyone to light themselves a candle, at which point everyone goes from stupefied to frantic because they failed to hit record on their smuggled-in iPhones.

Instead of covers or remakes we're left with a long line of other novelty songs in the same vein. We're talking End of the World As We Know It, about 1/4 of every great song in Elvis Costello's catalog from Pump it Up to Beyond Belief and, I'm so sorry because now it's stuck in your head, We Didn't Start the Fire.

Dylan knew his 115th Dream was a one-off joke from the get go, and so he added the hilarity from the first of its only two attempts onto the intro for the record. I never miss a chance to grin at the nonsense Bob and Captain A-Rab get into, but this song is not on any best of lists and, like Subterranean Homesick Blues, has thankfully never been attempted by anyone since.

Curiously, it's also the last "Bob Dylan's Dream" song we ever got from Dylan. I guess there are really only two of them, but I think of the two I Shall Be Frees and Talking World War Three Blues as additional members of the genre. Now don't get me wrong, I love Series of Dreams as much as any other Bobhead, but images of running and climbing are no substitute for another song from Dylan's ridiculous dream journal about harpoons and Bob being reminded that he is not Christ.

That leaves us with the filler: On the Road Again and Outlaw Blues are exactly that. Had he written them, Stephen Stills would proudly place these songs on his Greatest Hits package; they are that bad.

Dylan's made more than just this one transition record, of course. John Wesley Harding... Street Legal... World Gone Wrong... Maybe all his records are transitions!

Just imagine us ten years and three new Dylan albums from now. Bob is a spry 92 and has just added a cheap-enough-for-me lager to his whiskey line. And, at long last, he has invited me over to the bobpad as my famous brother's plus one; that's right: after years of rejecting interview appeals from even the AARP, the Bobster finally wants to talk, and my bro's more than earned the gig. Our plan for the evening is to quiz Bob about how he transitioned into yet another masterful phase way back during Rough and Rowdy Ways.

Now that's a dream I'd like to hear him sing about.

#Youtube #bob dylan #neil young #joni mitchell #paul simon #stephen stills still sucks

[somethingvinyl]

Next up is an oddball in Zappa’s catalog. Fifteen years into his career, FZ had his second accidental hit single—first it was Yellow Snow, then it was Valley Girl. Both novelty songs appreciated on the radio more for their jokey basis than their musical content. It drove him a little crazy, but he didn’t complain about the money. He plowed the proceeds from this hit into his dream, getting a symphony orchestra to play his serious compositions (the result, by the London Symphony Orchestra, was yet another bitter disappointment, one that made him basically give up this dream). Because of Valley Girl, this is another of FZ’s most ubiquitous albums in used record bins. If your record shop has one Zappa record, it’s Zoot Allures. If they have two, the second is Over-Nite Sensation. But if they have three, the third is Ship Arriving Too Late to Save a Drowning Witch.

Valley Girl is a collaboration between Zappa and his 14-year-old daughter, the infamously named Moon Unit. Frank loved his children, but there’s also no doubt that he was an absent father, spending all the time he wasn’t touring holed up in his home studio—apparently he invited Moon in when she slipped a note under the door begging to spend some time with him. (I don’t remember which of the many Zappa bios I’ve read had that detail.) He was amused by her imitation of the vapid way her classmates talked, so he recorded her improvising dialogue and gave the type the name of “valley girl” after the San Fernando Valley. The song caught on in a big way, and Moon fully deserves her co-artist credit on this—the song’s success is 90% about how funny this 14-year-old is. The song was an immediate hit and provoked a national fascination with the new valley girl stereotype, so all that stuff in our culture (“gag me with a spoon” and all that) can be traced back to Frank and Moon.

The rest of the album is alright; not his best, not his worst. Drowning Witch and No Not Now are good, I Come from Nowhere is irritating. Steve Vai is good on it, original Mother of Invention Roy Estrada pops back up to offer some falsetto vocals. But if it wasn’t for Valley Girl, this would be among Zappa’s most negligible records. It’s also followed by a bunch of records that I have purposefully left out of my collection: The Man from Utopia, which is just annoying to me; Baby Snakes, which is an ok live album but not worth hunting down; London Symphony Orchestra, which is unsuccessful… I do want to own the Boulez Perfect Stranger album, but I’ve never seen one in person yet, and it’s not a high priority. We’re in the Zappa doldrums here in the ‘80s.

