People from ages 1 to 100 bang the drum. A beautiful short film.
People in Order
Danse With Me George
I’ve been revisiting Ambrosia’s second album, Somewhere I’ve Never Traveled. Back before they became west coast MOR yacht rockers with hits like “The Biggest Part Of Me” and “How Much I Feel,” Ambrosia were a full-on art rock group. There’s one song on Somewhere that I’ve always loved, and it’s knocking me out anew. It’s called “Danse With Me George.” It is a tour de force, an 8-minute romp that takes in Aaron Copeland, classical, lounge, mariachi, Brubeck, Queen, and West Side Story all through its Cinemascope lens. Like a lot of art-rock songs, it changes feel and tempo about every 8 measures or so. But unlike a lot of art-rock songs, it’s melodic as hell, and emotionally engaging. And fun. The George in the title is George Sand, the French authoress (real name Amandine Dupin) who wrote under a male pseudonym. The song (which is subtitled Chopin’s Plea) is sung from the viewpoint of her lover, who happened to be the composer Frederic Chopin. It’s a pretty heady concept for a song, right? But Ambrosia make it work. There’s a kind of kitchen sink approach to the thing that I love because it flies in the face of everything pop music is today. It would be near impossible to program this song or put it on a grid. And I can’t help thinking when I listen to it that if the guys in Ambrosia had had cell phones and laptops and Twitter accounts and ProTools back in 1976, they would’ve never come up with “Danse With Me George.” It’s not that they wouldn’t have had the idea, but I’d imagine that it took intense concentration and long, uninterrupted rehearsals to hone the song into shape. With no distractions. And amazingly, for all its overdubs and complexity, they could play the song live. I saw them do it at the Capitol Theater back in the day. These guys were monster musicians. If you don’t know this song or the album Somewhere I’ve Never Traveled, you should seek it out.
“Last Train Home” in The Protector
“Last Train Home,” a song I co-wrote with my pal David Mead, will be featured in next Monday’s (August 1st)
episode of The Protector. The show airs on Lifetime at 9pm CST. The episode synopsis reads:
Gloria and Michelle are surprised when the murder of a young woman found floating in a downtown lake leads them into a world of kinky sex parties. Meanwhile, Gloria and Davey’s lives are complicated by an unexpected visit from their mother (guest star Patty Duke).
Kinky sex parties and Patty Duke. Now that sounds like some good TV!
Keep It To Yourself
“Keep It To Yourself,” a blackly humorous bossa nova song I wrote with my pal Amy Rigby a few years ago has been getting some attention lately. It’s the title track of the new album by jazz singer-comedienne Laura Ainsworth and the inspiration for a short story by John Harvey in the latest issue of literary-art mag Ambit. The song, by the way, is a revenge fantasy about knocking off an ex-boyfriend. Amy’s version is still the definitive one.
Split Screen Romance
As my nomadic existence continues, I’ve moved out of the guest house I was renting and moved in with my girlfriend. To be more precise, I’ve moved into Side B of her duplex. So we are living together, but with a wall between us. It’s kind of like something out of an old Doris Day – Rock Hudson movie. Except of course, I like girls. Ba dum bum.
If my girlfriend – I guess I should keep her name out of this, in the interest of internet security and so forth, but we’ll call her Heather – if Heather hadn’t brought it up first, I wouldn’t say this, but – this is kind of a great arrangement. Especially since we haven’t lived together before. It’s like a warm-up for co-habitation. We each have our own place, with our own stuff (except post-fire, I don’t really have any stuff), but we can spend more time together. We eat together, take walks together, do other stuff that couples do together too, of course, but then we can always retreat to our own side of the duplex. It’s been interesting to hear my friends’ reactions. One said, “You’re like Woody and Mia in the 80s.” Another said, “Dude, you’ve figured out the key to relationship bliss.” And a married friend said, “I wish I was you.”
Maybe we’re onto something.