I learned about ramen from Lorie. She and I survived my sixteenth summer on a diet of ramen, Pop Tarts, Gatorade, Diet Pepsi, sex, cribbage and Mr. Bungle tapes. Lorie’s technique was to pound the dry noodles to break them up while still in the package, and I follow it to this day.
In this time of sickness and uncertain stomachs in the Ross-Tavis household, we are grateful for the gorgeous simplicity of Mr. Ando’s invention: easy to make, easy to digest, always on hand and always cheap. The New York Times has a lovely appreciation of Mr. Ando, to which I would add that ramen, like Mother Teresa, has given solace to the wretched of the earth.
Sing it to anyone who grew up in America who grew up in the 1970s and their eyes light up: “One-two-three-FOUR-five, six-seven-eight-NINE-ten, eleven-twelve!” This gem of a segment is quite possibly the funkiest music ever produced for children — funkier even than Roosevelt Franklin, that now-bizarre Muppetary exemplar of Black Power — and it has stuck with us through all these years, lodged firmly in our imaginations. (Click here and here to see examples of the shorter original segments.)
It wasn’t just the music, of course. Those animations are seriously groovy. But the music was key. And those solo sections aren’t exactly easy listening, either. Sesame Street was training our ears for the sophisticated sounds of post-Bitches Brew electro-jazz.
Less widely remembered is the “1-20 Raga,” a nugget of sitar-driven psychedelia that may well have been my first exposure to South Asian culture. Whether the pungent atmosphere of Marin County in those days contributed to my particular appreciation of this clip is an open question, but certainly it stayed with me. In fact, it’s the Indian bits that remained in my memory all these years — the sitar, the morphing Mughal patterns; I had forgotten the insipid vocal and the number-factory setting.
Sesame Street was and remains an extraordinary tool for reaching out to the very young with challenging material. As music classes are cut across America, it may be one of the last places capable of reaching little kids with sophisticated music.
So the Mothership has come to collect. On Christmas no less. Even his death has a kind of rhythm.
James Brown is dead, but James Brown will never die. As long as human beings still listen to the popular music of the latter 20th and early 21st centuries, they’ll be hearing James Brown. He’s everywhere, especially now that hip-hop has become a global music with a reach even greater than rock and roll.
I’d say rest in peace, but that was never JB’s style. The funk goes on, and wherever James is now, they’re all gonna have a funky good time.
I know American English in great detail, including its slang, its clichés, its style and usage. With British English I am less richly familiar, but I have a good sense of it. And I have had at least some exposure to Indian English. But what about Australian English? New Zealand, South African, Jamaican English?
I have found my exposure to other Englishes — including the broken Englishes of non-native speakers — to be rewarding. I should make an effort to pursue the literatures of other Englishes.
Happy Yule! The actual solstice will take place at 7:22 pm this evening.
Happy Chanukah! Tonight we will light seven candles, and tomorrow night will be the full eight (in both cases not counting the shamash, which is used to light and stand guard over the other candles).
And a few days early, a Merry Christmas! We’ll be spending ours with Jenny’s niece Emily, some aunts we don’t know, and a pot roast. We do not expect the pot roast to survive.
Today’s musical selection is an unusual twist on the old (and not-so-old) Christmas carols. Seulgidoong is, according to the only information I could find, “a leading modern chamber ensemble devoted to popularization of traditional music by modernizing it. Its 9 members have given distinguished performances of their unique music. They combine traditional music and new world of music in a unique way to create an original repertoire.” Sure. I’m not convinced it’s genius or anything, but hey, how many times have you heard “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” played on gayageum and geomungo?
When I was younger, rock concerts were major events in my life. I would find out about a show through a listing in BAM or the Guardian, buy my tickets early and let the anticipation build over weeks or even months. Against the backdrop of tedious mediocrity that was high school, an upcoming concert was a glowing beacon, a reminder that there was a grander, funkier, freakier world out there and that I could access it if I wanted to. Going to these concerts, I knew I was a part of something larger than myself. And back in high school afterwards, I would be sustained by the secret knowledge I’d gained at the Stone or the Omni or the Phoenix Theatre, seeing Primus or Soundgarden or Fungo Mungo: I am not like the rest of you. This is not my whole world.
