This ought to be easy. All you have to do is pick one of the two options laid out below, from one-time children’s action figure model and occasional televangelist MC Hammer.
As always, it helps your cause to list a reason or two for your preference.
Version A: Lots of gangsta ho’s eagerly shakin’ they booty — but be warned: the price of admission to Hammer’s pool party is never being able to un-see the MC’s wedding tackle, barely restrained by his tasteful, zebra-striped banana hammock. Believe me, he makes darn sure you never forget it.
Version B: No tits, no ass, and no Hammer-wang. But much better choreography!
Periodically, Mr. Moderator likes to use a vocabulary term that I don’t fully understand: “chooglin’.” In my best, earnest Honors English Student way, I’ve been doing research and trying to understand this term. I’ve been listening to Creedence Clearwater Revival’s song, “Keep On Chooglin’.” I’ve been looking on the web. I’ve been cross referencing musicology sources. I have been trying to overlook the definition included in the Urban Dictionary.
So…I’m understanding it like this: a rhythm like a train, a steady shuffling beat, a sexual swagger. But listening to the songs included in the WFMU list of other choogglin’ music, I’m left with even more questions. Is the emphasis on the 1 and 3 beats, or the 2 and 4? Does the tempo matter? Is this music that makes you want to shake your hips (Charlie Rich style)? There are certain songs that have a sort of train-tempo that I’m a complete sucker for (“Yin and Yang the Flower Pot Man” by Love and Rockets, “Snail Head” by Throwing Muses), but are THEY chooglin?
Help me, dear members of the Hall, to understand this term.
Any therapist will tell you that a necessary step in reducing psychic pain from a traumatic event is to confront it, head on — or at least to acknowledge it happened, by describing it if possible. That principle forms the root of this, the first of a series of posts in which we gather together in a healing circle to group-confront an egregious example of poor Rock behavior that might otherwise leave us scarred.
I am a huge Charlie Rich apologist. Like my fandom for Rory Gallagher, I admit my desire to like his music is almost greater than the amount I actually like it— so I am thrilled when I discover a bit of audio or video that bolsters my opinion that the Silver Fox was a true country music maverick, a magnificent pop songwriter, and a closet Southern soul master of the highest order. On the flip side… well, when I found the video clip you see here, I felt a new level of pit open up in the pit of my stomach. It did more than humanize Rich: it cast him out of the musical heavens at the white-hot burning end of God’s own flaming sword, branding him charlatan.
I have been transfixed by this video since discovering it. I know it captures a performance when Rich was at the pinnacle of his fame — also a time when he was least happy, and most prone to hitting the bottle. (Oh, how I wish there was a clip out there of the CMA awards ceremony when Charlie, presumably stoned out of his gourd, set John Denver’s award for country music male entertainer of the year on fire.) And, Charlie Rich fans, please spare me your explanations about how the Silver Fox was a balladeer, and not an uptempo performer. The plain and simple fact is that this video destroyed a part of my soul. I need your help confronting it. I need your help discovering all the ways I’ve been hurt by this performance of “The Dance of Love” from 1975. So, tell me: what’s hurtful; what’s painful; what’s just downright wrong about this performance?
I look forward to your responses, and I look forward to this opportunity to bond and heal together.
Early ’70s folk is one of my biggest “rock blind spots.” Hoping to better understand the movement I did a little reading and Googling. I was prepared to come across the usual suspects (Fairport, Pentangle, etc); however, while researching into the British side of the scene I learned that Al Stewart was a significant player of the times. Was this the same Al Stewart who I only knew through the plushy lite-rock hit “Year of the Cat”? A little more digging revealed that Stewart tried to distance himself from the success of the song as well as the Alan Parsons produced albums of the late ’70s .
Rueful??
His return to a purer folk style later in his career would find little favor with record buyers but for his die-hard fans. For his live shows he would either drop it from the set list or open the show with the song.
He isn’t the first artist to find success with a song they would rather forget or was not representative of their “true” sound. Yet, I feel he shouldn’t have to disown something that certainly pays the bills or brought attention to his other albums. On that note the stuff on Time Passages, despite its execution and decent melodies, sounds horribly dated.
