IdeaJones

Tag: music

  • (“Don’t) Hold My Hand

    We should have been doing this all along. Stuff comes through all the time, flu, stomach collywobblers, root rot. Wash your hands for at least 20 seconds. Two times through “Happy Birthday To You” will do it, but I feel silly wishing myself a happy birthday many times a day, every day, all year ’round. So here are some alternatives you can sing (even just to yourself) that seem on-theme:

    “Hold My Hand” by Hootie & The Blowfish

    ‘Cause I got a hand for you. (I got a hand for you).

    ‘Cause I wanna run with you. (Won’t you let me run with you)?

    Hold my hand. (Want you to hold my hand).

    Hold my hand. (I’ll take you to a place where you can be)

    Hold my hand (Anything you wanna be because)

    I wanna love you the best that, the best that I can

    “ I Want To Hold Your Hand” by The Beatles

    Oh yeah, I tell you somethin’ I think you’ll understand.

    When I say that somethin’ – I wanna hold your hand!

    I wanna hold your hand.

    I wanna hold your hand.

    Oh please, say to me, you’ll let me be your man.

    And please say to me, you’ll let me hold your hand!

    I wanna hold your hand.

    I wanna hold your hand.

    “U Can’t Touch This” by MC Hammer

    My, my, my, my music hits me so hard,
    Makes me say, “Oh my Lord,
    Thank you for blessing me
    With a mind to rhyme and two hype feet.”

    It feels good, when you know you’re down
    A super dope homeboy from the Oaktown
    And I’m known as such
    And this is a beat, uh, you can’t touch.

    (Feel free to add “U can’t touch this!” a couple of times).

    “Get Back” by The Beatles

    Jojo was a man who thought he was a loner,
    But he knew it couldn’t last.
    Jojo left his home in Tuscon, Arizona,
    Bought some California grass.

    Get back, get back,
    Get back to where you once belonged.
    Get back, get back,
    Get back to where you once belonged.

    Get back, Jojo!

    “I Touch Myself” by Divinyls

    I love myself, I want you to love me
    When I feel down, I want you above me
    I search myself, I want you to find me
    I forget myself, I want you to remind me

    I don’t want anybody else
    When I think about you, I touch myself
    Ooh, I don’t want anybody else
    Oh no, oh no, oh no.

    “Nasty” by Janet Jackson

    I don’t like no nasty car, I don’t like a nasty food, huh.
    Ooh ooh yeah.
    The only nasty thing I like is a nasty groove, huh.
    Will this one do?
    Uh huh, I know.

    Sing. Nasty

  • In Praise of Rock Star Parents

    We went to see “Newsies,” (a Broadway musical) in a movie theater (yay, Fathom Events, bringing such things to movie theaters across America), then “Despicable Me 3.” Guess which audience deserved a standing ovation?

    The Newsies screening was lightly attended. We got there early as I’d been looking forward to it, got great seats and settled in to enjoy. One group settled behind us and began a symphony played on cellophane wrappers and purse zippers. Not just “zip,” or even “zip, zip,” but “zip-crinkle-zip-zip-crinkle-zip-zip-zip!” At the last minute, in walks a group of teenaged girls. Loud teenaged girls. I was a teenaged girl. I remember what it’s like, out with your friends, having fun. But these girls were talking (loudly) about theater. Auditions they had gone to/were going to. They talked (loudly) even during the special added moments, like members of the cast of Newsies singing new interpretations of songs. The sorts of things real theater people enjoy. Which we couldn’t hear. Because of them.

    Real artists respect the craft. Music, acting, painting, whatever it is, it’s hard work  if you do it right, and you respect other artists and respect an audience. They have their part to play, buying tickets, paying attention, being present for whatever it is. They paid to see/hear/experience something and a pro respects that and doesn’t get in the way of it. As a friend once told someone in my presence, “Nobody here paid to see you, so sit down.”

    Then we went to see “Despicable Me 3.” An audience of parents and little kids.  These kids, who weren’t together, by the way, behaved like champs. Sure, they talked a bit, quietly. If they kept talking, parents quietly told them to keep it down so people could hear. They reacted to the movie, laughing, etc. But they didn’t talk loudly, or run around, or otherwise ruin the experience for the people around them. They were great. When the movie ended, I told Mark I wished I could stand at the door to the theater and thank every parent there. “There’s some rock star parenting going on in this theater,” I said.

    Now, I didn’t say it for effect. It was just a comment to Mark. “There are kids here behaving better than the adults in the other theater.” I saw a dad sitting ahead of us nudge his wife. Mark told me later the man’s wife was beaming. She should be. They are raising considerate kids who know how to be with other people, enjoying and participating, without selfishly getting in the way of what’s going on around them.

    Thank you, rock star parents who are taking care of business in the most classy way possible. The rest of us who share this planet with your kids owe you our gratitude.

    And to those girls, just know that nobody was impressed by your discussion of what songs you plan to sing for your auditions. You were just the jerks who disrupted the movie for the rest of us.

     

  • Places We Like: The Back Room, Berkeley, CA

    I missed the whole 1960s-hippies-coffeehouse-folk music thing. For me, the 1960s was learning to tie my shoes (some day I’ll tell you my penny loafer story, but let’s just say it wasn’t easy to learn shoe tying when one parent was right-handed and the other was left-handed), reading, playing with my dog and trying to “fly up” from Brownie to Girl Scout.  Weird my parents might have been, but they weren’t going to let their five-year-old hang out with the hippies at the coffee house. I saw that stuff on tv and in movies.

