Saturday, December 25, 2010

All I Want For Christmas Is Good Music

I'm not a big fan of Christmas at all. I think it's all of the religious and consumerism bull shit that I just don't care for, that and the terrible Christmas themed songs and carols. This Christmas my parents have gone away and I am left all alone, an orphan on Christmas day. There is no Christmas tree and no gifts underneath it, but I don't mind.

Christmas isn't all bad though, not when there's people making wonderful Christmas music (as opposed to your regular cringe-worthy Christmas music that makes you want to stab yourself in the ears with a letter opener and/or any other sharp objects you can quickly find in a close vicinity).

All I Want For Christmas by Yeah Yeah Yeahs (who are one of my favourite bands in the world and are incredible live) is just so beautiful. It's so sweet and lovely and poignant without trying too hard, unlike another Christmas song with a very similar title by a certain Mariah Carey (just kidding, that song's pretty great too). I believe every word coming out of Karen O's mouth, and I feel I can relate too, ha.


Yeah Yeah Yeahs - All I Want For Christmas


Of course another favourite artist of mine is Kate Bush, who makes December magic again with December Will Be Magic Again. This woman makes every month magic for me. I feel like I've learnt most of my dance moves from watching her videos on youtube, and seriously, just watch her wriggle and groove around in that sexy red jumpsuit on that silky red chair. I want to join her while sprinkling fake snow all over the place. It's just magic! She's magic! And now December is magic (again)! Magic!

Kate Bush - December Will Be Magic Again


An obvious classic choice of fantastic Christmas songs is Eartha Kitt's brazen 1953 hit Santa Baby. I don't really know what attracts me to this song, but it's obviously attracted a lot of other people too judging by the countless cover versions that have been done. I don't know, maybe it's just that Eartha is seductively convincing Santa Claus into giving her expensive gifts, and well, I don't know, maybe she's willing to do some sexual favours in return? Who knows? It does sound a bit like that to me though.

Eartha Kitt - Santa Baby


The Ramones remind us of what Christmas is supposed to be about with Merry Christmas (I Don't Want To Fight Tonight). Joey reminds us that "Christmas ain't the time for breaking each other's heart" and I suppose he's right, but a lot of people seem to forget about that and they just focus on drama (and very often which presents to get for who). This song reminds me of Christmas when I was fourteen years old, but not for any reason other than because I was fully into punk music at that time.

The Ramones - Merry Christmas (I Don't Want To Fight Tonight)


These songs are what makes Christmas good again. These are the songs I want to hear by candlelight, or when I'm innocently walking through a shopping centre during the month of December. Not fucking Silent Night or Rudolf The Red Nosed Reindeer, those are not songs that I want invading my ears.

Whatever, happy birthday baby Jesus.

 (These pictures have pretty much nothing to do with music but I just can't not post some Christmas trashiness from Edith Massey and Divine).

Friday, December 10, 2010

Jack Rabbit Slims Twist Contest

You know when you like something but you just don't realise how much you like it until it suddenly hits you? Well I've just realised that dance scenes in films are probably one of my favourite things. It's just a bit great when a good song starts and the characters boogie along. In a way it sort of gives you some relief or a break from the story while at the same time still telling the story. So in no particular order here are some of my all time favourite movie dance scenes...

In Romy And Michele's High School Reunion, right after Romy and Michele redeem themselves after lying about what they've been doing for the past ten years (inventing post-it notes in particular) Alan Cumming's character asks to dance, and of course they do, to Cyndi Lauper's Time After Time, and it is hilariously good. Their dance moves are so fucking corny and fantastic (as we've seen earlier in the film when Romy and Michele are dancing at a club together) and the finishing pose just tops it all off. And then they hop into a private helicopter! It is a gleefully great way to end what should have been a tragic high school reunion.



Little Edie's flag dance in Grey Gardens is obviously not a completely pre-planned effort considering the film is a documentary, but that doesn't mean it's not fantastic. Poor Little Edie just wants to be a star and this scene really shows that as she's fantasising about the life she could have had. She looks like she's having so much fun, when in other parts of the film she looks so sad trapped in that house with her mother.



The prostitutes in David Lynch's three hour film Inland Empire dancing to The Locomotion seems to come out of nowhere and then ends so abruptly. It's just so bizarre! But what else would you expect from the wonderful Mr. Lynch? I find it so great that he added this little scene into the long film (which seems to follow similar themes of Hollywood disillusionment as the earlier Mulholland Drive), it helps to add a bit of contrast to the dark film.



Another favourite of mine is the ghost-controlled dance to Harry Belafonte's Day-O (Banana Boat Song) in Tim Burton's Beetlejuice. Alex Baldwin and Geena Davis' ghost characters are trying to scare the people who have moved into their house out of their house by puppeteering them in a song and dance, but it all goes wrong when the guests enjoy it. I've watched it countless times on YouTube and I always somehow believe that they're not controlling their own actions. This is not the only fantastic dance scene in Beetlejuice. A very honorable mention goes to the final scene with Winona Ryder's character Lydia Deetz floating in the air and dancing to another Harry Belafonte song, Jump In The Line (Shake, Senora) along with household items and the dead football team.



