All posts by Stephen Macaulay

Hats Off to Jenny

When we think of Jenny McCarthy, it isn’t—um, entirely—due to her appearance as Miss October 1993. No, we recall her many turns on various MTV programs, back when MTV actually interrupted its music with shows, like Singled Out. When we think of Jenny McCarthy, presently shilling various books about maternity, occasionally vamping in various forgettable movies (we’d name them, but. . .damn! what was it?), we don’t think of, well, hats.

Evidentially, we are missing something because McCarthy, on May 4, will participate, along with various suites from Chrysler Group, in announcing the grand prize winner of the “Hats Off to the Derby” national hat design contest. The Derby in question, of course, is the Kentucky Derby. To be sure, people are known for wearing hats there. McCarthy is well known for not wearing a whole lot of clothes. But hats?

There is even a more twisted aspect to all of this. According to the news release detailing the award, “The hat had to be inspired by the styling of the all-new 2008 Chrysler Sebring Convertible and utilize a portion of the soft top fabric in the design.” It is ugly enough on the road. But on someone’s mellon?

So let’s get this straight: Playboy, MTV, motherhood, horses, hats, cars, and canvas? This may take celebrity to convoluted places it’s never been.

Patti Smith – Twelve

Patti Smith - TwelvePatti SmithTwelve (Columbia)

This has been a good period for Patti Smith. At least vis-à-vis acknowledgment and recognition for her 30+-year career in public. She received an Order des Arts et des Lettres from the French culture ministry in ’05. This year she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Recognition from the French, laudable as it may be, surely didn’t do a heck of a lot for Jerry Lewis’s career. Chances are, the same could be said for Smith (i.e., you’re not likely to move music in France or elsewhere as a result). And as for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame—think about it this way: In order to get into Cooperstown, Akron, or other places called “hall of fame” it is generally necessary to be retired for some period of time. That doesn’t do a whole lot for one’s on-going career.

All of this notwithstanding, Smith is putting out music. Arguably (and measurably, charts-wise), Smith’s most successful song is “Because the Night,” which appears on Easter (1978). Some people, upon hearing it, may think that she’s covering Bruce Springsteen. That’s not the case. Smith and Springsteen co-wrote the song. His version appears on Live: 1975-85; he didn’t do it as a studio cut. Still, it sort of seems like it is his song, doesn’t it?

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Buried in the Stars

What do the following have in common?

Bonnie Raitt and Britney Spears

Alice Cooper and Aretha Franklin

Elvis Presley and Engelbert Humperdinck

Carlos Santana and Celine Dion

Lefty Frizzell and Lawrence Welk

John Lennon and Johnny Mathis

Jimi Hendrix and Janet Jackson

Robert Goulet and Rod Stewart

Mitch Miller and Motley Crue

Olivia Newton-John and Ozzy Osbourne

Tom Petty and Tony Orlando

All of these—and many others—all have their “stars” on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. This week they were joined by The Doors. Which puts them in the company of the likes of Liberace and Anne Murray.

By the way, if you’ve got a sufficiently convincing story and $25K, you, too, may be able to secure your own star. Yes, a bit more than that outfit that will name a star after you and put it in a book in the patent office, but just imagine. Dogs, bums and other creatures will get to urinate all over you at will. But then again, not all of us are Kenny G, Kenny Loggins or Kenny Rodgers [sic].

Laugh Laugh*

Louis Theroux - The Call of the Weird: Travels in American SubculturesImagine seeing a band near the end of its run. And then nine years later, or so, they’re on a reunion tour. Or perhaps haven’t stopped touring. Nonetheless, you’ve not been aware of them all that much. Perhaps hearing a tune on the radio every now and then. And for some reason, you decide that you’re going to catch them live once again.

Chances are, the singer won’t be able to hit the notes. And the guitar player—facial contortions notwithstanding—has fingers that aren’t quite as flexible. The rhythm section is, well, tired. And all of them show the signs of gravity on their waistlines and on their follicles.