Once I had a car, concerts became less of a big deal to get to, and consequently less of a big deal. What had once been a breakthrough to an ecstatic new world was now a mostly enjoyable but fairly regular amusement. Once I moved to New York in ’93, concerts became even less meaningful. Try as I might, I failed to find any scene in New York that could stand up to the multi-ethnic, genre-muddling loopiness of the Bay Area. Where bands back home wore wild costumes and leaped around like lunatics, the East Coast scene seemed to require that bands dress badly and stand around looking bored.
Concerts still involved painful noise, crowds, cigarette smoke, long lines, overpriced tickets, late nights, sweat, bad drinks and horrendous opening acts, but the payoff was less. I no longer needed rock concerts to help me locate myself in the world or feel cool.
I’ve been to plenty of concerts in the years since then by artists I really like, but it’s rare that I’ve felt that old sense of anticipation. Today, though, it’s back. Tonight, I’m going to see Gogol Bordello at Irving Plaza, and I feel the giddy thrill of adventure in store. Check out the live clips and you’ll see why.
Katamari Damacy is a surreal Japanese video game whose name means “the spirit of clumping,” or more simply, “clump spirit.” The goal of the game and the mode of play are fairly simple but different from anything else I’ve ever played: you roll a ball (the katamari) around various environments, picking up all kinds of objects as you go — paper clips, people, elephants, chopsticks. As you collect objects, the katamari grows, allowing you to pick up ever bigger items. (You can see what this actually looks like here.) The game is presided over by a king whose speaking voice is record scratching and who either praises your success or shoots lasers out of his eyes when you fail. (He also has great legs and a psychedelic cylindrical pillow permanently lodged behind his head.)
What makes the game so compelling is the elaborate, creative, surreal universe in which you operate — not to mention its zany, sometimes dark humor — and part of that effect is achieved by the music, which consists of thoroughly loopy J-pop and a pair pieces for full orchestra, recorded with appropriate theatrical bombast.
I wish I could tell you who the artists are, but I can’t find that information anywhere. Still, you can buy the soundtrack at YesAsia.com.
In the comments on a TPM Café piece on Barack Obama’s efforts to reach out to the Christian right, I ran across this fascinating passage from Exodus 21:22-25 (New International Version):
22 If men who are fighting hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely [or she has a miscarriage] but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman’s husband demands and the court allows. 23 But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, 24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.
There’s a little ambiguity over what exactly is meant by “gives birth prematurely,” but it seems clear from context — and from the state of medical technology in Biblical times, which would have been insufficient to keep a seriously premature baby alive — that this passage is describing the death of a fetus. (The bracketed interpolation is theirs, not mine.)
A very clear distinction is then made between the killing of a fetus, for which a fine is incurred, and “serious injury,” which can apparently be inflicted only on the living woman, not on the unborn fetus. Fetuses, then, are distinctly in a separate category from actual people. Those who insist that abortion is murder are thus rejecting the legal definitions set forth in the Book of Exodus, which most Fundamentalist and Evangelical Christians recognize as the word of God.
Interestingly, this passage is actually used by pro-lifers to support their position because it penalizes the killing of a fetus. That seems unarguable, but based on the above passage, it would seem more Biblically correct to demand a ban on cars and guns than on abortion, because maiming and death as a result of auto and gun accidents is relatively common and clearly considered more serious by the Biblical God than the death of a fetus.
Of course, no such thing will ever happen (or should). Just as a few verses are plucked from the Bible to justify a culturally based revulsion against homosexuality, the Biblical justifications for banning abortion are ex post facto, chosen to support a preexisting political position. (Indeed, this cherry-picking approach is regularly applied by people who consider themselves Biblical literalists. I would be fascinated to see a serious effort to construct a complete world view starting with the Bible and rejecting any outside sources that contradict the Bible — a modern Karaite movement, as it were — but I suppose the many contradictions within the Bible itself would make such an effort nearly impossible.)
Why abortion is so controversial is not an easy question to answer, but the reasons should be sought in the structure of our society today and in its recent history, not in the Bible. Note: For those who prefer it, the King James version is less ambiguous:
22 If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman’s husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. 23 And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life, 24 Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 Burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.
While we’re on the subject of eighties music, let’s remember that there was something going on other than synth pop. It’s the Seattle grunge scene that got really famous, but in San Francisco, there was an earlier anti-fashion scene full of rage, heavy guitars and sloppily dressed rockers: thrash metal.
