Friday Music: Mark E. Smith and The Fall

The times they are a-changin', just a little, I think. The music news site TwentyFourBit reports:

"Taking the stage in a wheelchair after your hip breaks for the second time is pretty punk rock, we think."

Image description: A black-and-white photo of Smith giving a grimacing smile or snarl to the camera. He's 52 now (though he looks older) and missing a couple teeth.

When Mark E. Smith, lead singer and sole original member of the post-punk rock band, performed with his current line-up for The Fall this past Tuesday and Wednesday, he sang first from the wheelchair he is currently using and then, for the end of the Wednesday show, from the dressing room backstage. NME has further details, including a somewhat less punk rock subheadline (in italics):

Recovering singer adopts unusual singing position as he recovers from hip injury

The Fall played London's KOKO last night (April 1), with Mark E Smith performing most of the gig from a wheelchair - before he abandoned the stage altogether and sung from his dressing room.

Currently recovering from a broken hip, the frontman, dressed in a black leather jacket, wheeled himself around the stage to alter settings on the band members' equipment before moving to sit behind a guitar amp for most of the concert.

The last three songs were performed with Smith singing from the dressing room, and changing the lyrics to 'Blindness' to say: "I refused to go onto the stage at one point / You'll get over it in the morning".

The song "Blindness", from the 2005 album Fall Heads Roll, has rather impenetrable lyrics (at least two previous versions) where the first-person narrator only has one leg. I am not enough of a cult follower of The Fall to know if this is or is not a reference to Smith's first hip injury in 2004 when he completed part of an American tour from a wheelchair before pain and medication reportedly caused some canceled dates.

Anyway, here are those lyrics:

BLINDNESS

The flag is evil
Welcome: living leg-end

I was walking down the street
I saw a poster at the top

I was only on one leg
The streets were fucked

And the poster at the top of street said:
“Do you work hard?”

I was only on one leg
The road hadn't been fixed
I had to be in for half six

I was only on one leg
My blue eyelids were not (?)
There was a curfew at half nine
For my kids

There was a poster at the top of the street
Encapsulated in plastic
It had a blind man

So I said: “Blind man, have mercy on me.”
I said: “Blind man, have mercy on me.”

The flat is evil and full of cavalry and Calvary
And calvary and cavalry.

“Do you work hard?”
It said, “I am from Hebden Bridge.
Somebody said to me: I can't understand a word you said."

Said: “99% of non smokers die”
“Do you work hard?”
“Do you work hard?”

I was walking down the street
And saw a picture of a blind man

The flat is evil
Of core? cavalry and calvary

Of core(?)
Blind man, have mercy on me
Said, blind man, have mercy on me

??
I am a ?
My blues eye get…ID/I get
My curfew was due half eight
Now its half past six

My curfew is at 9:30
I said. “Do you?”
Blind man! Have mercy on me
Blind man! Have mercy on me
Blind man! Have mercy on me

I’m on one leg
My eyes can’t get fixed
And my kids
Can’t blue eyes get fixed

Blind man! Have mercy on me
Blind man! Have mercy on me


BLINDNESS (Peel session version)

And all humans
Cavalry or calvary
And not a drop of water
Or paper
Or paper
J.W. said "walking bass, walking bass"
Don't forget, don't forget
He expected Aristotle Onasis
But instead he got Mr James Fennings from Prestwick, in Cumbria
Do you... reflect this evil?
Thought of cavalry and calvary
His first appearance was on Moscow Road
The poster came at first
At first I thought it was just a poster
I was talking to James Seymour
Eyes wide open
The neck was slightly dislocated
But then I walked up the street
There was a repellent plastic
Said poster with a picture
Do you work?
I was on one leg
At the top of the street
There was a poster
A plastic front
From Moscow Road it came
From Deansgate it came
From Narnack Records it came
I was on one leg
I had to be in by 9.30
I said walking bass
Paper times 2
Paper times 2
Paper everywhere and not a drop of water to be seen
I said
I was by the ocean
I saw a poster
I am [?]
I am [?]
Everywhere I look I see a blind man
I see a blind man
Everywhere I look
I see a...
I can't get my eyes checked
My blues eyes can't get checked
I'm only one leg
I said to poster, "When's the curfew over?
I said, "Blind man, have mercy on me."
I said, "Blind man, have mercy on me."
Blind man have mercy on me
Oh Great One I am a mere receptacle
The egg tester for your sandlewood and other assorted woods
In dark green
Blind man have mercy on me
I got a metal leg - truth
Flat is the evil of calvary and cavalry

Anyone want to interpret that?

About the times a-changin': If singing from a wheelchair is now considered "pretty punk rock", recall that in 1974 Robert Wyatt of Soft Machine, performing on the British TV show Top of the Pops just a year after an accident left him paralyzed, was considered "not suitable for family viewing" because of his wheelchair.

On the other hand, when has punk rock ever been suitable for family viewing?

Further sources to enjoy:

BBC News interview with Smith in May, 2008

The Fall wiki

Mark E. Smith wiki

the band's website

YouTube video of "Victoria", perhaps The Fall's most recognizable hit, from the 1988 album The Frenz Experiment

YouTube video of a live performance of "Blindness"

YouTube video of a concert performance of "Totally Wired" from the 1980 album Grotesque (After the Gramme)

Friday Music: Bradford Cox, Deerhunter, Atlas Sound

"I've always been a leader of awkward people," Bradford Cox says.

Cox, lead singer (and also guitarist, keyboardist and player of various other stuff) of Atlanta band Deerhunter and solo-project Atlas Sound, is a musician whose personal appearance, live stageshow presentation, music media critiques and band song lyrics all bubble over with a freakshow differentness developed from the experience of adolescent illness and disability. Cox has said as much himself.

Image description: A color photo of Cox against an all-white background. He's sitting, knees bent and arms upraised, facing the camera and smiling. He wears jeans, tennis shoes and a striped sleeveless shirt that reveal long limbs and skinny biceps.

Cox was born with the genetic connective tissue disorder Marfan Syndrome. He's 6'4" and so shockingly thin that his appearance has been the relentless subject of music reviewers' commentary. And he's turned that around and used it for dramatic effect with about as much ease as possible. In an interview with Rodney Carmichael at Creative Loafing, Cox says:

"I hate my body just as much as everybody else comments on it or hates it, you know. I mean, I think most people [hate their bodies]. . . . [Marfan Syndrome] affects your personality, because a lot of your personality is a product of your self-image."

But he also says, (and I so love this):

"I'm not trying to exploit myself to provoke people or shock people. But I'm not shy at the same time. So I guess I started realizing what effect it has on people. ... I say 'fuck it' and try to hit the ceiling with everything you do. And if you have something that one person would consider a handicap, I would say, like, just try to make it explode, you know?"

What Cox calls hitting the ceiling or exploding is his live band performances. From Seattle Weekly's Andy Beta:

Cox believes Deerhunter's reputation is partially founded on this freak-show allure. "I can just walk onstage and people will be, 'What the fuck?'" he says in between drags on a cigarette. "If anything, I wouldn't mind representing something for people, representing sickliness, fucked-up-ness. . . . At least it comes natural to me. And I'm not Marilyn Manson."