#frank zappa #vinyl

[grantgoddard]

Is it because I’m (not) Blacker Dread? : 2006 : Rockers International Record Shop

“It’s for you,” shouted the man behind the counter, holding the telephone handset at arm’s length toward me after having answered the call.

“For me?” I echoed incredulously. “But nobody even knows I’m here!”

I was standing in a shop, but not just any shop. This was a record shop. I dread to calculate how many thousand hours I must have spent in record shops over the last half-century, thumbing through vinyl. It started with my first record purchase in 1968, from Dykes Records in Camberley, of the novelty single ‘Cinderella Rockefella’, after it was performed on The Eammon Andrews Show. In the early 1970’s, my first ‘job’ was helping during lunch breaks in the Recordwise shop opposite my school in Egham where owner Adam Gibbs paid me in vinyl rather than cash. He taught me so much about the retail end of the music industry inside his huge, well stocked record shop, while my classmates were otherwise occupied feeding their pocket money into a nearby café’s pinball machines.

I was standing in a record shop, but not just any record shop. This was a reggae music record shop. From 1972, I would spend many weekends standing at reggae stalls and shops listening to new releases, initially around Brixton’s Granville Arcade, having travelled to London by flashing my green cardboard British Rail school season ticket paid for by Surrey County Council. Soon my trips extended to Harlesden, Finsbury Park and occasionally the East End to find the latest imported ‘pre’ singles. A common response to my multiple requests to buy certain new ‘tunes’ was “It finish, man”, an indication that the limited quantities had already sold out. I still have a wants list of unfound records from that time, probably never to be fulfilled.

I was standing in a reggae record shop, but not just any reggae record shop. This was Rockers International Record Shop, established by musician and producer Augustus Pablo. I had followed his output passionately since hearing his melodica versions on single B-sides and was hooked by the time his ground-breaking debut album was released in 1974, the first reggae LP I had heard mixed in stereo. Although Pablo had succumbed to long-term illness in 1999, his shop remained and my visit that day was to try and fill a few gaps in my collection of the man’s works.

The shop was on a street, but not just any street. This was Orange Street in downtown Kingston, Jamaica where the island’s music industry had been centred for decades. Across the street was the long-closed shopfront of Prince Buster’s Record Shack, after this artist and producer’s prolific and internationally successful career had fizzled out thirty years earlier. No single street in the world has been responsible for as great a volume of music as Orange Street. After Savoy Record Shop opened at number 118 in the mid-1950’s, the entire long street was soon heaving with noisy music, musicians, producers, record shops and studios. In its heyday, hundreds of new reggae singles were released right here every week. Small island, big sounds.

The man behind the counter was still offering me the phone receiver on its coiled cable. I approached the counter and took it from him, despite complete bafflement as to how a call could possibly be for me. Jamaica often proved as confusing as this.

“Hello,” I said with great trepidation.

“How was your flight? I hope you had a safe journey,” said an unrecognisable man with a Jamaican accent on the other end.

“I did, thank you for asking, but I ….”

“And the place you are staying is working out well for you?” he interrupted. I had absolutely no idea who I was talking to, but he was so quick to interject before I could explain.

“Yes, thank you,” I replied, not wanting to offend this stranger. “Where I am staying is fine but I think you should …”

“And have you found some music you wanted in the record shop?” he interrupted again.

“Yes, I have,” I answered, but this time I continued with more haste to try and avoid him interrupting me yet again. “But who do you think you are talking with?”

“Look,” he replied. “I’m sorry I haven’t yet arrived at the shop and I know I had promised I would meet you there.” It was evident that this man had misunderstood or simply ignored my seemingly straightforward question. How can communication sometimes prove so difficult?

“Don’t worry yourself,” I spluttered, as if it really was me that he had arranged to meet. “But I think there must be some confusion because I had not agreed to meet anyone here.”

“So my man is not with you yet?” he asked. “But will he arrive there later? Do you know what time he will arrive? Shall I call again later?”

It felt as if I was rapidly descending into a Kafka-like world of intrigue and ’39 Steps’ hazard, all because I had been mistaken for someone who I definitely was not. It was time to draw a halt to this madness.