And finally, of course a very famous dance scene, arguably one of the best ever, is from the Jack Rabbit Slims Twist Contest scene from Quentin Tarantino's cult classic Pulp Fiction. This scene has become iconic and Uma Thurman and John Travolta are absolutely magnificent in it, all the while being assisted with a great song by Chuck Berry. The dance moves in this scene have become synonymous with Pulp Fiction, and to put it simply it's just fucking cool.



In my opinion a dance scene can just add a little something extra to a film, so I think it's always fantastic for a film maker to chuck a dance scene in, as long as it has a great song and great choreography like the ones I've mentioned. I'd like to know what are some of your favourite movie dance scenes?

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Since Yesterday

I've heard of new wave band Strawberry Switchblade but I don't know a whole lot about them, except of course the fact that they look like the love children of singers Siouxsie Sioux and Boy George, or maybe just like Siouxsie Sioux raided Boy George's wardrobe and mixed it up with some Victorian/Japanese Lolita influences.


Strawberry Switchblade made most of their own clothes and when they were asked who was on their 'boyfriend list' when being interviewed on a children's show in the 80's they answered "Boy George, because we could borrow his clothes." I find it interesting and strange that I can't think of any pop stars today who personally create their own stage outfits. I think if an artist's music is personal to them and means a lot to them then their image should reflect that.

Below is the (very polka dotty) film clip for their 1984 song Since Yesterday.

Too Fast To Live Too Young To Die

Earlier this year a legend in music passed away. His name was Malcolm McLaren and you may know him as the man who created and managed the Sex Pistols. But Malcolm McLaren did not just invent one of the biggest punk bands that has ever existed.

Another band that McLaren created was Bow Wow Wow, probably best known for their cover of "I Want Candy", formed with some of the members of Adam and the Ants along with singer Annabella Lwin, who was just fourteen at the time, and for a short time Boy George (then known as Lieutenant Lush) who was apparently kicked out because the rest of the band were not so fond of him.


The thing that fascinates me the most about Bow Wow Wow is not their heavily African drum influenced new wave sound but the fact that they were created solely to promote Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood's New Romantic clothing lines and their store World's End. I can't even think of a better way to promote a particular style of fashion than that, because the style of fashion goes hand in hand with the particular style of music. From the 1970's through to the 1980's McLaren and Westwood sold clothes that went with particular styles of music. Teddy Boy fashion to go with the 1970's rockabilly revival, through to Punk and then on to New Romantic. Selling clothes due to a movement in music is one of the many things Malcolm McLaren and his then partner Vivienne Westwood did best. Westwood is often credited as the main person who revolutionised fashion by getting punk and new wave clothing into the mainstream.

I think it's funny how despite 'punk fashion' and the punk image being so successful, the words 'punk' and 'fashion' together go completely against the ethos of punk music. But I do wonder what punk, new wave and new romantic would have been without these two people, or whether the music and fashion movements would've even existed at all, or at least thrived as well as they did.

Bow Wow Wow - Fools Rush In

Monday, December 6, 2010

Money, Success, Fame, Glamour

Michael Alig was cool and fabulous for a little while, until he got so disillusioned that he killed his drug dealer. But, yes, for a while there he was the king of the Club Kids and got paid to party. Imagine how cool it would be to go out every night, get dressed up, get fucked up, have fun and be paid for it. Extremely cool, that's how cool it'd be. Unless of course you spiral out of control and get sent to prison for manslaughter after becoming a decadent junkie mixing heroin, ketamine, rohypnol, and cocaine every night like Mr. Alig did, and then having your behaviour immortalised in a documentary and then a film based on the memoir Disco Bloodbath by fellow Club Kid James St. James starring Macaulay Culkin (baaaaabe) as you, detailing your rise and fall to and from Club Kid stardom. But let's put drugs and manslaughter aside and look into the other sides of being a Club Kid.


Let's start with the getting dressed up bit, which is something I very much enjoy doing. Creating new outfits for each night and piling on massive amounts of makeup in different designs would be tough work but the outcome would be great. I'd have a new theme every night; a geisha one night, Punjabi princess the next and King Louis XV or German school  boy (I'm thinking lederhosen) the nights after that, or I'd just make something up on the spot; pop on a corset and paint myself completely blue or cover myself in glitter. Sure I'd have to work on my sewing and make up skills, but it'd be worth it. I'd use Leigh Bowery as my main influence and throw in some Klaus Nomi, Boy George and The Cockettes for good measure. I'm sure I'd get a fair share of obscenities yelled at me on the streets, but that doesn't matter at all, in fact, I would take them as compliments (like that one night in the city when some guy tried to offend me by asking if I came from the circus, hehe).


Alig threw parties in fast food joints and on subway platforms. Partying in unconventional spaces (until the cops shut it down) would be so much fun. Sure, I've been a drunk nuisance in McDonald's plenty of times before, dancing, singing and throwing food around, but let's imagine me and my anti-social behaviour times by 300, having a fast food party. Instead of drink cards we'd have cheeseburger cards. We could even get some table top dancing going on, and dancing on the front counter.


The life of a Club Kid sounds pretty spectacular, but you wouldn't want to end up like the notorious party monster, who could be released from prison in late 2013. Who knows if Michael Alig will get back into the business of partying after his release... Maybe I should get into the business of partying. Maybe I should take Michael's advice to David in the autographed photograph above and just "go for it". But where would it lead me? Into a drugged stupor, oblivious to my surroundings? No thanks. But I do like to party.