Jed was last seen on a funicular en route to Lake Como, lip locked with nurse Catherine Barkley. Holding down the Video Free Silver Lake fort this week is our own stoic hero and Count Greffi figure, Eli Monolator.
By Eli Monolator
Hi everyone--this is Eli from The Monolators & Cobra Lilies & Your
Mom Your Dad & Shirley Rolls. I've been trying to think of some kinda theme for my guest column here, but I've sort of drawn a blank--and I don't want to
repeat stuff already posted by all of the great previous guest columnists. Geoff
Geis already very ably schooled us in contemporary pop, Seasons and Matthew
Teardrop have the local scene covered, and John Graney lead us by the sweaty
paws into the land of surf rock, which is something very near and dear to my
heart (I listened to little else when I was in high school--"Pipeline" was one
of the first songs I ever learned how to play on the guitar. True fact there).
So, I think I'm just gonna cop out and post some music-related things that I am
mildly-to-full-blown obsessed with these days, but without much rhyme or reason.
Basically, this is stuff that BLOWS MY MIND. Also--unlike Matthew I AM going to
go ahead and be a jerk and post a clip of one of my own bands (there's a
reason--more on that later). Also also--I had a really hard time editing this
down to half-a-dozen clips, and in the end I gave up and went a little
overboard. I think I'm at 9 here. Sorry.
So, to begin: anyone who knows me is aware of my fondness for ABBA. I'm not going to post anything of theirs right now, as magnificent as they are--instead I am going to post a clip by another obsession of mine, one of the coattail-riding groups that sprang up in ABBA's wake: Luv'. Luv' was kinda-sorta the Netherlands' answer to ABBA, except instead of two married couples you get three ladies singing insanely catchy disco-pop tunes in goofy outfits. Good enough for me! If you watch enough of their videos you can see that, while they sing and dance more or less as a single unit, each of the girls actually has her own persona: there's The Blonde One. There's The Exotic One. And then there's The Slightly Mousy One Who Actually Does Most of the Heavy Lifting in the Singing Department. Here's one of my favorite songs of theirs, along with a nonsensical, ultra-low-budget video that must have seemed pretty awesome when it first came out in the 1978 (my favorite part: the bubble-bath piano, with the ferns--but the whole thing is GOLD). Actually I could go on about this video all night--it might be my single most favorite thing on earth. We have talked about recreating it, shot for shot, but have yet to get around to it:
This brings me to another clip from roughly the same era, this time by Amanda Lear. I'm not sure now how exactly I discovered Amanda, who is probably best known today as the transsexual model/diva who dated David Bowie and was briefly engaged to Roxy Music's Bryan Ferry--that's her on the cover of the For Your Pleasure album, with the panther. She also was a singer (well, sort of--I would say she more speak-sings) and had a string of European disco hits. Now, Amanda herself currently disputes the story that she began life male, but, you know. That voice. You tell me. Some of her videos are a bit on the dull side, but this one is pretty great, if vaguely offensive: The Queen Of Chinatown. I like to think that the Chinatown in question is the one here in Los Angeles, but, nah, probably not.
Taking an abrupt turn in a different direction: here are a pair of clips from some UK folk-ish acts from the 50s/early 60s. Now, "folk," yeah, I think these days when people say Folk they mean softly-murmuring demure types with long flowing gowns and/or beards singing breathily about...being demure and their beards and stuff. But there's another side to folk music, a more more raucous/driving side, and I kinda wish it was explored more these days--I offer these clips as evidence.
Number one: the Karl Denver Trio singing "Wimoweh." Now, I don't ever need to hear "Wimoweh" again in my life, and neither do you--but do you need to hear it yodeled/scatted/deconstructed by an insane-sounding alcoholic Scotsman accompanied by a blazing hot guitar solo and seven badass dancers in sweaters? Yes. Yes you do. In fact you need to hear/see it right now:
Number two: the King Of Skiffle, Lonnie Donegan. Lonnie was another Scotsman (I see a pattern here) who combined trad jazz instrumentation with American folk music (Leadbelly, Woody Guthrie) and started a craze for folk/blues/rock and roll that made every single 1950's person in England (possibly including the Queen) form a band in response. Most of these bands sucked really bad, but one of them went on to become the Beatles, so there you go. Here's Lonnie playing Woody Guthrie's "Gambling Man," complete with a rad, rad, rad drum solo--these guys were savage:
Okay, another abrupt turn: I was at St. Vincent de Paul's today and found a copy of The Great Muppet Caper on VHS for 99 cents, which is funny, because I was just thinking about that movie yesterday. Now, I don't think it gets a lot of love from the peeps compared to The Muppet Movie, but I gotta say, it's pretty solid, and it features one of the greatest production numbers I have ever seen: Miss Piggy's Fantasy, featuring...well...an underwater Busby Berkely swimming/dance extravaganza, including Miss Piggy in a sparkler-tiara, Charles Grodin's singing voice dubbed by an opera singer, an underwater harpist...just everything you could possibly want in life. I had the soundtrack record as a kid and wore this song out. What does that say about me? (note: I'm not sure youtube will let me embed this one--but click through, it's worth it)
Speaking of art deco, and dancing, here is a wonderful and lovely 1934 jazz-age animated short called "La Joie de Vivre"--nothing like Disney or Betty Boop or anything else out there from that time, it's basically a cartoon ballet about two ladies being pursued/courted by a young man with a bicycle and really big pants. Everything about it is gorgeous:
And, moving forward slightly to the 1940's, here are the Ross Sisters singing something called "Solid Potato Salad." All you really need to know is: they are sisters, they sing, and they are contortionists. Really. What happened to them? They should have become President, all three of them at the same time.
But, you say, this is all OLD stuff. What's with the oldness? Okay okay. Here's something from--I'm not sure when, but it's gotta be no more than a few years old. "Clown" by Ssion. Another big production number--I wish I could make a video like this. Hey man, I see you standing there by yourself...and across the room I can't tell if you're laughing...or crying...yeah.
All right. I am going to leave you now with, yes, a clip from one of my own bands, Cobra Lilies. Reason is: we have a record release show at Pehrspace on Saturday, August 28, and it's sweater themed. In fact, the name of our record we're putting out is Crazy Summer Sweater Party. We're wearing...sweaters! I think I can confidently say that a little tiny bit of each of the songs I posted above made its way into our record, even if only in spirit. We would love love love to see you there. Evangina and Daylong Valleys of the Nile(which is the guys from Lavender Diamond ) are playing too. It's gonna be sweet. Okay, that's it--see ya.
The Cobra Lilies play a record release show at Pehrspace on Saturday, August 28 with Evangina and Daylong Valleys of the Nile (which is the guys from Lavender Diamond)
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