“Please, please tell me exactly who it is you had arranged to meet here?” I pleaded with him.

“Blacker Dread, man, of course,” he finally blurted out. “Is he travelling with you?”

“No, he is not with me, but I know of him,” I explained. Finally, a little light had started to shine at the end of this conversational tunnel. But it soon became apparent that I had failed to choose my wording precisely enough and was misunderstood yet again.

“So you know Blacker and you know we are going to meet up when he has some time, so we can catch up together,” the man continued. “And you will be accompanying him too?”

Just when I thought we had made progress, that glimmer of light began to fade away again. It was imperative to put a stop to this right now. I needed to break out of my timid English-ness to fix this nonsense. I needed to be firm and I needed to explain my mistaken identity in the bluntest language I could muster.

“No, you have misunderstood, I’m afraid,” I started. “I don’t KNOW Blacker Dread personally. I know OF him. I know WHO he is. But I haven’t met him. He is not with me. I just happened to be in this record shop when your call came in. But Blacker Dread is not here. I’m sorry but I have no idea if, or when, he will be in this shop or even in Jamaica. It is just a coincidence that I am here and the man in the shop insisted that I take your call.”

“Oh, oh, okay, okay” said the man, as if I had been telling him off. In a way, maybe I was. Why cannot people simply identify themselves when they call someone? Why can they not ask for the person they wish to speak with? Why do they launch straight into conversations without first establishing that they are connected to the person they want? Anyway, it had taken some time but now the misunderstanding had finally been sorted out.

But who is Blacker Dread? Born in Jamaica (coincidentally the same year as me), his family had emigrated to South London when he was nine and he attended Penge Grammar School after having passed the 11+ exam (twice!). In the 1980’s he was selector for Lloyd Coxsone’s legendary London sound system. In 1993, he opened the Muzik Store record shop in Brixton and made huge contributions to the local community through his voluntary work. A remarkable and moving feature-length documentary, ‘Being Blacker’ by Molly Dineen, was broadcast in 2018 on BBC2 that followed three years in his life, including a tragic prison sentence in 2014 that forced closure of his shop and curtailment of his community work and reggae productions. I could never hope to achieve Blacker Dread’s stature.

Before ringing off the phone call, I asked the unknown man who he was. He said he was Jimmy Radway. I knew the name instantly as a respected 1970’s roots reggae producer whose releases had included ‘Warning’, ‘Black Cinderella’ and ‘Mother Liza’ on his record label Fe Me Time. (For me, Big Youth’s doom-laden prophetic 1975 DJ version of ‘Warning’ about Haile Selassie’s assassination, titled ‘Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing’, has always remained an absolute favourite.) I thanked Radway for his patience with me and bided him goodbye.

I handed the phone back to the man behind the counter and asked him exactly what the caller had said after he had answered the phone.

“He said he wanted to talk to the Englishman in the shop,” the man replied, “so I knew that must be you.”

I looked around the tiny record shop. I certainly had been the only Englishman in the shop. In fact, I had been the only person in the shop for the last hour while I flicked through vinyl records … except for my brother-in-law who had been waiting patiently nearby for me to finish.

“Who were you talking with?” he asked me.

“It was Jimmy Radway and he thought he was talking to Blacker Dread,” I explained. Having himself worked in the reggae music industry, my brother-in-law laughed heartily. We both realised that there could never have been a more unlikely case of mistaken identity in a reggae record shop on Orange Street, Kingston, Jamaica.

[Respect to DJ Conscious for jogging my memory. My curated discography of 700+ Augustus Pablo tunes is a Spotify playlist.]

#Augustus Pablo #Blacker Dread #Grant Goddard #Jamaica #Jimmy Radway #music #record shop #reggae #Rockers International

[scotianostra]

On July 17th 2009 the singer/songwriter Gordon Waller and one half of the duo Peter & Gordon passed away.

Waller, the son of a surgeon, was born in Braemar, and went to Westminster school, in London, where he met Peter Asher in 1959. Asher was already something of a jazz and blues fan, but Waller persuaded him to broaden his horizons to include pop and rock'n'roll. Both were keen guitarists and soon they were entertaining their fellow students. By 1963, they were playing (initially as Gordon and Peter) in pubs and small clubs at lunchtimes and evenings for small fees or for a meal, often singing their own compositions in the close harmony style of the Everly Brothers. Early in 1964, they were booked for a two-week engagement at the Pickwick nightclub. One of the diners was Norman Newell, an EMI record producer. Newell was charmed enough by Peter and Gordon’s rendition of their song If I Were You to offer them a recording contract.