In effect, the band that you’d seen and the band you are seeing are really two different things. And the latter one is, simply, sad.

Which brings us to The Call of the Weird: Travels in American Subcultures by Louis Theroux (DaCapo Press; $24). You may recall Theroux from his 1994-95 gig on Michael Moore’s TV Nation, or perhaps saw his BBC series Louis Theroux’s Weird Weekends (1998-2000), which essentially gave rise to this book, wherein he goes back, nine or so years later, on what he calls his “Reunion Tour,” to meet up with some of the people that he’d captured in his documentary footage. Once this was all somewhat funny. And now it is not. Nor is Theroux.

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Where’s Mulder When You Need Him?

Gee, I wonder how this happens? Let’s see. . .CBS is broadcasting the Grammy Awards (Notice: “Grammy” is a registered trademark, so if you have a propensity to refer to an aged maternal relative with that term, beware, you may invoke the wrath of a SWAT team of lawyers) Sunday February 11, and on the preceding Friday, on the CBS “Hit Drama” (ipse dixit) “Ghost Whisperer” (admit it: You watch it for Jennifer Love Hewitt with the sound off), Mary J. Blige, who is nominated for a slew of Grammys (or is that “Grammies”?), is appearing (as “the coach of a high-ranked high school cheerleading team whose members are being disabled, one by one, by seemingly freak accidents in the days preceding their big cheerleading competition”). Funny how that works out, eh? On a hit CBS show one night and then a CBS Grammy presentation a couple later. Almost spooky. Of course, who is going to ponder that when there are Jennifer and high school cheerleaders and freakish accidents. . .?

Seeing Is Hearing

There is some critical concern vis-à-vis the Love album that contains music by the Beatles that has been re-realized by the group’s producer George Martin (and son Giles). One could argue that the sounds that we hear from the Beatles have as much to what Martin did at the mixing board as the boys in the studio, so it is in some ways “his” music as well as theirs. Although this remastering and mash-up of various of the songs—the prime example being a combination of “Drive My Car,” “What You’re Doing,” “The Word,” and “Savoy Truffle”—is released as a free-standing disc, what is not as evident as it should be is the fact that Love is a show that is being performed at the Mirage casino in Las Vegas by an extraordinary cast of Cirque de Soleil members. Those people are to acrobatics what the Beatles were to music. The music of Love is a soundtrack more than an independent work, and while it can more than ably stand on its own merits, the show’s the thing. Having had the opportunity to see the show, which could cause an adjectival avalanche of gob-smacked praise, the music takes on an entirely different context than it would through just listening. Some of the music is there in the form that it is in order to support what is going on on stage (e.g., “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” “Lady Madonna” include screaming fans and running mop-tops in the former, and Busby Berkeley-like dancing in the latter). It is as much about flipping and soaring and swooping and a nearly inexplicable number of other things that the performers are doing as it is the music itself. Yet this is all integrated in a way that is far more intimate than the current predilection in Hollywood, for both movies and TV shows, to put popular tracks on top of scenes because, in effect, using the message and mood of the music to pick up where the writing has not done its job. Which is to say that the only way to really hear Love is to see Love.

Bob Dylan: Blowin’ in the Ether

Forever Young: Photographs of Bob DylanWhen a public personality who doesn’t have some physical impairment yet otherwise can’t get much of a job in the public eye finds him- or herself in this sitatuion and thinks that eating and paying the rent are good thing, that person tends to go to something like “Dancing With the Stars” or one of those lemming-like shows on VH1. It may be pathetic. But it pays the bills.

A newer venue for those whose star is fading is satellite radio. Seemingly, those Space Cadet Companies have an endless source of money to match their bandwidth. They’ve discovered that it is necessary to find any and all means to fill in the time that people are paying for who otherwise might just say “screw it” and turn on a terrestrial system, especially those who have discovered that they are sick and tired of hearing commercials for going to their PC and the like, commercials that have all of the intrinsic interest and quality of those shown on cable TV stations that few ever venture to.

