Comma Dot Comma

Abigail and I share a favorite song: “All Around the Kitchen” by Dan Zanes and Friends. When she wants to get her dance on, that’s her go-to song, and it is so catchy that I get my dance on too. We have some really energetic 30-second to two-minute-long dance parties, me and my girl.

She started getting interested in music about a month ago, so I’ve been looking for some appropriate music for her. After years of hearing friends and family complain about going crazy listening to the same Barney or Wiggles or Wee Sing CD over and over, I wanted to find Abigail some good music that we could all like. Dr. G is of the opinion that we’ve got plenty of good stuff in our own music collection, and has made her a mix CD of fun music, some of which is kids (Macho Duck, All Around the Kitchen) and some of which is technically adult (Buddy Holly, some gospel). I’ve also been visiting Zooglobble’s blog quite a bit. He’s a fellow Phoenician who is apparently the last word in reviews of kid music that parents will like. He posts many a cute video, links to free downloads, and giveaways.

Anyway, Dan Zanes is one of our favorites; we even listened to a little of his stuff before we had any kids at all, and his track is the first one on Abi’s CD. She doesn’t know how to work her CD player, but she figured out that if it is turned on, she can open and close the lid and get it to start playing. Thus she loves “All Around the Kitchen,” because it is the one she keeps hearing each time she lifts the lid. She stomps in place, shakes her diaper-clad bootie, claps, and swings her arms around. She loves that it is also an interactive song: each verse gives instructions on some new silly way to dance. When Dan sings, “Stop right there!” she freezes and waits for instruction. She has learned by watching me what she is supposed to do for some of them, and she listens for keywords in the song (hair, nose, ears) for where to put her hands. It is a riot and a half to watch her stick her hands in her hair and start stomping or wiggling.

Today I am going to share with you my one and only Christmas tradition. I hope you are worthy of it.

Like all good traditions, this one comes with rules. It is also a song,one that may be familiar to you: “O Holy Night.” But this is not just any version of the song. Dr. G found it somewhere on the internet several years ago and downloaded it. Once a year, we fish it up from the depths of the hard drives and listen to it again.

Rumor has it that this recording was sent by an aspiring vocalist as a demo to a Nashville record company, and some indiscreet staffer circulated it around. Others suggest that the achievements of this singer would be impossible for an amateur, and that every note is carefully planned. Either way, it’s a stunner.

As it played the other night, I found myself crumpled on the floor in a fetal position, laughing. Every time it seemed safe to uncurl, the singer would ramp it up a notch and I would seize up again.

It is truly The Worst Version of O Holy Night Ever Recorded. Here are the rules for participating in this tradition:

You must listen to the whole song.
You must listen to it at a sufficient volume.
If you don’t think it is funny, you must never tell me.

Mentally check here if you agree to these terms: ____

Ok. You can listen.
The Worst O Holy Night Ever Recorded

Karen invited me to list songs I will always, always, sing along to. I copied her and linked to the samples on Amazon, except for a few like G G G which a) are not on amazon or b) didn’t have a good clip on amazon. The Beatles don’t get any sound clips because they are the Beatles.

Most of the songs I love to sing along to really loudly are happy songs. I wonder why that is? Jesus in New Orleans is not that happy but it feels great to sing the word “crazy” over four (or however many) bars. Most of these are many years old. Two of my favorites use a letter or a number in place of an ordinary word? Now that’s just strange.

Bill Withers– Lovely Day
The Beatles– Good Day Sunshine
Fleming and John– Radiate
Over the Rhine– Jesus in New Orleans
Moke– So Much Better
Sinead O’Connor– Nothing Compares 2 U
Mike Knott– G G G
Laura Love– Aha Me Riddle A Day
White Stripes– Hotel Yorba
Victoria Williams– You R Loved
The Jayhawks– Real Light
Ron Kenoly– Dwell in the House
K.T. Tunstall– Black Horse and the Cherry Tree
Erasure– A Little Respect
Weezer– Buddy Holly
They Might Be Giants– Birdhouse in Your Soul

I invite east coast folk to share their favorites– Kate, Julie, and Mike.

Saw a South African choir performing on late night T.V. It had nothing to do with the weird pop I used to listen to in Y2K-era Benin (as my dad wrote at the time “Tie down the goats! It’s Y2K!”), and yet I was suddenly crushed with nostalgia for distorted guitar riffs from worn cassette tapes in taxis or blasted out of speakers in bars. So I present the blog’s first mini-mix. West African pop.

1. Band: Magic System
Song: 1er Gaou
Comment: “Gaou” means something equivalent to the expression “Big Man” in Cote D’Ivoire. Premiere gaou n’est past gaou, OH-oh. C’est deuxieme gaou qui est (??) gaou, OH oh. Way to lay it on the line, Magic System!

1er Gaou

2. Band: Makoma
Song: Nzambe Na Bomoyi
Comment: Brothers and sisters. Christian synth-pop. Think “Congolese Hanson”. I totally dug them back in the day, primarily because of the absence of that ubiquitous Congolese guitar-playing style (Soukouss?). And also the absence of the ubiquitous-yet-past-his-prime-and-far-too-famous Koffi Olomide (We saw him in concert once and he just did that Kirk Franklin thing, grunting and saying “uh-uh” behind a posse of lithe singers and dancers. Fittingly, he was wearing a green leisure suit). Anyway. Makoma. Nowadays the cheesy casio keyboard instrumentation causes some inner lament. But hey, JESUS FOR LIFE!