At this time, McCartney was dating Jane, and Peter and Gordon badgered McCartney to provide them with a song. He obliged with A World Without Love, which he had written six years earlier in Liverpool. McCartney told his biographer Barry Miles: “Gordon was a lot of fun – he was slightly less academic than Peter. It was he who persuaded Peter to jump school to do lunchtime sessions.”

By the end of March 1964, A World Without Love had displaced the Beatles’ own Can’t Buy Me Love at the top of the charts. In May, just before Waller’s 19th birthday and Asher’s 20th, it was the biggest selling record in the US. The instant stardom created by A World Without Love was the beginning of two years of frantic activity for Peter and Gordon.

For the American media, they combined the cachet of a Beatles connection (McCartney wrote several more of their hits and fans discerned in Waller a slight resemblance to John Lennon) There were numerous television appearances, occasional tours of Japan and Australia as well as North America and dozens of recordings. In the next 12 months, Nobody I Know and I Don’t Want to See You Again (both by McCartney) were transatlantic hits, as were I Go To Pieces, written by Del Shannon, and True Love Ways, a Buddy Holly song the duo had performed in their early days in London.

By now, Peter and Gordon were competing in North America with numerous other British imports, including another middle-class duo, Chad and Jeremy. Their star began to wane in 1966, when their only hits were Woman, another McCartney composition credited pseudonymously to “Bernard Webb”, and Lady Godiva, a novelty number that was denounced as obscene by the mayor of Coventry, which helped it reach the Top 20 in Britain and the American Top 10. By 1967, Peter and Gordon’s British career was over and in America they were reduced to peddling olde English material such as the minor hit The Knight in Rusty Armour and the album Sunday for Tea. They split up the next year, with Asher joining the Beatles’ Apple project as an A&R man and Waller launching a career as a solo singer.

Despite the fact that he had been the stronger vocalist of the pair, this career was stillborn. A handful of singles were issued, plus a 1970 album of his own compositions called Gordon. He left showbusiness to run a landscape gardening business in Northamptonshire until, in 1971, he took the part of Pharaoh in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, the musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice.

In the 1980s and 90s Waller ran a music publishing business in America. In the last few years of his life, he reunited with Asher to play a few shows in Los Angeles, the Philippines and New York.

#Scotland #scottish #anglo-scottish #singersongwriter #Singer #musician #music history

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

So, I’d somehow managed to never have heard the Flight of the Conchords radio sitcom before. I first watched their TV sitcom in about 2009, I think. And got into their music from there. I’ve re-watched that show many, many times in the last fifteen years, it’s probably one of the shows I’ve watched the most times in full. Yet somehow, never bothered to hear the radio show that came first until this week, when I was gathering Daniel Kitson radio things like, to borrow a phrase I’ve heard someone else use, a comedy magpie. Kitson was only in one episode, but I listened to all six, deciding that’s long overdue.

Here are some thoughts:

- Interesting (to me) that the only actor, besides the main two, to reprise his radio role in the TV show was Rhys Darby. I guess that should be obvious – he’s the only other Kiwi main character, he’s the one who started out with them. But for some reason I hadn’t thought of the fact that he had more history with the band than just being cast in their TV show. That’s cool.

He plays almost the same character. Different name, and in the radio show he was still with his wife, though only barely. And no useful job outside the band. That’s the difference between British radio and American TV for you – America and TV make their characters have glamourous jobs like working in the New Zealand consulate office.

- On that subject, the big and obvious difference is that the radio show is on the BBC and about a Kiwi band trying to make it in England, while the TV show is on HBO and about a Kiwi band trying to make it in America. That may reflect the band’s actual growing success – in 2005, they were trying to get somewhere in Britain, and by 2007, they were breaking America.