From the Phillyist:

[Deerhunter's] stage presence was interesting. There was no banter, but they didn’t need it. The guitarist, who wore a shirt that read “Just Say YES” in the tradition of the famous anti-drug campaign, attacked his instrument with the same intensity as his counterpart, who wore a black and white striped shirt that called to mind the Hamburglar. Lead singer Bradford Cox was wearing a dress. Yes, a Laura-Ashley-minus-the-lace sleeveless number with green and earth tone-colored print. His wig was draped over his face so he appeared to be an apparition of hair, limbs, and grandma’s housedress.

It was one of the oddest concert experiences we’ve had. We were equal parts attracted and repelled. Trying to make sense of it in our mind, we kept coming back to an image of Carrie, doused in a bucket of pig's blood. Horrifying, and yet wouldn’t that warm, viscous liquid be kind of comforting?

That's maybe an apt comparison, since Deerhunter's critically-acclaimed 2007 album Cryptograms is very much about an adolescence spent in hospital. On the band's blog, Cox explains the lyrics of the song "Spring Hall Convert":

So I woke up
In a radio freeze
Occupied by a couple of girls
I knew from
Way back when, where
Oh, I had my face like the ocean
So I’d radiate but
Too much radiation
I walk around like a walker
And like a walker
Always choosing where to go
And where to be

Radiation

Too much radiation

So long loneliness

So far from home

(When I was sixteen I was hospitalized for extensive surgeries on my chest ribs and back because of marfan's. That entire summer was like completley erased. I was in a coma for a couple of weeks. I got to really understand what its like to not be well. I've always sort of understood, growing up with marfan's, but this was hardcore shit. I wrote this song transposing this high school acid trip where i saw my two best friends back then, Sarah and Chrissy, bathed in this golden spring light in the hallway of my highschool and felt really close to them, like we were sisters. I always felt genderless around them. I actually took a photo of them in that hallway that day which i will find and upload. If the song could be captured visually, this photo would be it. Anyways, I was trying to transpose the concepts of illness (in this case I was writing from the perspective of someone going in and out of conciousness during chemotherapy, and how they would miss their friends, their past experiences, and anything that reminded them of normalcy, or a time before misery. Nostalgia as anesthetic)

And the song "Hazel St.":

There was no connecting my actions with words
In the bright sunlight, the movement of birds
The car ride home, was blinded again
The light would not focus the light would not bend
There’s no use calling I know what you’d say
Over and over it ended today
Worlds lost their meaning and could not explain
Why the subject was always just out of frame

I was sixteen
I lived on Hazel Street
Protect me from the scene
And guide me with your heat

Ice forms in sheets
There melting in the street

(This goes back to the whole sixteenth year of my life spent in a hospital bed thing. I have major issues about it and have recently started going to therapy and am back on antidepressents. Obviously as so many of you have noticed, my body is fucked up. I never really recovered from all that surgery and stuff. This song is kind of like a jack off fantasy about what it would have been like if i had been the person i wanted to be physically (i.e. healthy, cute, whatever...) and lived on Hazel St which is this quaint little street of the town square in downtown Marietta, Georgia.. It's just a fantasy about being normal. Its kind of prefaced with an argument or a conflict or a relationship breakdown, the kind of things that make me fantasize about having been born normal even more.)

Cox's solo-project Atlas Sound's 2008 album, entitled Let The Blind Lead Those Who Cannot See includes the song "Quarantined," with these brief, repeated lyrics:

Quarantined and kept so far away from my friends.
I am waiting to be changed.

Deerhunter's 2008 releases are the (again) critically-acclaimed Microcastle and it's full-length companion Weird Era Cont.

Creative Loafing's Carmichael writes:

To his credit, Cox has turned his inherent weakness into a strength. And the result is as vivid as Deerhunter's sound, which is way too hypnotic and eerily transcendant to be overshadowed, even by Cox. On the contrary, the lead singer's physical appearance is the perfect complement to the wonderfully weird music the band makes. Whereas one without the other would only be plain old weird at best.

Weird is how I feel about the music. Some of it I really enjoy and other songs seem like mostly noise to me. But I'm interested in seeing if repeated listening will alter that at all.

Check out some YouTube if you like:

Music video for "Strange Lights" from Cryptogram

Music video for "Agoraphobia" from Microcastle

"Spring Hall Convert" and "Hazel St." live in Chicago

"Quarantined" from Let Those Who Are Blind Lead Those Who Cannot See


And other resources about Cox and his bands:

Wiki on Deerhunter

Wiki on Atlas Sound

Deerhunter blog, also Atlas Sound, mainly written by Cox

Rolling Stone magazine bio of Deerhunter

Music Friday: Antony and the Johnsons

My newest music obsession is Antony and the Johnsons. Antony Hegarty is, as described by SignOnSan Diego, a "brawny-looking, transsexual Irish-American maverick with a wonderfully androgynous voice and a tremulous chamber-pop style all his own."

One song on the newest album, The Crying Light, is called "Epilepsy is Dancing." To fully appreciate it, read the poetry of the lyrics first:

Epilepsy is dancing
She's the Christ now departing
And I'm finding my rhythm
As I twist in the snow

All the metal burned in me
Down the brain of my river
That fire was searching
For a waterway home

I cry glitter is love!
My eyes pinned inside
With green jewels
Hanging like Christmas stars
From a golden vein

As I came to a screaming
Hold me while I'm dreaming
For my fingers are curling
And I cannot breathe

Then I cried in the kitchen
How I'd seen your ghost witching
As a soldering blue line
Between my eyes

I cry glitter is love!
My eyes
Pinned inside
Sea green jewels
Hanging like Christmas stars
From a golden vein

Cut me in quadrants
Leave me in the corner
Oh now its passing
Oh now I'm dancing

Then listen to the song. Many songs by Antony and the Johnsons have an operatic, cabaret feel, with Antony's soaring voice. This song is delicate, with piano, guitar and strings.

After just hearing it, if you're able, then watch the video from Pitchfork TV (NSFW):



Video description: From the record label: "Antony asked his friends the Wachowski Brothers to work with him on a video for his new single 'Epilepsy Is Dancing'. They in turn invited painters Tino Rodriguez and Virgo Paradiso to create costumes and a mystical environment and choreographer Sean Dorsey and his dancers to bring the dream sequence to life. Antony's artistic partner Johanna Constantine stars as herself in the role of 'Deer Monster'. The video was lit and shot by the up-and-coming directors of photography, Chris Blasingame and Banker White, and produced by Jim Jerome. The production team collectively named themselves AFAS. Please enjoy the fruits of their San Francisco art party."

The video begins and ends in an alley where a woman walks alone and sees a deer many yards ahead of her just as she has a seizure and falls to the ground. A colorful Midsummer's Night Dream-esque world of half-nude body-painted dancers awaken the woman, now painted silver and wearing a headdress of leaves and deer antlers, in a sensuous little orgy of dancing. Some wear carnivale type masks, as does Antony, whose head appears superimposed and flowers flow from his mouth as he sings. The dancers cradle her, carry and writhe with her, then set her down in a leaf-covered woodland with a male dancer very reminiscent of Shakespeare's Puck leaving her last, their outstretched fingers slipping from each other's grasp as the seizure causes spasms and the woman's hands curl. She wakes back in the urban alley with the real deer nuzzling her hand. Then she's all alone and rises and leaves, smiling.

Here's an alternate, touching live performance of "Epilepsy is Dancing," along with a brief interview and "Another World," a second song from the new album, from The Culture Show of the UK.

For another song about an epileptic seizure check out Joy Division's "She's Lost Control."