Nzambe Na Bomoyi

3. Band: ??
Song: L’amour Ne S’achete Pas
Comment: This song comes off of a compilation called Benin Passion. It had big names and songs from the 60′s through the 80′s. This is one of them. The title means “love can’t be bought,” by pascal medagbe. It’s not exactly current pop, but it is Beninese. What I wouldn’t give for a little Panthere Noir (A Beninese band that was just getting some buzz the year we left).

L’amour Ne S’achete Pas

The biggest name to come out of Benin is Angelique Kidjo, who belts it out like a prizefighter of the vocal cords (ooh that’s a terrible simile), but since she sells her music in the states I better not put a track on here. If you want to hear really good West African music, check out the podcasts over at benn loxo du taccu.

One bonus of our Subaru is that it has both a CD player and a cassette player. On occasion we break out the 10- and 15- year-old mix tapes that have been packed away unheard in boxes. Yesterday I was listening to an unlabeled mix tape given to me by a friend in high school. It was exciting, trying to guess what song would come on next, and fun singing along with crowd-pleasers such as “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” by Elton John: “You can’t keep me in your penthouse, I’m going back to my plow! OHHH ohhh OOOHHHH Oh-uh-oh-oh-oh!”

So now I have an idea for a mix CD: male singers who can transition effortlessly from their regular singing voice to falsetto. So far I have mentally compiled a list: Elton John, Jeff Buckley, Mike Roe, and John Lennon. I think it will have to be heavy on 70′s singers since that was the last time falsetto was really fashionable in pop/rock music. Who else should be on my CD?

Speaking of 70′s singers, guess who’s back!? CAT STEVENS! Or should I say, Yusef Islam. I thought there was no way he could be any good these days but his new single, “Where True Love Goes,” (links to youtube video) is classic Cat. A bit subdued, and no “Moonshadow,” but solid, almost totally solid! Here are some reviews of the new CD. When I wrote a humor column in college, one of the installments gave a list of requirements for any guy who wanted to date me and owning a Cat Stevens album was on there. Also on the list was NOT folding underwear. (And no, the future Dr. G did not own such an album, but I let it slide).

Here is the Christian music I listened to in High School:

• Michael W. Smith Album: Go West Young Man — CCM
• The Prayer Chain Album: Shawl — melancholy rock
• The Swirling Eddies Album: Zoom Daddy — silly but deep
• The Choir Album: Circle Slide — atmospheric pop
• Kim Hill Albums: Talk About Life, Brave Heart — folksy rock
• John Michael Talbott Album: The Hiding Place (?) — Monk Folk
• Painted Orange — Album: Painted Orange –electronica
• Hot Pink Turtle — indie/punk
• P.I.D. Album: Here We Are (?) –rap
• Petra Albums: The Rock Cries Out, Beyond Belief — anthem rock
• Dimestore Prophets Album: Love is Against the Grain — indie rock
• Newsboys Album: Not ashamed — pop-rock supergroup
• Audio Adrenaline Album: Don’t Censor Me — CCM
• 77s Album: didn’t actually own one, but kept seeing them in concert — indie rock

Shortly thereafter I went through a phase of divesting all my stuff, and I’ve only re-acquired half of it in the intervening years. I bet Painted Orange is pretty hard to get these days. They sang with fake British accents. No one I knew listened to off-the-radar Christian music. I’d go to the bookstore, listen to five or six things, then buy something. Trial and error. I loved the Prayer Chain in particular because the cover had naked guys covered in mud on the front, and my mom had to let me keep it because it was Christian.

The book of love is long and boring

No one can lift the damn thing

It’s full of charts and facts and figures

And instructions for dancing

But I love it when you read to me

And you can read me anything.

–Magnetic Fields, song title: “The Book of Love”

Today, clever song lyrics charm me. I have a happy springtime crush on clever song lyrics. I want to make a mix of only clever songs. What should be on it? Here’s three I have so far:
Cake: Short Skirt, Long Jacket

She is fast, thorough, and sharp as a tack
She’s touring the facility and picking up slack
I want a girl with a short skirt,
And a loooooooooooooonnnnnnngggggg, long jacket

Hank Williams: Howling At the Moon

I rode my horse to town to day and a gas pump we did pass
I pulled ’im up and I hollered whoa!, said fill ’im up with gas
The man picked up a monkey wrench and wham!, he changed my tune
You got me chasin’ rabbits, spittin’ out teeth and howlin’ at the moon.

Fiona Apple: Oh Sailor:

Everything good I deem too good to be true
Everything else is just a bore
Everything I have to look forward to
Has a pretty painful and very imposing before

The best “easy-listening” internet radio show for people who thought they had very discriminating musical tastes in college, and would never say “easy listening,” preferring the term “chill”:

Metropolis at kcrwmusic.com

It’s mellow enough not to distract and interesting enough to keep the energy levels up. The DJ will play a remix of some Coldplay song, then something from India, then some latino techno, then something funky. He makes it all seem like it belongs together.

The best “work’s boring, better listen to something interesting” internet radio:

The Cool As Folk station on music.yahoo.com

It’s where I get my Decemberists fix, among other things.

The best “work is really boring, I gotta laugh at something” internet radio. Well, this one’s not music but hey you can’t go wrong with

This American Life

The best “I’m on a deadline and got to go into The Zone” internet radio show, although sometimes this one gets a little too creepy (in a Matrix II mosh-pit-scene kind of way). All electronica.
Nocturna on kcrwmusic.com

CDs that also serve this purpose, making me listen to them over and over obsessively for days on end even if they are only 30 minutes long:

Neilsen Hubbard, Sing into Me — The sweetest Christian-tinged folk you can imagine.

Mia Doi Todd, The Golden State — “Gravity and entropy, they have it out inside of me”

The Violet Burning, Strength — electric guitar you can disappear into.