- Daniel Kitson plays a novelty music guy for whom the Conchords do support work. His character performs with a panda puppet. This is funny to me because about a year and a half earlier, Daniel Kitson was ranting to at least one audience about his dislike of people who perform with puppets (the immortal line “If you want to say rude things on stage, take the sock off your hand and start losing friends, you fucking chicken”), based on a radio show he had to do with ventriloquist Nina Conti.

- This also makes it amusing to me that Nina Conti appeared in that radio show, though not with her puppet and not in the same episode as Daniel Kitson. She played a slightly different version of the character played by Kristen Schaal in the TV show, and Jimmy Carr played her husband. I think Jimmy Carr was the only guest star to turn up in more than one episode, and I hate to say this, but he was quite good.

- I find it very funny that they still did a storyline with Bret being self-conscious about being too skinny, even in the radio version. Because we can’t see him there. They could have had any character self-conscious about anything. But they still decided to pick on Bret McKenzie by making it a plot point that what he actually looks like is a terrible thing to look (even though it’s definitely not… I mean, I’m not often attracted to men, but I very occasionally am, and when I am, they tend to look like Bret McKenzie).

- Other plot points common to both versions: they have a Yoko Ono (different name, very similar character, her episode is probably the most similar between the radio and TV versions), Bret quits the band, Rhys Darby struggles to get them bookings.

- Actually, I was wrong about Rhys Darby being the only one to reprise his role. Greg Proops plays the same character who sends them off on basically the same plotline.

- Writing this post got me looking at the Wikipedia page for their TV show, and it is quite cool to just look at that list of guest stars, keeping in mind that this was all pre-2010. Look at all the stuff the guest and recurring stars have gone on to do, in addition to Kristen Schaal and Rhys Darby’s careers.

I’m pretty sure Bret and Jermaine count as official Chocolate Milk Gang members, as does Demitri Martin (who’s billed on the Wikipedia page as a guest star in that TV show because he’s only in one episode, but he has such a significant role in that episode that I tend to think of him as a major character). And a number of the other names on that page are people I think of as CMG-adjacent for various reasons. The Flight of the Conchords TV sitcom is basically a gathering of the NYC wing of the CMG (yes I realize it may not be entirely accurate to define the New York alternative comedy scene as merely a branch of some stuff that happened in Britain, but this is how I choose to see the world). See, this sort of thing is why I have described the Chocolate Milk Gang as “an international crime syndicate that sometimes organizes soccer matches” (that is a quote from John Oliver, even though he may have been actually talking about FIFA when he said it).

[solasan]

HI HI HI HIH I HI :) for the infamous mc asks can i get uhhhhh full circle, beginnings, fans, voice, storybeats, and seven. i will stop now. <3 <3

infamous MC questions

TYSM CARLY ILY <3333

Full circle: What is the first song they ever wrote? Played? What’s the most recent? 

i think the first song she wrote is probably a song that eventually became eggshells, which is a rly angry/kinda devastating song on their most recent EP (glass houses). mommy issues core. it went through a lot of transformation over the years — from angsty teenage metaphors to kinda blisteringly painful adult ones — and the first time she ever sang it for the band, her hands shook the whole fuckin time. (seven was the only person to hear it before that). it’s pretty well-loved bc it’s got a lot of raw, emotional vocals, backed up by a pretty sick beat and some of rowan’s best work.

the most recent song would probs be forecast fires, which is actually hornet’s nest’s audition song for botb!! it’s about seven LOL. very angry and kind of tragic/ever-so-slightly wistful if u actually listen to the lyrics, but it’s upbeat and the kind of song u can’t help dancing to.

Beginnings: When and how did they know they wanted to be a professional musician? Was there a deciding factor?  

marnie’s always been into music; she grew up singing along to her dad’s old fleetwood mac & joan jett records and started taking guitar lessons young (mostly as an excuse for her parents to get her out of the house lol). she started writing when she was about 11 (not long before she met seven) and used to mess around with putting some of her songs to music, but she wasn’t super serious about a career in music for a while.

it was seven that first planted the idea in her head, but once planted, it rly took root. he was always the one pushing her, telling her that her music was good, that they could do this, and she only half-believed him until the very first time that their fans sang along to their music at a gig. then she was kind of like this is what i’m made for; giving people something to dance and sing to.

when seven left, though, she got a lot more serious about it. it kind of became a thing of i don’t need you, we don’t need you, we’re gonna make it after that, mostly out of spite and hurt but also because the fans loving her voice on its own was kind of a novelty for her. now she knows she wants to be singing to people until the day she drops dead LOL.