New books on theology and disability

I haven't read a book on disability and religion since The Disabled God: Toward a Liberatory Theology of Disability by Nancy Eiesland came out in the mid-'90s. That's a great book, by the way, but it's exciting to see three brand new books on disability and religion -- and a thoughtful review introducing them over at The Christian Century.

The three books discussed by Brian Volck are:

Theology and Down Syndrome: Reimagining Disability in Late Modernity by Amos Yong,

Spirit and the Politics of Disablement by Sharon V. Betcher, and

Vulnerable Communion: A Theology of Disability and Hospitality by Thomas E. Reynolds.

Volck looks at each book separately but here's an excerpt on his general thoughts on the topic:

These authors present twin challenges to theologically informed, able-bodied Christians. First, they challenge us to move beyond the relatively easy tasks of redesigning church sanctuaries and striving for visible diversity in liturgies and committees, and to begin engaging the far more difficult mystery of desiring and entering into communion with one another. What liturgical and ecclesial practices can we embrace that will make clear our human interdependence in Christ without allowing us to merely collapse into trivializing sentimentalities like, "Everyone is handicapped in their own way"? We may face greater challenges in becoming interdependent with persons who have intellectual disabilities than with those with physical disabilities. The practices and experience of Jean Vanier's L'Arche communities have much to teach us in this regard.

Second, disability raises thorny questions about traditional interpretations of Christian doctrine: Does God will severe disability? Does salvation through faith imply personal intellectual assent? What does it mean to be formed in the image of God? Does disability persist in the resurrection of the body? Once again, severe intellectual disability may present the greatest challenge.

Yong, Betcher and Reynolds do not present systematic theologies of disability. Instead, they offer stepping-off points for theological reflection. More important, they challenge readers to interrogate their own lives and assumptions, moving discussions past the self-satisfying mantras of inclusion and diversity and into new, potentially frightening and grace-filled territory.

While you're over there, check out an article on musician Curtis Mayfield, the legendary Chicago bluesman who was paralyzed in an accident while on stage in 1990 and died in 1999.

Friday Music: Neil Young

Image description: From 2007, a color photo of Neil Young from the waist up. He's giving the peace sign while standing at a microphone dressed all in black save for a silver bolo tie.

The casually listener and fan may not be aware that Neil Young is yet another famous musician with disabilities. In 1951 at the age of six, Young contracted polio. Since childhood he's also reportedly had diabetes and epilepsy. In 2005 he had successful surgery for a brain aneurysm. He also has two sons with cerebral palsy and in 1986 he and his wife started the Bridge School in San Francisco, a learning center for disabled children. A 1989 alternative rock compilation album raised money for the school.

So, those are Young's numerous "credentials." Here are some fun details:

His song, "Helpless," is about his experience with childhood polio. Here's a link to a YouTube video of an old stage performance (my guess is early '70s), and here are the lyrics:

There is a town in north Ontario,
With dream comfort memory to spare,
And in my mind I still need a place to go,
All my changes were there.

Blue, blue windows behind the stars,
Yellow moon on the rise,
Big birds flying across the sky,
Throwing shadows on our eyes.
Leave us.

Helpless, helpless, helpless.
Baby can you hear me now?
The chains are locked and tied across the door,
Baby, sing with me somehow.

Blue, blue windows behind the stars,
Yellow moon on the rise,
Big birds flying across the sky,
Throwing shadows on our eyes.
Leave us.

Helpless, helpless, helpless.

From the 2002 Salon review of Shakey: Neil Young's Biography:

Everyone who's heard Young's "Helpless" (which means everyone who's been in earshot of a radio or stereo in the last few decades) knows that he comes from "a town in north Ontario." It was in that town -- Omemee -- that Young, now 56, contracted polio when the virus swept through Canada in 1951. It transformed the pudgy 6-year-old and nearly killed him. "Neil got polio and lost all his girlish curves," Rassy, Young's indomitable mother and a central character in "Shakey," tells McDonough. "Damn near died. Gawd that was awful ... Christ, he looked like hell on the highway. Skin and bones. He never got fat again ... We didn't know if he'd ever walk." When he came home from the hospital "fresh from a disinfectant bath, his black hair in spikes," Young asked the adults, "I didn't die, did I?"

I remember when polio was the terror that stalked the nation, when approaching standing water, say, would earn the harshest of parental rebukes. One of my oldest friends got it in '53 and has been crutching it for half a century; another acquaintance of mine spent most of his 49 years in an iron lung thanks to polio. What an experience like that may do to you -- assuming it doesn't kill you -- is radically alter your perspective and imbue you with a certain bravado and fearlessness, not to mention a sometimes trenchant honesty. Once you've been to hell and back, the things the rest of us find anxiety-inducing -- the scary odds against making it as an artist, for example -- aren't all that scary. Pam Smith, a girlfriend of Young's when he was a teenager, recalls, "Neil was insecure as a person -- I think that's why playing music was so good for him. He had all the confidence in the world in that role."

McDonough's exploration of Young's often tenuous physical state -- he's also epileptic and used to have seizures on stage early in his career -- is one of the more intriguing threads in the book and a key, perhaps, to the singer's sometimes irrational confidence and indefatigable persistence even when those all around him -- Stephen Stills among them -- voiced nothing but discouragement about his abilities.

Musical abilities, that is. Young doesn't have a pretty voice, but everyone knows at least one or two (or dozens) of his songs. Here's a live performance of "Ohio" recorded at Massey Hall (a Toronto theatre) and "Heart of Gold," both stage performances from 1971.

From Neil Young Quotes:

Polio fucked up my body a little bit. The left-hand side got a little screwed. Feels different from the right. If I close my eyes, my left side, I really don’t know where it is - but over the years I’ve discovered that almost one hundred percent for sure it’s gonna be very close to my right side… probably to the left.

- Neil Young interviewed by Dave Zimmer, BAM, 22nd April 1988

My favorite fun fact about Young: In the late 1990's Young bought the Lionel Toy Train company to delight his son Ben. According to Rolling Stone magazine, much of Young's 1980s musical output reflected his frustration at difficulties communicating with his son Ben who, along with an older brother, has cerebral palsy.


Wiki on the song "Helpless"

An extensive Rolling Stone magazine biography

Neil Young News -- a blog on everything you could possibly want to know about the artist

YouTube video of an October 2007 interview on BBC 2. It features commentary by a guy who was "converted" to the beauty of Young's music at a concert. He discusses Chromes Dreams II and the evolution of Young's work with the artist. If anyone locates the transcript for this, please link to it in comments.

Famous people with polio

Friday Music Mix Tape

I'm trying something new, thanks to Grace. I did it for me, but then I thought I'd share it.

The above image of a cassette tape (with a vintage black-and-white photo on it from Warm Springs Institute of five women with polio using wheelchairs, each with one arm vigorously upraised in a wave to the camera) is a clickable link to a ten-song audio mix tape of former Friday Music artists. It's not all the same songs as featured before, and the clickable image isn't accessible for vision impairments. Below are alternative links to YouTube -- also not particularly accessible for various impairments, but the songs start there when the page loads so it's an alternative way to get the audio or see the artist.

Here's the playlist:

The Dresden Dolls - Girl Anachronism
Ben Harper with the Blind Boys Of Alabama - Take My Hand
Nina Simone - My Baby Just Cares For Me
Sinéad O'Connor - If You Had A Vineyard
Neil Young - See The Sky About To Rain
Robert Wyatt - Shipbuilding
Kristen Hersh - Your Ghost
Warren Zevon - For My Next Trick I'll Need a Volunteer
Joni Mitchell - A Case of You
Chavela Vargas - Paloma Negra

Ahem: I haven't posted on Neil Young yet. I shuffled posts around to accommodate the Thanksgiving weekend holiday and my reluctance to spend it typing much, but Young will be the very next Friday Music post.

