Musical Chairs : Your Weekly Challenge
I've decided to post a weekly challenge (every Saturday) for the writers and readers of this blog; no prizes aside from the satisfaction of beating your peers in competition. Entries must be received by the following Friday, in the form of comment, e-mail or blog post/link. All very simple.
This weeks challenge is "Musical Chairs" and here is your task. The new Broadway cash-in is to take a washed-up artist's discography and reenvision it as a heart-warming story with ubiquitous singing and dancing. Abba, Billy Joel, Boy George... They all have their own musicals and people other than themselves are making money off of them!!! I would like to make money too. So, you are challenged to take any non-concept album (no Yoshimi, no Sgt. Pepper) from any artist (including the relentless V.A.) and come up with a plot synopsis with song cues. Entries should include a list of characters and should utilize no fewer than 5 songs from the given album. Several independent judges will be pitched each of the musicals, and their opinions will triangulate the winner. Degree of difficulty, creativity, and marketability will factor into the final decision.
Now is your chance to give Jon Bon Jovi (or the like) immortality!
Input by Mike at 10:21 PM
It's Winter Time for Spring!
A co-worker and I were walking home from work and turned onto a street that I had seen blocked off with a squad car and police officers several times during the course of the day. As we walked down the street, and I related my curiousity over the blocking, we realized we were walking through snow. Not a lot, just along the edges of the sidewalk. Still it's been warm in Chicago the past week, so any snow that might still be lingering in the shade would certainly be gone by now. We soon discovered that the snow was not snow but actually suds, like the lather of a bikini car wash. Fumigating? Street washing? We listed through the possibilites unable to accept any of them... soon noticing white plastic sheeting bolted over any grass along the street. And as we returned to our surprise at finding "snow" we suddenly came across real snow, and more extensive sheathing of the ground around us.
We were baffled.
Suddenly, it all clicked in my mind. El tracks, brown stones, low traffic side street, manned road block, real snow on one side, fake snow on the other... It must have been a movie shoot.
Sure enough, The Weather Man had been filming scenes that day.
Input by Mike at
9:39 PM
Thursday, April 15, 2004
Soundtrack of Our Lives
One of the things I miss most about living in a dorm is the free exchange of new music. Hearing a song wafting in from the other room and walking in to find out who and what it is. If I were still living in the dorms, the song you'd be hearing more than any other right now is a great pop piece called "Artists Are Boring" by the Kingdom Flying Club.
Seemingly owing equal debts to the low-fi sound of Guided By Voices and Pavement and the polished power pop of bands like Material Issue and Weezer, Kingdom Flying Club comes to us from Columbia, MO. For you Chicago area kiddies out there, the band actually reminds me a lot of Kleenex Girl Wonder. Great pop sensibilities, but not afraid to get down and dirty (and fuzzy with their guitar sound).
"Artists Are Boring" is a fun slice of the band at their most polished. Think Kinks circa "Village Green Preservation Society." The song starts with an irresistable piano intro and holds on to your ears 'til the very end. The band even writes a great bridge, a lost art these days, with what I believe to be mandolin carrying the melody. "Hate Shirt," the first track of the album, goes the other direction with crunching guitar riffs and a thundering bass line. Production is fairly clean and complements the band's sound nicely -- kind of like Ric Ocasek if he didn't suck.
If you order the album, Emergency Umbrella will even throw in free buttons and stickers. Can't beat a deal like that.
Input by Scot at
1:02 PM
Wednesday, April 14, 2004
Taking Seasame Back to the Streets
Thanks to the rise of audience specific cable channels and direct market videos, children's television has gone from a doe-eyed attempt to enlighten our kids to a brittle, plastic effort to sell Yu-Gi-Oh! cards.
Fortunately, all is not lost. In an effort to rekindle the spirit of the Children's Television Workshop and, uhm, Rumpus Room, a group of DC artsy-types have created a kids show that tries something different. Pancake Mountain applies a rough around the edges punk rock aesthetic to the puppets and songs approach to children's television. The web only pilot featured appearances from a host of indie celebrities including Bob Mould (as an evil executive) Vic Chesnut (singing a classic kids number) and Thievery Corporation (showing the kids how to get down). Best of all, Fugazi's Ian MacKaye performs as the Evens in the more clever than it sounds Vowel Movement. Chances are Pancake Mountain's unique take on getting through to the kids will never make it over to the small screen, but if it does, it might just be a beautiful day in the neighborhood.
Input by Andy at
4:26 PM
Tuesday, April 13, 2004
More like "Mr. Suck!"
If you're like me, you've probably been tempted to check out the Mr. Show inspired Run Ronnie Run but always decide against it at the last minute, afraid that it might not live up to Bob and David's other work. Your instincts were right. Here's why.
Input by Andy at
3:49 PM
Apparently, the parents of song parody emperor Weird Al Yankovic were found dead in their home from carbon monoxide poisoning.
I've always felt Weird Al has lived in a sort of comedy dream world where the most horrible thing to happen to him was the surreal event of Coolio threatening to throw down over Amish Paradies; so, it couldl be interesting to see where he goes from here with his music. Will he retreat further into his wacky novelty world or will we, perhaps, see a darker era of his music? Or will he make none at all?
Whatever the case, it's a stunning loss for anyone and a reminder that our bodies are fragile to the most unexpected things.
Input by Mike at
10:21 AM