Which brings me to Bob Dylan and the “Theme Time Radio Hour.” Yes, I know that his Modern Times disc is doing remarkably well sales-wise. Good for Bob. But his radio program is pathetic, as he rolls out patter that sounds like it was scripted by a writer of ’50s pulp detective fiction—regardless of the “theme.” Sure, Bob can pull out some rather arcane tunes. So can Dr. Demento. This is what the voice of several generations has come to?

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Legends of the Rise: The Stones in ’71

A Season in Hell With the Rolling StonesAlthough the Rolling Stones have been hailed as “the greatest rock and roll band in the world,” part of this has to be marketing hype. At the very least. Clearly, one wouldn’t claim a band to be “the best rock and roll band in the world.” Or “the top rock and roll band in the world.” Or, unless the person in question is a character in a Keanu Reeves film, “the most excellent rock and roll band in the world.” Or course, without continuing with adjectival quibbling, we all know what that means. We recognize that the Stones’ long, long, long career (they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1989, 17 years ago, and by that time they’d been performing for 27 years) and relative popularity, as well as some esential music, makes them something special, something extraordinary, perhaps even “the greatest rock and roll band in the world.” The longevity alone gives them a purchase of sorts on the title. The band may be eclipsed only by U2, which has been performing since 1976, assuming that Bono doesn’t decide to leave the band for his unquestionably noble work in helping the world’s profoundly underprivileged. Still, if U2 manages to endure longer than the Stones, the Stones’ place in “the greatest” pantheon will be no more forgotten than Babe Ruth is to baseball fans.

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Who Are They Kidding?

“Roger Daltrey has been a world-famous star since the early 1960s when he began his career as the lead singer of The Who, and has since become one of the most popular vocalists in rock music history.” So claims a press release from CBS Entertainment, which draws attention to the fact that Daltrey is going to have a role on a forthcoming episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. “World-famous star.” “Most popular vocalists in rock music history.” Well, it would be hard to disprove that, although the pneumatic praise is a little humid and musty.

“Daltrey is currently on a major worldwide tour with The Who, promoting their current album, Endless Wire,” the release notes. Here is something that can be completely disproved. When Daltrey became a “world-famous star” it was with a band consisting of four people. Two of the four are dead. Now Daltrey and one of them, the guy who wrote the song that’s used as the theme song for CSI, are out touring. That’s 50%. Which effectively makes it a duo. “The Who” does not exist, marketing notwithstanding. “The Who” is effectively a part of “rock music history.”

[To put Daltrey’s appearance on CSI in perspective, consider this: Mr. Britney Spears, Kevin Federline will be guest starring in tonight’s episode – ed.]

Nick Drake: Bartleby the Musician

I saw it written and I saw it say...At the risk of seeming rude or insensitive, to say that death becomes him in a way that life never did—at least so far as his public career is concerned—is not far off the mark in the case of Nick Drake, at least based on the information contained in the biography by Trevor Dann, Darker Than the Deepest Sea: The Search for Nick Drake (DaCapo Press; 288 pp.; $16.95). That is, Dann points out that Drake, who died in 1974 at age 26, put out three albums. “In the first 15 years after his death,” Dann calculates, “Nick’s music appeared on just one commercially available collection. In the subsequent 15 no less than 30 CDs have featured his songs.”

Arguably, the biggest driver of his most recent success is predicated on the use of his song “Pink Moon” from the album of that name in a Volkswagen Cabrio TV ad that appeared back at the turn of the century. Apparently, if you watched the ad on VW’s website (it isn’t there anymore) you were given the option to learn more about the car or to buy the music. Dann writes that as a result of this: “Nick Drake sold more albums in the USA in one month than he had in the previous 30 years and Pink Moon found itself in the Billboard Top 100.”

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