    But guess what? If, like me, you missed out on the 60s or you were there and you’re nostalgic, or you just like seeing music in small venues where you can actually hear and nobody’s blocking your view by standing on a chair, you’re in luck, if you can get to Berkeley, CA. Next time you’re in the San Francisco Bay Area, make time to go to a show at The Back Room.

    It’s got that funky, comfortable feeling, brick walls, sofas (they also have some tables and chairs in the back). It’s “intimate,” both in the usual way that word is used to describe a venue (small) and in a real, accessible, welcoming way. My friend Janice and I saw James Lee Stanley there (and James Lee Stanley is a whole separate post, or will be), and it was all kinds of fun. The overall feeling is of seeing a performer at a house party. In the case of James, he chatted with the audience, asked for (and got) requests… it felt more like watching a friend perform in his living room than, say, an arena show. You feel like an insider.

    This is a venue that, based on our visit, deserves to thrive. It’s fairly new, so I’m hoping people get the word and try it, so it continues. If you live in the area, you’re in luck. If not, but you want to visit San Francisco in the future, make sure you bookmark their website, which is here: backroommusic.com

  • Playing A New Game

    Playing A New Game

    Take a chance on yourself.

    Hi. I hope the new year is treating you well. So far it’s not bad from here. True, I have a cold, but those happen. No sense taking it personally. I get frustrated when I get sick. Long story, but I took a long time to get around to living my own life, so I tend to think I shouldn’t take down time. I have “too much to catch up on!”

    But I realized recently that I can’t start from anywhere but where I am, and can’t start as anyone but myself. I am who I am and I am where I am, and if sometimes it feels like I’m not where I “should” be, is that a useful idea? So I’m working on not living in the past, or trying to live in the future, or constantly measuring myself or my life against some invisible yardstick. This moment, cold and all, isn’t bad.

    A friend of ours just got her driver’s license. She’s over 30 and had never intended to do anything but use Uber and Lyft and public transit, but she got a chance at a new job and they need her to drive occasionally. So, nervous as she was, she faced it head on and learned to drive. She’s continuing to challenge herself, learn new things, and go in whatever direction looks best to her at the time. That’s brave, not to get stuck in a rut because anything else is unfamiliar and uncomfortable.

    I’m learning new things. For the first time, I got hired to create the art for a CD cover. It’s not something I had done before, but I met with the musician and his producer, they liked my ideas, so I decided to stretch myself and learn to do a new thing. We’re all happy with how the final artwork turned out, but I admit, it was a nervous business in the beginning. I wanted to do a good job for the client, and my own pride in my work.

    I researched the covers in his genre of music and gave it some thought — it seemed to  make sense to honor the conventions of his genre (blues rock), but not simply be “one more in a herd of just that.” So we (yes, I created the artwork, but he had choices to make and participated in the creation) took a common theme in his genre and changed it up. It still fits his genre, but it won’t be just like hundreds of other covers. Still, could I pull off my idea?

    Here’s one thing I figured out — most music is sold online now, which means a potential customer could first see it as a postage-stamp-sized picture on a phone or tablet. It used to be that album covers had to work in a fairly large size, that of an LP record. Then 45s came in, and the images had to work smaller. Then audio cassettes, now online sites showing pages of little “stamps.” The cover has to work at the size of, say, a tee shirt, and at that postage stamp size. I poured hours into creating an image that would be clear and interesting whether it was scaled up or scaled down. So I learned a new thing — to create artwork that works no matter what size it is.

    I’m trying new media artistically, and trying new things as a writer. Who knows how successful it will all be, but I’m trying. Like our friend, I’m learning all I can and then getting in there. It’s like a roller coaster. Sometimes scary, sometimes exhilirating. I hope your new year brings you just enough of the right kinds of challenges to keep you growing.

  • So That’s What It’s Like To Be Hip (Sort Of)

    We went to Southern CA to visit friends (and some theme parks). Through a cosmic accident/karma/God decided to throw us a bone, the compact car we rented was unavailable. The rental agency had a crowd of people waiting and almost no cars. Mark is almost always polite and a nice guy, and the rental agent asked if we’d be willing to accept another car — then gave Mark a choice between an SUV and a convertible for the same rate as the compact we’d reserved.

    A black Mustang GT convertible. Yes, please!

    We caught a concert (The Tribe, a group of musicians who perform to raise money for charity. The group includes session and tour musicians, so the people who make famous people sound good), and is invariably fun and musically satisfying. Our friend was performing (because he is also a nice guy). Such fun to sit in the third row, watching our friend perform.

    Flash forward to the last night of the trip. Our friend was performing again, in a small, very nice club in Westlake Village, CA (southern CA), Bogie’s. I suspect either he or his wife dropped a word, because we were shown to a table in the best section of the house, up on the riser, a seat down from the venue owner. We had a great view as our friend and his band rocked the house, and then other talented musicians came up (including Denny Laine of The Moody Blues and John York of The Byrds). They played the music from the Abbey Road album by The Beatles, and our friend came back up to join them.

    I’ve never been particularly cool, but then, I’ve never really tried to be. My friends are incredibly cool people, though, each of them talented at something, whether it’s music, getting kids to read, art, teaching, animal rescue, or any number of other things. They’re passionate, funny, intelligent, good people. Through them, I occasionally get to sit at “the cool kids’ table” now and again.

    But the coolest thing is just spending time with them. As cool as it was to watch John Wicks and The Records from a ringside table, the coolest thing was chatting over Indian food in a small restaurant with John and Valerie, catching up on our lives, talking about music and art, and just being together.

    We’re posting some video from the Bogie’s concert on Youtube. Here’s a link to their performance of “Liverpool 6512:”https://youtu.be/5H-cu0DpTFU