After the massive success of Seven and the Ragged Tiger and Arena, Duran Duran began to fragment, but productively. John and Andy Taylor, the guitarist and bass player respectively, joined up with Robert Palmer to form Power Station, innovating a kind of synthetic soul rock that would stay current for the rest of the decade. (INXS, anyone?) Their first hit was a cover of T-Rex‘s “Bang a Gong,” but they scored much bigger with “Some Like It Hot,” which is sort of a sexified “The Wild Boys.” The biggest sonic difference from Duran Duran comes at the guitar solo, in which John Taylor lets loose with a burst of Eddie Van Halen-style high-speed licks where one would expect something more layered and processed. The video is ugly but fascinating.
Less successful, and much less fun, was Arcadia, the side project of Simon Le Bon, Nick Rhodes and Roger Taylor. As Attack of the Clones is to the earlier Star Wars films, so is the very long video for “Election Day,” Arcadia‘s biggest hit, to the earlier Duran Duran videos. It kind of sounds like Duran Duran, and it kind of looks like a Duran Duran video, but the life is drained out of it. Somewhere along the line, they seem to have forgotten that this shit is kind of funny. (Musically, it probably didn’t help that they had Sting, David Gilmour and Herbie Hancock involved.)
Even more pretentious is “Promise,” whose video telegraphs seriousness by being in black and white and consists of doomful images of Cold War weaponry, the devastation of war and zebras fighting (no, really). The song itself is dreadful and made worse by the use of a super-trendy South African bass groove.
Duran Duran did come back together once more, in all its glory, to record a final #1 hit: “A View to a Kill.” The band seems to be having fun again, and Simon Le Bon’s yodel is in top form. In the video, they seem to be enjoying themselves immensely as they play silly spy games on the Eiffel Tower, and who can resist Le Bon’s hammy self-introduction at the end of the video as “Bon … Simon Le Bon”?
But music was moving on, and Duran Duran didn’t have an easy time of it. They released Notorious in 1986, and it did produce a major hit with its title track, but only three of the original five members had participated in the recording, and though “Notorious” is a fine example of mid-eighties white funk, the magic was gone. Against Peter Gabriel’s gigantic hit record So, with its spectacular videos for brilliant, intelligent songs — “Big Time,” “In Your Eyes,” and especially “Sledgehammer” — “Notorious,” song and video, couldn’t help but seem limp.
In 1987, Duran Duran released the video for “Skin Trade,” also from Notorious. Simon Le Bon gives a nice performance, but again, neither the song nor the video offers anything grand, new or impressive on the scale of what had come before. It’s not bad, just ordinary.
From 1988’s Big Thing, “I Don’t Want Your Love” is a bit of an improvement, especially in terms of the video, which goes back to having some kind of theme and shows some visual flair. The song itself moves in a house music direction, which at the time is actually pretty with it, if not quite ahead of the curve. Still, it’s easy to hear a song like “I Don’t Want Your Love” prefiguring EMF‘s “Unbelievable.”
After that long dearth, the Depeche Mode-influenced “All She Wants Is” is a welcome return to something like form. It’s sexy, for one thing, sexier than any of the band’s singles since their Rio days. And the video looks good, in a way that their recent videos simply hadn’t. (Also, this song has a certain positive association in my head because my middle school friend Jon’s friend Heather, a freakishly beautiful redhead who had a taste for black stretch tube dresses and was 18 but willing to let me hang out with her — I even went with her and her friends to see Aerosmith and Skid Row at the Cow Palace — could do a perfect imitation of that little moan-yelp sample towards the end of the song.)
The Big Thing period ends with an unfortunate attempt at seriousness, “Do You Believe in Shame?” a rambling ballad that steals its melody line from, of all things, Creedence Clearwater Revival‘s “Suzy Q” and should be charged with one count of Indian drone abuse.
Things get even sadder with 1990’s Liberty, which came out at exactly the wrong moment for a Duran Duran resurgence, as the slick, synthetic eighties were giving way to the earthy, grungy nineties. The results are predictably grim. The first single, “Violence of Summer,” is like an imaginary terrible song from INXS‘s Kick, and the video has Le Bon strutting around like an aging George Michael. From the band that wrote the choruses to “Union of the Snake,” “The Reflex” and “Is There Something I Should Know?” this is flaccid songwriting indeed, and the “chi-na-na-na” chant is just embarrassing.
“Serious,” is only slightly better. If it had been the product of an Australian band in the heyday of Men at Work, it might have been an acceptable hit. On the other hand, the band’s forced levity in the video — with a black guy! — gives the whole affair the feel of an ad for khakis.
1993’s The Wedding Album, then, was a surprise. This was way before any eighties revival, but the album was a hit, to a great extent on the strength of its lovely lead single, the ballad “Ordinary World,” which recaptures some of the feel of the first three albums (though mixed with a hearty dose of aging-rocker schmaltz).
The followup hit, “Come Undone,” likewise sounds a bit like Seven and the Ragged Tiger-era deep tracks, though of course its house beat is distinctly turn-of-the-nineties. What stands out, though, is that, like “Ordinary World,” it’s a lovely song.
The final single, “Too Much Information,” is a fun, well crafted little romp that includes, strangely enough, lyrics that mean something concrete. Indeed, it’s a clever dig at their own lunatic success. Musically, they’re still channeling INXS plus EMF, but they’re doing it well. (It’s also the first video in which Simon Le Bon is adequately tortured since “The Wild Boys.”)
If you were a rock band that had just had its first hit record in years, what would your next move be? Probably not a Quixotic cover album, but that’s where Duran Duran went, releasing “Thank You,” on which they cover the likes of Lou Reed, Sly and the Family Stone, and most notoriously, Public Enemy — their cover of “911 is a Joke” has to be heard to be believed.
The first single was “Perfect Day,” by Lou Reed, and is delivered with appropriate drugginess. The video keeps the mood with its color-saturated red padded cell.
More startling is their cover of “White Lines,” by rap pioneer Grandmaster Flash, which opens with a heavy emphasis on the word “white” (really). In the video, the band poses as an actual rock band, and musically they pull off a kind of thrash-funk version of themselves. The whole thing is kind of a disaster, but certainly one of Duran Duran‘s most interesting disasters over the years. After the success of The Wedding Album, this nearly killed the band.
At this point, John Taylor left the group to join Neurotic Outsiders, a metal band whose other members were Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols and Duff McKagan and Matt Sorum of Guns N’ Roses.
But back to Duran Duran. Now down to two original members, the group released Medazzaland, or at least they sort of released it. After the disaster that was Thank You, EMI at last dropped Duran Duran, and the new record was only released in the US, not in Europe. Still, its first single, “Out of My Mind” (no embedding), managed to get inserted into the soundtrack of The Saint. It’s actually not bad, and the band does put on its New Romantic duds for the video.
“Electric Barbarella,” recalling the band’s namesake, is also a kind of throwback: a techno dance song that tries (but sort of fails) to have a memorable chorus. With its sexy video, the song managed to be a minor hit in both the UK and the US, but it ain’t no “Girls on Film.”
By the time of Pop Trash, released in 2000, there was little left to the limping trio. “Someone Else, Not Me” is a faintly psychedelic ballad that is not immediately offensive.
But by now enough time had passed since their heyday that Duran Duran could sell out shows on the strength of their classic material. What surprised people was that there was new material as well, and that they liked it. The result was Astronaut, the first Duran Duran recording since “View to a Kill” to include all five original members of the band. (Poor Warren Cuccurullo, an Italian from Canarsie who had been a session musician and then a member from Notorious through Pop Trash — the lean years, in other words — was booted to make way for the lineup people actually cared about.) The first single, “(Reach Up for the) Sunrise” is not exactly a return to form, nor is it particularly compelling as something new. It somehow sounds like an old band reunited, though I can’t put my finger on why. But it exists, and here it is.
I don’t know, maybe it’s the messaginess of the songs. In “What Happens Tomorrow,” Simon Le Bon declares that “You’ve got to believe it will be all right in the morning,” and that’s a pretty good summary of the lyrics. I much prefer Duran Duran‘s lyrics from back when they were all coked up and didn’t make any sense at all.
Sadly, another Duran Duran record is expected next year.
DKNY alerted me to the passing of Momofuku Ando, the inventor of ramen noodles and the founder of Nissin.