Friday Music: Warren Zevon

Warren Zevon would be an appropriate music post on The Gimp Parade because he was a well-known musician with obsessive-compulsive disorder, or because he was dogged by alcoholism for much of his adult life, or because he died in 2003 of mesothelioma (a cancer associated with asbestos exposure) after documenting his decline in health with a final album and a VH-1 documentary. But really, I just love his music.

This YouTube video of a 1978 live studio performance of "Werewolves of London" is intercut with brief shots of a werewolf man dressed in a tux and cape. Zevon plays a grand piano and sings while a four-man backup band stands in the background.



The lyrics:

I saw a werewolf with a Chinese menu in his hand
walkin' through the streets of Soho in the rain.
He was lookin' for the place called Lee Ho Fooks,
gonna get a big dish of beef chow mein.

Chorus:
Aaahoo, werewolves of London
Aaahoo(2x)

Ya hear him howlin' around your kitchen door,
ya better not let him in.
Little old lady got mutilated late last night,
werewolves of London again.

Chorus 2x

He's the hairy, hairy gent, who ran amok in Kent.
Lately he's been overheard in Mayfair.
You better stay away from him, he'll rip your lungs out Jim.
Huh, I'd like to meet his tailor.

Chorus 2x

Well, I saw Lon Chaney walkin' with the queen, doing the werewolves of London.
I saw Lon Chaney Jr. walkin' with the queen, doin' the werewolves of London
I saw a werewolf drinkin' a pina colada at Trader Vic's
And his hair was perfect.

ahhhooooo, werewolves of London
Draw blood

Zevon's wiki reads like a Who's Who of famous musicians, actors, and authors. His career sort of died several times, and he made come-back albums several times as he worked through addictions and other personal struggles. When he learned he had cancer, he began one final album and spent his last year recording it with good friends in a kind of long, public goodbye. He appeared as the only guest on The David Letterman Show about 11 months before his 2003 death, candidly discussing his short future and singing some of his best known songs.

YouTube video of Zevon on stage playing guitar and singing "My Shit's Fucked Up." Here are the lyrics, which he wrote several years before his cancer diagnosis:

Well, I went to the doctor
I said, "I'm feeling kind of rough"
"Let me break it to you, son
"Your shit's fucked up."
I said, "my shit's fucked up?
"Well, I don't see how--"
He said, "The shit that used to work--
"It won't work now."

I had a dream
Ah, shucks, oh, well
Now it's all fucked up
It's shot to hell

Yeah, yeah, my shit's fucked up
It has to happen to the best of us
The rich folks suffer like the rest of us
It'll happen to you

That amazing grace
Sort of passed you by
You wake up every day
Hang your head and cry
Yeah, you want to die
But you just can't quit
Let me break it on down:
It's some fucked up shit

YouTube video of Zevon on a stage alone with a guitar singing "Lawyers, Guns and Money" from a 1994 BBC Christmas program titled Words and Music: American Writers.

YouTube video, in four parts, of the one-hour David Letterman episode with Zevon as his sole guest, just short of a year before his death. Parts one, two, three, and four. Sorry, I don't have a transcript, and I don't have the typing ability to whip up this length of dialogue here. I can offer the brief description from Wikipedia:

On October 30, 2002, Zevon was featured on the Late Show with David Letterman as the only guest for the entire hour. The band played "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead" as his introduction. Zevon performed several songs and spoke at length about his illness. Zevon was a frequent guest and occasional substitute bandleader on Letterman's television shows since Late Night first aired in 1982. He noted, "I may have made a tactical error in not going to a physician for 20 years." It was during this broadcast that Zevon first offered his oft-quoted insight on facing death: "Enjoy every sandwich." He also took time to thank Letterman for his years of support, calling him "the best friend my music's ever had". For his final song of the evening, and his final public performance, Zevon performed "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner" at Letterman's request. In the green room after the show, Zevon presented Letterman with the guitar that he always used on the show, with a single request: "Here, I want you to have this, take good care of it."

Other sources:

Review in the NYT of I'll Sleep When I'm Dead, the posthumous biography published by Zevon's ex-wife.

A interesting list of famous people with OCD

Sign language in Sia's videos

Sia, an Australian pop singer perhaps best known for her song "Breathe Me" which played during the closing sequence of the Six Feet Under TV series finale, has released a music video for her newest single "Soon We'll Be Found" that features American Sign language throughout:



Video description: As the music begins, Sia, a blonde woman, is in what seems to be a warehouse. She walks up to a bowl filled with milky white liquid and dips both hands into it. With a full-body view of her, she begins signing the lyrics (though I don't personally know how accurately). Editing cuts between close-ups of her hands signing and the full-body view. Then the room darkens around her and she stands in a spotlight while the editing back and forth continues. When the chorus is reached, the lights come back on and here are people dressed in black lined up, three to either side of her. They each have had their hands dipped too, but in a variety of colors. They all sign the lyrics together, their hands standing out colorfully against their black clothing. As the next verse begins, the camera shifts to follow Sia's signing in shadow on a wall where her hands are joined by the shadows of many others, some signing and some forming shadow puppets on the wall -- animals, trees, a Garden of Eden with a shadow puppet snake slithering by. A jumble of gracefully waving hands and arms eventually overwhelm the lighted wall and fade it to black. Then Sia dances alone in a blacklight, her white clothing, painted face and green hands showing brilliantly in the black with dozens of bluish hands -- just hands -- around her, as stairs beneath her feet, as a halo around her body. She continues to sign the lyrics while the halo hands flutter and editing cuts between close-up and full body views. Then the hands scatter and while she signs the chorus they appear as bluish streaks signing with her, indistinctly seen in the black. Then her hands and the disembodied ones begin painting in the blackness, a little like a toy LiteBrite -- a sun, trees, clouds, a landscape of colorful flowers. Blue hands perch as birds in the painted trees against the black background. Then suddenly Sia is in the white-walled warehouse again. The six people are gone but black clothing lays in piles where each once stood. Sia looks up and smiles as disembodied blue hands fly like birds into the rafters.

The lyrics to "Soon We'll Be Found":

Come along it is the break of day
Surely now, you'll have some things to say
It's not the time for telling tales on me

So come along, it won't be long
'Til we return happy
Shut your eyes, there are no lies
In this world we call sleep
Let's desert this day of hurt
Tomorrow we'll be free

Let's not fight I'm tired can't we just sleep tonight
Don't turn away it's just there's nothing left here to say
Turn around I know we're lost but soon we'll be found

Well it's been rough but we'll be just fine
Work it out yeah we'll survive
You mustn't let a few bad times dictate

So come along, it won't be long
'Til we return happy
Shut your eyes, there are no lies
In this world we call sleep
Let's desert this day of work
Tomorrow we'll be free

Let's not fight I'm tired can't we just sleep tonight
Don't turn away it's just there's nothing left here to say
Turn around I know we're lost but soon we'll be found

The music video has circulated fairly widely as it was a free download at iTunes a few weeks ago. On the making of the video, Sia says:

I’ve always been obsessed with the beauty of sign language. The movement and expression just appears, to ignorant-hearing-me as a dance… a beautiful, emotive dance. But the real beauty is that, hidden in these perfect shapes, is communication.

