{"id":5068,"date":"2010-12-31T13:56:02","date_gmt":"2010-12-31T17:56:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/?p=5068"},"modified":"2010-12-31T15:58:10","modified_gmt":"2010-12-31T19:58:10","slug":"rth-bids-farewell-to-bad-euro-discos-king-of-mach-schau-bobby-farrell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/rth-bids-farewell-to-bad-euro-discos-king-of-mach-schau-bobby-farrell\/","title":{"rendered":"RTH Bids Farewell to Bad Euro-Disco\u2019s King of Mach Schau, Bobby Farrell"},"content":{"rendered":"<iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/E5gNYVia2rg?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><p>I hear a bunch of you asking: <em>Who&#8217;s Bobby Farrell?<\/em> How can you not know! He was the strange, somewhat spastic dance accompanist to the three chicks who made up the meat and potatoes of awful Euro-disco supergroup <strong>Boney M<\/strong>. You know, Boney M: the guys who brought you &#8220;Ma Baker,&#8221; &#8220;Daddy Cool,&#8221; &#8220;Rivers Of Babylon,&#8221; and many, many more awful mega-global disco smash hits in the 1970s. (And by &#8220;global,&#8221; I guess I mean everywhere but the USA.)<\/p>\n<p>We like to make fun of Mr. Farrell in the Hall\u2014and to a certain degree, he deserved it. One of the original\u2014pun intended\u2014pop stars manufactured by the same guys who brought you <strong>Milli Vanilli<\/strong>, he kind of didn&#8217;t do anything besides jump around a lot and growl a few words into the microphone. And that&#8217;s what he did in live performance; in the studio, he did nothing at all.<\/p>\n<p>Still, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/music\/2010\/dec\/30\/bobby-farrell-boney-m-singer-dies\" target=\"_blank\">Bobby Farrell died on December 29<\/a>, and that&#8217;s not a good thing. He amused us, and gave us all something to make fun of. Lots of people are worth less to me than Bobby Farrell was. He brought me joy.<\/p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/UFQkfHnVU7o?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><p>Even in death, Bobby Farrell has given us one more thing to marvel at: the fact that he died somewhat mysteriously in St. Petersburg\u2014the same town\u2014and on the exact same date\u2014as <strong>Grigori Rasputin<\/strong>, who Farrell used to &#8220;play&#8221; onstage during performances of Boney M&#8217;s smash 1978 hit of the same name! Eerie!<\/p>\n<p>Anyhow, here&#8217;s looking at you, Mr. Farrell. The increasingly un-showman-like business of pop music will be a lesser place without you.<\/p>\n<p>RIP.<\/p>\n<p>HVB<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I hear a bunch of you asking: Who&#8217;s Bobby Farrell? How can you not know! He was the strange, somewhat spastic dance accompanist to the three chicks who made up the meat and potatoes of awful Euro-disco supergroup Boney M. You know, Boney M: the guys who brought you &#8220;Ma Baker,&#8221; &#8220;Daddy Cool,&#8221; &#8220;Rivers Of <a href='https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/rth-bids-farewell-to-bad-euro-discos-king-of-mach-schau-bobby-farrell\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342],"tags":[404,170,212],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5068"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5068"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5068\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}