If it was your song could you live with “Year of the Cat”?
Although I don’t believe rock ‘n roll has provided any photographs as disturbing as the most disturbing images we’ve seen published from wars, terrorist attacks, natural disasters, and so forth, it has produced its own collection of disturbing images that, once seen, are forever burned in the viewer’s mind. Before you click on any of the following linked images, please beware that, although safe for work, they may cause the viewer irreparable harm, or at the least a crisis in the viewer’s faith in rock ‘n roll.
Action Mick has asked me to relay the following statement;
Action Mick has spoken.
Yes, he refers to himself in the third-person… Below is the official RTH casting for Rolling Stones: The Movie.
Casting is closed, babies.
As you know, our new BFFs over at Simon & Schuster, actually S&S imprint Gallery Books, has provided The Hall with 3 copies of this new release, Mick: The Wild Life and Mad Genius of Jagger to give away. Our personal favorite review is:
Hot tub reading at its very tingliest.
– National Post
Press for the reunited Graham Parker & The Rumour tour (and album) focuses much attention and credit on the band’s appearance in Judd Apatow‘s upcoming movie, This Is 40. I’m sure that played a small part, but longtime members of the Halls of Rock know this 2010 interview with Rumour guitarist Martin Belmont is the main reason the band is back together and playing at Philadelphia’s Theater of the Living Arts tonight. OK, our interview is a distant second to the documentary Belmont discusses in the following interview, but let’s give ourselves credit ahead of Apatow. Next thing you know the Farrelly brothers will be taking credit for exposing Jonathan Richman to a mainstream audience. Go Graham! Go Martin! Go Rumour! I will be at tonight’s show with bells on.
This post initially appeared 3/19/10.
The guitar playing of Martin Belmont has graced recordings and concerts by Graham Parker & The Rumour, Ducks Deluxe, Nick Lowe, Carlene Carter, Johnny Cash, Elvis Costello, and many more. He continues to keep a busy schedule, playing the music he loves with a reunited Ducks as well as three other Americana-oriented British artists. In 2009 Belmont released The Guest List, a collection of covers sung by most of the singers he’s backed for a significant time over the years. For someone like myself, who grew up listening to Belmont’s work in the 1970s and 1980s, it’s an intimate, low-key way of catching up with the old gang and getting introduced to some Belmont collaborators who are not as well known in the States.
The first sign that Belmont might get into the spirit of a Rock Town Hall interview is when, as we settle into our trans-Atlantic, webcam chat via Skype, he wants to describe his “top-shelf” CD collection lining the walls behind him. There’s a Beatles box set, a Folkways Anthology of American Folk Music, a couple of Elvis Presley box sets. Then he wants to know how we operate in the Halls of Rock. After I basically run him through our mission statement, in which Rock Town Hall serves as a sort of methadone clinic for rock ‘n roll addicts with increasingly busy lives, he says, “I know exactly what you mean.”
I describe my experiences finding out about Graham Parker & The Rumour as a teenager, trying not to come off too much like Chris Farley’s mouth-breathing Paul McCartney fan from Saturday Night Live. Belmont asks if I’ve seen Parker perform solo in recent years – I have. He raves about his old friend’s abilities as a performer and songwriter, and then we get down to talking.
And talk we did. There are a topics we didn’t have time to cover, but as we chatted, rock lover to rock lover, I hope you get a sense of Belmont’s ultimate sideman’s dedication, warmth, and regard toward his collaborators. At one point he talks about the importance of the guitarist serving the song and being able to weave into whatever situation the song and its musicians requires. It was clear to me that these abilities to weave extend well beyond Belmont’s fretboard.
The patented Rock Town Hall Dugout Chatter segment that concludes this interview is presented in audio form. Through my space-age, retro technology for recording this interview, I hope the audio Chatter gives you an added sense of Martin’s enthusiasm and passion for rock ‘n roll. Take it away, Martin!