I'm always curious how Deaf people feel about their language being used as art by hearing people, particularly in video format where the full view of the person signing seems to me to often be mangled in order to make it artsy but, ironically, useless as communication. I don't know that the ASL is useless in this video, but its use has been discussed at The Deaf Edge where it's raised conflicting emotions and opinions.

Whether it's to her credit or just an interesting obsession, Sia also uses a bit of sign language in an older song, "The Girl You Lost to Cocaine":

Friday Music: Kristen Hersh

Kristen Hersh began performing in the college-radio band Throwing Muses at age 14. She's been writing music, performing and touring her whole life, with the Muses, as a solo act, and with her other band 50 Foot Wave. (Throwing Muses included Hersh's half-sister, Tanya Donnelly, who went on to form the Breeders, Belly, and have a solo career herself.)

Photo description: The photo shows Hersh, standing with arms crossed in front of her, looking to the camera. She's wearing a black sweater and her hair is blonde here. She has startling blue eyes.

Hersh has been public about her troubles with mental illness, both difficulty with diagnosis and how her mental processes relate to her music. From a March 2008 interview with Scotland on Sunday, Hersh explains how she writes songs:

“It’s not a calming endeavour,” she says. “It’s intense. When it first began it was considered hallucinations, but no amount of medication would make the songs go away. I disagreed with the doctors’ diagnosis of schizophrenia and talked them down to bipolar which, if nothing else, kept me off of those scary meds that they had put me on.”

Why did she not accept that she was schizophrenic? “I believed in what I was hearing. And I still do. But that is one argument you can’t push through the medical community – that just because they don’t hear it doesn’t mean it isn’t there. The music doesn’t seem to be in me or come from me. I truly believe that it’s there and I’m just copying it down.”

Many people believe that there is a direct correlation between bipolar disorder, or manic depression as it was once known, and the artistic imagination; the rather romantic theory is that the condition actually drives creativity. But Hersh doesn’t buy this. “I have never had a good experience with mania,” she says. “It’s also hard for me to relate to the idea of depression as a waifish sadness. It was more of a shameful darkness. And I would certainly never write any songs when I was depressed. I don’t want creativity to be associated with illness in any way.”

And from a 1988 interview in Big City Redneck, Hersh says:

Personally I don’t want to think that you could make art from mental illness, you should only make art or science from health. At the same time I have to admit I did turn out bi-polar. But I think they get it backwards, I don’t think I play music because I’m bi-polar. Music needs to be played and in order to do it I have to be bi-polar. If that makes sense. It doesn’t does it? I don’t know if I’m expressing mental illness in my music.

Hersh is part of CASH (Coalition of Artists and Stake Holders), which, as I understand it, is an endeavor to remove the middle men of the music business from the equation so that artists and their audiences can interact more freely. One example of how this works is that tracks of Hersh's latest music are available at the CASH site, and fans can download them for free (if you're a cheapskate), but easily donate what they believe the music is worth directly to the artists using PayPal.

YouTube videos:

A favorite of mine, from Hersh's first solo album Hips and Makers, "Your Ghost" with Michael Stipe of R.E.M. Here's Hersh's latest band, 50 Foot Wave, playing an updated version of the song. And here's an acoustic live performance by Hersh alone in Athens earlier this year.

"Gazebo Tree" -- I saw Hersh sing this on a Lilith Fair tour back in the '90s. This is a 2007 live performance in London.

"A Loon" -- From Hips and Makers, this is a 1994 video filmed in Amsterdam. Beautiful cello played by Martin McCarrick. The lyrics for "A Loon":

Some store
I'm not going back there anymore
Wandered in
Don't think I'll do that again
No I don't think I'll do that again

I swear
Look at me cross-eyed and I don't know what to do
No I don't know what to do
Crazy loon

There's a room in his pallet
There's a pillow for his head
Sees an offshoot in his bottle
When he wants to see me dead
Heirlooms A loon
Never thought I'd see that silly grin
Never thought I'd see that fool again
Never thought I'd love that lunatic

Nothing left to dance around
What a hero
What a black and blue bird
What a loon, A loon
What a loon, A loon

"Me and My Charms" -- Another of my personal favorites, again from Hips and Makers. This is a 2007 live performance from Pittsburgh.

"Sundrops" -- Another Hips and Makers song. A live TV performance from 1994, and also a great example of Hersh's guitar skills and style.

"In Shock" -- From Hersh's solo album, Learn to Sing Like a Star.

"Dizzy" -- A Throwing Muses tune from their Hunkpapa LP. A 1989 live performance.

"Bright Yellow Gun" -- The video for the Throwing Muses song from University.

"Clara Bow" -- The video from her band 50 Foot Wave's album Golden Ocean.

"Pneuma" -- The video from the Golden Ocean song. The video is really a bunch of blurs, but the audio is worth hearing to see how 50 Foot Wave differs from her solo work.

Other links:

Hersh's blog.

An NPR World Cafe interview in audio where Hersh also sings. The interviewer gets the name of her album "Learn to Sing Like a Star" wrong twice (he says "Learn to Sing Like the Stars" and "Learn to Sing Like a Girl" -- ack!), even as he's asking about the origin of the title, but Hersh is interesting to hear talk about her life and creative process.

--------------------

Last June, Liz Spikol at The Trouble with Spikol compiled a list of famous people with mental health issues. It's an interesting list of successful artists and actors that I'll probably mine for other Friday Music posts here in the future.

Friday Music: The Blind Boys of Alabama

The Blind Boys of Alabama are an old-school gospel group that's been singing and touring since 1939. Yeah, 1939. That's a lot of cultural and music business changes to weather over seven decades. Originally called the Happy Land Jubilee Singers, the five original singers (Jimmy Carter, the current lead singer, has been with the group since it began) met at the Alabama Institute for the Negro Blind in Talladega.

Clarence Fountain, another founding member, recalls the early years while the singers were still attending the institute: "The school was not happy for us to go off campus, but we would sneak out," Fountain told Folk Roots interviewer Dave Peabody. "We would go out and make some money. There was a big soldier camp up there,had about ten or twelve thousand soldiers. We'd perform for that soldier camp and we'd do alright."

On the band's name change, Fountain says, "For a while we called ourselves the Happy Land Singers and we toured all around the country. Then a promoter put us on a show with another blind group, the Jackson Harmonies from Mississippi. He billed it as a contest between the blind boys of Alabama and the blind boys of Mississippi. The name worked good so we stuck with it."

Known for remaining contemporary and collaborating with many mainstream artists while keeping their traditional gospel sensibilities, the Blind Boys have won four Grammy Awards and their most recent album, Down in New Orleans was released earlier this year.

People not apt to listen to gospel music might know the Blind Boys from their cover of the Tom Waits' song "Down in the Hole" that was the theme song for HBO's drama The Wire. (The show has used a variety of covers of the tune, with the Blind Boys' version used in season one.)


YouTube has a wonderful selection of video performances:

"Something Got A Hold On Me" -- a 1960s live performance
"Too Close" -- the same early-to-mid 1960s performance venue
"Look Where He Brought Me From" -- a live performance in a church, I think, maybe in the 1970s
some old-fashioned musical testifying at an outdoor concert or tent revival
"Run On" -- live 2001 performance on the British tv show Later
"Amazing Grace" -- their live version sung to the tune of "House of the Rising Sun," and here's a studio version someone has set to images of Black American history
"Satisfied Mind" -- Ben Harper & Blind Boys of Alabama performing live (There Will Be A Light, Harper's album with the Boys came out in 2004)
"Shall Not Walk Alone" -- with Ben Harper, video is of a recording studio performance
"Jesus Hits Like the Atom Bomb" -- the video is some cute, quirky animation (2005 album Atom Bomb)

Source

Friday Music: Chavela Vargas

April 17, last week, was the 89th birthday of Chavela Vargas, the legendary Mexican-Costa Rican singer. My friend Penny Richards of Disability Studies, Temple U. moderates a mainly read-only Yahoo group, Born on this Date, that features one important woman in history each day. Here's what she wrote about Vargas:

"Una mujer tiene muchas vidas que vivir. Para hacer muchas cosas y romper parámetros como yo he hecho, hay que ser muy mujer. Después dirá."

[A woman has many lives to live. In order to do so many things and break so many limits, as I have done, one has to be very much a woman. At the end it will be told.]

--Chavela Vargas

Today on our homepage: Mexican-Costa Rican singer Chavela Vargas, born Isabel Vargas Lizano on this date in 1919, in San Joaquín de Flores, Costa Rica. She remembers having polio and being blind during her childhood, but says that she was cured by shamans. She left Costa Rica at age 14, and there she sang rancheras (folk songs) on the streets to earn her living for years. She wore a red poncho and smoked cigars, carried a gun and dressed as a man, to protect herself in such a visible and vulnerable life. She acquired a limp as a young woman--she says she jumped out of a window after disappointment in love.

In time, she became a popular cabaret singer in Mexico, touring the US and Europe, a favorite with the likes of Frida Kahlo (with whom she had an affair, she says) and Diego Rivera. Her stage shows were frank in their sexuality--she dressed in dashing men's clothing and sang songs of seduction to the women in the audience. In 1961, at the age of 42, the first recording of her music was released, Noche de Bohemia. She retired for health reasons in the 1970s, only to return to performing in 1991.

She released an autobiography, Y si quieres saber de mi pasado (And if you want to know my story...) in 2002. In it, she recounted a 15-year bout with alcoholism in the 1960s and 1970s. In 2003, she appeared at Carnegie Hall in New York, in a show introduced by Salma Hayek and promoted by Spanish film director Pedro Almodóvar, a friend. She has appeared in several of Almodóvar's films, and also in the recent biographical film Frida; she also appeared on the soundtrack of that film. She recently appeared in the film Babel, again as a singer.

She was awarded Spain's Great Cross of Isabela la Católica in 2000.

Today is Chavela Vargas's 89th birthday. She lives in Veracruz, Mexico.

She's on YouTube, here are just a few of the many clips there:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duVaGM_JsME (a 2006 live performance)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQnNY8zMihs (a recent live performance)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuVjT2Rl7Bg (a 1998 performance for Spanish TV)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gQ31m4Yt0s (clip from "Frida")
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bBRp-co68I (audio only)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqHh2U4TSJQ (audio only)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGESStAwS1k (slide show accompanies audio)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cF6jEclOMcw (slide show accompanies audio)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mnZcErj-SA (slide show accompanies audio)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6D2e8JMsTho (slide show accompanies audio)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAIF1IgiLeo (slide show accompanies audio of duet)

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chavela_Vargas
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chavela_Vargas
http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:br63mps39f8o
http://www.afterellen.com/archive/ellen/People/2005/1/chavelavargas.html
http://www.afterellen.com/archive/ellen/People/2005/1/chavelavargas2.html

http://www.glbtq.com/arts/vargas_c.html

See also:

Yvonne Yarbo-Bejarano, "Crossing the Border with Chabela Vargas: Chicana Femme's Tribute," in Sex and Sexuality in Latin America (NYU Press 1997). A shortened version is online here:
http://www.lolapress.org/artenglish/chabe13.htm

Happy belated birthday, Chavela!

For another fan of Chavela's, Brownfemipower, whom I miss very much.

Friday Music: Sinéad O'Connor

This is what Sinéad O'Connor actually said this past September, according to a Minneapolis Star Tribune article:

"I'd been suffering from depression for some years, which I don't think is a surprise for anyone to learn," she said. "When my third child was 5 months old, it got more severe. It's all under control, and I'm on the drugs.

"My life is much better. I've settled down a lot more. I have a lovely boyfriend, and I'm happy with my kids. It's a much more normal, kind of quiet life."

And yet, this is how that very article begins:

This may be hard to believe, but Sinéad O'Connor says she is trying to live a normal life.

That's the same O'Connor who tore up the pope's photo on "Saturday Night Live," bore four children with four different fathers, declared her lesbianism and then denied it, was ordained a priest, made a record of reggae tunes and now one of songs about God.

To prove she's trying to be normal, the Irish pop star promises to sing some oldies, including her classic, "Nothing Compares 2 U," when she performs Monday at the Pantages Theatre.

There's a lot that could be unpacked there -- normalcy versus political protest of Catholicism, normalcy versus motherhood via serial monogamy, normalcy versus sexual exploration, normalcy versus religious exploration and normalcy versus musical exploration. Admittedly, O'Connor's turbulent past has played out publicly to the curiosity of many. And, yes, she discussed finally being diagnosed as bipolar on Oprah this past fall, but I've always thought of O'Connor and her passionate music and politics as intrinsic parts of her character rather than symptoms of being abnormal. You know, part of what makes her voice so original and her music so captivating.

Other good linkage:

Recent SFGate interview about bipolarism, depression, religion and O'Connor's newest album Theocracy

Blog commentary at The Neurocritic

Here's YouTube video of one of my early favorites from The Lion and The Cobra. "Troy" performed live at the 1988 Pinkpop Festival, just her and her acoustic guitar before an audience of thousands. The song seems to be about a lover, and refers to both the legend of the ancient Greek city of Troy and W.B. Yeats' poem "No Second Troy."

Lyrics:

I'll remember it
And Dublin in a rainstorm
And sitting in the long grass in summer
Keeping warm
I'll remember it
Every restless night
We were so young then
We thought that everything
We could possibly do were the right
Then we moved
Stolen from our very eyes
And I wondered where you went to
Tell me when did the light die
You will rise
You'll return
The phoenix from the flame
You will learn
You will rise
You'll return
Being what you are
There is no other Troy
For you to burn

And I never meant to hurt you
I swear I didn't mean
Those things I said
I never meant to do that to you
Next time I'll keep my hands to myself instead
Oh, does she love you
What do you want to do?
Does she need you like I do?
Do you love her?
Is she good for you?
Does she hold you like I do?

Do you want me?
Should I leave?
I know you're always telling me
That you love me
Just sometimes I wonder
If I should believe
Oh, I love you
God, I love you
I'd kill a dragon for you
I'll die
But I will rise
And I will return
The Phoenix from the flame
I have learned
I will rise
And you'll see me return
Being what I am
There is no other Troy
For me to burn

And you should've left the light on
You should've left the light on
Then I wouldn't have tried
And you'd never have known
And I wouldn't have pulled you tighter
No I wouldn't have pulled you close
I wouldn't have screamed
No I can't let you go
And the door wasn't closed
No I wouldn't have pulled you to me
No I wouldn't have kissed your face
You wouldn't have begged me to hold you
If we hadn't been there in the first place
Ah but I know you wanted me to be there oh oh
Every look that you threw told me so
But you should've left the light on
You should've left the light on
And the flames burned away
But you're still spitting fire
Make no difference what you say
You're still a liar
You're still a liar
You're still a lawyer

Friday Music: Boys on Wheels

Since I posted this at The Gimp Parade last June, Boys on Wheels has been a fairly major contributer to my site's daily visitor hit count -- easily 30+ hits per day. Obviously people are fascinated enough to Google. So, what do you think?

Funny or not so much?

Direct YouTube link here. (Or at the bottom of the post.)

The lead singer of Boys on Wheels is Jesper Odelberg and he is a guy with cerebral palsy, as well as part of a Norwegian comedy show. The four-minute video linked above is a montage of rock songs with lyrics slightly altered. Subtitles are provided in the language each song is sung in. For example, the first song is in Norwegian, the second is a spoof on the '80s hit by Norwegian band A-Ha: "Take On Me," instead called "I'm Not Gay." Bryan Adams' '80s power ballad "Heaven" has been altered so the lyrics begin:

Baby, you're all that I want, but you're living on the fifth floor.
I'm finding it hard to get there, in my wheelchair.

Bon Jovi's "Living On A Prayer" is spoofed as "Living In A Wheelchair." Three men in power wheelchairs sit on a stage with dynamic colorful lighting. Sometimes the two backup guys do some dancing with their wheelchairs. Odelberg's costume changes to match the song, with '80s-era Bon Jovi hair and clothes for the last song.

Also at YouTube, Boys on Wheels singing "My Balls are OK" and "Making Love in a Handicap Toilet"

Cross-posted at Alas, A Blog

Friday Music: Robert Wyatt

Robert Wyatt is a music legend you may never have heard about. He was a singer and drummer of the '60s psych-jazz band Soft Machine that emerged out of Canterbury, England, along with Pink Floyd. Later, he fronted the band Matching Mole. In 1973, drunk at a party, he tumbled out a third story window and ended up paralyzed from the waist down. A lead singer with stage fright, he has said of the accident: "What could have been debilitating turned into an excuse to work in a different way without the pressure and responsibilities of performing or being in a group."

Thus began a solo career that continues with this fall's release of Comicopera, his tenth solo album of original work, though he's perhaps best known for his cover of Elvis Costello's "Shipbuilding," a touching song about the Falklands War. Here's a live video BBC performance:



Description: Wyatt, holding a microphone in both hands, sits in a traditional steel wheelchair on a darkened stage surrounded by his band. He wears an olive military-styled shirt and a black beret, with longish blond hair and a fullish beard.

The lyrics to "Shipbuilding":

Is it worth it
A new winter coat and shoes for the wife
And a bicycle on the boys birthday
It's just a rumour that was spread around town
By the women and children
Soon we'll be shipbuilding
Well I ask you
The boy said dad they're going to take me to task
But I'll be back by Christmas
It's just a rumour that was spread around town
Somebody said that someone got filled in
For saying that people get killed in
The result of this shipbuilding
With all the will in the world
Diving for dear life
When we could be diving for pearls
It's just a rumour that was spread around town
A telegram or a picture postcard
Within weeks they'll be re-opening the shipyards
And notifying the next of kin
Once again
It's all were skilled in
We will be shipbuilding
With all the will in the world
Diving for dear life
When we could be diving for pearls

Among music trivia buffs, Wyatt may be known as the only person using a wheelchair to ever perform on Britain's Top of The Pops. The details range from funny to appalling. He was asked on the popular, long-running music chart TV program to sing his cover of The Monkey's "I'm A Believer," which he reportedly chose to record in the first place because he thought it was written by Neil Sedaka, whose music he claims to enjoy. Except "I'm A Believer" was written by Neil Diamond, which every British '60s experimental psych-jazz musician should know, right?

An argument ensued with Top of The Pops producers when they told him he needed to sit in a regular chair while performing because sitting on stage in a wheelchair was "not suitable for family viewing." This was 1974. In one 2002 account of the event:

A furious Wyatt stood his ground (metaphorically) with the end result that the entire band appeared in wheelchairs, and Wyatt spat out the lyrics with barely concealed venom and even more naked irony. The performance has never been shown anywhere since.

But the Wiki for Top of The Pops states that:

The most complaints the show received for a single episode was in 1994 when Manic Street Preachers performed their song "Faster" in a manner that was seen as intimidating and featured lead singer James Dean Bradfield wearing a balaclava such as would be worn by an IRA terrorist. Prior to this the performance that was rumoured to have drawn most complaints was Robert Wyatt performing his hit "I'm A Believer" in as animated a fashion as his wheelchair would allow.

You can judge the performance for yourself. Here's the YouTube video (that's Pink Floyd's Nick Mason on drums):



Another stage performance with an audience standing and dancing close to the stage. Wyatt sways in his chair as he sings. A hard-to-read text over the video indicates that this clip was missing and presumed lost for nearly 30 years. Either way, Wyatt's wheelchair evidently caused a stir for daring to show up on TV.

Then again, music trivia buffs may know Wyatt because his name has become a verb: "Wyatting" refers to the pub entertainment of intentionally picking a jukebox song that will empty the establishment.

All the above links to articles are entertaining because Wyatt is a character. Here are some other good links:

1996 interview with music writer Richie Unterberger

Sean O'Hagan's recent Guardian feature article on Wyatt

Guardian review of Wyatt's latest album Comicopera

YouTube live video performance of "Gharbadzegi" from his album Old Rottenhat (wild and jazzy live, mellow on the album, this is a personal fav of mine)

Chicago Reader review of Comicopera

Blog love from The Runout Groove



Update: First, apologies that my videos don't stay where they're placed within my text but migrate downwards. I don't know why they do that.

Also, thanks to Jennifer Justice in the comments of this post, here's a direct link to an audio file of the October 26 episode of "Sound Opinions" from Chicago Public Radio. There's some Britney Spears first, to skip directly to the discussion of Wyatt go to about 10:30 in the audio recording.

Disability Blog Carnival at Pitt Rehab

Today's latest Disability Blog Carnival, up over at Pitt Rehab, is the 26th. (I know!) Greg's theme is "How do you relax and unwind?" I didn't contribute, mainly because instead of relaxing and unwinding, I've been working on how to get over being really really pissed off.

This (below) helps when loud, though the video just makes me laugh. It's a YouTube music video for the Finnish band Apocalyptica. The song is "Path" and the band consists of several cellists and a drummer playing metal music. The video is filmed in black and white. Four cellists are lined up, their long shadows cast on a wall before them as they thrash their heads and saw at their instruments. Sometimes the shadows reflect their movements and sometimes they seem to be playing against them, back and forth, call and answer.

So, check out the carnival at Pitt Rehab. Past carnivals and info about the carnival, generally, is available here. And the next carnival will be at Astrid's Journal on Thursday, November 22, the Thanksgiving holiday in the U.S. The theme is "Transitions" and submission deadline is the Monday before.

Friday music: Crash Test Dummies

Another great song about difference, bodily or otherwise:

Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm
by Crash Test Dummies

Once there was this kid who
Got into an accident and couldn't come to school
But when he finally came back
His hair had turned from black into bright white
He said that it was from when
The car had smashed so hard

Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm
Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm

Once there was this girl who
Wouldn't go and change with the girls in the change room
But when they finally made her
They saw birthmarks all over her body
She couldn't quite explain it
They'd always just been there

Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm
Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm

But both girl and boy were glad
'Cause one kid had it worse than that

'Cause then there was this boy whose
Parents made him come directly home right after school
And when they went to their church
They shook and lurched all over the church floor
He couldn't quite explain it
They'd always just gone there

Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm
Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm

Belated video description: The music video involves a grade school play in an old ornate theater with the Crash Test Dummies acting as the musical orchestra. Each of the stanzas is basically performed by the school children with varying reactions from parents and other adults in the audience. The girl with birthmarks is portrayed by a girl with large polka dots on her skin. The parents of the last child are disapproving and unhappy by the portrayal of their religious beliefs.

Remake of the Ramones' song

Direct link to YouTube video here. Visual description: This is a video remake of the classic Ramones song "I Wanna be Sedated" sung and performed by dozens of elderly residents of a nursing home, it appears. In day rooms and hallways, using wheelchairs and walkers, elderly men and women sing or holler the lyrics raucously together directly to the camera. Someone plays a guitar and another man bangs on a piano in the background. One guy with white tufts of hair above each ear and eyeglasses with one lens patched over with tape plays a harmonica. The lyrics:

Twenty-twenty-twenty four hours to go I wanna be sedated
Nothin' to do and no where to go-o-oh I wanna be sedated
Just get me to the airport put me on a plane
Hurry hurry hurry before I go insane
I can't control my fingers I can't control my brain
Oh no no no no no
Twenty-twenty-twenty four hours to go....
Just put me in a wheelchair, get me on a plane
Hurry hurry hurry before I go insane
I can't control my fingers I can't control my brain
Oh no no no no no
Twenty-twenty-twenty four hours to go I wanna be sedated
Nothin' to do and no where to go-o-o I wanna be sedated
Just put me in a wheelchair get me to the show
Hurry hurry hurry before I go loco
I can't control my fingers I can't control my toes
Oh no no no no no
Twenty-twenty-twenty four hours to go...
Just put me in a wheelchair...
Ba-ba-bamp-ba ba-ba-ba-bamp-ba I wanna be sedated
Ba-ba-bamp-ba ba-ba-ba-bamp-ba I wanna be sedated
Ba-ba-bamp-ba ba-ba-ba-bamp-ba I wanna be sedated
Ba-ba-bamp-ba ba-ba-ba-bamp-ba I wanna be sedated

Punk music sung with irony by seniors. This just makes me so indescribably happy!

The Ramones themselves in a much duller video performance here.

h/t to Changing Aging Blog

Update: The performance is by the Young at Heart Chorus. Here are links to YouTube videos of performances and staged music videos of "Staying Alive", "Road to Nowhere" and Coldplay's "Fix You".

Deaf Karaoke with David Armand

Direct link to YouTube video here. This is a live performance of the song "Torn" by comedian David Armand of The Hollow Men with singer Natalie Imbruglia at the 2006 Secret Policemen's Ball for Amnesty International.

Visual description: Armand is on-stage at a live event acting out the lyrics to the pop song "Torn" (lyrics here). The performance looks like sign language but has been described as "mime style interpretive dance". I don't know sign, so I don't know if any of the performance uses actual sign language, but much of it is puns and it's cleverly easy to follow for a hearing person: Armand holds up four fingers for the word "for", mimes reeling in a fish for the word "real", and mimes a magic act for the word "illusion". Halfway through this performance, Imbruglia appears on-stage singing and eventually joins him in the gestures. There's a wordless slide guitar part toward the end of the song where Armand and Imbruglia mime playing the guitar.

Is this cultural appropriation? A comedy act that has nothing to do with deafness and Deaf culture? Or is it cultural cross-over that might be useful to the Deaf, Deaf theater, and communication with Deaf folks?

Here's a different mime performance by Armand, to Paul Young's 1980s hit "Wherever I Lay My Hat, That's My Home"

h/t to Group News Blog

Friday music: Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood by Nina Simone

Link to a YouTube video here. The images in the video present a montage of photos about the American Civil Rights movement, set to Nina Simone's 1964 recording of "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood."

Lyrics to the song:

Baby, you understand me now
Yet sometimes you see that I'm mad
But don't you know that no one alive
Can always be an angel
When everything goes wrong you see some bad

But I'm just a soul whose intentions are good
Oh Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood

You know sometimes, Baby, I'm so carefree
With a joy that's hard to hide
And then sometimes again it seems that all I have is worry
And then you're bound to see my other side

But I'm just a soul whose intentions are good
Oh Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood

If I seem edgy I want you to know
That I never mean to take it out on you
Life has it's problems and I get more than my share
But that's one thing I never mean to do
Because I love you
Oh, Oh baby, I'm just human
Don't you know I have thoughts like anyone
Sometimes I find myself long regretting
Some little foolish thing some simple thing that I've done

Because I'm just a soul whose intentions are good
Oh Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood

Don't let me be misunderstood
I try so hard to, please
Don't let me be

While the seeds of the lyrics came from a songwriter's spat with a girlfriend, the song and Simone's recording are associated with the Civil Rights Movement. But a more personal view of her performance of the song might be seen with the knowledge that she was apparently bipolar:

Simone had a reputation in the music industry for being volatile and sometimes difficult to deal with, a characterization with which she strenuously took issue. In 1995, she shot and wounded her neighbour’s son with a pneumatic pistol after his laughing disturbed her concentration. She also fired a gun at a record company executive whom she accused of stealing royalties. It is now recognised that this ‘difficulty’ was not just the result of an overly-perfectionist rigor, but her raging outbursts and diva-like extremes were actually the result of a psycho-medical condition, most probably a bipolar disorder or borderline personality disorder. Simone reluctantly took medication for her condition from the mid sixties on. All this was only known to a small group of intimates, and kept out of public view for many years, until the biography Break Down And Let It All Out written by Sylvia Hampton and David Nathan revealed this secret in 2004.

Friday music: Evelyn Glennie

Evelyn Glennie is a talented percussionist who is also profoundly deaf. As she explains, media attention that focuses on the state of her hearing misses the point:

Deafness is poorly understood in general. For instance, there is a common misconception that deaf people live in a world of silence. To understand the nature of deafness, first one has to understand the nature of hearing.

Hearing is basically a specialized form of touch. Sound is simply vibrating air which the ear picks up and converts to electrical signals, which are then interpreted by the brain. The sense of hearing is not the only sense that can do this, touch can do this too. If you are standing by the road and a large truck goes by, do you hear or feel the vibration? The answer is both. With very low frequency vibration the ear starts becoming inefficient and the rest of the body's sense of touch starts to take over. For some reason we tend to make a distinction between hearing a sound and feeling a vibration, in reality they are the same thing. It is interesting to note that in the Italian language this distinction does not exist. The verb 'sentire' means to hear and the same verb in the reflexive form 'sentirsi' means to feel. Deafness does not mean that you can't hear, only that there is something wrong with the ears. Even someone who is totally deaf can still hear/feel sounds.

Here is a YouTube video of Glennie's collaboration with Icelandic singer Björk for the song "Oxygen." The visuals are simply a collage of photos of Björk, but that's Glennie playing behind Björk's vocals. The song is part of Glennie's 1998 greatest hits compilation.



Here's a 34-minute video of a presentation she gave on "How to listen to music with your whole body." There doesn't seem to be a transcript of her words (how sadly ironic is that?), but she talks about and demonstrates the difference between technically performing a piece of music and playing it as an artist who listens to and creates nuance.



And here's an excerpt from the documentary Touch The Sound:



Bionic Ear blog mentioned Glennie recently here.

Alison at Noesis writes about the lack of transcript for that TED speech here.