Fans: How is their relationship with their fans? Do they go out of their way to interact? 

oh marnie looooves her fans lol. she especially loves the kinds of fans that everyone else gets embarrassed over; the gushy ones, like maya. they make her feel loved, bro, and as someone with huuuuge abandonment issues, that’s better than crack. but even if ur not gushing over her, she’s probably rly excited to be seeing u, bc she just loves that people listen to her.

she’s a very sociable rockstar lol. she’ll hug fans, she’ll make a real effort to get them involved at their gigs — getting them to sing, talking to them, generally being a great stage presence — and she’s always happy to stop for a picture or autograph at the grocery store. it just thrills her bro!! she’s probably so pro-vespids (👉👈 maya came up with that n marnie ADORES it) that orion’s had to take her socials away from her sometimes bc she can’t stop tweeting back to people n they do not have the time, ross, you were supposed to be at rehearsals a half hour ago!

Voice: What does their singing voice sound like? Do you have voiceclaims(s) for them? 

throaty & husky; pretty sensual. she sounds a lot like grace vanderwaal i think (this is a good example) so her voice is very raspy and distinctive. pretty recognisable. i know, like, literally fuck all about singing, but after a lil googling i’d say her voice type is contralto, so she’s on the lower end of the vocal range.

Storybeats: If you could design one scene to happen in the story, what would it be? How would it change your character? What would make it so satisfying for the character arc? 

oof. probably some kind of confrontation with her parents? a lot of marnie’s motivations can be boiled down to “i can make it on my own, i can prove it” and essentially trying to show how capable/independent/good she is, so getting some kind of closure with her Very First Abandonment would probably be huge. i don’t picture them making up, really; more just some kind of moment that makes marnie realise oh, i don’t have to prove shit to these bastards. i think the closure would at first be pretty painful for her and she’d fuck off to go get high and block out the world, but if she could get over that, i think she’d come out the other side feeling a lot more secure in herself and who she is. probably a lot less desperate for acceptance & love, too.

im gonna try to keep this a bit briefer but i also think some kind of acknowledgement about her unhealthy relationship with party drugs would b very helpful to her. she’s not high all the time by any means, because she actually takes her career pretty seriously, but she definitely uses parties & coke to get out of her head when she doesn’t want to be there and it’s caused some problems that have made orion rip his hair out.

Seven: Do you have headcanons about their friendship and/or romantic relationship (past or future)? What do you imagine some of their best memories are? What do you think some of Seven’s favourite things about your MC were/are?

oof seven meant everything to marnie lol :) for a very long time, he was her first constant, her greatest constant, because her parents wanted nothing to do with her and she was just… so lonely. and then he was there, warm and funny and a little dry, and he was taking her to his mom’s place and understanding her music and commiserating with her over the yawning black emptiness both of them felt at times. how could she not fall in love, u know?

they pined for each other for most of their teens before finally getting together when they were abt 20. probably the first time they wrote a song together was marnie’s first Oh I’m In Love moment lol, but her fav memories are all the times they hung out drunk as shit on the roof of her parents’ place as teens, sharing a blanket and pointing at the stars n making each other laugh.

another good memory: marnie dumped her crappy boyfriend just before prom when they were seniors, so her and seven skipped prom night and drove to vero beach to drink beer and have an impromptu bonfire, and marnie ended up out in the water in her fucking dress jumping waves with him, and it was just… very soft n sweet. she misses those days.

i think seven always liked marnie’s sense of humour (she’s very sarcastic but in a warm kind of way?) and how blunt she was; there’s not a conniving bone in her body (which is what made The Vote so painful for him, among other things) and he always appreciated that. her loyalty, too. on the smaller side of things, he always thought her laugh was the greatest thing about her, because it’s loud and snorting and always so genuine. he misses it sometimes

#arlathen #answered #drug ment / #alcohol ment / #ch: marnie ross #i talked abt seven soooooo much in this n i hate that bc she IS more than him but also like..... #tell me someone in ur adolescence molded u as a person and changed u forever without telling me someone in ur adoles- #this is 1.2k if u made it to the end god bless u :salute: